Discovery Lab Answers

Kerry Gaynor is a parapsychology researcher and field investigator profiled at Kerry Gaynor. The sources retrieved for this question are primarily his two 1976 co-authored publications with Barry E. Taff, which together represent the core of his documented research output in the retrieved material.

Experiments

Gaynor’s most significant documented work is the investigation of Doris Bither in Culver City, California, which began on August 22, 1974 and ran for approximately ten weeks ^[1][2]. This investigation is described in both a 1976 journal publication and a conference paper:

• Taff and Gaynor (1976a), “A New Poltergeist Effect,” published in Theta: A Journal for Research on the Question of Survival After Death, presents findings from the Bither case as a novel category of poltergeist-type phenomena ^[1].
• Taff and Gaynor (1976b), “Another Wild Ghost Chase? No, One Hell of a Haunt,” delivered at the ELECTRO/76 Professional Program, Special Session: Psychotronics III (Boston, May 11–14, 1976), is a conference-format account of the same investigation ^[2].

Beyond the Bither case, the ESP-Nexus page records that Gaynor participated in on-site investigations of nearly 500 reportedly haunted locations in the Los Angeles area during the 1970s, working as one of Dr. Thelma Moss’s field investigators at the UCLA Parapsychology Laboratory (Neuropsychiatric Institute, fifth floor). The Bither investigation is the one for which published documentation exists in the retrieved sources.

The Bither case also became the basis for the 1978 book The Entity and its 1982 film adaptation ^[1].

Methodology

Both publications concern field investigation of a spontaneous case — a methodology distinct from controlled laboratory experimentation. The approach involved on-site visits to the location, direct observation of the reported phenomena, and tracking the subject (Doris Bither) across locations. A key methodological conclusion from the investigation was that the phenomena followed Bither when she moved rather than remaining associated with the house — leading Gaynor to conclude the source of the activity was the person rather than the location ^[1].

The sources do not describe randomization, blinding, or pre-specified statistical analysis plans, which is consistent with spontaneous-case investigation as a methodology: it is observational and phenomenological in character, not a controlled experiment. The retrieved sources do not detail the specific instruments or recording procedures used during the ten-week investigation.

Data

The retrieved excerpts from Taff and Gaynor (1976a) and (1976b) do not contain extractable quantitative statistics — no effect sizes, z-scores, p-values, or hit rates are present in the retrieved passages ^[1][2]. The primary findings reported are qualitative and observational: the identification of what the authors characterize as a new category of poltergeist effect, and the conclusion that the locus of phenomena was the person rather than the location ^[1].

The retrieved excerpts do not show them, so readers seeking specific numerical data should consult the original publications directly.

Source ^[3] references a “Dr. Mitchell L. Gaynor,” an oncologist at Weill Medical College of Cornell University — this is a different individual, not Kerry Gaynor, and that material is not relevant here.

Skeptical critiques

The sources retrieved for this question do not include published criticism of Taff and Gaynor’s field investigation work or of the methodology of spontaneous-case investigation as they applied it. The ESP-Nexus page does not carry a skeptical critiques section for this subject in the material retrieved.