The famous ghost picture of Bachelor's Grove Cemetery (shown)
Ghost hunters should always keep open minds to the possible explanations for phenomenon. Everyone is aware of the most popularly accepted theory for ghosts, i.e. the souls of people who have passed on. There are, however, many other concurrent theories in the field that are worth investigating and getting acquainted with. Even if you are resistant to the concepts below, there might be something in these theories that helps aid us all in finding new ways to predict, repeat, document, and prove phenomenon by disproving some of these theories:
Hutchison Effect: Let’s begin with one of my favorites I investigated when I first officially started hunting. If you look up in Wikipedia “John Hutchison” you can find the “Hutchison Effect.” He could be a total quack or totally brilliant, and that will be disputed forever, but this inventor claimed to create a machine that created so much electromagnetic fields that it caused objects to levitate, fusion of objects, and many other changes that are compatible with “ghost activity.” The assumption made from this is that the right conditions can create the sorts of things we see and hear when we encounter ghosts, therefore making ghost phenomenon possibly related to surges in electromagnetic fields that are random and fleeting. I admit to being very excited about the claims of what he was able to do, but usually once excitement wears off, I begin to ask questions and anyone with this knowledge should be sharing it with the world. This could be like the guy who claimed to work at Area 51, just one of those eggheads with an amazing sense of self importance. Still, it is worth noting that strong electromagnetic fields do affect people’s perceptions and bodily sensations. Usually when there is a theory, there is something it was originally based on that is steeped in truth.
Residual hauntings: These do not involve an intelligent being but are replaying events from the past, are best explained in this thorough article: http://theshadowlands.net/ghost/residual.htm
I am skeptical about most everything in life except two things: Bigfoot exists and residual hauntings do happen. Other than, everything else is in doubt. I’m like anyone else. I gather information to make a decision, including my experience, and my gut feelings, and I can make a measured decision about the subject and feel confident that, for myself, this is the conclusion. I haven’t come to a lot of conclusions, but residual is one of them. I witnessed this nearly every day of my childhood at Aspen Grove. I think that nearly all hauntings could be in this category, but I keep my fingers crossed for signs of intelligence that I can personally witness. If I get what I consider to be proof of interaction, I will be turning down the road of “ghosts are souls,” or “ghosts beings in another dimension.” (next theory)
Interdimensional beings: This is within the realm of physics theories such as string theory, that time is not perhaps as linear as we thought and may curl up on itself or that many dimensions occur simultaneously so that basically any decision you make could have outcomes in many dimensions playing out many different alternate lives. According to string theory, space-time can have 10 dimensions. If you don’t mind reading about physics, this is a pretty good explanation:
http://www.tprconline.com/index.php?topic=2769.0;wap2
Aliens: The more you read about UFOs, ghosts, and bigfoot, the more you hear interesting things, like statistically bigfoot sightings occur at the same time as mass UFO sightings. Some folks link the two together that bigfoot and UFOs are one and the same event—Bigfoot being an alien. (I want to see the planet that breeds this beast that is technologically able to build and fly an UFO). Well, there are those who think that things such as shadowpeople are actually aliens. I can understand the connection. It’s like ghosts. We assume that if something is occurring that we can’t see, it must be of a spiritual nature, but that is a primitive man’s correlations. Modern man knows that radiowaves and electricity occur and we do not see those, but they are not supernatural. I think the reason more people think shadowpeople are aliens is because one of the most distinct characteristics about these “beings” is that when you look at them and they realize they are being seen, they vanish quickly as if shocked that you were able to see them. That would be a feature one might expect an alien to exhibit. We can blame unexplained events on ghosts, God, or aliens, it just depends on whether you’re Middle America, conservative, or a geek. Here’s a good basic article on it:
http://paranormal.suite101.com/article.cfm/shadow_people_what_are_they
Geological/electromagnetic issues:
The geology of a location is often times mentioned when speaking of seriously haunted sites. Looking into the makeup of the ground, things like limestone, granite, and quartz are often considered to be “conductors” for spiritual activity. In the British film “The Stone Tapes” (one of my fav's) this was discussed as a potential way that certain sites recorded events and held spirits to be replayed, such as in residual hauntings. This can often times upset electromagnetic fields. If you’ve ever gone to Sedona, you’ve probably felt it and most notably at the vortices. It can actually be measured and has been measured by scientific equipment, but whether the human body can feel this change in the fields, is subjective. Still, it is a consideration in potentially haunted spots, along with running water which is often felt to be able to carry spiritual energy. I understand the correlation people are making with things that are conductive to electrical energy and crossing that over to spiritual energy. Still, it’s not something we can really prove yet, but we can find out if statistically there are certain types of ground that have a higher percentage of hauntings. I myself looked up the top haunted sites in America and found them all either on granite beds, running streams, near the water, or railroad tracks. I don’t now the significance of this, but then I would suppose there’s a pretty good chance places people settled had those features and where people settled there’d be a higher concentration of buildings that were inhabited and occurrences that locked into the environment. Still, all of this is conjecture. If you want to read more about tectonics, check out:
http://www.assap.org/newsite/htmlfiles/Geology.html
There are a lot of other goofy theories out there, but the point is that if we pursue ghosts as only something the spiritual realm, we might be using things like Ouija boards, séances, and crystals to try to deal with the spiritual aspects, when the link that makes us able to communicate or prove what it is might be in the laws of psychics or geology or some other area as yet unexplored. So, a truly good ghost hunter would educate himself/herself in all the theories on the table and perhaps take note of things when going to a site. Instead of just writing down the dramatic history of the building and the killings that occurred there, he/she might investigate the geology, measure the electrical fields, and take note of things like shadowpeople being seen there. It’s entirely possible that not all ghostly phenomenon comes from the same source. A full-body apparition could be a memory visually replayed in a space by a flicker in time-space or a sound could be held by the bricks in the walls and replayed when the humidity is high enough, or something making your KII meter light up when you ask questions could be interdimensional or even yourself answering your own questions from the future.
You can see why I love this field. The evidence is as varied and vast as the explanations.
