Ghost Hunting V Paranormal Investigations
What is the difference between Ghost hunting and Paranormal investigations?
Ghost Hunting usually involves going to a place were there have been no sightings of ghosts and trying to catch something on film (video and photos), sounds, eyewitness, etc. It tends to be the activity of a paranormal enthusiast, conducted for the purposes of personal entertainment - the thrill of a good, fun scare.
My experience of people who get involved in ghost hunts has not been positive to date. A classic example is where I was rung at 1.45 am in the morning, just after I had completed running my ghost tours on a Sunday evening / early Monday morning. This person was ringing from Picton, a little rural country town in the southern highlands outside of Sydney, about 95 kilometres from the CBD.
They, and the group they were with, were clearly intoxicated.
They had just walked through the Picton Redback range railway tunnel, and had driven around town stopping at a number of haunted houses and the local church cemetery in the early morning hours. They were clearly being loud in the background over the telephone, in the early hours, in the middle of a country town. They were ringing as they wanted to know if I ran a really scary ghost tour, because they had not been impressed with Picton.
The thing is, they were trespassing on private and government property, yelling and carrying on, further antagonising the the neighbours who no doubt were trying to sleep. In a place that is literally dead quiet, noise carries. People like this person, who in truth are simply thoughtless, selfish oafs, have created a situation where Picton ghost tours, originally founded by Liz Vincent, and had been carried on after her passing by her husband and daughter:a business that has put Picton on the map as an international tourist destination
has been effectively shut . This is due to having an unworkable development application forced on them, by a council facing complaints about "ghost hunting" idiots like these, ( who have nothing to do with the ghost tours) from some of the owners and neighbours of these haunted sites.
These completely unrelated idiots continue to commit criminal trespass and nuisance, and an innocent Ghost tour business operator who always did the right thing, was put out of business as a result of their actions. Now, nearly 9 months after the Ghost tours in Picton were effectively shut, there is still a conga line of "Ghost Hunters" who continue to make a menace of themselves looking for ghosts in Picton, particularl
While Ghost hunters and paranormal investigators tend to use very similar techniques, there is usually a fairly dramatic difference in attitude as to how they go about it.
Ghost Hunting is a personal entertainment activity, normally conducted by amateurs, people who are basically trying to prove how brave they are by suppressing their own fear, travelling into places that are either known or rumoured to have paranormal activity, and attempting to taunt whatever resident energies that may or may not be there, into doing something that can be video taped or recorded in some fashion. Most of the idiots who have made a pest of themselves in the early morning hours around Picton recently, would probably call themselves "Ghost hunters".
Paranormal Investigations involve going to a known haunted place and recording data (video, photos, audio, temperatures), notes, interviews and other evidence. It tends to be an activity run on more of a semi-professional / scientific basis, and for specific purposes. A typical example of a paranormal investigator would be someone like Robb Demarest, formerly of Ghost Hunters International - someone who wants to be able to prove what they think with scientific evidence.
A paranormal investgation is usually done to prove/disprove the haunting, and to assist the owners and the spirits in moving on and leaving the place . In some parts of the USA, you have to pass on that your home is reportedly haunted to a prospective buyer if you are selling it - by official statute! So there is both practical and financial motivations to do this kind of investigation!