Ghost Hunt: Chilling Tales of the Unknown (28 page)

To you, it looks like an image of a man sitting on top of the chest. But on closer inspection, you’re not so sure.

6. You look closely to see if the image of the man is actually folds in the coats, or just a trick of shadows. But it’s so hard to tell.
Can you be sure of what you’re seeing? Should you…

a) Assume that you’re matrixing and move on

b) Take a control picture in the daylight

c) Shine a light from behind the picture—if it’s a ghost, it will glow

d) Assume that it’s real because the EVP occurred almost at the same time

In each of the images with the closet in the background, the figure of the sitting man looks a little different and twisted from picture to picture. Sometimes his “face” looks sort of lumpy, and his legs don’t really look the same. Because of the way it changes from picture to picture, you can tell that what you thought was a spirit was only folds in the hanging clothes. You were matrixing after all. But Tom points out that in a few pictures there are what appear to be light blue orbs.

7. How can you tell if an orb is real, and not dust or moisture?

1) It has a definite border

2) There was nothing shiny in the background that could reflect light

3) The color is not entirely uniform

4) All of the above

One orb image in particular has all of those qualities. Tom asks if you think maybe it was just a bug. That’s possible. But it’s pretty cold for bugs to be flying around. This could be a real orb. It would make sense. An orb is a ball of energy, and an energy fluctuation might have done something tricky with the lights. The time-code on the picture says it was taken right after you first started questioning the ghost. It was taken right in the middle of where the cold spot was. Putting all this together, you feel as though you have pretty strong evidence.

You’ve looked over all your data and you think you have a few really solid pieces of evidence. You have an EVP, a likely picture of an orb, some personal experiences, and an unexplainable cold spot. These are all strong indicators of the paranormal. Most important, you collected your evidence and reviewed it accurately. You didn’t jump to conclusions, and you thought about it all rationally.

But there’s one piece still missing.

8. What do you do with the chest of clothes?

a) Get rid of it, along with the spirit attached to it

b) Use it as a tool to communicate with the spirit

c) Forget about it and wait to see if any paranormal activity occurs again

d) Experiment with it by moving it to different locations to see if the paranormal activity will follow it

Question 1:
Now that you have everything assembled, what should you do?

Answer: a)
Record the time and nature of the events

This will be the official start of your investigation. It will also be important for you to have this data when analyzing the evidence to see if everything adds up.

Question 2:
The light switch is not working, so you turn on the flashlight. The next thing you do is…

Answer: d)
Turn off the TV

This is sort of a trick question. You definitely need to check to see if the lightbulb is burned out. Just because the lights went out doesn’t mean your basement is haunted. What if there was a power surge in the neighborhood? But, before you do anything, you need to
turn off the TV. The light from the TV would likely affect any pictures you take, and it could also affect the EMF.

Question 3:
You say the date, time, and place into the recorder. What’s the next thing you say?

Answer: d)
Who are you?

Answer b is just silly, as if turning off the lights in the first place was a sign. Answer a and answer c are too long. For the best results, keep it simple.

Question 4:
You set the recorder right next to the vent. What happens now is up to you. What do you do?

Answer: b)
Go up to the living room and experiment with the door to see if you can reproduce the noise

At this point you need to make sure that the moaning is not just coming from the creaky door. Don’t forget, your first objective is to debunk a haunting.

Question 5:
What will the compass tell you?

Answer: c)
The compass will spin around, indicating that a spirit may be manipulating the electromagnetic field

Like an EMF detector, a compass reacts to electromagnetic fields—that’s how it always points due north. Although it can’t give a precise reading, if it spins around that means something strange is happening to the electromagnetic field.

Question 6:
You look closely to see if the image of the man is actually folds in the coats, or just a trick of shadows. But it’s so hard to tell. Can you be sure of what you’re seeing? Should you…

Answer: b)
Take a control picture in the daylight

In this case, it’s easy to see if the picture is real or not. Matrixing a figure out of a cluttered coat closet is likely to happen, so you’ll definitely need to compare it to a picture taken in broad daylight. While it might be tempting to assume it’s real because the EVP occurred so shortly after, you cannot simply accept it as proof until you know for sure.

Question 7:
How can you tell if an orb is real, and not dust or moisture?

Answer: d)
All of the above

All of those qualities indicate a real orb.

Question 8:
What do you do with the chest of clothes?

Answer:
Any of those options are acceptable. The spirit seems not to be terribly mischievous, so it may not be necessary to get rid of the clothes. You may want to investigate further to back up the evidence you already collected.

Review:
If you got the questions mostly correct, you have the right mindset to be a ghost hunter. You’ve got a calm, skeptical outlook, but you’re also ready to find evidence of the paranormal. If you got a few questions wrong, that’s OK, too. But it might be a good idea to read over the guide a few times before you investigate the famous haunted house in your neighborhood!

Anecdotal Evidence:
Evidence of an event that comes from people’s stories.

Apparition:
A spirit visible to live people.

Black Mass:
An apparition in the form of a shadowy black mist.

Cold Spot:
A specific area where the temperature is colder than the surrounding areas, or an area where the temperature suddenly drops. Many paranormal researchers believe cold spots are caused by entities drawing energy from the air, literally sucking the heat out of the air in order to appear.

Demonic Haunting:
One of the four types of hauntings. A demonic haunting is caused by an inhuman spirit. They can be very nasty. Fortunately, they are rare.

Digital Thermometer:
A device used by paranormal investigators to detect cold spots or hot spots.

Ectoplasm:
A substance that’s supposed to ooze out of mediums when they are in trances and are in touch with spirits. Almost no one believes it’s real.

EMF Detector (Electromagnetic Field Detector):
A device that records the electromagnetic field of an area (the force given off by electrical charges). Paranormal investigators use it as a tool to detect spirits either disrupting or creating electromagnetic energy. One must be careful not to measure the electromagnetic fields of common electrical sources, such as outlets, televisions, or power lines, while investigating possible paranormal activity.

EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena):
An audio recording of voices or sounds that, at the time of recording, were not detectable to the human ear.

Entity:
A disembodied spirit.

Exorcism:
The ceremony performed to rid an area or person of an unwelcome entity.

Geophone:
A very sensitive device that “feels” vibrations on the ground and registers how strong the vibration is on a display of lights.