Serious Ghost Investigators/Researchers

How does one define a professional or serious ghost hunter?

To some, it would be an assessment of experience, knowledge, skill and dedication. Because there is no accreditation organization for ghost researchers/investigators we will be using it, for the purpose of this thread to mean: "anyone with a serious interest in the paranormal who dedicates their time toward advancing that interest."

Just wondering how many others are out there! In the future, I'd like to investigate some locations across the country. Who knows, maybe I'll run into another ATSer doing the same thing.

Maybe we could even swap some war stories! I'll have to do a write up of my trip to Weston State Hospital last Halloween!

JB

edit: I've also come across various recordings and photos that I'd love having another researcher take a look at! Of course, some will have to remain private due to client's privacy concerns! Anyone interested please U2U

Used to be a person on ATS who had some stories about doing research, but they had quit. Has been a few people with varying interests in EVP and other things, but I guess these interests don't keep you in the money unless you're in the woo woo markets.

I have an interest in images and signal processing in general, and sometimes that can be helpful to people. Have helped the odd person with images or EVP before, but for the most part I'm a skeptic!

Hope you find what you're looking for.

Sounds awesome Pinke! Would you be willing to take a look at a couple stills?

JB

I fancy myself an amature paranormal researcher. I have only in the last few months started amassing equipment that the big boys use. For years before that I would try the occasional evp session but the majority of my research came from the arm chair.

I have yet to get out into the field or work with any other researchers but I have been slowly working on Instrumental Transcommunication at my place with the p-sb7. I record the session with video and audio equipment and have slowly been working on a youtube channel with the sole purpose of paranormal research. While I am not entirely convinced in unseen entities, the evidence I have captured and events I have witnessed have made my curiosity thirst for more answers.

Besides recording p-sb7 sessions(I only have 3 currently) I have plans for other paranormal related videos. Equipment Reviews(currently one done), related news stories, old stories rehashed and some more. In my videos I never "tell" the viewer or try to influence them. In fact I try to reiterate in each video how I am unsure and basically skeptically open minded. I do not use subtitles as well, not a fan. Or at least let me hear it first then tell me what you think it is. I'm looking at you every ghost show/youtube video out there lol.

I am in no way looking to make ANY money off this and I definitely do not expect to make diddley squat. The reason I am doing this, is I have become exponentially more curious with the Universe year after year. So many of these fascinating topics are completely out of my touch (advanced mathematics, sciences, ect) without many years and most importantly, bucket loads of money.

Paranormal research is more personal and does not take 3 mortgages to pursue. I can research this on my leisure and still maintain a full time job. If it somehow leads me down other roads, then that works for me too. I know chances are I will never find an "answer" but for myself, the fun is usually in the journey and not the destination.

Awesome topic Jburns S&F

Hopefully more members will share too.

Until you can invent something with the sole purpose of detecting ghosts instead of appropriating technology that is used for other purposes to "detect" ghosts, a serious ghost hunter doesn't exist. As all ghost hunting requires a bit of confirmation bias to research (namely that the technology that you are using is actually detecting what you think it is detecting) you must suspend some measure of skepticism to go ghost hunting. Therefore you cannot call that serious research.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

I guess it just comes down to good old fashioned ATS semantics.

Because I view scientific research as performing a methodical study in order to prove a hypothesis or answer a specific question. Finding a definitive answer is the central goal of any experimental process. Research must be systematic and follow a series of steps and a rigid standard protocol.

Essentially any gathering of data, information and facts for the advancement of knowledge.

a reply to: mcx1942

Scientific research isn't open to interpretation. There is a very strict definition of what scientific research is. Scientific research is following the scientific method. A lot of that involves testing a hypothesis, but much of that comes back to falsifiability. There is no way to falsify the data in ghost research since ghost researchers have already decided that those sounds on digital recording equipment are ghosts and not say electrical interference or something. You can call ghost hunting just "research" if you want (I'd call it entertainment, but whatever), but it certainly isn't scientific research.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

So essentially it's just the use of 'scientific' in the term 'scientific research of the paranormal' that gets your goat huh?

If you want to be %100 literal then yes I can see how you can take offense to this seeing how many(not all) paranormal researchers seem to of already reached their conclusion.

I have not. I do not believe in ghost, ufos, boogiemen, aliens, black eyed kids, bigfoot...you get the drift.

But...I understand how little we understand when it comes to discovering all the Universe has to give. If there was a scale representing Universal Knowledge with tops being 100, we would probably clock in at about 0.00001 on the Universal Knowledge scale.

And... I have captured oddities that at this moment I can not explain. Are they ghosts? I have no Idea. I have never once said I know if anything paranormal exists or not. I do know enough weird stuff is out there that our adventures in research, termed scientific or not, will not be ending for quite some time.

When I refer to trying to explore unknown topics using the scientific method, I refer to the method itself, done without bias. That is essential the bee in you bonnet and I am fully aware of bias. That is why I have been transparent the whole time I've been on ATS by always stating I do not fully believe in all this jazz but I am open minded enough to understand we really comprehend very little about the Universe and all it's truths.

originally posted by: mcx1942
a reply to: Krazysh0t

So essentially it's just the use of 'scientific' in the term 'scientific research of the paranormal' that gets your goat huh?

If you want to be %100 literal then yes I can see how you can take offense to this seeing how many(not all) paranormal researchers seem to of already reached their conclusion.

Well the thread is about serious research is it not? Well you need to have criteria for what is and isn't serious research. I'd say that research following the scientific method is as serious as you can get.

I have not. I do not believe in ghost, ufos, boogiemen, aliens, black eyed kids, bigfoot...you get the drift.

But...I understand how little we understand when it comes to discovering all the Universe has to give. If there was a scale representing Universal Knowledge with tops being 100, we would probably clock in at about 0.00001 on the Universal Knowledge scale.

That number is far lower.

And... I have captured oddities that at this moment I can not explain. Are they ghosts? I have no Idea. I have never once said I know if anything paranormal exists or not. I do know enough weird stuff is out there that our adventures in research, termed scientific or not, will not be ending for quite some time.

Capturing oddities is fun and all, but don't you want to attempt to identify them? Like I said, if these things exist then we should be able to invent technology to find them. We shouldn't have to appropriate technology that is used for other purposes to do it.

When I refer to trying to explore unknown topics using the scientific method, I refer to the method itself, done without bias. That is essential the bee in you bonnet and I am fully aware of bias. That is why I have been transparent the whole time I've been on ATS by always stating I do not fully believe in all this jazz but I am open minded enough to understand we really comprehend very little about the Universe and all it's truths.

I am open minded about these things too. I'm not just a skeptic, I used to be a believer and I still WANT to believe. I just need the compelling evidence first.

a reply to: JBurns
If there's a question within what I can do, I can try and answer it. Sometimes it can be a little difficult to answer questions liiiiiiiike 'what do you think of this?'

Also as I said, I tend er on the side of scepticism, but if it doesn't bother you ...

a reply to: Pinke

You and I are on the same boat then

I'm very skeptical. Just have an open mind!

Well, there's a couple of ways to look at this. I also partly disagree with Krazysh0t, which I'll get into after the first bit. Note I say partly.

What defines a "Professional Ghosthunter"?

If we look at the definition of a Professional we have a few options:

a) A professional ghost hunter is a professional simply because he is associated with the profession of "ghost hunting"
- but that requires us to accept "Ghost hunting" as a true profession.

b) A professional ghost hunter is a professional because it is their "Primary Paid Occupation." That one is pretty clear - they make their living by hunting ghosts.

The challenge with both of those is due to the massive variety in opinion by the, I guess, "Paranormal Community." Ghost hunting may or may not be considered a profession, depending on who you ask. An interesting hobby, a fun diversion, exercise in insanity - take your pick. I doubt any person who has no interest or belief would consider ghost hunting a profession. Even inside our community many people think it's bunk and would also agree it's not a profession.

But what if you're paid to do it? Well, that does make you a professional...but now you're also a shill, at least in the eyes of the majority of believers and skeptics. If you can make your living off of it, ala Ghost Hunters, I would rightly say you are a ghost hunter professional...but because everyone, on BOTH sides of the fence, have a hard time believing you - it's still hard to say you're working in a professional field.

As for Krazysh0t's view that it's not a scientific field, or at least doesn't qualify as scientific research, I disagree. Scientific method can, and SHOULD, be applied to ghost hunting. The problem isn't with the technology, much of our science has been a case of hypothesis, testing with existing equipment, then testing with equipment developed specifically to test hypothesis because it was determined the previous existing equipment wasn't adequate.

In my humble opinion the only real reason why this field continues to be pseudoscience is because of the lack of a centralized hypothesis. Look at any paranormal thread here and there's a dozen different thoughts as to what they are. "Ghosts", "Spirits", "Extra-dimensional visitors", "Demons", "Angels", "Aliens", "Faeries", etc, etc.

Worse yet, few people want to apply true scientific method or rigor to it because of the believe that "science can't explain everything." Many are unwilling to subject their methods to true scrutiny.

If we started with the hypothesis "Ghost are the energy left behind when a human dies" then we could apply our existing knowledge and technology to disprove that. If we can or can't doesn't necessarily change anything - but it allows us to move on to the next hypothesis. Let's say it gets disproved. It doesn't mean "ghosts" aren't "real" it just means they are not the energy left behind from a dying human. We have so many beliefs about what they are there are plenty variations to test.

But no one is willing to go through that process because there are so many possibilities, at least that's my opinion. Also there is challenges with timing. Since invariably most encounters are random, it's a challenge to apply repeatable, controlled, testing to it.

But I still stand by the fact that it COULD be truly scientifically researched, it would just take a lot of effort by the world community at large to create some specific hypothesis to start with.

Back to the OP's question though: For this field, to me, a "professional" ghost hunter is anyone who devotes the bulk of their free time to the study and field research of "ghosts", while employing a broad range of the best tools currently believed effective, in the effort to capture and document the phenomenon we call ghosts. Emphasis on documentation.

For the past 12 years ive been fasinated with the paranormal ive spent countless days reading and researching
ive gone to a number of supposed haunted abandoned houses a cemetary on a haunted road and even an abandoned hospital that still had hospital beds and sstretchers in rooms
Im gonna start buying up some equipment and get a small crew to start or maybe even join the local ghost hunter here

a reply to: UnmitigatedDisaster

I agree,to argue that the fundamental reality of a subject hinges on the material that has been developed to measure it is irrational.
If the subject were to be taken seriously then perhaps there would in fact be more development of technology to detect it.
Saying that because technology hasn't been developed is proof of the none existence of a phenomena is strange, I imagine that that is not what the poster really wanted to convey.