Predisposition to fearing the Unknown

My first encounter with the paranormal occurred when I was five years old. I arrived at my grandmother and grandfather’s house with my mother and sister to find my grandmother lying on the kitchen floor. My sister and I were hurried into another room as the ambulance attendants took her body away. I was too young to know or understand about death. That night, my mother, my sister, and I stayed together in a small bedroom right off the kitchen. Later that night my grandmother entered the room to check on both of us kids, as she had always done. My grandmother had watched us throughout the week while my mother worked. Therefore, it was not unusual for my grandmother to check in on us kids in that very room. I woke up and started talking with my grandmother. Though I did not see her, I felt her presence, and knew she was sitting at the foot of the bed. Lying next to me, my mother awakened when she heard me talking. As soon as my mother realized whom I was talking too, she yelled out, 'Oh, my God, my mother is in the room!' As my mother screamed, I saw the black shape of my grandma stand up, and leave the room. I did not understand what happened, or why my mother was so upset. When I spoke with my grandmother, I did not feel afraid or threatened in anyway in fact it was a calming, and reassuring experience. Throughout my childhood and early teenage years, I would stay up all night watching the late-night creature features on television. They taught me to be afraid of what goes bump in the night. As a paranormal researcher, I still am caught up in the creepiness of the moment at some of the locations. The winery investigation that our team attended could have been taken right out of an old horror movie, even to details such as the howling dogs and the thick foggy nights. However, I have long since realized that there is nothing to fear. The underlying question is what is reality, when reports of being touched, shoved, or hearing a disembodied voice telling you to leave. Research shows that it is normal for us to create a subjective reality when placed alone in the dark, but there is so much more that has not been so easily explained away.

My second encounter with the paranormal occurred in the summer of 2005. I worked night shift, so I slept all morning upstairs. Some times during the day, the temperature would reach over 112 degrees, which made it impossible to sleep. Therefore, I started sleeping downstairs in the guest bedroom. After I bought, the house a next-door neighbor told me that a young handicapped girl died in that room from cancer. No one has ever stayed in that room, and at that time, I was not involved in anything paranormal. I never had any problems sleeping there during the day. Until one night, I had the night off; I was so exhausted that I did not have the energy to walk upstairs to bed, so I slept in the guest room. I just walked in, and fell face down toward the foot of the bed. At 3 o'clock in the morning, I felt someone pull the hair out from the front of my head. I immediately looked up to see a small hand, and arm slide down between the foot-board and the mattress. My immediate thought was 'Okay now it is under the bed!' I stared at the gap between the foot-board and the mattress, and waited until morning when I could see the room clearly. I got out of bed, and walked into the bathroom in the hallway. Looking in the mirror, I could see where my hair had been pulled out. Later in the afternoon, I checked the bed. There I found hair on the edge of the mattress, and all the way down under the bed. That is when I first started asking questions about life after death, and I have continued asking those questions for the past seven years realizing that there may be a very real possibility of an afterlife.

My third encounter with the paranormal occurred when my wife's father passed away in 2010. I did not know him all that well but he knew I hunted ghosts. Those weeks after the funeral my wife stayed in San Jose with her sisters, I returned home every night. I would hear three knocks on the window by the bed, then again on the back door of the bedroom that led outside. Every night I would get up and look to see nothing. I would hear that knocking all night long. Went out the back door repeatedly too find nothing! A couple days of continuous activity always, the same three knocks something unique happened. While lying in bed I felt something around my toes on my left foot. I kept looking down at the end of the bed at my foot. It felt warm around my toes as if someone had cupped their hands around it. Then suddenly the foot moved off the bed! I responded with thank you, do it again! Ghost Hunter Response! Later when my wife returned from San Jose, I told her I keep hearing a knock on the back door only to find nothing. She told me when her father came over to the house he would knock three times. Something I did not know, but after my foot, being pulled off the bed I figured something was going on. I eventually told her that it was three knocks that I was hearing on the door, but never told her about my foot. Soon after my foot was pulled off the bed, the activity ended. My needing to know what was real and what is explainable took on new meaning, and even though I researched the paranormal, I was never sure that what I was experiencing was a hallucination or parasomnia. I questioned every EVP eventually finding a way to validate what is real from what is fantasy. You have to get past all of the haft truths to find what is real. 

Is it a Ghost Story?

There are challenges that lie before us,

There is no proof that any of these experiences ever happen. People want to believe so badly that they will accept any story even if it is full of inaccuracies or half-truths entirely on face value. In the paranormal field, everyone has a really good ghost story.

Extracting fact from fiction comes down to procedures and documentation. This is the reason behind the two-interview process. The report of activity filed then followed up with a phone interview. This to determine the accuracy, and resolve of the applicant. If the applicant is serious about what has been experienced. The walk-through is scheduled with our new client. After arriving, the second interview process begins in addition to the drawing of floor plans. Control photographs are taken of the area. A review of the recorded audio along with all the data collected will determine the accuracy of the claim submitted. This is how you can determine if you are there to help the client, or provide them with the night’s entertainment.

Agendas run deep

Then there is the hidden agenda this is never clearly apparent until after the investigation starts. We have had clients dictating an investigation strategy from watching Para-non-reality TV shows. One client told me to shut off the lights because the ghosts do not like them on. I explained that there are case studies conducted at University College London that said when a group of people placed in a dark, silent room, many start hallucinating after just a few minutes, and that probably explains most of those shows. We have showed up to homes the night of the investigation filled with family, and friends wanting to be a part of the night’s entertainment, more than once. We had to make it perfectly clear that only the homeowner was allowed there all night with us. When this happens, it is best to draw a line they leave or you leave. You cannot capture clear or valid responses when there is that much contamination you might as well go home. This had gotten so bad that we added a letter to the forms we give the client explaining paranormal shows to clarify what their expectations are from us.

LETTER: The Reality of Paranormal Reality Shows

People that have seen shows like Ghost Hunters, and Ghost Adventures do not realize that filming a forty-minute show where it looks like they investigated over night, in reality took a film crew following your favorite investigator around on location an average of ten days. They stay in wardrobe wearing identical clothing during the filming, so in editing they match throughout the show.

Real paranormal investigations are usually limited to four, or five hours over the duration of a single night. Rarely are we ever allowed to investigate a location longer than one night. Regardless of how much we would want too! ISR is very thorough in our analysis of the evidence. Even though capturing activity of any kind since we never know when or where it may occur is rare. We have over the years developed new methods of research, and have the capacity to deploy upwards of 15 cameras, and even more voice recorders to narrow the odds of finding something? Then again, there have been investigations that produced no activity at all or very subtle activity during the length of the investigation.

ISR wants you to know that activity you may have seen on reality paranormal shows are not entirely real, and the quality of the activity during the single night can change in intensity in the days to come. If the activity you are experiencing was not real. We would not be doing the research, and you would not be inviting us into your home. We wanted to make sure that your expectations are not based on what you may have seen on some paranormal reality TV shows.