(Quiet, mysterious music fades up. Sound of distant church bells. Voiceover, MALE REPORTER, 30s. His tone is friendly but removed, self-possessed. He has his own thing going on, but you are welcome to listen in.)
REPORTER: The paranormal. Pseudoscience. In an era of unprecedented scientific knowledge, and near-universal access to it, these concepts fascinate us more than ever. But even the terms--”para” normal, “pseudo” science--connote a deviation from an implied baseline. What if that baseline changed? What if in twenty, fifty years, the lines denoting science and normal were expanded to explain these phenomena that today, we find strange and inexplicable?
Doesn’t it seem like just yesterday, lightning was a mystery, and eclipses were a sign from God?
From CTC Studios and the WGBH Podcast Network, I’m Newton Geiszler. Welcome to The Black Tapes Podcast.
(Theme music begins: acoustic guitar, faraway female voice singing.)
GEISZLER: First, let’s start where we started. When we pitched this new podcast to the network, we did not envision an X-Files vs Serial mashup-showdown. It was in fact pitched as a series of interview profiles of New Englanders with interesting jobs and occupations. First on our list was paranormal investigator. Now, listeners, was that my idea? Of course it was. I’ve always been a big nerd for UFO stories, and I watch my fair share of exorcism movies and ghosthunting shows. An avid fan, perhaps, but only a fan--not a believer. My beliefs sit firmly in the realm of science.
So what about people whose beliefs do not? Or rather, whose bounds of ‘science’ are different than mine?
“Science is not a matter of belief,” any scientist will tell you. To that, I might say, “It is a matter of belief--in the scientific method.” To which they might say, “Who are you and how did you get into my office in the first place?” But yes--they too are acting on belief: belief in the power of the tested hypothesis. You ask a question, collect data, and see what answer you get. That question could be how a certain slime mold reproduces, or whether a certain building is haunted. If you believe in the method, all you have to do is collect that data.
But just how rigorous is that data collection in the paranormal investigation business, you may ask?
We had the same question.
(interlude #1 music plays)
(inquisitive knocking is heard)
(sound of a door opening)
MALE VOICE: Come in.
NEWT GEISZLER: Hello?
MAN: Hi, are you the reporter?
NEWT: In the flesh. Newt. (sound of chairs moving) You must be Dr. Dedekind.
DR. DEDEKIND: Good to meet you, Newt. Please, call me Dana.
NEWT: Charmed! You were of course, named after Dr. Dana Scully?
(Dedekind laughs, somewhat nervously)
NEWT (VOICEOVER): Dr. Dana Dedekind is a well-known writer in the paranormal field. He positions himself as neither skeptic nor believer, instead choosing to play the “middle” and present both sides in his books. Of which he has published twelve--number thirteen forthcoming. He sat down with us in his office at Amherst College.
DEDEKIND: 45% of Americans today believe in ghosts. 64% believe in life after death, and 43% believe that ghosts are capable of interacting with living people, even harming them. We tend to think of ourselves as a scientifically enlightened culture--but that’s a staggering number of people who still believe in the so-called supernatural.
NEWT: And a staggering number of available pockets, huh?
DEDEKIND: (taken aback) Sorry?
NEWT: Ghost-hunting is a multi-million dollar industry. There are at least five network reality ghost hunting shows on right now. You can even buy a ghosthunting kit at Walmart--beginner and intermediate level. EMF meter and everything.
DEDEKIND: (laughs) Oh, of course.
NEWT: ...To say nothing of book sales.
DEDEKIND: Um...
NEWT (VO): We picked three paranormal quote-unquote "experts" to interview. In actuality, we picked four, but one of them proved... difficult to sit down with. Don’t worry--more on that later.
DEDEKIND: Most experts will break it down like this. Hauntings come in one of three types: residual energy, intelligent haunting, and inhuman haunting.
WOMAN: In general, in what you refer to as ‘paranormal encounters,’ we get three types: orbs or mist, full-body apparitions, and demonic presence.
NEWT (VO): That’s Dr. Marcia Cantor, another paranormal researcher and author, based at UVM. She falls more firmly on the believer side of the spectrum.
MAN: I’ve been back and forth and up and down this country tracking down ghosts and demons. I’ve seen them myself--not many times, but enough. My research is substantiated. And I’ve seen it firsthand. So I know that anyone who tells you there’s three types of hauntings is full of [expletive bleeped].
NEWT (VO): That’s Mark Grandi, celebrated ghosthunter and host of the popular ghost-hunting web series, Bat Out Of Hell.
(Grandi interview)
NEWT: So, critics heckle. They say, “Mark, you’re nuts. You’re seeing what you want to believe. You’re doing it for the attention.” What do you say?
GRANDI: I say you’re just jealous you didn’t think of it first. And maybe, I invite them to join us on an expedition. So that they can see the experiments we conduct--we conduct actual experiments, you know...
(Cantor interview)
NEWT: Marcia, when critics say your field is not a science, but more of a pseudoscience, what do you say?
CANTOR: I point out that even the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school, has a ghost research unit.
NEWT: Does it really?
(Grandi interview resumes)
GRANDI: ...the kind of critics we hear from constantly, like, it’s not even worth it anymore. You know. Like Gottlieb. Are you talking about Gottlieb? Don’t waste your time with that guy.
NEWT (VO): I was not. Not talking about Gottlieb, that is. Not yet. But we started hearing his name almost immediately--and it didn’t stop coming up.
(Dedekind interview)
NEWT: Tell me, Dana-Not-Scully. Does the criticism get personal?
DANA: Certainly. Academia can be vicious. Especially in a field like this, where the borders are contentions--after all, is the paranormal academic? Can it properly be considered as such? I’d say that ambiguity makes this arena even more contentious. The worst are those academics on the sidelines, the ones trying to define the borders, tell us what is and is not science--Gottlieb, or Strand. It’s like they have a vendetta against the whole field. But you know Gottlieb’s reputation, of course...
(Cantor interview)
CANTOR: Dr. Gottlieb is well-known in our circles, though probably not in the way he hopes. I think he considers himself a gatekeeper, or maybe the philosopher on the other side of our field’s socratic dialogue. Most paranormal researchers I know, though, consider him more of an... overzealous referee.
(Grandi interview)
GRANDI: Dr. Hermann Gottlieb? What’s his doctorate in, being an arrogant [expletive bleeped]?
NEWT (VO): Dr. Hermann Gottlieb. Our mysterious fourth expert. It was around this time he caught my eye--but he was as hard to find as a haunted amulet in a haystack.
(Female voice, tinny through telephone): You’ve reached the offices of the Gottlieb Institute. Please leave a message.
NEWT (VO): Academic referee is actually a good description of Dr. Gottlieb. He is a paranormal investigator, but what makes him so unusual--and so controversial--is that he does not believe in the supernatural. He is a professional, fully qualified skeptic. Over the past decade he has made it his mission to debunk any and all claims of the paranormal. He’s not just a ghost hunter: he’s a ghost buster.
And the good doctor puts his money where his mouth is. Since 2001 the Gottlieb Institute has been offering a prize for definitive proof of the supernatural. No one has yet claimed it--though many have tried.
So, as you can imagine, between the research and the race for the prize, Dr. Gottlieb has not made many friends in the ghosthunting community. Here he is at a conference in 2010.
(Sounds of a crowded room, agitated audience, staticky sound system. A man’s voice, pointed and vaguely British-accented: the elusive DR. GOTTLIEB.)
DR. GOTTLIEB: The Wilfred case neither proves nor disproves this phenomenon. All we have here is a number of witnesses, making claims. Few of them concurring. Witness testimony is not empirical evidence. It simply is not good science.
MODERATOR: Next question for Dr. Gottlieb? Yes, in the red shirt.
WOMAN: (shouting to be heard) Let’s accept what you say, let’s just discount all that your fellow panelists have said, let’s accept that they are engaging in “bad science.” What exactly have you brought to the table?
(scattered audience applause)
DR. GOTTLIEB: I think you will find that I do not, in fact, need to bring anything to the table. It is not I who has made extraordinary claims against the established laws of nature. The burden of proof does not lie with me. You would not ask me to prove the force of gravity, heliocentrism, cellular senescence. These are facts we trust. The burden of proof lies with my colleagues here--it is up to them to prove, if they can, that life does not end after death. They have not done so. The evidence is simply not there.
WOMAN: Why not let people take comfort in fairy tales?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Because it is intellectually irresponsible and culturally regressive.
MAN: (shouting from audience) Have you ever come across a case you haven’t been able to debunk?
DR. GOTTLIEB: (slight pause) No. Never.
NEWT (VO): Dr. Gottlieb is an unpopular figure in his chosen field of paranormal research. Why do it? Why put himself in that position of ridicule? Why does he devote his life to a field he finds “intellectually irresponsible”?
FEMALE VOICE: (through phone) Hi, this is a message for Newton Geiszler. This is Marian calling on behalf of Dr. Gottlieb. I’m afraid we won’t be able to set up an interview at this time. He wanted me to thank you for your interest in his work.
(interlude #2 music plays)
NEWT (VO): While we were waiting for news from Dr. Gottlieb through some... alternative channels, my producer and I drove up to UVM for a more in-depth interview with Dr. Marcia Cantor.
(sounds of chairs moving, shuffling footsteps, pages turning)
CANTOR: This shelf here is my nonfiction, and books I’ve contributed to...
NEWT: (reading) Ghost Hunter’s Field Guide, Magic of Monsters, Ethereal Beings in Your Neighborhood, Past Lives and Present Signals... How many books have you written?
CANTOR: Seventeen. Some fiction as well.
NEWT: Do the same themes carry over into your fiction?
CANTOR: No... certainly not. Why would you ask that?
NEWT: ...Well...
(tense pause)
CANTOR: I take my work seriously, Mr. Geiszler. My fiction is a hobby. An invention. My work in the paranormal is no such invention.
NEWT: Um, of course. My bad.
NEWT (VO): A lot of paranormal experts have a touchy spot like that. They’re pretty concerned about you taking them seriously--the moment they feel you aren’t, self-defense kicks in. I can understand that. When people dismiss you, year in year out, it takes a toll.
I had to get back in Dr. Cantor's good books. I did that by asking about her actual books--not her fiction, not her nonfiction, but her large, intriguing shelf of scrapbooks.
NEWT: What are these?
CANTOR: These are my personal records of local investigations.
NEWT: Investigations conducted by you?
CANTOR: And my associates, yes. All around the Northeast.
NEWT: May I?
CANTOR: Please.
(sound of sliding, crinkly binding opening, pages turning slowly)
CANTOR: Many of these are location hauntings. There’s a lot of history in this part of the country--a lot of secrets in all those woods. Old foundations. Abandoned buildings still standing. Still occupied. Very old.
NEWT: (still turning pages) These are fascinating photos.
CANTOR: I’m going on an expedition tonight, actually. My team and I are investigating the site of a haunted Revolution-era inn. You and your producer are welcome to come along, if you’re interested.
NEWT: Interested? Haunted revolutionary inn? How could we say no?
NEWT (VO): We did not say no.
(interlude music #1)
FEMALE VOICE: (through phone) Hello. I’m calling on behalf of Steph, Dr. Gottlieb’s publicist. It seems he is unable to meet, but Steph might be able to meet with you to answer some questions about his upcoming book. Please call back at your earliest convenience to set up a meeting. Thank you.
(transition: exterior sounds, wind, cars driving by)
(car door slams)
CANTOR: Hi.
NEWT: Hello! Sorry we’re late, we drove by, but we didn’t think this was the right place. I guess it is?
CANTOR: No, this is it. Let me introduce you to the team.
NEWT (VO): So. Let me set the scene.
When Dr. Cantor said we would be exploring a Revolution-era inn, here’s what I pictured: a white clapboard colonial with iron lamp posts, a mossy foundation, the building half-rotted out, trees growing up through where the floors used to be. But the truth is, the forest takes its territory back much faster than that. A house abandoned to these woods can get swallowed up in fifty years or less. If it wasn’t carefully preserved, there would be nothing left of a building that old except a square of stones in the ground.
But alas, listeners, that did not quell my disappointment when we reached the address Dr. Cantor gave us, and found an uninspiringly neat and modern strip mall.
CANTOR: This is Diane, she’s our tech. She takes care of lights and EMF readings, sound recording, all that.
DIANE: (coolly) Good to meet you.
CANTOR: And this is Kyle, our medium.
KYLE: (husky voice) Hey.
NEWT: Nice to meet you. I’m Newt. I don’t think I’ve ever met a male medium before.
KYLE: Have you ever met any medium before?
NEWT: Well Kyle, you got me there.
NEWT (VO): Dr. Cantor led our group into the lobby of the bank in the strip mall. It was a quiet part of town. Down the slope you could see the interstate, and above, behind the mall, thick forest. It was about sunset when we arrived--closing time.
This bank, Diane told me, sits on the site of an old Revolution-era inn. It was rumored to be haunted long before it was abandoned, sometime in the 1800s. Employees at the bank had been reporting strange happenings of late: doors opening, cold spots, strange sounds. When I pointed out that there weren’t many significant Revolutionary battles up here in Vermont, she frowned at me. She said it didn’t really have anything to do with the Revolution. The hauntings were just concurrent.
NEWT: So if you don’t think it’s the ghost of a soldier, what do you think is in there?
DIANE: (still sounding annoyed) It could be a soldier. I just don’t want to jump to conclusions. But it may not even be a spirit of the deceased, or ‘ghost,’ as you call it. It could be a spirit of something lesser than a human. Perhaps a portal or vortex spirit.
NEWT: (thoughtfully) Oh. And how do we determine that?
DIANE: We ask.
NEWT (VO): The security guard on last-shift duty let us into the back, then left, locking up behind himself. It was just the five of us: the team, my producer, and me.
After we cased the place, we set up in an office behind a glass. Diane picked that room when, after some thorough EMF scanning, she determined it to be the hottest spot in the building. We sat in a circle, mics, scanners, and cords spidering out around us. Dr. Cantor had us turn out the lights.
Kyle placed two flashlights in the center of the circle. He turned them on: one was blue, one was red. Then he unscrewed the lids of each flashlight just enough to turn them off. He explained what he was doing: apparently this is a common ghost-hunting-slash-clairvoyant trick. If the ghosts or spirits want to talk, all they have to do is nudge the flashlight slightly and turn it back on.
Without the flashlights, the room was densely dark. Night had fallen by then. The only light came from the streetlights outside the window in the other room, filtering through our glass wall. The only sound was the distant highway traffic and the sounds of the woods. We were standing on the site of a haunted inn, two-hundred-plus-years gone, in the dark, waiting to talk to spirits. I was pretty psyched.
CANTOR: (addressing the spirit) My name is Marcia Cantor. I’d like to speak with you, if I may. If you’d like to speak to us, could you please turn one of the lights on?
(quiet gasp, probably from Newt)
NEWT (VO): The red light turned on. We were all looking at it--no one had touched it. It was wild.
CANTOR: (calm) Thank you. Now please turn it off.
NEWT (VO): A few seconds went by, and then the red light turned off.
CANTOR: Thank you. Now, before we begin our conversation, I’d like the blue light to be yes, and the red light to be no. Is this all right with you?
NEWT (VO): Now the blue light flashed on. ‘Yes.’ I could hardly believe it.
WOMAN: Neither could I. But we went over every inch of that place. We looked for remotes, switches, and I watched Kyle and Diane. They never moved. Whoever was faking, it wasn’t them.
NEWT: (fondly) That’s my producer, Mako. She was not as excited as I was.
MAKO: (skeptically) Of course, there had to be some explanation. A flight path? The interstate? Underground pipes? Something had to be shaking those lights.
NEWT: I think underground pipes is a stretch to explain what happened next.
DIANE: Oh my god. Look.
(someone gasps)
KYLE: The door!
(BANG--loud clatter and commotion)
NEWT (VO): (amused) Wanna tell them what happened, Mako?
MAKO: It felt like everything happened at the same second. First, the battery died on my zoom recorder. I was standing next to Newt. So I ducked behind him to get batteries out of our equipment bag, and of course, right at that moment, Diane saw something. Everyone gasped, and then the door opened. Seemingly of its own accord. It startled me, and I tripped over some wires, and knocked over some equipment. ...Loudly.
NEWT: (laughing) We were all pretty shook up. The door did seem to open by itself--but that wasn’t the weirdest thing, to me. It was what Diane and the others saw right before that.
MAKO: Which was?
NEWT: They said that they saw the apparition on the other side of the glass. They said it was an old man.
MAKO: “They said.” You didn’t see it.
NEWT: No. But. They said it left an imprint. An imprint of a face. And I did see that. In fact, when the lights came back on, I got a picture of it.
So just like that, we were ghosthunting.
(interlude music #1 plays)
NEWT (VO): Both Dr. Cantor and Kyle said they saw an apparition. There was an imprint of something like a face on the glass. Was that strip mall bank really haunted? Stick around. We may have our answer soon. It’s the Black Tapes. I’m Newt Geiszler.
-----------SPONSOR BREAK #1-----------
⏮ ⏯ ⏭
WOMAN: Hi. How can I help you?
NEWT: Hi! I’m Newt Geiszler. This is my producer, Mako Mori. We’re with the GBH podcast network. I left a few messages for Steph.
WOMAN: More than a few, I think.
NEWT: (laughs)
WOMAN: (does not laugh)
(beat)
NEWT: So is she available?
WOMAN: Have a seat. I’ll tell her you’re here.
NEWT (VO): After trying various channels, we were able to get an interview with Stephanie Hubble. She is Dr. Gottlieb’s publicist. It turned out, she was a fan of a certain late-night punk rock show hosted by a certain someone I know...
WOMAN: Hi, I’m Steph. You must be Mr. Geiszler.
NEWT: Please, Newt! Glad to meet you, Steph!
STEPH: ....Which makes you the host of Stranger Danger! I can’t believe it! It is such a treat to meet you.
MAKO: That’s me! DJ Lady Danger. (laughs) I can’t believe you stay up late enough to listen to my show.
STEPH: I have been listening for years, I adore it. I work late most Thursdays, so I listen to it driving home. It’s so great.
MAKO: You don’t look like a punk rock fan, I have to say.
STEPH: But you look like a punk rock DJ.
MAKO: I’ll take that as a compliment?
STEPH: It is! So listen, what can I do for you? Anything. What is it you need?
NEWT: A half-hour sit-down interview with Dr. Hermann Gottlieb.
(pause)
NEWT: Is he available?
STEPH: (hesitant) He... isn’t doing interviews, currently.
MAKO: ...But?
STEPH: But... I’ll see what I can do. No promises. But for you, I’ll do my best.
(interlude music #3)
Voice of DR. HERMANN GOTTLIEB, muffled over phone: Hello. I’m returning one of... twenty-two telephone calls from a Mr. Newton Geiszler. This is Hermann Gottlieb.
NEWT (VO): So. At last, dear listener, after a thousand phone calls, millions of messages, uncountable emails, I found my way to the offices of Dr. Hermann Gottlieb.
His institute is based in Cambridge. I crossed the river and found it--a three-story brick building of ambiguous architectural era, framed by sycamores, perfectly camouflaged in the gray area between MIT and Harvard. His office is on the third floor, looking over the tops of the trees towards the Charles.
(sound of chairs moving, people sitting down)
NEWT: All right if I put the mic here?
DR. GOTTLIEB: (sounding stiff) Certainly.
NEWT: (sitting down) You’re a hard man to reach, Dr. Gottlieb.
DR. GOTTLIEB: Well it seems you’re a harder man to escape, Mr. Geiszler.
NEWT: (laughs)
(beat)
DR. GOTTLIEB: So. What is it you want to know?
NEWT (VO): Dr. Gottlieb is a thin man, medium height, with cropped brown hair and a thoroughly academic air. If you passed him by on the street, you would just know that he was a professor of something, and that you were probably flunking his class. Though he grew up in Lincoln, Massachusetts, Dr. Gottlieb attended boarding school and college in his mother’s native England. Hence the accent you hear.
He has his reading glasses on a chain around his neck. He wears a neat brown suit that he surely stole from the set of a BBC period piece about Edwardian Oxford. He walks with a cane, but he walks fast. There's a certain kind of energy coiled under that professorial suit.
And his eyes are sharp--almost as sharp as his cheekbones--and constantly searching, as if they see something we could not, or as if they mean to find it.
NEWT: So Dr. Gottlieb, you have degrees in psychology, and religion and mythology. Did you never study the paranormal, parapsychology?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Of course not. You cannot get a degree in those fields.
NEWT: No?
DR. GOTTLIEB: No. Can you get a degree from the flat earth society? (Newt laughs) It is because the so-called paranormal does not hold up under any prolonged empirical scrutiny.
NEWT: Never?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Not ever.
NEWT: Which is why no one has claimed your million-dollar prize.
DR. GOTTLIEB: That’s correct.
NEWT: Talk to me about the prize. What made you set it up?
DR. GOTTLIEB: (after a pause) When my father died, he left me the money. I wanted to do something useful with it, in his memory.
NEWT: And what did your father do? Not a ghosthunter, I take it?
DR. GOTTLIEB: (terse) He was a businessman of sorts.
NEWT: Tell me, Dr. Gottlieb, as a scientist, doesn’t it interest you more to make discoveries of your own? What makes you so hell-bent on disproving others?
DR. GOTTLIEB: (flatly) I’m not interested in that.
NEWT: (confused) In?
DR. GOTTLIEB: The personal line of questioning. The human side. What “motivates” Dr. Gottlieb. I’m not interested.
NEWT: (slight pause) Okay. Then... tell me about the cases you get.
NEWT (VO): Listener, there’s two kinds of journalists. Two kinds of people, really. But there are journalists interested in facts, and journalists interested in people. When I finally sat down and looked Dr. Gottlieb in the eye, he already interested me as a subject--intensely. But I realized that, finally, I had found a person who was going to tell me some concrete goddamn facts. I had only been in the business of the paranormal for a few weeks, but I was already swamped in uncertainty and starved for cold hard facts. I didn’t even realize how starved until he started speaking.
His redirection of the conversation was unusual, and maybe even rude, but I found I didn’t care. Dr. Gottlieb interested me, certainly, but he interested me not because of who he was, but because of what he had to say.
DR. GOTTLIEB: Most often, the cases we receive are just someone telling a story. Without evidence, it isn’t much of a case. Sometimes, they describe a site--a home they believe to be haunted, usually. If the story is compelling, my team and I will go investigate the site.
NEWT: EMF reader and all?
NEWT (VO): Dr. Gottlieb’s office had books and tapes and file cabinets, the usual academic wall-dressing, but behind his desk was a shelf of unusual equipment. Some of it I recognized from our bank seance, like the EMF meter and the scopes. Others were more arcane or more advanced. I pointed at them.
DR. GOTTLIEB: (creak as he turns in his chair) All the equipment. We like to stay current on what the so-called believers are using. That way we know how the data can be faked.
NEWT: Huh.
DR. GOTTLIEB: A lot of cases involve photo or video. For those, we have a forensics service we consult.
NEWT: And the results are always negative?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Without exception.
NEWT: (good-natured but challenging) So, unequivocally, you’re saying, there is no such thing as ghosts, never has been?
DR. GOTTLIEB: There has never once in history been a single supernatural event on this planet. When a person thinks they see a ghost, they are reacting to another stimulus. They are reacting to an unresolved history of a location, or they are misplacing their own guilt, or grief, or fear. These reasons have effectively explained countless so-called sightings. Yet has there ever been a single proven case of the so-called paranormal? None.
The public have become so comfortable with our level of scientific knowledge that they feel there is nothing new to learn, they are regressing--it’s just like the people with no expertise who decide the earth is flat, or the people who get bored of a world without plagues and stop vaccinating th--
NEWT: Hang on--stop.
DR. GOTTLIEB: (...)
NEWT: I’m not interested in that.
DR. GOTTLIEB: In?
NEWT: Listening to you pontificate. What I’m interested in is facts.
(sound of chair moving)
NEWT: Talk to me about these.
NEWT (VO): I was pointing to a bookcase on the wall next to me. It was full of white VHS tapes, the plastic kind that clip shut. Each one is labeled with an intriguing title: Poltergeist of State Street, The Inhabited Porch, The Haunting of Mrs. and Mrs. Smith. Inside, there were photos, USB sticks, notecards, various bits of case information; in one, there was an actual VHS tape.
DR. GOTTLIEB: ...These are our solved cases.
NEWT: You have a lot after twelve years.
DR. GOTTLIEB: This is just the past year.
NEWT: (genuinely) What? Wow. That’s impressive.
DR. GOTTLIEB: It’s actually slightly below average for us. The rest are in the storage closet.
NEWT: May I?
NEWT (VO): Dr. G took me to the door at the back of his office and showed me into the storage area.
NEWT: Oh my god. How many is this? Thousands? They’re stacked so deep I can’t see how many is on each shelf.
DR. GOTTLIEB: At last count, over two thousand.
NEWT: Good god, Dr. Gottlieb.
DR. GOTTLIEB: You aren’t one for journalistic detachment, are you?
NEWT: (chuckles) Tell me--what are those?
DR. GOTTLIEB: (suddenly sounding uncomfortable again) ...Nothing.
NEWT (VO): At this point, Dr. G shut down our interview. Politely, mostly. But he didn’t really answer any more questions, and I left without a fight. After he promised a follow-up phone interview if I had further questions.
I certainly did. Questions, among other things, about what it was I saw in his storage closet. Stay with us after the break.
-----------SPONSOR BREAK #2-----------
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NEWT (VO): I called Dr. Gottlieb back a few days later.
NEWT: Thanks for taking the time.
DR. GOTTLIEB: (over the phone) It’s no trouble.
NEWT: (chipper) There’s just a favor I--apologies--have to ask.
DR. GOTTLIEB: Yes?
NEWT: My intern had an issue with his SD card and we lost the photos. The ones we took of you for our website?
DR. GOTTLIEB: (...)
NEWT: We’ll be in and out. You’ll barely notice me.
DR. GOTTLIEB: ...I doubt that. Come by tomorrow afternoon.
(interlude music #3)
NEWT (VO): Strictly speaking, I did not need to revisit his office for those photos. My producer said we could just use the one from his website. But I wanted an excuse to ask him a few more questions--particularly about something I'd seen in his storage closet.
NEWT: Hi. Thanks for seeing us again.
DR. GOTTLIEB: Hello Mr. Geiszler.
NEWT: Before we get the photo, do you mind if I show you something?
DR. GOTTLIEB: What sort of something?
NEWT: A ghost.
DR. GOTTLIEB: (humoring him) Is that so?
NEWT: (airy) It's pretty convincing.
DR. GOTTLIEB: Many people are too easily convinced.
NEWT: Listen. I don’t want to oversell it, but I think that prize might be in the bag for me.
NEWT (VO): It worked. He agreed to look. I opened my computer and pulled up my file on our “haunted” Vermont bank. I wanted some answers, and I knew he was the man to give them to me.
NEWT: Last week, I was up at UVM. Some locals took us to the site of an old haunted inn.
DR. GOTTLIEB: The Old Williston Inn?
NEWT: (impressed) You do know your hauntings.
DR. GOTTLIEB: (warmer) Alleged hauntings.
NEWT (VO): First I showed Dr. G the security footage of the door opening.
NEWT: What do you think?
DR. GOTTLIEB: The door is automatic.
NEWT: It wasn’t. We checked with security.
DR. GOTTLIEB: And they couldn’t have lied?
NEWT: When we looked at the door, we couldn’t find any mechanism.
DR. GOTTLIEB: There’s a lot of ways to fake that. If the door wasn’t automatic, it could have opened due to air pressure changes. It happens all the time when the latch bolt isn’t fully in the slot.
NEWT: Okay, sure. I mean, I’m not sure I buy it, but that wasn’t all.
DR. GOTTLIEB: What else was there?
NEWT: Dr. Cantor's tech had an EMF reader. It was going haywire.
DR. GOTTLIEB: Did the tech set it down?
NEWT: Pardon?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Did the tech hold the meter, or set it in one place?
NEWT: As I remember, she walked around with it and found the place with the most activity.
DR. GOTTLIEB: That is incorrect use of the instrument. They are meant to be set in one place, and left alone. “Ghosthunters” misuse them like that all the time. It renders their data useless.
NEWT: So that accounts for the high levels she measured?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Not entirely, but it does confound them. May I?
NEWT (VO): He took over the laptop and did some very fast typing. He pulled up two maps.
NEWT: What is this?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Cell phone tower map.
NEWT: Why?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Cell phone tower signals disrupt EMF meter readings. And this... (sound of clicking) ...this bank is in one of the highest-traffic cross-ping zones in the state. None of those EMF readings were trustworthy.
NEWT: (sounding half-convinced but still game) Alright... So what about this, then?
NEWT (VO): I took back the laptop to locate the photo of the imprint in the window--the one left that looked like a face.
DR. GOTTLIEB: (archly) I seem to recall you saying this would be a quick visit.
NEWT: (audibly typing) ...But?
DR. GOTTLIEB: ...But if I had believed that, I would have had to resign my post as the leading skeptic on the eastern seaboard.
NEWT: (laughs) Ha. All right, here it is.
DR. GOTTLIEB: (...)
NEWT: What do you think?
DR. GOTTLIEB: ...Tell me what it is you see in this picture, Mr. Geiszler.
NEWT: Well, in the bank, we were all sitting in a circle. With the lights off. Then the tech saw a figure in on the other side of this window--an apparition, she said. Two of the others saw it too. They said it was a man.
DR. GOTTLIEB: You did not see this apparition?
NEWT: No. But the imprint is real. I mean, obviously. You can see it right here.
DR. GOTTLIEB: What you’ve described to me is not what you see, but the context in which you saw it. Looking at it in isolation, I don’t see anything but some smudges on glass.
NEWT: You don’t see a face?
DR. GOTTLIEB: No.
NEWT: Here. The eyes. And this is the mouth. No?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Pareidolia.
NEWT: Pardon?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Your brain, interpreting random information to fit a pattern. It’s called pareidolia. It’s biologically hardwired into us. Interpreting shapes as faces is one of its most basic forms. Babies interpret the simplest shapes--two dots and a line--as a face from a very early age.
NEWT: You calling me a baby, Dr. G?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Certainly not. What I’m saying is, the combination of hardwired pattern recognition and supernatural context, together, shaped your interpretation of these smudges into a paranormal one. What I see, sans context, as random smudges, you see as the imprint of a ghost’s face.
NEWT (VO): Loath as I was to admit it, he did have me there. That was a pretty convincing deconstruction. I had one last defense: the flashlight “conversation.” No remotes, I insisted, and no one was touching them. This one, I thought, would definitely get him. I was completely wrong.
DR. GOTTLIEB: This is actually a very common trick. It’s a matter of heat conduction. In those screw-top flashlights, there is a plastic ring. When the light is on, the bulb gets hot. Marcia Cantor unscrews the lid, just enough to turn it off. But that plastic ring expanded while it was hot. Now that the light is off, it cools again, contracting enough to bring the two bits of metal back together. Forming a circuit...
NEWT: ...And turning the light on.
DR. GOTTLIEB: Exactly. Then the bulb gets hot again, expands the plastic, the light shuts off again, and the cycle continues. Marcia Cantor and television ghosthunters use this trick all the time.
NEWT: Damn. So the whole seance was just a fake-out, then?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Probably not. Not on purpose, I mean. In general, people like her just really want to believe. They warp any data they receive to fit their worldview.
NEWT: Hm. Pareidolia?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Essentially. Here’s what you should do. Show them a picture--say you dug up some portraits of the family that owned the old inn. Show them any old 1700s portrait. I guarantee they will swear they saw the same ghost.
NEWT (VO): This, I was curious about. The next day I found a portrait one of Benjamin Franklin’s children and emailed it to Dr. Cantor.
NEWT: So, Marcia, my intern dug up a photo of one of the family who used to own the Old Williston Inn.
CANTOR: (over the phone) Oh, that’s interesting.
NEWT: Yeah! I’m sending it to you now so you can take a look. We thought maybe it could be... could be the same man you saw behind the glass.
CANTOR: (after a pause) That’s him.
NEWT: (hesitant) Are you sure?
CANTOR: Absolutely positive. That was the man I saw. I would know him anywhere.
NEWT (VO): Was I disappointed by how handily Dr. G deconstructed our seance? Sure. At first. But I had something else I wanted to ask him about too. Back in his office, I rerouted the conversation. I indicated the row of white VHS cases on his shelf.
NEWT: So is this how you deal with all your (tap tap--Newt is tapping on the plastic spine of one of the tapes) debunked cases? Point by point takedown?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Correct.
NEWT: All of these, disproven.
DR. GOTTLIEB: Correct.
NEWT: So what’s the difference between these white cases and the black ones in your back room?
DR. GOTTLIEB: Those... (sound of shifting in seat) The black cases are for those we don’t yet have the resources or technology to disprove.
NEWT: “...Yet.”
DR. GOTTLIEB: That’s right. We will, sooner, or later. It’s just a matter of time and technology.
NEWT: But none of the people who sent you those black tapes can claim the prize?
DR. GOTTLIEB: No. They don’t stand on their own as proof. I consider them open--cold cases, if you will.
NEWT: I see.
(pause)
NEWT: Could I take a look?
(pause...)
NEWT (VO): Dr. Gottlieb stared at me for a long minute. This was the moment of truth--the point of no return. Would he say yes? Would he share his secret tapes? The whole show depended on it--and so did my sanity.
I had to know. I had to. I tried not to look as desperate as I felt.
But even as he stared me down, I saw it in his eye.
He was going to say yes. I just had to wait.
(outro music fades in)
This is the Black Tapes Podcast. I’m Newt Geiszler.
Next time: we hear Dr. Gottlieb’s first “black tape” case.
See you there.
(music fades out)
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