Just a little backstory

In just a few days I will go with Dillion and Jordan to a house that they have been investigating for the past couple weeks. Before I go on that adventure with them I think that I should be honest with you all…

I’m a skeptic.

Now, I realize that us skeptics all get bunched together as nerdy looking people who have green Vulcan blood pumping through our bodies. In the real world we skeptics are the killjoy at any cocktail party who use logic and reason to calm down any drunk yo-yo who brings up the UFO or Chupacabras they saw on a camping trip years ago. In the movies we are the nerdy looking people who die brutally at the hand the paranormal enemy they were just denying the existence of.

The truth is most skeptics are just folks who need to see things in order to believe them. You have an angel visiting you every night in your apartment? That’s great, but unless I’m there with you and get to see this winged entity I’m not going to believe you just because you say so. You have a picture of a glowing orb on your basement that you are certain is the energy of a spirit who is floating around your couch? Ok…however before you call Dr. Venkman and the rest of the Ghostbusters II would like for you to sit down with me and I will show you how simple lighting issues or exposure problems can create these “orbs”.

To be sure, most of the claims of things like this can be explained away with three simple explanations:

1) The person reporting this event is crazy.
2) The person reporting this event is not gathering evidence properly and using compromised photos, audio files, video, etc as proof.
3) The person reporting this event is simply lying.

Unfortunately most of the time I think that most paranormal claims can be explained away by using. #3. People lie and exaggerate all of the time. They desperately want to be the special person who sees the alien, mythological creature, or poltergeist so that they feel important and people will listen to them. They want to be the witness to something that will make them feel as if God himself has chosen them to be present to a moment so they can be tell the world about it. When those events don’t happen, they do the next best thing…they make it up.

I don’t blame those folks too much. They are just storytellers who are trying to make our world more exciting than it really is. They are just being a poor mans George Lucas. I want ghosts and aliens to be real because that would make our world more interesting. If my garage were haunted it would mean that I have proof that the afterlife exists and I can stop having panic attacks about the nothingness I believe that awaits me when I push out my last breath.

Like Mulder, I want to believe. I really do, but I can’t until I see it with my own eyes, just like Thomas needed to touch the wounds of Jesus, I too need some sort of physical proof before I will even begin the process of opening up my brain to any of this being real. Please note that just because I made a Jesus reference that does not mean I believe I the existence if a Man/God that walked on Earth 2000 years ago, because I don’t. I have never met Jesus. He has never appeared to me – well except for that one time in Vegas where that drunk homeless guy dressed as Jesus asked me to buy him some smokes..but I don’t think that counts.

I know that Dillion is hoping for some sort of conversion for me by the end of my month of ghost hunting with him. He has explained to me in great detail the things that he and Jordan have already claimed to have experienced. My hope is by the end of this month I will actually help him be converted. To start looking for the the real reason a house creaks, or why they think they heard a voice, or why their electronic equipment suddenly “freaks out” while on an investigation. Although, I kind of have a feeling that getting him to surrender any of his predispositions beliefs on this will be pretty difficult for me to do in just a few weeks time. What he really needs is shock therapy. :). I kid! I kid!

I preparations for this I have been watching a lot of terrible ghost investigation shows on cable tv. Holy shit they are terrible. I cannot believe that advertisers pay to have their products sold during those blocks of time. It is just a bunch of people running around in the dark with night vision cameras scaring each other. It is so ridiculous that I will probably designate y next entry for this log to show you examples of how big of a sham these shows are. If I have time I will try and get that entry in before I head out with Dillion and Jordan on Wednesday night for my first chance to watch them work. They are certain that I am going to have some really solid evidence To share with all of you.

The real evidence I am probably going to discover at the end of this is whether or not he and his girlfriends are either just crazy, using a poor scientific model for conducting experiments, or they are just flat out telling us all a really good story.

Either way it should be interesting – and if it turns out that I am wrong and that little Casper The Ghosts actually do exist I will make sure that I ask them why in the gel they are hanging out in graveyards and train depots instead of going to heaven for all the milk and cookies they can eat…