I was just made aware of a show on National Geographic called “Haunted Prison.” While I haven’t had the opportunity to watch a full episode I have checked out a few clips they have on the National Geographic website. This show is shot at Eastern State Penitentiary, and has a team comprised of scientists who exam various aspects of hauntings. From what I’ve seen in the video clips they have posted, investigators should definitely tune in and pay attention to how real science works, as well as getting explanations of some elements of physics.

Next showing is tonight, January 24, 2010, at 9:00PM.

UPDATE: Another showing is scheduled January 31, 2010 at 11:00am

I began this blog the other day, being inspired by part of Kim Kowalczyk’s blog about standardizing the field of paranormal investigation on PUG, and today when I looked I see that Karen was inspired as well.

Paranormal Certification has always made me shake my head. How can you be certified in something that has no basis in fact? What gets me more is how many places certify people in paranormal investigation when what they should be certifying them in is pseudo-paranormal investigation since what they are teaching is pseudoscience. But the thing that gets under my skin with paranormal certification is the money that is made by people who are no more expert in the subject that a kid who watches Scooby Doo, Supernatural, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There are no experts in the field of paranormal investigation as it is widely practiced.

I know many will argue with what I say here, but they can argue all they want. It does not change the facts. Just because someone is well versed in folklore and unsubstantiated theories, it does not make them an expert on anything more than folklore. In fact, most of these people who claim to be professional investigators do not understand the basics of critical thought, rules of evidence, or anything remotely close to investigating where facts are established. This is much like those who decree that so-and-so has done more for the paranormal community and advanced paranormal research more than anyone else out there.

What’s really revealing on the last bit is when asked, those who make such a claim can never provide an example where they have really done anything for paranormal research, other than to further perpetuate unfounded and untested theories. Just once I’d like to hear one of them actually cite something that has accomplished what they speak of, but so far I have not heard, seen, or read anything where anyone has made any progress in substantiating the paranormal where ghost hunting is concerned. And yet these people that are so highly revered and charge hundreds of dollars for courses so people can be certified.

“Certified at what?” Is what I always ask. “How to hunt anomalies?” These people can’t even explain the basic principles on how the equipment works. Often courses for certification offer courses in subjects that have been long proven to be nothing paranormal; and have loads of evidence to substantiate that fact, yet they are taught as though they are true. Another type of subject is one that deals with broad results that can easily be interpreted to fit just about any situation. Things such as astrology or tarot card reading fall into this category. How can subjects which can be shown how they work to deceive, as well as being shown to have no paranormal traits, be recognized as part of a certification for paranormal investigation? Unless of course it’s not certification of scientific methods or knowledge.

I see a growing number of groups and “schools” that fall into this category. My advice to those thinking about paying to be certified in paranormal investigation is to take that money and spend it on a physics class, or some other science class at a college. At least that way it will mean something and it is an investment, whereas the other is pretty much flushing your money down the toilet on piece of paper with printing on it. You’ll get way more bang for your buck, and you may wind up applying that knowledge and actually help in establishing facts instead of merely hunting the next anomaly. And, if you still want a piece of paper then I’ll give you certification which is just as credible as the next guy. Click for Certification

One thing that came up in a blog over on PUG (ParanormalUnderground) by Kim Kowalczyk, of GhostBreakers, was a discussion about standardization of methods in the paranormal community. Kim makes some very good points in this blog, and much they say mirrors what I’ve said over the years. One of the things they touch upon is the resistance of groups to want to conform to standards since it makes them feel controlled. I too have seen this in the paranormal community and it amazes me how there are a set of standards that have emerged. EVPs, EMF detectors, and others. While not totally standardized, the basic concepts have become the norm with many groups, especially since ParaTV has made it’s debut.

But these standards are a far cry from the point that Kim is noting. There are no real standards or rules of evidence. Each group has it’s own way that it sets up equipment and collects data. Most of what I’ve seen simply consists of photos, videos, and audio recordings. There really isn’t much in the way of data logging other than some groups are now using EMF detectors that log measurements made by the device, but without any sort of control in place, and much of the time is the only device of its kind. This makes it virtually impossible for groups to compare notes. Without standards of how data is collected you cannot compare what one group found and compare it to what another group found at the same location, especially if the equipments capabilities differ. Take for instance audio recorders. If one group catches an alleged EVP with a cheap voice recorder while another does not this creates a conundrum when it comes to examining evidence. Was the EVP simply created from distortion caused by poor sampling rates and compression that alters ambient sound?

Another good point that Kim brings up is “Who would oversee these standards? There are no experts in this field.” This is very true. There are no experts in the field of paranormal investigation. In order to be considered an expert one has to have vast knowledge about the subject. Considering everything concerning the paranormal is up in the air and no facts have been established, there cannot be any experts. There may be many who claim to be, and they may have a lot of knowledge when it comes to folklore, but for them to claim to be experts in the field of paranormal investigation is a lie. They are simply experts in the folklore associated with the paranormal. So, who would oversee these rules or standards? And again I have to give kudos to Kim for the suggestion of having experts in various fields be those who govern over these rules, and I would go a bit further and say that the rules that the scientific community be the standards. For if those rules are what is used then there will be little reason for them to reject the evidence that an investigator collects.

Kim also notes a key issue in wrapping up his blog, and that is getting buy in from others in the paranormal community. In fact Kim notes something I have often wondered which is why is it so hard to get buy in from the so called professionals, and what’s their motivation to ignoring the issue. I’ll take it a step further and lump the ParaCelebs in there. To me it seems that the experts and ParaCelebs would be out of business if theories were tested, standards were set, and true knowledge were gained. They thrive on being able to spew untested theories and make broad statements that appeal to the masses who are caught up in groupthink. If they couldn’t offer these lofty ideas then I highly doubt they’d survive long since the overwhelming majority of them haven’t a clue as to go about investigating using methods that the academic community would accept. Obscurity is their friend and ally, just as are generalized statements that can be interpreted to fit any situation so they never appear to be wrong. Thus is the world of pseudoscience.

But I digress a bit. I think that there are several ways that a standard can begin to take root. In fact it seems to be. More and more I run into investigators such as Kim, or ones who have stumbled across a blog such as this or Kim’s. More and more I see the light bulbs begin to come on as investigators who have read these types of materials begin to think about what is said and look at their own methods. Granted there are going to be those who will fight tooth and nail to stick with the failed methods they’re currently using, primarily because they feel like they are accomplishing something whenever they capture some unexplained anomaly, but quite frankly I believe it’s because following the rules of academia are tedious, boring, and slow to produce results. Americans don’t like to wait for anything anymore. They want instant gratification, and science generally doesn’t provide that. But I think that if a group were to produce evidence that were accepted by academia, even if it was something small that didn’t provide definitive proof of the paranormal but did provide an answer to whether or not one of the countless theories out there was true or false, we would then see the tide begin to change.

So, in closing I would like to thank Kim and PUG from bringing up the issue. And I ask of those who read this and are paranormal investigators, “What are you going to do. Continue down the path of obscurity and never gain anything from it other than a collection of anomalies, or are you going to be a true contributor and work with others in the community to develop methods and tests to answer questions and gain knowledge? It’s your choice.”

I was laying in bed with my sinuses stuffed to the roof because of a cold; and while laying here I started thinking about past discussions on some paranormal forums and wondered why believers were trying to prove the existence of the paranormal. For one thing, they already believe so why try to prove it’s existence to themselves? The other thing I don’t understand is if they are trying to prove it to the world then why not use methods that are acceptable to those they are trying to convince?

This also made me wonder why many investigators don’t try to figure out what makes the paranormal tick. If they are so convinced the paranormal exists, why do they keep going through the same motions? What could they possibly expect to achieve? After all, they are not gaining any ground or knowledge. Proof of that is in the fact that we don’t know anymore about the paranormal now than we did 100 years ago, which is basically nothing other than the fact that people are still reporting experiences that have yet to be confirmed.

So, what do investigators expect to gain in their efforts? They certainly are providing anything that could be considered proof of the paranormal, and they aren’t testing any of the theories or dogma in a way that could confirm or deny those theories and dogma. So, what do they expect to achieve? If it’s to have a successful spook hunt then I can somewhat comprehend, since spook huntin’ can be fun and exciting. At least for a while. I have to wonder if deep down many of these investigators aren’t hoping to be the next ParaCeleb. If that is true then it is a shame. From what I’ve seen there are a miniscule number of ParaCelebs that have a clue, and those aren’t the ones that investigators seem to try and emulate.

There is the old saying that man is destined to repeat his mistakes if he does not learn from the past.  With that in mind, I have to wonder about the paranormal community and why they don’t learn from their mistakes.  Now I know part of it is because of all the fraud that makes the paranormal look like there’s amazing things to be captured out there, but when does the community learn that the methods that are being used are at its best, suggestive that there may be something to investigate.  Why do investigators cling to methods that time has proven do not establish proof of ghosts or the paranormal?  This also brings to mind, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.”

So will the paranormal community ever learn from it’s past? Will they ever break from the pseudoscience? Some investigators will say they do because their always trying out new equipment, but when they continue to misuse and misinterpret the data from such devices I have to question whether or not that’s really trying anything new since the ways of trying to use the equipment are still the same.  Why doesn’t the paranormal community ever veer off from the past methods and try something truly new to them and employ science?

And that makes wonder their attitude towards true science.  What are they afraid of? They might find the evidence shows them something they don’t want to see? Or is it that they don’t want to deal with the tedium of science?  The Para-Celebs I can understand why they don’t.  That would interrupt their cash flow, but to the average investigator, why continue the insanity when the results are always inconclusive and produce nothing but junk evidence?  Why won’t investigators take the time to read up on scientific method and conduct investigations by the rules that eliminate possibilities and actually establish truths and facts?

That brings me back to the question of laziness.  Are investigators simply too lazy to take the time to study?  To me it’s either this or it’s simply that the bulk of investigators are more into the thrill of the hunt for things that go bump in the night, and not for the thrill of gaining ground in the search for the truth behind paranormal activity.

My own experience with the methods most investigators use is that they don’t produce results that are of use except to convince those who are easily persuaded into belief, or already believe.  The moment that became apparent to me, I pretty much stop investigating and started learning.   The first thing I learned is that what I was doing was pointless in the fact that my evidence wasn’t verifiable, therefore not factual.  It was simply anomalistic and undefinable.  The next thing I realized was that I needed to learn how to properly collect data and analyze it, as well as how to use critical thought when creating experiments to establish facts.  That is the reason I stopped investigating at the moment.  To properly conduct experiments that will produce facts requires resources, and those have been limited for a fair period of time.  One thing that has happened during the wait for resources is that I have continued go over my thoughts on investigation methods and refine them.

Now I know a lot of investigators won’t agree with what I’m saying here, and they will claim that I’m wrong.   In those cases I’d say they are the ones who are wrong, and can prove it by simply having science take a look at their evidence.   Of course they’ll begin to point out the flaws in science as a defense of their evidence, but that’s no different than tearing someone down to try and build yourself up and still does not address the fact that their evidence doesn’t establish proof in any way shape or form, and only exemplifies the point I’m making here: The Paranormal Community is Destined for Perpetual Failure.   Until they begin to do things in a logical, scientific, and intelligent manner, I’d say this will be true until the end of man,; unless science provides them with something tangible.

I’ve seen this one go both ways. From the paranormal community this is often in the form of pure speculation as seen when I was discussing, “Grasping at Straws.”  But I’ve also seen this from the scientific community as well.

Take for instance an investigation I saw once on TV.  A family was concerned when their daughter started speaking of a “friend” she had.  At first the family simply wrote it off as a child’s imaginary friend.  Not an unreasonable assumption since many children have imaginary friends, but the family became more and more concerned as their daughter began to describe the person in detail and described an elderly gentleman whom she had a name for (sorry, can’t remember the man’s name).  The couple then decided this needed further investigation after they learned that the name of their daughter’s friend was a previous owner of the house.  What really concerned them was when they were checking out the name they found a picture of the man, which matched the description their daughter had given them.  Becoming concerned about this they decided to bring in a local professor to see if it might be a ghost.

Well, the professor came in and found high EMF near the child’s bed, and got together seven photos all fitting the description of the man, with one being the actual man himself and showed them to the daughter, just like a police lineup.  He was surprised when she identified the correct photo, but wrote it off and concluded the place wasn’t haunted and that the child was having EMF induced hallucinations.  As for identifying the picture he said that she must have seen his picture around town somewhere.

Now here’s where I have a problem with his conclusion, and where he seems to be rationalizing the inexplicable.  How does he know she saw his picture somewhere in town?  Also, even if she saw his picture in town, how did she learn his name?  And what are the odds that she’s going to see a picture of the man in town, get his name, and it turn out to be a former owner of the house?  That seems like reaching or grasping straws to me.  For one thing, he never went into town to see if there was a picture the girl may have seen.  The one the parents had found was in the library, and one they stumbled across.  Neither of them had ever seen the picture, or remembers seeing the picture, so how is it their daughter had seen his picture, if that is the case?  The odds of the child stumbling across the picture of a former home owner and learning his name to later use as an imaginary friend seem pretty remote to me.

Now the conclusion that the girl was having hallucinations brought on by EMF were interesting, and there was evidence to show that there was a high EMF field in the area where her head rested at night, but I’m curious why most of her ‘hallucinations’ occurred when she was outside, playing in the yard near her swing.  But at least there a strong basis for the EMF.  With his conclusion on the picture, I was amazed at how quickly and assuredly he jumped to his conclusion.  He did no fact searching and based the whole thing on speculation.  To me, this is no different than saying that cold spots are created by ghosts drawing in thermal energy from the air so they can manifest, or a number of other rationals to explain the inexplicable.

One thing I’ve seen asked numerous times on the Ghost Hunters forum on the SciFi boards is “Why do they go dark?” The main answer I’ve heard is that it will be easier to see the faintest of light sources. A sound reason, but it’s not what is actually observed when seeing how paranormal investigators implement the plan. What I always see is an IR camera with an IR illuminator spot light that does nothing more than illuminate an area that is similar to the lighting a flashlight produces; only in this mode it is monochromatic, making it far worse.

Here’s what I see:

Out of all the reasons I’ve heard, the most plausible is to catch the faintest of lights. That’s all and good until you look at how the investigators execute the method. First they turn off all the lights, which is expected. Then they setup an infra-red camera and turn on an IR illuminator. Here’s where I start scratching my head and ask, “What are you doing?” If the purpose of going dark is to catch the faintest of lights then why are we adding an IR illuminator and setting the camera in a mode that reduces its ability to record visible light?

Basically, all any investigator does by going dark in such a manner is to cripple a camera and make it so it’s no better than strapping a flashlight to a camera and turning out all the lights. In fact, strapping a flashlight to a camera would produce better video than being in IR mode, since IR mode reduces the camera’s ability to see in the visible spectrum of light.

One argument I’ve heard for shooting in IR is that the ghosts aren’t aware of it. Again I have to ask myself, where is the data to support this? If ghosts do exist, then how do we know what they are aware of and what they aren’t aware of? It seems to me that if a being is no longer bound by its organic body then it must be sensing things without the use of eyes, ears, nose, or touch. Therefore, how can anyone assume what a ghost can or cannot sense? If that’s the case then who’s to say it isn’t aware of IR illumination? Without proper data to support such an idea then it’s just as easy to say that ghosts can’t see anything other than people, including visible light.

I’ve also heard investigators claim that they get better results when using the IR method of going dark. Many of them claim that there are more shadows that manifest, which is true to a point, but when looking at their video what I see is a camera that is struggling in a low light situation. Putting cameras in such a situation isn’t much different than putting a person in the same setup. Neither does well to interpret images in low light and both will exaggerate minor differences in light levels, giving the impression there is something there when it’s not. For a person, this effect is further exaggerated by the composition of the human eye and how rods and cones affect vision. But at the moment we’ll stick with the camera, as that is our subject.

Basically, what this all boils down to is failed implementation. If investigators go dark so they can see the faintest of lights, then they need to abandon the IR mode and illumination on the camera and simply stick to shooting in the dark.

One of the biggest problems I see with most paranormal groups is how they collect their data. Many investigators wander around with a single EMF meter and get excited when they observe a spike in their reading. Many also will be quick to conclude that the spike was paranormal in nature with nothing more to support it. Some go on to claim that because they collected an EVP at the same time as the EMF anomaly, the EVP substantiates their EMF readings.

First, let’s deal with the single meter issue. By using a single meter you are only sampling one data point. Not much can be proven with a single data point, and drawing conclusions from a single data point can easily lead to false conclusions.

Example:
Let’s say a car manufacturer produces 100,000 cars of a particular model. Out of the 100,000 cars, 0.1% has a manufacturing defect. You purchase one of these cars and find that it’s defective. Now, because the car you purchased is defective, you conclude that the model of car is a lemon, or worse yet, you decide that the manufacturer produces junk cars. Does this seem like a fair assessment? After all, you can show people that the car you have is defective.

This is how much of the data is collected and analyzed by many paranormal investigators. Let’s go back to the single EMF meter. What most investigators do is very similar to the example above. They get a spike on an EMF meter and think that it’s something significant or that they can draw conclusions from that one spike. About all that can truly be concluded by their evidence so far is that there was a spike. With only a single meter they can’t even determine if the spike is confined to a small area, as in a particular room in a building, or if the spike is much larger, perhaps covering an area of several hundred acres. Determining that a single EMF spike is paranormal in nature is just as irresponsible as concluding that the model of car in the above example is defective.

For investigators to be able to start making any sort of reasonable conclusions from their data they must first look at their collection methods. Does the method create a single data point or does it produce multiple data points? If your data collection only produces a single data point, then it’s time for a change unless you wish to spend your time collecting useless data. In the instance of EMF, multiple meters need to be employed. The more meters, the more data points. The more data points, the more accurate your conclusions are likely to be, especially if you are trying to determine the area affected by an EMF spike.

Once again let’s look at the car example. Let’s say we buy 2 more cars so that we now have a total of three. Again, the two additional cars are defective. Odds are against us getting three defective cars, but it is possible. Now, while we’ve expanded our sample size, effectively increasing its size by 100%, overall we still have a very small sample in comparison to the total number of vehicles that exists. Because we coincidentally purchased two more defective cars, we mistakenly drew the conclusion that all cars of that model are lemons. But look at what happens when we purchase a total of 1,000 cars. Even if we did somehow manage to purchase all the defective vehicles (total of 100 out of 100,000 at a 0.1% defect rate) we would only find a 10% defect rate, not the 100% defect rate that we had previously assumed. This example with a larger sample size shows us that the car is not a lemon as we had initially concluded in our original samples and illustrates, in general, how easy it is to make an inaccurate judgment based on insufficient data.

So as can be seen, one data point does not provide sufficient evidence and surely does not give an investigator enough data from which to draw any sort of conclusions that would be considered acceptable by any peer group in the scientific community.