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10.17.11

Ghost TV and Ghostly Experiences

I'm a Fortean TV junkie; I'll watch anything -- even, if I'm desperate enough, programs with a decidedly skeptical slant -- Bigfoot, UFOs, ghosts, conspiracies, I'll happily sit back and watch. Sometimes I get annoyed and turn it off; if it's too smart ass and frenetic, like Destination Truth was, or testosterone driven faux scientific, like Ghost Hunters. Or just plain overload like Ghost Adventures.

I particularly like programs about ghosts and hauntings. Different approaches to ghost "hunting", from the above mentioned equipment dragging and clanking of a Ghost Hunters type show to the often slightly depressing, religious Paranormal State. My favorite types of ghost shows are the ones where the person is talking to the camera about their experience. Reenactments are thrown in, interspersed with the person's narrative, but basically, it's just the person relating his or her own experience. Anyone who's experienced hauntings in any way -- and I have, several times -- recognizes when someone's ghost story rings true.

Among the shows using this format is the Biography channel's My Ghost Story. Witness talking to the camera, reenactments with EVPs and images caught on film. There isn't any overuse of equipment or people screaming into long dark hallways demanding that the spirits show themselves. Just the individual sharing their experiences, and their reactions to those experiences. Backed up by interesting evidence.

HOT "ELECTRICAL" FEELING

A common experience by people exploring haunted places is feeling a cold spot. People report feeling a sudden drop in temperature; usually abrupt and dramatic. This signals the presence of spirit. I've felt this in a minor way once, but for me, it's usually hot that I feel. One time in particular I was on the stairs leading up to a room where a lot of activity took place. I suddenly felt a huge rush of hot electrical like energy pass through my body. It was incredible, strange, and a little disturbing. Disturbing because I'd never felt anything like this before, and it was something outside of myself that had intentionally made itself known to me by passing through my body. I had no control: it went through me. I have rarely come across this phenomena in the literature; usually it's the cold that people experience, not hot. But on one episode of My Ghost Story the person had reported the same kind of electrical, hot feeling I had felt that time on the stairs. (Later, when I was in the room at the top of the stairs, I witnessed a white misty apparition manifest from out of nothing, grow larger and then "leave.")

EVPS

I love EVP (electronic voice phenomena) evidence and I know the argument about hearing what you want to hear, etc. but I don't buy it. That's another discussion for another day. I've never personally picked up an EVP but I have heard, with the "naked ear", voices on several occasions that were spirit. The episodes of My Ghost Story had several interesting EVPs, in particular, the Brownwell haunting.

Histories

It always surprises me when individuals, including the ghost hunters themselves sometimes, find that an historical place is haunted. Prisons, hospitals, convalescent homes, mental institutions, plantations, hotels -- anywhere thousands of people have congregated over time, combined with the age of organic materials (wood, brick, etc.) -- of course the place is going to be haunted! The older the building, the more haunted it's going to be!

Ghost TV

While I have various criticisms of many ghost shows, they're minor. I enjoy them all, even while rejecting or ignoring some of those irritants (equipment overuse, religious assumptions, unnecessary attempts to debunk) and they all bringi us evidence of ghosts and hauntings. And maybe inspiration for us to do some ghost investigations of our own.