Ghost Hunting – Do you believe?

“At first cock-crow the ghosts must go
 Back to their quiet graves below”  Theodosia Garrison

Ghost-hunting, aka paranormal investigation, is big business these days. There have been a variety of these engagements filmed for television – I’ll even admit to watching a handful myself.

I’m not sure what it is that I find so fascinating. The sense of mystery, the hope that there’s a larger world than the prosaic one we live in day to day. The potential confirmation of an afterlife, for anyone who’s lost a loved one.

Whatever it is, I find myself with the lights off and glued to my flat-screen, waiting to see what makes an appearance.

The first recorded claim of a sighting of the ghost was by Lucia C. Stone took place at a Christmas party at Raynham Hall in Norfolk, England in 1835. Among the invited guests was a Colonel Loftus, who said he and another guest had seen a ghost they called the “Brown Lady”, in a vintage brown brocade dress, glowing but with empty sockets, as they were walking down the hall to their bedrooms. This prompted a number of staff decamping the estate permanently.

In 1936, a Captain Hubert C. Provand and Indre Shira, two photographers who were assigned to photograph Raynham Hall for Country Life magazine, took a photo of the Brown Lady, which was published in Country Life magazine. The figure in the image is thought to be the ghost of Lady Dorothy Townshend, wife of Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount of Raynham in the early 1700s. Charles suspected his wife of infidelity, and, although she apparently died in 1726, some suspected that the funeral had been faked and that Charles had actually locked his wife away in a remote corner of the house for the remainder of her life.

As ghosts are said to occur when there’s been a wrongful death in some way, if I were Lady Dorothy I would certainly have haunted the ass off Lord Charles. Whatever the truth may be, it makes a good story. The photo is a remarkable image, and has gained considerable credence.

I can’t say I’ve ever been interested in doing the hunting myself, although we did actually participate in a kind of ghost hunt in the town of Gettysburg, PA, site of the biggest bloodbath of the American Civil War. It’s reputed to be one of the most haunted places in the US, given how many people died in terrible agony. We accompanied a couple of ladies out to several locations, where we were given various instruments that would indicate the presence of ghosts. On a bridge called The Hanging Bridge (the name speaks for itself), I sat on the wooden bridge slats next to one of the hosts, as she called up a program on her laptop that would serve as a voice ‘bridge’ with the afterlife. The laptop quickly began chattering away, as if there was a grand party amongst the departed all around us. However, the needle on the meter in my hand didn’t budge even a smidge. I restrained myself from saying, “Shouldn’t this thing be doing something?”

At the next location, where a reputed witch had been lynched, nothing ethereal happened, but several of us spotted tiny pricks of light from bioluminescent fungi on the forest floor, so that was pretty cool.

By the time I began getting nighttime chills in the third location, where everyone else was convinced they were discerning messages from the laptop software and oohing enthusiastically, my hubby and I decided we’d had enough for the evening.

In no way am I saying that I don’t believe in ghosts, just that often when we expect or really desire something to happen, it will, at least in our own perception.

Several years ago, I read a good article on what good ghost-hunting involves, and traps to look out for. I no longer have the provenance of the article, but here are some insights from it:

Ghost manifestations have certain common elements: a) ghosts seem to have a limited lifespan and fade with time, although I’ve never seen anyone specify an expiry date; b) disturbances such as renovation or demolition will often piss of ghosts, who then become very active; c) ghosts are frequently reported in places where there’s water in the area, such as a stream or river – or, even more ominously, buried water.

Our minds can be easily fooled, or influenced, by the circumstances of an investigation, so ghost hunters should be trained to take into account certain variables, such as:

Sensory Deprivation: when the investigators are sitting in low light levels and no sound. Whatever ambient noises and bits of light occur, our brains will try to make sense of them, not always reliably.

A “Sense of Presence”: the feeling that there’s someone or something in the room that can’t be seen, is common. An investigator’s expectations of coming across a ghost, together with awareness of the haunted reputation of the building, causes a heightened state of suggestibility. Experiments have shown that things I the environment, like exposure to extremely low frequency sound waves from electrical equipment, or wind blowing through a window, cause shivering, breathlessness, anxiety and a feeling of an unseen presence.

Pareidolia: I’ve read a lot about this phenomenon, and we’ve probably all experienced it – when our brain sees human faces and shapes in random things like clouds, or the grain on a piece of wood, or even potatoes a pieces of toast.  

The eye fools us: two visual phenomena – ideoretinal light, where flashes of light or colour appear in the field of vision in the absence of sensory stimulation, as in a darkened room, and entoptic phenomena, also known as “floaters” (debris within the fluid in our eyes).

Auditory Illusions: because ourspeech consists of a variety of sounds, frequencies and rhythms, it’s possible to misperceive sounds as a human voice, especially if the investigator is expecting to hear a ghostly voice.

The famous British psychic researcher and author Harry Price, who investigated psychical phenomena and exposed fraudulent spiritualist mediums in the early half of the 20^th century, offered some protocol to follow, many of which most ghost hunters follow to this day:

Frequently examine the grounds of a building, and, occasionally, watch windows or building from outside. If there are several observers, they can be divided between building and grounds.

Each observer should provide himself with the following articles, in addition to night clothes, etc .(in the case of spending multiple nights on site),: Note book, pencils, good watch with second hand, candle and matches, pocket electric torch, brandy flask, sandwiches, etc. If he possesses a camera, this can be used. Rubber or felt soled shoes should be worn.

Search the building thoroughly, close and fasten all doors and windows. If necessary, seal them.

Visit all rooms at intervals of about one hour.

Note the exact times of all sounds or occurrences, as well as your own movements, and weather conditions at the time.

Occasionally extinguish all the lights and wait in complete darkness, remaining perfectly quiet.

Price himself became an expert amateur magician, joining the Magic Circle, a British organization, founded in 1905, that dedicates itself to promoting and advancing the art of magic, in 1922. He used his knowledge to  investigate paranormal phenomena and suspicious mediums.

There’s so much material on Price’s investigations that it would need a complete additional post, which I may do at some point. In the meantime, here are my favourite television shows over the past few years, some of which can still be found on streaming platforms”

Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files – a  team of experts in various fields try to disprove or replicate a well-known phenomenon. I loved their approach of skepticism first. But, they couldn’t always succeed at either.

Ghost Mine: a fascinating investigation into a series of strange occurrences at a gold mine in Oregon, along with an intimate look at the business of mining.

Ghosts of Shepherdstown: an entire town in Virginia is overwhelmed by paranormal phenomena, prompting the police department to bring in a team of expert investigators. There were two subsequent companion shows to this that are equally interesting:

Ghosts of Morgan City, where a similar investigation takes place in a town in Louisiana with quite a different history, and

Ghosts of Devil’s Perch, in a mining town in Utah with a violent past.

Enjoy your ghost viewing, and do share if you’ve been on any ghost hunts yourself, as we head into Spooky Season!