Is It Really A Ghost?

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Is It Really A Ghost?
July 27, 2011
by Elsa Cook
Paranormal Old Pueblo

Understandably, would-be ghost hunters are excited by the prospect of being in the presence of a ghost. A haunted house or graveyard adds a titillating “thrill of the hunt” to the ghost hunting adventure, not to mention some great material for story-telling.

But how can you be sure you’ve seen a ghost or if the activity experienced is indeed paranormal?

Aside from fancy electronic gadgets, all one has to rely on is one’s senses. Add stress, darkness or unfamiliar settings and the obvious may be easily overlooked. There are some logical things to consider before determining if you’ve seen a ghost or experienced something paranormal:

1. Do a reality check on the location during daylight hours if possible. This is for your safety as well as for ruling out anything non-paranormal.

2. Reports of objects moving by themselves? Check surfaces with a carpenter’s level. They are relatively inexpensive and compact enough to carry on your person.

3. Sense a cold spot? You can use a thermometer or you can simply light a candle and determine if there is a draft and where it may be coming from. Old houses can be very drafty and not very well insulated, even around outlets and light switches. Masking tape can be utilized as temporary solution to block drafts while investigating.

4. Hearing footsteps? Wait until the activity has subsided and see if you can replicate the sound by walking around the area where the footsteps emanated. Houses settling as temperatures lower and gusty winds can produce eerie sounds similar to creaking footsteps.

5. Windows, doors or shades opening or closing by themselves? Check out the hardware and counterweights on old fashioned windowsills. If unbalanced, they can fly open and conversely they can slam shut from a malfunction. Try propping the window up with a solid object. It’s said that ghosts can pop those out but usually gravity won’t. Check the hardware on window shades that appear to snap. If the coil is too tightly or loosely wound, the window shade will not operate properly. Swing mounted doors are infamous for moving by themselves from incoming and outgoing drafts, particularly the double variety.

What is important to bear in mind is that just because you can duplicate what happened doesn’t automatically cancel out paranormal activity. Keeping a log of events (if you live in the home) is very useful in sorting out events like whether they occur at the same time, what area of the house, etc.

It seems that open-mindedness and rational thinking would be the best method for approaching anything unexplained. In very active situations, it can be difficult to reign in your emotions and your imagination. Imagination helps provide meaning to experience and understanding to knowledge; it is a fundamental facility through which people make sense of the world. However, too much imagination in this context might be detrimental to objective problem solving or conducting an effective investigation. Excess skepticism can also color your perception of events. Not unlike most matters in life, balance appears to be the common-sense key in successfully investigating the paranormal or unexplained.