By: Sam Little

In my many years in this field I have come to expect a lot, and of that lot I have come to notice many categories that people fall into based on their beliefs on paranormal activity. You have your run of the mill believers, who know paranormal activity exists. You have your non believer who equally knows paranormal activity does not exist. You have your in between person who is unsure either way. But what about those who take these categories to the extreme.

First off let me say that this is not in regards to true skeptics. True skeptics do not believe but are willing to look at evidence and be open to the possibility of paranormal activity existing. True skeptics are one of the biggest blessings to our field and show us that we must have real evidence that can stand the tests and probing of the scientific mind as well as the general public.

The die hard skeptic, who in my opinion is a non believer with some motivation to degrade paranormal research and those who partake in that study, is a person who does not believe and will go to extremes to disprove (usually without proving anything) paranormal activity. This type pf person will go to great lengths to try and disprove any account given. They relay on the age old quote "It is not the burden of the person who does not believe to prove that something doesn't exist, it is the burden of the believer to prove it does." This quote appears in many forms and fashions and basically states I can't disprove this so I won't try, now you prove it. It is nothing more than another way for this die hard skeptic to defend an intellectual territory without having to actually do anything.

My feelings are that any account or event must be looked at from both angles. For something to be disproved it needs evidence to support that belief just as something that needs proven needs evidence. Another problem with this type of thought is that if one case gets debunked the die hard skeptic will use that in reference to other cases. For example when a crop circle is deemed hoaxed they assume all are made the same exact way. This is so closed minded that it disturbs me.

This type of skeptic also displays another trait that I find equally if not more disturbing. If you visit a message board or online community that promotes paranormal research you will find out exactly what I am talking about. Despite anything the die hard skeptic looks for reasons to debate a topic and almost always resorts to a higher than though art attitude towards those who are not in agreement with them. I will not mention names but I am a member of several boards and on one of these boards a person at the height of the UFO debunking earlier last year would go in forums and promote UFOs and even claimed to research them for a secret government agent (a grown man mind you). Recently there has been a massive UFO support going over the community and now the guy is all about rationalizing and disproving UFOs and cases regarding them.

Did the guy really change his standing or did he simply disagree with the majority for the sake of a debate in hopes of sounding smart when in the end the guy sounded pretentious and ignorant. It all comes down to proof and the problem there is proof is different for every person. What I might see as proof others may not.

This type of skeptic also relays on science for their idea of proof. This is just absurd as science does not and will most likely never have all the answers. Science has been wrong on numerous occasions and will continue to be. Here Science messes up!!!! This is but one of many sites that document sciences' many blunders and mess ups.

While the die hard skeptic is not only a nuisance and an aggravation it doesn't compare to the opposite of the tracks.
The die hard believer. This person believes everything is paranormal regardless of what you show them by way of evidence to disprove it. They will see a rat in the kitchen as a spirit roaming around. This type of mindset damages the field much more than that of the die hard skeptic in the fact that it makes the rest of us look ignorant and les capable of doing a good job.

The die hard believer has very similar traits to that of the die hard skeptic, both are argumentive over their believes and usually fail to look at the other side. The die hard believer will usually have no words to back up why they feel something is good and valid evidence toward paranormal activity. They will simply state that it is.

This person will also always go into an investigation with hopes of trophy pics. They will snap photo after photo without reason and in some cases intentional look for low light and other situations that make pictures harder to evaluate. They will also almost always look at every pic they see in hopes of finding paranormal evidence.

The die hard believer is why we have simulacra. They will see faces in the most common of things like trees and walls and even in one case I worked a bowl of milk. This attitude makes researchers look like we are really unsure of what we are doing.

I hope you see how these two extremes make literally no sense in our field. A die hard believer and a die hard skeptic have no real reason to be involved with the field as they have their mind made up and very little can serve to change it. If you fall into one of these categories, get out!!!! If not good for you. I will elaborate more on this later. Happy hunting.