Paranormal Investigations and Belief in Ghosts

Esther Schindler writes "Sure, everyone uses technology on the job. But you may not have contemplated the tools used by paranormal investigators (at least, not until you began thinking about Halloween) who look for the truth in ghosts and other things that go Bump in the Night. In Paranormal Investigations and Technology: Where Ghosts and Gadgets Meet, CIO's Al Sacco writes about the most unusual of tool chests, with everything from thermometers to blimp cams." You want spooky? An anonymous reader passed a link to a survey that says a third of Americans believe in ghosts. Who you gonna call?

Comments

Photos

[ackthpt]

Years ago a fellow I knew took to hanging out in graveyards with his camera and film sensitive to Infra Red (pick up the background IR, except where spirits, which apparently suck the energy out of their surroundings when they manifest themselves.) He claimed to have taken actual photos of ghosts hanging about graves, including some which were posessed. He offered to show me some of his work, but I wasn't in a mood for it as my Grandmum had recently passed away.

So here's this bloke:

Auerbach, on the other hand, strongly feels that ghosts and specters cannot be photographed. "If they could be, people would've already," Auerbach says. So this fellow with pictures was fiddling the film?

I do believe in spooks! I do, I do, I do believe in spooks! Oh, sod, who was it then?

Re:Photos

[Jimmy King]

Agreed. I used to be rather interested in paranormal stuff. I still am to an extent. It can make for a fun evening and it sure would be cool to find real, solid, tangible proof if such a thing is possible.

In my experience, though, most of the people involved have no clue what they are talking about. They want to see a ghost and prove their existence so badly that they see them anywhere. They also do not understand the technology they are using.

The fools in this article seem to be the same... at least one of them, who talks of photographing ghost orbs. Ghost orbs are the most ridiculous load of crap. You know what else causes those orbs? Dust in the air. Moisture in the air because you're outside at night when the temps are changing (I've got just such a picture about with hundreds of "ghosts"). That streetlight off in the distance that you didn't notice while just standing there because it's just a streetlight (I've seen this from a local ghost hunting group with pictures of a place that was maybe 10 minutes from where I lived at the time). Reflections off of shiny polished headstones. About a billion other things.

I think the following quote sums up nicely exactly what the problem with the whole paranormal investigation field is, why it gets no respect, and why it deserves no respect.

Wilson says his camera work paid off roughly seven years ago at an investigation at a private residence in Western Maryland. Wilson got called in after a strange mist appeared in the home on various occasions. After setting up various recording equipment, Wilson's team captured images of a reverse shadow that looked like a moving cloud of mist, Wilson says. He's still unsure of what he shot on film, but Wilson says it was vaguely human in size and shape and it actually passed through furniture. That is the most substantial piece of evidence that he's ever collected, Wilson says.

To paraphrase, "I can't tell what it is in this picture, so it must be a ghost." That's their most solid evidence is a picture that they're not sure what it is. What the hell is a "reverse shadow" anyway? Light?

Re:Photos

[Zak3056]

If that was me I wouldn't be trying to photograph them. I'd be trying to run a heat engine off them. You've got an object here that's going to be consistently cooler than ambient temperatures? That's a perpetual motion machine right there.

About a year or so ago, I wrote myself some notes about a possible short story, and had a premise very similar to what you mention. The gist of it was that "souls" (for lack of a better word) were proven to exist, and then promptly exploited for the special properties they exhibited, creating a clean, limitless energy source. The downside? To the "souls" being used in this manner, the process was basically hell--fire, brimstone, unending torment, etc.

Hmm. Maybe I'll work on that now, since you've brought it back to mind... thanks!

So?

[Jediman1138]

Not suprising, considering 49% of Americans believe this guy is going to come back.

Not knocking the religious, just saying that 1/3 of Americans believing in the supernatural should not surprise anyone.

I see ghosts all the time

[Quadraginta]

For months I saw something that seemed to be a person moving just at the edge of my vision, on rare occasion, usually late at night when I was alone reading a book. But when I got up to look carefully, no one was there, or could possibly have been there.

Ghosts!

Or...maybe not. I went to the optometrist for my regular check-up, and she found a bunch of "floaters" in my eye. If I look at a blank wall, I can see them sometimes, they drift in and out of my field of view, and if I look steadily, the optic system edits them out and they vanish.

So, of course, when it was late at night and I was already tired, and moved my eyes after staring at something steadily (the book) a floater would sometimes wander into view briefly, and I'd "see" a moving shadow for a second or two.