If Its Not a Ghost,
What is it??
Every good investigator worth their salt will first look to natural or explainable causes for ghostly sights and sounds. Most of the time haunting activity is actually something completely explainable. After you rule out all the possible causes for the activity, what is left over is paranormal and warrants further investigation. The examples below are common situations that are sometimes considered paranormal at first glance. If you are experiencing something disturbing in your house, please take a moment to go through this section and see if what you’re experiencing is ghostly or not…
My television (radio, baby monitor, blender, etc) is shutting itself off (suffering from interference, fading in and out, picking up strange noises and voices, etc).
1. Check for ore deposits that can cause magnetic fields that disrupt television and other appliances.
2. Cordless phone conversations and baby room monitors can transmit and be picked up by cordless phones and baby room receivers in your house.
3. Sometimes weak batteries in the remote control can your television or stereo to malfunction.
4. Overhead power lines can sometimes interfere with television and radio reception or the way other appliances run.
Objects are moving around in my house. Do you think it’s poltergeist activity?
1. If your house is built upon the sand, just like the song says it’s going to move. If it moves, items inside the house can move, shift or even break. Check to see if your house is on a fault line, sink hole or some other kind of unsound foundation.
2. When airplanes take off and land or when trains or trucks travel by your home they cause vibrations that can also move objects.
3. Let’s face it sometimes, no matter how clean our house is, pests can get in and while they are scurrying around looking for handouts they can knock things over and disappear before we can catch them. Pets are similar culprits. Although children can be associated with real poltergeist activity, children around the word stand united and quote “I didn’t do it” when items are moved or broken.
4. In my house, given my interest in paranormal activity, the spouse and children love to make things go “bump” in the night and wait to see if mom will pull out her equipment and investigate. They also do it to scare each other.
I see ghosts out of the corner of my eye and then they disappear.
1. Crystals, prisms, stained glass and similar objects can reflect light, both natural and man made. This means that if a car drives by at night the headlights can be reflected in a prism hanging in the window and move across the wall or ceiling.
2. If you are living on or near a toxic dump (you can stop laughing now) keep in mind that toxic waste can cause people to “see” ghosts or other strange things.
3. Do you have radio or television towers near your house? - Radio and or television towers located near your home can emit waves have been known to cause people to see phantoms and other visions.
I hear moaning (scratching, footsteps, crying, voices, etc) throughout my house. Are these because of my recently departed Uncle?
1. Many types of underground formations such as caves, streams or mines can cause noises that are sometimes attributed to “ghosts” that can sound like moaning.
2. Pests and pets living in and around the home can also make scary sounds that scratching, thumping or chattering.
3. Wind makes strange sounds if it can get inside your house. It can sound like moaning, shrieking or cause window panes to make rattling noise.
4. My house creaks and groans starting about 15 minutes after the sun goes down on a hot day. This is caused by a drop in temperature causing the wood to expand and creating the sound.
I have a strange stain that appears on the ceiling in my kitchen, even though I clean it up, it keeps coming back. Do you think it is a blood stain of a murder victim killed in the bathroom upstairs?
1. Leaks from water pipes, especially slow ones, can cause stains to appear on floors, ceilings or walls. Add a little rust and you have a blood stain.
2. One day my daughter spilled hot cocoa mix on the carpet. Trying to hide her crime she cleaned it up (with water). Realizing the flaw in her clean-up plan she was forced to attempt to cover up the crime using an alternate method I call the Ollie North defense (“I have no knowledge of how the stain got there”).
My bedroom (bathroom, kitchen, living room, etc.) is unusually colder (warmer) than the rest of the house. Is this because of a ghost?
1. Check seals around windows in the room. A loose window can let in cold air or cause a draft.
2. Rooms on the east or west sides of the house tend to be on the warmer, while rooms on the north or south sides of the house tend to be cooler. The upstairs is generally warmer than the downstairs as well.
What is the scariest thing you or the other investigators have ever encountered?
The scariest and most paralyzing situation for the team would probably be for us to walk into a basement to find an orange haired clown, carrying a peacock and singing show tunes off key. Nerves of steal…that’s why we do this.