Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Haunted

This time of year, it seems as if everyone has a haunted story to recount. Their “cousin’s sister in law’s best friend’s baby sitter had this creepy thing happen to her, and since you are interested in ghosts you’ll know what to do with it” is a common refrain. I started reading true ghost stories when I was a little kid-I always loved a good scare-and that has continued as I grew up. I remember my gateway books were by Hans Holzer.  It made me want to be a ghost investigator. Thanks to the popularity of movies like Paranormal Witness and tv shows like Ghost Hunters, it seems there are more investigators than ghosts.


I remember back in the day, it would be my friends and I, with flashlights and cameras wandering around graveyards or someone’s grandmother’s creepy house. It was very low tech. We would have to wait to get our pictures back from being developed, and were all too frugal to pay for one hour processing. When we got fancy, we would bring a hulking tape recorder with us to see if we could pick up “spirit sounds”. Most of the time, we got nothing. There was one instance that my friend Nina got scratched, but to this day almost twenty years later, I couldn’t tell you if it was paranormal or if it was a bush or pricklers that got her.

 

We used to attempt to conduct séances. Of course there are those of us who desperately wanted to believe that they were psychic, but apparently weren’t, so these never worked. I have seen a Ouija board work, but they creep me out and I don’t anything to do with them.


Today, it seems that investigators have a vast array of tools at their disposal. From digital recorders to spirit boxes to k2 meters, they can have intelligent conversations with ghosts. At least the TV producers want you to believe that. It seems that each team have thousands of dollars invested in searching for something that may or may not even exist. If every team were to do this, most would be priced out of investigating. I like the old school, retro usage of my senses. I think I can sense as well as any bit of technology. It’s a lot cheaper too.

 

I’m a little too old to go poking around graveyards after dark with a flashlight, but there is still the fascination over whether or not ghosts exist. I blame it on Mr. Holzer, with a big thank you for this long term fascination.

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