Thanks 
Three of the SAPS members are getting together next week for a trip to a haunted location. We're running into a couple of problems... 1. Our EMF detector hasn't arrived in the mail yet, even though we ordered it two weeks ago... Apparently not only the detector is a scam, the people who sell them are too... 2. Haunted locations are not volunteering themselves to be debunked. We've contacted lots of people. So far no one wants us to come. And I refuse to lie and say we're PROVING hauntings. *le sigh*
And please, if anyone has myspace, add SAPS. http://www.myspace.com/skeptical_analysis
The friends list is getting a little weird.
Three of the SAPS members are getting together next week for a trip to a haunted location. We're running into a couple of problems... 1. Our EMF detector hasn't arrived in the mail yet, even though we ordered it two weeks ago... Apparently not only the detector is a scam, the people who sell them are too... 2. Haunted locations are not volunteering themselves to be debunked. We've contacted lots of people. So far no one wants us to come. And I refuse to lie and say we're PROVING hauntings. *le sigh*
And please, if anyone has myspace, add SAPS. http://www.myspace.com/skeptical_analysis
The friends list is getting a little weird.
Aw, thanks! Sorry it seemed like I was ignoring the comment. I made the mistake of changing my main e-mail addy on here, and it locked me out of posting until it was approved or whatever.
*brings in the evil cats*
Bwahahahaha
On a SAPS note, though, we are taking the TAPS equipment to Austin in the hopes of visiting a "haunted" place. We will then take the equipment to a non-haunted place and compare results. However, finding a haunted place that the owners will let us wander around in in Austin is proving difficult. If you live in Austin, Texas and know of a haunted location you think you can get us into, please write!
*brings in the evil cats*
Bwahahahaha
On a SAPS note, though, we are taking the TAPS equipment to Austin in the hopes of visiting a "haunted" place. We will then take the equipment to a non-haunted place and compare results. However, finding a haunted place that the owners will let us wander around in in Austin is proving difficult. If you live in Austin, Texas and know of a haunted location you think you can get us into, please write!
Evil cats don't intimidate me anymore. I have become a man since then!
I swear I'll get out of this box to confront your cats in... one minute
60 seconds..
59½ second..
59 seconds and 250 miliseconds..
59 seconds and 125 miliseconds..
I swear!
59 seconds and 124½ milisecond..
Could we perhaps feed the cats first?
Aaaah.. Ok, I don't feel all ready yet.. But I'm definately not afraid of evil cats anymore!
..alright.. back to topic: Ghost cats!
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phenomenon
Scholar
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2005
- Messages
- 79
Taps
Cracking first post CLD!
I can't say I've watched quite as much as you but certainly recognise the pattern you speak of.
Any decent links to some of the material you speak of would be great.
Cracking first post CLD!
I can't say I've watched quite as much as you but certainly recognise the pattern you speak of.
Any decent links to some of the material you speak of would be great.
jhunter1163
beer-swilling semiliterate
I'd like to propose a test...
I live in a very old house (1849) in Connecticut. This house has its share of creaks and groans, and there are things that happen there that kinda raise the hair on the back of your neck (doors opening by themselves, empty rocking chairs rocking, heavy "footsteps" with no one around, etc.)
I'm inclined to put these things down to drafts, sloping floors, etc. However, in the course of doing research to get the house onto the CT historic properties list, I did find out that someone (I won't say who, that's part of the test) died in the house at some point in time.
So, the test is.. come on down and tell me what's causing these phenomena? Is it sloping floors and drafts or paranormal stuff? And, if it's paranormal, can you tell me who it is and something about them? The tricky bit is, I know the answers I'm looking for and would be willing to put them in writing and seal them before the test, just to be fair. Also, I know the name of everyone who's owned the house over the years, so you wouldn't be able to get by with "well, it was someone else..."
Any suggestions on how we could make this test better/fairer?
I live in a very old house (1849) in Connecticut. This house has its share of creaks and groans, and there are things that happen there that kinda raise the hair on the back of your neck (doors opening by themselves, empty rocking chairs rocking, heavy "footsteps" with no one around, etc.)
I'm inclined to put these things down to drafts, sloping floors, etc. However, in the course of doing research to get the house onto the CT historic properties list, I did find out that someone (I won't say who, that's part of the test) died in the house at some point in time.
So, the test is.. come on down and tell me what's causing these phenomena? Is it sloping floors and drafts or paranormal stuff? And, if it's paranormal, can you tell me who it is and something about them? The tricky bit is, I know the answers I'm looking for and would be willing to put them in writing and seal them before the test, just to be fair. Also, I know the name of everyone who's owned the house over the years, so you wouldn't be able to get by with "well, it was someone else..."
Any suggestions on how we could make this test better/fairer?
jhunter1163
beer-swilling semiliterate
I'd be delighted with a debunking myself. I'd rest easier at night. Now if we can only find a paranormal investigator to take up the gauntlet...
Why don't you e-mail TAPS? They're located in Rhode Island. See -- http://www.the-atlantic-paranormal-society.com/contactus.html
jhunter1163
beer-swilling semiliterate
They're not currently accepting families.. I did put it out on their webring though so we'll see if I can scare someone up.
*eyerolls and groans at lousy pun*
*eyerolls and groans at lousy pun*
Well, you didn't mention how easy it would be to obtain the information you hold about the house. It could be anything from family tales to public library material. It's an important part of the protocol, as so called psychics has been caught cheating many times before.
Anyway, assuming you got a fairly unknown haunted location, then you could improve the protocol by using several houses or locations for the psychic to sense, and then have the person tell which of the locations he or she would say were haunted. When a location is sensed to be haunted, then ask all the additional questions you have up your sleeve.
The more non-haunted locations you use, the more precise a result, and all the non-haunted locations should have no history of paranormal events of course.
Additional: Without their knowledge, repeat the test with several esteemed psychics, and see if they disagree about which location is the haunted one.
The problem with it all, is that they always can claim that some of the other locations were haunted as well, and that they spend their energy there or something, and if they all sense different "haunted" locations, then they will probably one and each claim that all the others are wrong, but that would be sort of fun I guess.
Still, people who claim to be able to sense things in given situations, are usually very hard to test scientifically. JREF often reject million dollar applicants because their alleged abilities are too subjective (often with the result that JREF is threatened with this-and-that).
I actually don't know if JREF ever has accepted a haunted house + psychic application, but I would love to see the preliminary test protocol used if one was agreed upon.
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jhunter1163
beer-swilling semiliterate
Thank you Thomas, that's exactly what I was looking for.
The information I have about the purported "ghost" is pretty specific, from family interviews and whatnot. It might be possible to come up with the name from public records, but most likely not the details unless you spent some time with the family (as I did).
There are several other houses built in the same time period (+/- 5 years) in the neighborhood.. I could start with them. Then I'll let the psychics come in and give it a go (blind of course).
Excellent protocol, Thomas, thanks again.
John
The information I have about the purported "ghost" is pretty specific, from family interviews and whatnot. It might be possible to come up with the name from public records, but most likely not the details unless you spent some time with the family (as I did).
There are several other houses built in the same time period (+/- 5 years) in the neighborhood.. I could start with them. Then I'll let the psychics come in and give it a go (blind of course).
Excellent protocol, Thomas, thanks again.
John
Thank you yourself.
Hmmm.. Well, actually then.. In this case, then I doubt that any skeptical investigator would recognize the result if the psychic(s) should get a positive. You can't really double-blind that information. It's like testing for dowsing while having a family running around knowing in which bucket the water is.
Of course, you could still carry out the test and call it the preliminary one, and if the claimants fail, that could be an acceptable result (as it will show that the claimants haven't cheated). But if they get positives, it would be time to work out a much more accurate double-blind test.
ETA: The JREF wouldn't accept such terms for a preliminary test, but it could still be fun (if/when they all fail).
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In my opinion, you've already contaminated the test with your research uncovering tales of deaths in the house. You have probably even seen names and photos of former occupants in historic public archives. Even the best scientific mind is all too human and subject to the power of suggestion, cultural influences and emotions. I wouldn't be surprised if you started seeing old Uncle Hiram out of the corner of your eye.
Forget psychics. A failed psychic always blames something else. A better experiment would be to take a "scientific ghost hunting group" (they use thermometers and EMF meters - so they *must* be scientific!) to two sites. One with no history of anything, and one with hearsay evidence of haunting. See if there's any difference between the two.
Here's an informal experiment I found that is quite interesting:
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A Weekend Investigation Experiment
(An Informal Study On The Effects Of Pre-Conditioning)
By Paul D. Sherman
04/06/06
This weekend I got two groups of volunteers to take part in the investigation of an old, abandoned house. Each group consists of three people. Team #1 is going to be told that the house is haunted and that's why it's abandoned. Team #2 will be told nothing other than we are there to see if there is anything there.
The House:
The use of the empty house is by arrangement with a friend. The house was built by his grandfather and is about 100 years old. Nobody has ever died in the house, or has been recorded dying on the property. A few of the windows have been broken out and have plywood over them (storm damage). Some of the rooms still contain a few pieces of furniture. It's a little creepy looking at night.
The Teams:
Each team is made up of the following personalities:
Team #1:
Skeptic
Open minded, but inquisitive
Believer
Team #2:
Skeptic
Skeptical Believer
Hard Core Believer
The Story Fed To Team #1:
The original owner died of Scarlet Fever. He was a very possessive person and did not take to visitors, so much so that he was known to chase door to door salesman off with a shotgun loaded with rock salt (2 shot gun shells are located in a dresser drawer in the master bedroom. Each loaded with rock salt). Shortly after his death, people began reporting a mysterious shadow person that would dart room to room, and has even been reported to rush towards people.
The second owners had a daughter, who at the age of 9 was killed by a falling tree during a windstorm. People have reported seeing her, only on the stormiest of nights (There is the possibility of thunderstorms on the night this is to take place. One can only pray that they're correct). She is usually seen running around the house, wearing a powder blue dress.
The next owners reported seeing shadow beings darting from room to room and they also reported seeing a little girl running outside of the house. No body remembers if they tied these sightings to the weather, but they say that it mostly happened at night. These owners left because they say that the shadow person became more and more aggressive and they couldn't handle it anymore.
The house then remained abandoned, but kids would often go there out of dare to see if the stories of the shadow person were true. Numerous kids began reporting being attacked by a shadow person and as time went on they found that the kids who went there during a storm would report seeing a little girl that would run around the house. Several kids even tried to catch up with her after she ignored their calls, but each time she would just vanish around the next corner of the house.
The Results:
Well, I’ll start with Team #2 since it’s pretty much as one would expect.
Team #2 experienced nothing and saw nothing, even after the hardcore believer and I tried to plant the suggestion of seeing shadows. The other two members quickly wrote them off as optical illusions and made comments that we were feeding each other’s hallucinations. Funny thing was the hardcore believer started seeing things out of the corner of his eyes.
Team #1 was an entirely different story, and the results surprised me. Before I get into the details, who would you think fell victim to suggestion?
All went well when we got there. Everyone was fed the story (to which the skeptic rolled his eyes several times) and then we all entered and set up equipment. I of course gave the tour of the house in a similar fashion to what is seen on Ghost Hunters, and instructed where cameras should go. We did a quick equipment check then left and went to have dinner at a nearby restaurant. There was much excited discussion between the believer and the open-minded person and myself. The skeptic remained fairly silent.
By the time we had finished eating and made the return trip, darkness had fallen. It was a little windy and the clouds loomed overhead, but so far no rain. Everyone was a little apprehensive as we approached; like I said, the place has a spooky look to it.
First thing we did was to start all our equipment and locate our cooler in the kitchen. Now before anyone jumps to conclusions, the cooler contained pop, flavored water, a few sandwiches and some fruit. As mentioned before, two of these people have done a little investigating before and we all follow the no alcohol or drugs rule. It was now 8:10pm as we proclaimed the official start of the investigation.
For the first hour we all stood in the front parlor doing EVP work as well as using an EMF meter and an Electro-Static meter that I had borrowed from work. Both of these showed no unusual indications and no one was reporting seeing anything or experiencing anything unusual. In fact, I was beginning to get very disappointed, but quickly reminded myself that there was a lot of time left in the evening and to just sit it out, someone would see something or experience something soon and that would start the ball rolling.
Being that nothing was happening in our current location, we moved upstairs and began repeating our efforts. Still nothing and it was now approaching 11:00pm. I though for sure the whole thing was going to be for naught and that the whole experiment was a complete dud, but that quickly changed when we moved back downstairs. You see, in an attempt to check his watch without blinding everyone, the open-minded individual turned on his small flashlight, shielding it with his hand. Well the skeptic and the believer did not see this because they were behind him. But since I was behind him, I saw the light briefly light his shirt, which reflected in the window. Since we were moving it looked as though something had passed the window outside.
Seeing the reflection out of the corner of his eye, the believer immediately halted and asked, "Did you see that?"
"I saw something," the skeptic replied. "But I’m not sure what it was."
Our open-minded friend eagerly asked the believer what he saw. "I think it was the little girl." He answered, moving to the window with the skeptic in tow.
"Excellent!" I thought to myself and you would too. You see, the reflection of the open-minded investigator not only caught reflection off his white shirt, but also just enough of his face to give the appearance the of a small person. Add the blue tinge from his LED flashlight and it was one of the coolest/eeriest things I had ever seen.
Hardly able to contain my excitement and seeing that the others were pre-occupied with looking out the window, I thought the best thing to was to step outside and have a cigarette before I started chuckling at them.
"I’m going to step outside and check it out." I said as I headed for the front door, and immediately a little voice in my head went DOH!
"We’re coming to," the skeptic said as they all turned and headed the same direction.
Fortunately for me that "DOH!" wiped the smile off my face. The downside was the adrenaline rush that hit me was making me jittery, which became clearly apparent as I stepped out the front door and lit my cigarette with trembling hands. CRAP! I thought to myself, seeing that the skeptic had noticed this. But what I thought was going to unravel the situation actually helped it out.
"That was a pretty wild rush", the skeptic said, holding his trembling hand out for me to see. "I haven’t had a rush like that for years."
"No kidding" the believer chimed in.
"DAMN! I missed the whole thing! What was it?" the open-minded one asked as we cautiously made our way around to that side of the house. Of course nothing was scene as we scanned the area and the believer filled them in on how they had seen what looked like a little girl wearing a light blue dress was running past the window.
Well, we wandered around the house a few times and this is when the believer started to see shadows moving inside the house. To my surprise, the skeptic soon began to see them also. The only ones who weren’t seeing them were the open-minded one and myself. Well just about the time that it started to rain, I finally saw what they were seeing and solved what it was. There was a solid cloud cover overhead that as it passed over it would vary in density. As the clouds loomed heavier, the sky would lighten a little. As they got thinner, the clouds would get a little darker. This was playing tricks with the reflection off of the glass. I figure that’s the main reason why they were seeing the shadows up stairs. Just enough light to play tricks on the eyes that are straining to see something.
From here on out there were lots of shadow beings seen inside, especially by the believer. The skeptic fell victim to the illusion, but did not buy off that they were paranormal. This also brought a heightened awareness to the sounds in the house. You know, your typical creaking and what not. I must say, I thought that the skeptic would be the first to try and work out what some of these experiences were, but what I found was the open-minded individual was the one who started poking around for an explanation.
All in all it was hilarious and I had a hard time keeping a straight face throughout the night, and pretty much lost it when I had both groups together on Sunday to review the evidence, and explained then my little experiment. Needless to say, team #1 was not too amused, although from the laughter coming from team #2, I would say they were entirely.
One thing I learned from this experiment is, it might be a good idea to put a camera on everyone. If team #1 would have been an actual investigation, they would have never know what the reflection was, or what caused it; and even though investigation teams will claim that they don’t count personal experiences, they always seem to slip it in subconsciously to steer the interpretation of the results.
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Agreed, it would be more fun with ghost hunter groups. Good call.
If the test groups are to choose between a mere two locations, I would say that they might as well flip a coin.. but..
..I didn't read the entire setup as I'm on my way to bed, but there seems to be a lot of variables involved from the part I read. I'll try to check it thoroughly tomorrow.
What?? They're not accepting requests from families? Can you be more specific? What did they say and when? TAPS PR interviews continue to state that their #1 goal is to aid families who may be experiencing paranormal phenomena. If they have moved away from this goal, they need to be called on it.
I believe they meant that they are no longer accepting TAPS Family Members.
Oh, and as for SAPS and what we're attempting to do... A debunking group doesn't mean that it's composed of non-believers. I would shove most of us into the open-minded category. Whether the house is haunted or not isn't really the point - it's more a comparison between readings and footage gotten at both a haunted and a non-haunted location. So if you get a weirdly high EMF reading or whatever in BOTH places, it is meaningless.
By the way, I just read why some people use EMF detectors for ghost hunting at all. It's because some scientist says that human consciousness has an electromagnetic field. What I'm wondering is... wouldn't that mean the reading would be the same in the presence of a ghost as if you put the EMF detector to your forehead?
Oh, and as for SAPS and what we're attempting to do... A debunking group doesn't mean that it's composed of non-believers. I would shove most of us into the open-minded category. Whether the house is haunted or not isn't really the point - it's more a comparison between readings and footage gotten at both a haunted and a non-haunted location. So if you get a weirdly high EMF reading or whatever in BOTH places, it is meaningless.
By the way, I just read why some people use EMF detectors for ghost hunting at all. It's because some scientist says that human consciousness has an electromagnetic field. What I'm wondering is... wouldn't that mean the reading would be the same in the presence of a ghost as if you put the EMF detector to your forehead?
Good story, but... this experiment will at best show the power of suggestion and make-believe. It will not provide any evidence for or against ghosts. Furthermore, it seems that a lot of the results were based on random events that are not repeatable as such, and I also wonder how the members of the two teams were categorized.
Anyway, it really boils down to whether John wants to make an experiment that delivers (anecdotal) evidence of the power of make-believe, or whether he wants to try to verify/falsify the presence of ghosts - and the validity of ghost hunters/psychics.
As the JREF would ask a claimant: "What paranormal phenomenon do you want to demonstrate?", and in the case of the experiment you suggest here, it will only provide loose evidence of suggestion, and that's not paranormal.
I think it would be more fun to investigate a paranormal phenomenon, and not psychological effects. The power of suggestion is already well documented, while ghosts on the other hand, are not.
Anyhow, then I still think it's an excellent idea to switch the psychics for ghost hunters, but that protocol is still fairly useless as evidence for or against ghosts or ghosthunters.
ETA: Two test locations are definately not enough if you want to test the validity of the ghost hunters. And if the haunted location should be based on heresay (as you suggest), then the information will be compromised, and can't be double-blind tested.
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