A surprising and compelling journey into the business of paranormal investigation and the
state of scientific literacy in America. In 2010 in a small New Hampshire town next door
to a copy center and framing shop a ghost lab opened. The Kitt Research Initiative’s mission
was to use the scientific method to document the existence of spirits. Founder Andy Kitt was
known as a straight-shooter and was unafraid — perhaps eager — to offend other paranormal
investigators by exposing the fraudulence of their less advanced techniques. But when KRI
started to lose money Kitt began to seek funding from the paranormal community attracting
flocks of psychics alien abductees witches mediums ghost hunters UFOlogists
cryptozoologists and warlocks from all over New England and the world. And there were plenty
of them around. The Ghost Lab tells the astonishing story of the wild ecosystem of paranormal
profiteers and consumers through the astonishing story of what happened in this one small
town. But it also maps the trends of declining scientific literacy trust in institutions and
the diffusion of a culture that has created space for armies of pseudoscientists to step into
the minds of an increasingly credulous public. With his distinct voice eye for a story and
ability to show how one community' s experience reflects that of a society Matt
Hongoltz-Hetling crafts a powerful narrative about just how fragmented our understanding of
what is real and what is not has become.
