II. Are You A Serious Investigator?

There are paranormal sites on the internet that state that hobbyists and amateur ghost hunters should stay out of the field and out of the way of the “serious” investigator. Yet, these sites more than happily take money for memberships, equipment, and the “How To” books and seem to have no problem accepting photos of unique anomalies from so-called amateurs. If, in fact, hobbyists and amateur ghost hunters give “serious” investigators a bad name, as has been stated, then shouldn’t these “serious” investigators have a stricter criterion to whom they sell to or accept photos from?

What makes these people consider themselves “serious” investigators and the rest of us amateurs or hobbyists?

To help you answer this question, let’s take a look at four different scenarios.

Scenario 1: Two people have a huge interest and curiosity in the paranormal. They make plans to go out to a local cemetery armed only with a camera and a tape recorder.

Scenario 2: A group of people, all with a common interest in the paranormal, get together one evening to investigate an abandoned warehouse (with permission from the owners of course) that carries stories of some kind of haunting activity. Each person in the group has read up on how the “serious” investigators conduct an investigation and do their best to follow suit. They have video cameras, cameras, tape recorders and possibly a few other pieces of equipment for gauging temperature or electromagnetic pulses.

Scenario 3: A married couple load their car with thousands of dollars in top of the line ghost hunting equipment and head off to spend the night in a Bed & Breakfast that is purported to be haunted. It is their first official investigation with all of their new equipment.

Scenario 4: A group of people with ten years of investigating experience and a name they’ve made for themselves, go out to a motel that, according to management and guests, has been plagued by a haunting. Each member of the group has their specific job for the investigation and they’ve brought along a known psychic to possibly aid their equipment and themselves in this investigation.

As you can see from these four scenarios, each one is different in their level of experience in investigating, but they also have a number of similarities.

1.     They are all out searching for answers to the unknown and unexplained.

2.     They all have an exhilaration and hopeful expectation for the evening and the outcome.

3.     They all have a NEED to find answers or proof for what no one truly understands.

4.     They all have a secret wanting to be the first to be able to explain an anomaly and have proof to back it up.

Of course, all of these people have one more major thing in common. At the conclusion of the investigation, not one person in any of the four scenarios has any idea if their night was a success or not. Each will have to return home, or to their designated headquarters, to view photos, video, listen to sound and deal with any other data from their equipment. Only then will they know if their night of investigation was only a learning exercise or one that offered up some truly unique evidence.

Once the evidence is processed, each person or group will be excited to share what they’ve captured. Each will also have theories of what it is they saw or heard. Are any of these theories correct? Possibly. Do the photos and/or sound offer irrefutable proof that these people are “experts” in the field?