canucks since 77 Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 and Space Ghost believes in you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GodzillaDeuce Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 I miss his talk show. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
butters Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 Also with Ghost Adventures, the flying brick that they captured is one of the most authentic piece of paranormal evidence so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter56 Posted October 25, 2012 Author Share Posted October 25, 2012 If so, that really doesn't bode well for the existence of ghosts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
butters Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 It has been analyze by video experts and they found nothing that would've proven it's been tampered with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghostsof1915 Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 Space Ghost was actually entertaining even before his talk show... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeyJoeJoeJr. Shabadoo Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 In terms of paranormal investigators, they try to actually debunk a lot of noises and odd sights before they'll say that something is unexplainable/paranormal. Also with Ghost Adventures, the flying brick that they captured is one of the most authentic piece of paranormal evidence so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Ambien Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 If so, that really doesn't bode well for the existence of ghosts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter56 Posted October 25, 2012 Author Share Posted October 25, 2012 I guess that makes it bulletproof. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
butters Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 I see where you're getting at. Yes there isn't a way to know 100% for sure if it is real or fake. Has there been many that have been fake? Yeah noones denying that, but there are some that appear to be very legit. The only way to truly know is if you have a personal experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
avelanch Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 That's the thing, countless of examples of fakes. And yet when you come across one that fools you, you think that means that it is real. How many videos of bears have proved to be fake? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GodzillaDeuce Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter56 Posted October 25, 2012 Author Share Posted October 25, 2012 That's the thing, countless of examples of fakes. And yet when you come across one that fools you, you think that means that it is real. How many videos of bears have proved to be fake? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Humble Rodent Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 If there are no ghosts then there are also no ghostbusters and that is a reality I refuse to live in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
butters Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 Just because many have been fake doesn't mean all of them are though. There's more evidence than the flying brick that are just as authentic. Though it is all pretty pointless lol; no offense I respect your opinion, but there's no convincing a skeptic just by looking at vids and whatnot. There could be a ghost doing gangnam style right in front of a camera and they still won't be convinced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unknown33429 Posted October 25, 2012 Share Posted October 25, 2012 The problem is people trust their visual sense wayyy too much. Remember, what you see is not what is actually there, but you're perception of what is there. The 2 can be very different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter56 Posted October 26, 2012 Author Share Posted October 26, 2012 Ya, if a ghost was doing gangnam style it would most certainly be a fake. Here is a picture of Santa Clause that hasn't been doctored: That must mean he's not a fake. Prove me wrong! If you found (for example) that he was a model paid to dress up as Santa Clause I will then post a different photo of Santa Clause. We can repeat that process. Once I have done it a few hundred times, I can start saying that with so many santa photos, surely one of them is real. If you get tired of debunking my Santa photos, that will be the photo that is the real Santa photo and we will have proved his existence. Go! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-Vintage Canuck- Posted October 26, 2012 Share Posted October 26, 2012 Yes, I believe in ghosts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
butters Posted October 26, 2012 Share Posted October 26, 2012 Hey hey hey, lets not bring Ol' Saint Nick into this. How about instead of trying to prove skeptics that ghosts DO exist -- which is always the case. How about the skeptics show absolute concrete evidence that ghosts DON'T exist. That should be good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WHL rocks Posted October 26, 2012 Share Posted October 26, 2012 http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/25/14701243-sleuth-finds-the-truth-in-ghost-stories?lite Paranormal investigator Joe Nickell has busted a lot of ghostly myths over the past 40 years — but the spookiest part of his job comes when he actually catches a ghost red-handed. No, we're not talking about spirits of the dead: These "ghosts" are hotel clerks who flick the lights to keep the guests talking about the place's ghost story, or a mischievous child who plays tricks on his parents. Or maybe a camera crew catching weird-looking "orbs" floating through the frame — orbs they didn't notice until they looked at the pictures later. "Much of what so-called ghost hunters are detecting is themselves," Nickell, the author of "The Science of Ghosts," told me this week. "If they go through a haunted house and stir up a lot of dust, they shouldn't be surprised if they get a lot of orbs in their photographs." The orbs are actually out-of-focus reflections from a camera flash, created by dust particles floating in front of the lens. The clumping noises that ghost hunters hear often turn out to be the footsteps of crew members elsewhere in the building, or even someone on a stairway next door. And those weird readings they pick up with thermal imagers? They're typically left behind by the flesh-and-blood visitors. A tough job Tracking down the truth behind spooky sightings is a tough job, but somebody's got to do it, Nickell said. "It takes only a moment for someone to say that they saw something," he said, "but it can take a huge expenditure for someone to fly somewhere, and they might never re-create that one little moment." Joe Nickell Paranormal investigator Joe Nickell appears to be surrounded by an aura in a photograph that was created to duplicate a spooky effect. Nickell, a former professional magician and detective, has been that someone for Skeptical Inquirer magazine and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry since the 1970s. "I've been in more haunted houses than Casper," he joked. And the truth is that there are worse jobs in the world. "I wouldn't want anyone ever to know this, but it really is a great deal of fun to do what I do," Nickell said. In "The Science of Ghosts," Nickell spins a series of tales about his worldwide travels. His first haunted-house investigation, in 1972, took place at Toronto's Mackenzie House, where residents reported seeing apparitions hovering over their bed, and hearing footsteps when no one else was in the house. Nickell ascribed the apparitions to "waking dreams," a phenomenon that leads people to see things when they're half-asleep or in an idle reverie. And as for those footsteps: Nickell found out that there was an iron staircase in the building next door. The strange sounds were traced to a late-night cleanup crew tromping up and down those stairs. Nickell learned a lot from that first case. "You must go on site, and you must investigate just like any other piece of detective work," Nickell said. "You can treat the house as a sort of crime scene." Other cases involved spirit photographs, such as the ones that show orbs or bright streaks. One family called Nickell in to explain a series of pictures that showed bright, hazy loops of energy in the foreground. Nickell eventually figured out that the loops were created when a flash bounced off a camera strap dangling in front of the lens. "Now we know about the camera-strap effect," Nickell said. Taking on TV psychics Nickell also takes on psychic mediums who claim to speak with the dead. In the book, he traces his encounters with TV-show medium John Edward, who uses so-called "cold reading" techniques to draw information out of a crowd. (For example, "I feel like someone with a J- or G-sounding name has recently passed. ...") "The people who profess to be able to talk to the dead tend to be either fantasy-prone personalities, or charlatans, or possibly a bit of both," Nickell declared. "They would be harmless if they didn't mislead so many people." Nickell totally understands why a belief in ghosts and the afterlife is so important to people. "If ghosts exist, then we don't really die, and that's huge. ... It appeals to our hearts," he said. "We don't want our loved ones to die. We have this whole culture that we're brought up with, that encourages this belief in ghosts." Once a ghost story gets attached to a place or a situation, then almost anything that happens can be interpreted as supporting that story, he said. That's one reason why ghostbusting can be a thankless job. Another reason is that it's so hard to wrap your arms around the evidence — or, more appropriately, the lack thereof. "No one is bringing you a ghost trapped in a bottle," Nickell said. "What they're offering is, 'I don't know.' Over and over, they're saying something like this: 'We don't know what the noise in the old house was, or the white shape in the photo. So it must be a ghost.' These are examples of what's called an argument from ignorance. You can't make an argument from a lack of knowledge. You can't say, 'I don't know, therefore I do know.'... If I could just teach people a little bit about the argument from ignorance, I think we could give the ghosts their long-needed rest." Do you agree? Or do you have some truly spooky ghost stories to share for the Halloween season? Whether you're a believer or a skeptic, feel free to share your tale as a comment below. Follow @CosmicLog Extra credit: Even as Nickell and I were having our conversation this week, word was getting out about the death of skeptical thinker Paul Kurtz at the age of 86. Kurtz was the founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, the Council for Secular Humanism, the Center for Inquiry, Prometheus Books and Skeptical Inquirer. He was also Nickell's mentor. "Paul really gave me an office to work out of, and he just let me work," Nickell said. "I think of him as the father of the worldwide skeptic movement." Nickell noted that some skeptics think there's no need to respond to claims they consider silly. But Kurtz took a different view. "He realized early on that there really needed to be a voice to respond," Nickell said. And that's what made Nickell what he is today: the world's longest-running full-time professional paranormal investigator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.