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Real-Life X-Files: Investigating the Paranormal

By Joe Nickell.
University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, U.S.A., 2001. 
336 pp., illus. Trade. ISBN: 0-8131-2210-4.

Reviewed by Michael Punt
mpunt@easynet.co.uk

All research has at its core a research method that is either made explicit, or is so familiar as to make detailed explanation redundant. The problem with this book is that the implicit methodologies of the private eye are confused with scientific explanation. Life for the private eye is reduced to a series of relatively simple binaries – the suspect did it/did not do it, he gets the girl/does not get the girl, he gets paid/does not get paid, he gets killed/he lives, and so on – well at least in novels that's the way it is. Science has the luxury of equivication; as Copernicus famously said, the idea of a heliocentric universe was just one hypothesis among many. The paranormal and supernatural exists in both a binary and equivical world with utter indifference to the established standards of proof. Engaging with it and understanding what might be involved in reports of strange happenings demands intellectual subtlety, generosity and academic rigour. The Real X-Files, investigating the paranormal lacks any of these. This may not be the put down it seems. The book is good fun, building up straw men only to demolish them with quips and circumstantial evidence. Its certainly not science or dare I say even good detective work, but it does lay out an interesting aray of strange events in the world and it does leave it to the reader to wonder what on earth might be behind them. The comforting assurances of a real  life Gumshoe like Joe Nickell may be, for some, just what the doctor ordered. For others it will be a frustrating dismissal of another world view.

 

 

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