Real-Life X-Files

Investigating the Paranormal

Joe Nickell

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2001
• eBook ISBN:
  9780813137278
• Print ISBN:
  9780813122106

"Excellent background research . . . on-site investigations of mysteries ranging from crop circles and lake monsters to spiritualist mediums and stigmata." — Booklist
As a former private investigator and forensic writer, Joe Nickell has spent much of his career identifying forged documents, working undercover to infiltrate theft rings, and investigating questioned deaths. Now he turns his considerable investigative skill toward the paranormal, researching the most well-known and mysterious phenomena all over the world—spontaneous human combustion, UFO visitations, auras, electronic poltergeists, and many, many more—with an eye toward solving these mysteries rather than promoting or dismissing them.
Real-Life X-Files: Investigating the Paranormal examines the cases of over forty paranormal mysteries. Using a hands-on approach, Nickell visits the scene of the so-called unexplainable activity whenever possible and attempts to physically duplicate the miraculous. Whether he's inflicting stigmata on himself or recreating the liquefying blood of Saint Januarius, Nickell does whatever necessary to eliminate the probable before considering the supernatural. What is left is that much more fascinating.
Nickell reports on familiar legends from American history such as the supernatural events surrounding Abraham Lincoln's death and the supposed crash landing of an alien spacecraft near Roswell, New Mexico. He closely examines claims of the miraculous, from rose petals bearing the likeness of Jesus to photographs of a "golden door" to heaven. Controversial mysteries such as clairvoyance and "spirit painting," haunted places, and freaks of nature are just a few of the many topics covered.
Suspenseful, engrossing, funny, and grounded in scientific methodology, Real-Life X-Files provides real explanations for the "paranormal" activities that have intrigued human beings for centuries.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Case of the Petrified Girl
• Chapter 2: The Devil’s Footprints
• Chapter 3: Magicians Among the Spirits
• Chapter 4: The Specter of Spontaneous Human Combustion
• chapter 5: Believe It or _____ ?
• Chapter 6: Legend of the “Miraculous Stairway”
• Chapter 7: Flying Saucer “Dogfight”
• Chapter 8: A Study in Clairvoyance
• Chapter 9: The Kennedy Curse
• Chapter 10: Riddle of the Circles
• Chapter 11: Cult of the “UFO Missionaries”
• Chapter 12: The Electronic Poltergeist
• Chapter 13: The Silver Lake Serpent
• Chapter 14: Miraculous Rose Petals
• Chapter 15: Paranormal Lincoln
• Chapter 16: The Roswell Legend
• Chapter 17: Investigating Police Psychics
• Chapter 18: Ghostly Photos
• Chapter 19: The Lake Utopia Monster
• Chapter 20: Memory of a Past Life
• Chapter 21: Photographing the Aura
• Chapter 22: Mystery of the Holy Shrou
• Chapter 23: The Giant Frog
• Chapter 24: The Alien Likeness
• Chapter 25: In Search of “Snake Oil
• Chapter 26: The Haunted Cathedral
• Chapter 27: Miracle Photographs
• Chapter 28: The Gypsies’ “Great Trick”
• Chapter 29: Magnetic Hill
• Chapter 30: Phantom Ship
• Chapter 31: The Cryptic Stone
• Chapter 32: Communicating with the Dead?
• Chapter 33: Jesus Among the Clouds
• Chapter 34: Alien Implants
• Chapter 35: Sleuthing a Psychic Sleuth
• Chapter 36: Adventure of the Weeping Icon
• Chapter 37: The Secrets of Oak Island
• Chapter 38: Enigma of the Crystal Tears
• Chapter 39: Death of the Fire-Breathing Woman
• Chapter 40: Comatose “Miracle Worker”
• Chapter 41: Extraterrestrial Autopsy
• Chapter 42: Spirit Paintings
• Chapter 43: Watching the Spirits Paint
• Chapter 44: Stigmata
• Chapter 45: Haunted Inns
• Chapter 46:The Flatwoods UFO Monster
• Chapter 47:Milk-Drinking Idols Notes
• Notes
• Index