Paranormal researcher and author Hans Holzer died 26 April 2009 at his home in New York City. Born 26 January 1920 in Vienna, Austria, he is best known for his 1977 investigation (with Ethel Johnson-Meyers) of the house in Amityville, New York, which grew into the book and film series starting with The Amityville Horror.
Holzer wrote nearly 150 books on ghosts, witchcraft, extraterrestrials, and other manifestations of what he called “the other side”. He was also a consultant for Leonard Nimoy’s In Search Of television series.
He first developed his interest in the paranormal (he never liked the word supernatural) as a child, when his uncle told him stories of ghosts and fairies. He studied at the University of Vienna, but fled the growing Nazi threat with his family in 1938, coming to New York.
After graduating from Columbia, he wrote for theatre and theatre reviews, and then went continued his studies, receiving a masters in comparative religion and doctorate in parapsychology from the London College of Applied Science. He taught parapsychology at the New York Institute of Technology.
After his schooling, he started a career of investigating haunted houses and interviewing witnesses thereto. His first book was Ghost Hunter (1963). Some of his other books include Ghosts I’ve Met, Ghosts: True Encounters with the World Beyond, Growing Up Haunted: A Ghostly Memoir (written with his wife and daughter), The Great British Ghost Hunt, Hans Holzer’s the Supernatural: Explaining the Unexplained, Love Beyond the Grave, and Witches: True Encounters with Wicca, Wizards, Covens, Cults, and Magick.
He married Countess Catherine Genevieve Buxhoeveden in 1962 (the marriage ended in divorce), and is survived by two daughters and five grandchildren.
The New York Times has a nice obituary here.