Skeptical Analysis of the Paranormal Society

"Le doute n'est pas une condition agréable, mais la certitude est absurde."

—Voltaire

Is it a Ghost?

A Skeptic Reviews Paranormal Footage

The "Is it a Ghost?" presentation focused mainly on confronting evidence despite what we want to believe - whether we are skeptics or believers already. I asked the participating audience to push aside their own bias (no matter what it was) and join me to watch three different clips of 'paranormal' footage.

The biggest stumbling block for ghosts (should they happen to exist) is their unfortunate sentience. If ghosts exist, and they are sentient, then they can choose to appear whenever they feel like - and not when they don't. Unless there are actual Ghostbusters with their unlicensed nuclear accelerators and ghost traps, the best evidence anyone can possibly get for ghosts is video.

I'm not saying that video is good evidence. It isn't. It's actually really terrible evidence, and so many factors go into its creation that it would be practically impossible to ever definitively say, from watching a video, "THAT'S A GHOST!"

The ones who do say they've definitely caught ghosts on video are usually just validating their own beliefs. To hunt for ghosts you must believe in ghosts (otherwise what's the point?), so when you get a piece of paranormal footage, it's from individuals who have picked up exactly what they were looking for.

That means skepticism is usually an afterthought, and the moment we are just using our experiences to confirm our own bias, we have stopped searching for answers.

I'm going to say something weird now, and you may or may not agree.

Ghost hunters are close-minded. Not skeptics.

True skeptics just want evidence - good or bad, they'll review it, just like SAPS does. I never receive a piece of footage and say "Pfft, I won't even bother! This is stupid."

But there are ghost hunters who will say "This is proof of the paranormal."

Remember: Nothing is proof until you drag a ghost into a lab, or test a paranormal phenomenon and show that it's true. Supernatural? Maybe. A better description would just be 'interesting' or 'neat'.

I'd like to bring you into the presentation with me. Here, take my hand while we travel whimsically through a tapestry of magic... too much? Alright, then. You skeptics over there, watch these videos believing that they may actually be of ghosts.

And you believers over there? Watch these with your skeptical hat on. Consider that they might all be fakes, frauds, phoneys, mistakes, and so on.

The first video of the presentation is "The Baby and the Ghost" and is being used courtesy of the James Randi Educational Foundation.

The video will play once at full-speed and once at half-speed. Is that baby watching a ghost fly by?

Now, a lot of the audience members for this presentation asked if the person who submitted this footage to the JREF really thought it was paranormal. Yes, yes they did. If you're a skeptic, you're doing an AWFUL job of believing all these might be ghosts!

When you believe in ghosts, and you see something odd on a piece of footage that you can't immediately explain, it's very easy to use it to confirm what you already believe about the world. If there are ghosts and it is possible to catch ghosts on film, then the answer is that you've caught ghosts on film.

Now, I know the believers who are visiting are probably throwing a fit right now. I don't mean to say that all believers would look at this and say "Ghost." They wouldn't. Another major stumbling block between the skeptics and believers is the willingness of both groups to roll their eyes and say "What a moron."

I do find it difficult to completely disregard the hundreds of thousands of people who say that in their lifetime they have seen ghosts. I don't believe they are all misguided and stupid. What I do believe is that, so far, there is no proof of ghosts. There is evidence out the wazoo, though, and a lot of it is bad evidence.

The audience at the presentation was invited to submit possible explanations for The Baby and the Ghost footage. Members immediately came up with the same conclusion I had - bugs.

But I'm not willing to just sit back and look at the footage and say "Well, it looks like _________ to me."

I wanted to see what actual bugs looked like in nightshot.

There I was, wandering the streets of Texas in the dead of night, camcorder in hand, trying to find and film bugs. These are the lengths I go to for you.

Unfortunately, there were no bugs here! How ridiculous, right? So, for the believers who think skeptics don't take them seriously, I would like to point out that because of this piece of footage which isn't even that convincing to most believers, there were two skeptics wandering around in the dead of night with camcorders desperate to get a great shot of flying bugs. Thanks to Jeff, for stalking bugs.

They do look extraordinarily similar. I would even venture to say that Jeff's bugs are spookier than the 'ghost' in the other footage.

If you didn't already believe the paranormal footage, you might be sitting back, totally bored, wondering why you're continuing. Well, here's the thing - a piece of footage can look like the least paranormal thing you've ever personally seen in your life on this planet.

That doesn't mean it is.

No, I can't prove that the orb in the original piece of footage was a bug. I can't prove anything. I can only say that they look extraordinarily similar - so similar that I do not believe The Baby and the Ghost is actually a ghost. I can't say that it's not, but I can look at the video skeptically and give my best guess.

Which leads us to another problem...

The following footage was posted to Youtube last year, where it had 3,500,000 views and was touted as the most convincing evidence of the paranormal known to date. I've chopped the footage down significantly. In the film so far, a couple and their friend (who has a video camera) are driving around looking for a party in Portugal when they stop to pick up a hitch-hiker.

That is one seriously creepy video. I know I'm frightened.

The first thing you might notice is the video's similarity to an urban legend known as "The Vanishing Hitch-hiker."

The Vanishing Hitchhiker

Which leads those amongst us who are skeptical to doubt its credibility. However, the fact that it's a cliched ghost story with a twist doesn't mean anything. Ghosts might be trite. Without knowing anything about them, we cannot say.

The original video, when it was uploaded to Youtube, was not subtitled. This meant that any cues available to reveal its authenticity (or not) were lost. For nearly a year, this video was marketed as the truth. There was no real way to check up on it, which is why it's so excellent that the filmmaker decided to come forward.

The Ghost Girl of Sintra video is a FAKE!

The video was a short film. A fictional short film. With a director and a writer and an actress (the hitch-hiker) who had even been in other things. So why was it believed?

Again, people who want to believe in ghosts see footage that is supposedly of 'real' ghosts as confirmation of their beliefs. Why look any further if what you know to be true has just been proven? There's no sense in that.

The number of people who believed fully in this video is evidence of what confirmation bias can do, even when we think we're out searching for 'truth.'

I know the believers who are reading this are starting to get irritated at the awful examples I'm giving, but I swear to you, there is a point to it that I hope you'll understand before we're done. I am not saying your paranormal experience is a load of codswallop. Honestly.

The next video was sent to me by a group of Australian ghost hunters who were investigating Pinjarra Cemetery. The figure in this video is very hard to see, so it plays once in regular time and once at quarter speed.

Have a look:

Skeptics, I can sense you out there shaking your heads, muttering, "That could be anything!"

Well yes, it could. You may even say extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Well, in this case, we have evidence. Whether it's extraordinary or not depends upon a closer examination of what's there.

According to the ghost hunters who were on the scene, between the time the man called out to his friends to come look at the possibly supernatural thing he was seeing through the camera (which turned out to be streetlights off in the distance), and the end of the clip, no one passed in between the camera and the place they were shooting.

There were four ghost hunters there that night, and we can hear them on the audio throughout the clip - four distinct voices.

When the figure in the video departs at top speed, we don't hear any footsteps even though the camera is in range of the ghost hunters' speaking voices, and we can hear their footsteps on the gravel.

So is it really a person at all?

Here's a still of the figure:

Still of figure

By freeze-framing the video and cleaning it up a bit, I was able to pull out this figure:

Cleaned still of figure

A very blurry, apparently human figure. You can argue with me about whether or not it's human, if you like. I can say this - it walks like a human (though extremely quickly), turns like a human, and appears to be wearing clothes. There's a time when skepticism morphs into cynicism and I know the video quality is bad, but I've played with this footage for what must be hours now (and you're free to too) and I am convinced we are looking at a human.

People in the audience at Dragon*Con asked if the image could actually be someone's hand passing in front of the lens. My best answer is "I don't think so, unless the person was wearing finger puppets."

I assumed, as you might, that this image could have been a reflection off of a nearby headstone of the cameraman himself, so I set about trying to re-create the effect with a Sony camcorder with nightshot. I took video in front of mirrors, the television set, glossy countertops, etc. and I never could get a reflection. If I got a reflection at all, it was because I was facing the reflective surface full-on, and then the glare off of me was such that you could either not see me at all, or that you could identify me immediately. I never found an in-between.

But it was still possible. If there were reflective surfaces around at the cemetery, it would be worth looking into further.

I asked for more video from the Australian ghost hunters to test out this idea. They very kindly sent me video of Pinjarra Cemetery during the day.

The video starts off facing a large headstone with a cross on it. This is where the ghost hunters were standing when they filmed the figure. The cameraman was pointing out toward the street, and we can even see the phantom streetlights from the paranormal version.

There is nothing reflective in the field between the cameraman's position and the street.

I wasn't content, though. Surely if it had recently rained or if there was fog, it could provide a surface that created weird camera effects with nightshot. Surely.

Cleaned still of figure

According to the investigation report the ghost hunters filled out the night they investigated Pinjarra Cemetery, the weather was dry and warm with no wind.

So where did that figure come from?

Convinced that it must look different at night from in the day, I also requested a still shot of the exact spot the cameraman was shooting at night.

Pinjarra Cemetery

So what is that figure?

Honestly, I don't know. I invited everyone who attended the presentation to let me know what they thought.

No matter what, it won't be proof that ghosts exist because there is nothing to say that the figure was a ghost any more than it was an alien or a fairy. But is it something weird? Sure! And so far it's unexplained.

The video quality, as is the norm with paranormal footage, is terrible. It's impossible to tell anything about the surrounding area except that it's the figure that is moving. The streetlights are in a fixed position. The cameraman moves the camera, but the streetlights stay where they are.

If you agree that the image is a human figure, but are totally against it being a ghost, you might say one of the ghost hunters stepped into the camera's field.

All I can say is - if they did, they were moving incredibly fast.

I absolutely do not think that this footage is an intentional hoax. I might be wrong. I might be putting too much faith in people. But all I have ever gotten from this ghost hunting group is interest in hearing a skeptical opinion. They did not ask for money or fame or anything of the sort. Maybe they just wanted to pull the wool over my eyes. If so, they went to an awful lot of effort, and I applaud them for their creativity.

Whether or not this is proof of ghosts to you personally depends entirely upon where you're coming from. Do you want to believe? Well, this might put you over the edge. Believers who see this will just nod, and say, well of course ghosts exist. Skeptics amongst us will insist that it's just a camera trick.

I don't know. I may never know. I think I can accept that.

Skeptics aren't out to spoil your fun. They just want to be shown. They want to believe in things that are real, that have good evidence, that put the universe in perspective.

Is it a ghost? Well, maybe sometimes it is. I've never seen a ghost, so I can't say. I don't believe in ghosts. I just don't disbelieve in them, either.

— Alison

P.S. If you want to see me getting all fluttery and mildly terrified during the presentation, well, I have just the thing for you:

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