Ghost hunting shows: Why so many?

[B_henry miller]

It seems that lately there are so many shows about ghost hunters. It's all such nonsense. It's just a bunch of assholes walking around in the dark with flash lights and saying, "Oh, yeah, I feel something right here," and then this bullshit about "orbs" -- which are only dust reflecting light.

 

[Flashy]

I remember one awhile back i think was on MTV called "fear"...where they would take these genX types to this really fucked up places, and they had to complete these assignments...like go into this old abandoned prison, alone in the dark, go through all these fucked up places like the morgue, and then go sit in the electric chair on old death row.

It is a tad creepy...I know i wouldn't do it. :scared1:

 

[2322]

I think they're loads of fun and it's always fascinating when they capture an EVP or shadowy figures or objects appearing to move by themselves. It's not just dusty orbs they're finding out there. I do enjoy the theatrics of the shows and occasionally find some of the evidence compelling. Ghosts are a world-wide phenomenon reported since the history of mankind began. I'm curious to know what causes the phenomenon and perhaps these shows can help shed some light on just what ghosts truly are.

 

[Shelby]

The only thing my wife would rather watch than the eating channel are the ghost shows.

I call it glow eye tv.

 

[D_Thoraxis_Biggulp]

It's bullshit. You can't track ghosts (assuming you believe in wandering spirits) with electronic equipment. A camera isn't going to photograph a spirit without a concentrated enough presence to be visible to the naked eye. Doing so requires clairvoyance. Clairvoyance is a spiritual sense, meaning it requires having a spirit. Something that cameras do not have. If you don't see it, neither does the camera.
And yeh, orbs are just dust reflecting light, whenever they're genuinely part of the picture.

 

[deleted3782]

An historic site that I am afficiated with had a visit by ghost hunters last week, and then we got a call from another group who will visit this week. Its getting to be crazy. They are canvassing every historic site in the country.

And finding nothing...

 

[D_Thoraxis_Biggulp]

Seriously, if any dead stayed behind, why would it be to visit a damn museum? They've obviously got some kind of agenda (or they've come up with one, if they're not here by choice), and visiting the old saw mill isn't one part of it.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

It's bullshit. You can't track ghosts (assuming you believe in wandering spirits) with electronic equipment. A camera isn't going to photograph a spirit without a concentrated enough presence to be visible to the naked eye. Doing so requires clairvoyance. Clairvoyance is a spiritual sense, meaning it requires having a spirit. Something that cameras do not have. If you don't see it, neither does the camera.
And yeh, orbs are just dust reflecting light, whenever they're genuinely part of the picture.

I am not sure what the heck this post means...

You make an assumption, based on zero evidence, that ghosts can not be tracked with electronic equipment- or that you can't photograph anything not visible to the naked eye.
That you have to have clairvoyance?

First-- you can't track ghosts with anything, because there aren't any ghosts to track.
Secondly, cameras routinely capture images of things invisible to the naked eye. infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray and even radio waves, can all be imaged... not to mention resonant magnetism, and positron emissions...


In fact... any external phenomena that creates physical interactions can be imaged, mostly by electronic equipment.

That you can not capture evidence of ghosts with such equipment means there is no phenomena to capture.


The only other possibility of "perceiving" things that simply are, provably, not external phenomena, are internal phenomena.

That is, products or artifacts of the mind. That leaves us with, either, misperceptions of external stimuli...or pure delusions.

Clairvoyance is a possibility... but thus far it is indistinguishable from misperception or delusion.

50 years of research has shown no evidence whatsoever that clairvoyance exists.



And the reason there are so many ghosts shows?
Lots of people desperately WISH the world was magical and death was not an end.

Convincing themselves that such nonsense is 'possible' or 'credible' is a salve on the yawning fear of death... and adds interest and depth to what otherwise might be seen as the crushing dullness of actual reality.


Our imaginations enable us to visualize, and execute, a computer, or a skyscraper.

But it also enables us to imagine the impossible....
...that life is far more incredible and magical and meaningful... than it really is.
That things are hidden from us... or that some wiser, more powerful 'person' is in control of events....


Like the tag line form the X-files.... we want to believe.

The difference between being a cave man and a technological human being is that the latter dismisses what they wish to be true and focuses only on what is demonstrably true.

 

[Flashy]

I am not sure what the heck this post means...

You make an assumption, based on zero evidence, that ghosts can not be tracked with electronic equipment- or that you can't photograph anything not visible to the naked eye.
That you have to have clairvoyance?

First-- you can't track ghosts with anything, because there aren't any ghosts to track.
Secondly, cameras routinely capture images of things invisible to the naked eye. infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray and even radio waves, can all be imaged... not to mention resonant magnetism, and positron emissions...


In fact... any external phenomena that creates physical interactions can be imaged, mostly by electronic equipment.

That you can not capture evidence of ghosts with such equipment means there is no phenomena to capture.


The only other possibility of "perceiving" things that simply are, provably, not external phenomena, are internal phenomena.

That is, products or artifacts of the mind. That leaves us with, either, misperceptions of external stimuli...or pure delusions.

Clairvoyance is a possibility... but thus far it is indistinguishable from misperception or delusion.

50 years of research has shown no evidence whatsoever that clairvoyance exists.



And the reason there are so many ghosts shows?
Lots of people desperately WISH the world was magical and death was not an end.

Convincing themselves that such nonsense is 'possible' or 'credible' is a salve on the yawning fear of death... and adds interest and depth to what otherwise might be seen as the crushing dullness of actual reality.


Our imaginations enable us to visualize, and execute, a computer, or a skyscraper.

But it also enables us to imagine the impossible....
...that life is far more incredible and magical and meaningful... than it really is.
That things are hidden from us... or that some wiser, more powerful 'person' is in control of events....


Like the tag line form the X-files.... we want to believe.

The difference between being a cave man and a technological human being is that the latter dismisses what they wish to be true and focuses only on what is demonstrably true.

I agree with you for the most part Phil and take a dim view on the whole life after death premise/ghosts etc...but there is a small part of me that says i cannot discount anything.

There are enough weird phenomenons that i have not been able to explain that leads me to believe that if not ghosts or the paranormal, there are some weird mental or physical links that occur in this world.

I know of at least 4 different confirmed occasions in my family where unexplained "links" have caused things that are unexplained...not necessarily "ghostly" but truly bizarre. Like my grandmother doubling over in pain one night clutching her stomach in New York at dinner with my parents while i was away at school...at the same time that i was doubling over with an undiagnosed (later thought to be cancerous lump in my abdomen) problem...and moments after it happened to my grandmother, she told my parents to call me because she thought something was wrong.

This happened three more times with my grandmother and I in strange ways over the course of our lifetime...we just had one of those very weird, inexplicable mental connections that i know cannot be explained completely by science.

 

[D_Thoraxis_Biggulp]

I am not sure what the heck this post means...

You make an assumption, based on zero evidence, that ghosts can not be tracked with electronic equipment- or that you can't photograph anything not visible to the naked eye.
That you have to have clairvoyance?

First-- you can't track ghosts with anything, because there aren't any ghosts to track.
Secondly, cameras routinely capture images of things invisible to the naked eye. infrared, ultraviolet, x-ray and even radio waves, can all be imaged... not to mention resonant magnetism, and positron emissions...


In fact... any external phenomena that creates physical interactions can be imaged, mostly by electronic equipment.

That you can not capture evidence of ghosts with such equipment means there is no phenomena to capture.


The only other possibility of "perceiving" things that simply are, provably, not external phenomena, are internal phenomena.

That is, products or artifacts of the mind. That leaves us with, either, misperceptions of external stimuli...or pure delusions.

Clairvoyance is a possibility... but thus far it is indistinguishable from misperception or delusion.

50 years of research has shown no evidence whatsoever that clairvoyance exists.



And the reason there are so many ghosts shows?
Lots of people desperately WISH the world was magical and death was not an end.

Convincing themselves that such nonsense is 'possible' or 'credible' is a salve on the yawning fear of death... and adds interest and depth to what otherwise might be seen as the crushing dullness of actual reality.


Our imaginations enable us to visualize, and execute, a computer, or a skyscraper.

But it also enables us to imagine the impossible....
...that life is far more incredible and magical and meaningful... than it really is.
That things are hidden from us... or that some wiser, more powerful 'person' is in control of events....


Like the tag line form the X-files.... we want to believe.

The difference between being a cave man and a technological human being is that the latter dismisses what they wish to be true and focuses only on what is demonstrably true.

So basically you've attempted to discredit what I've said about what can and can't track ghosts by saying ghosts don't exist at all.
And yes, certain types of cameras can pick up wavelengths not normally visible, such as infrared. But the idea of a ghost or spirit isn't a matter of a certain wavelength of light. It's an incorporeal existence, one (currently) not scientifically measurable or tangible, hence why clairvoyance is still considered theoretical, never ultimately proven nor disproven. Your notion that seeing them is all just a matter of delusion or external stimuli only goes to support that. When you hallucinate and take a photograph of your surroundings, other people aren't going to see your hallucination in the picture. It was all just in your head, not in the camera.

If everybody only believed what had been proven, we'd still be in the stone age.

 

[B_ScaredLittleBoy]

Ghosts don't exist. If it is true that ghosts have been talked about since "the beginning of time" may I suggest that since the beginning of time, no one has wanted to die and people, even neolithic and early man, still missed and wanted to see loved ones.

If you want to see someone badly enough; or are in such a vulnerable and emotional state, you will see them. But they exist only in your mind and only for a brief time; until you recover from "the depths of despair" or whatever you want to call it.

I would also like to add that there have been deities/gods since the beginning of time too. None of those are real either. At least not to people with their own minds.

 

[B_Lightkeeper]

I don't necessarily believe in "ghosts" but there are supernatural occurances. (I do however think that there could be UFO's.) I enjoy the Sci-Fi channel's Ghost Hunters because of one of the TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society) co-hosts, Grant Wilson.

There is also a sexy guy (I'll have to look up his name) on the Ghost Hunters International series.

The team(s) go out and investigate and normally try to debunk theories and supposed sightings of ghosts and unexplained situations. While most wind up nothing....a few have had some strange believe-it-or not happenings.

 

[edonline]

I believe in ghosts because strange, unexplained things have happened to myself and members of my family. However, I don't necessarily believe in some of these ghost hunting shows. Some look as if they're pushing (fixing?) things to happen. At least on "Ghost Hunters", they're more than willing to debunk the hauntings. (And since there are some hot guys on the show, that doesn't hurt either.) But GH also has its moment when they see or hear things and I'm watching, thinking to myself "I didn't see/hear aything". Maybe you have to be there. I also think that in some cases, if there are spirits in a place, why would they want to come out when you have all of these people walking around, making noise and generally being a disturbance?

 

[JustAsking]

...
If everybody only believed what had been proven, we'd still be in the stone age.

Stapled,
No, it was believing only that which can be proven that got us out of the stone age.

 

[earllogjam]

I wonder if most of the people who believe in ghosts have had a real life encounter with one.

I ask because a friend of mine is a devout believer. He moved into a "haunted" house and he had this otherwise normal 4 yr old dog that he brought along. The house just had a strange vibe to it and no one ever felt very comfortable in it. The dog began barking into thin air indiscriminately apparently to the ghost that lived there and it eventually had to be put to sleep because it had a nervous breakdown of sorts. Don't know if dogs suffer such things but it was clear that the dog was psycho after living there for one year.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

I
This happened three more times with my grandmother and I in strange ways over the course of our lifetime...we just had one of those very weird, inexplicable mental connections that i know cannot be explained completely by science.

Again, this is anecdotal.

The trouble with anecdotes is twofold... no real evidence... and confirmation bias.

Scientific investigation shows that some people have "premonitions" frequently... and the vast majority of the time there is nothing these premonitions portend... its just hysterics. Some folks tend to think everything "means" something....

However, on the rare occasion when premonition actually coincided with something that seems relevant... confirmation bias kicks in... all the times granny 'felt' something that turned out to be nothing are dismissed... and the three times it coincided with an actual event is given far more weight than it deserves, given the number of misses.

And then there are the "post-minitions" where someone has a stomach ache from bad tomatoes... and two days, a week, or month later someone they know comes down with appendicitis... OR.. they actually have a stomachache days AFTER someone gets ill....
If the person is wont to think along supernatural lines, there is a high likelihood that they will "link:" their stomachache to the appendicitis.
In re-telling the tale memory gets distorted by conviction, and within a few years the stomachache, rather than being two weeks prior, or two days after...has become the night before.

OR Most commonly, someone in a family CLAIMS to have had a 'feeling' the day before...AFTER hearing about an event. There is no evidence they had such a feeling, no evidence they dod not imagine it or make it up.

But The story gets retold so many times that it becomes "family fact"...

This is why scientists discount anecdote, and keep logs... your own memory is the least reliable form of record... and your own perceptions are the most likely to be distorted by assumption and belief.

Its why science requires peer review and replicable results.

By making 'ghosts' intelligent agents that can choose to 'hide' to 'evade detection' we create the perfect delusional framework... somehting that can not be verified because it chooses to NOT be verifiable.

How convenient.

In truth, no matter what a psychic claims, no police case has ever been solved with the help of a psychic. Not one.

And no verifiable case of 'premonition' has ever occurred. Stomach pains in an older person are not special... they are common as dirt. It would be amazing if granny DIDN'T have stomach pains coinciding with your experience.

psychics make predictions all the time... and in large numbers... and claim success when anything even remotely similar to their prediction actually occurs.

Well... on a long enough timeline, almost anything you can say that is not strictly impossible will occur in one form or another.

By that measure Jules Verne was a far greater psychic than anyone claiming such powers.


The key to your response is that I absolutely agree... there ARE things that happen that are hard to explain.

But there is a huge difference between seeing something you acknowledge you can not explain...And coming up with an explanation that invents an entire universe of spirits and afterlife and plotline.


The former is an honest assessment of ignorance.
The latter the invention of narrative to create an answer so you can pretend you are not ignorant.

 

[2322]

Ghosts don't exist. If it is true that ghosts have been talked about since "the beginning of time" may I suggest that since the beginning of time, no one has wanted to die and people, even neolithic and early man, still missed and wanted to see loved ones.

If you want to see someone badly enough; or are in such a vulnerable and emotional state, you will see them. But they exist only in your mind and only for a brief time; until you recover from "the depths of despair" or whatever you want to call it.

I would also like to add that there have been deities/gods since the beginning of time too. None of those are real either. At least not to people with their own minds.

Hmmmm.... sounds like you have a personal agenda to advance here.

Ghosts may be in the same category as gods. They may wish us to detect them or not and can use powers unknown to living humans to thwart detection. Gods simply will something to be and it is. In fact you may have spent centuries living with a god and simply don't remember it for the god has willed you not to and then dropped you here on earth, willing your entire history into existence.

Descartes argued that there had to be gods because no creature can imagine anything greater than itself; the mere apprehension of the powers of a god proved their existence. When it comes to gods and monsters, you are dealing with faith versus fact. It is impossible to compare the two for they have very different origins and purposes in our lives. They will never reconcile.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

But the idea of a ghost or spirit isn't a matter of a certain wavelength of light. It's an incorporeal existence, one (currently) not scientifically measurable or tangible, hence why clairvoyance is still considered theoretical, never ultimately proven nor disproven.

This is gibberish. You claim that ghosts are incorporeal... but that does not mean anything. Non existent things all classify as incorporeal, too.

You claim they can not (yet) be measured... but you have no evidence whatsoever to support the idea that there is anything TO measure.

We have a pretty good handle on physics these days... good enough to make the computer you are sitting at out of sand and clay... good enough to make pictures of the ionic charge of the water molecules in your body.

And, really, if you SEE, or FEEL, or HEAR something external to yourself... then it made or reflected photons in the wavelengths you can see... stimulated your nerve endings in a manner you can feel... or made a sound that humans can hear...
And we can record all of those things in detail far superior to human perception...

With ZERO results.

Not finding evidence could mean you can not detect the evidence... but it could just as easily, and far more probably, mean that there is no evidence.

This is the problem with 'believers'... they imagine their assumptions COUNT as meaningful. They actually think that a lack of evidence SUPPORTS their notions...


And Sorry, but, just like ghosts, clairvoyance has shown not one iota of evidence of being real.
Really- DARPA spent millions studying it.. and got exactly, precisely, nothing.

Your notion that seeing them is all just a matter of delusion or external stimuli only goes to support that. When you hallucinate and take a photograph of your surroundings, other people aren't going to see your hallucination in the picture. It was all just in your head, not in the camera.

Pareidolia perfectly explains ALL actual ( as opposed to faked ) photographs and sound recordings that purport to show 'ghosts'... and it perfectly explains why people tend to mistake certain external stimuli for something else.

It also explains why people who do not believe in the survival of the soul do not see ghosts. They see OTHER things.


And monetary gain certainly explains why so many "ghost" images are faked... especially on these ridiculous ghost hunter shows... where they have been caught playing flashlights on walls and waving hands in doorways to try and create 'ethereal" images on their night vision cameras...

These folks get PAID to find ghosts... others get paid to write books or talk to the dead... all for something that has never been shown to be remotely credible.



SO what we have on the one hand is the pure invention of a whole afterlife world... with the pure invention of unprovable forces, undetectable objects, and impossible physics to explain away the lack of evidence for something ...

And on the other hand we have a well understood and replicable mental phenomena that explains all observations AND the lack of supporting evidence for those observations. The same feature of mind that allow you to see faces in the random pattern of a stucco wall enables you to see figures, faces and forms where none exist....

Hmmm... that's a hard one... back the fantasy bullshit... or the replicable science....

If everybody only believed what had been proven, we'd still be in the stone age.

Guess what stone age people believed in? Ghosts, spritis, demons and Gods. Magic and witchcraft.

We are thousands of years and millions of experiments beyond the stone age... and thus far EVERY SINGLE SUPERNATURAL THING the stone agers believed, that has been tested, has been found to be false...or entirely insupportable.
...far better explanations discovered, for everything that was once magic... from lightening to sickness...
If we still believed in the unproven stone age idea that lightening was God's wrath... then you and I would be having this conversation thru two cans and a string.

All human accomplishment since the stone age has been rooted in discounting every explanation that offered no replicable proof.
How do we build a building? Well we certainly DON'T do it the way that fell down... we copy the technique that stood up... the PROVEN technique.


Science, and I, are both open to new ideas... and new explanations...

All you have to do is prove them.

Demonstrate that the thing you claim exists does exist... OR- come up with a theoretical framework explaining how it COULD exist.

One theory of the supernatural that would enable scientists to make an observation of an event predicted by the theory.


Again... we see exactly the evidence we should expect to see if there are NO ghosts... but money can be made in fooling people that there are.

Just like UFOs and conspiracy theories.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

Descartes argued that there had to be gods because no creature can imagine anything greater than itself; the mere apprehension of the powers of a god proved their existence. When it comes to gods and monsters, you are dealing with faith versus fact. It is impossible to compare the two for they have very different origins and purposes in our lives. They will never reconcile.

Descartes was wrong. And, if you read the philosophical debate that followed his claim, you will find him soundly proven wrong thru rock solid logic.

The simple disproof was... on what basis does he make the claim that no creature can imagine anything greater than themselves?
By that logic giants and super-intelligent flying whales MUST exist because I can imagine them...
Super competent and advanced space alien visitors MUST exist because I can imagine them...

Its a stupid argument on its face.

As to faith versus facts... guess which one makes your life better? Guess which one actually cures disease? Keeps your food fresh? Makes your car go?


The largest false assumption in modern society is that Faith is even remotely equivalent to facts.


Faith NEVER moved a mountain.
A bulldozer and some dynamite, actually will.

 

[D_Thoraxis_Biggulp]

Stapled,
No, it was believing only that which can be proven that got us out of the stone age.

And what if nobody ever believed the yet-to-be-proven to be possible?