My stepson had an interest in ghosts and ghost hunting despite being a confirmed atheist. It was entertainment to him, I think.

As such, I've been on a few ghost hunting experiences with him, and have half-watched way too many episodes of Ghost Hunters. Universally, atmosphere is everything, which should tell you something. Dead of night, creepy old house, lots of back story set up, everyone in a receptive mood. These things just don't work in the light of day when everyone is wide awake and not expecting anything. And in my experience they barely work in the dead of night when everyone is all wound up over it. They work out of the corner of your eye, never in plain sight.

As such, it's easily explained by confirmation bias, agency inference, and in some cases wishful thinking. And I noted that the largest group we were in, which had a mix of Christians, spiritualists, and new age types, you could see that each person projected their beliefs onto what they experienced, and funny thing, the experiences were perfectly explained by each person's very different existential beliefs.

I think the mistake people make is they underestimate the power of your mind to deceive you when you want to be deceived. The most "interesting" thing we experienced was some finely balanced rods moving around seemingly of their own accord, but that is just the ideomotor effect. It was impressive though.

I don't think scientists are any more close-minded to ghosts than they are to any other non-falsifiable propositions. Science doesn't deal in the unsubstantiatable and things that require credulousness or religious faith. It isn't like if just one scientist somewhere would just take it seriously, that suddenly ghosts would be proven. In fact quite a bit of effort has been expended looking into these things, more than you probably realize.

There was a multi-year double-blind study in the UK about near-death experiences: negative result. There was (I think also in the UK) investigations into spooky goings-on in someone's lab: debunked as low-frequency standing waves from electronics. The list is actually pretty long. But if one really wants to believe in ghosts, negative or inconclusive outcomes must reflect a lack of "open mindedness" or deliberate sabotage. So it goes ...

@mordant ok