Stephen Kaplan (September 19, 1940 – June 9, 1995) was an American paranormal investigator, vampirologist, and founder/director of the Vampire Research Center[1] and the Parapsychology Institute of America, both of which were founded in Suffolk County, New York and subsequently relocated to Elmhurst, Queens.
Jay Anson's 1977 book The Amityville Horror chronicles the paranormal events leading up to their departure from the Lutzes' perspective.
At the time, Kaplan was the executive director of the Parapsychology Institute of America on Long Island, and a frequent guest on the WBAB radio program Spectrum with Joel Martin.
As Kaplan recalled in The Amityville Horror Conspiracy, this initial conversation immediately aroused his suspicions as to the validity of Lutz's claim that the house was haunted.
[4] The respective claims of the Kaplans and the Lutz family are the subject of a documentary, Amityville: Horror or Hoax, distributed by the History Channel.