It’s seems pretty common place nowadays that every city larger than a town has a ‘paranormal investigator’ in it. These investigators by default and by the large part, are weekend ghost hunters looking to catch a phantom in the act, either visually or audibly. Again and again, many of these investigators go about their weekend hobby only to come up short with an inconclusive result. Surely, with so many paranormal events occurring one has to wonder. Are the ghosts actually outsmarting the investigators?

I for one, am skeptical of current ghost hunting methodology. When I was young and read books on ghosts and their accompanying investigations, the investigators actually do the one thing that is apparently lacking in the fast paced world of present day. They camped. That’s right, they camped out at the location of the haunting for as long as they possibly could in order to gain whatever evidence they could, experience what can be experienced, and generally go the full nine yards on the research. I seem to remember, though I may be mistaken, reading an investigation that lasted for a couple of months.

This style of research has been transcended by the weekend ghost hunter, the team that spends one to two nights for a grand total of  eight to sixteen hours, walking around with digital recorders and EMF detectors like Egon Spangler from GhostBusters, hoping for an encounter, and in the end, lacking anything solid except for a lowly EVP.  In a sad way, is this what paranormal research has come to? Hit or miss tactics? Now understandably, the investigators, I am sure, are employed individuals who have jobs, and families. They spend a precious night investigating, and hopefully come home to understanding loved one. Yet is this acceptable? How can really credible research be done without the time, energy, blood, sweat and tears invested to yield not just something, but a quantifiable amount of evidence?

Now let us get theoretical to a small degree. Lets say you are a ghost. You live in this nice little home you use to own, and one day these strange people move in and start living in -your- home. You really are having a difficult time communicating to this family but every here and there, you manage to freak one or two out and you really feel like you might be getting through to them. You visit them while they are sleeping, showering, eating, having sex (you voyeur). Then one day they start to tear the place up to remodel and this just sets you off the deep end and you start making things go boom just about whenever you want, not to mention, you can now show yourself to them for a quick second or two!

Now you’ve gone and done it. They called some people. You’ve seen the family so often in -your- house that you are use to them at this point. You know who to communicate to, and try to show yourself every here and there to them, and how to make things go boom when you can focus enough on it. But these ‘other’ people show up one night. This crew of people show up in -your- house with strange equipment, walking around with camera’s and other assorted devices, asking you to talk to them and play around with this green light on one of their devices.

You know what I would do? Nothing. That’s right. Nothing. They are in -my- house, they are annoying and unwanted, and frankly, I don’t know what they want, but I keep telling them to get out and frankly, I can care less to jump through their hoops. They are intruders. I’m just gonna watch these guys because I’m not sure I really want to interact with them, besides, what do half of those devices really do? I’m not going to find out the hard way. They seem to want to play games. They knock ‘shave and a haircut’ on wooden trim. Sure, I will knock back ‘get lost’. Now they are running around like bewildered children. This is fun. I go stomp around in a part of the house they are not in, and here they come running like Pavlov’s dogs. Funny! But it also seems to keep them interested. I’ll stop keeping their attention. They stay for a small amount of time and then leave. Cool. Now I can get back to trying to communicate with this family that I have been around so much, I’m kinda getting attached to them.

So much for the flight of fancy, but the facts may be just that. Ghosts may not be so keen on newcomers and can  care less to interact with them. You see it on most of the ghost shows, a highly active haunting goes dry when the GhostBusters show up. The affected residents claim up and down how active these ghosts are yet nothing happens. Unfortunately, if the investigators tried to negotiate with the homeowners on a term for the investigating instead of acting like they are going to be like the Orkin man, they might actually become accepted by the entity and communicated with.

Should ghost hunters change their style? It couldn’t hurt for starters. Investigators, I feel, are learning bad habits from their TV show counterparts. Investigators should rethink their methodology by logical thinking. If I wanted to catch a ghost on video, I’m not going to set up a video camera in the living room and hope it catches something in a eight hour span, I’ll negotiate with the residents to see if I can run that camera 24/7 for a week. We will drop by, change the tape/memory card, away we go. Evp’s? Ditto. If I want to experience the entity in question, I would ask to sleep over in the affected room or area. You have to maximize your opportunities in order to acquire evidence. Investigators currently are the on the forefront of paranormal research, by default. Hopefully, ghost hunters will start to realize that their current roles are nothing more than a stopgap in what should be a scientific process, and their efforts ultimately are field trials for future scientific research.