While reading the Boston Globe last week, we were surprised to learn that Ghost trackers detect ‘presence’ in town building. Apparently, faced with plummetting profits, the Globe editors have begun to run old stories from the dear, departed Weekly World News.

What else explains the breathless, credulous reporting of this story:

The ghost trackers who spent Monday night at Town Hall investigating eerie footsteps that echo upstairs said they found something that may indicate a paranormal presence.

The two-member team from Paranormal Institute of New England said their laser thermal detector – which measures dramatic drops in temperature that some say indicate the presence of spirits – went temporarily haywire, soaring up, not down. A digital camera that ghost tracker Len Anderson was using also went on the fritz.

“That’s usually an indication of a presence,” he said.

Anderson and his fellow ghost tracker, Ed Beaulieu, are busy this week reviewing the film and audiotapes they obtained Monday night. Spirits are not visible to the naked eye, they say, but do register in photos, videotape, and recordings. Anderson and Beaulieu do not intend to release the full results of their excursion into the paranormal until next week, when they meet with selectmen, who allowed them to investigate rumors of the otherworldly in the 135-year-old building.

Beaulieu said that he didn’t sense a definite unearthly presence in the cavernous room during the investigation, as he has in other locations, but that doesn’t mean there were no spirits present. It’s also possible, he said, that spirits were scared off by reporters who accompanied them on the exploration.

The two may return, by themselves, for another check

Some have claimed that the death of the newspaper is greatly exaggerated; We have proof that it is not: We have seen its ghost.