The Occult Section

Ha! Made you look! We’ve said it before: orbs aren’t paranormal. Though judging by this story from the UK, some people haven’t seen the memo yet.

GHOSTLY goings-on have been captured at Huddersfield railway station.

A mysterious glowing white orb has been recorded floating through the station shop on four separate occasions – and it’s now been caught on camera.

The spooky phenomenon has only come to light after a hi-tech CCTV system was installed in the shop.

Shopkeeper Darryl Townend explained: “We’ve just had a new security system installed which detects movement.

“Last week it detected something on three or four occasions – it looks like a white light.

“It’s globe-shaped, like an orb. It’s certainly strange.

“Last Friday was a really good one, it was really vivid.

“It came in front of the camera. It’s like a round white light and it shot across the room and then appeared to go through the wall.

“It’s really eerie.”

He added: “The station’s recently been refurbished and the part of the shop that it’s being spotted in used to be the waiting room area.

“It doesn’t happen in the main shop.

“All the staff have seen it and it’s really strange.”

Mr Townend, who has been running the shop at the station for 10 years, said he first noticed the strange light on Monday last week.

He said they had thought there was something wrong with their motion-activated system but the glowing orb had returned several times.

He added: “We’ve altered the sensitivity settings on the cameras but it’s still being triggered.”

Yet despite the unsettling discovery he said they would not be calling in the Ghostbusters or searching the Yellow Pages for an exorcist.

“It only happens on an evening at the moment,” he said.

“As long as it stays that way it’s not a problem”.

“Its an insect. We get them on our CCTV all the time…
Ive never felt the need to inform the examiner though” - T3

“It is a moth ball.
Not paranormal, more parafocus of cheap camera.” - Mameluke

“Good advertising idea !” – Aliban

“WOW! How scarey is that. I had to close my eyes I was so frightened. The Examiner should be ashamed of putting such horrific things in the paper. What an absolute load of tripe. Get real and put newsworthy stuff in the paper, not this twaddle”- hardupandfedup

Technorati Tags: britain, ghost, ghosts on tv, great britain, Huddersfield, orb, orbs, paranormal, people, supernatural, thoughts, UK

I know I usually tackle the UFO and monster sides of the paranormal and leave the ghostly stories to Laura, but I had to comment on this story after watching the accompanying video. Being a professional paranormal investigator for the past four years, I have seen many things, and many of those things have been extremely strange. But many of those extremely strange things, upon closer examination, could be explained rationally. And perhaps the biggest thorn in the side of any serious paranormal investigator with half a brain is the orb phenomena. Orbs are little round objects, usually semi-transparent, that show up in pictures. This basically happens when the flash of the camera illuminates tiny objects that usually can’t be seen by the naked eye, like dust, water droplets, pollen, bugs, etc. But there is a certain segment of people out there, and many of them calling themselves serious paranormal investigators, who think these are ghosts. So they’ll take a picture in a cemetery at night, or in a building where lots of construction is going on, and see all the little dust particles or raindrops and say “Look at all the ghosts we caught! I can see faces!” These people are seeing what they want to see. And the media is not doing anything to help. Witness this story from WHNT News:

TUSCUMBIA, AL – Something eerie may be lurking in the Colbert County EMA office. On the surface, his office appears normal, but EMA Director Mike Melton is convinced that he may be sharing his office space with the paranormal.

“It appears that there’s some type of dimension or something that a flash of the camera can pick up that we might not be able to see,” said Melton.

That’s because of a photo taken of Mike’s office during it’s renovation several years ago. The original image is covered in blurry white spots with faint outlines of human figures in the background. EMA employees agreed it looked peculiar.

John McWilliams, a local historian, enhanced the clarity of the image, revealing what appears to be a line of ghostly figures.

“When I saw it, I didn’t realize it was a saloon scene,” said McWilliams, of Tuscumbia. “I could just see the people. It was not until I started processing it that I saw that it was a saloon scene.”

That prompted McWilliams to do a little homework on the building. After looking at old maps, he determined what’s now the Colbert County EMA office was a saloon and bowling alley back in 1884.

“I have records here to find out what was in those buildings at that time during that period,” said McWilliams. “The picture meets that criteria.”

He said that explains why the figures appear to be waiting in line, while others appear to be perched at a bar.

Photos snapped at the EMA console reveal what appears to be three figures in the foreground, wearing microphone headsets. Mike suspects they once worked in the building.

“Evidently, we’re sharing their space and they’re not sharing ours,” said Melton.

Photos taken since the construction work suggest there could still be some sort of supernatural activity in his office.

We wanted to check it out for ourselves, so we posed for the camera after our interview with Melton. John processed the image for us and revealed nine ghostly figures after enhancing the photo clarity.

Ghosts or not, Melton and other EMA employees aren’t spooked.

“It is something to be lighthearted about,” said Melton. “It’s just an unknown, something creepy you can try to figure out and try to understand what it’s about.”

Melton and McWilliams both joke they know it sounds crazy, but can’t help what they see.

Again, the fact that these pictures were taken during renovations to the office says a lot. Tons of dust and debris is bound to be kicked up during those times, and that is going to be captured on camera as “orbs.” But it’s just dust and particulate matter. And are they serious about the “faces” wearing headsets? They look like the ghosts of Muppets, if anything. I’m all for investigating the paranormal, but people need to do their homework first, and remember to always look for rational explanations before jumping to ghostly conclusions. Unfortunately, even paranormal investigators who claim to be scientific don’t always stick to that philosophy.

Technorati Tags: alabama, debunking, ema, ghost, ghost hunting, ghost photo, ghost picture, ghosts, haunted, humor, media, muppets, News, orb, orbs, paranormal, photo, photograph, photographs, photos, picture, supernatural, thoughts, Tuscumbia, ufo, video

I don’t know why, but I just love the stories that I find that include a spooky photo. I’m not even being (entirely) cynical. I think it’s just because I love photography as much as investigating the paranormal. So here’s a story out of Great Britain with a snowy, ghostly-looking figure.

A Cippenham couple claim a ghostly figure in a photograph has left them ‘freaked out’ and unable to sleep.

Suki Ghatore, 39, of Lewins Way, said he went out to his front garden to enjoy the snow on Tuesday last week at 10pm and took his camera out to get a few pictures.

He snapped about 20 pictures – but one of them has shocked and spooked Suki and his wife Jessie.

The music enthusiast and guitar player said: “It shows a ghostly apparition, a figure of someone or something passing by. This has freaked us out, especially my wife. As you can guess we have not had much sleep in the last few nights.”

According to the couple it is not the first ghostly going on at their home.
Over the last three years they claim objects have moved, doors have closed ‘unexpectedly’ and they have heard strange noises.

Suki, who works as a storage controller for a hospital firm, said: “I do try to find relevant explanations for such events, but this photo has completely left my wife and I in shock.”

It’s hard to tell because the photo on the website is so small. I will give them that it does look freaky, however, it’s always important to think of other explanations. Suki even said this himself, but I feel as though his judgment may be a bit clouded (no pun intended, I swear!!!). I Googled around to see if I could find comparable photos that have been debunked. I came across this site which has several similar photos. Suki’s photo seems to be a mix of snowflake orbs, his own breath, and some possible matrixing of the shape his breath mist took.

Technorati Tags: debunking, ghost, great britain, matrixing, mist, orb, orbs, picture, snow, thoughts, UK

The Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery in Brooklyn, NY is hosting an upcoming show called “Evidence of the Paranormal.” It’s funny how the paranormal used to be a taboo subject to talk about, and now it’s not only accepted, but encouraged in so many different ways. The show, which runs from November 21st to January 10th, features interpretations of the paranormal in varying art forms.

Evidence of the Paranormal is an exhibition of questionable import, doubtful veracity and possibly misleading intentions. Featuring a selection of artists as unlikely as their generations and backgrounds vary, the works collected here are liable to suggest paranormal activity or occult resonances. From Charles and Ray Eames’ early film Blacktop, which consists of quasi-abstract footage of a blacktop being washed, to the mute, unyielding promise of Becky Beasley’s post-minimalist sculptures, to Swedish painter Per Martensson’s diminutive portraits of vacant white-cube spaces not to mention the meticulously painted orbs on paper of New York-based artist Will Yackulic, such apparent banality seems to conceal some kind of occult content. Meanwhile, Danish Amsterdam-based photographer Marianne Viero’s unusual photos of rearranged hotel furniture, the floating sculpture of the Italian Berlin-based Luca Trevisani and Zagreb-based Goran Petercol light-and-shadow sculptural installation all seem to testify to a paranormal activity.

Whatever the case may be, these works do seem to be trying to be telling us something. But what? Are they transmitters? Supernatural hieroglyphics? Otherworldly jive? Or are they merely testifying to their own materiality and circumstances? Or maybe in the end, they are trying tell us something about meaning, about a certain compulsion to locate it somewhere, elsewhere, anywhere, at the cost of locating it in the ether, or on the astral plane. Or conjuring it up out of thin air. Even if what the are trying to tell us is something else altogether, entirely.

If you are in the New York area, it may be an interesting show to check out!

Technorati Tags: art, art gallery, brooklyn, gallery, Klaus von Nichtssagend, media, occult, orbs, paranormal, people