Plenty of people report paranormal experiences, but when those accounts come from prominent members of the scientific community might they be even more significant? Scientists are trained to be objective, and those that reach the top of their profession have had their objectivity endorsed by their peers.

Renowned Victorian scientists Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge and Alfred Russel Wallace among others were all committed advocates of Spiritualism.

Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, founder of Jungian analysis and originator of the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator, held a deep interest in the paranormal and had several experiences himself. Once a patient was describing a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. At that moment Jung heard a tapping on the window pane. On opening the window a beetle flew in. The beetle was a scarabeid and its desire to enter the room was contrary to the creature's usual habits.

On another occasion Jung was discussing his interest in the paranormal with his tutor Freud, a skeptic. As Freud was speaking Jung felt a strange sensation in his diaphragm, then came a loud report from the bookcase. Jung remarked to Freud that the noise was an example of the phenomena they were discussing. Freud remained skeptical, but Jung predicted a further report would follow in a moment, which it did.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was a celebrated psychiatrist who made her name in grief and death counseling. In her later career, after much experience with death and bereavement Kübler-Ross became interested in near-death experiences and developed a conviction that consciousness somehow survived the death of the body.

In her book "On Life After Death" Kübler-Ross recounts how, on returning to her office after giving a lecture, she met a woman, a former patient who passed away 10 months before. She says: "This was the longest walk of my life... I even touched her skin to see if it was cold or warm, or if the skin would disappear when I touched it. It was the most incredible walk I have ever taken, not knowing why I was doing what I was doing. I was both an observing psychiatrist and a patient."

The woman even complied with Kübler-Ross's request to write a note to a mutual acquaintance.