by Karen Frazier

 

So you have things that go bump in the night in your house, and you're starting to get a little concerned. Maybe you've learned some investigation techniques from watching paranormal television shows, or even from reading this blog. So what should you do? Should you investigate your house?

Our fearless leader, Patty Valdez, strongly cautions against making this move, and I agree with her. 

Shortly after we moved into our house, I had a group of friends over for dinner including a psychic medium. I, of course, was well aware that odd things were happening in our house, but I'd stayed pretty quiet about it. After a trip to the bathroom, my friend said to me, "You didn't tell me you had a ghost."

I played dumb and asked her what she was talking about.

She went on to describe a boy standing at the end of the hallway. What she described was consistent with some of our experiences here, and I admitted as much to her.

"I wonder who he is," I said. "I've often considered trying to communicate and seeing if I can pick up some EVPs." 

My friend shot me a look. "Only if you're willing to have activity pick up once you open the lines of communication."

My kids were fairly young back then, and I didn't want the activity in the house to affect them. I chose to leave it alone. In fact, I've never investigated my own house. I once allowed a group to investigate it, and I have a number of psychic friends who have been in the house and read it, but I've never ever attempted to investigate my own home.

Investigate at Your Own Risk

 

There are a number of reasons why investigating your own home isn't a great idea.
  1. There is the possibility that, once you begin communicating with spirits in your home, you just may stir up activity. If you don't want that to happen, it's probably best to engage an outside group to take a look.
  2. It's difficult to separate from your own personal biases. This can lead to false positives and negatives. Even as a seasoned paranormal investigator and journalist, I am subject to these biases. It is very easy to allow what you want or believe to color your final analysis. A neutral third party won't enter your home with the same set of biases you have.
  3. What they show on television isn't real. On paranormal television shows, they make gathering paranormal evidence look pretty easy, and communication appears simple. You have probably seen a number of devices used for communication including a flashlight and a K2 meter. The truth is, a number of these devices may appear to be communicating with a ghost when, in fact, they are merely measuring natural elements in your home's environment.
  4. It's very easy to misidentify natural events and artifacts as paranormal phenomena.
Neutral Third Party

Patty recommends calling in a neutral third party. While their attempts to communicate may stir up a little bit of additional activity in the short term, after they leave things typically start to calm back down as the spirits in the home realize you still aren't attempting to communicate. Likewise, at SSPR, our team has experience with investigation. Our members are trained to appropriately use environmental sensors and carefully evaluate audio, video, and photographic evidence, as well as personal experiences. We also use critical thinking skills and our investigation experience to seek natural causes of your phenomena before arriving at potentially paranormal explanations.

If you're concerned about the possibility of paranormal activity in your house, give us a call. We never charge for an investigation, and all of our investigators receive a thorough criminal background check before we take them into private residences or businesses as part of our team.