Most people believe in some aspect of the paranormal (at least in the US). According to recent polls, a full third believe in ghosts and 18% of Americans have reportedly seen one. That’s a lot of sightings for a phenomenon that as far as we know shouldn’t exist. So what is going on here? Well, human psychology is weird.

In my latest episode of Because Science, I do a little ghost-busting of my own, suggesting a few ways to make ghosts work in the real world. For me, it comes down to just how hyperactive our pattern-seeking brains can get. When we are scared, that fight-or-flight response overcharges the bits of your brain that pick out signals in the noise — you quickly go from A to B to FATAL DANGER. In the same way that we are hard-wired to recognize faces in everything, there are many psychological quirks that can give rise to something strange in the neighborhood, like a ghost or phantasm.

Need more scary science? You can watch my last Halloweeny Because Science on nature’s real monsters here.

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Have you had your own unexplainable paranormal experience? Let’s delve into some spooky science in the comments below or hit me up in the twitterverse @Sci_Phile!