Zak Bagans Quotes

I discovered that what most people call creepy, scary, and spooky, I call comfy, cozy, and home.

Aaron: Dude, one thing the guy said is you don’t taunt voodoo. Zak: Am I taunting? Aaron: Dude, you’re taunting the crap out of it! Zak: I am sorry, I am not taunting you I am just talking...Talking loudly.

My name is Zak Bagans. I've never believed in ghosts until I came face to face with one. So I set out on a quest to capture what I once saw onto video....With no big camera crews following us around, I am joined only by my fellow investigator Nick Groff and our equipment tech Aaron Goodwin. The three of us will travel to the some of most highly active paranormal locations, where we will spend an entire night, being locked down from dusk until dawn....Raw...Extreme...These are our Ghost Adventures.

I don't deny that I get excited, but that's what happens when you're passionate about what you do.

Talking to spirits is how you free them. Listening to them is how you help them crossover.

We humans are explorers and pioneers, and we find our inner strength when the end state is the absolute unknown.

My adventures are a constant struggle between fear and courage.

Life is all about finding yourself through experiences, and about learning more and more about who you are and what you’re capable of. If you’re getting older and not succeeding in anything or doing anything to make a positive impact on people, then you’re not living. You’re just waiting for death. Get out there and make an impact on people, whether it’s by helping them directly or by doing research to make their lives better or just by inspiring them. Do something good to be remembered for. This is more important than money.

The darkest time of anyone’s life is knowing you have a purpose, but not knowing what that purpose is.

The road is a lonely, exhausting, invigorating, and living thing, but the wonder of seeing things we never would have dreamed of makes it worth the price we pay to leave the safety of home

As a kid, I used to fear that my life would be wasted. I would agonize over how I was going to live this finite life. We only have so much time, after all, and I didn't want my only experiences with different cultures to be on TV or in the pages of National Geographic. I wanted to visit the Kansas plains, the Virginia battlefields, and the California coast. I wanted to see the world instead of being stuck in just one part of it. I wanted to feel the energies of new places and different people, and I wanted to experience the glories of history.

I believe everything happens for a reason, but I don’t know how to interpret moments like these.

We come here and communicate with the history. The history is not dead. The history is still alive in another form.

The tricky part about EMF, though, is its interaction with the human brain. Electromagnetic fields affect our perception, as does infrasound and seismic activity

Does the sanity of a person matter after death? If you were mentally ill in life, are you still mentally ill in death?

We can’t identify patterns and correlations. There’s no consortium on the findings. There’s no great library of paranormal evidence.

It’s not in keeping with the scientific model to investigate a purportedly haunted location with the intent to prove that ghosts exist. The paranormal researcher should remain neutral and unbiased throughout the investigation and let the data prove a definitive conclusion, whether that’s the one they wanted or not. They should walk into an investigation thinking, “I will document what happens and then examine the data for conclusions.

Electromagnetism is defined as one of the four fundamental interactions of particles in nature. The other three are gravity, the strong interaction, and the weak interaction—also known as the strong and weak nuclear forces.

The skeptic community doesn’t take the time to develop theories or take action to disprove the existence of spirits. They choose a passive approach of disbelief instead of scientific inquiry, which I would like to see change.

For many people this is an uncomfortable topic. To believe in heaven you also have to accept the concept of hell and to believe in guardian angels, you have to accept the notion of nefarious demons as well. You really can’t believe in one without the other.

I felt like Ray in the movie Field of Dreams when only he and his family could see the ghosts in his cornfield. Then finally that one moment came when everyone could see them. The smile on Kevin Costner's face was my smile, but it wasn't in a fictional movie

Fallen angels, or demons, are able to “demonically possess” individuals without the victim’s knowledge or consent, so they are not responsible for their actions while being possessed. Possession can last for as little as a few minutes or as long as several months.

The core of traditional science’s derision of the paranormal field is that it’s filled with amateurs armed only with off-the-shelf equipment who do not adhere to the “scientific method” of research, which has been shaped and reshaped over the course of human history.

Paranormal phenomena do not always adhere to the known laws of physics, which may be the crux of the matter— we need to reengineer our understanding of physics and the ways of the universe. It’s very possible that we’re trying to understand forces that aren’t bound by gravity, space, or time, and may in fact exist in a different plane or dimension. That hypothesis requires a paradigm shift in our understanding of physics and presents a fundamental problem—how do we measure and test the paranormal when the building blocks of the universe are in question?

Believing in demons is an admission that there are servants of hell and forces of darkness out there. Evil challenges our core beliefs in religion and forces people to admit there is not just a heaven and hell, but a judgment day and an almighty power that chooses which one we go to.

The solemn rite of exorcism that he sensed is no joke. It’s the highest level of antidemonic incantation in the Catholic Church and is reserved for only the worst of the worst demonic entities. It’s used only when a full possession has occurred and a place needs to be completely cleansed.

Some would say this is pseudoscience, but I want to challenge that assertion. Why can’t the body be relied upon as a detector? Why is it so easy to dismiss goose bumps and chills as a product of the mind? Why do we discount the feeling that someone is watching us as the mind playing tricks on us?

Emotions frequently contaminate the data. Physicist and Nobel laureate Werner Heisenberg said, “What we observe is not nature itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning.” Scientific inquiry must be unbiased to generate objective and reliable data. Since paranormal researchers generally believe in the afterlife already (especially when investigating the spirit of a departed loved one), they are frequently not as objective as they should be. Too many researchers have already reached a conclusion before they start an investigation and do their best to skew their findings in the direction of that conclusion.

spirits are composed of weak energy and are not capable of manifesting themselves into sound or sight until they come in contact with a greater amount of energy that they can borrow or take altogether. The presence of an energy source gives them the ability to manifest as sight or sound. This is key to understanding the paranormal.

The scientific method relies on repeatable experimentation to verify or deny data. Spirits of the departed are intelligent beings that don’t always display a predictable pattern of behavior. They come and go at their leisure and have always proven to be elusive and inconsistent, maybe because they are frequently unaware of their state (deceased) and environment (the location and year).

EMF has been associated with causing sensations of disorientation, fear, nausea, and the feeling that a presence is in a room with you. I believe people can sometimes find themselves in a high EMF (sometimes called a “Fear Cage”) and get the feeling that they’re not alone when in fact they’re caught in a high EMF and being tricked by it. So it’s possible to blame spirits for something that’s perfectly natural.

According to the Catholic Church, an entity is either a demon or a human spirit, but not both. A human spirit cannot possess a living human. Demons are actually fallen angels with intelligence. At one time they were good, but for some reason they were sent back to Earth and turned dark. Demonic entities are not limited in their intensity, either. They don’t have special powers, but do not have to rest like we do either.

Simply saying, “I saw a spirit and I know what I saw,” isn’t enough and does nothing to advance the field of paranormal research. Empirical, observable evidence has to be gathered. Skeptics frequently use the “cognitive function” defense to explain away paranormal activity, so multiple electronic recording devices (video and audio) are a must when conducting paranormal research to limit the margin of error. We’ll look more at this later in the chapter.

Paranormal activity cannot be replicated in a laboratory environment and therefore cannot be studied as closely as a natural science, like chemistry or biology. So the inability to replicate the phenomena makes verification and categorization of paranormal events very difficult and erodes the credibility of the science. After all, if we could summon spirits of the departed consistently and reliably in order to study them, there would be a whole new market in trans-dimensional communications.

Some paranormal activity can be justifiably explained as a cognitive action. “It’s all in your mind,” as some would say. And sometimes it is, as I will explain soon. The human brain is one of the frontiers that we still do not fully understand, and there are certainly phenomena that can be explained as tricks of the mind. Apparitions moving out of the corner of the eye are especially open to skepticism because it’s been proven that objects on a person’s periphery can seem to move when they’re not.

Through paranormal investigation and communication with the souls of the deceased, you can add unwritten pages in history books through the voices that lived it. If you know what they went through emotionally then you’re putting your body and soul on the same historical plane with them. You are calibrating yourself to their time and spiritual energy. By knowing the history you can develop ways to get better evidence. You can think of paranormal investigation as a metal detector and the history is the battery. Without history to power you, finding treasure is nearly impossible.

There’s also the question of money that holds paranormal research back. There is little to no profit in creating a center for paranormal research and only by creating entertainment shows out of investigations can researchers continue to have funds to carry out their work. Until paranormal investigators can demonstrate the practical value of their research to the public they will continue to be on the fringe and not receive real funding to advance the science. Ironically the paranormal was once a wellfunded field with interest from prestigious universities and the federal government. But it was an immature science that still had to find its value, which it is doing now.

Supporting this theory is the Law of Energy Conservation, which states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed in a closed system. According to this law, all energy in the universe has already been made and our physical bodies are merely containers for our own personal energy. If the body is a container of energy, then when it dies its energy is released back into the universe the same way air is released back into the atmosphere when a balloon pops. But does it remain intact with all of its knowledge, experiences, emotions, and identity or does it simply dissipate back into the environment and lose everything that it was? This is a critical question for our field and one of the keys we all seek to unlock.

I say this—after six million years of evolution, is there anything else more in tune with the planet than the human body? We grow muscles to withstand fourteen pounds of air pressure per square inch at sea level. We develop senses to detect changes in wind patterns and know when a storm is approaching. We can hear threatening footsteps approaching and feel the stares of an angry ex-girlfriend as her eyes burn a hole in our back. We have millions of nerve endings in our skin to feel our environment. In short, we evolve. We become more in tune with the world, like birds that use the Earth’s magnetic field to help guide them on their long migration or mammals that can feel winter coming and prepare for hibernation. So when my body tells me there’s a spirit present, I trust it.

When experimentation is complete, researchers are expected to document and share their data and methodology so they are available for careful scrutiny by other scientists. This allows other researchers the chance to verify results by attempting to reproduce them and allows statistical measures of the reliability of these data to be established. This is called “full disclosure” and is an area that the paranormal field is lacking in. Currently there is no repository of paranormal data or body of evidence that researchers can turn to for comparing data. Television shows and websites that document paranormal activity are really our only outlet. The drawback to not having a database is that researchers cannot identify patterns of activity and therefore can’t derive theories or explanations of the paranormal.

For example, it’s widely accepted that paranormal activity increases around areas of high EMF. But why? If we had a database to compare EMF readings of every paranormal investigation, we could identify patterns and when cross-referenced against temperature readings, solar activity, moon phases, proximity to water, and other data, paranormal activity might even be predicted. Now lets add another layer—the surrounding materials of the haunting. It’s widely believed that water and limestone heighten paranormal activity, hence the large number of haunted lighthouses and military forts. Now if we compare our previous data with the number of places built of limestone or in close proximity to water, we can start to form hypotheses to explain the phenomenon. A lack of a central database is hurting the research.

three levels of possession, all of which have their own “cures.” The first level is an infestation. It’s the lowest level and occurs when a demonic entity has made a nest in a building, but has not yet chosen a human body to reside in. Sometimes the demon intends to reside there without disturbing the humans it comes across and sometimes its intent is much more dastardly. The middle level is oppression. This is when a demon has chosen a human host and is trying to destroy its intellect and will. This is sometimes referred to as a transient stage when the demon is not fully in control of the human, but is trying to achieve it. To banish this level of demon, a priest like Bishop Long can perform a minor rite of exorcism. The highest level is full possession. At this point the demonic entity has full control of the human host and requires a solemn rite of exorcism to banish it. A demon can and will bring about death to its human host if it is not banished.

Paranormal investigation has been labeled a pseudoscience and discredited as fantasy by traditional scientists for decades. Most traditional scientists believe that paranormal researchers read crystal balls, hold hands in a circle, or conjure up false spirits through cheap parlor tricks with smoke and mirrors at carnivals for profit. Can you feel the love between the two fields? Traditional science is anything but flawless. At some point in history, science tried to convince us that the world was flat, the world was the center of the universe, and that tobacco was not harmful. It’s not that traditional science is full of idiots, but that their conclusions were based on incomplete information. I feel that both traditional scientists and paranormal investigators seek to find answers to the same questions and can compliment each other through comparative research. There are phenomena in this world that we cannot explain and it doesn’t matter which side of the aisle you’re on—believer or skeptic—we all want the same thing: the truth. I really hope we all can work together to find these answers in the future.

Electromagnetism is the force that causes the interaction of electrically charged particles in our world, which takes place in an electrically charged field. Other than gravity, nothing affects our existence more than electromagnetism. Electric fields, electric currents, generators, motors, batteries, transformers, magnetic fields, magnets, and the magnetosphere that surrounds the Earth are all forms of electromagnetism. It’s the force responsible for holding electrons and protons together in atoms, so it’s a building block for molecules and all life as we know it. If there’s one constant relationship in paranormal research it’s the connection between EMF and spirits, either intelligent or residual. Almost every time paranormal activity happens, there is an increase in EMF, so it’s imperative that we understand how it works with spirits and their energy. The leading theory is that ghosts emit electromagnetic energy and cause spikes in electromagnetic fields (EMF). The common belief is that they gather energy in and send EMF out. So there is a directly proportional relationship between spirits and EMF and a simultaneous inversely proportional relationship between spirits and available energy.

The field of paranormal research has been around for more than 170 years, and it’s always changing. Many tried and true methods of investigation have been replaced by scientific equipment and new ideas,

Footsteps are very common in paranormal investigations, so much so that I expect to hear footsteps above me almost

Nationwide polls tell us that 1 in 3 Americans believe that houses can be haunted.

LIFE IS ABOUT HELPING OTHERS GET THROUGH THE GAME.

All of our evidence about spirits leads us to believe that they are not solid beings. They should be ethereal and resemble smoke more than they do anything tangible. So how can they cast a shadow? How can they block out light if they are gas like entities? Maybe they are really solid apparitions that are mostly invisible to us, like infrared light is undetectable by the human eye. Maybe ghosts are like paper and our infrared light source is the invisible marker that illuminates them.

here is arguably no topic in human history that incites as much contemptuous disbelief and passionate dedication as the existence of life after death. As humans, it is our natural instinct to belittle what we don’t understand, and then follow with statements of derision and ridicule. Even mentioning that ghosts might exist can cause instant damnation and persecution among the religiously devoted and staunchly pragmatic, which causes many people who have had a paranormal experience to remain quiet about it. Maybe that’s the greatest achievement of the dead: they’ve convinced the world that they don’t exist, so the majority of us are either disinterested in proving it otherwise or too convinced in our own beliefs to recognize a new viewpoint. Yet most of us are at least curious to know what happens when we die; some may say that information is even a right of humanity, that if another world exists after our physical bodies die, then it’s our right to know about it.

Second, I want to use our adventures to address leading theories on life after death. Most paranormal investigators only seek to answer one singular question: Do ghosts exist? This approach is too narrowly focused and too shallow. I believe there needs to be a study on the bigger picture. I don’t claim to be a quantum physicist, but I think some of the leading theories of quantum mechanics can help explain the paranormal in terms of natural physical occurrences. Quantum mechanics suggest the paranormal phenomena that we investigate is not only real, but also can be explained as natural processes of the universe. I think the two fields could mutually support each other, so I will take examples from my investigations and use them to explore the possible explanations.

I want you to feel what it’s like to be scared, pushed, cold, sluggish, whispered to, creeped out, and touched by an ethereal being or a demonic spirit. It’s not like trying to pinpoint the cause of a knock in your bathroom in the middle of the night. The feeling is oppressive, heavy, sometimes evil, magnetic, and even addictive. I want you to know what your body goes through when the flight instinct tells you to run and the intense emotional struggle you can go through when you try to ignore it. When you’re already amped up, physically and psychologically, simple noises seem much greater than they are. You don’t just hear them—you feel the shockwave from them as well and have to train yourself to deal with them appropriately. It’s a lifestyle that takes years to adjust to and I want to pass on those emotions and experiences.

many of us are legitimately trying to perform research in the same manner as traditional scientists.

We seek answers through a scientific process of observation, theory, hypothesis, experimentation, and analysis. Traditional scientists seek answers through the known laws of the universe, while people like me seek the same truths by understanding the unknown phenomena around us. We are very alike in our goals, but approach the question from different ends of the spectrum. While I don’t pretend to represent the entire field of paranormal research, I want to be an advocate for its advancement, since the burden of proof has always been on our side of the question (which I don’t necessarily agree with).

that the human body is the best means of paranormal detection.

Many people are taught from an early age that the idea of spirits walking the Earth is impossible, and therefore won’t even entertain the prospect of it, despite the evidence. You might be one of those people; if so, I only ask that you open your mind and realize that there are many forces on Earth that we simply don’t yet understand.

But before you go hiding behind the walls of scientific dogma, let’s remember that science was once convinced that the world was flat and disbelievers were burned at the stake as heretics. Science is continually evolving, and the goal of paranormal investigators should be to augment scientific discovery to better understand the world around us.

Scientific researchers readily admit that they only understand about 25 percent of the world around us, and only about 50 percent of the human brain. That leaves a lot to be discovered and explained, including the paranormal.

disembodied voices usually occur at a frequency lower than normal human ears can detect, so you don’t even know that you’ve captured a spirit voice until you rewind the recorder and listen (recorders can pick up sounds above and below normal hearing range).

hosts get a bad rap. If we believed everything that came out of Hollywood, then ghosts would throw hatchets, push people over cliffs, and possess entire kitchens that just happen to be full of sharp knives. After several years of doing this job, I can verify the exact opposite is true. Sure there are demons and wraiths who seek to harm the living, but there are just as many virtuous, misunderstood spirits with good intentions as there are mischievous and evil ones. Crossing over from the physical realm to the spiritual side does not instantly make someone a bad person (and let’s remember these are still people in a nonphysical form). There are spirits whose desire to help people carries over with them. There are confused spirits who just want answers, and there are child spirits who just want to play.

The prevailing theory in the paranormal community is that a person’s energy remains intact and either moves to a new plane (heaven or hell) or resides in the physical plane with us, which causes what we call a haunting. It is this wandering energy that still knows who it is with which we try to make contact.

When spirits manifest there is almost always a physical change in the world around me. It could be as simple as a flickering light or as severe as a complete drain on my equipment, but in almost every piece of evidence I’ve ever captured, it’s there: an unmistakable transfer of energy from a known source to an unknown receiver.

The source can even be us. Humans store energy. It’s a fact. And because no sighting of a spirit can happen without a human observer present, it’s assumed that ghosts borrow the energy of the living to build strength and make their presence known through sight or sound. It’s why people sometimes feel suddenly lethargic or the hairs on their arms and neck stand up. It’s a physical response to their personal energy being gathered by ghosts and almost always precedes a paranormal encounter.

Higher emotion equals higher energy. When you become angry you sweat, you stammer your words, and your skin gets hot. Now imagine the vortex of emotions when there’s a murder, rape, or traumatic death. All those emotions now become supercharged. It’s like running the RPMs in a race car into the red zone. It doesn’t have to be the last emotions before death either. The extreme loneliness and depression of a broken heart can put your emotions in the red zone also. An inmate at Ohio State Reformatory set himself on fire in his cell. That was a supercharged emotional event like no other. I believe that the atmosphere becomes imprinted with that severe energy and it becomes ripe for residual hauntings. That’s why you hear screams in haunted places from the supercharged emotional state.

It’s important to understand this principle because most paranormal investigations rely on it—in order to manifest itself into sight or sound, a spirit has to pull together all its dissipated energy to make a human form and/or language and many times has to borrow energy from another source to complete the process

Child hauntings are challenging because they can be a couple of different things. They can either be haunting in the traditional sense or a demon trying to use the sounds of children to confuse us. When you hear about a child haunting, it almost always involves laughter, which evil entities are very good at mocking. I think it’s possible that darker, bullying spirits uses child spirits like bait. But it is also possible that there could be a building with a demon and no child spirits at all. I’ve investigated buildings that echoed of laughter, but had no reported history of kids living or dying in them, which leads me to believe that there aren’t really kids in there.

That’s the philosophy behind trigger objects. The ball at the Houghton Mansion was an inanimate trigger object. It’s a simple tool that can be used to elicit paranormal activity through the emotional attachment that the spirit had to the object.

We need to stop pointing fingers at each other and have a dialogue, because we all seek answers to the same questions. I’ve

An intelligent haunting is just as it sounds—a spirit who is aware of its surroundings and (usually) its situation. Sometimes a spirit knows that it’s dead and its spirit has remained in the physical plane, but other times it doesn’t know. An intelligent haunting is a spirit that maintains its identity, memories, and personality after death. They can be good, bad, virtuous, benevolent, mischievous, evil, or just lonely.

Jim’s situation underscores a basic question in paranormal science—does a person have to know he or she is dead to move on? If a person dies so suddenly that he never saw it coming and therefore doesn’t know he’s dead, does his spirit wander the Earth in limbo until he comes to the realization that he’s no longer among the living? This is a prevailing belief among paranormal investigators.

Do the spirits from both time frames all reside in the same plane or do they exist in different planes where they can’t see each other? Does a separation of time of death mean a separation on the other side or are they all wandering about the house like old friends?

But in fact, some of our leading scholars on the subject say time is infinite and does not travel in a straight line. Like many things in nature, it wanders and branches out in several directions and maybe even double-backs on itself. There’s almost nothing in nature that is perfectly straight. Trees grow upward in every direction to absorb light and rivers flow downhill following the path of least resistance. Quantum physics says time is the same. There are several theories that suggest time either branches out in several directions at once or flows like a river, wandering throughout the universe. If we accept this “river theory” of time, then it’s possible that time can double-back on itself and create an isolated pocket where the present and the past are in close contact, much like a salient point on a river. It’s possible that today and a certain day in 1873 are separated by a thin layer of time and space, so we can find a hotspot where we can see and hear the past playing itself over and over again. This could explain residual hauntings, and it’s why I think paranormal investigators and quantum physicists seek answers to the same questions.

While I am convinced that ghosts wander among the living, I don’t want to close off the possibilities that their existence is due to a law of nature that we simply don’t understand yet. I think paranormal activity could be the evidence quantum physics needs to prove their theories and in turn their theories could help prove spirits exist and an afterlife waits for all of us. Of course both fields have huge obstacles to overcome, especially in the way of tangible evidence, but together we may be able to solve some of the mysteries of the universe.

there’s another possible explanation that requires you to open your mind and take the parking break off your perception of the things you think you understand, like time and space. It’s called quantum mechanics. It’s a fascinating science that’s similar to ours in the need to accept new laws of physics, yet quantum mechanics is an accepted field of study while ours remains muddled in disbelief. I am by no means a quantum physicist, but I believe that some of their theories and research provide possible explanations of paranormal activity as natural processes.

The multiverse is a hypothetical set of multiple possible universes that together comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, and energy as well as the physical laws and constants that describe them. Multiverses might sound like something from a comic book (and I’ve read a lot of them) but the theory has gained traction in cosmology, physics, astronomy, philosophy, psychology, and fiction. They are referred to as “alternative universes,” “quantum universes,” and “parallel dimensions.” It’s basically a model that predicts that we are just one of an infinite number of worlds, all of which have copies of ourselves going about their lives in a nearly identical pattern to our own.

Proof of the existence of parallel dimensions can be found in physics and cosmology. We know there are stars with enough mass to collapse in on themselves, forming what we call black holes. Within a black hole, it’s theorized that there is a point called a “singularity” where all physical laws may cease to exist. Time, space, gravity, electromagnetism, and light become unpredictable and one or all of these forces may not even be present. Without one or more of these basic forces, a new dimension forms that does not conform to the laws of physics as we know them. It’s a parallel universe. When looked at this way, the possibility that we are just one of an infinite number of parallel universes is feasible.

The puzzle of whether or not information can be destroyed has a huge impact on the paranormal because if the traditional physicists are correct, then your soul does not vanish when you die, but instead becomes a part of the universe. That also leaves the door open for the possibility of pulling the elements of the soul back together briefly, which is what we call a manifestation.

Does time travel in a straight line? Most of us say yes, but there are some who say that time is not at all a straight line. Many quantum physicists agree that time is not linear and is actually a three-dimensional force that wanders and meanders around the universe following a pattern that we have not figured out yet. We classify time as a straight line because that’s the only way our brains can comprehend it, but think about this— do you see any straight lines in nature? Rivers flow down the path of least resistance and trees grow in various directions to maximize their exposure to sunlight. Time could be the same. Einstein theorized that time is another dimension, woven together with space to form a fabric that is distorted by matter, which makes it anything but a straight line.

How does this affect the paranormal? I believe these windows are where we find residual hauntings. We think of residual hauntings as a loop of the same event in time happening over and over again like a broken record. It could be that these are spots on the time-space continuum where time flows from a defined source and overlaps the stationary moment. The basement of the Birdcage Theater is a good example. Thousands of people have reported hearing the same poker game playing out in the basement of the theater. It could be that this is really a “hotspot” in the flow of time where the fabric of space and time is very weak between the past and present.

The point here is that time is relative to the situation and the observer. It may be constant to an unbiased timepiece, but to those of us with brains, it’s a flexible, constantly altering force of the universe and may be one of the reasons we experience residual hauntings.

Attachment theory is the belief that a spirit becomes attracted in some way to a living human and begins to coexist with (or even within) that person. It is believed these spirits find something comforting about someone and attach themselves to the person. Living people who share a building with the spirit of a deceased person can develop a relationship, and the spirit becomes intertwined in the life of the living.

I don’t want to think the spirit world is so dark and confusing that ghosts need to anchor themselves to me or anyone else to in order to have hope. I don’t want to think that the living is their beacon of light and that’s why they can’t let go of us. I believe instead that the spirits who attach themselves to the living are just confused and unaware of their surroundings and want someone to tell them what’s going on.

So are those of us who believe in the paranormal really the minority? A 2005 Gallup poll revealed that about three in four Americans claim at least one paranormal belief. The most popular belief is in extrasensory perception (41 percent) followed closely by belief in haunted houses (37 percent). Thirty-two percent believe that ghosts and/or the spirits of the dead can come back in certain places. When it comes to haunted houses, another 16 percent are unsure, bringing the total to 53 percent of Americans who either believe in ghosts or are unsure. That means those who do not believe (47 percent) are actually the minority. A special analysis of the data shows that even more Americans (73 percent) believe in at least one of ten listed paranormal activities. We also have to remember that we’re talking about forces no one understands just yet. If we have to prove to a group of experts that we are right, then what makes them qualified to say that we’re wrong? How is a traditional chemist, biologist, or physicist qualified to say that there is no life after death? Have any of those disciplines proven that there is not? This is something the paranormal community will certainly struggle with for a long time.

Another paranormal theory is that energy left behind by a living person leaves an imprint on the universe the same way a paintbrush stroke leaves a mark on a canvas. We are all made of energy. We’ve established that. Now let’s take it a step further and ask, “what it’s the universe made of?” Imprint Theory states that everything in the universe is stored on a repository field the same way a computer chip stores data. This field is the very fabric of the universe and everything, including you and I, make an imprint of our energy on that field. As you read this book, you’re making an imprint on the field. Therefore when a person encounters an apparition, he or she is actually getting a glimpse of that person on the field from another time. So the receiver of the paranormal energy is accessing another level of reality.

I believe supercharged emotions have some sort of reaction with the universe that everyday life does not. We know that fear causes a release of adrenaline and gives the body the energy and strength it needs to overcome seemingly impossible obstacles (if you’re into comic books—remember Dr. Bruce Banner and his work to release the body’s inner strength that resulted in him becoming the Incredible Hulk?). When the human body is in peril and is afraid for its own survival, it becomes flooded with emotions that can leave a lasting impression on the very fabric of space and time. These emotional hotpots could validate imprint theory and be the places where paranormal activity occurs.

Stone tape theory is almost the same as imprint theory. It says that certain natural materials can act like tape recordings and store the energies of the living. According to this theory, an event, usually one that involves a great deal of emotion, can somehow be captured in the stonework surrounding it and then replay like a tape recording in the future. The circumstances of release are usually inconsistent, meaning the stone lets go of the event at certain times and to certain people

The energy from that event is stored and released at any given moment, resulting in a playback just like a tape recording. The spirit usually acts out the event with no regard to the living in its presence. It’s similar to imprint theory in that it explains residual hauntings, but differs in the material that stores the energy. Imprint theory states our energies are stored on the fabric of the universe, which is composed of time and space by a process that we have yet to figure out. Stone tape theory states that certain types of rock store the energy of significant emotional and traumatic events inside them.

It could be that it’s not the stone itself, but the water molecules inside the stone that record and store the energies of the living. Some research has shown that ordinary water molecules may be able to store memories and may even be able to pass on those memories to other water molecules. Water is a building block of life that has been shown to store the properties of other materials imprinted on it. Some homeopathic medicines under extreme agitation have been shown to “remember” the properties of other chemicals even after those chemicals have been removed from the water (look up the work of immunologist Professor Jacques Benveniste). The theory here is that extreme emotional events can imprint themselves on nearby water molecules and then be released as the water evaporates. But if that were true then why would the memory stay for decades and even centuries after the event? The answer (theoretically) is that the original molecules continually pass their imprinted memories to neighboring molecules. With each copy the memory becomes less clear and distinct the same way copying a videotape makes each copy fade. The water may also evaporate completely, which would cause the imprinted memories to disappear as well.

There might some truth to this, since ghosts fade over time. There are few, if any, spirits that can be attributed to cavemen or ancient civilizations like Rome or Greece. In fact, it’s difficult to find any spirits that can be attributed to a living person more than five hundred years old. So why do they fade away? Could it be that the water in the building that they occupy is evaporating slowly and taking their memory with it? If this is true, then maybe bodies of water (rivers, lakes, or moats) are storing the residual energy of the living as well. We know that EMF increases around water, so with a dedicated study, we may be able to show that the top 500 most haunted places in the world are on or near a body of water and therefore have a relationship to paranormal activity.

Do people mistake natural weather phenomena as paranormal activity? On the other hand, can certain weather conditions actually increase spiritual activity? There are some who say rain, wind, relative humidity, temperature, barometric pressure, solar activity, infrasound, seismic activity, the geomagnetic field, and the phases of the moon can be mistaken for ghost activity. I think this happens sometimes, but I also believe that the right weather conditions can unlock paranormal activity and actually help make it happen. British lecturer Vic Tandy’s experience with infrasound is a great case study on the effects of weather and the paranormal and is something every investigator should know.

Infrasound is sound that is lower than the normal limit of human hearing, usually quantified at 20 hertz or cycles per second. Infrasound sometimes results naturally from severe weather, surf, lee waves, avalanches, earthquakes, volcanoes, waterfalls, auroras, and lightning. It’s believed that animals can detect infrasound and it is the reason they flee when severe weather, like a tsunami, is approaching. So Vic Tandy saw a ghost in his lab and attributed it to infrasound playing tricks on his mind.

Instead of infrasound tricking the mind, I think it’s possible for infrasound to make the spirit that is already there visible. I think it’s possible that the presence of infrasound did not create a false apparition, but actually made it possible for one to be seen. I think there are spirits that can only be seen, heard, or felt under certain atmospheric conditions, and the presence of infrasound is one of those conditions. Just like infrared light can illuminate a spirit in the dark and give us a way to see something we normally would not, so can infrasound.

Infrasound and resonance may play an even bigger role in the paranormal than EMF because everything vibrates, all the way down to the subatomic level, and everything has its own signature resonant frequencies. We are ultra sensitive to shifts and changes in not only our own natural resonant frequencies, but also those in our immediate environment. How many times have you gotten a “good vibe” off of someone you share things in common with? Solar activity, geomagnetic storms, and the phases of the moon also affect ghost activity. We know that spirits needs energy to manifest, so it would stand to reason that when the air is charged with electricity (like after a lightning storm or during a solar flare) they have more opportunity to gather strength to be seen or heard.

Why are there spirits who want to harm the living? Why do they want to cause us pain and suffering? Why are there spirits who seek to drive us crazy with malicious, taunting behavior? The answers to these questions have huge implications on the paranormal because proving that these evil entities exist shows that our identities cross over with us after death. If a person was a bully who took sick pleasure in hurting others in life and continues to do so in death, then that shows intelligence and personality exists in the afterlife.

It also provides a glimpse into the plane they exist in, because it shows that emotion and intent are trapped with them between this world and the next.

Possession by a spiritual being, either human or animal, is something almost every religion has accepted for centuries. Roman Catholic doctrine states that angels are non-corporeal beings, purely spiritual creatures that have intelligence and will.