Ghost Hunt: Chilling Tales of the Unknown (26 page)

Remember the Ghosts with No Legs? That case was all about the research. Great stuff, but here’s the Ghost Hunt tip about research:

•   
Always do the research after you’ve investigated the site itself.

Here’s why: Did someone ever say to you, “Stand over there are try not to think of a bear?” Try it. You won’t be able to do it. The idea of a bear is already in your mind. The same thing can happen in an investigation. If you show up at a site knowing that a Civil War soldier died in that house, you will have that idea in your head. Next thing you know, every shadow or flash of light will look like a soldier to you. Or you may be so busy trying to find a soldier that you will miss an important piece of evidence that has nothing to do with the Civil War.

To be a good Ghost Hunter you have to observe and make notes about what you observe. You can draw your conclusions later. That’s when the research really helps.

S
o you have hours of video and audio tapes. You’ve recorded everything. Maybe you even saw some freaky phenomena first-hand. What next?

Now it’s time to study and analyze the evidence. Here are some tips to help you.

Analyzing Photographs

Be very careful about photographs. Is that white blob an orb (a ball of energy caused by a spirit)? Look closely. It could be caused by any of these things:

•   cold breath

•   smoke

•   dust

•   a finger over the lens

•   camera straps in front of the lens

•   rain

•   a lens flare

•   bugs

It’s not easy even for experts to be sure about orbs. A speck of dust can reflect light from a flash and make it appear several times brighter than it actually is. Most orbs are dust, bugs, moisture, and reflected light.. Even if you take two pictures in a row, one that shows the “orb” and one without, this does not prove that the orb is real. It only proves that in one of the pictures, the dust was at the right angle to show up on film.

A true orb is usually whitish-blue or green and looks almost as if someone tossed a ping-pong ball into the picture. But even then, orbs are not ghosts. They are just blobs of energy. And there can be lots of reasons for why they are there.

Analyzing Video Evidence

Video evidence can be very convincing, but it can fool you, too. Here are some tips that will help:

Never fast-forward during the first viewing
. Yes, there are hours and hours of video to watch. Yes, it will be boring. Yes, there is a large chance that you will not find any evidence of the paranormal or ghosts. But do you really want to take the chance of missing something? A hugely important piece of evidence might only be present in your footage for half a second. There’s no way you would spot it if you were fast-forwarding.

Watch out for an out-of-focus picture.
Some cameras, especially in dark situations, lose focus. This can make objects blurry. Blurry objects can look spooky. Is that a ghost hunched over in the background, or just a lamp? You could be fooled if the camera is out of focus.

Beware of matrixing.
You may not know the word, but matrixing is something we all do. Ever look at a cloud and think it looks like your dog? How about the Man in the Moon? It’s human nature to make things seem familiar and understandable. But matrixing can be a problem for Ghost Hunters. Let’s say we have a photograph of a mysterious face in a window. We have to be sure that our minds aren’t turning a random pattern of raindrops into a face.

The best way to avoid matrixing is to be aware that it’s a problem. You can train yourself out of doing it. Matrixing often happens when you have a cluttered setting. Pictures of tree branches or leaves, a messy closet, fields, a mirror, or any other “busy” picture is a perfect place for matrixing to crop up. For example, if it looks as though there’s a ghost crouching in the bushes next to your house in a picture, you must make sure that the image of the ghost is not the leaves or the shadows or the branches. If a ghostly image is real, the spirit will be made up of its own material.

Matrixing can occur just as easily in an audio recording as in a photograph. You might listen to the same loop of a recording a hundred times and not be entirely sure what you’re hearing. You might think to yourself, “Is that a child’s voice saying ‘help me,’ or is it just the thermostat kicking on?” This is where tagging is so helpful. Maybe you’ve tagged in the recording itself that the thermostat did turn on. Then you can debunk the noise. If there’s no other explanation, maybe it is a real EVP. That will be decided when you get to the very last step of your investigation.

T
he best way to be sure your evidence is real is to work with your team. You need people with different opinions and different sets of eyes and ears. It’s important not to count anyone out. If one person disagrees with you about the evidence, it could give you a whole new way of thinking. That’s why we discuss all the evidence with the whole team.

For example, in a T.A.P.S. investigation, we don’t conclude that an EVP is real unless the group agrees on what we hear. We listen to the information brought up by the research. We go through all the claims that we debunked. And once everyone has been heard from, we come to our conclusions. Then we decide if we have found enough evidence to say this investigation showed real paranormal activity.

Now that you have the secret tips from the Ghost Hunt team, you are ready for your first test case. Turn the page and get ready to test your ghost hunting skills.

You are about to see how much you have learned about real ghost hunting. In the test case below, you will do your own investigation. Is there really a ghost in the basement? You will analyze the evidence and come to your own conclusions. Read each question. Decide which of the choices is the right one. Then when you are finished, compare your answers with the answers at the end of this guide. Good Luck!

It’s a late October evening. You and your best friend Tom have just finished watching the season finale of
Ghost Hunters
on the old TV in your basement, and you are having a discussion about the creepy things you saw on the show. Suddenly, the lights start flickering and then flash off. A second later, you both hear a low, sad moaning.

You and Tom race out of the basement and up the stairs to the kitchen. After catching your breath, you look at each other and know you have the same thought: “We
need
to investigate this.”

First things first. You gather the digital camera, tape recorder, walkie-talkies, flashlight, and thermometer that you have in the house and set them out on the kitchen table. This will be your central command station.