Ultimate Ghost Hunting Guide by Jeff Terrozas, 2011
Subtitled “Everything you need to know for paranormal research,” the content is overly rambling and amateurish. Typos abound, the layout is annoyingly sloppy. The premise is that ghost hunting is “fun,” so have fun. It’s not to be taken seriously unless you want to make money. In that case, you should act ”professional.” This book should not be taken seriously.
Ghost Seekers Field Guide, Volume 1 by Frank Potterstone, 2011
No proofreading or editing was apparently done to this manuscript. The language and grammar is poor; typos are abundant and the layout is simply ugly. There is an overuse of ellipses, and random unattributed quotes. Though the author means well, with these factors, the lack of adherence to punctuation conventions, and the unfocused content, this book is unreadable. Yes, there was a Volume 2 as well.
Ultimate Ghost Hunter Field Guide by Brandy Burgess, n.d.
Layout is very poor with line breaks in the middle of a sentence and random capitalization of words. Grammar is poor and the writing is amateurish and unfocused. The author lays out “facts” such as a description of “psychic burns” and “awakenings” without any support for such supernatural claims. She says you will know a spirit is demonic because of the sulfur or rotten flesh smell as well as the growling sounds. They also appear in half-human, half-animal form. These sound like verifiable claims; one wonders why we can’t prove such incredible new findings if they are so obvious.
Ghost Hunting 101: The Ultimate Resource for Beginner and Experienced Ghost Hunters by Ghostly World, 2015
Ghostly World is a website “dedicated to all things haunted.” The authors say on their site that they are not an investigation team or even “in the paranormal field.” Yet, here they are publishing and charging for an instruction book on ghost hunting. How’s that for credibility? The layout of Ghost Hunting 101 is acceptable and the writing style is generally appropriate to a serious handbook. There are some typing errors. The content is shallow and lacks development and explanations. Terms and labels are assigned subjectively. For example, readers are told there are three kinds of ghost hunters: a hobbyist, a serious researcher, and a home investigator. A random graph is included (because graphs look sciencey) without any source data to show that 100 percent are hobbyists, 50 percent are serious researchers and only 10 percent are home investigators. Going into a client’s home is serious stuff and the ghost hunter needs to provide comfort and assistance to the residents while studying spirits. The unnamed author(s) suggest the ghost hunter may need to act in the capacity of a “therapist”— a highly unethical suggestion. Meanwhile, the reader is warned that Ouija boards and other occult dealings will bring about dangerous evil spirits. They seem to think Grant Wilson and Jason Hawes invented ghost hunting.
Some of these books are surprisingly candid, as I found with How to Legally Gain Access to Haunted Locations: A Guide for Paranormal Investigators (n.d.) by Casper Waylin. Waylin makes no apologies for playing pretend and weaseling your way into clients’ homes. He recommends following what you see on TV shows:
Professionalism starts as “pretending” but evolves into something that’s real. If you’re just getting started as a ghost hunting group, you’ll need to pretend that you’re a “professional” and put on a convincing act for the people you talk to in order to gain entry into a particular location. Put together a good costume (some nice clothes) and props (legal documents and contracts) and then tell clients and gatekeepers exactly what you plan to do from beginning to end. In terms of how you greet and speak to new clients, it can help to model other group leaders you’ve seen on TV or read about in books and for crying out loud, make sure that you have a firm handshake and you look them in the eye during your initial contact!
…
Acting professional is okay if you’re not really a professional. Find a character in a movie or watch some of the later episodes of TAPS Ghost Hunters or Ghost Adventures and emulate the paranormal investigators that you can relate to best.
So copy the guys on TV. Pretend to be like them when you enter other people’s houses. This is awful stuff.
Finally, I would like to mention a specialty guide called The Other Side: A Teen’s guide to Ghost Hunting and the Paranormal (2009) by Gibson, Burns, and Schrader. This might be considered one of the “least worst” books since it was done by a reputable publisher and contains a handful of good advice. There are two overarching and egregious problems with this book: (1) Misinformation directed at teens to take on this topic and “educate the masses” about “what our place is in the universe and what possibilities there are of an afterlife”; and (2) The ignorant and condescending attitude towards science (as difficult and cumbersome) and skepticism (as cynical bullying) (p. 67). The logical fallacies and unsupported claims rampant in this book would make it excellent to use as an example for a critical thinking exercise.
The “Ultimate” Conclusion
Most, perhaps all, of these authors wrote these books because they believed it would be helpful to an audience or to their investigation group to codify what they deemed to be important knowledge and procedures that everyone was expected to follow. With the advent of easy self-publishing, we’ve seen a proliferation of low-quality, previously unpublishable books like never before. Anyone, even someone who never wrote an article or term paper, can call themselves an “expert,” publish a book, and claim to be an author. There is no excuse for publishing a book without having it edited for basic grammar, spelling, and punctuation. There is no justification for the self-serving, misguided misinformation out there that promises the reader that “this book” is the (ultimate) thing you need to set yourself up as a genuine, credible, and successful ghost hunter. My recommendation: Don’t bother with any of them. Look up books done by professional science writers or reports by actual parapsychologists to learn the literature of the field before you write a book and say you know what you are talking about.
Scientific Paranormal Investigation by Benjamin Radford (2010) is currently the only rational, skeptical-themed guide out there. If you do any paranormal investigation, this should be on your shelf. Lay parapsychologists should refer to Parapsychology: A Handbook for the 21st Century by Cardeña et al. (2015). You can borrow this from a university library or browse it online. While I disagree with some content in this volume, it is an example of a credible way to construct a sophisticated and useful handbook that will be relevant for decades. It will also give the ghost hunter hobbyists an eye-opener on the huge amount of parapsychological research that has been done by far more qualified people of various disciplines. Written at a college reading level, it is not in the same class of books cited above, and makes all amateur guides look extremely unsophisticated in comparison. But if you are going to claim to be doing groundbreaking research that will enhance our future knowledge about spirits and hauntings, you need to up your game. The world does not need any more pro-paranormal ghost hunting guidebooks by self-styled experts.
Chapter Notes
Introduction
1. Work on the “backfire effect” in politics has been done by B. Nyhan. Recommended reading is J. Cook and S. Lewandowski (2011), Debunking Handbook, www.skepticalscience.com/docs/DebunkingHandbook.pdf.
2. A snipe hunt is a practical joke played on the young where they are given an impossible task. There are no snipes so those hunting will be looking for them forever and make a fool of themselves.
Chapter 1
1. This is in opposition to Max Weber’s idea of “disenchantment” of society via the emphasis of scientific understanding over belief. Re-enchantment tendencies will insert magical meaning into even ordinary life actions.
2. For the TAPS website, visit tapsfamily.com/tf-members/taps-family-members-list.
3. The T.A.P.S. Mentality. Retrieved May 29, 2010, from www.the-atlantic-paranormal-society.com/abouttaps/mentality.html.
4. Blogger Jack Brewer has followed the recent history of MUFON.
ufotrail.blogspot.com/2013/07/mufon-science-and-deception-part-one.html.
5. Antonio Paris was a former MUFON member who started his own organization. aerial-phenomenon.org.
Chapter 2
1. www.gallup.com/poll/4483/americans-belief-psychic-paranormal-phenomena-over-last-decade.aspx.
2. www.gallup.com/poll/16915/three-four-americans-believe-paranormal.aspx.
3. Later in this volume, there is an important distinction made between supernatural, which includes religious beliefs, and the paranormal, making this statistic a bit confusing. But it does show the popularity of belief in things beyond mainstream science and knowledge.
4. “Seen any Red Pandas Lately?” www.nsta.org/publications/news/story.aspx?id=53418.
5. www.nytimes.com/2016/09/30/us/creepy-clown-hoaxes-arrests.html.
6. AP created a Twitter account called AP Oddities. Huffington Post has a subcategory site called “Weird” as well as a social media account for this. While the topics are broader than ghosts and UFO reports, the popularity of such news outside the mainstream current events news is notable.
7. Check out one of my favorite collections of pop culture kitsch at ilovetheyeti.blogspot.com.
8. The original source for this most wonderful word is undetermined.
9. An example of this is Ghost Adventures visiting Rose Hall Plantation in Jamaica regardless of the documentation that the story of the witch of Rose Hall was fictitious.
10. These numbers are from my own list kept up to date at sharonahill.com/paranormaltv.
11. I cite personal experience. I asked vendors of such equipment at a paranormal conference. Many advertisements include the standard “as seen on TV.”
12. Paranormal conferences resemble fan conventions more than academic conferences. The television personalities appear for Q&A panels and autograph sessions rather than deliver a lecture or presentation.
13. “Ghost hunters utilize latest in technology / Paranormal research has become a popular pursuit.” www.sfgate.com/business/article/Ghost-hunters-utilize-latest-in-technology-2562702.php.
14. “Ghostbusters inspired me to work as a parapsychologist, hunting ghouls.” www.theguardian.com/careers/careers-blog/ghostbusters-parapsychologist-spooks.
15. November 17, 2013, “An Interview with Alex Jones, America’s Leading (and Proudest) Conspiracy Theorist,” New York. nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/11/alex-jones-americas-top-conspiracy-theorist.html.
16. See the archives of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for the most infamous case of this example of ostension to date—the Slenderman stabbings of 2014. archive.jsonline.com/news/crime/waukesha-slender-man-stabbing-262029261.html.
Chapter 3
1. Description from the Rhine Research Center website www.rhine.org.
2. www.parapsych.org.
3. www.parapsychology.org.
4. See the 2016 Fortean Times 338 (April): 16–18.
5. ghostresearch.org/. Accessed from 2010 to 2016.
6. www.ghostweb.com/portal.html.
7. sharonahill.com/paranormaltv.
Chapter 4
1. The origin of the word “cryptid” is, ironically, cryptic Loxton & Prothero 2013: 16–17). Regal (2011:22) attributes it to John Wall in 1893.
2. http://orgoneresearch.com/2009/10/19/florida-“giant-penguin”-hoax-revealed.
3. The first sighting is commonly attributed to Samuel de Champlain but his account is clearly not a monster but a fish.
4. www.skepticblog.org/2013/09/12/breaking-down-a-criticism-of-abominable-science.
5. www.animalplanet.com/tv-shows/finding-bigfoot/bios/matt-moneymaker.
6. North American Wood Ape Conservancy, woodape.org.
7. bionews-tx.com/news/2013/09/01/texas-state-university-researcher-helps-unravel-mystery-of-texas-blue-dog-claimed-to-be-chupacabra.
8. As stated on the website www.olympicproject.com.
9. Chapter 6 of Abominable Science details the motivation of some individuals to find Mokele-Mbembe, a living dinosaur, in the African Congo area as proof against evolution.
10. The Sylvanic website periodically disappeared from the Internet and is now officially gone. You can see a report on the photos from Discovery Channel’s Animal Planet here: blogs.discovery.com/animal_oddities/2011/09/do-new-photos-show-a-real-bigfoot.html.
11. See Cliff’s insider’s report on this episode on his website: cliffbarackman.com/finding-bigfoot/finding-bigfoot-episode-guide/finding-bigfoot-season-two/finding-bigfoot-season-two-canadian-bigfoot-eh.
12. For several years, I chronicled Bigfoot hoaxes that made the mainstream media news feeds. You can view these stories at doubtfulnews.com/?s=bigfoot+hoax.
Chapter 5
1. www.cufon.org/cufon/robert.htm.
2. www.nuforc.org/General.html.
3. www.cufos.org/org.html.
4. For a review of MUFON’s problems over the last few years, I found Jack Brewer’s blog “UFO Trail” to be insightful. This post, from July 2013, provides a road map of things that went wrong and why: ufotrail.blogspot.com/2013/07/mufon-science-and-deception-part-one.html.
5. A term coined by social psychologist Leon Festinger in 1957.
6. Contact in the Desert 2015 claimed 2000 attendees. www.kmir.com/story/29202460/contact-in-the-desert-ufo-conference-held-in-joshua-tree.
7. www.openminds.tv/about.
Chapter 6
1. Ohio Paranormal Investigation Network (OPIN).
2. I attended the 2011 Pennsylvania UFO and Bigfoot Conference at Westmoreland Community College.
3. A subset of cryptozoologists entertains the possibility that cryptids are not fully material beings but may be extra-dimensional or spectral entities.
4. Seven men were arrested and pled guilty to trespassing and arson when a fire destroyed the LeBeau Plantation mansion in Louisiana in 2013. They were looking for ghosts. www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2014/09/seven_men_who_apparently_were.html.
5. Regal 2011, p. 181.
6. For examples of these situations, research the cases where counselors for purported UFO abductees and satanic ritual abuse victims led their clients to report “recovered memories” as genuine that were later found to be demonstrably false.
Chapter 7
1. Charles Percy Snow (1959), The Two Cultures (Cambridge University Press).
2. This speech is readily available online and contained within Feynman’s 1985 book Surely, You’re Joking Mr. Feynman.
3. See the 2007 article “Cargo cult lives on in South Pacific,” news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6370991.stm.
Chapter 8
1. en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Samuel_Johnson From Boswell’s Life of Johnson: “Talking of ghosts, he said … ‘[It] is undecided whether or not there has ever been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death. All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.’”
2. www.instituteofmetaphysics.com.
3. www.rhine.org.
4. nevadaiops.com.
5. www.flamelcollege.org.
6. www.internationalmetaphysicaluniversity.org.
Chapter 9
1. The Prodigy Paranormal Group.
2. Port City Paranormal.
3. West Coast Paranormal.
4. Wisconsin Paranormal Investigation Team (WIX).
5. Arkansas Paranormal Anomalous Studies Team (ARPAST).
6. The Pennsylvania Paranormal Association (PPA).
7. Central Oklahoma Paranormal Studies.
8. See the November 9, 2011, article “Do Einstein’s Laws Prove Ghosts Exist?” at www.livescience.com/16951-einstein-physics-ghosts-proof.html.
9. Researchers of Paranormal Experiences (ROPE).
10. Oregon’s Unknown Creepy Haunting and Paranormal Investigations (OUCHPI).
11. East Coast Research and Investigation of the Paranormal.
12. The Ghost Chicks.
13. League of Paranormal Investigators. This “Ghost Lab” device is not the same as that from the Ghost Lab televisio
n show.
14. Northeast Arkansas Paranormal Society.
15. Druid City Paranormal and Wiregrass Ghost Hunters.
16. East Coast Haunting Org—ECHO Paranormal.
17. National Ghost Hunters Society.
18. Calhoun County Paranormal Investigators.
19. Blue Ridge Paranormal Investigations.
20. Miller’s Paranormal Research.
21. Paranormal Investigators of Central Arizona (PICA).
22. International Paranormal Reporting Group.
23. East Coast Haunting Org (ECHO Paranormal).
24. Blue Ridge Paranormal Investigators.
25. Florida Paranormal Investigations.
26. Sonoran Paranormal Investigation, Inc. (SPI).
27. For example, the BRFO database of Bigfoot sightings was used to create a map of sighting distribution in the U.S. and Canada over 92 years. www.joshuastevens.net/visualization/squatch-watch-92-years-of-bigfoot-sightings-in-us-and-canada.
28. The ARIGs I contacted were not keen on sharing these views publicly. They seemed intent on protecting their existing reputation. I am grateful for their candor with me.
Chapter 10
1. Paranormal Investigators of Central Arizona (PICA).
2. skepdic.com/pareidol.html.
3. The “lights out” concept seems counterintuitive to investigations in general. Why would ghosts only appear in the dark? Various reasons for this have been stated by researchers. For one, the entities could be repelled by the light. Other researchers claim that they are removing sources of electromagnetic radiation that may interfere with the collection of data. Those and all other reasons are questionable, but well-established is that “lights out” is conducive to a more edgy environment that heightens perceptions (and misperceptions).
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