The older I get and the more time marches on, I find that the author Philip K. Dick to be our true prophet. You may know him from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, which became Bladerunner, or A Scanner Darkly. P.K. Dick was always asking the question, “what is real?” Most of the time his conclusion was, very little.
While we’re still in the planning stages for our first investigation I need to ask the question. Because all I have to go on concerning paranormal investigation is the brief conversations I’ve had with active groups, and all those paranormal TV shows.
Mari hates it when I call them “paranormal porn.” I admit, it’s for the shock value, but I think the analogy is spot on. In porn people really are having sex. It’s just that no one actually has sex that way in real life. I suspect the paranormal TV shows are like that. No one really investigates the paranormal that way.
You don’t need to turn off the lights. You don’t give much credit to sketchy, ill-explained devices. You don’t scream out whenever you hear a bump in the night. At least I hope not. Like I said, I’m having a hard time figuring out what’s real these days.
One thing that gets on my nerves, and I see paranormal groups on Youtube and those creating the equipment doing this – playing up the “spookiness.” Why would you give yourself a preconception that what you are going to experience should be seen as something to be feared? Why make REM Pods out of creepy dolls and music boxes? For the lols? I’m not here for the laughs. I’m here to actually learn something about the nature of these beings.
Then there’s the folks who run haunted attractions. The ones who charge a fee to let a group investigate a place that has regular phenomena. I have no problem with this. In fact, we plan on doing some of that as a learning experience. Why not go somewhere well established to hone your skills at investigation?
I have heard reports of some of these places manufacturing phenomena. Like making a REM Pod go off through radio interference or planting audio devices to fake EVPs. I’m sure that happens. But I would like to believe it’s an anomaly. That most of the folks who run those events don’t do that kind of thing.
What I have seen more commonly is haunted attractions adding “spooky” props. A creepy doll here, an old tricycle there, even some fake blood splatters. If you’re reading this and run a haunted attraction, please stop doing this. We don’t need you to help color our perceptions about what’s going on. We’re not here for thrills.
Let’s all defy expectations. We don’t need to do it like they do it on Discovery Channel. Defy spookiness. You can have fun, but no one’s going to take you seriously with those kinds of antics. This is not Scooby Doo.