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In the conclusion to his interview with Dan Aykroyd, Neil deGrasse Tyson uses Dan’s movies – Ghostbusters, The Coneheads, My Stepmother Is An Alien, and The Blues Brothers – as the starting point for a sober, grounded discussion about ghosts, aliens, SETI and cars on “a mission from God.” Dan, who attended family séances as a kid but has never seen a ghost, describes how an article about quantum physics and parapsychology led to Ghostbusters. He tells the story of the “Ghost of Flight 401,” a tale of multiple ghost sightings by airline pilots, after which Neil and co-host astrophysicist Charles Liu discuss psychological research into group hallucinations and physical causes of paranormal events. As the episode bounces between science and the supernatural, there’s one thing everyone agrees on: the best way to approach the paranormal is through the lens of scientific experimentation.
NOTE: All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: A Conversation with Dan Aykroyd (Part 2).
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