Work and other responsibilities have been nuts lately. I have some interesting posts coming up soon. In the meantime, enjoy this reminder of what it means to do science:

I found some really great videos by YouTuber HauntedHoax. He is all about the ghost busting, debunking and hoaxing for educational purposes.

The nice thing is that his videos are also entertaining. A lot of skeptic videos that try to be funny usually fail. I don’t know why, but the humor is just lame. This guy does it right.

Check out his channel here for all his videos:  http://www.youtube.com/user/HauntedHoax

I’ll embed two of my favorites below:

First a funny one:

And a serious debunk:

So awesome, so very very awesome:

TheFakingHoaxer, has been all over the blogs today. He makes CGI videos of UFO’s and Space Shuttle disasters mainly. The videos are made with faked camera shake and lens fuzziness to give them an authentic, raw film quality that helps to cover up the tell-tale signs of digital manipulation. His tools are commonplace (Photoshop, Adobe Premier), but the results are uncommonly cool.

He has one video of ghost photos. Unlike his other vids, this one is just a slide show of still images. They look like vintage photos taken in settings from around the turn of the century. I hope he gets around to doing a ghost video with moving action. I would love to see him fake a night-vision style video like the Ghost Hunters’  shows.

Ohio:  Massillon woman gets up to four years for burning ‘haunted’ house

Ukraine:  Man steals tombstones to build house with

Better or worse than a haunted house?

The case of the haunted scrotum

A 45-year-old man was referred for investigation of an undescended right testis by computed tomography (CT). An ultrasound scan showed a normal testis and epididymis on the left side. The right testis was not visualized in the scrotal sac or in the right inguinal region. On CT scanning of the abdomen and pelvis, the right testis was not identified but the left side of the scrotum seemed to be occupied by a screaming ghostlike apparition (Figure 1). By chance, the distribution of normal anatomical structures within the left side of the scrotum had combined to produce this image. What of the undescended right testis? None was found. If you were a right testis, would you want to share the scrotum with that?

This is awesome. Michael Jackson’s ghost has been spotted in Zimbabwe. The article is from the Association of Zimbabwe Journalists. I’ll copy it here to cut down on your clicks:

Michael Jackson’s Ghost terrifies students in Zimbabwe

By Jadyn Cassidy

A reader has informed us of a bizarre story involving a sighting of the ghost of deceased singer, Michael Jackson, that is spreading through the African nation of Zimbabwe.

The sighting of Jackson’s ghost occurred at the St Mary’s Mission School,a  Catholic institution, in Zimbabwe’s capital of Harare.

I came across this question on a real estate forum:

Do real estates know if their [sic] selling you a haunted house?

just wondering because don’t they do reasearch on the house?

I don’t think they could reveal if it was haunted. How do they really know if they haven’t lived there. Some people swear the Amityville Horror house is haunted and the people living there at the moment swear it isn’t.