The paranormal is a subject of controversy. The evidence is often problematic and certainly not scientific. Take, for instance, psychics. Scientists have investigated their abilities. In experiments, psychics fail to perform better than guessing. Scientists isolate a psychic so others can’t supply this person with information. Sometimes, psychics make stunning guesses, but not in these experiments. Divination can be fraud or manipulation. The same is true for the paranormal in general. Paranormal incidents can be natural phenomena or the result of fraud or delusion.

Still, a large number of paranormal incidents remain without explanation. Few scientists dare to investigate them, as it could make them a laughingstock to their peers. And what can be worse than getting zero publications in respectable scientific magazines because you take reincarnation stories seriously? That is groupthink and intellectual cowardice on a grandiose scale. Apart from that, there is little science can say about the paranormal because there likely is no such thing as the Third Law of Paranormal Activity that explains it all neatly in an elegant mathematical formula.

Thinking that science will one day give the answers is also a belief. Science can become like a religion once you discard evidence that contradicts it. Evidence for the paranormal doesn’t meet scientific criteria, but that doesn’t make it invalid. Science requires that we use a theory, such as the existence of psychic abilities, to make predictions that we can subsequently check. So, if a psychic doesn’t do better than chance guessing during an experiment, this individual has no psychic abilities from a scientific perspective. But there is more to the world than science can prove.

Countless times, witnesses have observed things that the sciences can’t explain. In the early twentieth century, Charles Fort collected 40,000 notes on paranormal experiences. They were about strange events reported in magazines and newspapers, such as The Times, as well as in scientific journals, including Scientific American, Nature, and Science. Most incidents probably never become public, so the total number of these incidents is impossible to guess. It could be billions. Fort had worked on a manuscript suggesting a secret civilisation controls events in this world. He compared the close-mindedness of many scientists to that of religious fundamentalists.

So, did my wife’s father make himself noticed from the other side? Or was the wind gust and the clocks being back just bizarre coincidences caused by natural phenomena? Or did my wife make it up to have a good story to tell at birthday parties? I know her better than you do, and I don’t think she did. I have witnessed countless strange incidents, so I don’t think she was mistaken either. She could only have noticed that these clocks were back by looking at other timepieces. Even if she had been wrong and did not find out about it, it still would have been a remarkable coincidence.

The wind gust was peculiar. The clocks made it even more mysterious. In virtual reality, the laws of nature don’t have to apply. Clocks can stop for an hour, and elephants can fly. We haven’t seen flying elephants, but virtual reality makes it possible. Psychic abilities may exist, even when the scientific method can’t certify them. And Jesus could have walked on water and raised the dead. And meaningful coincidences, even when caused by ordinary natural phenomena, may indicate someone is pulling the strings.

Latest revision: 18 July 2025

Featured image: Psychic reading room