The Popularity of Paranormal Research

It is without any shadow of doubt that our field has grown to a state of pop cultural phenomena by now and in some ways the growth has laid new stones for us to tread on but also destroyed the old stones we walked on so long ago. We have seen a very obvious growth in TV and how it grasp our field. I can recall when a paranormal show was a sign of a lucky day, now one is on almost every station and network and the travel channel is full of them daily. The growing popularity of programs like Ghost Hunters and Most Haunted have really introduced a whole new world to the study of things that go bump in the night. Large web sites continuously feed the monster that is the online paranormal community and the researcher is very thankful for this but at the same time those who have been in the field awhile have noticed some problems.

Once again I am not hear to persuade in any way, just enlighten a little bit with a few perks and not so perky things that this new rise of our field has brought with it. Lets start with the new teams coming out of nowhere. We are located in eastern KY which literally has less than 10 teams I am aware of. Most are not even that good, they parade around snapping photos and have no general focus to what they are doing. Several of us are quite the opposite and do amazing work in the field. While I am pleased that the rise in popularity has caused more teams to come out of the woodwork, the want to belong in the paranormal community has caused a lot of these teams to not only just parade around cameras drawn like a mad photographer outside the Hilton home, it has also increased the need for faked evidence. This is no stranger to anyone on any paranormal message board or online group and certainly not to those who have been involved in this study for some time such as myself and a few members of my team. The want for acceptance and a trophy pic as driven many teams to create ghostly pictures by means of simple smoke all the way up to complicated Photoshop works.

The problem being the rise in popularity has created a competition out of our field where teams and sites, some so obvious it hurts my head, try to hide their real findings and they want nothing more than to have a pic they can show off. This has made the orb, one of paranormal researches most talked about anomalies, a bore. It has started a trend to where if the photo being shown is not a full bodied apparition it is not note worthy and that to me is a step back, way back from where we need to be. There are sites who feel their content is fact regardless of other research being done and then there are researchers who will try to profit from their findings as opposed to sharing them openly.

The new competitive attitude hurts our field by making egos were they are not needed. But at the same time this increase in attitude and trophy hunting has made those of us still interested in the research aspect more keen to spot a fake. We have to up our game to keep up with the ongoing demand for quality evidence. I myself am an orb fan and study them quite lengthy at times, so to me a good orb picture is just as impressive as a full bodied mist formation or the classic ecto. We as researchers have to step up and decide which side of this argument are we on. Do we keep our findings hidden and ask for money in return or do we reveal what we have found and allow others to share and learn with us? Should we ignore all orbs and ecto and search only for the famed full body apparition and the classis full roaming specter?

Could you imagine the amount of people marching through gravesites with cameras snapping millions of pics with no real general focus other than a picture to post on a site or show off at conventions. It would be chaos and in truth nothing would be accomplished by this, nothing at all! My respect still lies with researchers who go to a place not because it is spooky but because it has a history, or because witnesses have seen or felt something that may indicate paranormal activity and merit a visit from a research team.

What about the media and how it has affected the ongoing view of paranormal research and the people who study that field? Well as anyone can tell you the general idea of ghosts is sketchy and in a lot of ways as controversial as a political or religious debate is. That being said these shows feed of that, the want to know the truth and they add their own drama and characters in for some spice here and there. It obviously works as Ghost Hunters is one of the biggest rating creators for the sci-fi channel. This is also evident in the high ratings that Most Haunted has brought the channels it has aired on. While these programs are interesting and in some events educational they are also hurtful. TAPS, while being one of the top notch teams out there, they have a tendency to relate their findings as facts, not opinions. I have found different researchers get different results and thus one cannot deem their findings as facts. TAPS have pretty much degraded the orb respect considerably and this is bad for the field as the orb is the most common occurrence. Also at the same time Most Haunted has a notorious medium that has on several occasions been proven to be a fraud. This sets a very bad example and creates mixed feelings.

While the growth of our field seems to be an ongoing thing, let us remember that we are researchers and we should learn from each other and not act as if we are the most important thing out there. Thanks and look for a follow up to this article later on.