A magical investigator generally known as the “real-life Scully” who died final month was remembered as “an icon and hero within the skeptical community” credited with cracking lots of of mysteries.
Joe Nickell referred to as himself “the world’s only full-time professional paranormal investigator,” and was identified for digging into a number of the world’s largest myths earlier than he died on March 4 on the age of 80 from an undisclosed trigger, in line with reviews.
The Skeptical Inquirer – the place Nickell had labored as a columnist for many years – wrote final month that he probed numerous enigmas, together with historic, forensic and paranormal.
“Joe was a hands-on investigator who could be found aboard the Queen Mary looking for alleged ghosts, or in a farmer’s field investigating crop circles, or roaming the shores of Loch Ness looking for Nessie, or touring China studying traditional Chinese medicine and examining the claims of Qigong masters. This barely scratches the surface,” stated Barry Karr, the chief director of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, which, together with the publication, is owned by the Heart for Inquiry.
“Joe was a true polymath who often left you in awe of his depth of knowledge in, it seemed, a limitless number of subjects. He was a walking and talking encyclopedia with a never-ending curiosity to know even more and bring on the next mystery!” Karr continued in an announcement to the outlet.
“What a tremendous loss. He can never be replaced.”
Karr referred to as him an “icon and hero within the skeptical community.”
Nickell, often known as the “real life Sherlock Holmes,” informed the New Yorker in 2002 that his purpose was to conduct investigations with a “kinder, gentler skepticism.”
“I’m tired of these debunkers coming by my office and saying, ‘Hey, Nickell, seen any ghosts lately? Har har har,’” he stated.
“I’m not saying there’s a 50-50 chance that there is a ghost in that haunted house. I think the chances are closer to 99.9 percent that there isn’t. But let’s go look. We might learn something interesting as hell.”
He stated on his web site that in distinction with “mystery-mongerers” on one aspect of the spectrum and “so-called debunkers” on the opposite aspect, he believed “that mysteries should actually be investigated with a view toward solving them.”
He additionally listed greater than 1,000 personas that helped him along with his job, together with magician, non-public investigator, federal fugitive, food-server, beer grasp and bigfoot hunter.
Nickell was born on Dec. 1, 1944 and died in his Buffalo, NY residence, his daughter informed the New York Occasions in an obit printed this weekend.
“He didn’t treat a ghost story as a ghost story or a U.F.O. story as a U.F.O. story,” Kenny Biddle, the chief investigator on the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, informed the Occasions.
“It was all a mystery. He loved sifting through the evidence, like, ‘OK, what actually happened here?’”
