ADAM CURTIS ON THE GHOSTS IN OUR LIVING ROOM

Around Christmastime 2011, noted British documentarian Adam Curtis - who has brought us such essential viewing as The Power of Nightmares, The Trap, The Century of Self and All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace - put together an elaborate post over at his BBC blog in which he examined the history of television reporting on supposedly supernatural entities and events. 

Curtis explains... 

Here is ... a brief history of the appearance of ghosts and poltergeists and other spirits on television. Not fictional ghosts - but real ones, or the reports of their appearances, that you find in various news and documentary programmes. But as so often when one looks at material in the archives, it turns out that it tells you less about the subjects of the programmes - the ghosts - than about the strange medium that possesses modern society - television.

As is the norm with Curtis's work, his blog post is meticulously researched, chock full of archival material, generously illustrated, endlessly fascinating and surreptitiously profound. I urge you all to read the whole thing, watch all the embedded videos, and even peruse the articles and research papers to which Curtis links throughout the piece.