With the Paranormal as a subject, becoming more and more socially acceptable, it seems that almost everyone has a story to tell or has lived in a haunted house at some point, or perhaps stayed in one. In fact, even if some are not really sure what they experienced at some point, they may now categorise it as paranormal experience.

Of those, many that may have had singular experiences, there are a choice few that believe that their encounters were re occurring. Beyond that there are even some that believe their homes are actually haunted right now. Which if you believe, certain TV programs means there are a great number of residence out there, needing help with their hauntings. Some are often scared and struggling to live in their own home.

The problem is that, there are numerous local Ghost hunter groups and TV shows ready to jump in their cars and head over to investigate on little information. I believe that this is because many groups or TV shows wish to advocate they can help and as such a slight hero complex can be seen. There’s also a very obvious element that many in the field do not get to investigate active cases, so when one comes in they rush in EMF meters blazing.

In all honesty, I do not blame some groups for this approach, as currently active cases are very rare and many are seeking their Enfield. Being that, they may be throwing everything at something that’s not as active as they believe. Often many of these initial reports have a logical explanation. However, through fear of losing the case to the next group, many will rock up to the location with their car, full of flight cases.

Personally, I don’t think this is all on the Ghost hunters, as it’s often those experiencing the activity that expect the immediate reaction or a group to conduct an overnight investigation. Something which may be a result of both fictional and reality based TV shows. People simply believe that a few oddities one night is justification for a full-blown overnight investigation. In reality, this promotes an unorganised irrational approach that is basing an investigation on limited information.

These statements may confuse some readers, as they would believe that, with the oddity of the Paranormal, the best approach could be to rush to location and catch that activity in the act. The problem being is that you’re working with limited information, so you will be unable to truly determine where and when within the location activity may occur. There may be no record of overnight activity, so an overnight investigation may be pointless.

My initial response to many people who believe they are experiencing some kind of phenomena is to stay calm and start documenting what’s happening. It is really easy to lose your cool or panic when high strangeness is occurring, but often slowing things down and taking notes of the situation can really help people to find those rational explanations. So, one practice I have utilised over many years is the activity diary. Simply explained, I ask those who believe they are experiencing paranormal activity in their home or another place; to keep a log of those events. The reason for promoting this approach is that its simple data capture that may outline numerous elements of the case for us as investigators. Especially; when things occur, as in the time of day or night, and if it’s daily or multiple times a day. It also shows us where most of this activity may occur within a property or properties. This can help us out in more active areas. However, I also like to capture whom was present during these events, as that might also indicate a common denominator. Perhaps activity is more central to one individual or only occurs when a certain combination of people are present. So, capturing this can help us to understand more in regards to who might need to be there for anything to occur during an investigation. Something I have also started to ask for is more about what was on someone’s mind or what was being discussed at the time too; in case this has an impact. I also asked them to describe the event without standard Paranormal words like ghost spirit, Poltergeist, as this can often provide better insight to what really occurred. Removing the paranormal terminology could often highlight the reality of the events having a source that actually is not paranormal at all, which is an explanation we must all consider, it may not always be paranormal after all.

It was always my assumption that if someone was serious about having their phenomenon investigated, then they would have no trouble providing such information. Still many do not and it has had me question the approach. It has also made me wonder if there is a better way to ensure such information is captured and the best I can come up with, is either some kind of constant communication through a phone app, like WhatsApp or regular emails. However using investigator lead method of regular check-ins has a few problems, this being that some may believe that they need to provide something in each check-in, leading to non-Paranormal events being logged as Paranormal.

As investigators the more we know the better, so perhaps the simplest route is, just have those experiencing spontaneous phenomena to contact us when it occurs. So, when beginning the case the usual witness statements are taken, but then additional experiences from that point forward are to be communicated to the investigator as and when they occur. That way it’s up to them to determine what’s noteworthy. If something is hugely significant, then they are more than likely to communicate that right away. If it’s less significant they may leave it a day or two. Beyond that they may only remember when asked or completely disregard. We have to remember that at the centre of such phenomena is someone who has experienced odd things, so we have to understand that phenomena based on what’s relevant to them, and why it may be relevant. Which is why it’s often best to let them communicate, what’s important.

These days more and more people seem to believe their home is haunted, and this can often be triggered by a singular odd occurrence. If a location is currently haunted, we must get more than one or two moments of high strangeness. So, having that log of ongoing events really helps us know more. Otherwise we can simply document the case as an historic one capturing what happened, just in case it happens again or activity does increase.

Once we have a significant log of events, we can analyse it and utilise it to plan our first visit to location. This visit could include an investigation of some kind based on the data we have. Whilst the log of events is good to start with, there are still many other elements to an investigation that still need to be captured.

So let’s begin by capturing the right information to support our first investigation and build all cases well.

What are your thoughts on this approach?

Do you do something different?

It would be good to read in the comments what others may think about this subject?