Real-Life X-Files: Investigating the Paranormal

By Stefan Isaksson

Real-Life X-Files: Investigating the Paranormal
Joe Nickell
University Press of Kentucky
326 pages
ISBN: 0813122104

Over the years, Joe Nickell of skeptic organization CSICOP has written or co-written a large amount of books, and several of them are a lot like Real X-Files: large anthologies where numerous paranormal and mysterious cases are described and investigated, cases that Nickell has investigated personally and in most cases, at least according to himself, has solved. (And several of these books have appeared on UFO-Sweden’s review sections.)

One thins is for sure: Nickell’s books are always very educational. He’s definitely a skilled investigator with a lifetime’s worth of experience, he knows people all over the world, and most important of all, he’s extremely scientific in his methodology which he applies to ALL his investigations. Pseudo-science and spirituality don’t get along very well with Nickell, but that’s something he’s the first to admit. What he tries to tell his audience – in book after book – is that in HIS world the scientific approach is the only approach worth while, and even the most bizarre of cases usually have both simple and/or natural explanations when the famous razor of Occam has been applied.

In other words, Joe Nickell is every Skeptic’s household god and every Believers worst nightmare.

And therefore, some people will always hate him while others while always love him. However, no matter what your personal opinion about him may be, you still cannot ignore the fact that his books – at least the ones who resemble Real-Life X-Files – continually show the same weakness: they always contain cases and investigations that are either described very briefly or have no real conclusions, which makes them all seem redundant.

A few examples from Real-Life X-Files: the Roswell incident are dealt with on three (3!) pages, the story about the founders of “suicide cult” Heaven’s Gate is described on only a few pages and has nothing very relevant to add to the whole picture, the different ideas about extraterrestrials representing different eras is interesting but extremely brief, alien abductions are almost ridiculed, no buildings have ever been haunted, there is no such thing as a sea monster, and so on. As usual Nickell makes sure to offer a large bibliography, but the stale and almost annoying belief that science is everything and the people behind the reports are nothing makes the book just as frustrating as any other similar works by Joe Nickell.