ghosts, vampires and zombies

8/4/2019 Ghosts, Vampires and Zombies

1/15

Cinema Fiction vs. Physics Reality

Ghosts, Vampires, and Zombies

Two physicists examine certain features of popular myths regardingghosts, vampires, and zombies as they appear in film and folklore.

C O S T A S J . E F T H I M I O U A N D S O H A N G G A N D H I

For many people, ghosts, vampires, zombies, and the like are no morethan Hollywood fantasy. However, these movies have increasingly cometo reflect popularly held pseudoscientific beliefs. For instance, the 2005movie White Noise is based on the new trend among paranormalists

Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP). The occult underground in bothAmerica and Europe is witnessing a trendy rise in vampirism, and belief invoodoo zombiefication is widespread in many parts of South America andAfrica. Furthermore, paranormal depictions in the media, especiallytelevision and Hollywood, have a definite influence on the way peoplethink about paranormal claims(see, for example, Sparks 1998 and Sparks2006).

In this article, we point out inconsistencies associated with the ghost,vampire, and zombie mythologies as portrayed in popular films and

folklore and give practical explanations to some of their features. Ofcourse, the paranormalist or occultist could claim that the Hollywoodportrayal is a rather unsophisticated and inaccurate representation oftheir beliefs and thus the discussion we present is moot. However, if theyare to change their definition each time we raise an issue, then all thatthey are really arguing is that there exists something out there that maybe given the name ghost, for instance. Surely, no skeptic could arguewith this.

Ghosts

Sudden Cold

It has become a Hollywood clich that the entrance of a ghostly presenceis foreshadowed by a sudden and overwhelming chill (see, for example,The Sixth Sense). In fact, sharp temperature drops are very commonlyreported in association with supposed real-life encounters with ghosts orpoltergeists. This feature of supposed ghost sightings lends itself naturallyto physical explanation.

The famous Haunted Gallery at Hampton Court Palace near London is

reputedly stalked by the spirit of Catherine Howard, who was executed onFebruary 13, 1542, by order of Henry VIII. Visitors to the room have


2/15

described hearing screams and seeing apparitions in the gallery. A teamof ghost-busting psychologists, led by Richard Wiseman1 of HertfordshireUniversity, installed thermal cameras and air-movement detectors in thegallery. About 400 palace visitors were then quizzed on whether theycould feel a presence in the gallery. More than half reported sudden

drops in temperature, and some said they sensed a ghostly presence.Several people claimed to have seen Elizabethan figures.

Before moving on to an explanation, we will need to outline the concept ofheat. When a warm object is placed next to a cool object (see Figure1) energy will begin to flow from the warmer body (causing it to cool) tothe cooler body (causing it to warm). This energy, which is beingtransferred between the two objects due to their difference intemperature, is called heat. Note that an object is never said to possessany amount of heat; heat is only defined through transfer. For instance,

no matter how hot a stove, it never possesses any degree of heat. Whensomeone suddenly touches the stove, however, there is heatit is theenergy flowing from the stove to that persons hand.

As heat continues to be transferredfrom the warmer body to the coolerone in figure 1, and the warmerbodys temperature continues to dropwhile the cooler bodys temperatureclimbs, there comes a point when the

two bodies are at the sametemperature. At this point, heatceases to flow between the twoobjects, since neither is the hotter oneand heat has no definite direction inwhich to be transferred. This conditionis called thermal equilibrium.

In our stove example, heat wastransferred via conductionthe exchange of heat through direct contact.

There are other ways that heat can be transferred. These involve theexchange of heat by two objects separated by some distance. If these twoobjects are emersed in a fluid (Earths atmosphere, for example), thenthe warmer body may provide heat to the fluid in its immediate vicinity.This warmer fluid will then tend to rise, thus coming in contact with acooler body above. There may also be a lateral current in the fluid, thusallowing the heated fluid to affect a cooler body to the side. This type ofheat transfer, by an intermediary fluid, is called convection.


3/15

In figure 2a, we give a simplifiedexample of what are known asconvection currents. Suppose that theright wall is kept warm and the leftwall is kept cool. Air in contact with

the right wall will tend to gain heatand then rise, while air in contact withthe left wall will tend to lose heat andthen sink. The circular flow that formsis called a convection current. Aircycles around in a loop, picking upsome heat at the right wall, droppingit off at the left wall, and then comingback around again. Actually, the air-current pattern will be somewhat

more complicated than what we just described. There will be all kinds ofsmaller cycles and eddies embedded in complex patterns, as in figure 2b.The overall flow, however, will be as in figure 2a.

The third mode of heat transfer allows for exchange between twoseparated objects even if they are in a total vacuum. How can two objectsexchange heat if there is no matter in between them? The answer isradiation. The thermal energy of a body is expressed in the jiggling ofits various constituent particles. As electrically charged particles within abody jiggle about, they produce electromagnetic waves. When these

waves hit another body, they cause the particles in that body to jigglemore than they were before, and the body heats up. Since hotter bodiesproduce more of this radiation, there will be more radiation from thehotter body falling upon the cooler body than from the cooler body fallingupon the hotter body. Thus, overall, the hotter body will be losing heatwhile the cooler body will be gaining heat. We will not be too concernedwith this particular mechanism for heat exchange in this article.

Returning to the Haunted Gallery at Hampton Court Palace, RichardWisemans team reported that the experiences could be simply explained

by the gallerys numerous concealed doors. These elderly exits are drafty,and the combination of air currents they let in cause sudden changes inthe rooms temperature. In two particular spots, the temperature of thegallery plummeted by up to 2C (3.6F). You do, literally, walk into acolumn of cold air sometimes, said Wiseman. Its possible that peopleare misattributing normal phenomena . . . . If you suddenly feel cold, andyoure in a haunted place, that might bring on a sense of fear and a morescary experience. Thus, the rumor that cold spots are associated withghosts seems to be a myth created by the construction of old buildingsand vivid imaginations.


4/15

But how could a few degrees drop intemperature explain the dramaticchills described in so many ghostlyaccounts? First off, what we sense ascold is not correlated to temperature

so much as to the rate at which heatis being transferred from our bodies tothe environment. For instance, even ina temperate pool, one feels a verysharp chill when one first enters. Amoderate draft containing condensedmoisture could cause a very sharpsensation of cold. Second, we are all aware of the tall-tale effect.Memories tend to become distorted and exaggerated. It is exactly thisreason why scientists tend not to rely on unchecked eyewitness accounts.

The Inconsistency of the Notion of Immaterialness

Popular myth holds that ghosts are immaterial. For instance, in the movieGhost, the recently deceased main character tries desperately to save hisformer lover from a violent intruder. His attempts to intervene grant himno avail, as, at each lunge, he passes right through the perpetrator. It isinteresting, however, that he was able to walk up the stairs at the sametime. In fact, this is a common feature of the ghost myth. Ghosts are heldto be able to walk about as they please, but they pass through walls and

any attempt to pick up an object or affect their environment provesfruitless unless they are poltergeists, of course!

Walking requires an interaction withthe floor, and such interactions aregoverned by Newtons Laws of Motion.Newtons first law is the law of inertia.It states that a body at rest willremain at rest until acted upon by anexternal force.

Therefore, a person cannot startwalking unless a force, applied bysome body other than herself, isacting upon her. But where is theforce coming from? The only object in contact with the person whilewalking is the floor. So, the force moving a person while walking iscoming from the floor. But how does the floor know to exert a force whenthe person wants to start walking and stop exerting it when the personwants to stand? Actually, there is no magic here. The person actually

tells the floor using Newtons third law.


5/15

Newtons third law says that if one object exerts a force on anotherobject, then the second object exerts a force that is equal but oppositelydirected, on the first objecthence for each action there is an equal butopposite reaction. Thus, when the skate-boarder in figure 4 pushes onthe wall, the wall pushes right back on her, causing her to accelerate off

to the left.

The mechanics of walking are shownin Figure 5: the person wanting towalk must remain at rest unless aforce acts on her. She gets the floor toapply a force on her by applying anopposite force on the floor with herfoot. She keeps repeating this action,alternating feet. The point is that, for

the ghost to walk, it must be applyingforce to the floor. The floor is part ofthe physical universe, so, in order towalk, the ghost must have an affecton the physical universe. If this is so,then we can detect the ghost viaphysical observation. The depiction ofghosts walking contradicts the idea that ghosts are immaterial.

So which is it? Are ghosts material or immaterial? Maybe they are only

material when it comes to walking. Well, then we must assume that theycant control this selective immaterialness, otherwise Patrick Swayzewould have saved his girlfriend in Ghost. In this case, we could placestress sensors on the floor to detect a ghosts presence. Maybe they walkby some other supernatural means. Well, why cant they use this powerto manipulate objects when they want to? Even more, it seems strange tohave a supernatural power that only allows you to get around bymimicking human ambulation. This is a very slow and awkward way ofmoving about in the scheme of things. In any case, youd have to go tosome lengths to make this whole thing consistent.

Incidentally, the reader may havenoticed that we skipped a law in ourdiscussion. We discussed the first andthird of Newtons laws. Newtonssecond law of motion states that theacceleration of an objectthe rate atwhich it speeds upis proportional tothe net force applied, the constant ofproportionality being the mass. Wedidnt need the precise statement ofthis law but, silently, we did use it.


6/15

The second law implies that the acceleration of an object will be nonzero(and thus the object will be able to change its state of motion) only if anet force is acting on it. This was exactly our statement: Therefore, aperson cannot start walking unless a force, applied by some body otherthan herself, is acting upon her.

Vampires

Anyone who has seen John Carpenters Vampires, Dracula, Blade, or anyother vampire film is already quite familiar with the vampire legend. Thevampire needs to feed on human blood. After one has stuck his fangs intoyour neck and sucked you dry, you turn into a vampire yourself and carryon the blood-sucking legacy. The fact of the matter is, if vampires trulyfeed with even a tiny fraction of the frequency that they are depicted asdoing in the movies and folklore, then humanity would have been wiped

out quite quickly after the first vampire appeared.

Let us assume that a vampire need feed only once a month. This iscertainly a highly conservative assumption, given any Hollywood vampirefilm. Now, two things happen when a vampire feeds. The humanpopulation decreases by one and the vampire population increases byone. Let us suppose that the first vampire appeared in 1600 c.e. Itdoesnt really matter what date we choose for the first vampire to appear;it has little bearing on our argument. We list a government Web site inthe references (U.S. Census) that provides an estimate of the world

population for any given date. For January 1, 1600, we will accept thatthe global population was 536,870,911.2 In our argument, we had at thesame time one vampire.

We will ignore the human mortality and birth rate for the time being andonly concentrate on the effects of vampire feeding. On February 1, 1600,one human will have died and a new vampire will have been born. Thisgives two vampires and 536,870,9111 humans. The next month, thereare two vampires feeding, thus two humans die and two new vampiresare born. This gives four vampires and 536,870,9113 humans. Now on

April 1, 1600, there are four vampires feeding and thus we have fourhuman deaths and four new vampires being born. This gives us eightvampires and 536,870,9117 humans.

By now, the reader has probably caught on to the progression. Eachmonth, the number of vampires doubles, so that, after n months havepassed, there are2323 . . . 32=2n{n timesvampires. This sort of progression is known in mathematics as ageometric progressionmore specifically, it is a geometric progression


7/15

with ratio two, since we multiply by two at each step. A geometricprogression increases at a tremendous rate, a fact that will become clearshortly. Now, all but one of these vampires were once human, so that thehuman population is its original population minus the number of vampiresexcluding the original one. So after n months have passed, there are

536,870,9112n+1humans. The vampire population increases geometrically and the humanpopulation decreases geometrically.


8/15

Table 1 liststhe vampireand humanpopulation atthe

beginning ofeach monthover atwenty-nine-monthperiod. Notethat by thethirtiethmonth thetable lists a

humanpopulation ofzero. Weconclude thatif the firstvampireappeared onJanuary 1,1600,humanity

would havebeen wipedout by Juneof 1602, twoand a halfyears later.

All this mayseemartificial,

since weignored othereffects onthe humanpopulation.Mortality dueto factorsother thenvampireswould only

make thedecline in humans more rapid and therefore strengthen our conclusion.


9/15

The only thing that can weaken our conclusion is the human birthrate.Note that our vampires have gone from one to 536,870,912 in two and ahalf years. To keep up, the human population would have had to increaseby the same amount. The Web site (U.S. Census) mentioned earlier alsoprovides estimated birth rates for any given time. If you go to it, you will

notice that the human birthrate never approaches anything near such atremendous value. In fact, in the long run, for humans to survive in thegiven scenario, our population would have to at least double each month!This is clearly far beyond the human capacity for reproduction. If wefactor in the human birthrate into our discussion, we find that, after a fewmonths, the human birthrate is very small compared to the number ofdeaths due to vampires. This means that ignoring this factor has anegligibly small impact on our conclusion. In our example, the death ofhumanity would be prolonged by only one month.

We conclude that vampires cannot exist, since their existence wouldcontradict the existence of human beings. Incidently, the logical proofthat we just presented is of a type known as reductio ad absurdum, thatis, reduction to the absurd. Another philosophical principle related to ourargument is the truism given the elaborate title, the anthropic principle.This states that if something is necessary for human existence then itmust be true since we do exist. In the present case, the nonexistence ofvampires is necessary for human existence. Apparently, whoever devisedthe vampire legend had failed his college algebra and philosophy courses.

Zombies

The zombie legends portrayed in movies such as Dawn of the Dead or 28Days Later follow a similar pattern to the vampire legends. Once you arebitten by zombies, while you may manage to escape immediate death,you will eventually die and turn into a zombie, yourself. Thus, thisparticular type of zombie legend suffers the same flaw that we previouslypointed out for the vampire legend. We still have some more work to do,however. There exists a second sort of zombie legend that pops its headup throughout the western hemispherethe legend of voodoo

zombiefication. This myth is somewhat different from the one justdescribed, in that zombies do not multiply by feeding on humans butcome about by a voodoo hex being placed by a sorcerer on one of hisenemies. The myth presents an additional problem for us: one canwitness for himself very convincing examples of zombiefication bytraveling to Haiti or any number of other regions in the world wherevoodoo is practiced.

We describe the particular case of Wilfred Doricent,3 an adolescentschoolboy from a small village in Haiti. One day, Wilfred became terribly

ill. He experienced dramatic convulsions, his body had swelledtremendously, and his eyes had turned yellow. Eight days later, Wilfred


10/15

appeared to have died. This was confirmed by not only the family andfamily friends present but also by the local medical doctor who coulddetect no vital signs. Wilfreds body appeared to show bloating due torigor mortis and gave off the foul stench of death and rot. He was buriedsoon thereafter.

Some time afterward, the weekly village cockfight was interrupted as anincognizant figure appeared. The villagers were shocked as they gazedupon the exact likeness of Wilfred. The person was indeed Wilfred, as hisfamily verified by noting scars from old injuries and other such details.Wilfred, however, had lost his memory and was unable to speak orcomprehend anything that was said to him. His family had to keep him inshackles so that he wouldnt harm himself in his incoherent state. Itappeared that Wilfreds body had risen from death, leaving his soul in thepossession of some voodoo sorcerer. Word of Wilfreds zombiefication

spread quickly throughout the village. It was believed that Wilfreds uncle,a highly feared voodoo sorcerer who had been engaged in a dispute overland with Wilfreds family, was the culprit. Wilfreds uncle was latercharged with zombiefication, a crime in Haiti equivalent to murder.

Is this truly a case of supernatural magic? To answer this question, weturn our attention to a highly toxic substance called tetrodotoxin (TTX). Inan article in New Scientist (2001), Bryan Furlow gives an overview ofTTXs effects blended with a headlining news story:

At first the U.S. federal officers thought they had stumbled upon ashipment of heroin. The suspicious package they intercepted last year[2000], en route from Japan to a private address in the US containedseveral vials packed with a white crystalline powder. But on-the-spot testsrevealed that it was no narcotic. It took a while for forensic scientists atthe Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California to identify asample, and what they found was alarming. The powder turned out to betetrodotoxin (TTX): one of the deadliest poisons on Earth.

Gram for gram, TTX is 10,000 times more lethal than cyanide. . . . This

neurotoxin has a terrifying modus operandi25 minutes after exposure itbegins to paralyze its victims, leaving the brain fully aware of whatshappening. Death usually results, within hours, from suffocation or heartfailure. There is no antidote. But if lucky patients can hang on for 24hours, they usually recover without further complications. . . .

The Livermore team estimated that to extract the 90 milligrams of TTXdiscovered by the Feds, youd need between 45 and 90 kilograms ofpuffer-fish livers and ovariesthe animals most deadly tissues. No oneknows what use its intended recipient had in mind. . . .

TTX is found in various sea creatures and, in particular, in the puffer fish.Puffer fish are a delicacy in Japan known as fugu that only trained and


11/15

licensed individuals prepare by carefully removing the viscera. Of course,despite the care taken in preparation, about 200 cases of puffer-fishpoisoning are reported per year with a mortality rate of 50 percent. Thesymptoms of the poisoning are as follows (U.S. FDA):

The first symptom of intoxication is a slight numbness of the lips andtongue, appearing between twenty minutes to three hours after eatingpoisonous puffer fish. The next symptom is increasing paraesthesia in theface and extremities, which may be followed by sensations of lightness orfloating. Headache, epigastric pain, nausea, diarrhea, and/or vomitingmay occur. Occasionally, some reeling or difficulty in walking may occur.The second stage of the intoxication is increasing paralysis. Many victimsare unable to move; even sitting may be difficult. There is increasingrespiratory distress. Speech is affected, and the victim usually exhibitsdyspnea, cyanosis, and hypotension. Paralysis increases and convulsions,

mental impairment, and cardiac arrhythmia may occur. The victim,although completely paralyzed, may be conscious and in some casescompletely lucid until shortly before death. Death usually occurs withinfour to six hours, with a known range of about twenty minutes to eighthours.

Sometimes, however, a victim pronounced dead is lucky enough to wakeup just before his funeral and report to his bewildered family that he wasfully conscious and aware of his surroundings throughout the entireordeal. Therefore, TTX has the unusual characteristic that, if a nonlethal

dose is given, the brain will remain completely unaffected. If just the rightdose is given, the toxin will mimic death in the victim, whose vitals willslow to an immeasurable state, and whose body will show signs of rigormortis and even produce the odor of rot. Getting such a precise dosewould be rare for a case of fugu poisoning, but can easily be causeddeliberately by a voodoo sorcerer, say, who could slip the dose intosomeones food or drink.

The secrets of zombiefication are closely guarded by voodoo sorcerers.However, Frre Dodo, a once highly feared voodoo sorcerer, who is now

an evangelical preacher and firm denouncer of the voodoo faith, hasrevealed the process. It turns out that zombiefication is accomplished byslipping the victim a potion whose main ingredient is powder derived fromthe liver of a species of puffer fish native to Haitian waters.

This provides an explanation for how Wilfred could have been made toseem dead, even under the examination of a doctor. However, we havealready said that the TTX paralysis was unlikely to have affected his brain.How does one account for Wilfreds comatose mental state? The answer isoxygen deprivation. Wilfred was buried in a coffin in which relatively littleair could have been trapped. Wilfreds story probably goes something likethis: slowly, the air in Wilfreds coffin began to run out so that, by the


12/15

time he snapped out of his TTX-induced paralysis, he had already sufferedsome degree of brain damage. At that point, his survival instincts kickedin, and he managed to dig himself out of his gravegraves tend to beshallow in Haiti. He probably wandered around for some time beforeending up back at the village. This topic was the subject of a horror film,

The Serpent and the Rainbow.

Neuropsychiatrist Dr. Roger Mallory, of the Haitian Medical Society,conducted an MRI of zombiefied Wilfreds brain. He and his colleaguesfound lesions of the type normally associated with oxygen starvation. Itwould seem that zombiefication is nothing more then a skillful act ofpoisoning. The bodily functions of the poisoned person suspend so that heappears dead. After he is buried alive, lack of oxygen damages the brain.If the person is unburied before he really dies from suffocation, he willappear as a soulless creature (zombie), as he has lost what makes him

human: the thinking processes of the brain.

Conclusion

We have examined the science behind three of the most popularpseudoscientific beliefs encountered in Hollywood movies. We have showntwo of themthe idea of ghosts and vampiresto be inconsistent andcontradictory to simple facts. For the thirdthe idea of zombieswe havemade no attempt to deny that it relies on real cases. However, we havereviewed evidence showing that the concept is a misrepresentation of

simple criminal acts.

Popular belief in these myths is an indication of a lack of critical-thinkingskills in our society. With simple arguments, one can easily discredit thevalidity of such claims. We thus finish with the following quote by CarlSagan (Sagan 1979):

Both Barnum and H.L. Mencken are said to have made the depressingobservation that no one ever lost money by underestimating theintelligence of the American public. The remark has worldwide application.

But the lack is not intelligence, which is in plentiful supply; rather, thescarce commodity is systematic training in critical thinking.

Notes

1. Details on his research may be found on Wisemans Web site atwww.richardwiseman.com.2. It may seem odd to the reader that we have specified the populationwith so much precisionwe have a number in the one hundred millionsand have specified it all the way down to the ones place (. . . 911). We

chose the particular value for convenience. The actual estimatedpopulation in the seventeenth century is 56217 millions. Beyond


13/15

mathematical simplification, our choice has little impact on the argumentto follow. If we were to report any number in the range of possible valuesfor the population in the year 1600, the end result of our calculationswould be essentially the same.3. We claim no major originality in the presentation of what follows

except in collecting the material from the sources and arranging it asseen. Doricents case is nicely described in a documentary (Clark 2002).The relation between zombies and TTX was first noticed by the Harvardethno-botanist Wade Davis in 1982.

REFERENCES

BBC. 2001. Palace ghost laid to rest. BBC News. March 29. Available athttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/1249366.stm.

Clark, Arthur C. 2002. Zombies: The living dead? (from the Arthur C.Clarkes Mysterious Universe [DVD]). Richmond Hill, Ontario: AmericanHome Treasures. Furlow, Bryant. 2001 The freelance poisoner. NewScientist. 2274 (January 20): 10 Sagan, Carl. 1979. Brocas Brain:Reflections on the Romance of Science. New York: Ballantine PublishingGroup: 58.

Sparks, Glenn G. 1998. Paranormal depictions in the media: How do theyaffect what people believe? Skeptical Inquirer. 22 (4) (July/August): 35.

-----2006. Media Effects Research: A Basic Overview, 2nd ed. Bemnont,Calif.: Thomson.

U.S. Census (United States Census Bureau). N.d. Available at:http://www.census.gov; accessed May 20, 2007.

U.S. FDA (United States Food and Drug Administration). 2006. Availableat: http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/%7Emow/chap39.html; accessed May 20,2007.

CAPTIONS

Figure 1. Heat always moves from a hotter object to a colder object.

Figure 2. These diagrams show the motion of convection currents in afluid.

Figure 3. These two stills are taken from the movie Ghost. In the left still,the ghost goes through a door. In the right still, the ghost, who follows aburglar in his girlfriends home, loses his balance as he ascends thestaircase and falls onnot throughthe stairs.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/1249366.stmhttp://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~mow/chap39.htmlhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk/1249366.stmhttp://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~mow/chap39.html


14/15

Figure 4. Newtons third law, known as the action-reaction law, isdemonstrated here.

Figure 5. Multiple forces act on the feet of a person while walking.

Table 1. Vampire and human populations at the beginning of each monthduring a 29-month period

Pic 1 Wilfred Doricent, the zombie, is shown in Haiti with his parents.

Pic 2 Puffer fish such as this one are the source of a highly potentneurotoxin.


15/15

Pic 3 Frre Dodo, a former voodoo priest, confirms that the recipe used tomake the drug for zombiefication includes a powder derived from the

puffer fish.

Pic 4 A doctor points to lesions in the ventricular system of the rightfrontal cone in a brain scan of Wilfred Doricent.

ghosts, vampires and zombies

Documents