The Paranormal Blog

Posted by Matthew James Didier

These are actual verbatim quotes from various websites that have really shown me that there are more than a few cowpats in the field of ghostly investigation and study... I won't list the sites addresses... mostly to avoid any backlash at my arrogance in saying their information may not be "perfect"...

"...as everyone knows, cemeteries are very haunted with the souls of the dead."

Un-hunh... I knew that, didn't you?

Actually, cemeteries are, historically and statistically, NOT very likely to be haunted. The challenge I issue people is to go to their local bookstore or library. Select three "true ghost story" books and leaf through them. Count the number of cemeteries reported as "ghostly places" in these books compared to anywhere else.

The number of cemeteries is quite small... save those that "ghost hunters" wander through looking for ghosts.

Witnesses tend to see ghosts where the person the ghost represented lived, worked, played or died... not where they are interred.

Now, this is not to say there are no haunted cemeteries... but when we do hear of these reports in cemeteries, they tend to revolve around the ghost of someone who worked there or visited frequently.

"...it is a well known fact that children display more psychic ability than adults because children are more psychic... they are closer to the veil..."

Um... okay, to make this statement, you'd first need to discuss what psychic abilities can be displayed and measured. Then you'd have to quantify the accepted reports from children versus the accepted reports from adults.

Personally, I've always believed that children are not "more psychic" than adults... they're just less likely to write-off a strange occurrence as a "trick of the light" or their "mind playing tricks on them." Adults are conditioned to ignore or simplify certain anomalous things as we get older so as not to appear "weird"... but kids aren't.

Hence, a kid will mention the "weird man sitting over there" while the adult, realising the "weird man" can not possibly exist, will simply ignore him and forget about him rapidly.

...but I digress and my thoughts may most certainly be wrong.

My point here is that the site has made a leap of faith and called it "fact"... which is a big leap.

"Old abandoned homes are almost always very haunted. The owners usually only abandon a home if the ghosts become too much to handle."

Oh yeah... that's the ticket!

These homes aren't abandoned due to structural problems that would require too much money to fix... or because the person couldn't afford the home's upkeep... or a death in the family left the home abandoned... or the new owners simply use the land, not the home... or... well, you get the picture.

One site even added that the house they were really interested must be haunted because a brutal murder took place in it. How did they know this? Because they'd "heard" this. No providence. No newspaper article... nope... Hearsay rules!

I can only imagine how these "ghost hunters" would feel if it was their own grandparents home that had been "abandoned" when they retired down South... and then they read about the "gruesome murder" that never really happened.

"We have certified the house to be very haunted."

Amazing! I wonder if they issued a "certificate" of haunting?

What was their criteria to "certify" this house as such? They experienced the heeby-jeebies in the house and took some orb photos.

Wow.

If this is all it takes, they're going to run out of certificates as they're going to have a TONNE of certified haunts to authenticate!

One shouldn't dwell on certain folks' shortcomings, but if you're a real ghost enthusiast and/or a ghost witness, look for clues that a site or group may indeed, be a little short on work and study, and long on conjecture and "declarations" without effort.