UNBELIEVABLE

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UNBELIEVABLE
By Stacy Horn (Ecco, 289 pages, $24.99)
KATHLEEN CLONTS
The Browser

You might not believe all you read in "Unbelievable: Investigations Into Ghosts, Poltergeists, Telepathy and Other Unseen Phenomena From the Duke Parapsychology Laboratory," but you'll be engrossed by the largely forgotten research of the lab, formerly affiliated with Duke University. In the late 1920s, a group of outsider scientists led by J.B. Rhine set out to objectively study what they called extrasensory perception. The results were impressive, though ultimately inconclusive. For the next five decades, the researchers lived in a world of mediums, poltergeists and other paranormal phenomena. The U.S. government made serious but secret forays into similar research. Even so, the Duke scientists struggled for legitimacy, never fully accepted by the scientific world or completely trusted by paranormal circles. Their work ended without the breakthrough they so hoped for, leaving them with the distaste of having proven nothing but also having disproven nothing.