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The Paranormal Paradigm Shift
by Ardis J. Stembridge
FATE Magazine :: May 2008
An area of interest that used to be taboo has now made its way to the forefront of pop culture. Television shows like the Sci Fi Channel’s Ghost Hunters and the Travel Channel’s Most Haunted brought paranormal investigations into the living rooms of millions of homes across Europe and North America. The History Channel and the Bravo Network chimed in with stories about poltergeists, haunted hotels, and ghostly encounters. Most recently, A&E has contributed their version of the otherworldly: Paranormal State, the first show to target the youth market. Just a decade ago, finding a show that delved into the study of the paranormal was no easy task. Now they are beamed into our homes seven days a week.
These shows have contributed to the legitimacy the paranormal community now has in the eyes of the youth and adult alike. When I was a teenager and my interest in ghosts was forming, I had to walk a fine line between pursuing that interest and keeping a normal façade in my home and public life.
Now things are different. Everyone is a paranormal expert; or so they believe. An investigator with 20 years under his belt can carry on a conversation with a 15-year-old who has never actually seen an EMF meter or set foot on an investigation site, and would think he was talking to a seasoned professional. New groups are forming every day, and they are organizing and collaborating with other groups. With the infinite versatility of the web, they are forming societies where teams from all around the world can share evidence, data, and tactics.
But is this new paradigm in paranormal research going to move us forward in the eyes of the skeptical community? I’m afraid this new generation of “ghost hunters” has turned the tide in the favor of those who would like to put an end to what we as researchers are trying to accomplish.
The mission of today’s amateur paranormal investigator differs little from that of investigators at the turn of the 20th century. A quick look at any investigator’s website will find some sort of goal along the lines of “proving the existence of ghosts” using objectivity, reason, and science. However, the basic definition of the paranormal has evolved with this new breed of investigators, and the evidence they present to validate these new trends is dooming us all to failure.
Belief in ghosts is based upon reports of people throughout the ages seeing what we call an apparition: a visible manifestation of a person believed to be deceased. The field of paranormal research came about because of such reports. So why do investigators now present, as evidence of a haunting, phenomena that do not match the claims of activity being investigated?
Orbs have become the most popular examples of paranormal evidence. If we were to go online and pull up the websites of 100 paranormal investigative groups, at least 90 percent of those groups will present photographs of orbs. Many ghost hunters contend that orbs are manifestations of spirit energy that can travel around at will. They typically show up on still photographs that were taken with the aid of a flash, or some other sort of radiant light used to illuminate the environment. The effect generated is an apparent sphere of light suspended in the air.
Skeptics contend that orbs are nothing more than particles of various kinds that float around in the air and reflect the light from the flash, producing the appearance of a ball of light on film. They can be bugs, dust, pollen, or drops of rain. If you try to educate amateur investigators about the nature of light and the laws of light refraction, they will counter your argument by saying that there is a difference between a dust orb and a spirit orb that only they have the ability to decipher. At that point, the investigator has lost all credibility.
I once did an experiment in my home to see how easy it was to produce an orb photograph. I filmed the entire experiment, first showing that my digital still camera had no images on it; then, while keeping the still camera in full view of the video camera, walking into my living room and snapping off eight photographs. Without breaking the shot, I uploaded the images to my computer and examined each one. I photographed four orbs in that series of eight photographs.
In order for something to have the effect of illumination that the classic orb has, it either has to emit its own light, in which case it should be visible to the naked eye without a flash to illuminate it, or it has to reflect light, meaning that it has mass and should still be visible with the naked eye, unless it was something very, very tiny like a piece of dust or a drop of water.
Ectoplasmic mists also show up in photographs and typically look like smoke floating in the air. Generally, that is exactly what they are: smoke or condensation. You will most often see this in photographs taken outdoors. It is usually the effect of the photographer’s warm breath condensing as it hits the cool night air, forming steam that is then illuminated by the flash of the camera. Other times, it can be attributed to cigarette smoke or an aerosol. The phenomenon of ectoplasm was debunked 90 years ago as a hoax created by mediums who would spew the substance out every orifice imaginable during their séances....Read the rest of this article exclusively in the May 2008 issue of FATE. Click here to buy this issue now!
