This is something that is long overdue in the realm of paranormal investigation, and is just about the most important piece of establishing a foundation that it’s hard to understand why it’s so long in coming to light.  Now some will argue that this has already been done and start citing paranormal dogma or ‘schools of thought’, but none of that has a basis in fact.  Paranormal dogma is simply the theories that are popular and have been espoused over time, and ‘schools of thought’ are simply more theories that groups feel to be true.

In order for the paranormal community to begin to make any progress in discovering the truth of the paranormal they must first establish facts.  So far I have seen nothing established as fact when it comes to the paranormal, with the exception of a few PSI related experiments.  But as for establishing facts in hauntings, I have seen zero evidence of proper data collection to support any of the theories or dogma that are championed by the community.

Part of the problem here seems to be the paranormal community is much like a herd of cats; with each individual or group going about their investigating their own way.  Yes, many follow a lot of similar methods, but one thing that they do not do is to collect data in consistent manners, or the manner in which they collect and interpret data goes down the path of pseudoscience, making it all for naught.  Without having a sound foundation that is clearly laid out and does not follow the path of pseudoscience, how can the paranormal community expect to make any progress in discovering the truth behind a haunting?

Sometimes I have to wonder if finding the truth is what the paranormal community is really interested in.  Much of what I see is more about validating the beliefs of the investigators, or in the case of Para-Celebs, it looks to be more about keeping people believing so they can sell books, gadgets, souvenirs, and hold conventions to sell said products.  If this is not the case then why not establish methods that actually produce credible evidence?  I know some of it has to do with lack of knowledge in how to do so, but that’s what books are for.  And not books from Para-Celebs on how to hunt ghosts (save your money), but books on how to collect proper evidence from sources such as science textbooks and forensic practices, as well as how to setup experiments to determine what is fact.

Over time, I will share what I know of these things as well as how my investigations will be conducted.  Unlike the Para-Celebs whom I’ve seen turn a blind eye to logic, I will be open and receptive to comments on how to better my methods, and will definitely not reject logical arguments to change methods, but adapt them into the process.  I seek the truth and will follow it down whatever path it leads, wherever that may be.

So, if you’re interested in learning what we have in store, stay tuned.  Our first subject will be on testing to see if magnetism is a component of the paranormal.

I’ve discussed and debated this issue for years, and as large part of the paranormal community has shifted from confirming a haunting to debunking, psychological contamination still remains prevalent in paranormal investigation.  The main form of psychological contamination comes from telling investigators what might be expected.  For the investigators that are still running under the premise of confirming a haunting this is important because they are trying to confirm the reports so they can confirm the haunting.  For those who go into debunk the reports, telling investigators what has been reported to happen is important so they can test to see if there is worldly explanation for whatever has been reported.  Neither of these scenarios is good investigation and both are biased before the investigation gets off the ground.  These types of investigating are bound to produce biased results and not necessarily biased towards the method they are using.  But telling investigators what to expect can often lead to them experiencing something, or I should say perceiving they experienced something when they didn’t, and then drawing false conclusions from that perceived experience.

This I experienced first hand when I conducted a little experiment to see if telling investigators stories associated with a location that wasn’t haunted.  But this wasn’t the first time I’ve witnessed psychological contamination at work, nor is this the only way for psychological contamination to enter into an investigation.

Not only can investigators be influenced by the initial stories about a locations history of paranormal activity, but there’s also the contamination that occurs during an investigation with excited statements like, “Did you see that?!”   Anytime emotion is interjected into a statement those listening will often begin to share in that emotion.   In the above example other investigators become preconditioned that there is something to see regardless of whether or not there is.

Investigators need to be very careful about what they say and how they react when investigating.   It is very easy to influence others with not only words, but with body language conveyed in their communications.   This is primarily what teenagers feed on when they’re checking out a cemetery or local haunt.   Usually there’s one excitable person in the group and their excitement becomes contagious, causing the others to loose control of their emotions and begin to distort events around them into paranormal encounters.  Investigators can fall prey to this same thing, and is why they should always remain calm so as not to fall victim to such a scenario.  To do so simply turns what might be a reasonable investigation into a ‘spook hunt’.

I’ve observed how several groups employ the use of EMF detectors, as well as how they are used on a few television shows and they always make me ask, “Do these guys not understand how these things work?”

Much of the time what I see is they employ them like they are “paranormal detectors,” and at other times they seem to use them to search out EMF sources that may be causing people to experience paranormal type symptoms.  While the first use is highly questionable, especially since nobody has done the diligence to establish a connection between the paranormal and EMF, the second still raises questions.  In both cases I have seen leaps to conclusions without true justification.  With those employing them as “paranormal detectors”, the leap is apparent since as already mentioned the ground work of establishing a relationship between EMF and the paranormal has yet to be done, but in the second case there seems to be another leap being made, and that is that just because a high EMF source has been located that experiences were a direct result of that source.  I’m not arguing that this is not the case, but when I see an investigator locate a high EMF source, let’s say 100mg, and that source is 15 feet from the location where “paranormal feelings” have occurred and EMF readings are measuring one to two mg, I’d have to say a leap was made.

Another thing I’ve noticed is how many investigators hold and rotate the detector while taking measurements.  This may or may not be an issue depending on the EMF detector.  If it’s a single pole detector then it becomes a major issue, which the majority of EMF detectors being employed are of this type.  The reason it’s such an issue is that single pole detectors are polarized, therefore changing orientation of the meter can change it’s ability to accurately measure the strength of an EM field. &;This can lead to the false conclusion that a field has died off when in reality the field hasn’t changed strength at all.  I would say this is the biggest problem that investigators run into without even knowing there is an issue.

Another thing that many investigators fail to realize is that typical EMF detectors are designed to measure alternating or varying magnetic fields.  They do not measure static magnetic fields, if the meter is stationary.  They will see a static field if the meter is moved around, simulating a varying field, which can also lead to a false conclusion on the part of the investigator.  This is something that an investigator needs to be aware of when they wave their EMF detector around searching for fields.

One last thing that investigators should take note of is the effect that appliances can have on EMF detectors.  Things like refrigerators, hot water tanks, or other appliances that cycle power can create temporary increases in the fields they generate.  I once watched an investigator who became excited as he watched a magnetic field appear, disappear, then appear again at the same time an EVP was recorded.  To me, the EVP didn’t even sound like a voice, but because it coincided with the EMF meter producing a ten milligauss spike, they were certain that it was paranormal activity.  After looking at the map of the location, I could see that what he was measuring on the EMF detector was being created by the refrigerator on the other side of the wall, and was later confirmed on a follow up investigation as well as the EVP, which was nothing more than the sound of the refrigerator turning on and distorted by the cheap recorder involved.  So, to all the investigators out there who are using EMF detectors, I highly encourage you to throw the main breaker in the house to help avoid this type of thing happening to you.

Here’s a site that has some very good videos on how some evidence may be hoaxed: http://www.hauntedhoax.net.  I really like the questions he brings up at the end of his videos: did it really happen? Did you just want it to happen? Or did someone make it happen? Those are questions that investigators should ask themselves when reviewing evidence of any kind.

My hat’s off to Patrick Doyle and the videos he’s produced.

So far, I have yet to see anyone truly put these devices to any sort of test that has any type of control.  Personally, from what details I can gather, they are nothing more that an electronic Ouija board that uses random EMF spikes to generate a message instead of the ideomotor effect of a person.  Many claim to have had good results, but since nobody posts an entire episode it is hard to tell if they indeed are having success or not, since there isn’t any way to get an accurate hit or miss ratio.

One experiment I’d like to see is to take five devices, let’s say Speakjet, and see if they all come up with the same thing.  Now this won’t prove anything as far as spirits go, but the result should be they all come up with the same thing if they are all exposed to the same stimulus.  If they don’t then there becomes an even greater issue with the device and the device then shows how polluted it can be when it comes to presenting data.  Funny how nobody ever seems to do the littlest things that can shed light onto the reliability of a device, but there are times that I think investigators want to be fooled, and devices such as these are good at deception.

Another thing that investigators seem to ignore is the science, or I should say pseudoscience that many of these devices are based upon.  Why on earth would an investigator even consider a device that is based upon false science/logic?  To me it makes absolutely no sense and further becomes compounded when they don’t construct any tests that have any sort of control in them, and then simply go about deluding themselves with such devices.

While it does disappoint me to see logic thrown out the window, it does not surprise me.  While reading a message board of a group on the east coast I stumbled across a couple of experiments/investigations they were discussing.  One of these experiments involved Olivus in which they were trying to document the hit/miss ratio.  While looking at their numbers it did seem somewhat impressive until I dug further.  Instead of counting a non-reply as a miss they simply ignored it, which greatly skewed the numbers.  If they had indeed counted those valid misses, the device had a 13% success rate.  That’s not very impressive at all, and when I question them on it they replied that it was not a miss and that it was because the ghost did not have enough energy to respond at that time.  Hmmm… and they know that for fact?  Not wanting to get wrapped up in that debate because I had other questions, I then asked them about a couple of other responses that didn’t add up; the most prevalent being ones that didn’t seem to fit.  Here’s a few examples:

Do you know you’re dead? Response:  Upstairs
  Believe it or not this was counted as a hit because the person they believe to haunt the house had died upstairs and this was they’re way of telling them yes.
Did you live in this house?  Response:  chair, female, room
  This too was counted as a hit because it mentioned room and the investigators associated that with the upstairs hit they claimed just before this and associated the “room” response by saying that room referred to the upstairs bedroom.  Funny thing is even if room could have been considered a hit, they completely ignored the two misses of “chair” and “female”.

This is the only question that seemed to be a hit:

Are you a man or a woman?  Response:  female.

Here’s how they were looking at their numbers. First, they only counted those questions where the device responded (sorry, it doesn’t work that way).  Second, some of their “hits” were quite a stretch and should have been misses.  So, according to them out of the seven responses they had only two were misses, which computes out to about a 71% hit rate.  Not bad if the numbers were good, but even when using the seven responses their numbers fall apart if you dismiss the “leap of faith” hits they counted, and it computes out to 14%.  Now when you look at the total picture like they should have it comes out far worse and they only had a 3% success rate.

I think the worse thing about the whole discussion I had with them is that they did they usual calling of names, saying I didn’t know what I was talking about, banned me from their board and deleted the thread, once again demonstrating that the “open minded” crowd are not as open minded as they think they are.

One other experiment that they were discussing is doing a baseline experiment with EVPs.  In this experiment they took two recorders and placed one in a bedroom at one investigators house and the other in a bedroom of the second investigators house.  They then began recording at the same time and vacated both premises.  Now what they were trying to establish by doing this I’m not certain at all considering the acoustic differences between the two location were not mentioned, and can only be considered to be quite different.  But this is not where the experiment ended.  They then set up one recorder in one of the bedrooms as before, but they also set one up in a ‘haunted’ location and ran both of them.  For some reason the investigators felt that if the recorder at the haunted location recorded an EVP and the one at the house didn’t then that gave the EVP more credibility.  That leap of logic still has me confused and I’m not sure how they figure that, especially since it could be heard that the two locations were vastly different as far as acoustics went.  But that is the leap that was being made and when questioned about it they once again said that I didn’t have a clue as to what I was talking about because they had a friend who was a soundman in a band and he was amazed by their experiment and the EVPs they collected.  Well who could argue with logic like that?    Nobody, to tell the truth.  You can’t argue logically when the rules of logic have been replaced with unrelated subject and the normal rules of logic are replaced with the fantasy world of unsubstantiated theories and dogma.

But back to the devices.  With those I urge investigators to do the diligence of properly testing them and to make sure that they count ALL the misses and make sure to be objective with the hits and not follow the example I told of above.  Doing anything other than that is once more heading down the trail of self delusion, which will never help in discovering the paranormal but will do more damage by perpetuating the cloak of obscurity that shrouds so much of what is suppose to be know as paranormal investigation; and that just make the field more ripe for all the con men that feed from it.