Christopher D. Bader - Paranormal America: Ghost Encounters, UFO Sightings, Bigfoot Hunts, and Other Curiosities in Religion and Culture

Christopher D. Bader, Joseph O. Baker, and F. Carson Mencken

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York

www.nyupress.org

2017 by New York University

All rights reserved

References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

ISBN : 978-1-4798-1965-2 (hardback)

ISBN : 978-1-4798-1528-9 (paperback)

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We have so many people to thank for their help in this endeavor that we fear the attempt. Someone will certainly be forgotten.

The quantitative data presented in this book are partially based upon three waves of the Baylor Religion Survey fielded in 2005, 2010, and 2014. The Baylor Religion Survey project was originally supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. The development of survey content was the result of a collaborative effort in the Department of Sociology at Baylor University. Finally, the Gallup Organization provided valuable feedback on the final questionnaire and ultimately collected these data.

Other data presented in this volume originate from two waves of the Chapman University Survey of American Fears (2014 and 2015). The development of the survey instruments involved the efforts of many Chapman students and, in particular, Dr. Ed Day of Chapmans Department of Sociology and Dr. Ann Gordon of Chapmans Department of Political Science. We also must thank the staff at Knowledge Networks, who provided valuable feedback on the survey and gathered these data.

Throughout the book we frequently use pseudonyms for those we spent time with, and these names are in quotation marks for the first mention. We do so when the person has not publicly disclosed their paranormal beliefs and/or experiences, unless they have expressly stated a willingness to be identified.

The late Datus Perry of Carson, Washington, spent many hours ushering the first author through the woods looking for Bigfoot. We greatly appreciate Laura Cyrs willingness to tell us of her many supernatural and paranormal experiences. We are equally grateful that the UFO Contact Center International opened its doors to our questions and to Paul Ingram for telling us his harrowing experience with the Satanic panic of the 1990s. We greatly appreciate the efforts of Ernie Alonzo of Haunted Orange County in arranging a ghost hunt at Chapman University and allowing one of us to follow it. The North American Wood Ape Conservancy (NAWAC) was extremely patient dragging three sociologists through the woods on one of its field operations, and we greatly enjoyed getting to know the groups members.

Numbers can only get you so farwe did not believe we could tell a story about American paranormal beliefs without hearing from people who have experienced the paranormal for themselves. We are greatly in debt to the many people who gave us their trust and their time.

Finally, engaging in such a project requires support at home. The authors would like to thank their spousesSara Bader, Kim Mencken, and Amy Edmondsfor their love, patience, and understanding as we spent the night in haunted houses, chased Bigfoot, and delved into UFO abductions and psychic phenomena.

Professors love to talk.

It takes something dramatic to interrupt one during an impassioned lecture. But such an event happened to Bill at Chapman University in Orange, California. It was mid-semester and Bill was about halfway through a lecture in Smith Hall 211, standing before his class in front of the chalkboard. Thirty students sat in rows of tables, studiously taking notes.

All of the sudden there was a large creaking sound right to my left like a large footstep. The loud noise caused an astonished Bill to jump to the right and look down at the spot on the floor from where the sound originated. Some students near the front of the class heard this noise and noticed Bills surprise. They also looked toward the floor.

Bill composed himself and continued the lecture. But several seconds later a second footstep, not quite as loud as the first, echoed further to his left. The students could now tell that something strange was occurring and many stood up at their desks. About a second later, three more footsteps sounded at an accelerated pace, seemingly moving between Bill and the wall. According to Bill, the sounds were so pronounced that I expected to see something, perhaps depressions in the carpet.

The students became very excited, chattering with one another about what just happened. It was very clear to all of us that the sounds were in the room with us. By this point class was entirely disrupted, and Bill and his students spent the rest of the period trying to reproduce the sounds. Bill went into the classroom next door (which shared a common wall) and stomped back and forth, yelling to students who remained in Smith 211 to see if the sounds were repeated. They were not. Students walked back and forth in the hallways and up and down the stairs. After several such experiments, Bill related, we convinced ourselves that we could not reproduce it.

Bill and his students remain flummoxed by the incident.Bills experience, there did not appear to be tales of ghosts in Smith Hall. Since then, it has become notorious as one of Chapmans haunted locations. Some employees have added their stories of feelings of dread and strange noises when working in the building late at night.

In more than two decades of studying people who claim paranormal experiences, I (Christopher Bader) have had many fascinating experiences. Some have been alone, others with my co-authors. In the fall of 2015, I joined an all-star team of ghost hunters from popular paranormal television shows such as Fact or Faked, Ghost Hunters International, and Ghost Mine as they attempted to communicate with the spirit of Smith Hall at Chapman University.

I have also observed support groups for people who report abductions by alien beings and visited with therapists who claim to have recovered memories of vast Satanic conspiracies to control the planet. I have heard all manner of outrageous conspiracy theories, and wandered the aisles of innumerable New Age and paranormal book stores. My co-authors, F. Carson Mencken and Joseph Baker, have joined me on hunts for Bigfoot, visits to psychic fairs, and trips to haunted houses.

During this time we have noticed an interesting trend in how Americans relate to the paranormal: they are simultaneously fascinated and repulsed, intrigued and dismissive. The paranormal has permeated our culture, and the fascination Americans have with the paranormal appears to be growing.