Skeptics and haunted places

Skeptics are the most fun to watch. Ghosts often pick on them mercilessly. And, skeptics go to absurd extremes to create natural explanations for clearly extraordinary events. What's even more amusing is watching them try to look as if everything is perfectly normal, when they're usually the most frightened of anyone.

Ghosts do not fit into their accepted reality.

Most skeptics take seriously only the things that are in their own control... or that they think are. So, when we hand them a normal hiking compass and, in one haunted spot, the compass needle swings a full 50 degrees from where it should be (pointing North), they're temporarily speechless.

(See our article, Ghost hunting... with a compass? Hiking compasses can be used to detect the high EMF levels that we find at haunted places.)

A closed-minded disbeliever will walk the same path 40 or 50 times, just to watch the compass needle swing dramatically near a haunted grave or a tree that's been "sacred" since pre-Colonial times. It seems to take skeptics forever to accept what they're seeing.

We're only half-joking when we say that skeptics should never travel without an ankle brace or at least an ace bandage or two. We've seen holes in the ground appear out of nowhere, just so the skeptic steps into it and turns his or her ankle. In fact, on one ghost hunt in NH, we watched about half a dozen "snake holes" open up over a period of about four or five minutes.

On that ghost hunt, the victim was a skeptic who insisted on cracking "dead" jokes... you know, things like, "I've been dying to visit this place," and, "You're making enough noise to wake the dead."

She had a nasty sprained ankle after stepping into several of these holes. She was watching where she was going, but the holes were opening up faster than her reflexes could avoid them.

Skeptics are also more likely to notice noises, or the lack of them. If a skeptic is along, he or she will be the first one to point out when all of the animals (birds, squirrels, etc.) have gone silent.

Skeptics are more likely to "hear" voices. What they'll usually describe are people talking, just out of earshot. For quite awhile, the spirits play with them (in a not-nice way) by talking so that the voices (usually whispers) are heard, but the victim can't make out what they're saying.

Experienced ghost hunters can spot this easily. The victim will stand there, turning his or her head in all kinds of weird angles, trying to position him or herself "just so," to hear the words.

Finally, when the spirits are tired of that prank, they'll start talking clearly in very threatening terms. The skeptic/victim will tell us that there are people (they rarely admit that these are ghosts) who are talking about "getting" us.

Skeptics usually insist that the voices are coming from a place where... well, everyone else can see that nobody's there.

For example, the skeptics will insist that the voices come from people hiding in a nearby wooded area. They'll refuse to accept that there's no moonlight and, with the fallen branches and twigs in that wooded area, we'd also hear people stepping (or tripping over) stuff. Or, we'd see their flashlights. There's no way that living people (with bodies) are silently walking through those woods... not if they're close enough that someone--and only one person--can hear them talking.

Skeptics become panicky when cellphones won't work at a haunted site, no matter how clearly we've warned them about this ahead of time. And, they won't even try the technique that usually works: Cross the street (in any direction) to a non-haunted area, and the phone will work again.

Skeptics are usually the first to insist on leaving a haunted site. But, they rarely leave by themselves. They stay and insist that everyone is in danger, and we all have to leave. They can be obnoxious. One of our team will escort them to a coffeeshop and leave them there, as soon as the skeptic has calmed down enough to be left alone.

There is rarely a point at which a skeptic admits that the "danger" is from ghosts. They are adamant that these are real, living people that they're perceiving.

If they do accept that this is paranormal, within 48 hours, they're back to being skeptics again. It's what we call "the Scrooge syndrome," where they insist that the spirits were just a bit of underdone potato or something.

Ghosts are more likely to torment skeptics than people who keep an open mind about the possibilities of hauntings.

And, it's usually proportionate to how outspoken and skeptical the critic is when he or she arrives at the site.