• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Ghosthunters

The Vampire said:
I could tell it brought back painful memories of losing her daughter.
Click to expand...
Like you, I get very angry at people who use others' grief to promote their hobby-horses. But in this case I think the important thing is that you were able to dispel the sick illusion, or masquerade, they used to manipulate this woman. Or help to dispel it. Sounds as if she had doubts but her understandable desperation overrode it.
 
The EMF thing is one of the biggest misunderstandings going around. There is NO evidence for a link between EMFs and the reality of apparitions as an external entity.

The evidence suggests that anomalous or complex EMFs can, under some circumstances, induce sympathetic shifts in nerual activity of susceptible individuals - this can result in misperceptions of ambiguous stimuli or hallucination.

Why do woo's struggle with this rather simple distinction? The theory is a natural one - not a supernatural one.
 
The Vampire said:
John Zaffis is Ed Warren's nephew. He was in on a couple of investigations. TAPS also investigated one house previously investigated by the Warren's.

TAPS does have a resident demonologists Carl and Keith Johnson.

The most painful for me was my very short association with the area "TAPS Family" ghost hunters. After debunking several very bad photographs from the hysterically gullible, I recieved one from a mother who had lost a child in an accident. Before the child died, a picture was taken in a smokey room. Some fans of the show and self proclaimed psychics saw an "angel" in the illuminated smoke and pronounced it as a "sign that the girl was now in the arms of angels." The mother asked my opinion. Of course I told her it was nothing but the flash illuminating passing smoke from candles in the foreground. The woman thanked me for being honest and regretted listening to the "ghost busters" in the first place. I could tell it brought back painful memories of losing her daughter.

What I can't stand about these self proclaimed paranormal investigators is they forget they are using, and many times hurting other people, while attemping to support their pet pseudoscience. While they are running willy-nilly with EMF meters and digital cameras, they scare the gullible out of their homes and prolong grieving of those who have lost someone dear. Fortunately for the world, a few days after this incident, this group of ghost hunters self destructed over some childish in-fighting.
Click to expand...
I wasn't trying to imply that TAPS has any credibility, just that I was confused about their being associated with the Warrens. As, in the episode where they visit the house the Warrens had investigated, they react to the mention of the Warrens in a derisive manner. A falling out perhaps? I didn't know about Zaffis's connection to the group, but it doesn't surprise me.

I agree about the "TAPS family" members as well. Conversations with members of those groups support everything you experienced. The defense they seem to jump to is that they aren't there to research, but instead to aid those in distress. Of course I've seen nothing to indicate that they succeed on that account either; unless you count reinforcing someone's fears as giving comfort.

I find it funny that many on that board are willing to accept the honesty of TAPS's two lead investigators even though they have refused to discuss the events that lead them to start the group. Something is fishy there.
 
Any honest psychical investigator (and they do exist) will tell you that many- very many of the people involved with "hauntings" are profoundly disturbed people.
Before a ghosthunter is called in , the caller must be pretty well convinced something odd is going on.
I expect most regulars on this forum would tear their plumbing , wiring and walls apart to find the source of an odd smell, noise or vibration , long before the idea of a haunting would even occur to them.
Right & proper.

Victims of "hauntings" tend to be quite different people.

Often there is discord within a family, but it is being frantically ignored and covered up. Accepting that your daughter is mentally disturbed, living out odd fantasies and lying about it takes guts. Sometimes it's easier to hope it's a ghost stealing the money from your purse. You wouldn't believe the justifications- The ghost is giving it to charity, because he died a lonely miser.
Ghosts, if they exist at all, are rare phenomena. Frightened people in denial are everywhere.
 
And now we have people selling "ghost hunter kits", with complete kits consisting of:

Air Ion Counter
Barometer
Candles and Matches
Camera
Compass
Digital Recorder
Dowsing Rods
EMF Detector
Flash Lights
Ghost Catcher (AKA Spirit Wind Chime)
Headset Communications
Hygrometer
Infrared Thermal Scanner
Motion Detectors
Night Vision Equipment
Night Vision Video Camera
Thermal Imaging Scopes
Thermometer
Video Camera
Walkie-Talkies

Everything the budding ghost hunter (sucker) needs!
 
ExitDose said:
I wasn't trying to imply that TAPS has any credibility, just that I was confused about their being associated with the Warrens. As, in the episode where they visit the house the Warrens had investigated, they react to the mention of the Warrens in a derisive manner. A falling out perhaps? I didn't know about Zaffis's connection to the group, but it doesn't surprise me.
Click to expand...

Oh, I didn't think you were implying any credibility. I was just dissemimateing general information about Zafis. BTW- He has assumed the work of Ed Warren and is now the keeper of the "Occult Museum of Possessed Objects." Warren suffered a stroke two years ago and is more or less brain dead. Watch for Zafis to carry on the woo.
 
The idea of all this equipment is worrying. It kind of makes people think and feel as if what they are doing is scientific - when in fact the underlying logic (assuming there is some) is flawed.

However, the magnetic fields / strange experience link is worth persuing as the lab evidence is interesting. A project I have been involved in might be of use to those interested. Please see....

http://www.apaw71.dsl.pipex.com/MADS/index.html

We have, in some cases found quite large distortions and complex magnetic fields - but they are always where the observer was at the time of the experience (i.e., in a position with which to influence there brain / perceptions / cognition). They are NEVER (based on the evidence so far) - located where the observer claims the anomaly (i.e., an apparition, sound, etc) was actually located.

Check out the website - I hope you agree it is at least an approach with merit rather than all these silly buggers running around with meters galore looking for ghosts!!!!:eek:
 
I refuse to watch that show at all. The commercials for it are such hype and then Sci Fi has to annoy us during Doctor Who with not only commercials for this nonsense, but those pop-ups on screen take up the bottom third of the screen and interfere with my enjoyment of the show I want to watch. Nope, they couldn't pay me to watch it.
 
Wind chimes are "Ghost Catchers"? Well, you learn something new everyday. At least bottle trees were immovable. :rolleyes:

Is this the ghost hunter store?
 
As they are supposed to drain batteries to manifest, with all that gadgety it should be simple. And why can't they just speak over the communications gear directly instead of through tape hiss. One should be able to turn on a walkie-talkie in a haunted house and hear things like:

"Hey! Move! You're standing in the middle of me!"

"I told you I was sick...."

"Tell my wife I'm really raising hell!"

:D
 
:-D How about...

"Hey, who's that? Are you from the world of the living? I'm getting an 'M'..."
 
I am often disliked by the people we do jobs for due to the fact that I will not say they have a ghost, and come out with all sorts of babble to show what could be the cause instead of it being the undead. My partner in all this is somewhat less vocal in her objections. The place owners usually like her a lot :D.
Although we have a lot of the standard 'ghost busting' kit, it rarely gets used in what we think is a 'decent' case. That is tackled by setting up video and audio all over the building. That's going to be the only way we can tell if there are such things as spooks surely? To catch one on a recording medium (no pun).
It's no use saying the EM meter beeped, unless it's for a datbase of course, and it's no good telling people that they have some gadget giving off infrasound if they just don't want to hear that.
Mostly I feel that people who ask us in to investigate just want to feel like they are in an episode of Most Haunted, and they find out that's nothing at all like what happens. It's impossible to tell what is genuinely suspected to be a haunting, and what is just an interest.
 
all true, but the best bits of kit are a working brain and quesitoning mind. Couple this to a specific research question, logic, reason and a quest for understanding and we are all on to a winner....:D
 
The Vampire said:
As they are supposed to drain batteries to manifest, with all that gadgety it should be simple. And why can't they just speak over the communications gear directly instead of through tape hiss. One should be able to turn on a walkie-talkie in a haunted house and hear things like:
Click to expand...
I find the battery drain "evidence" comical. As someone that spent several years working with film and video equipment, I can't think of a more unreliable measure than the power levels of rechargable batteries. I've had countless batteries that were supposedly fully charged that lost power inexplicably and we weren't anywhere reputed to be haunted. Rechargable batteries are fickle and prone to breaking. Which is why most video crews bring more than they'll need. They crap out easily.
 
Ghostbusters!

Every time I hear abuot these guys in real life, the music starts bouncing around my head.

After those movies, I just can't take them seriously. Sigourney Weaver I can take seriously, but for different reasons.

By the way, the sign from the second movie is inside the firehouse on Varick Street in New York. The area is not a "demilitarized zone." It's the exit from the Holland Tunnel, a portion of Soho, and the police mounted unit is across the street. It's a pretty dull, albeit noisy, neighborhood.
 
Anyone here see last week's episode? Most of the evidence wasn't very good except for two things that happened.

1) a glass broke in the middle of the night. a camera was on the bed and nightstand so interference is unlikely.

2) a door shuts. here it is plausible that someone did this, but still a bit unlikely. The camera was located on the nightstand pointed at the door. the bed blocked view of the bottom of the door, so it is possible for someone to crawl on the ground and shut the door without the camera seeing it. however the lead investigator named Jason showed that the door wouldn't shut without turning the knob. seems to rule out wind and a hoaxer.

any ideas what happened here?
 
Apperently you cannot see red string in night vision. Was this in night vision?

I have a fab video of a chair moving along the side of a bed, apparently by itself. It is plausible that someone did this, and very likely...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom