It was a great Halloween show and was suppse to generate skepticism, even though it is obviously fake. Reporting and telling a tale for a Halloween special is nothing wrong. They always produce outstanding podcasts and were entertaining again. Great job!

Maybe you guys can do a show about confirmation bias. It's pretty evident in the comments section on this article, especially in the closed mindedness of supposedly scientific thinkers.

...and every good ghost buster out there watches this video and exclaims "But this doesn't prove that ghosts aren't causing this to happen as well!" It's almost impossible to prove the non-existence of something.

"Radiolab is a show about curiosity. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and human experience."
This episodes fits perfectly with what Radiolab is all about. You covered science -how the flashlights trick really works, philosophy - is there life after death, and the human experience - grief and how we move on. Excellent work!

I can't believe the hate being spewed by commenters here for RadioLab daring to create a "spooky" episode for Halloween.

The description, written by Radiolab, which links to this episode starts with "There are many ways to communicate with the dead." Radiolab has received grants from the National Science Foundation. The tags for this article are "ghosts, paranormal activity, science, storytelling." What is wrong with this picture? I suggest RL should decide what it wants to be. A storytelling podcast with audio creativity? Great. Return the NSF funding. A science podcast? Start by reading the recent NYTimes article "the unbelievable skepticism of the amazing Randi."

I can't imagine what it's like to have produced something with so much love and imagination only to see these brain dead hateful comments in return. All the more respect for everyone working at radiolab.

Loved this episode and the show in general. RadioLab and This American Life are my favorite radio shows. For all of the cynics out there, eventually we will all die and learn the truth. Try to be kind to each other and tolerant in the meantime.

VERY disappointed in Radiolab for putting out this so called "haunted house" episode. This nonsense has NO place in a science podcast. You should not give these "paranormal" hucksters any more exposure in our culture than they already have. Shame on you!

I think they could have leaned a little harder on the real explanation, but even the guy who experienced it said he doesn't really think it was ghosts. I just kept thinking what if the "no" light had come on when he asked if they were proud of him? Would have crushed this dude. "Psychics" are the worst but whatever, it was mostly just a silly episode, who cares.

I have been disappointed how this podcast has moved towards just telling stories instead of being more about science and the tackling of major topics from different angles. Translation was a wonderful step back toward what made this show great and I hope that tremd continues. I'm fine with the Shorts being a little more toward the other end of the spectrum.

I'm really only commenting because that Todd from NY and Cincy (thanks for the specifics btw) fella somehow thinks ghosts are a political issue. What?

Today we're yellin' and cussin'-out a podcast. Mmm hm...

Love the Lebowski reference!!

As someone who is disappointed when Radiolab delves into political issues, I will add my 2 cents and say that I didn't mind this story at all.

Actually, I would go so far as to say that it was almost an arch-type radiolab story. After all, Jad is the rationalistic foil to Robert's spiritual musings. This episode balances that perfectly. It left open a few possibilities of the unknown while basically showing that the core event had a rational explanation.

I personally was much more puzzled by the stories of people having feelings about a specific spot (the one by the basement) and the dreams than I was of the ghost hunters, the latter of which, appeared to me to play up every single thing they said.

And the dreams seemed to involve a psychological longing, and even if the event was faked, it seemed quite cathertic, if only temporarily.

As someone who is both a PhD student and who has experienced phenomena that was as of yet unexplained, I rather enjoyed both sides.

Just for a second, suppose this: if there is life after death, I'm pretty confident that the spirits of those who have passed wouldn't be engaged in the kind of behaviors we call hauntings. After all, if there is life after death, then it is we mortals who are in the minority and in the dark much more than those who have passed. I'm just saying. If you don't buy into any spiritual concepts, then this makes no sense, but if you do, then to think that after we die, we're going to hang out and haunt stuff is kind of absurd.

But as far as whether radiolab should have covered it, I think it was a perfect "radiolab way" of enjoying the holiday.

Bob Dobber-
You might want to listen to the podcast again.

Robert and Jad are FAR from skeptical- if anything, it seems they to want to push Dennis to say he really thought he was talking to his dad and when he says "no" they act disappointed.

As many commenters have pointed out, psychics are predatory con-artists that exploit desperate people.
Dennis is being taken advantage of- this is not a healthy, therapeutic, way of gaining closure.

By treating the story in such an open-ended fashion, Radiolab is enabling these shameless frauds.

Everyone upset at Radiolab for broadcasting the "garbage" needs to chill out... It was a silly Halloween episode. It didn't claim ghosts were real. It didn't claim the psychics were real. It didn't claim they were really communicating with ghosts. In the end it even said that the person involved with the story didn't really believe he spoke with his dead parents, and how the flashlight trick worked. I don't believe in ghosts at all, yet thought this episode was just fine. It was a little spooky. It's OK.

Seriously, chill out.

On their webpage RL states "there are many ways to communicate with the dead. We examine one of them." Does anyone have any recommendations for good science podcasts, perhaps something similar to what Radiolab used to be?

Easy. They make the exact same flashlights with LED bulbs.
Almost no heat generated here. Do they work too, or the spirits are too picky?

By the way, I loved the episode, and to all the haters I would say that if you don't explore what you don't like, you shouldn't refute it. Radiolab is not giving credibility to this, just posting it in a nice episode, totally appropriate for the season. Good job guys!

I thought this was an excellent episode and a little off the norm for Radio Lab. Great for Halloween!

Wow, apparently some people are really taking this episode quite seriously. I saw it as a simple Halloween ghost story. A bit of a step outside the norm for Radiolab, perhaps, but I never for a minute thought that they were really serious about the whole thing.

Certainly everyone has their own point of view, but I personally saw this as nothing more than a bit of fun on Halloween.

Personally, I'm an atheist and a thinker/skeptic, who just spent the last month acting as a tour guide for a local theatre company's haunted house. No, I don't believe in ghosts. But it was good fun to pretend. Sometimes we all need some fun.

This was really disappointing.

What's next? An episode giving credence to The Secret or Animal Magnetism? Maybe crystal technology and energy healers.

Garbage.

Victor, I agree with you that the physical explanation does not completely rule out a paranormal explanation, and I don't think very many "true believers" will be persuaded by any number of engineers explaining the mechanics of the flashlight. However, many more casual observers may come away from a demonstration of this trick truly believing they had witnessed an event that defied known scientific laws, and it is important to emphasize that this is not the case. If you think that the perveyors of this trick are sophisticated believers that recognize the scientific explanation and still hold that spirits are at work, why do they use the flashlight trick instead of, say, rolling dice or using other methods that everyone knows are random? These paranormal "investigators" owe a lot of their persuasive power to this simple parlor room magic trick.

Great episode. Yes it is important to explore these events if for no other reason than as a sociological exercise. The science zealots, or mystery-phobes in the world can't stand the reality that many people see the world as a place without thorough explanation--and the worst part is that they may be right. We don't have complete explanation now and BOO! we may never. Is it so scary?

Please allow me to put a face on the potential damage this podcast may have caused. I have joint physical custody of my two sons from my previous marriage whom I adore. Their mother believes in the paranormal and is convinced her house is haunted and subsequently had amateur (is there any other kind) ghost séances multiple times to contact the dead. In front of my children... Just a couple weeks ago my younger son told me the following story about my older son. He was sleeping when something in his room fell. He jolted out of bed and ran into his mothers room thinking it was "the ghost". This is the kind of nonsense, dare I say abuse, that my children are subjected to daily at their mothers.Needless to say I have spent a lot of time over the past couple years teaching my sons the importance of rational thinking. But what credibility do I have? Why should they believe me? I am not an expert in any field or have a higher education to point to, I am a mailman. So I bought Richard Dawkins children book "the magic of reality", (amazing, highly recommended) I have showed them YouTube clips of magicians showing how magic is an illusion, and I set their phones to download episodes of radiolab to strengthen their science and understanding of the natural order. They love radiolab. And, we've had great conversations based on past episodes. I don't know if they have heard this episode and I'm not looking forward to having a conversation about it. Radiolab, a source I told them they could use as "truth" gave credence to a spectacularly hurtful lie that continues to damage them. Even with the lame attempt at showing "there may have trickery afoot" flashlight video aid this was not helpful. No. Radiolab, a pillar of science and understanding gave credibility to nonsense at a time when credulity and servility are eroding the moral underpinning of our species. You should show shame. ,

From the original story: "We didn't pay these people, they would have no reason to fake this."

I'm sorry, but what an idiot.

Another question: Why 3 flashlights when only 2 are actually needed? Perhaps a third reply is sometimes used (like "try again" or "I don't know) - but I doubt it. I suspect that the key is in randomness. Note that they don't say, "Turning on the flashlight next to the bowl will mean yes, the one furthest from the bowl will mean no, and the one in the middle will mean [whatever]." Instead, they designate the first light that goes on as "yes." Perhaps this tends to be the flashlight that's most sensitive; here I just mean that the most sensitive flashlight turns on more frequently. That would be useful if you want to have a "yes" answer first, and you'd be pretty sure that a different light - "no" - would turn on after your second question. For then on out, you'd ask a few more "yes" questions than "no" questions.

The third flashlight could legitimately be used just to make sure that at least two flashlights work, but it could also be there just to create confusion. One would like to know more about how the flashlights are distributed - does it make confusion more likely?

I do not know whether this actually works or not, but, as I think Carl Sagan used to say, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." To me, the most parsimonious explanation is that the people who led the "seance" were sincere and not out to scam anyone. The human drive to perceive patterns, intention, and meaning, adequately explain (to me) how the random flickering of flashlights impressed the participants as actual two-way communication.

You should be ashamed for putting out this piece of crap. Promoting sharlatins who pray on people who have lost love ones is a new low. Thank you for dumbing down our country even more. I am writing your sponsors, The National Science Foundation and The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and recommend that the spend their money on "The Skeptics Guide to the Universe" podcast instead of the garbage you put out this week. I can not tell you how disappointed I am in both of you. You have lost all of your credibility. What's next, Bigfoot, UFO's? How sad.

The flashlight revelation really doesn't make a difference. It is in the nature of "miracles" that they have a material i.e. "rational" mechanism. If I'm walking down fifth avenue, and I bend down to pick up a quarter thus avoiding a large chunk of swinging metal on a rope (don't ask why that's there) which would have surely brained me had I not bent down; there's a perfectly rational explanation other than "God did it." The presence of the quarter can be explained by some college kid with hole-ly pockets who'd just gotten change for laundry, among a panoply of other random circumstances. Proving that clairvoyant pixies didn't scurry out of a gutter and put the magic quarter in position, then make it invisible to everyone but me, doesn't disprove supernatural theories. There is no satisfactory explanation for why that quarter fell in the exact location as to save my life, just as there is no explanation for why the expanding metal in the flashlight contrasted at such points as would make it seem that one was communicating with the dead (assuming there's not willful self delusion, and an unconscious self-timing concurrent with the flickers of the bulb). Believers in miracles almost never claim that the laws of nature are fully suspended, merely that intelligent powers are able to tweak the randomness which inheres to events occurring within them.

Hi Matthew!

Sorry about that sound :)) just my armchair in need of oil...

Thank you, I enjoyed our talk!

Cheers and Happy Halloween,
Burkhard

Mark, she knew his dad was dead. It's not much of a guess to say "I saw a man," then when he asked her if the man had his build, it was very easy to say yes and seem that much more knowledgeable.

So was the psychic guessing his dad's appearance just a lucky guess? Perhaps something she does to try and make the other person connect the dots?

Your comments are spot on, and why folks spend mental and fiscal resources on such bunk. And why some folks become skeptic zealots, actively working to debunk frauds -- perhaps to deny that part of them that would like it all to be possible.