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In December 2006 I wrote my first article regarding the paranormal for display on my website. The owner of ghostsamongus.net has kindly offered to display it on the website’s homepage. However, after reading back what I wrote I felt it could be improved, so here is the new version written especially and exclusively for ghostsamongus.net.
Perhaps one of the earliest known ghost sightings took place in Athens, Greece. Pliny the Younger (c. 63 - 113 CE) described it in a letter to Sura: Athenodoros Cananites (c. 74 BCE 7 CE), a Stoic philosopher, decided to rent a large, Athenian house, to investigate widespread rumours that it was haunted. Athenodoros staked out at the house that night, and sure enough, a dishevelled aged spectre, bound at feet and hands with rattling chains, eventually appeared. The spirit then beckoned for Athenodoros to follow him. Athenodoros complied but the ghost soon vanished. The philosopher marked the spot where the old man had disappeared, and on the next day advised the magistrates to dig there. The man's shackled bones were reportedly uncovered when this was done. After a proper burial the hauntings ceased. - Taken from www.crystallinks.com
And it was not only in Ancient Greece that ghost sightings were recorded. The Romans and Egyptians also made reference to ghosts and/or spirits of the deceased. Over the thousands of years that followed the principle of what a ghost is has barely changed at all. During this time the human race has evolved and made great advances in the understanding of ourselves and the world around us. We have split the atom, cloned animals and landed our spacecraft on distant planets millions of miles away, yet despite this we are still unable to produce any real evidence for the existence of ghosts. Maybe there is a very good reason for this, and it isn’t that ghosts simply don’t exist, but our method of obtaining evidence should be perfected.
Eye-witness Accounts – Whilst often the most valuable form of evidence, eye-witness accounts are always the least reliable. Evidence needs to be captured, analysed and reviewed. Yet with an individual's story of their alleged encounter with a ghost this is impossible. Our eyes can play tricks on us and we can simply lie for attention.
EVP – Electronic Voice Phenomena or any sounds captured on audio recording devices, are missing one crucial thing: video. An audio anomaly needs to be backed up with video footage for it to have any value at all, otherwise the source of the sound is impossible to identify accurately, so something which sounds spooky can actually have a completely innocent and logical origin.
Photographs – Possibly the most common and accessible form of evidence available yet in modern times, a completely useless form of evidence. With old cameras ghost photos were much rarer but more valuable as evidence as they had a negative available. With modern digital cameras anyone with a small amount of digital manipulation skill can alter any image to give the appearance of something sinister and spooky.
Video footage – The best out of a bad bunch really, as video footage is more difficult to manipulate than photographs. However, the quality is often too low to show a clear image.
With all of the above there is one major problem which is us, the people who seek these forms of evidence and then criticise them. Who is to decide what a photo of a ghost is and what isn’t? What exactly qualifies as being a ghost? Many enthusiasts upload images and videos to websites for analysis by other enthusiasts, however they are often just blurry streaks or balls of light, the majority of which are easily explainable by logical means. And if someone was able to catch the holy grail of all ghost images, [b]a full apparition, then to most it would simply be too good to be true, and thus would be accused of being a hoax.
So what now? Are we ever going to prove that ghosts exist? Should we even bother continuing our research into the paranormal or is it just a waste of time? Well there is one other form of evidence that I haven't mentioned yet:
Words – Yes that’s right, words. The words already exist too. It’s simply a case of getting the right words and putting them together in the right order and then we will have our proof.
Allow me to explain with a few simple questions and answers. What wiped out the Dinosaurs? How was the universe created? What exactly is Lightning? What is Evolution? The answer to all four is “It’s a theory”. In fact most of what we 'know' about science are actually just very good theories, which are sometimes so good that they become virtually fact in our own belief. What we need is to continue our research and develop our understanding of what ghosts are, and then with a good enough theory, people will begin to accept that there is actually something out there after all.
I am confident this will happen, if you travelled back in time 200 years and told everyone about something called television, driving around in cars, flying around the world in aeroplanes, and journeys into space in rockets, then you would have been burnt at the stake. But humans are getting smart and very quickly too; the next breakthrough in paranormal research could be just around the corner. And if it is, it could start a revolution in how the world views the paranormal.
By Richard O’Connor
Swadlincote Paranormal Investigations
01/08/2008
(1760 reads) 
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