A few minutes into Kim Hill's 30th June Radio NZ interview with Jemaine Clement, Hill says, "...You may have packed all the jokes into the first episode." Clement replies, "No, I think the later episodes are funnier. The first episode's the one where we're trying to find the tone of it. And I think the later ones are the ones, to me, that I think I enjoy more. Also we spent more time on the first one to try to get it right, to find that tone, you know - how funny it should be, how scary it should be."

Having just watched the first episode, I hope the above quote is correct. The low-key Kiwi style of humour established in Flight of the Conchords and carried into What We Do in the Shadows, where it contrasted nicely with the bizarre events, has been maintained. The characters and situation have now been set up, and the theme of the first episode is demonic possession. So, from the Episode 2 promo showing crop circles, we can guess successive episodes will each concentrate on one of the major themes of the paranormal. Expect one of each on UFOs, ghosts, the undead, maybe some type of cult, or something around cryptozoology. Dying to find out where Cheeseface fits in.

I loved the Wellington Police Station's secret, concealed Paranormal Office. Funnily enough, Strange Occurrences has a similar office, just a little smaller. I'm currently relocating it, otherwise I'd post a piccy to prove the claim.

Like anything well-promoted these days, there have been many trailers for Wellington Paranormal. Your average horror movie can have a trailer of maybe seven minutes, so by the time you get to the movie you've already seen most of the best bits, and many of the jump-scares loose their jump; you're just waiting for the billed scene to arrive. Such is the case with Wellington Paranormal. It's a half-hour commercial slot so the show has around 23 minutes of content between ad breaks. We've already seen much of it before its broadcast debut.

WP is shot in the style of a Police reality show, a la Police Ten 7. There were so many references to other movies and TV series it would be tedious to name them, but X-Files was prominent, and (in this episode) The Exorcist movie. I get the copious vomiting, but it reminded me more of Peter Jackson's first feature film, Bad Taste, in which  the alien character Robert (played by Jackson) vomits continuously into a huge bowl to provide a meal for his fellow aliens. (Having a stomach bug today, watching this YouTube clip of it is doing me no good at all.)

Watching WP with my wife Denise (also an experienced paranormal investigator), our first mutual LOL moment was the Cuba Mall Bucket Fountain scene. This is near the end of the episode. I remember encountering the CMBF as a child, when it had just been erected. You do stand there entranced until the big bucket at the bottom eventually tips. Although Cuba St can feel pretty scary at times, it never occurred to me there was anything sinister about the Bucket Fountain. Until now. You can bet people will be seen counting the buckets to see if there actually are 13 of them. (The CMBF even has its own Wikipedia page, and was probably the most photographed sculpture in the Capital until Neil Dawson's fern sculpture, suspended above Civic Square, knocked it off its perch.)

Enough of this aside. I can say with confidence that the ending of this episode is much better thought out and executed than the ending of the recent movie Hereditary. But I wonder if the ineptitude of the Police characters will remain constant throughout the series, or if they will develop. If they don't develop, it's going to get frustrating as the humour milked from their collective incompetence runs thin. Still, I can't wait till next Wednesday night.

Note: I wasn't too bothered about writing an overview of the show, but this review explains what Wellington Paranormal is all about, as does this one.

11th July 2018 - this evening the first episode of Wellington Paranormal will go to air on TVNZ2, at 8.30pm. Due to Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement's international followings, there is likely to be considerable interest beyond our shores. And here in New Zealand, considering the amount of promotion the series has had; few here cannot have heard about it. (BTW, it's been branded a mockumentary, not a documentary as some seem to think.)

Years have gone by since TVNZ infamously rejected Brett McKenzie & Jemaine Clement's pilot script for a TV series of 'Flight of the Conchords' (an already-successful musical group), and, as we know, two series were produced in the USA, the first airing on HBO mid-2007, and the show became an international hit. Perhaps that earlier failure to recognise comedy gold is partially behind the investment and publicity Wellington Paranormal has received. Of course, Waititi's involvement has got to be the trump card in sealing the deal, since most things he's directed since and including the 2004 short film Two Cars, One Night have had the touch of brilliance, and - more important - relevance.

Whether Wellington Paranormal turns out to be relevant (the public appetite for TV programmes about ghosts and paranormal investigation began to decline about five years ago) remains to be seen. Likely that while raising laughs, WP will have something to say about contemporary society, much as did Waititi's films Boy and Hunt for the Wilderpeople.

Being a born-and-bred Wellingtonian, I've watched many TV series and movies over the years that have featured or explored the capital city's darker side or underbelly, for example Inside Straight (TVNZ, 1984) and Shark in the Park (TVNZ c.1989). Both TV series centred around crime, the former from the criminal perspective, the latter from the police's. The 1985 movie Mr Wrong - Gaylene Preston's tale about a haunted car - springs to mind (yeah, I'm old), as does the 2001 movie Stickmen, and of course What we do in the shadows - the vampire movie that spawned Wellington Paranormal as a spinoff. Viewing these as a local, it's always been fun to play 'spot the location'. Wellington Paranormal should keep me well amused in this regard, especially since at least one of the filming locations has been the subject of multiple paranormal investigations by the Strange Occurrences team and guests over recent years.

Anyway, there's the background. I'm planning to review the first episode tonight, so let's see how it goes. Will post tonight if I'm up to it, but currently feeling a bit peeky with a stomach bug so may just hit the sack at 9pm.

When commenting on Facebook posts, I quite often type something then think, Oh bugger, I can't be bothered, life's too short, and delete what I wrote. When you challenge an opinion, you expect a debate and you have to be prepared to argue your point. You put some time into it, maybe influence others, and hopefully also learn something by doing it. Most people behave this much of the time. It's normal, it's healthy, it's how we develop both as individuals and as a species.

This would be the case in most online discussions, but not in the sensitive world of the paranormal, apparently. Today I was busy at work, feeling a bit stressed, and so took a few minutes out to look at Facebook. A post in a group I belong(ed) to caught my eye. It is run by someone I quite like personally and who is also a psychic medium. The post raised the question of whether psychics should give free readings when asked, and was along the lines of all those posts you've read about creative people rightfully refusing requests to work for free, which I totally agree with. (My wife Denise and I both work in the creative sector and so are well up on this.)

So, should psychics, mediums, and psychic mediums occasionally acquiesce to requests for free services? Why should they? No one expects a plumber or car mechanic to work for free, so the argument goes. Fair enough.

My admittedly mischievous comment was something like, Perhaps a more pressing question would be: Should psychics ever charge anything for their services? Is it justifiable to charge for a service that cannot possibly be guaranteed?  (I stopped short of mentioning New Zealand's rather good consumer protection law, namely the Fair Trading Act and the Consumer Guarantees Act.)

I say 'something like' because I can't remember my exact words, and I cannot now go back and check them because I've been banned from the group.

I don't believe such a comment contravenes any of the rules of the group; it's not a personal attack, it doesn't use profanity. Of course I can't check the rules either because I can no longer access the group. I'm shut out of reading ensuing comments and I'm unable to defend my viewpoint. But a friend sent me a screenshot of the lengthy rant that my comment provoked. I wasn't shocked, just disappointed. Seems to me some people are over-sensitive to their world view being questioned in any way. And if you are like that, you will never learn anything and never develop.

Such over-sensitivity is common in the paranormal world (man, it's hard to write this without puns). A few years ago, I saw a photo in a similar-minded NZ Facebook group which showed some dust orbs and there was a large number of comments upholding the view that the orbs were spiritual manifestations or angels, when they were clearly caused by the camera flash creating highlights on dust floating close to the lens. Such photographic faults were recognised and understood decades ago and few people these days still think there's anything paranormal about them. (The page I wrote for this website ten years ago; Orbs Explained - Most are not Paranormal has consistently attracted thousands of views a month.) In a very diplomatic, non-confrontation way, I suggested - suggested - that perhaps the orbs in the photo were not paranormal. Not diplomatically or non-confrontationally enough, apparently. You guessed it: banned.

Hell, I'm not a hard skeptic of the paranormal. I've had experiences I can't explain, and so have many others. We all seek answers, or at least someone to talk to who will listen and take us seriously. This is largely what drove me to co-found the Strange Occurrences group in 2006. I'm agnostic about most things in the paranormal (a position discussed at length in the book 'Spooked - Exploring the paranormal in New Zealand' - Jo Davy & James Gilberd, Random House NZ, 2011), including the possibility of communication with those no longer living via the rare talent of mediumship. I'm open to the possibility and am genuinely interested in exploring it.

So, let's not divide the paranormal community into True Believers and Others. Questions such as mine aren't personal attacks. If you block out all views that even gently challenge your own, you risk casting yourself into a world of delusion, a soft, insulating cocoon spun by those 'friends' with similar and supporting views. The internet is wonderful in many ways, but one of its worst features - and greatest dangers - is the facility it offers to isolate oneself from the wide world of genuine, healthy viewpoints, questions and interactions, thus fostering the creation of personal worlds of self-delusion that get deeper and deeper. The worst results of this are in the news every day.

Respond, don't turn away. Include, don't block. Question yourself and others. Engage, don't retreat.

29/5/2018
Due to some software glitch we're unable to post comments on this post.
The following is posted by the author on behalf of Susan Archer.
(If you have a comment to post, please email it to me at strangeoccs@gmail.com and I'll add it likewise. Apologies for the problem, though I don't know what the cause is.)

I couldn't agree with you more James - it is in the space between the extremes of unquestioning belief and dogmatic scepticism that the most fruitful debates & discussions take place, and we all need to be willing to step forward and engage. I practise both tarot & astrology, and think constantly about how they work or don't work and, certainly within astrology, that's not uncommon. For example, one of the best astrology websites: www.skyscript.co.uk has a Philosophy & Science forum that asks Does astrology work?

And you're right, the internet makes it easier for people to huddle in their chosen corners and block out anything that upsets their world-view. We all need to make a big effort to avoid that and keep exploring the fertile grey areas between the black-and-white extremes!
- Susan Archer.

This video has been filmed off the monitor screen of a security camera in an office in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

Jose emailed this recent video to us a few days ago and we spent a fair bit of time studying it before offering a tentative opinion as to what's going on. But we have no way of knowing if our possible natural explanation is on the mark. To enable further discussion and collect other opinions, Jose has kindly given permission for us to post this extraordinary video on our site. It's rather mesmerising.

BTW, don't let the title of this blog lead your thinking. It was just too catchy to resist, sorry.

Comments are most welcome. Please do not copy or distribute this video: it is copyright.

I tried this text on the front page of the site but have moved it back here to the blog, as it's more representative of my personal position and does not fairly represent the NZSOS team overall.

We seem to have acquired a reputation for being skeptics of the paranormal. If that means we thoughtfully challenge extraordinary claims, weigh up the evidence carefully, favour the simpler, natural explanation over the inevitably more complex paranormal one, and avoid making claims that can't be strongly supported, well then, we are skeptics. But we have also individually experienced our own share of events that resist natural explanations. That's what keeps us interested and helps us understand what people who approach us for help may be going through. We're all still searching for answers.

We don't claim to be doing scientific research, at least in the sense of employing true Scientific Method to the study of paranormal phenomena. We've tried to, but it's more problematic than it sounds, maybe next to impossible; it comes out as being pseudoscience, or even looking 'scientifical'. We're just doing the best we can with the time and resources available to us.
More on pseudoscience.

Yes, we have all the standard instruments and do-hickeys that they use on TV; EMF meters,  FLIR cameras, etc, but we don't think that any of the gear we use can actually detect   ghosts. We use this stuff to understand the environment we're investigating, as it picks up stuff better than our human senses, as well as stuff we can't sense at all, and it records more accurately and objectively than memory. It's more useful for eliminating paranormal-based hypotheses than proving them to be true. More on investigation equipment.

We have never actually found a ghost! That is; we've never made a claim that anything we have experienced and/or recorded is actually paranormal. The farthest we've gone is, 'This thing happened and we haven't yet been able to find a natural explanation for it.' More

And we don't hold a set of beliefs that we're determined to prove is the truth.

If all that doesn't put you off, please feel free to contact us about your paranormal experience. We may actually be able to help!

James Gilberd, 6th January 2017.

It was a great pleasure to have a walk around in daylight, both in the main hospital and the old nurses' home buildings, with Mark Wallbank of Haunted Auckland and Roz of the Wellington SPCA -
- also a paranormal enthusiast. We had plenty of time to take photos, and enjoyed access to all areas. The place has no real menace during daylight (although the old Nurses' Home, which is currently a building site, full of hazards and so off-limits to the public, is still pretty eerie), but a few years ago, during each of the three occasions when Strange Occurrences conducted full paranormal investigations, some unexplained and rather unsettling stuff occurred after midnight - see The Wellington Fever Hospital Investigations 2010-2011

I was pleased that the Wellington SPCA took over this facility in 2013. Because of its haunted reputation, it had become a place to dare to enter and there were many break-ins. Luckily no one managed to set it on fire. Now the SPCA have made good use of this high-quality building in its scenic location, and the security of the site is substantially improved. A large section of the main hospital, most of the West Wing, is available for hire as a function and conference facility - a great place to escape the hubbub of the city and enjoy the unique surroundings. As to whether it's haunted; well, mostly when places are substantially renovated, as the Fever Hospital has been, reports of paranormal experiences die down. This is probably true, but the jury is still out!

PDF - Wellington SPCA Conference & Function Centre Information

Below: photos taken by James Gilberd of New Zealand Strange Occurrences Society, 9/12/2017.

This photo was sent to us for analysis by Rachel, from her recent trip to New Orleans. Taken in daylight by her sister with an iPhone 7, the photo contains an anomaly: she is apparently missing half her right hand, with which she was holding a medium-sized drink cup - also strangely invisible.

We initially thought this was due to subject movement, but none is apparent anywhere in the photo, which shows sharp detail throughout; and the Exif data (printed in full below) gives the shutter speed at 1/429th of a second - brief enough an exposure to freeze all but the most rapid movement.

The anomalous area is shown pixel-for-pixel in the detail photo below. It is unaltered from the original we received. We suspect this may be to do with the phone camera's image stabilization system but we don't have any way of exploring that possibility. An internet search did not reveal any similar faults with iPhone7 photos, other than complaints of a watercolour-like effect. The predominance of the bright red fabrics may also be a factor.

We don't know what is going on here. Can anyone explain?

We would like to hear from you if you know the cause of this anomaly, and/or if you know of similar effects occurring in photos taken using the Apple iPhone7 or any other cellphone camera.
Thank you.
James Gilberd,
New Zealand Strange Occurrences Society

Please note: the photos on this page are copyright. The owner has given us permission to publish them here but please do not copy or republish them without permission. Feel free to circulate the link to this page, though.

The following is the Exif data from the photo, as shown by Exif Reader.