Category: Paranormal

Ghost FAQ, Facts (and Fiction)

10/28/2014

It's that time of year...

Fact: Around half of the American population, in survey after survey, say they believe in ghosts and hauntings.

There have been dozens of television shows, books, videos and Internet sites in the past 20 years featuring people who claim to be paranormal investigators who found evidence of the paranormal.

Around Halloween time, the media is dripping with hype about ghost tours, ghost hunts, and local paranormal investigations of the community's historical places with breathless claims of proof of ghosts from these amateur ghost hunters.

What should we think about ghosts? It’s a complicated question. Here are some facts and FAQs to help get you square about where we are with our knowledge of ghosts and paranormal evidence.

What is a ghost?

This is a deceptively tricky question! The answer you get will completely depend on whom you ask. The “ghost” is one of the most popular concepts of the paranormal (beyond normal). Yet, there is not one agreed-upon definition across disciplines of what a ghost is since one has never actually been caught and examined.

Instant paranormal: The ubiquitous use of camera apps

10/19/2014

Here is another piece on paranormal photo investigation by Kenny Biddle. Elementary and middle school educators will be interested in this piece as an example of how to think about possible hoax photographs and developing a protocol for examining and investigating extraordinary claims.

By Kenny Biddle

“Ghost Cam Apps” are smart phone applications that place fabricated images of ghosts, aliens, and monsters in actual pictures. There have been cases in which a group or individual attempted to pass off an image from a ghost app as a genuine ghost – even using a “ghost” that is extremely well-known throughout the paranormal community.

Smartphones – they have become an essential part of many of our everyday lives, as much as the keys to our home and vehicle, our wallets or our purses. Their big claim to fame, besides processing power, is the almighty “app”. For the paranormal enthusiast, there’s an overabundance of “ghost hunting” related apps - from ghost cameras that offer a gallery of “ghosts” you can insert into any image, a “radar” that supposedly scans the area and pinpoints otherworldly entities, and even random word generators that supposedly interpret messages from spirits (no, they do not). Currently, there are well over 250 ghost related apps available for Android-based phones available for free or up to $4.99.

Based on the number of hoaxed images circulating on the internet, ghost apps “ghost cameras” are popular. Like other apps in this category, “ghost cams” (as they’re popularly known) make use of your phone’s camera and a gallery of images containing ghosts, aliens, monsters, soldiers, kids, demons, and so on. You snap a picture as you normally would, then are given the option of choosing an entity to insert into the image. You are also given customizing options such as where to place the ghost, rotating it, flipping it, adjusting transparency, and even the ability to erase parts of the ghost! Unsuspecting friends and family unfamiliar with ghost cams, photography, or some of the more famous ghostly images in the history of paranormal investigation can easily be fooled. Hoaxed images are presented with false sincerity by the hoaxer. And make no mistake; these are deliberate actions to deceive.

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SWIFT is named after Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver's Travels. In the book, Gulliver encounters among other things a floating island inhabited by spaced-out scientists and philosophers who hardly deal with reality. Swift was among the first to launch well-designed critiques against the flummery - political, philosophical, and scientific - of his time, a tradition that we hope to maintain at The James Randi Foundation.

Ghost FAQ, Facts (and Fiction)

Instant paranormal: The ubiquitous use of camera apps

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