Please note: The photos in this blog and on this website are copyright and must not be downloaded, copied, printed and/or used elsewhere in any form. We receive many possibly paranormal photographs for analysis. While some are easier to explain than others, all of them are fascinating, and whether paranormal or not, they possess a certain beauty. These two photos, taking during a camping trip in Redwood National Park in northern California, in 2015 and sent to us by Andrew Ewing in June, 2017 for analysis, are right up there in the mystery and beauty department. (Thank you again for permission to show and discuss them here.) While many of the photos we receive are explainable by camera or photographic anomalies such as lens flare or dust orbs, these are a bit different. Here, it is the ability of the stills camera to capture a fleeting moment of time, something not perceptible by normal human eyesight. While there is lens flare in both images (caused by the brightness of the fire bouncing around inside the lens and resulting in the large pink-purple blob in the centre and extending out in a circular pattern), this has nothing to do with the flames that are the apparent size and shape of dancing human figures appearing on the right of the campfire. There are two obvious natural - non-paranormal - explanations that immediately came to my mind: - It's faked! Photoshopped! Well, I personally don't think so. Other may disagree. I believe Andrew's statement that the photos have not been tampered with. I work daily with Photoshop in my profession as a photographer and have done so for almost 20 years; so while I'm not claiming that a real expert couldn't slip a fake past me, to my eyes these photo show no signs of being messed with. Also, if you do an internet image search along the lines of 'ghostly flame figures dancing around fire', you'll get a variety of results, some obviously faked (for various reasons). All of the fakes appear quite different to these photos (and most of the natural photos are nowhere near as good!) And if I were going to fake a ghost photo, I'd make it pretty scary-looking and unambiguous as to what it was supposed to be. - Pareidolia This is the more likely explanation, the one I offered Andrew. Pareidolia is something hard-wired into all of our brains that causes us to see human-like faces and figures in what are essentially random patterns, such as rocks, clouds or tree bark. The man in the moon is one example. The smiley face emoji is another. : ) It's just a couple of dots next to a curve, yet (even sideways) we all immediately see it as a face. Personally, I think it's probably pure coincidence that these tongues of flame, each of which existed for a brief moment and just happened to be caught on camera, appear a similar shape and size to dancing figures. More info on pareidolia - and the Wikipedia article is useful. But then again, there are coincidences and coincidences. Most of us have experienced or heard about coincidences that are so uncanny that pure chance seems way too flimsy an explanation. There just has to be something more to it. Maybe these photos are entering into that area. Though I'm in no way certain about this, just putting it out there: I think that it takes people's presence and personal mental energy (call it spiritual energy if you prefer) to trigger events that can be experienced as paranormal. Naturally, some people are much more inclined to do this than others (like how some people can mentally calculate square roots of large numbers, or have perfect pitch). Perhaps the combined energy and unified spiritual belief of the dancers around this campfire caused, or allowed, the flames to appear in this way. And to be captured photographically. Which begs the question: what if more photos were taken, and what (if anything) would they show? At the end of the day, though, it comes down to personal choice and belief. We're free and encouraged to form our own opinions on these photos. It's important to give consideration to any rational, natural explanations that are available, and then decide for ourselves if we accept those explanations. Or maybe we can come up with another explanation of our own, perhaps based on a similar personal experience, or on particular historical knowledge of the site of the event, the circumstances surrounding it, the people involved. If you have an opinion or theory about what these photographs show, we'd be very interested to hear it. Thank you. James Gilberd Wellington, New Zealand
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I'm kinda pleased to see the venue change. While Katoomba is a really nice town and the Blue Mountains National Park surrounding it is fantastic, going there three years in a row might've lacked a little spark. The new venue will offer the opportunity to host the event in a different way, with a new structure for the talks. I'm coming clean - I was one of the people who independently suggested the shorter talks, no repeats, no parallel sessions structure. It's something I've seen work very well in the world famous Webstock conference in Wellington and thought it might translate well to Paracon. So if it doesn't work out, you now have someone you can partially blame. One problem with the previous structure of several talks running simultaneously is that you can't possibly take in all the talks, and even with the repeats you will miss some good stuff. Also, as a Paracon speaker of lesser fame, it ain't good to have your own talk under-attended while someone famous with their own TV series is speaking in another room. I've sat in on some great talks by international and local speakers but with barely a couple-dozen people in the room. This linear structure for the presentation schedule will fix these issues. It may also be that the Carrington couldn't provide a large enough room to run the Paracon with this linear structure, which might have a little bit to do with the change of venue to the Western Sydney University in Parramatta, which will provide a larger theatre, and presumably also with better AV projection facilities - another problem with previous Paracon venues. Parramatta is an old centre with many historic sites, which should be good from an investigation viewpoint. I was disappointed to see some Australian paranormal commentators attack the Paracon organisors mercilessly and ferociously (and on Christmas Eve to boot!) primarily because of the venue change. (I'm not going to provide a link to that podcast.) Obviously there's going to be a few hiccoughs around changing venues, but it was done 6 months out from the start of the conference, so in plenty of time to avoid most problems. I know that a few people had to cancel their hotel bookings, and good on them for booking early, but for most conference attendees it's not going to present a problem. And the conference's closer proximity to Sydney might open it up to a few more people. James Gilberd's presentation and photography workshop. Anyway, I'll be giving a talk on photography and the paranormal (again - I know) but with different content to my 2015 talk. I won't be talking about dust orbs this time as I think they've been well and truly laid to rest. Anyone who in 2017 still thinks a dust orb (an easily recognised and fully explainable photographic anomaly) is any kind of spirit manifestation is probably beyond rationality so a lost cause as far as scientific argument goes. But developments in camera design, and the shift of much photography to cellphone cameras, has presented some new challenges that need to be looked at. I will also be running a workshop on the basics of photography as far as the paranormal is concerned - how to use stills photography more effectively in paranormal investigations. This will not include the use of cellphone cameras (which have their uses but are rather limited) or video cameras (which I don't know much about) but will concentrate on learning to use dedicated stills cameras in a more controlled manner for better evidence-gathering. Understanding and avoiding some of the common anomalies that can cause false positives by seeing how they are created is a big part of it. This workshop will be on Friday 26th May, so the day before the main conference weekend. More information will be posted here soon, but I advise booking early for this, as there will be a cap on numbers. (I don't know what the limit is yet, but I want to be able to get around people individually.) If one of your jobs in your paranormal team is taking still photos during and prior to investigations and you're not already an expert photographer, then this workshop will help you. And if you are already an expert photographer, with a good understanding of the workings of a range of digital cameras (maybe you work in a photography store), then perhaps you can help me with the workshop. Some people will need help finding the various modes and functions on their camera and I may not be able to get around and help each person individually, so if you can assist with this and will be available on Friday at the conference, perhaps email me. Kiwis - make a weekend of it. Tickets for Paracon 2017 are one sale now - see website. It would be cool to see a few more kiwis over there, as it's been in the low single digits for previous Paracons. The will never be anything like this event in New Zealand so Australia offers the best opportunity to experience a paranormal conference. Personally, I never have enough money and taking time out from my photography business is an issue, but still, last year I was able to get good, cheap plane tickets via Air NZ's Grabaseat. We also had a night in Sydney on the way, using Trivago to find a hotel room in Darlinghurst, which worked out really well. It was a nice holiday, and staying at The Carrington in Katoomba was a special experience. This time it will be different, which is great too. I'm really looking forward to it. A novel project I've been working on a side project - a novel about paranormal investigation, with the working title: Edwin J Smith, Paranormal Investigator. I think this will be part one of a trilogy, as there are ideas introduced that aren't fully explored but leave room to develop in future stories. I'm not going to give much away here, except that the novel will be launched at Paracon and it includes the venue of the last two Paracons - The Carrington Hotel, Katoomba - as the setting for the climax of the story. The Blue Mountains National Park also comes into it as a location. So I was in a bit of a quandary after hearing of the Paracon venue change. I hadn't written the Katoomba part of the novel at that time, but decided to keep it as a location because I have no knowledge of the new Parramatta venue and couldn't justify a research trip there on the basis of projected long term sales of 30 or so copies! Maybe part two of the trilogy will be set there - who knows? Anyway, don't expect great literature - Eleanor Catton I ain't - but maybe just a lightweight, hopefully amusing story that explores some of the good and bad aspects of the world of paranormal investigation. More on this later. I plan to get maybe 20 copies printed and bring them over with me to sell on the Paracon bookstall, along with a couple of remaining copies of Spooked - Exploring the Paranormal in New Zealand. I hope to see you at Paracon 2017 and get to have a natter about paranormal stuff. And I hope this venue has good coffee and snack food available nearby. Walking down to The Elephant Bean in Katoomba was nice, but it meant leaving the venue too often. Mine's a long black (coffee). Cheers James Gilberd A while ago, a friend sent me a link to this article in The Atlantic - The Broken Technology of Ghost Hunting - which got me thinking. The article raises some valid issues concerning 'ghost hunting' equipment - its uses and its users. The central argument is that ghost hunters are naturally attracted to equipment that is essentially faulty and so will tend to generate 'false positives' - readings that misleadingly point to the presence of spiritual activity. Examples of items repurposed from another field (such as the K2 and other EMF meters) as well as gadgets specifically designed and manufactured for paranormal investigators (like the ghost boxes) are discussed and all are regarded as unfit for the purpose of detecting ghosts. Well, what - if anything - isn't? That is the question. Anyway, read the article for yourself first. After ten years plus of paranormal investigation, and having accumulated a certain amount of equipment for doing it, I find myself largely in agreement with Colin Dickey's argument put forward in his article. Further, I now want to read his book 'Ghostland - An American history in haunted places', but that's a side issue.
If I have a criticism of the article, it's that Dickey's mostly picked the low hanging fruit - the K2 and the ghost box again - without taking the trouble to update himself and look at the way that the better informed, more sophisticated paranormal investigators operate these days. The items mentioned are really for the beginners and for entertainment. Although they may experiment with them, no paranormal investigators worth their salt use ghost boxes or K2 meters on investigations performed for clients. Dickey's opinions are not news to us: we already all know those things are trash. Ghost boxes and similar devices based on the original Frank's Box, including phone apps designed to do the same sort of thing; that is, to throw up apparently random words that can appear to the over-enthusiastic, I-want-to-believe ghost hunter to be significant to their investigation. Whether this is achieved by sweeping the radio broadcast frequencies or using an array of memorised keywords is irrelevant: such devices are for entertainment, not paranormal investigation. But a more sophisticated approach to paranormal investigation is not to use the various tools in the box to attempt to detect and record ghosts, but instead to gather information about the environment that is under investigation. A simple, compact camera, for example, is an excellent note taking tool for recording details of the environment at different times during an investigation - during the daytime, before the investigation proper, and throughout the night. The more photos from different sources, the better. The same can be said for video cameras, fixed or hand-held. Photographic evidence is general more useful for elimination of possibilities, for example, if movement of an object was caused by a person, accidentally or otherwise, rather than by, say, a poltergeist. Once, on a particularly creepy investigation, footage from our fixed cameras eliminated the possibility that an intruder caused a downstairs door to slam violently, as we'd first thought. EMF meters? Well, we humans are (mostly) not sensitive to electro-magnetic radiation (except for heat, which we feel, and visible light) so the meters can tell us of something present that we can't otherwise detect with our own senses. An example: during one investigation, a resident said that when she went to the kitchen sink, it often felt like someone touched her hair and shoulders. Well, we noticed she wore house shoes with synthetic soles and we suspected she might be charging herself up with static electricity while walking on the carpet (causing her hair to rise and separate slightly) then earthing herself when touching the tap or steel sink bench, causing her hair to sink back and brush her shoulder and making her think it was being touched. Measuring around her with a Trifield Natural EM meter confirmed this. We measured ourselves as a comparison and the readings were much lower. Hypothesis confirmed, paranormal experience explained. It is said that positive ions in the air can affect people's mood negatively, so the presence of positive ions in a particular room (perhaps caused by equipment such as a photocopier or printer) might make that room feel strange, somehow different. Well, one of these devices will detect ions, positive and negative, and give a rough count which then can be compared to other spaces. (Note: we don't yet have an air ion counter, but would love one and would put it to good use. But they're kinda expensive. Can anyone help?) The same can be said for thermometers; ambient, laser (non contact) and heat cameras. 'It's cold in this room!' Well, how cold, exactly? 'I feel chilled?' Really? Physically, or is it more of a physiological reaction to fear? Thermometers are useful gadgets for paranormal investigation, as they give you readings, which can be compared to other readings. The same could be said for other detectors, measuring tools and recording devices employed by paranormal investigators; and yes, they are all purloined from other fields of use, but they all help to understand an environment in which paranormal activity is purported to occur. And they all either give numbers and quantities to things we can sense and/or detect and record things beyond our ability to sense. This is all mainly useful for understanding the natural qualities of an environment that may be contributing to a sense that the paranormal is occurring. The equipment can also help to rule stuff out. So, putting aside the purpose-built paranormal gadgets mentioned earlier, as well as phone apps, that are really all just for entertainment purposes, and to break the inevitable monotony of those paranormal investigations during which nothing paranormal occurs - that is; ninety-nine point something percent of them - the tools that serious, scientific-minded paranormal investigators use in their hobby or (for the lucky few) their profession, are not necessarily as daft as the article The Broken Technology of Ghost Hunting would have us believe. At least, in the right hands. Today we received an email from the UK from a university student who's been sharing a house with other uni. students. They all moved in recently, and each has experienced strange things, such as hearing footsteps in a certain part of the house (several people have), feeling a presence in some of the bedrooms (2 people have), possibly hearing a disembodied voice (1 person has), and the feeling of being pinched while in bed (2 people have). The person who emailed is very worried about actually seeing a ghost. Being on the other side of the planet, we can't do the investigation, unfortunately, but I thought my email response was worth a blog anyway. Of course I've changed bits and added bits to it since sending the email. Here goes...
This is not something we have much to do with at Strange Occurrences - we don't want to get rid of ghosts, we want to study them - but I'll write the next blog post on it anyway. James Gilberd of New Zealand Strange Occurrences Society investigating a private house in Karori, Wellington, with a Trifield EMF meter and a FLIR heat camera. I wasn't aware of the green orb on my chest. This is not a dust orb, but could be a flare image caused by the light bulb above and behind me. Strange Occurrences has had a pretty stable and loyal membership since its formation in 2005. In that time we've only had one team member actually leave, however as the decade has passed it's fair to say that several members are much less actively involved than in the past, due entirely to family reasons, which is understandable. Although the group is still active as a paranormal investigation team, a year ago we changed our name to the New Zealand Strange Occurrences Society. We are implementing some ideas that will reflect that change. Watch this space, and other spaces! Strange Occurrences has never quite been a conventional paranormal group in the sense of, say, TAPS. Although the early TAPS shows on broadcast television in NZ partly inspired the formation of SO, we've always had more of a leaning to the Society for Psychical Research - the original, serious, beardy, old-school intellectual types who strove for a scientific understanding of the supernatural events that were before them - mostly the feats of physical and mental mediums. (The SPR formed in 1882 and remains highly active today.) We've focused mainly on ghosts, which has been the trend of our time, and we've employed much the same sort of pseudo-scientific, technology-based approach as our contemporaries, but we like to think we have a somewhat scientific leaning, overall. One thing we've purposefully avoided is monogrammed baseball caps and jackets, and branding in general. Another thing is defined roles within the team. We are all investigators, but each of us has different life skills, career skills, interests and backgrounds, as well as a range of degrees of belief in the various paranormal phenomena. We are all Paranormal Investigators, however, if we had to label our roles within the team, the list might look something like this: - Helen & Nick: joint Case Managers - Rob: Principal Photographer (and Underwater Investigator, should the need arise) - *Karen: Historian - Patrick: Shotgun Rider (Security Officer) - Jo: Literature Consultant - *Mark: Tech Manager & Principal Solderer - Scott: Chief Medical Officer - Jayne: Profiler - *Denise: Psychometrist (What?! See Psychometry) - *James: Head Honcho. * Founder member from 2005 So, this is just a big THANK YOU to all the team members of Strange Occurrences (and I have to single out my wife and loyal, founding team member Denise as the longest-suffering) who've graciously put up with my demands and eccentricities over the last decade or so. May it continue!
Issue 11 of the Oddities e-Club Magazine, edited by Sharon Rowland, went live on September 1st. I have an article, ‘Residual Hauntings and Other Oddities’ in it.
I also contributed articles to issues 10, 9 and 8, but this is probably my last article for a while as I'm working on another writing project, one which will be revealed at Paracon Australia 2017. You can purchase this fascinating magazine that covers a wide range of paranormal topics - the only one I'm aware of originating in Australasia - for a very small sum from any of these links, and back issues are of course also available: Apple Land: https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/oddities-e-club-magazine/id833310353?mt=8 Android World: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.roweaton.odditieseclub NEW!!! Web/PC app: http://oddities.magloft.com/
In Methodological Reductionism, everything is explainable if you reduce it to its fundamental parts and then describe and predict their behaviour. This approach has allowed us to solve most problems in nature, with the tree of science now bearing much delicious fruit: technology - that which makes our lives long, rich and comfortable. Who needs that messy old religion stuff? If we can't answer something with science, ignore it - it's just superstition anyway. What got me thinking about this is the book 'Parapsychology and the Nature of Life - A Scientific Appraisal' by John L. Randall (Souvenir Press, UK, 1975). The book is deeply flawed and also out of date in many of the views expressed. Randall does not accept Evolution as an explanation for the variety and complexity of life on Earth, and believes that life requires a Great Mind in order to originate from basic building blocks. He makes a compelling but flawed argument for this (one I don't want to go into here) which predates the pseudoscience of Intelligent Design but in many respects is a forerunner of it. On the positive side, Randall is critical but finally accepting of the evidence amassed by parapsychologists in favour of Psi powers; he holds that these powers have been proved to exist. His argument is long and complex and may even be largely correct - I don't know. But at least he has persuaded me to re-evaluate parapsychological findings in a more open-minded light. (This will involve a lot of re-reading.) The first two parts of Randall's book are irritating in many ways and places, due to his skepticism of Evolution (I think mainly due to a lack of understanding of it, perhaps because of the time the book was written) and contrasting credulous acceptance of parapsychological experimental findings; but 'Part III - Towards a New Synthesis' is really mind-bending. It's turned my head. Quantum Mechanics, one of the strongest theories in science, is quite happy with the dualistic concept of understanding light as both a wave and a particle, and choosing which behaviour suits the experiment that's being performed. The famous Double-slit experiment is the clearest example of this, but trying to get your head around the concept is pretty tricky, as it's highly unintuitive, even totally alien to most people's understanding of how things in nature behave. So, if Randall is right about the findings of the parapsychologists, and Psi (telepathy, psychokinesis, clairvoyance, etc - if it's even valid to break it down in this way - Randall suggests it isn't) does exist - it is in fact a thing - then it lies outside science's Materialist, Reductionist way of understanding nature. It does not and will not fit. Thus, it is proscribed from Science and remains beneath its consideration. That is principally why Parapsychology is kept on the outer. (At this point, Randall made me realise that my hope that science will eventually offer answers to all of the riddles of the paranormal, even if it's not looking for them, is totally bound up in Reductionist thinking and thus invalid, or at least extremely unlikely to eventuate.) What is needed is a dualistic philosophical approach to understanding nature, one that retains Materialism on one hand and includes some updated version of the the Philosophy of Mind on the other, and uses whichever approach (or maybe a blend of both) is best for an experimental approach to understanding a phenomenon. We don't yet understand consciousness. Maybe it's time to scientifically re-evaluate the concept of the mind as separate from the body (not merely the product of brain activity, which is the materialist position) but interactive with it, and also perhaps that it may reside outside the body and even in some way connect with other minds in the space it resides. Think I'll leave this here, now. It's making my head spin, and dinner's nearly ready. Links: Scientists closing in on a Theory of Consciousness - on LiveScience Many Interacting Worlds and other mind-bending Quantum stuff For another view on parapsychological experiomental results, read Dr Susan Blackmore's autobiography 'The Adventures of a Parapsychologist' Addenda. It kinda hit me last night, late, and after a heavy curry and a dessert of 'drunk prunes' - if we exist as beings with more than three dimensions (we can only perceive three spatial dimensions, with time being a limited way of perceiving the fourth and perhaps additional dimensions) then perhaps consciousness - the Mind, or the Soul if you prefer - resides in our fourth or higher dimension. This would occupy the same space as our physical body and be a full part of it, and so interaction between the physical brain and the Mind might occur in some way understandable by Quantum Mechanics. The dimension in which our Mind resides would not be time-dependent; that is, subject to the constraint of time being a single-dimensional, unidirectional progression from past to future. Rather, our Mind could flow into the future and past and possibly interact with other minds under certain circumstances.This type of model could explain many things, such as clairvoyance, ESP, ghosts, time slips, and perhaps even some UFO related experiences and sightings of cryptids.
I'm not putting this forward as any kind of theory, just recording some thoughts. The 'Brooklyn Dodger' relates neither to NYC nor baseball, but to Wellington, New Zealand. It was the moniker given to an alleged poltergeist, a prolonged, purportedly paranormal incident in 1963 in which a guest house in Owhiro Road, in the Wellington suburb of Brooklyn, was pelted with stones of unknown origin. This mysterious case caught the public's interest due to extensive media coverage. (Maybe March, 1963 was a slow news month.) Several paranormal-type explanations were put forward, but eventually the stones ceased and so did the interest. The Brooklyn Dodger case is mentioned in several good, reputable books on the paranormal in New Zealand, including Robyn Jenkins' 'The New Zealand Ghost Book' (AH & AW Reed, 1978, pp45-47), and Nicola McCloy's 'New Zealand Mysteries' (Whitcoulls, 2005, pp21-22) but none of these accounts offers an explanation for the mystery. So, a year ago yesterday I spent some time on air in the Radio New Zealand studio in Wellington talking paranormal stuff. As preparation for the appearance, I was asked to present some kind of historic ghost story related to Wellington, so I chose the Brooklyn Dodger as it was one that was well documented, and I had plenty of reference material to hand for it. As well as the book references, paranormal aficionado Bruce Mahalski had provided me copies of newspaper clippings from the time. Here are just three days' worth. Anyway, Radio NZ has this huge sound file, and something they unearthed and played on the afternoon show solved this mystery. If you listen to my interview/guest spot/thing, the sound file occurs 11:30 into the aired clip NZ Retro - Ghosts. (If you want to listen to the entire show from 20th July, 2015, go ahead. There's also an interesting account concerning Larnach's Castle - a famously haunted location in Dunedin, New Zealand.) If you can't be bothered listening; in a nutshell, a witness says a boy was seen concealing a catapult (a slingshot), and after he was spoken to by the police the stone pelting ceased. So, case solved! This information was broadcast at the time for all to hear, and in the 1960s people actually listened to the radio so there wasn't much chance of it going unheard. Why then, is this information not presented in the newspaper stories of the time, or magazine articles and books published later? The answer seems obvious: once there's a probable natural explanation for a paranormal occurrence, you no longer have a story!
One wonders how often this happens in the world of the paranormal. How many famous, well-documented cases were actually solved but the crucial, revealing information was later ignored, skirted around, or merely hinted at, for the sake of preserving a good story? Please don't read this post if you've received this five-question email survey and have yet to respond! Not sure about publishing this - just recording these questions and my responses for posterity as I think it threw open some interesting issues that I'd like to explore more deeply in future. Hi, My friend and i are doing an assignment on the supernatural/paranormal and if they are real. We would like to ask you a few questions if that's okay. Please try your best to answer them. Happy to answer, but I think you need to tie down what you mean by 'the paranormal'.
I think some things that are currently considered paranormal, such as ESP, witnessing time slips, crisis apparitions, and perhaps residual hauntings may indeed occur. I don't believe in the tenets of Spiritualism, but think there are other reasons why people experience ghosts. I think that while UFO sightings and other things are not strong enough evidence that extraterrestrials have visited Earth, it is highly likely that there are other intelligent life forms in the universe, but it's also possible that they may have contacted humans in some way. Then there's the whole field of cryptozoology, and what are called Earth mysteries. Does this survey blanket-cover all of the above? Because my answers will vary depending on which aspects of the paranormal we're talking about. Q. What your opinion on the supernatural/paranormal and Do you think it's real? A. I am agnostic about most things in the paranormal realm; there is simply not yet enough evidence, but I may believe more definitely when there is. Q. Why do/don't you think so? A. That's complicated. Like many people, I need strong science-grade evidence to support a belief in something that seems improbable, but I'm also prepared to stick my neck out sometimes and say I think the science hasn't yet addressed an issue adequately, and it may in fact exist - ESP, etc, listed above, are examples. I think science will eventually provide explanations for many things we currently deem paranormal as our understanding of the cosmos expands to include these things. Q. Do you have any experiences of the supernatural/paranormal? A. Possibly. One such event is described in the opening of our book 'Spooked', which you can read for free in the preview here. I have had several other experiences that I haven't yet found convincing explanations for, despite years of research. But then again our senses, our brain's processing of the data they provide, and our memory and recall are all far from infallible. Q. Does this affect your opinion? A. I remain agnostic, as I'm not sure my experiences were actually paranormal; there may be natural explanations that fit more closely than I care to admit. Q. Do you think your gender affects your opinion? A. Good question. I don't think my gender affects my own opinions of my experiences, (but then I can't know the answer because I have no basis for comparison). However, it is interesting to study statistics collected on paranormal beliefs. You may find this in your study, but generally, women admit to believing generally in the paranormal more than men do. Among other reasons, this may be to do with self-perception, with some men possibly not wanting to admit such beliefs because it is considered to be more masculine to maintain a facade of rationality. In career fields such as science, politics and business - all male-dominated - admitting belief in the paranormal could be seen as a sign of mental weakness and have a negative effect on careers. The opening scenes in the new Ghostbusters 3 movie reflect this, as the Erin Gilbert character loses her university job due to her paranormal beliefs. Yes, it's just a comedy, but this stuff happens. Thank you! I hope that's some help. Cheers James These days, communication is a big part of what we do in our paranormal group, but from day one it's been important in every aspect of things. From writing for the website, blogs, and articles, posting and commenting on social media (we maintain a public Facebook page and a Closed Group for discussions), and long-running email communications with clients, to talking to clients directly, working with the news media, and occasional public speaking engagements, most of us in paranormal team leadership and client management roles spend more of our time on communicating than we do in active investigation. For me, the emphasis has gradually shifted from one role to the other over the ten-or-so years since our paranormal group was founded. Certainly, running round in old, deserted buildings at night armed with EMF meters, voice recorders and full spectrum video cameras is a lot more fun than evenings indoors typing into a computer; and, frankly, this is not really exactly what I signed up for. But it’s still more interesting than evidence reviewing! And the prospect of giving a public talk at Te Papa (on a somewhat ominous date - 16-6-16) is actually more scary than any paranormal investigation, even on the occasions when we've actually experienced something possibly ghostly. The theme of the talk/event was The Gothic in New Zealand Art, and my co-speaker was the Curator of Modern Art at Te Papa, Chelsea Nichols (4th curator down on this page). So having someone with a Ph.D. in art history to help carry the can meant I was freer to talk about the paranormal aspects without having to attempt to sound academic. One aspect of this talk was the relationship between early original photographic works in the exhibition of Athol McCredie's book ‘New Zealand Photography Collected’ and the presence or spirit of the people photographed. Sometimes it is joked about that primitive peoples thought photography was magic and that taking a photograph of someone was akin to stealing their soul; but, like many superstitions, there is an element of truth in it. Certainly, in the nineteenth century (at least before 1890, when the Kodak ‘Brownie’ snapshot camera put photography in the hands of the people), the only folk who understood photography were professional photographers and scientists. To the rest it was a complete mystery, if not somewhat magical. The Daguerreotype was the first commercial form of photography and was used in the early portrait studios. If you’ve seen Mike Leigh's 2014 film Mr Turner, there’s a humorous scene where the artist enters such a studio to have his portrait made. He has to sit still for quite some time while enough of the window light reflected off his face and body is collected by the camera lens and focused onto the sensitised metal plate to make an image. (An iron neck brace is used to hold his head still.) I remember a friend taking a indoor portrait of me using a large format, sheet film camera, which required a shutter speed of about 10 seconds. Unlike a snapshot, I was very aware of the time that the lens was open and the image was forming. As I looked into the opening in the lens it felt very much like my personal energy was being drawn into the camera, and I wanted the Te Papa audience to understand this and try to have a similar experience. After looking at the centuried Daguerreotypes on display, which were direct, first-generation images of their subjects (more closely related to their subjects than second-generation prints from a negative), I demonstrated that light really is energy by holding up an old selenium-cell light meter facing the gallery lights and showing the meter needle moving. There is no battery in this meter: it’s the energy of the light that moves the needle, via a small electric current generated when photons strike the gold-selenium sensor. Then I got everyone to stand very still in a group for thirty seconds while I took their photo. While the shutter was open I asked them to be very aware of their energy being captured on the light-sensitive film. (The two photos were taken on a Hasselblad SWC camera like this one.) For the second photo (below), I asked some people to remain still, others to move a little or a lot, and some to walk away after a time to create photographic ghosts. The array of lights coming in from the top of the photo is caused by lens flare from the gallery lighting. I had to take these photos a bit hurriedly as we were running short of time, but I like this accidental effect, which adds a little 'supernaturalness'. The thing about talking to such a group – one which was largely brought together via publicity Te Papa put out, so to me it comprised mostly strangers – is that they’re hard to read; you can’t really tell how what you’re saying is being received. And even though both Chelsea and I tried at times during the evening to encourage people to relate their own paranormal experiences and beliefs, people are understandably reticent when to talk about such things in public, in front of other strangers. After all, some people might think maybe your cheese has slipped off your cracker. When I tell people I’m going to be speaking at such and such and I’m really nervous about it, the advice I'm usually offered is just this: be yourself. The jury's still out on whether it’s good advice, in my case. But, still, I look forward to the next opportunity to speak in public and so perhaps make some contribution to people's understanding and appreciation of things in the paranormal realm, even if, or especially if, the topic intersects with other fields of interest, such as art. The Andrew Ross photograph above is not in the Te Papa exhibition, but I referred to it in my slide talk because of the effect of light streaks apparently emanating from the letterbox. The photographer has no idea what caused this particular, strange photographic anomaly. |
Ectoplasmic Residueis a blog by James Gilberd - leader and co-founder of Strange Occurrences. Views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of the Strange Occurrences team. AuthorJames Gilberd is an amateur paranormalist, writer and musician, and a professional photographer, living in Wellington, New Zealand. Archives
February 2021
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