{"id":26233,"date":"2025-04-18T22:27:21","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T22:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=26233"},"modified":"2025-04-18T22:33:56","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T22:33:56","slug":"joe-nickell-paranormal-investigator-and-real-life-scully-dies-at-80","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=26233","title":{"rendered":"Joe Nickell, Paranormal Investigator and \u2018Real-Life Scully,\u2019 Dies at 80"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photographs, via the Nickell family<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

As a paranormal investigator, Joe Nickell was in high demand, studying ghosts, the Loch Ness monster, crop circles and appearances of Jesus, including one on a tortilla.<\/p>\n

His search for legendary creatures included Bigfoot, particularly in Bluff Creek, Calif., which was famous for a 1967 film that that purported to show the elusive creature walking in the forest.<\/p>\n

He solved hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of mysteries, drawing skills from his previous work as a magician, which taught him how to deceive others.<\/p>\n

At one point he traveled to Conyers, Ga., to debunk a rumor that the statues there had heartbeats.<\/p>\n

He often addressed the subject of aliens \u2014 and had fun in the process. Here, he staged what he called an \u201cabduction\u201d by \u201caliens\u201d in Kelly, Ky., the site of a supposed alien sighting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Joe Nickell, Paranormal Investigator and \u2018Real-Life Scully,\u2019 Dies at 80<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n
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Before Joe Nickell became, in his words, \u201cthe world\u2019s only full-time professional paranormal investigator,\u201d he was:<\/p>\n

a magician
a blackjack dealer
a private investigator
a poet
a bingo caller
a riverboat manager
a professor of literature
a carousel operator and
a calligrapher.<\/p>\n

He listed roughly 1,000 more \u201cpersonas\u201d on his website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cGod help us if Nickell ever has an identity crisis,\u201d he said a friend liked to joke. \u201cThere\u2019ll be 20 of him running around not speaking to each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Nickell (pronounced nickel) never feared such a crackup. He viewed his various personas as the many facets of a single personality that provided him with investigatory dexterity and made him \u201ca sharp-tongued and amiably pompous old gumshoe,\u201d as The New Yorker described him<\/a> in a 2002 profile.<\/p>\n

Working for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, a program run by the nonprofit group Center for Inquiry, and as a columnist for Skeptical Inquirer, the organization\u2019s magazine, Mr. Nickell investigated ghosts, poltergeist activity, apparitions, the Loch Ness monster, crop circles and multiple reappearances of Jesus, including one on a tortilla.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cSome of it is like satire,\u201d Mr. Nickell told<\/a> The New York Times in 1997, \u201calmost like it\u2019s reached a comic level.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in a career that made him notable in both low and high culture \u2014 he appeared on the tabloid program \u201cThe Sally Jessy Raphael Show\u201d and published books<\/a> with university presses \u2014 Mr. Nickell conducted his inquiries with a \u201ckinder, gentler skepticism,\u201d as he put it, than his contemporaries did.<\/p>\n

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Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into<\/a>\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0for all of The Times.<\/p>\n

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Photographs, via the Nickell familyAs a paranormal investigator, Joe Nickell was in high demand, studying ghosts, the Loch Ness monster, crop circles and appearances of Jesus, including one on a tortilla.His search for legendary creatures included Bigfoot, particularly in Bluff Creek, Calif., which was famous for a 1967 film that that purported to show the elusive creature walking in the forest.He solved hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of mysteries, drawing skills from his previous work as a magician, which taught him how to deceive others.At one point he traveled to Conyers, Ga., to debunk a rumor that the statues there had heartbeats.He often addressed the subject of aliens \u2014 and had fun in the process. Here, he staged what he called an \u201cabduction\u201d by \u201caliens\u201d in Kelly, Ky., the site of a supposed alien sighting.Joe Nickell, Paranormal Investigator and \u2018Real-Life Scully,\u2019 Dies at 80Before Joe Nickell became, in his words, \u201cthe world\u2019s only full-time professional paranormal investigator,\u201d he was:a magiciana blackjack dealera private investigatora poeta bingo callera riverboat managera professor of literaturea carousel operator anda calligrapher.He listed roughly 1,000 more \u201cpersonas\u201d on his website.\u201cGod help us if Nickell ever has an identity crisis,\u201d he said a friend liked to joke. \u201cThere\u2019ll be 20 of him running around not speaking to each other.\u201dMr. Nickell (pronounced nickel) never feared such a crackup. He viewed his various personas as the many facets of a single personality that provided him with investigatory dexterity and made him \u201ca sharp-tongued and amiably pompous old gumshoe,\u201d as The New Yorker described him in a 2002 profile.Working for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, a program run by the nonprofit group Center for Inquiry, and as a columnist for Skeptical Inquirer, the organization\u2019s magazine, Mr. Nickell investigated ghosts, poltergeist activity, apparitions, the Loch Ness monster, crop circles and multiple reappearances of Jesus, including one on a tortilla.\u201cSome of it is like satire,\u201d Mr. Nickell told The New York Times in 1997, \u201calmost like it\u2019s reached a comic level.\u201dBut in a career that made him notable in both low and high culture \u2014 he appeared on the tabloid program \u201cThe Sally Jessy Raphael Show\u201d and published books with university presses \u2014 Mr. Nickell conducted his inquiries with a \u201ckinder, gentler skepticism,\u201d as he put it, than his contemporaries did.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26235,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26233"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26241,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26233\/revisions\/26241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}