In reviewing my shelf of ghost hunting books for a book chapter I’m writing I noted that the author of two 2011 books on ghosts and ghost hunting writes that she “is new to the paranormal community, having entered field investigation in 2008.” Doing a bit of math and knowing the lead time it takes for a book to be edited and published, I realized that she could not have had more than three years of experience (and probably closer to two) before she felt like she knew enough about ghost hunting to proclaim herself an expert and write two books on the topic. I needed at least five years to become an expert on the chupacabra, which is a far narrower subject. Ghost hunting books are rife with self-proclaimed experts whose experience is watching TV and taking ghost tours…

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