Are some people wired to see ghosts? A psychologist explains what makes paranormal experiences more likely
A psychologist explores the factors that may lead some individuals to perceive paranormal experiences, such as seeing ghosts. Approximately one in five Americans claim to have seen a ghost, while three-quarters believe in some form of paranormal activity. The article discusses how environmental stimuli and brain interpretations may contribute to these experiences.
- ▪Around 20% of Americans report having seen a ghost.
- ▪Three-quarters of Americans believe in some form of paranormal activity.
- ▪Environmental stimuli, such as electromagnetic fields, may influence perceptions of the supernatural.
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Story provenance
Attribution is not the same as permission. This drawer separates discovery metadata, excerpts, WeSearch-generated summaries, reuse status, and whether the publisher receives the visit. Nothing here claims a legal grant the publisher has not made.
Record
| Original publisher | Live Science |
| Canonical URL | https://www.livescience.com/human-behavior/psychology/are-some-people-wired-to-see-ghosts-a-psychologist-explains-what-makes-paranormal-experiences-more-likely |
| Publication time | Sat, 30 May 2026 16:05:00 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-30T16:09:38.763Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-30T16:09:38.763Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | wbaUBt6kWFA7 |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Human Behavior Psychology Are some people wired to see ghosts? A psychologist explains what makes paranormal experiences more likely Is my brain wired to never see a ghost? A psychologist on three factors that make a paranormal experience more likely By Melissa Maffeo published 30 May 2026 in Opinion When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. When you experience something that can't easily be explained, do you think of the supernatural? (Image credit: Jordan Lye via Getty Images) Copy link Facebook X Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Around 1 in 5 Americans say they've seen a ghost.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Live Science.
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