Paranoia State

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So, I might’ve mentioned I sometimes watch Paranormal State, a “docu-drama” about paranormal investigations conducted by Ryan Buell‘s Paranormal Research Society based out of Penn State University.

I watched an episode on March 23, 2009, wherein Ryan and his intrepid band of fellow club members take on a case in Kentucky where a family is reporting paranormal activity.  Through the course of the show, PRS is led (back) to Quincy, IL, where a young girl previously had a “demonic possession“.  PRS called in a priest, who performed an exorcism, and everything was hunky-dory for a while.  Six months, I believe they said.

So Mr. Buell and his brave band of followers and ghost hunters went back to do battle with the demonic force haunting and harming the little girl.

I’m willing to give a pretty wide berth for shows like this.  I just love things paranormal and while I watch them for entertainment and fun, this particular episode left me … well, disappointed would be a big understatement.

For the life of the show, people have leveled accusations of staged events, and the suave, smooth presentation Ryan Buell gives is clearly rehearsed.  But the show’s been pretty fun and has had some moments I thought were pretty interesting.  (For instance, watching the temperature on a thermal camera drop 30 degrees.)  But overall, these shows are pretty hokey and you have to take them with a large dose of sodium chloride and whatever flavor of liquor will help you swallow bovine fecal matter.  I mean, none of this stuff is hard to make up and generate as special effects.

So anyway, on 23-Mar-2009, I watched what was presented as an “exorcism”.  I have to tell you, a more poorly acted drama I’ve not seen in a long, long time.  I saw werewolf movies with Lon Chaney which had better and creepier elements of the supernatural, and in the end, I saw a young girl who probably needed acting classes more than she needed a priest.  I saw a priest who had more questionable theology than almost any (almost) I’ve ever met in person.  I saw an old man who, every time he comes on the show, seems desperate to bag as much camera time as he can and likes to make the editors censor out his foul language, and who presents himself as someone who chats with the dead or demonic — but only he can hear them.  That’s right, the voices speak only to him.  Take that how you will.

I saw a show that probably shouldn’t've been aired, frankly.  It was overwrought with manufactured drama and “tension”.  I only pray my fiction’s not as bad.  Please, Lord.  It was awful.

It sort of bummed me out, because I was really starting to enjoy the show.  Oh well.  I still have Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters International to entertain my ghost addiction.

And I can’t figure out why I can’t get a job.  Ha!

-JDT-

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Paranormal Investigation

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Paranormal investigation is sort of a field of interest right now.  Like becoming a crime scene investigator shortly after the debut of CSI on television, there is a higher interest in paranormal investigation and the process involved, thanks in no small part to two Rhode Island plumbers who operate a high-tech group along the Eastern seaboard.  (The fact that it’s become a franchise and has moved overseas notwithstanding.)  They’ve attracted a lot of attention to the field of paranormal investigation, if not research.

One of the first things which springs to my mind when someone says they’re hearing and seeing things in a set environment, but nowhere else, is carbon monoxide gas.

Carbon monoxide gas can do a lot of nasty things to your body and mind.  One of those things is hallucinations.  A lot of older houses – like might be found on the Eastern seaboard where our nation is oldest – have less than ideal furnaces and sometimes, high CO output should be a suspect in the cases investigated by these paranormal investigation groups.

Most of them are not full-time researchers on the paranormal and occult.  Most of them claim to have had a paranormal experience.  Most of them say, over time, they have become more “sensitive” to paranormal activity, are more aware of it, able to detect it sooner and perceive it more clearly, as they gain exposure to the paranormal itself.  No one ever checks for carbon monoxide.

What they will check for, though, is EMF, or electromagnetic fields.  And I’ve noticed when they measure for EMF, they’ll rattle off numbers and fractions of units, but don’t provide the unit of measure.

An electromagnetic field is a magnetic force created by passing current through a wire or conductor.  The unit of measure for an electromagnetic field is the Tesla, or amperes (amps) per meter.  Now, there’s a whole big thing here; almost everyone is exposed to low levels of EMF everyday, because the very wires webbing the house you live in and the surrounding buildings and such all emit a low-level EMF.  Most common materials don’t shield against them, and they’ll pass readily through stuff, so you can’t just hide from them.  But there’s no way to know if the levels of exposure seen on TV are of any significance when the investigators rattle off their numbers, because the common measure for EMF is mT, or milliTeslas.  That is, thousands of Teslas.  There’s a lot of debate about what effects the EMF generated by extremely low frequency (or ELF)  EMF waves, and you’ll have a great time if you choose to Google that topic, I’m sure.

But, they never check for the more common problem of carbon monoxide.  Why not?

If I conducted a paranormal investigation in someone’s home, the first few questions I’d ask would be:

1. When was the last time your home was tested for carbon monoxide leaks and exposure?
2. Do you have carbon monoxide detectors in your home?  Do they work and have you tested them?
3. Does anyone else experience the things you’ve discussed with us when they visit you?  If so, is it only after a prolonged visit of a few hours or more, or does it happen right away?

Some other things I’ve wondered about is why the ghost hunting has to occur in the dead of night.  Don’t the investigators have to determine when the most likely time for contact with the paranormal situations will be and investigate during those times?  I assumed it’s because most paranormal investigators have to hold down day jobs and can’t go crossing the streams in the middle of the day, but if your client mostly encounters paranormal activity in the afternoon just before her daughter gets home from school, aren’t you inclined to study then, and not at three o’clock in the morning?  The only ones aware of paranormal activity then will be the investigators; no one else is up … maybe not even the ghosts.

Just some thoughts on what I find to be an interesting topic.

-JDT-

All original content © 2009 DarcKnyt
ALL rights reserved.

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A Ghost of a Chance

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Back in the day, when I started writing Ghost Hunters, I briefly flirted with the idea of taking up a new hobby.

Paranormal investigation.

Big City is pretty famous for its haunted locations.  There are several ghost stories lingering around strange roadside figures and disembodied voices in graveyards.  Tales of bizarre apparitions and monsters emerging from mirrors when their names are chanted five times abound.  Heck, not too far away we even have a werewolf legend.  The area is rife with activity for those so inclined to investigate the strange, the ethereal, the cryptozoological.

While my magnum opus didn’t start life as a novel (my beloved saw to that), it did express a fascination I’ve always held for things laying just outside the boundaries of our everyday world.  Things hovering beyond the edges of human periphery, glowing a soft, preternatural beacon for the curious, the naive, the hapless or the deliberately inquisitive.  In fact, after the usual round of ghost stories from the Christmas season, I was stirred into dreaming up another one, the outline for which I’ve started and which even now is swirling in my brain like a storm cloud on the horizon; a storm all of you helped along with your contributions and stories of the unusual.

Anyway, the seductive whisper of joining in the search for the weird, the haunted and the ghostly didn’t draw me hard enough to overcome not being paid to do it (any paranormal investigator who charges for their service is a sham, period).  And now, as I sit in my cozy living room surrounded by beloved children and wife while the temperature outside plummets well below zero (with windchill temps stabbing into areas only suited to Arctic or Antarctic regions of the planet), I’m not particularly sorry I didn’t get into it at the time.  (Being unemployed doesn’t facilitate taking up new hobbies with no opportunity to recover the outlay of capital required for them, either.)  But the seduction was definitely there, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t seriously think about it.

In the end, I settled for Internet (yes, that word is CAPITALIZED, because it’s a proper noun!) research and information.  Not all of it was good, but what I did find useful I incorporated into my book.  When it at last became a book, that is.  And I suppose there will need to be more when the maelstrom in my head finally makes it to text.  But I doubt the allure of sitting in a “haunted” location with genuine believers of the paranormal will assist as much as I thought it might at one time.

On the other hand, it could be big fun to watch a bunch of people who want more than anything to believe in ghosts whip themselves into a frenzy and skew things into “evidence” that something more exists beyond our ordinary world.

I, on the other hand, already knew that.

How ‘bout you?  Are you a believer in otherworldly things, or is our perception all there is?  Sound off.

-JDT-

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I Want to Hear Your Stories

As I listen to people talk about themselves and their lives, I’ve noticed something I didn’t pay much attention to before.

Almost everyone either has, or knows someone who has, a ghost story of some kind.  You know – ghosts in the attic which appear as ethereal, period-dressed Victorian actors, or voices in the basement where no one has been in decades, or perhaps a shadow, silhouette at the top of the stairs.  Creaking floors, opening and closing doors or cabinets, flying pots and pans, flipping pictures and portraits … you know the thing I’m talking about here.

It’s some seeming supernatural or paranormal event they can’t explain, that they related with wide eyes and ominous or hushed tones.  I don’t think I’ve come across someone yet who didn’t have one to share, and the level of creepiness varies from tale to tale.

Some folks have gotten quite good at relating their story, and if told by firelight or low-wicked lamps, would make H. P. Lovecraft or Mary Shelley shudder.  Others recount the story – or in some cases, stories – as casually as they would describe their conversation over lunch of tuna on rye with coleslaw.  Some are impacted deeply, others not so much.

I’m working on a new story idea lately, and the thought of ghost stories is hovering in my mind, at the fore.  I’m comparing battle scars with my wife, who has a few chilling tales of her own to share, and I don’t come close in the creepy factor.  But that’s a narrow slice, a tiny cross-section, of things I’ve heard before.  (Most of them elude me, though.)

What about you, blogosphere?  I want to hear from you.  If you’re willing, take a few minutes in the comments section and tell me your ghost story … or stories.  No cheating – no UFOs, no demonic possessions – just good ol’ fashioned ghost stories.  You know you have one – or you know one from someone close to you.  Share it with me.  Who knows?  I might even use the events (not the people of course) in my new book … if I ever write it, that is.

Sound off, y’all.

God bless,
-JDT-

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