far his most pressing concern was the continued lack of any new knowledge gained about their cause in recent investigations, which have been conducted in an almost identical way for the last 125 years. Cornell was also an amateur antiquarian and helped ensure the preservation of a number of old, timber-framed buildings opposite the Round Church in central Cambridge. Despite the focus of his career, Cornell's most enduring legacy may well be the Cambridge Science Park, which he proposed in the late sixties. Cornell retired from active paranormal investigations after suffering a stroke in 2004. He died peacefully at home in the company of Martin, his second son and Alison, his third wife, on Saturday 10 April 2010. A memorial service was held in the chapel of Fitzwilliam College on 20 June and his ashes scattered in Histon pond during the late evening of 22 June 2010. Research Cornell spent over 50 years investigating the paranormal and came to the conclusion that most paranormal cases turn out to have natural explanations such as the result of fraud, pranks and misidentification. He believed that many sightings of ghosts, hauntings and poltergeists are products of the human mind. Cornell estimated that of the 800 cases that he investigated, only twenty percent were difficult to explain and only a handful were paranormal. Cornell wrote that there is no evidence for the spiritualist hypothesis and most séance room phenomena can be explained by unconscious and deliberate fraud. He wrote that discarnate spirits in trance mediumship are secondary personalities from the mediums subconscious and that all physical mediumship such as ectoplasm is the result of fraud and trickery, however, he believed psychokinesis and telepathy to be real. According to Cornell "without the presence of a living person, none of the alleged paranormal effects occur." Throughout his career as a parapsychologist Cornell exposed a number of fraudulent mediums including Rita Goold and Alec Harris. The psychologist and skeptic Richard Wiseman has noted that Cornell conducted a "great deal of fascinating work". He investigated the reliability of eyewitness testimony for ghosts by dressing up as a fake spirit in several locations in Cambridge. Cornell discovered that the eyewitness reports were often far from accurate and unreliable. Publications Poltergeists [with Alan Gauld] (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1979) Investigating the Paranormal (Helix Press, New York, 2002). Quotes References External links The Society for Psychical Research Book review Investigating