This is a question asked by millions of people by now, as The Ghost Adventures crew and Zak Bagans have soared to popularity. Since their first independent documentary in which Zak Bagans, Nick Groff and Aaron Goodwin set out on a quest to prove the existence of ghosts, the three friends have been talked and chattered about globally. This chatter was taking place within the paranormal community and by people who had never even had an interest in ghosts..Until they saw Ghost Adventures.
It wasn't long until the Ghost Hunting team had their own show, which first aired on October 17, 2008. And was practically an instant hit. But the question left lingering in peoples minds was "Is Ghost Adventures Real?"
The best way to investigate this frequently asked question is to first take a look at Bagans himself, which is the producer and narrator of the show "Ghost Adventures". Zak Bagans has stated in various interviews that he was once a skeptic, who had never believed in ghosts. It wasn't until he had his own encounter with a ghost that Haunted his apartment building he lived in that he became a real believer. The details about Zak Bagan's experience that changed his life and set him on a quest to capture evidence of ghosts are few, but Bagans believes that it was the ghost of a woman who had committed suicide in his apartment building. Now years later, Bagans, Groff and Goodwin are three of the most talked about and popular people in the Paranormal world. It does help to know that Bagans was a skeptic for most of life until "the experience"
The Ghost Adventures Crew is known for it's no hold's barred approach to Ghost Hunting. Zak Bagans has used the word "emotional" to describe their methods of investigating. Bagans is often seen taunting what he believes to be evil spirits or ghosts. Unfortunately for Bagans, the spirits have taunted back. On the bright side.. It was all caught on film numerous times. But Is Ghost Adventures Real?
In an interview with CinemaSuicide.com, when asked if the Ghost Adventures footage was available for analysis by independent researchers, Zak Bagans stated " Actually that's why we feature various independent experts to analyze our footage in all our documentaries/ shows to get as close as we can to validating it for the public." So chances are that Bagans and The Ghost Adventures Crew won't be handing over their crown jewels of paranormal evidence anytime soon to the general public. However, Zak also made it clear in the very same interview that when filming his documentary, it took three years and countless hundreds of hours of filming and investigating just to get the evidence for the "Ghost Adventures" documentary.
This is something that we as viewers of paranormal television often forget. The investigations that we see took a lot longer than the 30 minute or one hour shows (including commercials) that we see. Often paranormal investigators leave haunted locations with nothing. It's trial and error, hit and miss for most Ghost Hunters. So the fact that there are many pieces of ghostly and paranormal footage obtained by The Ghost Adventures Crew does not make it fake or any less Real..It just means that they could have spent many hours in a quest to obtain it. Which they did..And still do.
Let's face it. All paranormal investigation shows are "spruced" up by Hollywood in the name of ratings and entertainment. But the footage by Ghost Adventures may very well be real. It's just presented in a more shocking and disturbing way for obvious reasons. Bagans, Groff, Goodwin and even our friends over at T.A.P.S. are all normal people who loved and were fascinated with Ghosts and the Paranormal long before we knew who they were. They were for the most part..Regular people like you and I.
So what if they allow Syfy or the Travel Channel to spruce up or creatively edit footage before airing. Do they even have a choice? Would you be okay with a few stretches of the truth as long as fans were happy and you got to do what you loved to do..And get paid well for it? Something to ponder. So Is Ghost Adventures Real? Only the ones sitting in those dark places with cameras and equipment know that. But I for one..Believe.
First step in any new hobby or job is to learn the theory. And one of first steps in learning theory regarding paranormal investigations is the need to learn about the types of phenomena we might encounter during our investigations. I would like to focus on ghosts - there are different types of phenomenon we're usually calling "ghosts" - each person interested in paranormal should know these types no matter if he or she is investigating paranormal activities, or just focusing on theory as pure hobby.
RECORDS (RESIDUAL ENERGIES)
Sometimes you might encounter Records - a phenomena when you will experience an event from the past, appearing like a recorded 3D movie. Witnesses have encounter a wide range of such Records, starting from single shadow moving across the room, ending on whole armies on the battlefield. If we would like to explain this phenomenon, we could think about psionic signatures - they have custom to left on different objects or in different places such as house or chair...
Intelligent Haunting
This is a spirit of a person that died yet stick in our physical world. These ghosts might hang around flats or houses, or even big castles and streets and they are trapped in our world. Paranormal investigator's job is to identify the problem and help the spirit "move into the light", as psychics use to say.
Stick Ghosts
Stick to what, you will ask - stick to objects, such as urns or favourite chairs etc. Such ghosts appear to move from one location to another along with the object they're stick to (of course object is moved by those who still lives, not on its own).
Bi-locations
Two persons in the same place - its a well know phenomena between people studding lives of saints. Sometimes person don't know he or she is present in two different places in the same time, sometimes bi-location might be caused unintentionally as a result of stress or fear, sometimes intentionally (Remote Presence, a psychic skill).
Ghosts of pass
When a person is passing from our world to the "other side", sometimes a spirit of this person is paying a visit to its relatives or friends - at least some people believes this is happening.
Poltergeist
I belong to a group of people who strongly believe that 98% of poltergeist activity is not ghosts, but uncontrolled psychokinesis and it's caused by living people. Even so, there is still this 2% of activities that we can't explain by psychokinesis, so we have to assume there are some spirit stuff included. Poltergeist is nothing more than objects moving on their own - flying, falling etc. If you can't find natural explanation of such phenomena, then it might be caused by person causing psychokinesis effects, or by a ghost manifestation.
Orbs
Some people says Orbs are first steps of ghost manifestation - but mostly probably orbs will be nothing more than a specks of dust or drops of different kind - so if you were able to take a picture of orb, treat it as natural phenomena, not as proof of paranormal activity. But if you're seeing orbs on real, and they're glowing and flying around, then it's definitely not a speck or drop.
Pseudo-Fakes
I'm using this term to describe situations in which people are faking stuff in order to please investigator, but there is something paranormal going on indeed. Sometimes activity might stop when investigator arrives on site, and witnesses don't want to look like fools so they're trying to fake activity - that's why even when you're suspecting a fake, you should keep your mind open as maybe something is happening on real.
Fakes
World isn't perfect - people are faking stuff. Mostly probably 98% of all your investigations will be faked and you can't do anything about it. If you think that each and every paranormal site you'll visit will be real, you're simple wrong - paranormal investigator job in most cases is not to prove paranormal activity to be real, but to prove someone is faking. Sound strange? No one told this is going to be normal...
Now you know some basic theory and you can learn more about paranormal investigations. But that's subject for another article.
Nathaniel is a psychic, energy worker and paranormal investigator, grab his ebook and learn how to develop psychic abilities.
