By Diane Mapes

Spooky footsteps, faint figures, the feeling of being watched – these unsettling signs of a ghost are as familiar to us as the goose bumps on the back of our arm (or neck).

But are there physiological explanations for those things that go bump in the night?

Absolutely, says Joe Nickell, a senior research fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, an organization that promotes scientific inquiry and critical investigation of paranormal and other extraordinary claims.

“I’ve investigated haunted houses, inns, theatres, graveyards, lighthouses, castles, old jails, and even office buildings,” says Nickell, who’s researched stories of ghosts, vampires, werewolves, sea monsters, psychic phenomenon and other unusual phenomenon for 40 years. “And I’ve never found a paranormal explanation.”

Instead, Nickell says “ghosts” are often the result of pranks, environmental phenomenon, or physiological conditions such as sleep paralysis and the hallucinations that accompany it.

By Bill Briggs

Let’s start by driving a stake into the heart of some olds myths. People who have a sun allergy are not restless creatures of the night. They are not undead – although they may feel that way after, say, watching a marathon of the sun-drenched bikinfest “The Hills.”

While sunbeams don’t turn their skin sparkly, one brief exposure to solar rays may send them screaming back to their dark places or, at least, to the doctor’s office.

Who are these people who dread the daylight? Chances are you know one. You may even be one.

By some estimates, 45 million Americans – most of them northerners – are so hypersensitive to ultraviolet light that the first splash of spring sun causes itchy, red rashes or patches of small, red bumps to flare on uncovered areas of their chests, backs, upper arms, bellies or shoulders. They have a common condition called polymorphic light eruption (PLE), found in about 10 to 15 percent of people in North America.

By Diane Mapes, contributing writer

Turns out Mom was right yet again. You can scare yourself to death, although not necessarily by watching Halloween horror movies.

Dr. Martin A. Samuels, who studies the sudden death phenomenon, says some people do have the potential to suddenly drop dead from fright.

“It’s a relatively uncommon thing, but it does happen,” says Samuels, chairman of the department of neurology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “You can even find references to it in the Bible.”

Not to mention Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum,” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Hound of the Baskervilles” and even recent headlines (“Robber scared grandmother to death”.)

How can a person literally drop dead from fear?

By Diane Mapes

The phenomenon of hair turning white from fright (or shock or grief or stress) persists in literature, poetry and even a handful of medical journals.

But is there any truth to the rumor that we can actually scare our hair?

Yes and no, says dermatologist Dr. David Orentreich, associate director of the Orentreich Medical Group in New York and assistant clinical professor in the department of dermatology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

“It’s appealing on a literary or poetic level that a person’s experience could be so severe or terrifying that they age overnight,” he says. “But you can’t lose pigment in your hair. Once it leaves your scalp, it’s non-living, it’s dead."

But, Orentreich says, while fear can’t suddenly cause your hair to turn white, there is a medical condition that could make people think it has.