In attempting to study the strange and unusual, paranormal researchers have often been forced to coin new terms for phenomena, many of which ultimately became part of our everyday lexicon.
The website ListVerse has put together an excellent list of ten iconic paranormal terms and the researchers who gave them their name.
Writer Vincent Gaddis almost certainly never imagined that an article he wrote in 1964 about a spate of ships and planes disappearing off the coast of Florida would provide a name for the location that lasted ever since: the Bermuda Triangle.
When J. Allen Hynek was attempting to design a classification system for UFO events and dubbed them 'close encounters,' he unwittingly spawned a term that became synonymous with all things ET.
Of course, Steven Spielberg lent a hand with that as well.
Similarly, the entertainment world owes a debt of gratitude to Albert Bender and Gray Barker, who made Men in Black a part of paranormal lore back in 1962.
Presumably the duo and their heirs did not receive any royalties on the countless books, merchandise, and movies that bear the MIB name.
Beyond the more modern paranormal terms detailed in the list are a number of classic concepts that were named by pioneering thinkers in the distant past.
European writer Jean Paul gave us the always-chilling 'doppelganger' in 1796 and Nobel Prize-winning scientist Charles Richet surprisingly attempted to understand ghosts during the 1920s, which led to the term 'ectoplasm.'
But the titan of paranormal terms may be Ivan T. Sanderson, who is credited with naming out-of-place artifacts, the Devil's Graveyard, the Vile Vortex, and, some believe, the entire field of cryptozoology.
Be sure to check out the complete list at ListVerse as it provides an amazing historical look at many of the words and expressions used in the paranormal today that were once not so commonplace.