Ted always wanted to be a policeman and ever since he was a child he voraciously read detective novels. He was always struck by how stupid the policemen were made out to be. His career path was not dynamic. Until he met his wife he seemed to make slow progress on his cases and failed to make the decisive breakthrough. He was good at passing the exams to get considered for promotion and he interviewed well, but he lacked the big case to propel him to the attention of the really senior police officers. So the years passed by. Then he met Clare and now he looked at each case with a certainty that she could help him when he got bogged down. She was his best kept secret.

Ghostly encounters, alien abduction, reincarnation, talking to the dead, UFO sightings, inexplicable coincidences, out-of-body and near-death experiences. Are these legitimate phenomena? If not, how should we go about understanding them? In this fascinating book, Chris French investigates paranormal claims to discover what lurks behind this “weird shit.” French provides authoritative, evidence-based explanations for a wide range of superficially mysterious phenomena, and then goes further to draw out lessons with wider applications to many other aspects of modern society where critical thinking is urgently needed.

Using academic, comprehensive, logical, and, at times, mathematical approaches, The Science of Weird Shit convincingly debunks ESP, communicating with the dead, and alien abduction claims, among other phenomena. All the while, however, French maintains that our belief in such phenomena is neither ridiculous nor trivial; if anything, such claims can tell us a great deal about the human mind if we pay them the attention they are due. Filled with light-bulb moments and a healthy dose of levity, The Science of Weird Shit is a clever, memorable, and gratifying read you won’t soon forget.