Collecting evidence is the major goal of paranormal investigation
When paranormal evidence is compared to evidence within the justice system something amazing happens, the skeptic, the scientist and even the parapsychologist will tell you there is no evidence for life after death. Audio recordings can be subjective, photographic and video surveillance could have been faked and eyewitness accounts are worthless because of how we remember things and outside influences. In other words, if you were a criminal and they were the judge you would never, ever do jail time. I will admit what they are saying can be true and it all boils down to ethics and the source from which the claims are coming from.
Evidence of any kind must be handled and preserved in proper ways. Evidence isn’t one thing; it is a collection of things that all support one another and tell a story. Be it a murder case, a fraud case or a paranormal investigation, the collection of evidence is always the same.
Physical evidence
Physical evidence involves any item that can assist in building a story of what you are investigating. Every piece of evidence collected is considered circumstantial.
Things like foot prints, scratch marks, stacking of items, spontaneous fires, or the manipulation of the physical environment should all be recorded. If photos of evidence are to be taken, then do so before anything is touched or moved. Special attention to things that materialize out of thin air, known as an “Apport”. These types of items have been know to appear during hauntings and in particular during poltergeist events, examples are, small pebbles, coins, keys, religious items and even old medical bandages. These items should be photographed and secured in either a sealed envelope or container with all perinate data recorded, such as time and date found, specific location, type of object, any marks, writing or dates on the object, their specific description and condition and a summary in which the object came into you possession.
EVPs
The problem is many EVPs are not clear and open to interpretation and those should be discarded. However, there are those EVPs that are extremely clear and leave no doubt what was said. Over time these recordings may tell a story, or give specific information that may support other evidence collected.
Photography
Any type of camera can produce results, as long as you follow some rules.
The camera must be in good working order and you should be familiar with how everything works. Keep the camera clean and dust free.
Watch for light sources, they may cause lens flair and mislead you into thinking you’ve captured a true anomaly. Lamps, lights, sun and flash bounce can all cause false image flair. Rain, snow, moisture and dust particles can all reflect light, especially from a camera flash.
Control your camera strap and lens cover, don’t let them fall in front of the lens. If you have long hair you may want to tie it back or wear a hat.
Be aware that if you take photos towards shiny or reflective surfaces, they will produce a glare or reflection from your flash, or other light sources.
When more than one investigator is photographing in an area, be sure to communicate with the others so you are not overlapping flashes into someone else’s photos.
If you are shooting photos outdoors, especially at night, try to include an object in the background to allow for a size and distance comparison; an open-air photo at night is almost impossible to orient yourself to.
If it is cold, you have to be aware of the steam your breath will make. Never smoke anywhere near where you are shooting photographs, and in the summer watch for fireflies, which can give the illusion of slow moving, flashing orbs.
Technology
In some ways technology has helped us during investigations, for example the cost involved with using SLR cameras and having to develop the film was staggering, the same with using VHS tapes for surveillance systems and cassette or mini cassette tapes used for audio. Just to store all these bulk items took a small warehouse.
With the development of digital data storage systems like SD cards, hard drives and DVRs made it lighter, less expensive and easier to store. However, technology can also work against us in paranormal investigation. Analog systems were very difficult to hoax or doctor, photo graphic film produced a negative and VHS and cassette tape was a system which could be easily checked to find tampering. These produced the best undisputed evidence, however they failed usually because the quality wasn’t very good. Digital systems can be easily tampered with and altered, even today most digital evidence be it audio or video is rarely admissible in court.
Another problem is what is known as the CSI effect, you might have some great evidence but the overall quality might be fuzzy. Once we start to enhance the digital image(s) by enhancing brightness, contrast, colour, remove video noise and graininess the end result will be an argument that the image you are offering has been so greatly altered that it no longer represents an accurate image of the original.
The best you can do with SD cards that hold evidence is to remove them from the device and secure them to preserve evidence and meta data. Making digital copies to enhance and analyse is fine, however the raw data must be preserved.
Best example
Doing the hard work can pay off and provide some of the best evidence.
Best example I can give you is a place I had investigated and how each piece of information I collected reinforced the next providing me with remarkable evidence.
Within the fist few visits we had captured EVP, electronic voice phenomena, of a young boy talking to a woman, calling her by name, “Miriam”
This alone was interesting, but nothing more.
Weeks later our medium was brought in and among other things stated that she detected a woman named Miriam. She was not aware of our EVP recording.
It was during a visit with the property owner some time later that I mentioned the name. She said it sounded familiar, and showed us a stack of magazines and newspapers she had found in one of the walls during a renovation. It was discovered on some of these papers that the mailing labels listed Miriam as a resident of the property back in 1905.
