Why the paranormal community will never be taken seriously

25th April 2017. Reading Time: 6 minutes General. 2882 page views. 4 comments.

It is no wonder the paranormal community will never be taken seriously while people purposely fake evidence for their own agenda.

I was disheartened to wake up the other morning with a story splashed all over my Facebook news feed. I was tagged by several people and it was shared by multiple sites. It was supposed ‘ground breaking’ footage caught by the UK based TV show ‘Most Haunted’. In the latest episode of season 19 at Wentworth Woodhouse, Karl was standing behind the camera and asked the apparition to walk down the hallway. Shock horror, the ghost on command did just that! I clearly have been doing things wrong, I didn’t realise it was so easy! I don’t know what is more disturbing, the fact that this show has lasted 19 seasons when it has been publicly revealed on several occasions since the mid 2000’s that the show is fake, or the fact that people are buying into it.

Who is not buying into it? Paranormal investigators and well most people really. I originally had the thought to do a whole post essentially ‘debunking’ this video, but I didn’t have to. So many people had already called BS on it and an image quickly became viral and my work had been done for me. Is it a ghost or is it a video overlay of Stuart one of the team members?

On the left a ‘ghostly’ apparition caught on film, on the right a shot of crew member Stuart. What do you think?

It is not hard with technology to fake a ghost. I have posted a photo (using my bro Glenn) on my blog several times of how easy it is even with a camera to make someone seem transparent. Tricks with long exposure in my case, photoshop, video overlays make it too easy to fake. I have done an article quite a while ago talking about spirit photography from the 1800’s and the techniques they used to fake this. As long as paranormal investigators have been around, so have people faking evidence.

This is a little camera trick I did for a photography assignment. It also highlights how easy it is to create a see through person or ‘apparition’

I was tagged again this morning in another article going viral. A paranormal investigator who refers to herself as ‘Spooky Julie’ help to cleanse a house whose little toddler was apparently dragged across the room and has a vortex above his Thomas the Tank engine toddler bed . Did you know ghosts smell like sweaty socks? The boy’s dad clearly very experienced in the paranormal who made this shocking claim about the smell of ghosts can also walk through a house and tell you spirits are there. How do these articles get to the media? They don’t just cold call random houses asking for haunting stories. Two things happen. The first is an obvious one in that someone has contacted the media and said they have a great ghost story. The other thing that happens and one which I have been approached and kindly declined, is the media will do call outs wanting to run a ghost story with a certain angle. In this case I am suspecting the Dad wanted to be in the paper.

I don’t begrudge anyone that wants to appear on tv or a magazine. Ive been in a magazine and paper before. If you are out there doing great stuff in the paranormal or you are promoting a great venue, why shouldn’t you be celebrated and get a little bit of your 15 minutes of fame and well done to you. These are the kind of articles the media needs to get behind. Sadly they want the click bait because that is the stuff that goes viral. They want the obviously faked or overhyped crap and it upsets me. How many times do you see a CCTV video where someone has caught a bug claiming it is a spirit or they have ‘conveniently’ set up a camera in their living room (with not all of it in shot) and a table is dragged across the room. The majority of people don’t fall for this but what happens is it all gets liked and shared all over social media and it ends up going viral. The majority of people take it for what it is and realise it is fake. This is the problem right here. They buy into the theory that that is what paranormal investigators are like. This is why as a paranormal community, we will never be taken seriously. I could tomorrow go out there and catch a genuine piece of footage that I can sit back and say has not been faked and I cannot explain it. Do you think people are going to believe it?

I have a relatively small following on this blog because my target market is a very small niche. It is a tell it like it is blog aimed at people who are serious about the paranormal. I have copped a lot of criticism just for posting an article showing people the technical reason as to why orbs appear on photos. I got a lot of emails and inboxes of people abusing me and sending me their orb photos telling me that I didn’t know what I was talking about and that I shouldn’t be in the field because I am not open minded enough. I have been told that I can’t be an investigator if I don’t have psychic abilities. The list goes on. If I see a spade, I am not going to call it a rake when it is clearly a spade. I am so passionate about the paranormal and I care quite a lot about our paranormal community. Probably a bit more than I should. I don’t want the media to ruin it for us. I want us as a community to be taken seriously. How nice would it be to see a paranormal investigator in a newspaper article and not referred to as a ‘Ghost buster’ or to not have the ghostbusters theme playing in a radio or tv interview. I am not going to change and I know a lot of other investigators out there won’t either and we will keep fighting the fight and doing our thing. Sadly, it seems the crew at Most Haunted won’t be changing either. This isn’t their only attempt to grab the spotlight. Each week I have seen a new article promoting their new season. Last week it was that Yvette had a big fight with husband Karl from the show saying they should throw it all in as he had a knife thrown at him during an investigation and his life was in danger. No honey you are only in danger of losing ratings because people have finally taken your show for what it is.

Anyone that wants to seriously come on a real paranormal investigation, look me up. Inbox me, email me, find me on Facebook I don’t care. In all seriousness I will show you the ropes and how it really is. Most investigators are pretty open to answering your questions and helping you out if you are serious. Just don’t be surprised if it is not what you expected. It is not like it is on TV and it is not like the media portrays us. It can be an uphill battle trying to prove yourself and that you aren’t a weirdo or faking every single thing that happens. There may not be tables being dragged across the floor or knives being thrown at people’s heads but stuff can and does happen. It is all kinds of awesome just in a lot of different ways than you may think.

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Comments

  • Nigel 6 years ago

    Hi just read your article and totally agree, I'm fascinated by the paranormal and would love to join up and or help in anyway keep up the good work

  • Terri 6 years ago

    I decided after reading this article to follow you. I agree with your opinion. My son and I often do the " what was that? Did you hear that?" catch phrase of Yvette's as a joke to any noise lol.
    Yes, I have encountered real paranormal things, such as after death communications etc, but I also keep an open mind to fake stuff.

  • Jenny Alderton 6 years ago

    Great article. Couldn't have said it better myself.

  • sharolyn 7 years ago

    this is one show I never have liked, you can see its staged and the woman in it screams all the time.. so fake ,,, I don't watch it