Spring Research Outing with the Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society

I was invited along as a guest to the spring outing of the Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society lead by Eric Altman. The expedition would include around 30 extra participants (free event, but we paid our own expenses) who served as observers, researchers, trackers, and witnesses during the two day search for signs of Bigfoot and puma. The core of the PBS was there to facilitate the event and make sure that we all got what we came for.

I arrived at the Keystone State Park area on Friday, May 17 at around 2 P.M. in the warm spring sun. I pulled into site #73 at the hillside campground area that was about ¼ mile from the lake. I chose this site as it was only two sites away from the site of Eric Altman which served as the main base for the weekend. I quickly set up my small 6’X6’ tent, set up my day pack, checked my recording devices one last time and grabbed a quick snack before heading over to start the excursion. We were briefed as to what to expect, what we were doing, where we were going, and introduced ourselves to the rest of the group. We were then free to explore Keystone State Park and grab dinner before heading out on the first night excursion.

Keystone State Park is a 1,200 acre park in Westmoreland County near Derry Township in southwest Pennsylvania, about 40 minutes east of Pittsburgh. The centerpiece of the park is the 78 acre manmade lake (Keystone Lake) that was built in the early 1900’s for use in the production of Coke (not the drink) which is partially burned coal used to produce steel. The land was purchased by the state of Pennsylvania in 1945, but a mine close to the property lasted until 1953. The campground I was sleeping in was resting just above a catacomb of mines that were dug underneath it from the nearby hillside where an old cave entrance was sealed off. The area itself is chocked full of Bigfoot and UFO sightings and is only 16 miles from Kecksburg where a famous potential UFO crash incident took place in 1965.

Our first part of the expedition would take us out of the park into the surrounding area just west of the Allegheny Mountains. I joined up with group of guys that drove up a mountainous area to meet up with another group along a dirt road about a mile from the closest home. The two teams decided to split up and our team headed up a dirt road to a high point in the area where we would spend the next few hours. The guys I was with had never done any type of investigation and I quickly found myself as the one that was looked up to as the “lead” of sorts. The PBS member that came with the other group decided to stay behind along the road with the other group, but we were tethered together with a walkie talkie. I set up digital recorders along the road (which was along private property, so we could only use the road) to the southwest, northeast, as well as one a hundred feet out along a hillside away from where we stationed ourselves.

A Bigfoot “hunt”, “Squatch Watch”, or whatever you want to call it, is very similar to a ghost hunt where there is a lot of sitting, waiting, and a bit of interaction with the environment. We heard plenty of owls, saw some deer, but never heard anything else that night. At around 12:30 A.M. we were asked by the other group to come back down and I retrieved my recorders, packed up my chair and the four of us made our way back to the road full of disappointment, but still excited about that we had staked out the area and would have two more chances.

One thing about camping in a tent is that you really come to realize just how early the sun comes up and how even earlier it becomes really light outside. For me, I was out in the open and I was exposed to the light. Luckily, I had brought a sleep mask which gave me about an extra hour and a half of rest before the birds and the campground began to make enough noise. We met at 10:30 A.M. at the main camp and were given our direction to conduct hikes in various areas. I joined a different group of people, including Ghost Hunter’s International’s Rosalyn Bown. The six of us went to the same location I had been at the night before, but drove about 1/8 of a mile west and hiked down the opposite side of the road. We saw plenty of scat, more than likely from coyote, but nothing else out of the ordinary. It turned out to be a two mile hike through the woods culminating with another mile walking up the dirt road in a tiring finish; literally walking up the dirt road toward the top of the hill the entire way. We stopped at a small local bar on the way back to the campground, but not being a big drinker as well as knowing I was probably already dehydrated from hiking all day, I sat and had water. Rosalyn and I talked some shop and sipped our waters; it was a great end to the first part of Saturday.

Saturday night brought on an interesting excursion; Eric had all 30 plus attendees in addition to his team going to the same location. We drove in a convoy for the majority of the way before stopping along a dirt road. The road back to the investigation site was rocky and flooded in many spots. The only way in was either to hike or bus us in via 4X4s. We chose the latter and took two pickup trucks back about a half mile and then walked back another ¼ mile to a central meeting point. One group would stay at that spot while other groups would fan out to general areas in specific directions. I went with a guy named Joe who had not worked with PBS in a while, but certainly knew his stuff. We walked back about another ½ mile or so and set up our own minicamp with our chairs.

I decided to continue to hike down one of the paths to see what was south of us. The sun was set and it was beginning to get dark out, but I had yet to bust out any of my flashlights. As had been the habit I scanned the ground as I walked while glancing into the surrounding area for movement. My eye noticed a dark patch of dirt surrounded by old leaves which I scanned for tracks but found none. A few feet further I noticed another smaller spot of dirt that resembled the shape of a foot. I laughed to myself for thinking it was a footprint, but I as I knelt down and felt around I noticed a slight heel impression as well as potential toes. I was a little excited, but I fought to control any excitement as I figured it was merely Pareidolia or wishful thinking. I rushed back to the site to get Joe and the group to come down and take a look. We searched for prints ahead of and behind it, but found none. He was optimistic that it could have been a track, but was obviously old. We both concluded that it was inconclusive, but it was still a thrilling moment to find something that just might have been.

As the night settled in each group took turns call blasting. Joe demonstrated the various yells and whoops he used and we listened for responses. Other groups used recorded baby sounds, wood knocking as well as various calls. At one point we heard a quick succession of knocks from behind us just as Joe gave off a whoop. We all knew it was not a woodpecker and another group had heard it as well. It was again inconclusive evidence, but again it was an exciting moment. Overall I was impressed with how the groups communicated with each other and how the weekend was run. While it was just a random search for Bigfoot and big cat evidence we all had a fantastic time. Even though cryptozoology offers tangible evidence I realize just how elusive physical evidence can be as nature has a way of hiding its secrets. The Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society will conduct a fall expedition October 4-6, 2013 in a location to be determined.

Top Paranormal News stories revealed LIVE

The remaining top ten paranormal news stories of 2012 will make their debut LIVE on the air during the Grand Dark Conspiracy podcast on Tuesday, January 1, 2013, at 10 P.M. eastern on Shark Radio Network. Join in and jump into the chat room.

The Science of Ghost Hunting and Paranormal Investigation IV: Science and technology

"…when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth". –Sherlock Holmes “The Sign of Four” (and variations in several other books)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s character Sherlock Holmes was definitely ahead of his time when it came to science. His methods predated those used in real forensic science and his way of solving crimes was based on simple logic and observation. Ironically, this quote is typically used to qualify a paranormal group as "scientific" as well as to “verify” a photo, video, or personal event as “paranormal” since no definitive explanation was immediately found, however this search may not include all possibilities since it is limited to those present and may even be the intended result without searching for the reality. If this “evidence” is provided to the public and when an avenue is mentioned by a third party there is typically a defensive posture – so no logical explanation is usually accepted once the person has stamped “paranormal” on the purported evidence. Many paranormal teams use this quote as a basis for their scientific approach toward the paranormal despite not being able to realize all of the possibilities at hand (a logical fallacy) before coming to a conclusion (can we ever anyway?). Typing the term “scientific based paranormal team” into any search engine will create millions of results, but what constitutes a scientific based team?

For some teams the answer is simply the technology. These groups claim that since the technology they are using are scientific tools they are using science or are at least scientific-based. Parapsychologist Loyd Auerbach once said you can teach a monkey how to use an EMF detector, but that doesn't make it a scientist. To other teams it is simply avoiding Ouija Boards, séances, and psychics during investigations, avoiding “feelings” and instead using “observations” and “readings” (all of which can be subjective or objective depending upon how you approach it and many of these teams simply use the same subjective ghost-hunt-in-the-dark approach. I say tomato, you say to-mah-to), and using methods of debunking rather than trying to “prove” a ghost exists. This last explanation is always the most interesting. How hard can it be to prove a ghost doesn’t exist? Then again, how does a ghost group prove a ghost exists in the first place since science still does not accept that ghosts actually exist?

Trying to find data that goes against one’s theory is a basic tenet of science, but is it enough to be able to call oneself a science-based team?

"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts." – Sherlock Holmes “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: A Scandal in Bohemia”

The act of “hunting” ghosts itself is the first big red flag. A true scientist would never put oneself in the middle of an experiment as this creates a subjective environment and this would be frowned upon by fellow scientists. While there are many teams that do go about things skeptically most teams are already armed with the belief and hope that they will encounter something paranormal and this alone creates an unscientific foundation. An observation by a friend of mine was that if a group claims to be skeptical and looking to “disprove” first, why are they a ghost investigation group? Shouldn’t they be a skeptical organization? I have already written a blog entry on “The Skeptical Reality of Ghost Hunting” based on Benjamin Radford’s skeptical, yet accurate, view on how ghost hunting is full of flaws and science is barely used. So how do we fix these problems?

"You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear." – Sherlock Holmes, “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: A Scandal in Bohemia”

The honest answer is to throw out what doesn’t work, keep what does, and fill in the rest with a scientific based approach to doing things. So, what has to go? The biggest issue is the use of tools and technology. These tools are used to gather evidence of ghosts, but what about the people who experienced them and the environment in which they encountered it in? How can we validate with tools that are meant for other uses and gather data about something we have no scientific proof even exists? The technology use is further clouded by the use of tools that are simply created for entertainment use that are used as the foundation for communication and evidene (Ovilus, radio sweepers, ghost box, Frank's Box, etc.). The approach of looking for ghosts was for the most part abandoned by Psychical Research back in the early 1900s. People like Joseph Banks Rhine realized that the pursuit of ghosts only created more questions and the collection of case studies would only carry the field so far. They decided to look for the cause to the effect and began studying the living person’s connection to the environment and attempted to measure their ability to receive information or express control over the environment (ESP and PK). Granted, this move was also made to satisfy the scientific world which has since handcuffed Parapsychology since it is obvious that paranormal events exist outside known laws of science and needs to be approached a bit differently than standard scientific models (not by investigating like Scooby Doo). Many people view Parapsychologists as professionals who study ghosts and while this may be true it should be understood that a majority of Parapsychologists don’t study ghosts at all. Parapsychologists have realized it is next to impossible to validate what ghosts are through observational and case study methods alone. Should ghost hunters just quit?

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To get the answer and a whole lot more visit the home of my ParaNexus blog to read the rest of the article.

EVP Experiments: Upping the ante for evidence

Audio recording technology has come a long way since I started out in 1996. My first recorder was a small radio sized recorder (sometimes called a shoebox recorder) that used regular cassette tapes. One tape could record 30 or 45 minutes per side with two sides, but the rule was to not record on both sides as “bleeding” of voices or noises could potentially occur. The tapes produced their own white noise in the form of a mild hiss along with any mechanical sounds of the recorder which were usually recorded unless a separate microphone was used and the recorder hidden.    One learned quickly how to lubricate the device to keep these noises to a minimum or buy an external microphone. Working a case would usually mean buying a handful of tapes, although I usually bought a ten pack box of TDK 90 tapes and had plenty of those boxes stacked up, my how times have changed.

Digital audio voice recorders were available in the mid-1990s, but most of them were very expensive and there was a large internal debate in the ghost field as to whether they might capture evidence as good as regular analog recorders could. The upside to these digital recorders were plentiful; you didn’t have to rely on tapes, you didn’t have to forward wind or rewind the tapes, and they had the capability of being hooked up to a computer or other recording device to transfer the audio footage for better interpretation.

As the technology became more commonplace (and prices dropped) the old technology was slowly replaced and those who argued that the new technology was inferior became the minority.  As digital audio recorders are now the majority we must be aware of the shortcomings of this technology. Many of the same issues with the old technology are still a part of the new. Along with the technology itself the greatest issue with this machinery is how it’s misused by many in the paranormal field.

Many are tempted to turn up the microphone sensitivity to high in order to capture any sounds that may be too low to hear with the human ear. The big issue with turning up sensitivity is that you are making the microphone hyper sensitive to everything. This amplification can make sounds seem different than how you hear them and can create audible pareidolia, which are noises that are interpreted as words. A creaky board may make little sound when you hear it, but it will sound different on the recorder and can be mistakenly interpreted as a voice.

Another common mistake I see a lot of is investigators walking around with a digital recorder in their hand. There are two issues with this; first, walking around a location will expose the recorder to a variety of noises. These noises can be interpreted later on in a number of different ways, especially if not they are not recorded in a notebook or dictated into the microphone. Even standing still can create creaks under your feet that you may forget about later or may barely hear while you are onsite. Even an external microphone can be prone to sounds of movement. I typically wear one at all times and come to expect noises from time to time. Holding the recorder creates a whole other issue. The act of holding the recording can create an array of sounds that can easily fool someone into thinking an EVP has been captured. The muffled movement of the recorder in the hand will not be heard but can create some interesting noises. Another piece of technology close by or a ring on the hand can produce feedback on the recorder that might produce strange noises as well. Even placing a recorder on a table or the floor will amplify sounds that are unheard by the ear and can be later interpreted as paranormal although a logical explanation exists (try using an external microphone with a stand). Many still think that the act of using this piece of technology is scientific although science is a process not a tool or event.

Prior to using any piece of technology it should be thoroughly tested in a variety of conditions and determined if it will be a good fit for specific types of research. With a digital recorder, it should be used with a variety of settings in various types of rooms and be tested with varying noises at different distances to establish some sort of baseline for the recorder (if you don’t know what normal sounds like, how can you determine what paranormal sounds like?). While this can be done after an experiment, it helps if you are already acclimated to what the recorder sounds like before conducting research with it.

So, what’s the best way to use these things?

The key to investigating using a digital recorder should not just be centered on recording a paranormal voice, but finding out where the voice came from. This cannot be done with a lone recorder and in order to triangulate a noise you would need a minimum of three recorders. The more recorders you use the more likely you will be able to find the source of a noise. I recommend using more than three, but not necessarily all in the same room. Finding the source of the noise will help you eliminate contamination as a possible cause and will support your claim as long as you are documenting the scene and have even more audio to back this up. Getting a really cool voice on the recorder might be your goal, but without anything to back up your claim it’s nothing more than a subjective experience despite being recorded.

When conducting an EVP vigil it would be wise to place a recorder in every corner of the room, and again do not lay them flat or leave an external microphone close to a surface. By placing the recorder microphones in a specific direction (or using omnidirectional external microphones) you will have a higher chance of recording something anomalous, but it doesn’t stop there. The microphones should overlap in coverage by pointing up and toward the center of the room, not necessarily directly to the middle, but in that general direction. There should also be recorders running just outside of the room as well and just outside the window of a room as well. The Zoom H2 eliminates the need for multiple recorders to some extent. This recorder has the ability to record in stereo in two separate tracks at the same time. The Zoom H2 has a front and rear speaker that records with left and right channels. I have conducted a lot of experiments with this recorder in various parts of various types of rooms and while it’s amazing I still recommend using a various recorders separately versus one that records in multiple tracks.

There should be someone listening and physically recording sounds as they hear them on a piece of paper including time, location, and duration. This person should be close enough to the room that they can hear what is happening, but not necessarily being right in the middle of the room itself. As human beings we tend to make a lot of noises from our basic bodily functions to the movement of our joints and bones. There should be at least one other investigator outside of this area that is in direct observation of this investigator. The job of this person is merely to keep on eye on the person closest to the investigation target area. This isn’t to thwart a fraud, but it provides another step in supporting claims of the paranormal.  Another investigator should be set up with a similar array in a different room to serve as a control area in case outside noises (airplanes, cars, voices outside, etc.) are recorded. Why have anyone there at all? First, while many groups conduct great research in sealed rooms the concept surrounding ghosts is based on interaction with the living. Second, this living person also serves as a backup to the documentation being conducted by the recorder and the person watching the investigator closest to the room serves as an objective witness.

This point of documentation brings up an important issue to investigating which is using lights. It has become the culture of ghost groups to turn off the lights during investigations, but this practice has been imitated from television shows that do this for the thrill factor of the viewing audience and despite many varying claims it does not heighten ghost interaction or your senses. By being able to see what is in the room will you be able to quickly identify noises (oh, and EVP sessions need not be done solely at night either).

When I conduct an investigation I usually take a digital recorder and record everything I do using a lapel microphone. This comes in handy when you are in the dark (again, not recommended but sometimes necessary) or are concentrating on something and do not have the time to take written notes. I also carry some sort of set of notes and document the time, what people are doing, where they are, what noises I hear from where and more throughout the investigation. Just sitting in a room asking questions into a recorder is not enough to confirm that something that was recorded was paranormal.

The more documentation and attempt to isolate the noises within the room the better chance your evidence will stick or at least you will be able to quickly find a logical solution for. Another aspect of using digital recorders is reviewing as soon as possible. Real time recording and listening is still a new thing, but the technology isn’t where it needs to be yet. As many know there is typically a long pause between a question and answer. A device that can record and then play back audio around a minute or longer (while continuing to record) would be a significant tool. One method I use to hear what the recorder hears is to simply plug in a set of headphones on a recorder that is running. Doing so will allow you to hear what the recorder hears, but not what it is recording (paranormal noises are thought to be “imprinted” and not actually heard). This allows you to get a better sense of how noises are being “interpreted” by the recorder versus what you hear with your ears; many times I am amazed at how certain sounds can become deceiving.

By having a stock pile of recorders you can easily replace one recorder in the room with another and begin to review one that was originally in the room. Whenever placing recorders into a location be sure to audibly note the time, date, location, and area within the location on the recorder and write down what recorder and folder within the recorder is being used. Documenting where the recorder will be used along with what folder beforehand can save you time (creating an investigation plan will as well) and during this time you should also verify the batteries are fresh and the recorders are working properly (all equipment should have a pre-operational checklist). When using a lot of recorders it is necessary to label the recorders for easier documentation.

Most groups live and die with their evidence review. For many, the rule of thumb is to start reviewing evidence as soon as possible after the investigation and have it gone through within 72 hours. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always work for all groups and even those with an army of people may have a hard time getting everything processed within a couple of weeks. This is one thing that has never made sense to me; why do we bother trying to communicate with something only to wait days or weeks to listen for a response and especially when we are no longer at the location? There is nothing wrong with pulling recorders to review as EVP sessions should be kept to under a half hour anyway, although I do suggest keeping a few random recorders running throughout the investigation site for longer durations. These recorders should be mainly be used to document the investigation process to confirm or deny the presence of contamination or false positive sounds, but can also be reviewed for evidence as long as the site is being documented for contamination. Just be sure to periodically state the time into these recorders and verify the batteries are still alive.

When should you pull a recorder? Whenever you are conducting an investigation and you get a response (knock, moving object, etc.) or are able to get multiple sources (subjective experience, EMF spike, etc.) that get abnormal signals it may be a sign that something unexplainable is happening. An EVP could have been recorded and this information can be the difference between an “Oh man!” moment days later or genuine connection to life after death. Of course, using a dozen recorders can amount to a lot of additional evidence review time!

No one ever said science was easy.

(Note: the photo above right is a rough diagram of how I might lay out a room with recorders and investigators. Obviously there may be more or less recorders in different spots.)

 

Want a better way to classify EVPs? Check out this classification system by Doug Kelley and Jari Mikkola.