A closer look
Catching fraudulent psychics was a legitimate career path for 19th-century law enforcement. As the Spiritualism craze gripped Victorian society, fake mediums were making fortunes producing fake ectoplasm and levitating tables. In response, police departments funded undercover stings where skeptical cops attended séances in the dark, waiting for a ghostly apparition to appear before physically tackling the glowing spirit to the ground, only to arrest a terrified medium coated in glow-in-the-dark paint.
