Mediums - Real or Phony?

[Lil' Red]

I do believe in some form of supernatural "ghosts". I have no idea what exactly that entails but I've heard too many stories to entirely dismiss the concept.

[wildman]

One of the main concerns I have is that ghosts have evolved so much over time. Now that we're in an era of prevalent recording devices, ghosts no longer appear as full-blown apparitions wearing period clothing - instead they appear as little lights, or unexplained noises, or sounds on a recording. I've watched shows that deal with this stuff, and frankly, it's tremendously unconvincing. Not once have I heard a noise on a recording that makes me think a spirit was the cause.

 

Where are the clear videos of ghosts? With the overabundance of recording devices, ghosts should be easier than ever to record, but even ghosts that have been rumored to roam buildings for hundreds of years fail to appear on camera - or at least, in a manner convincing enough to dispel skepticism.

 

To answer your questions and comments seeing an appirition is very diffict and very very rare. To see one you have to be at the right place, right time looking in the right direction to see one. It's kinda like catching lighting, you know it happens, people have seen it but you have no idea when and where it'll happen.

 

The theory on why you get more evp's then appartions on video or pictures is due to energy. The theory is it takes less energy to manipulate the white noise or an evp device to make sound. If that is correct it would explain why sounds and evps are the most collected as it takes less energy. Equipment that seems to catch most aparitions is thermal imaging, as it'll detect changes of temperature and will show what looks like a figure even though the night vision camera or your eyes won't see anything. The only problem is they are quite expensive the cheapest one i've seen is 5k for a low end model version. Where as you can get a camcorder with night vision for a few hundred dollars.

 

The orbs your talking about and bangs I agree with as they can easily be explained by normal every day reasons. I will not ever present them as paranormal proof, nor do I even look for them. As for your comment on ghost in period clothing they are still scene but more are heard. My team will practice at a local park here in Lincoln just to see how new members react to things in the dark or try out new equiptment. At this park we've captured evps of indian chants and drum beats that we didn't hear at the time doing the investigation.

 

Your comment on how ghost have evolved got me thinking. I don't think the ghost have evolved at all just the equipment has. Most of your evidence is cought in person or sound on a device. Today more and more places are being known as haunted when they weren't before. My thought on this as more equiptment is developed and changed to be more sensative we've caught more evidence in this field.

 

 

My mother says she had butterflies in her stomach the morning of 9/11, before the attacks, and the morning of the day her mother died. She also claims to have felt butterflies on days other bad things have happened.

 

She also says she's had butterflies and nothing has happened.

 

It's pure superstition, imho. The morning you avoided that IED, wildman, you probably just had diarrhea and didn't know it yet.

 

lol I didn't have diarrhea or physcially ill at all. I just didn't feel right at all. Kinda like knowing something was coming but not sure what. during my 2 tours in Iraq that was the one and only time I felt like that and it was the only time I had an IED attack on my convoy.

[knapplc]

The descriptions of ghosts have quite clearly evolved. When I first became fascinated with ghosts and the paranormal in general, way back in the early 80s before the advent of these ubiquitous recording devices, ghosts were often described as having actual human form, wearing clothing that described the period from which they came, evincing behavior that explained who they were - the ghostly apparition of a Civil War soldier marching his post, or the mariner's wife who appeared at the window watching out for the return of her husband, long lost in a storm. I can't tell you how many of these things I've read about in books or watched on TV before any of these phone cameras or digital recorders popped up.

 

EVP simply doesn't make sense. Sound is a wave, generated by pressure/vibration changes. It is a measurable, mechanical thing. Ghosts/apparitions/spirits making these sounds seems impossible. Ghostly drumming would still require the impact of an object on a tympanic membrane. Ghostly voices would still require the vibration of vocal chords. I have yet to hear a rational explanation for how sounds can be made by ghosts.

 

My opinion is that if you're looking for ghostly sounds on a recording full of white noise, you'll find it. Maybe it's actually a car driving by in the distance, or the structure settling, or water/air moving in pipes in the floor being picked up by the equipment. It's pretty common for humans (even smart, rational humans - not crazy people) to interpret things to fit a rational pattern when there is no pattern at all. It's in our DNA to do this. That's my theory on EVP, anyway.

[ZRod]

My opinion is that if you're looking for ghostly sounds on a recording full of white noise, you'll find it. Maybe it's actually a car driving by in the distance, or the structure settling, or water/air moving in pipes in the floor being picked up by the equipment. It's pretty common for humans (even smart, rational humans - not crazy people) to interpret things to fit a rational pattern when there is no pattern at all. It's in our DNA to do this. That's my theory on EVP, anyway.

I'm pretty skeptical about EVPs in general because its usually just a garbled sound until someone tells you what to hear, and then because of the masterful way our brain works it becomes impossible to "unhear" the sound without the new language imprinted on it. I'm drawing the biggest blank right now but I saw a show where they explained how the brain imprints language on to sounds and you will never be able to undo this in the short term. It has a scientific name and I can't even remember that, if someone knows what I'm talking about help me out here.

[wildman]

The descriptions of ghosts have quite clearly evolved. When I first became fascinated with ghosts and the paranormal in general, way back in the early 80s before the advent of these ubiquitous recording devices, ghosts were often described as having actual human form, wearing clothing that described the period from which they came, evincing behavior that explained who they were - the ghostly apparition of a Civil War soldier marching his post, or the mariner's wife who appeared at the window watching out for the return of her husband, long lost in a storm. I can't tell you how many of these things I've read about in books or watched on TV before any of these phone cameras or digital recorders popped up.

 

EVP simply doesn't make sense. Sound is a wave, generated by pressure/vibration changes. It is a measurable, mechanical thing. Ghosts/apparitions/spirits making these sounds seems impossible. Ghostly drumming would still require the impact of an object on a tympanic membrane. Ghostly voices would still require the vibration of vocal chords. I have yet to hear a rational explanation for how sounds can be made by ghosts.

 

My opinion is that if you're looking for ghostly sounds on a recording full of white noise, you'll find it. Maybe it's actually a car driving by in the distance, or the structure settling, or water/air moving in pipes in the floor being picked up by the equipment. It's pretty common for humans (even smart, rational humans - not crazy people) to interpret things to fit a rational pattern when there is no pattern at all. It's in our DNA to do this. That's my theory on EVP, anyway.

 

The bangs in the pipes your mention could be air, I fully agree. Thats why I don't take those things as evidence as they can be explained by normal occurances.

 

As for evps and how they manipulate it, I have no idea how it works.

 

I'm pretty skeptical about EVPs in general because its usually just a garbled sound until someone tells you what to hear, and then because of the masterful way our brain works it becomes impossible to "unhear" the sound without the new language imprinted on it. I'm drawing the biggest blank right now but I saw a show where they explained how the brain imprints language on to sounds and you will never be able to undo this in the short term. It has a scientific name and I can't even remember that, if someone knows what I'm talking about help me out here.

 

I can see what your saying there and it makes sense, especially when your looking at a grainy photo and see a shape or hear a garbled voice and try to make out what it says. But when it comes to evps theres multiple classes. A class A evp is one what you can hear it and know exactly what it says without even thinking about it like someone is standing there and talking to you. the drum beats were class A we knew exactly what it was, of course it could of been as Knapplc said a car driving by. But as for Villisca I caught a child voice late at night when no kids around. I know for a fact there were only 4 of us in the room and you hear 5 voices one is a child that clearly says IT, there is a word infront of it that is kinda hard to make out. But a lot of people thinks it says get it or play it. Play it makes sense as we were playing the piano then stopped after they stopped is when the evp happened.

[knapplc]

I suppose as a matter of clarification it's important to note that, while I'm highly skeptical of such things, I do leave the door ajar to the possibility of such things. I do not claim to know there are no such things as ghosts/spirits or whatever. I just do not believe, based on what I know, that such things are real.

 

I'm a ghost agnostic.

[husker B-rent]

I do not personally believe in mediums because i have actually spoken to a medium that explained a few things to me.

 

however, ghosts i 100% believe in as I have seen one in my own house as well as another house. Its usually only a short second or so that we see him but we have watched him walk across our dining room and also poke his head out in our closet recently but it appears as just a shadow but not on the wall or anything it is clearly walking in the middle of the room. its not often that we hear anything but when we do he doesnt seem harmful, have heard him say "hello" more than anything. the other home i saw one in we walked into a guys house and were standing in his living room talking and i personally looked over by his back door and say a man standing there and said "hey whos that?" and the guy that lived there said "thats my cowboy, he likes to stand back by the door". i didnt tell him he was dressed like a cowboy and the guy that lived there was around a corner and there is no way he could have seen him so obviously he had seen him before.

 

it sounds crazy i know but ive seen it with my own two eyes more than once and with witnesses more than once so i know its real.

[knapplc]

My aunt tells a story of a ghost telling her "Don't go" when she and my uncle were moving out of their house. Freaked her out, and to this day she doesn't like to talk about it. I don't doubt for a second that she thinks she heard something.

[walksalone]

I think mediums are fake, but some of the other crap that I can't explain, well...

 

When I was about 5, we'd get tornado watches, and we'd go to the basement and wait them out. There would be me, my mom and my sister downstairs, and we'd hear footsteps walk from my parents bedroom, to the kitchen, and nobody was upstairs. The floors were hardwood, so you could hear it plain as day.

[The Dude]

If you're too old to believe in Santa, you're probably too old to believe in ghosts.

 

That being said, let's pretend for a moment they are real and they are the "spirits" of people. It makes absolutely zero sense that they'd be wearing clothes.

[husker B-rent]

If you're too old to believe in Santa, you're probably too old to believe in ghosts.

 

That being said, let's pretend for a moment they are real and they are the "spirits" of people. It makes absolutely zero sense that they'd be wearing clothes.

prove it. prove they do not exist.

[ZRod]

I'm kind of like Knap on this one. I won't rule out the possibility of ghost because I've had a few strange experiences but nothing has given me stone cold proof yet. Like last year visiting my girlfriends parents we were all in our beds upstairs where they have some noises stairs and a creaky floor. Heard someone walk up the stairs and across the floor, not creaking or settling it was consistent rhythmic steps. Next morning I asked if anyone came up and everyone said no or they were asleep. My girl said she heard the same thing I did so I knew I wasn't just imaging it.

 

Personally I think the majority of EVPs are just white noise, but like you said the class A ones are just down right freaky.

[Enhance]

If you're too old to believe in Santa, you're probably too old to believe in ghosts.

 

That being said, let's pretend for a moment they are real and they are the "spirits" of people. It makes absolutely zero sense that they'd be wearing clothes.

prove it. prove they do not exist.

???

 

Prove they do.

 

It is a silly argument.

[The Dude]

If you're too old to believe in Santa, you're probably too old to believe in ghosts.

 

That being said, let's pretend for a moment they are real and they are the "spirits" of people. It makes absolutely zero sense that they'd be wearing clothes.

prove it. prove they do not exist.

 

Explain how one proves a negative.

[walksalone]

Somethings, better left without an answer..