​Red, white, and boo: Almost two-thirds of Americans now believe in ghosts

“I ain’t afraid of no ghost.”

Easy enough to say 40 years ago, when audiences delighted to the spectral pest control antics of Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, and Dan Aykroyd. You can’t fear what isn’t real, after all.

The show pioneered a tactic known as ‘provocation.’ This is when an investigator attempts to goad a spirit into manifesting by insulting it.

Things have changed. Since then, the proportion of Americans who believe in ghosts has surged 400%. Surveys indicate that nearly two-thirds of the population now hold supernatural beliefs, and 20% have reported seeing a ghost.

Entrepreneurial spirits

With roughly 50 million Americans purportedly having encountered a haunting, the business of ghost hunting has evolved into a profitable enterprise. It would appear that the invisible hand of the market really does exist.

As proof that even the ethereal cannot escape the iron law of supply and demand, paranormal tourism is booming. Millions of Americans now spend over $300 million on haunted attractions each year. You can satiate your gruesome desires by visiting Iowa’s Villisca Axe Murder House, where eight people, including six children, were murdered in 1912. For $430, anyone brave enough to take a whack at it can try to spend the night.

Ghost-hunting shows are scaring up unprecedented interest as well. YouTube, for example, has hundreds of paranormal-themed channels. One of the biggest is “Sam and Colby.” With an average of 10 million views per video, the kids are among the most popular ghost hunters online. The two film themselves while visiting haunted locales across the United States. Freed from the limitations of conventional television, the videos are lengthy and typically unedited, offering a more immersive experience for their audience of 15 million subscribers.

There are compilation channels for those who don’t want to endure the deferred gratification of 90 minutes of shaky handheld videos and constant cries of, “What was that?”

Then there are channels like “Mind Junkie” and “Nuke’s Top 5,” which brazenly monetize our endless appetite for not-so-carefully-vetted supernatural slop. One wonders if these shrewd content creators are also behind the “debunking videos” they attract. Nice business model, if so.

Tales from the clip

“Paranormal Caught on Camera,” now in its ninth season on Discovery+ and the Travel Channel, can best be described as a reality show. From poltergeist activity to mysterious shadows roaming the woods, a panel of experts weighs in on supposed paranormal footage from around the world. Imagine “Ghostbusters” meets “America’s Funniest Home Videos” — with the approximate scientific rigor of both.

Psychologists say a prior belief in ghosts makes a person more inclined to perceive unexplained sounds and events as paranormal. The show’s presenters are clearly familiar with the research. They frequently use the term “energy” (which appears to function as a noun, verb, and adjective) and attribute every sound or camera jiggle to the spirit realm.

Ghost roast

“Ghost Adventures” is one of the longest-running and best-known of these types of shows. While the experts on “Paranormal Caught on Camera” are content to remain armchair investigators, aging goth heartthrob Zak Bagans and his crew actually go out into the field. Since 2008, they have traveled around the United States looking for paranormal phenomena. The format is simple: They arrive at an alleged haunted location, turn off the lights, hit record, and explore the building. What we get is a well-curated, finely edited spectacle.

The show pioneered a tactic known as “provocation.” This is when an investigator attempts to goad a spirit into manifesting by insulting it. While this demonstrates a fortitude worthy of Ray Parker Jr. himself, it has never once worked over 300 episodes. The only scary thing that appears to be happening is a group of middle-aged men screaming in the dark about nothing in particular.

The truckload of pseudoscientific equipment these guys bring to the task separates them from your average amateur. A truckload of pseudoscientific instruments is used to add an element of objectivity. Particularly prized is the EMF meter, used to detect the electromagnetic fields ghosts apparently emit. This essential prop emits clicks and pings reminiscent of the motion trackers used to detect xenomorphs in the movie “Aliens.” Unsurprisingly, there is no James Cameron-level tension here. Ninety-nine times out of 100, they’ve probably just found the fuse box.

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Matt Himes

Phantom itch

Slick, polished, and carefully choreographed. It’s all very Hollywood. It comes as no surprise that the massive increase in belief in ghosts over the last 50 years coincides with the golden era of horror. Art imitates life. Many of these shows use the same strategies as your typical Hollywood special effects department.

So why are we watching these shows? “Ghost Adventures,” now in its 28th season, has perfected the art of selling us fear. These shows give us what we want. We love to be afraid. A horror movie grants us the chance to live vicariously through the characters on the screen. A way to experience and navigate terror from the comfort of our couch.

Then there’s another, more poignant, explanation. We believe in ghosts for the same reason that we believe in God. In the end, both ghost hunters and Christians are motivated by the same persistent yearning that has dogged us since the dawn of humanity: There’s got to be something more than this.