For many of years that I have investigated, I had never really thought about this question because I thought it was obvious that I was collecting evidence of the paranormal. After all, we were getting EVPs, weird anomalies in pictures that were taken at “haunted”; locations, and we had some personal experiences to boot. What more could anyone ask for? Well that all changed after a skeptic mercisly shot down every piece of evidence we had collected, and it didn’t happen immediately after that.

As with most groups, we were proud of our evidence and convinced there was no other conclusion to be had than it was evidence of the paranormal, therefore they must be paranormal and the skeptic is not being open minded.  Sad to say, but as the debate with the skeptic continued on and they put up factual argument after factual argument, we found ourselves on the losing side of the debate as we tried to support our argument with theories and paranormal dogma.

Then we came to this photo, which we were convinced was paranormal.  The skeptic was quick to note that it could be cigarette smoke, or simply fog. We of course fired back and produced a picture of

a man who had been killed not more than 50′ from where that picture was taken, and showed that the face was a very close resemblance to the man in our photo.  We also noted that the conditions were wrong for fog that night and that neither of us had been smoking at that time, as well as both of us having the feeling that someone was watching us.  He quickly reiterated his conclusion from earlier and stated that personal experiences weren’t evidence and what we had was coincidental evidence, nothing more.  Needless to say, we held our ground and maintained that the skeptic was being unreasonable and close minded.  The picture resembled the photo of the man too closely to be just coincidence.  At least that’s what we were convinced of until after our discussion with the skeptic.  Feeling somewhat indignant about what the skeptic had said our evidence, especially this photo, I once again sat down with the video and reviewed it for more proof that it was what we claimed.

But, instead of finding more supporting evidence, I found the most damning piece of evidence to support the skeptics conclusion.  You see in all our other viewings we never looked to see if it was possible that the investigator in the photo was in fact smoking.  After all, why should we.  He was sure he wasn’t, and was very sincere in convictions about that statement.  But there it was: the faint glow of the cherry of a cigarette.  Not believing what I was seeing, I searched further and further through the video, carefully watching the hand that was away from the camera when I found a clear frame that was illuminated by the flash of my still camera where it could be clearly seen that he did indeed have a lit cigarette in his hand.  Of course this was devastating and I then began to think, “Who am I fooling?”  Well the answer to that was easy; I was fooling myself.

I then found myself going over all our evidence again, except this time I started looking at it without bias and from both our viewpoint and the skeptics.  It was then that I began to realize that the skeptic was right.  We had nothing.

Of course this didn’t go over well with the rest of my group.  They were convinced we had real evidence of the paranormal, and some were even trying to argue that there must be some mistake and what looked like a cigarette must be something else, because that investigator would never lie.  Back and forth this argument went as well as other arguments I brought up about our other evidence, eventually leading up to an argument that splintered the group.

It was pretty disheartening after that.  Some of our group’s members were in denial of fact, members were arguing back and forth, and the cold, hard truth had left me dismayed, ready to throw in the towel when the skeptic who had started this all had stopped by for a visit.  He could clearly see I was not a happy camper and after inquiring about the problem and hearing my tale he simply asked the question, “Who are you trying to convince?”

Huh? I thought to myself, “Everyone.” I replied somewhat puzzled at his intentions with his question.

“Then you’re going to have to collect evidence that doesn’t just convince yourself that the paranormal exists. You’re going to have to collect evidence that isn’t fuzzy and open to broad interpretation.”

After that he and I had a very good conversation as we discussed what was wrong with the evidence we collected and how to collect better evidence, as well as how to be objective and dig into things to find the truth instead of claiming some anomalous picture or recording was evidence.  He also gave me one of the best pieces of wisdom and that is that in order to claim something is paranormal, one must first rule out all other possibilities of what it could be. In other words, to quote Sherlock Homes, “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” and in order to do that you must know how the world around you works.

So, I ask all paranormal investigators who happen across this page, “Who are you trying to convince?”.  If it’s yourself then the methods that are currently being used should be fine.  But if you’re sincerely trying to find real proof, or if you’re trying to really advance paranormal investigation, then the first step is to learn as much physics as possible and learn how to dig for the truth of an event by applying that knowledge as well as unbiased critical thought.