Ghost Hunting Overview - setting up and helping

Yesterday a guy asked me about techniques and such for home investigations, and I was kind of stuck for an answer, due to the fact that each and every case is different, the people who attend are different, the circumstances are different. Thus I haven't so much focused on a formula on what to do, when, as much as sensing what needs doing as were going and doing it.

However, in a perfect world, the routine is this:

Interview of the people affected. Find out who, when, what, to potentially discover why. Drug use within? Esoteric association (Ouija, seances etc)? History of mental illness?

Diagram of the residence. This is used to mark: Places identified in the interview where occurrences have been observed ("what" witnessed by "whom" and "when").

Why do this? Because memories are fallible, unreliable. Information is power.

Jot the all relevant times and date, the general weather conditions, moon phase and any extraneous relevant information here.

The diagram is used for documenting baseline readings such as outside temperature readings, time marked, temperatures readings from several spots within every applicable room, annotated with time stamps, EM intrusions not considered anomalous such as running appliances (refrigerators tend to broadcast EM energy 2 to 3 feet away when running) and locations of probable bad wiring.

Once observed and documented, other EM spikes later have the potential to be anomalous.

Temperature readings ought to be updated hourly (indoors and out) and taken at the same spots and locations each time. If somebody states that a room just got colder, or someone walks through a cold spot, this ought to reflect in readings at that time, and a basis for comparison is readily available from the diagram/temp readings.

EM spikes that were previously not observed are documented at just as the temps are on the diagram.

As mentioned above, memories are unreliable, and if it appears that you may be on a multi-visit investigation, the investigator can do themselves and the client a huge favor by offering the client an inexpensive notebook binder for future documentation.

I often recommend this no matter on first contact, and ask the client to use this tool to help us, help them. "Anything odd that happens, write it in this notebook, headed by time and date. Use the notebook as a diary or journal, a para-journal. Write what (happened), who (was there), when (it occurred) and any extraneous relevant information.

The participants and the needs of the investigation trumps all of the above. If you're a stickler on all the above and a family needs help RIGHT NOW, help RIGHT NOW. However if you can, documentation and information can often lead you to a solution.

Sometimes the interview needs to be brief, but do be sure to go back for in depth and clarifying information later.

Sometimes you may have a sensitive or medium along, someone you trust, and you'll have to decide on the spot how to utilize them. For example: having a medium present for the interview to help determine if, what being said is genuine, fabricated, or hysterical in nature. You may decide to let the client know that said person is a medium, and you may decide it's best not to for whatever reason, such as the client is vehemently opposed to the belief that such a thing (or person) exists. The investigator's job is to get the job done with the tools available without making anyone feel weird, and with respect.

Another thing to consider.

We recently had a residential case where a murder had been committed. This crime was verified, the persons involved, it was discovered, caught and convicted. The haunting revolved around the murder victim as well as a deceased relative. The affected individual was primarily a child. This made the case a priority.

Yes, we could have dragged it all out, set up all the stationary night vision cameras, the DVDs, the computers etc. and hunted the ghosts down, but to what end? To get some great photos, possibly some compelling video and sound recordings? But this was a families life, their dwelling, and a child would sleep in the room that very night where the primary activity occurs, so the way I saw is was this: Rather than waste a bunch of time trying to gather evidence of phantoms, spirits, ghosts within the structure, evidence that we would not in a million years make public, a) because it is unethical to display materials gathered in somebodies home sans their permission, and b) to seek that permission is ghoulish in my opinion,  lets get to the part about helping.

Let's help these folks understand that what they are experiencing is abnormal, and that they don't have to live with it. Let's see if we can detach from the client the shadow figures who are visiting. Let's see if we can help these folks redirect to a positive mindset. On this I'm not going to go into at this time as I have prattled on far too long already, but the bottom line is:We're here in the field to help. We'll have a good time while doing so, but in the end we help people. Let the public places we visit be the places we gather stimulating, intriguing, compelling evidence of life after death from, but let's keep the private places and private lives of people suffering, private.

So You Want To Be A Ghost Hunter Part Deux. I think.

Last night a lady asked how to get onto a paranormal team, into the paranormal, so I thought I'd jot a little on that for others that may have asked themselves the same question.

I couldn't very well offer up my group last night, or SRC for that matter because we're based pretty far away and have a very large group of people from which to draw from already if needed, something I'll touch in in just a moment.
1st things first, if you know like minded folks, band together and make a team. Simple as that. Read like a maniac, study up on the topic. But first ask yourself, "Why would I like to do this?"

If it's to have something to do, it's probably best to start by studying, and to bear in mind that when on a ghost hunt, you are looking for proof of somebody having survived the body, somebody's loved one, somebody that likely had a lot of grief felt, tears shed when they passed away. That is who you're looking to communicate with, and often they have no idea that they, or more accurately, their body, has ceased to exist. Often they can be distraught, or angry, or otherwise unsound in mind. See, most folks who pass and stay here tend to be fearful, of judgement, of leaving an incomplete life, of leaving loved ones behind, of losing a possession. That isn't a terribly healthy emotional state to begin with (and the decision is largely emotion based anyway), so please recognize that, as well as the importance of always being respectful no matter the location or circumstances.
No offense intended, many folks in the field would prefer you not get in the field at the expense of the dead, and I mean that in the nicest possible way.

If your answer comes back "So I can score a TV show!" Well, really, just go away. Seriously. I have seen so much of this it makes me want to scream. Folks in it for the exact wrong and cynical reasons really, really, really demean the field and demean the dead. And do consider the odds of this happening are about the same as farting fairy dust on the moon. Ok, maybe a little better, but still.

If your answer comes back as "Because it is (or looks) fun", then look for social contacts to find a good, reputable, informed team to learn from. Meetup.com is a good start, some teams list for positions to be filled on facebook, craigslist, etc. And read, educate yourself.

If your answer comes back "To learn more about the paranormal" or "To help people", look for a team who has that same focus, and read up on the topic.
You're best to get involved with a team which is local to you, and here's why: If you're traveling more than, say, 10 to 25 miles from home, late night return trips home can be hazardous. Many times you will be physically tired, emotionally drained, there will be impaired drivers on the roadways. I frequently travel 100 miles out for hunts and it wears me out.

Also do be sure that on a meetup to meet in a public location, This is for your own protection.I do advise hooking up with a team that does permit you to bring your spouse or significant other along whenever you can bring them. That door should always be open, and here's why. Your returning home occasionally at 4, 5 AM might be ok, but it is entirely possible that your better half will begin to feel resentful, suspicious, neglected if it happens all the time. If a group does not permit spouses etc, ask why not.
Also, ask local groups if you can accompany them on a hunt or two. If they do not permit that, ask yourself why not. Look at the paranormal as a hobby, and if a hobby isn't inclusive it often causes friction.

What equipment do I need? Well, your most important items are you, and your integrity. Beyond that, just start off as we oldsters call "Old School." Nothing wrong with old school at all, I often revert to old school when I feel I need to get my techniques honed, or when I need a change of pace.
Old school is simply using a decent camera and perhaps a voice recorder. Last night David said it, and he was absolutely right, when you become overly dependent on gadgets (some of which work, some of which do not) you begin to loose your innate, intuative skills of detecting when something has changed, or is outright wrong in a room or given situation. Focusing on meters and such can also cause you to walk into things inadvertently, possibly injuring you. As you become more adept at using your camera (and voice recorder) in the dark, then begin adding gadgets to your repretoir, but if they do not add something to your investigation such as better data collection, or better analytical ability, maybe said extra equipment isn't needed. Also consider that if you outlay a ton of money on gadgets and find the paranormal field isn't for you, you now have a lot of useless equipment that is very difficult to re-purpose.

Why would you find the field is not for you? Sleep deprivation, a bad run-in with a dark entity, hours devoted to hunting and not finding anything are valid concerns. It happens.
You'll also find that most of the time ghost hunting is very boring. Hours of tedium waiting for something to happen, and many, many times nothing does happen. In those cases you hope like hell you have a photo with activity, or better still an EVP catch.
This is when the real work begins.
Please, please understand that for every minute of data collected, you are going to spend 1 to 5 minutes examining that minute, if you're truly looking for evidence of life after death. 10 cameras filming for 10 hours? That's 100 hours x 1 to 5 of review. 500 hours? Editing? Saving? Ain't nobody got time for that.
So the key is, keep it simple, unless you have countless hours to spend.

And at all times, do enjoy yourself. I don't mean playing grab ass in the dark, but enjoy the locations, stay positive, enjoy the folks you work with, and do have fun. When a hobby becomes like a job, it is no longer a hobby, it IS a job. A low or non paying job at that.

Why investigate the Oman house? Here are some reasons.

Yes this house has appeared in numerous television shows, so is this reason enough to investigate it? It's one reason, but why has it appeared on so many shows? Because it is extremely active. Here's a break down of things we (Me, Phil from PRT, Jacob from IEGH and Justin) have seen or recorded on video and audio equipment, as well as guest encounters I have been there to witness.

Hard evidence (and sightings, personal experiences).

In the multiple times I have been to the Oman house, there have been many inexplicable instances of activity that can not be explained in strict terrestrial terms.
Hard evidence: The figurines, top floor.
While one particular (Beetlejuice movie) figurine tends to be the apparent target of something unseen, I don't think this figurine is targeted for any particular reason other than it's the easiest to topple. However, this is NOT the only figurine that topples, the 2nd one does too, as has the "Smoking Man" the troll dolls, and the shrunken head man, although far less frequently. On video we have caught all but the trolls and shrunken head guy toppling, the rest have been witnessed.
Quick disclaimer: We have been at this location whole nights were none of the figurines fall, and other nights were they just won't stay standing.



Aftermath of the House at the End of the Drive framed poster floating off the wall. While the stationary cameras did not catch this occurrence (the sole camera on this floor just missed it, out of frame), it was witnessed by several people, and this was documented right after it happened.



Same day as we set up, and well before any guests had arrived. This camera and tripod were locked down and ready to go, already recording. Note that it's being leaned to the tipping point.




Shadow Hat Man.
On this visit, only one person had a hat on, Phil from PRT, and that hat was a form fitting baseball cap. The "Shadow Hat Man" appears to be wearing a steton or some other square crown, large brim hat. I personally shot this picture, in fact felt I HAD to shoot this picture in this direction at the time. About a dozen attempts to disprove this picture by recreating it were made, we were not able to reproduce it.
Original.


Near by where many have described a "vortex." This is a picture Phil took, and Glen Willis and I were present for, there is NOTHING there to reflect light.


There are literally scores of EVPs from so many people, so many of them that I can not possibly post them all for you without writing a dissertation/thesis paper, something I have no stamina for.
There are a whole flock we have posted here. Some may be something, some may not, you decide, and by no means is this all of them, but a small sample.
However I will give you this one
One of the people who perished 200' away in 1969 was (last named) Frykowski. I have a hard time reconciling his name spelling with it's pronunciation, and said so in the bottom floor of this location. This EVP actually says his first name. Nobody was in this, the earthen room.
EVP Name

There is a whole lot more evidence too, but for now let me jump to eyewitness accounts that I was there for, or I personally saw.

Hair stroking, bottom floor.

First visit there, one of the folks kept feeling her hair being stroked. On a subsequent visit, with no knowledge of the hair stroking incident, two other people mentioned they were having their hair stroked in the same room.

Shadow forms.
On one of the early trips we had a very quiet night, not much was happening. While setting up, Justin saw a shadow man watching him in the garage from the road. When he looked up, the shadow man disappeared.
Same night, Phil watched me walk down the stairs from the first floor, and with me he saw a shadow form. I too saw the shadow form next to me.
Later in the night I came up to the first floor, which was vacant, heading to the front door. In the kitchen was a stationary shadow form that dodged back towards the refrigerator when I focused full attention on it.
Upstairs bath.
Unbeknownst to me until a week ago, a little girl a year or two ago saw a dark haired woman with gray skin peering in through the top floor bathroom window, The face then disappeared downwards.
One one of our visits Justin walked into this bath (same night as the street shadow man) and while doing his business saw a shadow form with this bath. On another trip Phil saw the same thing.
Having spoken with Alma Carey, she too saw a shadow form on the second floor (and wearing a hat) walk into the office.
The last one I'm going to relate is a confirmation.
The Ghost Adventures show, Nick is in the bottom bedroom by himself in the dark. He sees a shadow form in the outer room as if watching him.
Two visits ago Jacobs video equipment is clearly and repeatedly showing motion in both the lowest bedroom and the outer room. I walked down to the lowest room solo, in the dark, to check this out.
All was well as I walked through the outer room, sat for a minute or two and asked whatever was there to show up. Nothing happened. I then walked into the adjacent bedroom, stood there for a while looking around in the dark, and when I turned to the open doorway looking into the outer room, a shadow form began assembling into a human shape. I called up to the monitoring station on the walkie talkie and asked Jacob who was in the outer room. He replied that nobody was, and he had a clear view of the whole room.
After maybe 30 seconds the shadow form began do lose integrity, dissolve as I watched. Yeah, I did not hang around for more.

Audible vocalizations.

On the second (the very quiet) trip to the location, we had wrapped up, turned off the cameras and DVR and began collecting the equipment. I went alone to the bottom floor to disconnect and collect the the lowest bedroom camera and tripod. As I walked in the room a gravelly voice said "Azzhole" from directly behind me. I did not break stride, just looked over my shoulder and said "Oh, sure, now you start talking. Too late, you had your chance."
Same room bath, 3 trips later Lilia was in this bath when she heard a gravelly voice say "Steve." This was not living human in origin.

Walking down the stairs from the top to the middle floor, as I stepped from the 3rd to last to the 2nd to last step, a woman giggled over my left shoulder. Nobody else was on the stairs, nobody was on the lower 2 floors, everybody was on the top floor.


Meter activity.

I have measured household current in nearly every corner, every inch of this house, and there are almost no instances of stray EM energy anywhere except for the aquarium ballasts, and the area around the clothes washer, and only when it is running. It's an EM clean environment.

However we have detected, in nearly every part of the accessible house EM pulses with no explanation, and seemingly in response to questions asked. We have traced this phenomena as it has moved from location to location, as it has sporadically presented itself.

Conclusion.
This is an active location, and an exclusive location to visit. Not everybody will ever see the inside of this house, so if you get a chance to visit the David Oman house, do seize it.

You're a ghost hunter? How cool! Well, ok...

"You're a ghost hunter? That's so exciting!" I hear it often, and I'm always astonished. Growing up, waaaaaaay long ago, hunting ghosts was creepy, not cool. Ghost hunting was something you didn't admit to in polite company, it was ghoulish, even if it was a field populated by pretty smart people. The TV shows changed that, they made the paranormal normal.
However, the fact that I'm mostly retired from the field as a paranormal investigator, exciting isn't so much a word that I associate with ghost hunting. Oh sure, the prospect of a new location gets the adrenaline flowing, true, but by and large ghost hunting (paranormal investigating) is rather dull. Ghosts (spirits) are not very much fun, they aren't entertaining, the don't have a lot to say, and they do not scare me. Slightly unsettled is about as far towards fear as I am capable of swinging when it comes to ghosts, so let's face it, ghosts are dullards. Now and again though the hours of tedium are relieved by something spectacular happening, and that sort of balances out the boredom, not entirely, but somewhat.
But more to the point, excluding demons, spirits are people sans their body, people who have stayed behind, people like you and I who have had the unfortunate "life event" of excluding the word "life" from their event. Life as we receive it at any rate.
And that's largely where the field has gone astray.
We, as paranormal investigators must remember that most of the time the spirits were communicating with, or are trying to communicate with, are lost, de-compassed people. The lack a familial structure, or any structure in their existence altogether. Many times they are so very confused. Lost. And it is incumbent on us, those in the field, to maintain a respectful stance at all times, just as we would want to be treated with respect. Not shouting nor berating, not cajoling nor baiting. We must be responsible, and largely the TV shows have muddied that perspective.
Going in a different direction now, I'm working with a couple heads of other teams of forming a team comprised of just these heads of teams, and the naming process I'm not taking very seriously, as you can tell from the image, lol. You see, it really doesn't matter what your team is called, it matters what your team does. It can never be about greed, whether it be monetary or evidence collection greed. It must be about helping people on both sides of the aisle or veil cope and move on, it must be about furthering the goal of expanding research into the paranormal, it must be about giving, and it must lack self and ego, and it must embody responsibility. So many great people I have met who follow exactly this, and for those people I am grateful, and I';m sure those on the other side are too.
End rant.

Why not use Ouija Boards?

Last Saturday at David's house, Ouija boards came up in conversation and a gentleman asked me "Why not use Ouija boards, what's wrong with Ouija boards?" Wow, what a question, one that could easily require an hour long answer. He had his phone camera rolling but held down at belly level, which I thought odd, and ain't no phone (or nobody) got time for an hour long diatribe, so I went with the simplest thing I could think of, the fact that the improper use (opening, closing, cleansing) of Ouija boards and lack of experience with them is more the problem than anything else, but ever then since I've been working on a more concise short answer in the back of my head. Maybe some of you can refine this.
First it's important to know some history of the Ouija (French Oui or Yes and German Ja, or Yes, so "Yes Yes") board, but that is less important than intention and control.
Here's a short answer.

Any attempt at spirit communication, an "esoteric act", is an intention to communicate with a deceased person, an intelligent spirit, and each attempt can potentially draw in a spirit or something much worse, a demon or, as some people call them, a "Dark Energy", and in a way it's about control, or relinquishing control to "something" else. However, when I conduct an EVP session, I am in control, I can start or stop my recorder as I choose. Photography, I can choose to shoot, or not shoot a picture. Meter work, night vision camera work, all these things are external means used in documenting or communicating with that which is not part of our normal 3 dimensional world, our lives of matter and physical laws that we physical beings must obey.
A goofily named Ouija YesYes board, however, utilizes YOU, your body, your energy itself, as well as that of your partners in the esoteric act. (I have known people who use Quija boards solo, and actually become addicted to the experience, much to their detrement, but usually people use the planchette in groups of two or more people.)
So you have intent of communication, and you potentially relinquish control to something you can't see, something you can't sense (if you can sense it, then why do you need the board?), and you have no idea whatsoever who (or what) you may be communication with. Whatever you're going to communicate with us using you and your partners energies to move, manipulate the planchette, the "spirit" isn't physically moving the thing by itself, and the planchette can not move on its own. So in effect you have relinquished, with tacit permission, control.

That's only the tip of the iceberg though, there's more. I have heard so many horror stories of people getting freaked out by whatever a Ouija board has "produced," the people then throw the board out only to have it turn back up in the house again. My own wife had that happen years before I knew her. I have also witnessed people undergo a change after having used one of these things, in one case a hard core Bible believing Baptist girl decided to use one, and within a years time was violating everything she previously believed in.
So in summary, when in doubt, don't, and don't ever give permission, tacit or overt, to anything or anyone to do with you what it will, because it can and will.

Haunted Oman House Tour as seen on Ghost Adventures

What can I tell you about the upcoming tours of the Haunted Oman House, which was recently featured on Ghost Adventures, that you don't already know without spoiling any of it for you?

Let me start with the folks running it, and allow me to preface it. I have not spoken to any of the principals involved with the tour in writing this, nor advised in any way of what to say and not to say. In other words, I'm writing that which I know or have experience with.

I personally love hanging out with smart people because I always take something away from the meet, whether it be an exchange of ideas or perspective, information, what have you.

David, who owns the house, is an affable, intelligent man with a wicked sense of humor, and says exactly what he thinks with no embellishment. When he says "These things happen in my house, and this just happened," you can take it to the bank.

I can say with high confidence that you will have a great time on their tours. And by all means do!

Now please understand that I write these things because 1) if tour takers think they'll go to this house and be disrespectful, then well, I can safely say this is a bad idea. 2) I'm not talking him up for any reason other than I mean it. I am not beholden to anyone, and couldn't care less what anyone thinks of me, soooo...

I have been to this location several times before Ghost Adventures aired the Oman House episode, and amazingly did not know a few things about the paranormal activity within before the airing of the Ghost Adventures episode (see it here http://youtu.be/kp_1qp2DVZ0), but I suspected some things.

Bottom bedroom

For example, the bottom bedroom was somehow special, I knew a guest sleeping there had been disturbed, partially lifted by an unseen force, but according to the show it was a man who was raised fully off the bed and pinned against the right rear wall of the room. It was from this exact direction from which a gravelly voice called me an a$$hole as I walked into this room to retrieve our surveillance cameras after an investigation.

Nobody but me was in the room, in fact nobody was on that entire floor except me, and it gave me a bit of a pause. The night had been relatively quiet, and I looked over my shoulder, kept walking toward the camera, and in response said "Oh, sure, now you start talking after the cameras are off. Too late, you had your chance." No reply back from the gravelly voice man.

On a trip to this location a few days ago, team member Lilia, an acquaintance with an amazing ability to connect with the other side, heard my name called in the bathroom that services this same bedroom. A deep gravelly voice, once again. On a side note, the earthen room is directly behind this bathroom.

Also on this lower level we have detected major temperature changes, cold spots appearing out of nowhere, then dissipating, many times in sync with EMF spikes. The biggest changes seem to come from the stairwell shaft, and for the most part I have attributed the temperature change to the fact that it was warm in the house, cold outside, and large picture windows are set into the walls of this shaft looking out into the canyon. However, Ghost Adventures also experienced this temperature change, and they filmed in the summer time. It would have been warmer outside, not cooler, nullifying my theory.

Entering the room on the bottom floor outside the bedroom I have also experienced a sort of resistance, which has, several times, made me stop, not want to enter this room, and from this bottom floor we have also recorded disembodied voices.

On EMF readings, I have used my visits to this house to check for and document EMF hot spots, and by and large this house is, electrically speaking, very clean of stray EMF. I'll carefully check areas which have no EMF readings, and later, lo and behold, sporadic spikes occur, often seemingly in response to questions.

The earthen room is a good example.
Earthen Room

I have painstakingly checked for errant leaking energy (my profession and training as a home inspector helps with this) and found just exactly none in this room. In fact on the very first visit none of us detected any EMF spikes of any kind at all, except in the laundry room area where we had meters sounding off in a fashion not dissimilar to how a heart rate might register on a similarly equipped machine, thub dub, thub dub. However if the washer is running, about a 5' circle around it is saturated with EMF energy.

The falling figurines.

You may have seen the figurine topple on Ghost Adventures, and I have witnessed the same probably a dozen or more times. We have also had a whole investigation go by where not a single figurine was disturbed in any way.

Here is a link to a video we shot in November, 2013.
http://youtu.be/m-jjIYsKYJU
My notes:
"When this toppled, Adam Risley and I were in the next room by the bar, we did not see or it hear it topple, but we heard the roar of those downstairs at the video monitor station, "No way! Son of a bitch, it just went!" What you see us doing after the fall is getting temperature readings off of the Beetleguise figurine, checking if it was a different temperature than the ambient air temperature. It was not. The figurine topped 6 or 7 more times that night, once with some of us standing right in front of it."

I can personally attest that there is no trickery involved with the toppling of the figurines. I can also say that the floor is solid as can be. In the Ghost Adventurers episode, David illustrates this by jumping in front of the aquarium, resulting in zero movement. You're talking about 800 pounds plus of glass, water, fish and wood that these figurines stand on. That furniture is not budging.

What will you experience on your visit? I don't know, and I wouldn't say if I did know. All I can say is there's a very good chance of experiencing something paranormal, and an excellent chance of having a great time.

Is this some sort of underwear party?

Is this some sort of underwear party? Taken from one of the best commercials of all time, Carl's Jr with Hardee's biscuits, the line denotes the absurd, such as a 19th century southern gentleman appearing on a southern California beach (or any other beach) and seeing folks in modern swimwear. Of course he'd look upon the scene with bemusement and possibly horror (and perhaps lust-fulness being disguised behind the former and latter), because for all intents and purposes, swimsuits are nothing more than underwear worn outdoors. How inappropriate the scene would be to another, past generation. This same absurdity is largely how I see the paranormal as it too evolves, or de-evolves, into something it never before was, morphing into something it ought not be, commercialized, sexed up, and full of opportunity seekers and God haters. Don't misunderstand me, every one has the choice to worship as they wish, and I for one would never push my belief in God onto anybody, I have demonstrated this over and over again, but time and again I hear people complaining that "Oh, Christians are so judgmental, I hate them... blah blah blah...", all the while passing judgment on them, a completely hypocritical stance and statement. So I see all these paranormal folks, many of whom are completely God-less, some of whom actively bash on God and his followers, and on the other hand are the Christian folks who think and say that ghost hunting, paranormal investigating is "Of the Devil." They say "Noooo, those are demons and they are trying to trick you." It makes me sit back in wonder at the absurdity of it all. You're looking for spirits who survived the body and stayed behind. A spirit leaving the body is a cornerstone of religious afterlife, I would think. That some do not move on to their "just reward" would seem logical. Some just don't go. Yes, there is a small percentage of contacts with unseen entities which are "unclean spirits", demons, insane spirits, if you will, and being prepared for that eventuality is important on all ghost hunts, but by and large the percentage of demonic contact cases is very small. The atheists and God haters who hunt ghosts? Ok, you're seeking out a person (a personality) whom has continued on, managed to live, to survive sans a body, yeah? So if, theoretically, a person survived the body, and you believe it is so, then would not then ALL people survive the body? And if so, they, we, all go somewhere? Yeah? For me that's Heaven. for others that may be the universe, or back to a "spirit collective," or whatever you want to call it. The over-riding theme is that people do survive the body and most depart, but some do not. I've been told so many times, and I have lost count, that I should not be doing paranormal investigations so much as I should be trying to free these spirits who stayed behind. Well, I have retired from investigations, not for this reason, nor because I dislike the field, but more because I'm tired of it and what it is fast becoming, a topic for later. The bottom line is this: I have no idea HOW to "free a spirit," or if such a thing is really possible. And besides, on freeing spirits who stayed behind, isn't it their choice, their free will to stay or go? Isn't it that same free will that leaves so many earth bound? Who am I to toy with their free will? More often than not that choice to stay was made out of fear, and I can not allay that fear with my earth experiences, I don't know their story, their specific wants, needs, fears, and anything I say to convince a spirit to move on to a higher domain would seemingly ring of hallow, false assurances. And yet to not try, to exist with complacency also seems wrong. So I ponder this tar baby, all while watching a field which used to be made up of very smart, scientific minded people, nerds, really, become sex charged, money oriented, social events, it strikes me that the paranormal field is astray. Allow me to explain. We all live, and all of us will die one day. When we "pass way," many people will cry, miss us, our loved ones and friends. A lost life is a terrible thing, and when you've lived long enough, or have seen a lot of death, it strikes you how precious life is, and how fragile life and the dynamics of life and death really are. At nearly every grave site tears have been shed for the loss of a loved one. Real, raw emotions, terrible loss and longing. And these departed are the personalities we try to contact. So let me ask, isn't it crass to make DEATH into a profit machine? Into a reason for alcohol fueled conventions? Make the people who undertake the task of communicating with lost loved ones into false celebrities? To worship, for lack of a better word, those who look to make a financial opportunity out of the deaths of other people's loved ones? It seems to me respect is largely lost in the paranormal field. It HAS become some sort of underwear party.br /

House at the End of the Drive

Firstly, I want to thank David Oman for the invitation to the premier screening of his film, House at the End of the Drive, the after party, and a visit for the 44th anniversary of the Sharon Tate and Guests murder perpetrated by Manson Family members. I was unable to attend any of these for financial and vehicular reasons, unfortunately, but I hear it rocked!.
Those of you attending the Las Vegas Paracon this upcoming week will have a chance to meet David, and I urge you to do so! Having spoken with David a few times, corresponded with him several times and having friends in common, I can say emphatically that David is a class act, and a good guy, even if I have not yet met him in person.



It is a little strange how things sometimes come round and round in life for no apparent rhyme or reason, but many times there is a reason if not a rhyme. It's simply a matter of finding the heartbeat of the subject, feeling the cause and effect of a series of events to understand them.
For me some of these things include the shootout at the OK Corral, Valentino's untimely passing, the Black Dahlia murder, the JFK and RFK's assassinations.
Another such event, which for me as a retired paranormal investigator with avid curiosity, a person who lived at the time of the events below and who remembers how the events effected not only the L.A. area, but the nation, and has repeatedly popped into my "sphere of awareness" at regular intervals, is the Manson murders of 1969.
Charles Manson still occasionally makes the news, not as often as in years past, as do some of his minions, usually around the time any of them become eligible for parole hearings. Sadly many of the victims are fast being forgotten to all but a few people with each passing year, as folks who knew them, or of them, pass away and the divergence of time separates us, the living, from them, the ruthlessly taken.

I'm pretty sure that I was on the road with my mom and step dad when these killings occurred, as I recall relatives in Seattle, WA, and Stephenville, Texas, talking about the news of killings "back home," and expressing concern about the "Crazies and Hippies" back in California when we visited them on a quasi cross country drive.
"Yeah, the Hippies and crazies only exist in Cali," I remember thinking with scorn, as I had seen hippies on the whole road trip virtually everywhere. It was the time after all, and hell, most of the crazies in Cali migrated there from everywhere else. Manson, originally named "No Name Maddox" originated in Ohio after his underage mother ran away from her home in Kentucky. Tex Watson was from, you guessed it, Texas, for example.

Murdered just over 44 years ago for heinous, nearly unfathomable reasons, reasons that only could come from the mind of a psychopath, reasons which had their roots in racial prejudice, purely unadulterated evil reasons, were: Actress Sharon Tate and her unborn child, a friend of her husband (the infamous Roman Polanski, who was in London at the time) Wojciech Frykowski, his girlfriend coffee heiress Abigail Folger, and Jay Sebring, (who had at one time been Tate's lover) and Steven Parent, an 18 year old kid who was just leaving the property after having visiting his friend, the caretaker on the property (caretaker survived because the killers didn't know he was there) when the attacks began. The next night Leno and Rosemary LaBianca were also brutally murdered in cold blood. Preceding these murders, and in a way a precursor to these killings, was the murder of Mason Family associate Gary Hinman.

Allow me to address the Family Manson briefly.

Manson was a career criminal, a bum, user, a lowlife, a "man" who had spent nearly half his life in prison prior to these murders. At this point he was a 35 year old man who was preying on the vulnerable Lost Children of the hippie era who were anti establishment, yet looking for something to belong to. These were 19 to 22 year old adults, and his "rap" was (apparently) convincing enough that these kids, and that's what they were, kids, would kill for him in cold blood simply because he told them to. Another aspect is that many of these kids thought Manson was Jesus Christ incarnate, some were utter convinced. They would do whatever he said, because it was "for the family."
However, I in no way mean they were innocent dupes entirely. They were old enough to know better, old enough to know right from wrong. Manson a messiah? Anyone with half a brain would know that a man ordering crimes to be committed, commanding them to commit larceny and murder is not a messiah, is not of God, but quite the opposite. No, they knew better.
So when saying Manson Family, it's not like Ozzie and Harriet, but more like a criminal family, like a gang.

Manson's goal was to create a race war, and failing that, to go back to prison, because he knew he'd eat, sleep, exist on the taxpayer dime.
Wikipedia says: "When released from prison on March 21, 1967, he had spent more than half of his 32 years at that time in prisons and other institutions. Telling the authorities that prison had become his home, he requested permission to stay, a fact touched on in a 1981 television interview with Tom Snyder."

To create a race war, Manson said he'd "have to show blacks how it's done." The idea was that he'd incite the wrath of whites by slaughtering high profile white "piggies" of the establishment, then whites would then begin killing blacks. Blacks would retaliate, but the whites would be divided into racist and non racist factions, which would allow the blacks to kill off all the whites. Then they, the "victorious blacks, being incapable of running the world," would turn to Charlie to run it for them, he as their master." This is NOT me saying this, this is straight from autobiographies and interviews the Manson Family members themselves. Nothing but pure, vile evil.
Now that I've established these points, the movie, House at the End of the Drive.
I have not seen the film, unfortunately, and have not talked with David about what is ok to say and not ok to say, so I'll encapsulate.

The movie is loosely based on actual, real life events in the area that the Tate and guests murders occurred.
The famed Barry Taff visited the area the film is based on and experienced fugues, fainted several times, saw inanimate objects move and became ill after many visits. Taff wrote that the whole area is a "positive magnetic anomaly", which can not be explained by him nor the USGS. He also stated that the area the film is set was considered by Natives to be sacred. He also stated that it is very much haunted.

The characters decide to go into the murder house on the anniversary of the killings, and find themselves sort of reliving the killings.
That's all I'm going to say on it, although I have read more from the reviews, and btw, I have yet to see a bad review of this movie!

On the murder house itself:
Other people who lived there:
Before the Manson murder
Built for French actress Michele Morgan in 1944.
Cary Grant and Dyan Cannon
Henry Fonda
George Chakris
Mark Lindsey
Paul Revere and the Raiders
Samantha Eggar
Olivia Hussey
Terry Melcher (Doris Day's son)
Candice Bergen
After the murders the owner of the property, Rudi Altobelli lived in the house for the next 20 years, and as he said on 20/20, he felt "safe, secure, love and beauty" for those years. Mr. Altobelli sold the property for 1.6 million dollars.

According to Wikipedia:

"The final resident of the original house was the musician Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. Reznor began renting the house in 1992 and had a recording studio built inside.[6] This studio, dubbed Pig (sometimes called Le Pig) in a reference to murderer Susan Atkins writing "Pig" in Tate's blood on the front door of the house, was the site of recording sessions for Nine Inch Nails' 1992 EP Broken and 1994 album The Downward Spiral as well as Marilyn Manson's 1994 debut album Portrait of an American Family.[6] Reznor moved out of the house in December 1993, later explaining that "there was too much history in that house for me to handle.""

After Reznor left, the house was torn down in 1994, a new mansion constructed in its place which in no way resembles the original. The address has also been changed.

So, do you want to see a frightening film that is based on actual events?
House at the end of the drive. See it!



Links
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/l-a-sneak-peak-house-at-the-end-of-the-drive-inspired-by-the-manson-murders 's 1994 debut album 's 1994 debut album height=object width=

Paranormal TV shows phooey

Hi everyone! A long overdue opinion piece. I was bored, waiting for something else, so why not.

 We've been pretty quiet over here, and that's largely due to my having retired from the para-field and no one really grabbing the reins. I'm still around for advisory purposes, but will hunt if an excellent hunt comes up, or somebody really needs help, but otherwise nah, the field has become too weird to associate too closely with.
 Allow me to explain. This might make some angry, be it by subject matter or a perceived "haughtiness" or whatever, and I really don't give a flying fork.

 My first likely paranormal experience that I remember was in 1965, the next few in the intervening years, my biggest for sure experience was in 1977, my first ghost hunt was in June of 1979, the first hunt I organized was in 1989 (or 90), my first actual ghost sighting was 1996, 1997, face to face..

 I see a lot of questions on facebook fan pages like "Are there too many ghost TV shows?" or "Is TV the reason you're in the paranormal field." I understand, they are making their fan pages and fan bases interactive, and that's cool.

 But to the first question I have to say yes, there are too many. Why? How many ghost shows come and go every year? Some have had great promise, others not so much, and many don't make it due to over saturation.

 Now follow along. I have some experience with this, having worked with people to a) bring shows to market, and b) bring locations and stories to TV shows, and I have never taken a dime for it.

 TAPS is the grand-daddy, they made the paranormal normal. Those other guys (Is that yooooou making all those shows?) had a flying brick, and sans that would not be on the map. Was the magic brick legit? Yes, I believe it was. Was it cause for a TV show, maybe not, but they have succeeded where so many have not. What made the difference? Timing, uniqueness, commitment, and core.

 Question 2, and this is the one that disturbs me most, "Is TV the reason you're in the paranormal field."
 I have known people who's sole reason for being in the field was the pursuit of a television show. They have harmed others, defamed others, stolen from others, and lied their asses off to try and land a ghost TV show.
 I had one group of people I worked with who had watched a TV show and knew all about the field, in equal measure (or greater) to/than the information I had amassed since the 1970's! These folks sole goal? Yup, the lure of being a TV personality, and they would cause harm to anyone who refused to help them, be it by slander or whatever other means.

 Too many TV shows? Yes, and I think we'll have a season or two more of fly-by-night TV shows that will pop up and disappear, and after that I think it will become stale, old hat.

 People getting into the field for the prospect of stardom? Huge problem, and a problem which has not advanced the field what-so-ever. In fact one might argue that it has actually set the field back years, maybe decades.

 You see, when I got in this field there were giants, some of whom are still around today. The average intellectual acumen was incredibly high, and those are the type of folks I enjoy talking to, the smart ones, because something always rubs off. The "I want to be a big somebody" crowd are generally brain dead. They tend to be "street smart", (which is another way of saying "shifty,") but really develop nothing on their own, no theories (except for what's shown on the boob tube) , no new techniques, no new equipment, no new nothing. The pioneers thought outside the box, and could give you solid reasoning for why they did what they did the the way that they did it. These kids? "It was on TV." Even the history of a place might as well not exists to these folks, whereas to the serious investigator of yore, that was a HUGE piece of the puzzle.

 Other offshoot of the "WOW, TV" factor is the profiteering. I can see if you write a book on the field or whatever, but places charging, conferences, conventions and the like, which, while they began in earnest to allow people to meet their TAP's caliber of stars, they have become something of a freak show, where a celebrity, (which at its root means "one who is celebrated for their achievement") can be someone who walks past a camera on a "lock down." Personally I would sooner celebrate the local dog catcher who actually gives back to the community, or the soldier who gives his service or even life in the name of freedom, or the college athlete who does what he or she does for the love of it with a remote chance of making it to the major leagues, all while having to carry a full load academically, and be passing those courses.

 So when I say I retired from the field, what I'm really saying is that my priorities are different, and in my opinion anyway, more altruistic than that of the opportunists. I'm really saying is that the field is damaged, it is ill. I'm saying that it will, on its present course, become just as disreputable as it did in Houdini's day, and for much the same reasons. I can't change that, one person, and I refuse to go down with those who are sinking it. This field came into existence to try and communicate with the departed, to prove it was possible, to help the living deal with their grief, or to help the living deal with an unsavory haunting. It was never intended to be a circus.
 If you don't understand that, or the Harry Houdini reference, then it might be time to turn off the tube and crack a book.
 Just saying.

How do we make solar work and why, part 2

In 2010, the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer was 11,496 kWh, an average of 958 kilowatt hours (kWh) per month. Tennessee had the highest annual consumption at 16,716 kWh and Maine the lowest at 6,252 kWh. 
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=97&t=3

Using $5.00 per watt as a basis for calculating installation costs, each system costs $37,000 to install, excluding all rebates and tax credits for a 1000 kWh system, just above the national average 958 kWh used.

http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/solar.html
  That $90,000,000,000.00 that was thrown at the solar companies by the U.S. government? You know, the companies that went bankrupt? That $90B would have installed 1000 kWh self sufficient solar systems into 2,432,432.43 homes. Moreover, that economy of scale would have likely reduced the per house cost.That's monthly electrical savings of about $243,243,243.24, or $2,918,928,918.88 per year total, a payback of 30.83 years, the average mortgage length.

So we see a benefit for the home owner, what benefit for all the other homes, people that did not receive the government money for self sufficient electric panels?

Lower electric rates due to the fact that many of these installs will dump power into the grid. More reliable electrical service. A drop in solar system prices. Less dependence on foreign energy, which enhances national security. Cleaner air and water. Jobs.

On jobs, that could be on the order of about 100,000 jobs. That is factored at 1000 companies, (20 per state), 100 jobs per company completing 10 installs per company per week for 2.43 years.

Let's talk some more about jobs, this time on the manufacturing side.
During the last solar "boom" (or bust) in the US, the vast majority of solar panels were coming from overseas, mostly from China, who, with their cheap labor can manufacture goods at a fraction of the cost that we can domestically. Since the solar bust there have been firms in China that have gone out of business for lack of sales.
Now, if we're talking about 2 million plus homes getting solar panels installed, then economy of scale should kick in on the manufacturing side, making solar panels affordably made domestically. That too equates to many more jobs. Thousands, potentially.
Inverters as well. Frames, concrete tiles, wires, maintenance, the list goes on.

So if the homeowner is given the money for the install based on:
1) their house is ideally situated to take full advantage of the solar installation.
2) on the caveat that they will lose $50.00 a month, $600.00 a year in their nominal tax deduction. Why not $1200 a year? Because they need incentive to agree to the install and structural changes in the house, but also due to the fact that many, if not all, insurance companies will charge the homeowner additional monies for their coverage because of the solar panels. So offset that cost by $50.00 a month.

"Well, if they aren't really gaining anything, what's the incentive?" you may ask.

It's the same incentive that people who did not get the panels have in allowing their tax money to be given to the people who got the panel installations, lower electrical rates, more reliable electrical service, a drop in solar system prices, less dependence on foreign energy, which enhances national security, cleaner air and water, and jobs, plus the feel good benefit of doing something good for our planet and our children.

It's not for everyone, for certain, but I think the benefits are very definitely worth it, for the economy, national security, and cleaner energy.

Renewable Energy Means Security and Stability.

Hi all! Quick note before I dive in here. I'm not going to only and always write about paranormal stuff, my apologies as you're bound to be put off, because I do have a wide range of interests. This is not a paranormal post, so change channels now, :-).

Solar, in and of itself, is good, clean, renewable energy. I have been interested in it since I was a little boy when my step dad brought me a solar powered toy car. How the solar industry was subsidized during the recession, however, was poorly executed. Rather than throwing money at the businesses, and expecting them to step up and do the right thing for the public was naive. What we should have done is subsidized ONLY the taxpayers to convert to solar, and let that buying power fuel the solar industry, rather than basically giving the money away while offering only tax credits. Why is this important to the tax payer?
Two words: Energy Independence. E.I. is important to national security in so many ways, that I shouldn't even have to mention it, but let's boil it down this way to save space: Every bit of energy that we can produce domestically reduced that which we have to purchase internationally. Simple. For instance, cheaper, or free, energy for electric cars means less oil that needs to be imported, which means more of our capital kept in our own country. It also means that the middle east, always a hot spot due to oil, becomes exponentially less important to our foreign policy, and make it less likely our young men and women will have to fight and die there.

One way I think we could make some big inroads to energy independence is to institute some mandatory requirements that come packaged with huge tax savings for the consumers, you and I.

1. All new home construction should use solar cell impregnated concrete tile roofs on their sun facing sides. My house has a concrete roof, and as long as we don't walk on it the roof will last virtually forever. Each tile is molded to reduce weight while enhancing strength, and it's a relatively simple thing to mold them to allow installation of a solar cell in their upper surface, each roof tile pre wired, run to either a single inverter or to a series of smaller, modular inverters. I have seen this concept in the field, and it is effective, and a lot less ugly than the large metal frame arrays. Best of all, they are incorporated into the home's structure. This translates into massive energy $avings for the consumer, especially when the surplus is sold back to the utilities. The downside is that the cells will likely have to be replaced in about 20 years, but by that time the state of the art cells will be that much more efficient.

2. Older homes being re-roofed (asphalt tiles last about 20 to 25 years, architectural tiles up to about 35) should be re roofed in the same fashion as new construction, with solar concrete tiles, the trusses and rafters re enforced when needed to cope with the additional weight. What most people don't know is that an asphalt roof is pretty heavy by itself, anyone who has laid or removed it will tell you that, and one thing I see in the field quite often is layers upon layers of asphalt roof material layer over each other (a no-no, btw), so in many cases re enforcement of the roof when converting to concrete tiles would not be needed. I have seen and documented serious roof bowing under the weight of previous asphalt roofs replaced with concrete, so it does happen.

3. All large, flat roof structure buildings (malls, supermarkets, plants, warehouses) should be required to have standard solar panels installed on their roofs, provided they can handle the weight load. Not much of an issue there, very heavy AC units are routinely installed on these surfaces. The business derives all or most it's electrical usage from these panels (FedEx has been doing this) and selling back energy to the utilities when they are not active during daylight hours. All that large, flat space put to work, that is efficiency.

4. Out in 29 Palms a couple weeks ago I saw a solar panel electric farm being built, and I mentioned this to the next person I met with, and I was surprised to learn there were a many more being built in the area, a fact I saw first hand a little later in the day.
Lands that are not developed, likely wont be, and receive a lot of sunlight, I thinks that's a no-brainer. Use them for solar farms. Your country will thank you.

5. Wind. Anybody who has driven the Beaumont to Palm Springs corridor can tell you all about the wind farms out there, harvesting the power of the almost continuous wind that blow through that pass.
These giant propeller driven turbines catch the wind shooting through here 24/7, and oddly they sort of resemble giant house fans in a way, as if the people in that pass are being given relief from the scorching heat by these large fans. Lol.

Ok, that wraps it for now. I firmly believe in alternative energy, renewable energy, and we have all this abundant energy around us all the time for the taking, so I think it's kind of foolish for an "advanced" civilization to not take full advantage of that which nature provides freely.

Finally, if you've made it this far through my post, thank you! You have a longer attention span than I!

Reality TV celebrities, who the hell are they?

So I'm at the store and all the requisite magazines/tabloids are on display, and while waiting I do what everybody does, I gaze at the covers. While doing so it strikes me that, a) Batboy no longer makes the front page, has apparently disappeared, and b) I don't recognize a single one of these "celebrities" they have on the covers.

I say to the checker girl that "I must be getting old. Who are these people?" She shrugs, "I don't know, mostly reality TV celebrities, I think. You know, like the Kardashians."

Ah, that explains it. I rarely watch TV, I don't watch reality shows, and I couldn't care less about the Kardashians or any of their ilk.

To get the "person on the street"'s opinion, and out of general curiosity I ask the girl what the Kardashians are famous for, exactly?
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing" comes the expected reply.

So on my way back to my home office, I'm thinking about that response, and what it really says about our society, our culture, the unabashed idolization of people for no good reason other than they are on the tube and have money, who's sole claim to fame is due to their having a TV show based on their wealthy lives.

Beautiful? Well, I guess they're ok, but I know so many people who are better looking physically, who lack that special insane gene that appears to pack crazy baggage full of nutty drama. There are soldiers and law enforcement personnel of all genders and proclivities who warrant attention and idolization far more than these reality TV folks, but they simply quietly go about their lives quietly living in dignity.

So I guess my question is, what price for your dignity? For your integrity? For your lifeblood, toil and soul?
Do you yourself sell your valuable time consumed in the trivial lives of well heeled "reality" television personalities, and if so, why? What's the payback?

Sharing your data and media with the public

There are a lot of options on the internet for displaying your life, your profession, your hobby. There's Youtube for videos, Soundcloud for audio, Pinterest for images, Facebook for social networking, Blogger for blogging, as well as many others in each category, and of course personal and business web sites for gathering all the above media in one place via links and embedded code.

With a website you can post all the above items while skipping embedded links altogether if you're a pretty good programmer or have a good written script that can handle images efficiently, load and play videos seamlessly, play back audios, all while allowing blogging and social networking.

There are also other options that you may not have thought of.

I use nearly all of the normal web sites I listed above for my images, videos, blogs, audio files, and networking, but I also use some others too, like LifeAfterLiving.com, a paranormal based community, YoureOn.net, a media based community, and Laughshop.com, a humor based community, to supplement all of my media presentation needs.

YoureOn.net and LifeAfterLiving.com are both scripts from PhpMotion that allow me to customize how they look, feel, operate, and I can tinker with the script all I want. If I break the script it's on me to fix, usually with help from a great community of fellow script tinkerers.

Both YoureOn.net and LifeAfterLiving.com are free scripts that allow me and my users to post videos, mp3 audio, images, blogs, play games and do some social networking. YoureOn.net takes it a little further and allows people to broadcast their radio shows, and both sites are totally free to use.

Laughshop.com, our oldest humor site, runs on the Dolphin platform from Boonex, and apparently based on the Rayzz platform. Boonex is a Russian script that, while feature packed - and some of the features actually work - is far and away the better looking script of the two. Dolphin is also "free" to use, but to unlock all of the script's potential you must pay upwards of $800 (and more). Yes, most of the key items work right out of the freebie box, but again, to make the most of the script you will pay, and pay, and pay. However, Boonex is a VERY robust script.

For example, with PhpMotion there are a ton of hacks you can edit in that extend the usefulness of the script. This php scipt is pretty straight forward in its labeling, in it's language, and the community of script tinkerers is both quite large, friendly, helpful, and is free to access. Access to the Boonex community is free as well to read, but if you want to ask a question about your particular site or script, you're going to have to pay. Perusing the replies to help questions, I have also found responses that are in Russian or broken English. Not tons by any means, but enough to make you question whether the advice given will actually work. There's also a fair number of snarky, rude replies too. Granted, sometimes you find those sorts of replies in the PhpMotion too, but the PhpMotion community as a whole polices itself really well, whereas it seems less so in the Boonex forums.

Editing the script is generally easier with PhpMotion than with Boonex, at least for me, but this is largely due to the fact that I have been editing the PhpMotion script for a long time, and the Boonex script is just less familiar to me.

There are other alternatives too, like ClipBucket, which was the first CMS I used. It too was fairly simple to use, looked good, was robust and totally free, but a few things made it not useable for me. When I swapped to PhpMotion from Clipbucket, it was because I wanted to be able to host audios too, and at the time Clipbucket was not capable of that feature. It is now.

I have considered switching back to Clipbucket, but there are other issues now. The basic script is free, but they have now added a lot of "Gotcha" items that simply cost nothing at PhpMotion.
Clipbucket is a Pakistani written script, and while I don't know about now, back when I first used Clipbucket the instructions and community help areas had a LOT of slow replies in queries for help, and when people would complain they were basically told that hey, it's a free script, we'll help you on our time and when we get around to it. Not cool.
Also the replies were many times in not very good English, so it made it harder to follow for a mono-lingual person such as myself. There was one other thing that made me turn away from the Clipbucket script too, and that was the script writers apparent loathing of Internet Explorer, much of it based on the archaic architecture of IE versus Safari or Mozilla. Yes, IE lags behind Mozilla and Safari browsers in my opinion, however, I think that they just did not want to deal with making the script completely IE compatible, and honestly, why in the world would the end user of a script want to alienate the people who do still regularly use IE? Seems a silly thing to do.

There's also Joomla, which I have tried but I just couldn't make it work right, as well as Clipshare, which I know almost nothing about. Joomla has a lot of users, but in my tinkering I simply found it too difficult, too time consuming to manage. I think Joomla is a good choice for people who want to geek out over having complete control over their media presentations.

What's in it for you?

I've been musing for quite a while how so few people seem to understand the concept of doing something for someone just because you want to, with no thought of recompense, no expectation of pay back. Sometimes when people inquire on having a paranormal investigation at their home or business the "What's this cost?" question comes up, and of course there's no charge. We do because we love the field, and our compensation is getting to go into cool new places and (hopefully) capturing good, compelling evidence. Or when I send a referral to someone for a choice gig and they either view it as their birthright, or that I want something in return, neither of which is true. I do only because I choose to do, period. There is no expectation of anything in return. A thank you, or a wave from a distance would be nice, but I made the choice to do, thus it is isn't required. Then it occurred to me that perhaps these folks think that I'm angling for something in return do so because that's what they would do, that maybe they are the type to operate in that manner. Or maybe it's that cynicism has become so deeply engrained into society, that pervasive cynical thought that everybody must be out for a buck. That just may be the sad truth, that altruism is dead.

When did Claranormal Begin?

I spoke with a reporter the other day who seemed to have a problem wrapping his head around reconciling the creation date of Claranormal.com with our hunt/investigation tally. Pretty sure he's going to try and make that an issue, lol. The name Claranormal was registered as a "dot com" in 2008, but the group itself, the name Claranormal, came into existence in 2007, and it's members had been investigating under experimental names up until then. Ghost Emergency, lol, Ghosts R Us, and a few others we tried out but felt the names either didn't "gel" with our mission, or really didn't identify us. Then one day it hit, Claremont Paranormal, Claranormal. Considering that many of us had been experiencing paranormal activity in Claremont, myself included since moving there in 1997, it was sort of a duh moment, the name not coming sooner. On our tally. When you first start "ghost hunting," like anything new to you, you're at it at every opportunity, 2, 3 times a week if you can find enough places and participants. That's where our tally really expanded, but over time I learned that twice weekly, weekly, or even bi-weekly investigations really are difficult to pull off unless we were going only for the "wow" factor, the thrill of it, and were unconcerned with the evidence itself, or had no lives or jobs outside of the paranormal field itself. I learned that too many hunts at a time meant that we would get sloppy. I learned that proper preparation, researching a location or a person/people, takes time. Gathering not only people, but the right people, takes time. The investigation takes time too, but that's what you're there for. Most importantly, evidence review takes time. A lot of time! I have learned first hand that for us weekly, even bi-weekly investigation are really not conducive to quality evidence gathering, and it really does the clients and the field more harm than good to rush from one place to another with a backlog of under-reviewed or un-reviewed evidence, so now we may do one investigation every two week, or one a month, one every couple months. Bottom line is that I have learned that there is more to life than looking for dead people, that life really does belong to the living, so we take it as needed. On our group: We also have been investigating as individuals for, well, literally decades. I myself have been going to supposedly haunted locations as early as the mid 1970's, but never actually "hunted a ghost" until about 1990. All excursions prior to that circa 1990 event were for much the same reason that one rides a roller coaster: For the thrill of it. Go to the rumored to be haunted cemetery, or the house on the hill for the thrill of being frightened, the chance of seeing something unworldly, getting a taste of something "supernatural," for much the same reasons that many of today's novice ghost hunters get into the field. I just happen to predate them by decades. However, the first time I actually went someplace to "hunt a ghost" rather than going to a place for the "fright factor" of it, that is, to try and find, see, experience, capture evidence of a spirit or a ghost (there is a difference), as opposed to going someplace for "jollies" was after watching Chuck Henry do an "Eye on L.A." piece on the Queen Mary being haunted. I had never heard of it being haunted, never gave it any thought, so this surprised me. I had always been drawn to that beautiful ship, so I had to see this "haunted" business for myself. I have been a huge fan of the Queen Mary ever since going to visit her on a school field trip in about 1972 or 1973, and as an adult I used to visit her every couple months or so from about 1980 on, and never saw or heard anything out of the ordinary, although I could always sense the history and importance of this treasure. I and a few other like minded people I knew couldn't wait to go aboard and find more information about this, and go to the actual places where all these eyewitness accounts occurred. Within a couple days we were organized and on our way, hoping to either disprove or disprove these stories. We called out for the "ghosts", in the supposedly haunted areas, spoke as if talking to an actual person who just happened to be invisible. We took with us film cameras and that's all, and we caught absolutely nothing in pictures, saw nothing, heard nothing, so as far as I was concerned the QM was not haunted. Ah, how much we learn over time. Like a lot of novices, we made the arrogant assumption that just because we didn't experience anything this first time out at a "haunted" location, it must not be haunted. In 1996 the Queen Mary being "haunted" came to be a reality that I can not discount, as I saw my very first full bodied apparition down in the engine room, and he looked as solid as you or I. That is until he vanished. Up until then I was a full on skeptic, and always said I'd believe ghosts, spirits existed when I saw one for myself. I saw. I do.