Or, do they just exist in the minds of some hallucinating hotheads conspiring with self-proclaimed professionals thinking they have a right to trick everybody into believing them.

A New York woman is walking her dog. Suddenly, she sees herself floating up in the air looking down on her own dog, and her own body, still walking! At first, she does not realize it's herself. Then, panic attacks her. Is she dead? Why is she out of her body? What's happening to her?

The whole experience lasts for only a few seconds, maybe a minute. Others who are passing by her on the street do not even notice that anything extraordinary has happened.

Then, the woman "returns" to her body. Things become normal again. However, she relives this out-of-body experience (OBE) periodically for the rest of her life. She can't tell anyone - she's afraid people may think she is crazy.

Near-death experience (NDE), OBE and other such "abnormal" subjects are called the "paranormal."

The Skeptics' Response

The James Randi Educational Foundation offers a prize of $1,000,000 to anyone who can prove he or she has a psychic ability.

James Randi, who has tested many people who think they have psychic abilities, has found that when he has tested the alleged paranormal powers of psychics:

(1) they had never before tested their powers under controlled conditions; and
(2) those who don't offer preposterous rationalizations for their inability to perform seem genuinely baffled at their failure. Often, psychics are not frauds; they genuinely believe in their powers, but they have never tested their powers in any meaningful way.

Want to know more about someone famous who could
"connect with the dead"?

  

The New York Ghostbuster

During his two-year-long career as a "ghostbuster" in New York, Elliott Madison of the White Crow Society "completed or resolved" 218 "spooky" cases - Haunted houses, NDEs , OBEs, "nocturnal assaults," "face liquefaction," all sorts of cases come to him and his society.

"Sometimes, people call three or four times, send us e-mails and stuff," Madison says.

"We ask them to fill out a liability waiver form so that we do not get into trouble. Most people never call back."

"And we don't do UFO's and Bigfoot," Madison said. "They're out."

What is a "nocturnal assault?" "Suppose you wake up frozen while sleeping at night," Madison explains. "You see creatures strangling you. That's paranormal."

"Face liquefaction … we've worked on one case. A guy was cursed by his gay partner after they broke up. The poor guy's face started to liquefy.

Doctors first thought it was Leishmania, the flesh-eating bacteria. They couldn't stop it." "Finally, he came to us. It was a serious case, but we brought him back to life," Madison said.

"He also had to go through 16 plastic surgeries." Madison would not elaborate what he specifically did to "bring him back to life."