Joe Nickell was born on December 1,1944 and is an American skeptic and investigator of the paranormal.
49 Facts About Joe Nickell
2.
Joe Nickell is an associate dean of the Center for Inquiry Institute.
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Joe Nickell is the author or editor of over 30 books.
4.
In 2002, Joe Nickell was one of a number of experts asked by scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.
5.
At the request of document dealer and historian Seth Keller, Joe Nickell analyzed documentation in the dispute over the authorship of "The Night Before Christmas", ultimately supporting the Clement Clarke Moore claim.
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Joe Nickell is the son of J Wendell and Ella Nickell and was born and raised in West Liberty, Kentucky.
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Joe Nickell's parents indulged his interest in magic and investigation, allowing him to use a room in their house as a crime lab.
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Joe Nickell's PhD is in English, focusing on literary investigation and folklore.
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In late 2003, Nickell reconnected with his college girlfriend Diana G Harris.
10.
Joe Nickell learned he had a daughter by her, named Cherette, and two grandsons, Tyner and Chase.
11.
Joe Nickell used his daughter's claim that she had made an intuitive search for him as the basis for an article on the unconscious collection and processing of data.
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Joe Nickell has worked professionally as a stage magician, carnival pitchman, private detective, blackjack dealer, riverboat manager, university instructor, author, and paranormal investigator, and he lists more than 1,000 personae on his website.
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Joe Nickell was profiled by The New Yorker writer Burkhard Bilger, who met Nickell during the summer of 2002 at Lily Dale, New York.
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Joe Nickell is a recurring guest on the Point of Inquiry podcast and conducts the annual Houdini Seance at the Center for Inquiry every Halloween.
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Joe Nickell is frequently consulted by news and television producers for his skeptical perspective.
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Joe Nickell explained his philosophy to Blake Smith of the Skeptic podcast MonsterTalk.
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Joe Nickell served as a character consultant to Hilary Swank in her starring role in the horror film The Reaping, in which she plays a paranormal investigator.
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Joe Nickell has written two books for young readers and two stand-alone books, and several additional small press and "contributed to" books.
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Joe Nickell updated the book in 1998 with more recent historical, iconographic, forensic, physical and chemical evidence, with special explanations of the radiocarbon dating process.
20.
Joe Nickell concludes that the claimed miracles were either hoaxes or misinterpretations of natural phenomena.
21.
Grothe on the Point of Inquiry podcast, Joe Nickell proposed that veneration of relics had become a new idolatry; that is, worship of an actual deity within the relics in form of an entity that moves its eyes, weeps, bleeds, and walks.
22.
Joe Nickell wrote a brief biography of Calvin and uses references from his own 2007 Relics book.
23.
Mr Joe Nickell focuses on the miracles of Jesus, dismissing them primarily as parables told to make a point that were later converted into miracle stories.
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Joe Nickell ignores the discussion about glossolalia that can be found in the Apostle Paul's first letter to the Corinthian church.
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In Camera Clues: A Handbook for Photographic Investigation, Joe Nickell begins with the history of photography.
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Joe Nickell explains how old photographs can be faked and how those fakes can be detected.
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Joe Nickell describes identification of persons and places in old photos and the use of photography by law enforcement.
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Joe Nickell explains various trick photography techniques, including ghost and spirit photography.
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Joe Nickell says that forged documents are often revealed by the forgers' ignorance of or inability to re-create historic typefaces, inks, papers, pens, watermarks, signatures, and historic styles.
30.
Joe Nickell explains forgeries of Daniel Boone's musket, Mark Hofmann's Mormon papers, and the Vinland Map.
31.
In Real or Fake: Studies in Authentication, Joe Nickell drew on his early work related to technical aspects of paper, ink, typefaces, pens, and other keys to determining authenticity of paper documents.
32.
Missing Pieces: How to Investigate Ghosts, UFOs, Psychics, and Other Mysteries, written by Nickell and Robert A Baker, is a handbook that combines the practical techniques of investigating the paranormal with a description of the psychology of believers.
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Joe Nickell asked several researchers to investigate claims of psychic detectives.
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Joe Nickell collected their reports in Psychic Sleuths: ESP and Sensational Cases.
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Joe Nickell concludes that these individuals were either self-deluded or frauds.
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Joe Nickell includes an essay about learning that he had an adult daughter and accepting that she attributed her search for him to "intuition".
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Joe Nickell includes an analysis of 21st-century paranormal investigators, particularly Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson of the Syfy Channel's Ghost Hunters.
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In some cases, Joe Nickell re-creates the legends, demonstrating that no special powers are needed to duplicate the effects.
39.
Joe Nickell plotted the distribution of North American lake monster sightings.
40.
In 1989, Joe Nickell wrote his first book for young readers, The Magic Detectives: Join Them in Solving Strange Mysteries, engaging children by presenting paranormal stories in the form of mysteries with clues embedded in the narrative.
41.
Joe Nickell and others contend the Shroud is a 14th-century painting on linen, suggested through the 1988 radiocarbon dating.
42.
Claimants to the Shroud's authenticity believe the image could have been produced at the moment of resurrection by radiation, electrical discharge, or ultraviolet radiation; Joe Nickell created a credible shroud using the bas relief method and contends that forgers had equivalent materials available during the 14th century.
43.
Joe Nickell continues to cite the Warrens as an example of exploitative and harmful charlatans.
44.
Joe Nickell told Blake Smith, host of the MonsterTalk podcast,.
45.
Joe Nickell proposes that alien encounters are the result of misinterpreted natural phenomena, hoaxes, or a fantasy prone personality.
46.
Joe Nickell concludes, "Given all of these similarities between the texts, in addition to the other evidence, I have little hesitation in concluding that Ingram was the author of 'Bell'".
47.
Joe Nickell's writing for the Center for Inquiry includes "Joe Nickell-odeon Reviews", written with an emphasis on the facts behind the scripts.
48.
Joe Nickell adds credibility to the plot of the Charles Dickens movie, The Invisible Woman.
49.
Joe Nickell was presented an award for promotion of science in popular media at the 3rd Annual Independent Investigative Group IIG Awards, held on May 18,2009.