Originally posted by HollowPointPeace
I think these stories are tough ones because there is no way to disprove something the owners may very well believe.
Originally posted by HollowPointPeace
Its so complicated. ughhh.
But still if i heard growling in my ceiling i dont care whether its demons, ghosts or the bogeyman, I am getting the eff out of there. I dont want
anything to get me.
The truth is that the stories can be "proven" or "disproven" in a way. The legit ghost hunting groups out there do what they do to actually help
people. In cases where the level activity, in reality, is extremely high the claims of the homeowner (as far as what they have witnessed) are usually
spot on. So when ghost hunting groups catch something that corresponds to what has been witnessed and experienced there before, it gives a whole new
level of credibility to the claims of activity. So, IMO, the problem isn't whether or not the activity can be proven or disproven. The problem is
that noone cares and it isn't as easy as proving or disproving something. It is much more complicated, as you also pointed out.
When the ghost-hunting groups are the ones actually having to try and help families in need like this, it proves that NOONE else out there is going to
take them seriously and noone else out there is going to take the phenomenon seriously. Heck, not many people even take the ghost-hunters themselves
seriously.. But to a desperate homeowner, it doesn't really matter whether or not mainstream science finds the paranormal a credible feild of study
or not.
As far as debunking goes, the only way to really do it is to debunk individual claims themselves.. But in locations that are extremely active, you
can never honestly know what is being caused by normal occurrences or paranormal influences. Even if some of the claims can be possibly debunked by
loose doors and passing cars, there is still no way to know what actually happened in each instance unless you have people who can give you first-hand
accounts. And even then you can never really have any level of certainty.. Debunking only goes as far as providing possibilities for each different
claim of paranormal activity. It doesn't outright explain what was seen, heard, or experienced.
And there are also alot of human factors that come in to play as far as people believing what they are experiencing is paranormal. Drugs, mental
illness, there are lots of possible reasons for people to claim having experienced paranormal activity when nothing of the sort is going on.
Even at locations with extremely active paranormal phenomenon, there is no way to completely disprove claims of activity.. There ARE things that
could be discovered as to potentially explaining why something was experienced in one specific spot but that's about it. For that reason, debunking
is the real, challenging headache of paranormal investigators. So, in reality, nothing can be completely disproven and the only way claims of
activity can be "proven" is if that paranormal activity can be captured in some form whether it be video footage, thermal footage, IR photos/videos,
audio clips, or any combination of those four. And to most people, that evidence doesn't prove anything because they don't honestly believe what
they are seeing/hearing could possibly be real.
Even if evidence does come forth, most people probably don't care. The problem is not capturing very real evidence of very real paranormal
phenomenon. The problem is that people simply don't take it seriously. And as long as there is, at the very least, some kind of potential
explanation that is not paranormal as to why something was caught, people aren't going to take it very seriously. But what most people don't
understand is how very rare it is to capture anything legitimate that is convincing in the first place. And when something amazing happens and is
captured on film or something, people just don't believe it for whatever reason. Paranormal investigation is still in the dark ages (although it has
been getting more attention lately).
-ChriS