Believability and Authenticity of Evidence

A recent status post on Facebook from Dave over at Paravizionz got me to thinking about the topic (which I touched on briefly in an earlier blog) about evidence and the quality, believability, and authenticity.  In his post, Dave was warning other groups that the website scifake.com and someone (Ron Tebo) was going around investigating groups’ websites and “mocking” their evidence.  A quick look at the SciFake website reveals that they are nothing more than a group of what I would call modern day witch hunters.  They target most, if not all, of the para-TV show personalities in an effort to discount and nullify the evidence they’ve captured. 

I’m not against putting our group’s evidence out there for everyone to see.  I feel that I write fairly well worded explanations of each of our cases, outlining the investigation from start to finish.  I detail who was there, why we were there, how we went about attempting to figure things out, and what we used to do this.  Recently, I’ve also started including relevant info about weather and the phase of the moon.  All of this is done anonymously (for private residences), for mostly privacy reasons.  The evidence I put out there is scrutinized first by myself (I’m the tech department, so it’s my job to review all the footage), and then I turn what I’ve found over to the group for their input.  If it passes their inspection, it is included in the final evidence package which is turned over to the clients.  There have been times when something I thought was an EVP was explained away by investigators that were there.  I feel this adds a second layer of “fact checks” to our evidence. 

However, there are many people out there that totally discount all things paranormal with the reasoning that it cannot be duplicated in a lab setting.  Unless someone builds a “lab” over a Native American burial ground (or some such “paranormal hotspot”), there is no pristine setting in which to conduct our research and investigations.  Our investigations take place out in the real world, and the real world is an imperfect place.  The mere fact that we’re investigating the paranormal dictates that there’s nothing normal about it, and hence not reproducible in a lab. 

I will go on record saying that there are groups out there (not just in our area, but all over) that are less than reputable.  I have personally seen websites that look like someone in the 3^rd grade put them up—replete with spelling and grammar errors (which irks me to no end, but that’s another blog) as well as obvious fake or misrepresented evidence (oh so many dust orbs!).  If your group is doing this in the name of science and furthering paranormal research (as many websites, even ours, claim) put a better foot forward and try to legitimize yourself.  You only look foolish with your spelling errors and dust photos.

As I believe I’ve mentioned before (at least, it’s on our website), our group does what we do because we enjoy it.  Each member has his/her own talents that they bring to the group, and we utilize a lot of what we do in our work lives.  Some are techies, some research property, others have medical backgrounds, and still others are naturally curious and problem solvers.  In and of itself, what we collect and post to our site can be considered the best “college try” at replicating the situation and conditions and explaining what we think is happening.  Our science is not an exact one by its very nature, but we do what we can. 

I feel that all the groups that we associate with are honest and legitimate.  They all have different investigative strategies, and some try a lot harder than others to elicit some kind of response from whatever might be there.  I don’t consider any of them as hoaxers or manufacturers of evidence.  If someone out there wants to try to shoot holes in what we have on our websites, they can feel free to do so.  However, they should approach it with the same mindset that we do:  open-minded skepticism.  I read a quote somewhere that went, “keep you mind open, but not so much that your brain falls out.”  I feel that’s a good motto to live by, especially when doing paranormal research.  Don’t go into a situation totally disbelieving everything, and by the same token, don’t approach it with total belief and acceptance.  Good evidence should stand on its own merit. 

Giving in to the Knee Jerk Reaction

               I’ve found that most people are too quick to assume the worst about a situation.  It’s almost as if they want the absolute worst possible scenario to be the reality.  For instance, if they’re hearing noises in the attic, they think, “OMG!  We’ve got a demon in the attic!”  I can give a list of examples as long as a gorilla’s arm, but my main point is that as a whole, we tend to make a mountain out of a molehill.

               This may be hard wired into us from when the first humans were coming down out of the trees and walking around in the grasslands.  The probability that any little sound or movement was actually danger was a pretty safe assumption.  However, now that our society lives under relative safety from vicious predators, we still have that inherent panic button response.

               With all the paranormal shows out there (this is a “dead horse” you’ll find me whipping again and again in my writings) as well as movies of the past five or six decades, we are over-exposed to the idea that, among other things, ghosts and spirits want nothing more than to scare us, harm us, possess us, or attempt to kill us by any means necessary.  Again, we still have that fear hard wired into us that the unseen forces are out to get us.

               From what I’ve seen, this just isn’t the case as far as ghosts and spirits are concerned.  Granted, I’ve only been investigating the paranormal for three years.  I do, however, consider myself pretty knowledgeable (not an expert by any means) on the topic, as I’ve read a good many books about ghost theory and the paranormal.  In those three years, I’ve never come across anything malicious or anything that had any ill-will towards anyone. 

               Spirit energies interacting with the living are extremely rare, and the vast majority of these are merely humans without physical bodies that are still here with us on Earth.  There may be other entities out there that aren’t and never were human (nature spirits and negative entities), but those energies aren’t going to bother mere mortals unless they’re called upon in some way.  [And that’s a topic for another blog someday.]

               One of the members of the paranormal group I’m in (DOGS) has said on more than one occasion, “When I was younger, I always wanted a poltergeist, until I found out what it was.”  This serves to prove another point I want to make.  When we don’t have the knowledge about something—when it’s simply unknown to us—we make assumptions that are most likely wrong.  Again, I could enumerate a lengthy list of examples of how people just assume something is one thing when it’s actually something totally different, but I’ll hold off on that for brevity’s sake.

               With a little thought, some research, and just stepping back from a situation, a lot of unnecessary worry and expense of time and effort can be avoided.  Don’t immediately jump to the conclusion that just because you walk into a cold spot, the spirit of your uncle Charley is there with you.  Just because a door slammed shut by itself doesn’t mean that there’s a ghost trying to get your attention.  Don’t think that every little flicker of the lights in the house is a demon trying to worm its way into your soul.  Use your brain and rationalize that maybe there’s an explanation for what’s going on.  It will save a lot of worry on your part.

The Closer You Get (to the Paranormal)…

               I wrote a blog about this same subject on the DOGS MySpace page dated April 16^th, 2009.  I was fresh off my investigation with East Side Paranormal at U.S. Grant’s Boyhood home in Georgetown, OH.  I hadn’t even been investigating for more than a year and a half.  The wide-eyed wonder and newness of this still hadn’t started wearing off.   In the blog, I mention having read that those of us going out and actively seeking the paranormal become almost like a beacon to it.  Somehow the spirits know we’re out there looking for them, seeking the answers, and they tend to hang around us—or at least the energy of the encounter does.  I said this because on the digital audio recorder I had next to my DVR camera, something spoke my name.  At that time, I was floored, and a little scared.  I remembered thinking, “Oh my God, now they know my name!”

               Admittedly, I’m an avid watcher of a lot of paranormal TV shows.  Of course, there’s the obvious ones (“Ghost Hunters”, “Paranormal State”, “Ghost Lab”, “Ghost Adventures”) and the not so obvious (“Ghost Whisperer”)—I guess I basically gravitate to anything with either “ghost” or “paranormal” in the show title.  When they come out with a show called “Ghostly Paranormal”, I’m sure I’ll watch it too.  But what I’m noticing a lot of lately is that my interest is turning away from the technical side of these shows (the equipment, the evidence), and I’m drawn in more to the story--specifically that of the spirits, the story that tells about why they’re haunting a place and what happened to them. 

               I’m not going to cop to being a sad sack and crying at the end of every episode of “Ghost Whisperer”, at least not in a public forum like this.  What I will say is that as I close out our third year of investigating, I’m finding myself becoming more empathic about what’s out there.  It’s almost like I can feel what they feel:  the despair, the sadness, the wishing that they had more time.  Let’s face it, most of the time, if there is suspicion of an entity haunting somewhere, the circumstances surrounding it are quite tragic.  Whether it’s suicide, murder, traumatic death, or whatever, the emotional energy is there in the environment to be picked up on.  Maybe this is my psychic side finally deciding to show up and rear its head?  More than likely, I could probably do well to get myself on a daily anti-depressant!  Regardless of that, I’m discovering that I’m more sensitive to these spirits’ plight. 

               Now, how does that affect me as an investigator?  Having a look at our case files in chronological order might offer some insight.  If you notice, in the past year or so, they’ve become more detailed.  This is especially true of our last case in Kettering.  I don’t know if that’s because our group has gotten much better at investigating these cases (especially during the “pre-investigation” interview) or if I’m just getting wordier in my descriptions of the cases.  Either way, it’s beneficial, both to our group (and the archival process) as well as the clients.  I think that our presentation at the Kettering-Moraine library back in October helped our core group members feel like we do know what we’re talking about.  All the book reading and watching of the para-TV is finally starting to pay off.  Our knowledge of the theories surrounding the paranormal is getting much stronger (as evidenced by the Q&A session following our presentation). 

               I can feel myself being drawn further into the whole “what happens to us after we die” discussion.  I have my own opinions that I’ve shared with others (which are going to be included in the book I’m writing).  I have found there are a lot of other teams having similar theories and thoughts. 

               To close this blog out, I’d like to finish up with what I started talking about earlier.  On the investigation I did with East Side Paranormal when I thought I heard my name being called.  It took a while for me to get to it, but I finally synced the audio up with the video footage.  What I found was that one of the investigators from ESP was leaning over the camera and whispering my name.  It took me about a month, which during that time, I was nervously wondering if the “ghosts were gonna get me.”  It wound up being someone trying to prank me.  And it worked…until the evidence proved otherwise.

              

How I Got Interested in Ghost Hunting

               With this, being my first official blog on here, I’ll try to be brief and concise.  My long winded tirades about the paranormal will come later (watch for my book--of which this is a very condensed version of what's included in the prologue).  To begin, I’d like to tell everyone a little about myself and about how I got interested in ghost hunting.

Like a lot of ghost hunters in the past five years, I got my idea to form an actual group from the shows on television.  Before that, I had no idea how to go about looking for spirits or what equipment to use.  However, unlike many, I didn’t have a life changing personal experience as a kid that motivated me to find out what it was that I saw.  Granted, I’ve always been an oddball.  In the second grade, I wrote (and illustrated) a story about aliens invading the earth, and the Army’s attempt to stop it.  From there it went on to mystery stories about haunted houses in the fourth grade and an interest in cartooning in middle school.

               [As a side note, I had a library book I’d borrowed called “Cartooning the Head and Figure” by Jack Hamm.  After thumbing through it and renewing it for a couple months, it finally got misplaced, and I had to pay for it.  Eventually, I received the book as a birthday present and used it for a while until that copy mysteriously disappeared.  I don’t know if that was paranormal or just childish absentmindedness, but I took that as a sign to stop cartooning and pursue another path in life.]

               Granted, my dad swore that the house we lived in when I was kid (and am renting from my mom now) had some kind of ghost in it.  He was always misplacing things and getting the feeling like someone was watching him while he was downstairs at his work bench.  Now, that work bench is where I have my computer workshop, and I too feel like someone's over there.  However, I know why.  The EMF in that particular area of the house is a bit higher than normal.  The electric is grounded to copper pipes that run overhead. 

               In the 7^th & 8^th grade and partway into my freshman year, I was heavily involved in Dungeons & Dragons.  Some would say I got obsessed and went a bit overboard, but at least I wasn’t one of those that went on a “quest” into the real world.  After being in high school for about 6 months, I was introduced to heavy metal music and then Stephen King.  D&D started taking a back seat to reading everything I could get my hands on by Mr. King.  It was at that point that my journey into the world of the weird began. 

               So I’ve always been interested in strange and horrific stuff.  Since graduating high school and going to college to get a creative writing degree, I’ve gotten myself interested in technology and computers, audio recording and editing using Sonic Foundry Sound Forge, and doing web design stuff.  Between all of that, and my love of writing (which has never really left me), going out, looking for ghosts, utilizing high tech, writing about it, and putting up a website is a natural progression.