ghosts

I have not, during this discussion or elsewhere, stated that
I believe these things to be caused by ghosts.The thought that that is what all investigators are claiming
is a major stumbling block for paranormal research.As for controls a statement on the reliability of the EMF
meters is required.As for testing a non-haunted location ... since we haven't a
clue what makes a location haunted we cannot say with any
surety that any location isn't haunted (any more than we
can say one is).If hauntings are purely psychological one would not expect to
be able to measure anything out of the ordinary. That this has
not been the case suggests that there is something acting in
conjunction with other, psychological effects.1) Is always a possibility ... except that such reports rarely make
the news. Few legitimate news sources bother with such stories.
One could hardly see that the hotel would profit from such an activity
(unless they are in York or Derby in the UK or any city which
has a reputation for 'ghostly' activity). This is not the case
with all hauntings.2)Again it's possibility, and one only has the word of the observer
that they are not making it up due to knowing the story. One would
tend to feel that, since someone in our society is ridiculed for
beleiving in such things that people would not be likely to make
something of this nature up ... doesn't always follow, but look
at the amount of backlash I'm getting for suggesting there is
something worth investigating ... and I've not even said that
they are ghosts!!3)One routinely had such dreams, why would one bother to mention
them at all ... it would be common place. Depending on the details
of the dreams one could equally suggest that the individuals are
sensitive to whatever it is that causes 'hauntings'. Without
knowing that (i.e. without having investigated possible physical
causes) we cannot comment.4)Again, the problem is about causation. Becuase many people have
similar experiences doesn't help if the dispute is the cause of
the experience.5)Yes. Many locations have very specific, not widely reported
'sightings', which only occur within a small area or in particular
environmental conditions (like storms or such).The major problem with any sighting of anything is that we
cannot tell whether the 'witness' is deluding themselves or
deliberately making something up. In the latter case one needs to
look at what they would get out of making it up. In the main
for 'hauntings' the answer is nothing.

quote:

---

Um, no. The most likely explanation for these experiences are sleep dream phenomena called hypnapompic or hypnagogic hallucinations.

---

Most likely from whose perspective?The problem with qualitative assessments like that is that
your main reason for suggesting it is incredulity.For centuries people have claimed that they have been visted
by succubi or incubi and in more recent times these creatures
(of similar appearance) are called aliens.The simplest explanation, in fact, is that they are describing
exactly what happened to them. This explanation doesn't rely on
any convoluted reasoning or complex phenomena.With the EMF stuff, the control procudure is to take measurements
throughout the location to create a baseline/normal level.How else can you create a control for such an investigation.
Checking some other location tells you nothing about the
location you are in.Scripts:: But with hauntings they are not (in the main) generic
hauntings. There are some (like the run-over girl who gets found
by a driver only to disappear before reaching the doctor) which fit
a stereotype, but in UK hauntings the sightings can be very specific.e.g. A naval officer in an MoD bunker (now a museum) seen by dozens
of people in the same location since the bunker was made museum
in the 1960's.That's how specific they can be, and generally are. Even the route
that the apparition walks is always the same (see 1..5 above )Again ... ghosts is not my explanation of any of this. I feel
that the dearth of 'experiences' warrants investigation (including
psychological/physiological). I would also note that a large
proportion of parapschologists start out by trying to debunk
'hauntings' but over time tend to come around to a view that
is more in line with mine. i.e. something that we do not fully
understand IS happening.

No I didn't miss them ... and it tends to agree with my
feeling.Something causes 'hauntings' (which is all I have said).

I read the articles, and these seem to be pretty good experiments, particularly the blind one.Mundane explanations to the "hauntings". There's no reason to conclude, from these experiments at least, anything other than mundane explanations.

quote:

---

I have not, during this discussion or elsewhere, stated that
I believe these things to be caused by ghosts.

---

mmm, you seem to lean that way sometimes, even though you don't come right out and say it.

quote:

---

The thought that that is what all investigators are claiming
is a major stumbling block for paranormal research.

​

As for controls a statement on the reliability of the EMF
meters is required.

---

An awful lot more than that is required.

quote:

---

As for testing a non-haunted location ... since we haven't a
clue what makes a location haunted we cannot say with any
surety that any location isn't haunted (any more than we
can say one is).

---

Didn't you read the links Mr. P provided? It seems as though many specific "hauntings" are caused by drafts and other mundane sources which are interpreted.Besides, you don't get my point. It would tell us something important if we randomly tested a bunch of sites, with the nobody knowing which ones were "supposed" to be haunted, you would be able to partially eliminate experimenter bias. You would also be able to see if the rate of "anomalies" was above or below what chance would predict.

quote:

---

If hauntings are purely psychological one would not expect to
be able to measure anything out of the ordinary.

---

No one is suggesting that hauntings are always purely psychological. I think that most of the time they have some kind of physical basis and the brain takes over from there and fits the physical sensation into the cultural decoder and voila! Spooks are about!

quote:

---

1) Is always a possibility ... except that such reports rarely make the news. Few legitimate news sources bother with such stories.
One could hardly see that the hotel would profit from such an activity
(unless they are in York or Derby in the UK or any city which
has a reputation for 'ghostly' activity). This is not the case
with all hauntings.

---

Fraud is something that must be strictly controlled for in each and every investigation and if it cannot be then the reliability of the results are tarnished. That is my point about methodology.

quote:

---

2)Again it's possibility, and one only has the word of the observer that they are not making it up due to knowing the story.

---

...or having forgot or been unaware that they heard the story.

quote:

---

One would tend to feel that, since someone in our society is ridiculed for beleiving in such things that people would not be likely to make something of this nature up ...

---

Excuse me? Have you seen the ratings of Crossing Over, or ever heard of Sylvia Browne or Von Pragh? Belief in ghosts and paranormal stuff is very popular. And, lots of people would be happy to tell a story to get lots of attention from important people like researchers.

quote:

---

doesn't always follow, but look at the amount of backlash I'm getting for suggesting there is something worth investigating ... and I've not even said that they are ghosts!!

---

This board, being populated with people well-versed in science and good scientific methodology, is not representative of the population at large.

quote:

---

3)One routinely had such dreams, why would one bother to mention them at all ... it would be common place. Depending on the details of the dreams one could equally suggest that the individuals are sensitive to whatever it is that causes 'hauntings'. Without
knowing that (i.e. without having investigated possible physical
causes) we cannot comment.

---

It is known by Psychologists that there is a segment of the population which is particularly suggestable and imaginative. These are the people in which it is very easy to implant false memories in, and these are the people who tend to believe they have been abducted by aliens or have seen ghosts.They may be more senstitive to environmental factors, but I think it is probably more a case of being more likely to extrapolate (and believe) imaginative and fantastic explanations for them.

quote:

---

5)Yes. Many locations have very specific, not widely reported
'sightings', which only occur within a small area or in particular
environmental conditions (like storms or such).

​

The major problem with any sighting of anything is that we
cannot tell whether the 'witness' is deluding themselves or
deliberately making something up. In the latter case one needs to
look at what they would get out of making it up. In the main
for 'hauntings' the answer is nothing.

---

People can and do get a lot of attention for telling their stories. Feeling like an outsider with "special information" that the "establishment" wants to "keep down" can get you into a very tight community and earn you lots of love and acceptance. This kind of thing is common in the "Abductee" population. They even have support groups. To claim that they would get "nothing" out of it is silly.

quote:

---

quote:
Um, no. The most likely explanation for these experiences are sleep dream phenomena called hypnapompic or hypnagogic hallucinations.

​

Most likely from whose perspective?

​

The problem with qualitative assessments like that is that
your main reason for suggesting it is incredulity.

---

NO NO NO!!! The main reason for suggesting it is EVIDENCE.

quote:

---

For centuries people have claimed that they have been visted
by succubi or incubi and in more recent times these creatures
(of similar appearance) are called aliens.

---

Why do say "similar appearence?" They actually are described veryy differently depending upon the century.

quote:

---

The simplest explanation, in fact, is that they are describing
exactly what happened to them. This explanation doesn't rely on
any convoluted reasoning or complex phenomena.

---

LOLOLOL!!! The simplest explanation is ALIENS AND DEMONS???I suppose the simplest explanation for why we are experiencing a drought is because we didn't sacrifice the sufficient number of virgins to the gods last year, right?Did you even read the website I provided? It's real science, you know. These kinds of sleep disturbances are real. We understand them and their neurological causes quite well. We can induce certain parts of them in test subjects."Simplistic" explanations, such as "aliens and demons did it" are not the same as "simple". What you are doing is ignoring evidence from science in favor of your preferred belief. Sounds like what Creationists do, doesn't it?

quote:

---

With the EMF stuff, the control procudure is to take measurements throughout the location to create a baseline/normal level.

---

Do we know that it isn't "normal" for EMF to fluctuate all the time?

quote:

---

How else can you create a control for such an investigation.
Checking some other location tells you nothing about the
location you are in.

---

*sigh*Checking other locations tells you if the location you are in is any different from other locations NOT reputed to be haunted. If the readings were roughly the same in every single house you tested, regardless of if it was said to be haunted or not, wouldn't that tend to indicate that the "anomolies" might actually be normal levels of random noise in the equipment or procedures?Testing lots of houses without the investigators knowing which ones are "supposed" to be haunted would tell you if the investigators are consciously or unconsciosly affecting the results by their bias.

quote:

---

Scripts:: But with hauntings they are not (in the main) generic
hauntings. There are some (like the run-over girl who gets found
by a driver only to disappear before reaching the doctor) which fit
a stereotype, but in UK hauntings the sightings can be very specific.

​

e.g. A naval officer in an MoD bunker (now a museum) seen by dozens
of people in the same location since the bunker was made museum
in the 1960's.

​

That's how specific they can be, and generally are. Even the route
that the apparition walks is always the same

---

If you have heard about it, how many thousands of other people have heard about it by now? Do the curators repeat the story to add to the drama? Sorry, this story reeks of contaminated witnesses.

Didn't want this to get lost, as it is an important point, and wasn't covered in Peter's last reply...Peter: No conclusive evidence is not the same as no positive evidence.You don't have positive evidence.Positive evidence for what, anyway? To have positive evidence, you need to have a theory that makes specific predictions. You don't have any specific predictions, so you don't have any positive evidence.What you have is an odd assortment of "anomolies", which may or may not be real depending upon how rigorous the experimental design and controls for each and every investigation. After-the fact labeling of "anomolies" is not positive evidence.

quote:

---

Didn't you read the links Mr. P provided? It seems as though many specific "hauntings" are caused
by drafts and other mundane sources which are interpreted.

​

Besides, you don't get my point. It would tell us something important if we randomly tested a bunch of sites, with the nobody knowing which ones were "supposed" to be haunted, you would
be able to partially eliminate experimenter bias. You would also be able to see if the rate of
"anomalies" was above or below what chance would predict.

---

An experimental control requires that only one variable is changed.Suppose we investigate 10^6 locations, and find that we get
similar results in all locations for EMF (for example).What does that mean?1) EMF fluctuations are all completely natural and so hauntings are
illusory.2) All locations are haunted.Without knowing more (and I agree with a later comment that there
is no coherent 'what are we testing for.') how can we tell
the difference.If, for example, hauntings were caused by the spirits of the dead,
then how many billions of people have died over the last 10,000
years ... we should be innundated.As I said before ... that's NOT what I assume.What does chance predict for the anomalies?The research the Mr.P. linked to also says that there are not
always immediate mundane explanations. Those are the ones
of interest.Research such as that is what makes the phenomena worth
investigating.

quote:

---

No one is suggesting that hauntings are always purely psychological. I think that most of the time they have some kind of physical basis and the brain takes over from there and fits the physical
sensation into the cultural decoder and voila! Spooks are about!

---

If by physical basis you mean a draft that slams a door shut,
then isn't that a psychological cause? The overactive imagination
explanation.1) Fair enough. Such a things are usually uncovered in time if
people put the effort in to investigate properly (like
Piltdown man, for example).2) This is true, so I suppose one would look for 'unreported'
features in the stories ... which for very old hauntings might be
a problem.I had wondered whether it would be useful to create a 'hauntings'
web-site for a location with made-up stuff to see if one started
getting reports of those things.3)

quote:

---

These are the people in which it is very easy to implant false
memories in, and these are the people who tend to believe they have been abducted by aliens or have seen ghosts.

---

What is the sample size for this, and how was that sample selected? 5) I'd never really thought of that. It seems unlikly to me ...
but that's no reason to discount it.

quote:

---

Why do say "similar appearence?" They actually are described veryy differently depending upon the century.

---

The basics of the form and encounter are the same with embellishment
based upon cultural imagery.

quote:

---

LOLOLOL!!! The simplest explanation is ALIENS AND DEMONS???

---

We are in the unfortunate position, as scientists, of not
being able to say that they don't exist.Absence of evidence .... and all that.Anything else is just incredulity based upon the 'no such thing'
teachings we recieve these days.I guess I'm maybe too open-minded ... I try not to discount
anything without positive justification

quote:

---

I suppose the simplest explanation for why we are experiencing a drought is because we didn't sacrifice the sufficient number of virgins to the gods last year, right?

---

Hardly the same ... you seem to have learned much from creationist
argument styles

quote:

---

Do we know that it isn't "normal" for EMF to fluctuate all the time?

---

Yes, mainly because they are not seen to.

quote:

---

Checking other locations tells you if the location you are in is any different from other locations
NOT reputed to be haunted. If the readings were roughly the same in every single house you
tested, regardless of if it was said to be haunted or not, wouldn't that tend to indicate that the
"anomolies" might actually be normal levels of random noise in the equipment or procedures?

---

That's just an equipment test (which is done) not a control.'Hauntings' arent' always there ... the fuctuations coincide
with other oddities.

quote:

---

Testing lots of houses without the investigators knowing which ones are "supposed" to be haunted
would tell you if the investigators are consciously or unconsciosly affecting the results by their
bias.

---

How can you subconsciously effect a meter??

The way I view it is this:The dearth and consistency of eye-witness reports of
'haunted' locations is sufficient to warrant further
investigation.Further investigation has uncovered apparent energy
phenomena which are not expected.The investigation should then proceed to assess whether these
energy phenomena can cause the kinds of effects that
witnesses claim to have seen.To my mind the research is at the stage of 'Hmm, these are
all finches but they look different wonder why that is.'It's why I say the evidence is inconclusive ... there is
data available, but the quality and the interpretation into
evidence is still under debate.It IS difficult to say what premise some of the research is
working from ... so I agree that there is some pretty poor
stuff about.The research on environmental factors is important from my
pov ... but I still need to see more on the energy related
aspects.One hypothesis on 'hauntings' is that somehow environments can
'record' events and replay them if the conditions are right.This would involve energy ... and (subject to the problems of
finding rigourous enough research procedures) energy has been
found where it shouldn't be coincident with phenomena associated
with 'hauntings'.One aspect of scientific enquiry is repeatability, and the results
gleaned by the methods in use have been found at 'haunted'
sites around the world by diverse investigative teams.I will try to find out if (at the very least) EMF meters are left
switched on on a lab bench or some-such to count fluctuations ...
but the baselining that's done is an attempt to find an average
value map ... if that's done then there is presumably some
statistical relevence attributed to anomalies.

quote:

---

An experimental control requires that only one variable is changed.

​

Suppose we investigate 10^6 locations, and find that we get
similar results in all locations for EMF (for example).

​

What does that mean?

---

It means there's nothing special about EMF readings in haunted houses and therefore the readings do not provide any useful information about hauntings.The rest of your explanations miss this crucial point.

quote:

---

Without knowing more (and I agree with a later comment that there is no coherent 'what are we testing for.') how can we tell
the difference.

---

Right. It's a dead end. You have no positive evidence of anything.Tell me again why we should persue this line of investigation any more than free energy or dowsing.

quote:

---

What does chance predict for the anomalies?

---

If the investigators haven't included this utterly basic methodological issue in their reporting, then they aren't doing good research.Maybe there's something interesting going on, but with this kind of shoddy work, who can tell?

quote:

---

The research the Mr.P. linked to also says that there are not
always immediate mundane explanations. Those are the ones
of interest.

​

Research such as that is what makes the phenomena worth
investigating.

---

How many times do you have to get the result "There was a cold draft" to lead you to think that cold drafts make people feel funny? That's what seemed to happen in those two studies.

quote:

---

If by physical basis you mean a draft that slams a door shut,
then isn't that a psychological cause? The overactive imagination
explanation.

---

If you define it that way, then all hauntings are psychological, by definition.I was talking about people having dreams or waking up to think they see something, etc.

quote:

---

Fair enough. Such a things are usually uncovered in time if
people put the effort in to investigate properly (like
Piltdown man, for example).

---

Except that I have my doubts that most of the stories you have told me have been looked at skeptically at all.

quote:

---

I had wondered whether it would be useful to create a 'hauntings'web-site for a location with made-up stuff to see if one started getting reports of those things.

---

Maybe.

quote:

---

quote:
These are the people in which it is very easy to implant false
memories in, and these are the people who tend to believe they have been abducted by aliens or have seen ghosts.

​

What is the sample size for this, and how was that sample selected?

---

It depends which study you are talking about. There have been quite a few. Start with this one. It shows that a specific subpopulation of people are more prone to having false memories implanted:False recognition in women reporting recovered memories of sexual abuse.
Author: Clancy, Susan A.; Schacter, Daniel L.; McNally, Richard J.; Pitman, Roger K.
Source: Psychological Science; Vol 11(1) Jan 2000, US: Blackwell Publishers; 2000, 26-31False recognition--the mistaken belief that one has previously encountered a novel item--was examined in 4 groups of Ss: women reporting recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse, women who believe that they were sexually abused as children but who cannot recall this abuse (the "repressed" group), women who were sexually abused as children and always remembered the abuse, and women with no history of childhood sexual abuse. Ss were presented lists of 15 words each varying in the number of semantic associates and subsequently given word recognition tests. For each S, the authors calculated 2 main indices of performance: the true recognition rate and the false recognition rate. Results show that the recovered-memory group was more prone to false recognition than the other groups. In addition, women reporting recovered and repressed memories showed greater reduction in false recognition across study trials than did other Ss, perhaps reflecting strategic changes in performance.This is just one to start. If you want a second and third (or many more), you can look around, or ask if you want help. Again, anything you find by Elizabeth Loftus would be good.

quote:

---

5) I'd never really thought of that. It seems unlikly to me ...
but that's no reason to discount it.

---

You never thought that people get a lot of attention and acceptance by being in a special, "misunderstood" in-crowd? You must only read believer-type information. Or you were never a teenager. Or both.

quote:

---

The basics of the form and encounter are the same with embellishment
based upon cultural imagery.

---

There are a few basic commonalities, which just so happen to be shared with sleep paralysis and hypnagogic/hypnapompic hallucinations. The *rest* is totally different. I mean, do you really think that a succubus and a "Grey" have much in common in the looks department?

quote:

---

Me: LOLOLOL!!! The simplest explanation is ALIENS AND DEMONS???

---

quote:

---

We are in the unfortunate position, as scientists, of not
being able to say that they don't exist.

---

When did I ever say that? I was responding to your claim of "which is a simpler explanation". We *know* that sleep paralysis and hallucinations occur. We know they can explain all the psychological phenomena reported (and there is no physical evidence of these encounters). Why posit magical demons or super-advanced space aliens? Now THAT'S complicating the issue unnecessarily.

quote:

---

Absence of evidence .... and all that.

---

Occam's Razor...and all that.

quote:

---

Allison: quote:
I suppose the simplest explanation for why we are experiencing a drought is because we didn't sacrifice the sufficient number of virgins to the gods last year, right?

---

quote:

---

Hardly the same ... you seem to have learned much from creationist argument styles

---

My virgin sacrifice to appease the gods is EXACTLY the same as your demons and aliens. Drought and sleep paralysis et al. both have well-understood natural causes, yet you insist upon invoking that for which we have zero evidence for as a "simpler" explanation.Since when is the invocation of magic a "simple" explanation?

quote:

---

Allison: Do we know that it isn't "normal" for EMF to fluctuate all the time?

---

quote:

---

Yes, mainly because they are not seen to.

---

Ah, excellent, an actual CLAIM about something!Please show me the evidence which supports this claim that EMF frequencies fluctuate at "haunted" locations but not at "non-haunted" houses?

quote:

---

Allison:Checking other locations tells you if the location you are in is any different from other locations NOT reputed to be haunted. If the readings were roughly the same in every single house you tested, regardless of if it was said to be haunted or not, wouldn't that tend to indicate that the "anomolies" might actually be normal levels of random noise in the equipment or procedures?

---

quote:

---

That's just an equipment test (which is done) not a control.

---

No, it's a control. Here's another situation. I know someone who claims that streetlights go out when he's nearby. However, of course, he's not around streetlights when he's not nearby (duh.). So what he needs to do (yet he insisted he didn't need to...wonder why?) is, say, videotape a streetlight when he's around, and an equal amount of time when he's not around. Then see how often the light blinks out under both conditions. That's a control. Likewise, if you don't know the "baseline-non-haunted" frequency of anomalies, you can't make any claims about the anomalies you do find. To say otherwise is to excuse poor scientific methodology.

quote:

---

'Hauntings' arent' always there ... the fuctuations coincide
with other oddities.

---

Without specifics, I can't make any judgment of this claim. IOW, it means nothing.[QYOTE] Allison: quote:
Testing lots of houses without the investigators knowing which ones are "supposed" to be haunted would tell you if the investigators are consciously or unconsciosly affecting the results by their
bias.[/QUOTE]

quote:

---

How can you subconsciously effect a meter??

---

1) I don't know, that's why you do do the double blind test.People didn't know how Clever Hans did math, either.Forbidden2) Because you notice "anomolies" in a "haunted" house and don't in one that you aren't "supposed" to find anything in. This is basic experimenter bias and has to be controlled for in every experiment, anywhere.Basic stuff.Read more about controlled experiments here:control group study - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com

quote:

---

The dearth and consistency of eye-witness reports of
'haunted' locations is sufficient to warrant further
investigation.

---

So what about the strong evidence for cultural expectaions and of the extremely well-established evidence for the unreliability of eyewiness testimony?Are you going to ignore that? You sure haven't commented upon anything you have read dealing with false memory, the unreliability of eyewitness testimony, or cultural patterns of reports of hauntings and the like.

quote:

---

Further investigation has uncovered apparent energy
phenomena which are not expected.

---

You keep saying stuff like that as if you have established it as supported by evidence and good research or something.You haven't, so do so or be quiet about it. You can repeat that such things have been found but you refuse to provide the evidence. Repetition without evidence is not convincing, only annoying.

quote:

---

The investigation should then proceed to assess whether these
energy phenomena can cause the kinds of effects that
witnesses claim to have seen.

---

See above. You have to establish that these "energy fluctuations" are not actually normal or caused by experimenter error, error in the equipment, or whatever.

quote:

---

To my mind the research is at the stage of 'Hmm, these are
all finches but they look different wonder why that is.'

---

You haven't got any thing even close to that kind of evidence. You haven't even got a hypothesis anywhere near as organized. You don't know what you are looking for and haven't noticed anything consistent or reliable.

quote:

---

It's why I say the evidence is inconclusive ... there is
data available, but the quality and the interpretation into
evidence is still under debate.

---

So far you haven't actually produced any data only vague claims. Why not?

quote:

---

It IS difficult to say what premise some of the research is
working from ... so I agree that there is some pretty poor
stuff about.

​

The research on environmental factors is important from my
pov ... but I still need to see more on the energy related
aspects.

​

One hypothesis on 'hauntings' is that somehow environments can
'record' events and replay them if the conditions are right.

​

This would involve energy ... and (subject to the problems of
finding rigourous enough research procedures) energy has been
found where it shouldn't be coincident with phenomena associated
with 'hauntings'.

---

If the research isn't of good quality, why give any credence to it at all? No controll procedures = unreliability

quote:

---

One aspect of scientific enquiry is repeatability, and the results gleaned by the methods in use have been found at 'haunted'
sites around the world by diverse investigative teams.

---

I am getting tired of your unsupported claims.It is wasting my time.Please do not make claims unless you are prepared to provide links or references to the paper or research where you got it from.

quote:

---

will try to find out if (at the very least) EMF meters are left
switched on on a lab bench or some-such to count fluctuations ...
but the baselining that's done is an attempt to find an average
value map ... if that's done then there is presumably some
statistical relevence attributed to anomalies.

---

Presumably? This isn't part of the reporting of results of these people?

Since information about EMF was not forthcoming from Peter, I thought I'd do a little research myself about fluctuations and how likely they are. I found this:NRPB - ED Symptoms, Causes, and TreatmentsEmphasis added by me."Magnetic fields change over time due to the varying demand for power.""Electric fields depend upon the magnitude of the voltage and distance from the source. Generally, voltages are stable and remain the same, however electric fields are perturbed easily by many common objects.""Magnetic fields from sources may vary during the day and a person's exposure depends upon their location and activity."

I haven't been following this thread, but I have a couple of things re. ghosts...First, a "haunting" of my own. I was going to visit my parents on vacation, so I put in about 2/3rds of a days' work in the office and then drove through the afternoon and evening. I arrived dog-tired at their house at about 2 a.m. after driving 12 hours. I parked in the front yard, and got out to get some luggage out of the back of the car before going into the house. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed my dad standing behind me. My dad's something of a night-owl, so I thought he had seen me drive up and had come out to help me unload. But there was something strange about him -- he was standing stock-still in gray overalls, with a blank, expressionless, zombie-like look on his face! Was he sleep-walking? Then, just as suddenly, "my eyes were opened" and I realized it wasn't my dad at all -- it was a tree! The combined effects of stress and fatique had conjured an hallucination.I've since learned that this type of "haunting" or hallucination is fairly common -- seeing a phantom of a living person, often emotionless, gray, and still. I started wondering, are there certain venues or situations which might be more likely to reproduce these (and other) types of phantoms? Are there settings that often, but not always, reproduce cognitive illusions? If so, it might explain a lot, particularly the "truck drivers repeatedly encountering the same phantom on the same stretch of road at night" class of phenomena. The proper cognitive triggers, a little confabulation, a little remembered folklore, a little waking dreaming, and you've got a phantom hitchhiker...Second, a thought about Victorian ghosts. I've often wondered whether it was a concidence that the classic Victorian ghost sounds -- clanking, moans, screams, gurgling -- coincided with the widespread introduction of early, noisy indoor plumbing. Just wondering -Neil[This message has been edited by NeilUnreal, 06-21-2003]

Another thought on ghosts and cognitive triggers, from an A.I. perspective...The brain is a neural network, and conciousness probably works in part by analogical reasoning, synthesizing stimuli and memories, and filling in gaps. This being the case, cognitive triggers need no resemble the effects they produce. In other words, radically different sets of stimuli may produce the same mental effect or impression.For example, a specific curve in a road, with its associated arragement of signs, trees, etc., may produce in the minding a feeling or impression of someone standing beside the road waiting -- without anything overt to suggest this. A kind of "cognitive alias" or "optical illusion of the mind," if you will. Maybe fear, stress, fatigue, and suggestability make it easier for mind to "settle into" the incorrect alias pattern and mistake it for reality.-Neil

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It means there's nothing special about EMF readings in haunted houses and therefore the readings do not provide any useful information about hauntings.

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The rest of your explanations miss this crucial point.

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If one tries to find a correlation between EMF fluctuations
and 'hauntings' one requires a supposed haunted site.The 'control' that you are suggesting requires a known non-haunted
site.If we don't even know what might constitute a non-haunted site
how is that an adequate control?I do agree that sending investigators to locations which they
do not have any knowledge of would proove interesting ... but
it's not an experimental control.The experimental control link you supplied states:
"A control group study uses a control group to compare to an
experimental group in a test of a causal hypothesis. The control and
experimental groups must be identical in all relevant ways except for the introduction of a suspected causal agent into the experimental group. If the suspected causal agent is actually a causal factor of some event, then logic dictates that that event should manifest itself more significantly in the experimental than in the control group."i.e. for a control as you suggest we need to remove the 'haunting'.

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Right. It's a dead end. You have no positive evidence of anything.

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Tell me again why we should persue this line of investigation any more than free energy or dowsing.

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I don't know if you would count 'cold fusion' as 'free energy', but
a recent New Scientist article reported that the US Navy has recently
released funding for cold fusion projects. The reason for this has
been that a small group of engineers and scienticists wouldn't let
the idea drop (despite conventional wisdom) and eventually came
up with a repeatable process that showed a net increase in energy.
Small admittedly ... but there.Why should we pursue the investigation ... because the more
the issue is looked at, the more puzzling it becomes. Many people
enjoy solving such puzzles ... even if at the end of it all it
does turn out to be a case of people 'getting spooked' by odd
lighting effects or unexpected draughts.

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If the investigators haven't included this utterly basic methodological issue in their reporting, then
they aren't doing good research.

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Maybe there's something interesting going on, but with this kind of shoddy work, who can tell?

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EMF meters aren't special ghost-hunting equipment, they are standard
meters. Their properties are known.

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How many times do you have to get the result "There was a cold draft" to lead you to think that cold drafts make people feel funny? That's what seemed to happen in those two studies.

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When the cause of the draft can be located, fine. Sometimes it isn't
obvious where this has come from. Doesn't mean it didn't come from
somewhere, naturally ... and cold drafts don't tend to make people
'feel funny' (well they don't make anyone I know feel funny anyhow).
The environment (I suppose) is what cause the spookedness.

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If you define it that way, then all hauntings are psychological, by definition.

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That's a conclusion based upon the assumption that nothing more
than 'over-active imagination' is at work.It may or may not be a valid assumption ... that's all I'm saying.

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Except that I have my doubts that most of the stories you have told me have been looked at skeptically at all.

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Doubt is OK ... unless it's founded in incredulity.

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It depends which study you are talking about. There have been quite a few. Start with this one.
It shows that a specific subpopulation of people are more prone to having false memories implanted:

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I was actually referring to any findings relating to the
suggestibility of 'abductees'.

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You never thought that people get a lot of attention and acceptance by being in a special, "misunderstood" in-crowd? You must only read believer-type information. Or you were never a teenager. Or both.

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I've never felt the need for acceptance, myself, but I do read
widely.

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I mean, do you really think that a succubus and a "Grey" have much in common in the looks department?

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'Greys' purportedly engage in medical examinations, there is a class
of 'encounter' where people describe a 'human looking' female
alien who wants sex ... that's the succubus association I was
thinking of.'Course there's plenty of other explanations for that in a
dream sense

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Why posit magical demons or super-advanced space aliens? Now THAT'S complicating the issue unnecessarily.

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By the 'simplest' I was referring to the odd concept that what
someone tells you might be what they experienced.To suggest that because they claim demons or aliens is sufficient
to discount it is not based upon evidence, but incredulity.I'm doubtful about demons (but I don't rule it out in some
senses if our universe really is vast and multi-dimensioned there
could be entitied that would fit the bill) ... as for aliens ...
well in a near infinite universe I would expect other lifeforms
than human.To rule it out entirely would be prejudicial when one has no
evidence upon which to base the determination.

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My virgin sacrifice to appease the gods is EXACTLY the same as your demons and aliens. Drought and sleep paralysis et al. both have well-understood natural causes, yet you insist upon invoking
that for which we have zero evidence for as a "simpler" explanation.

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Sleep paralysis doesn't fit the 'experiences' very well though.For a start (and in the link you posted) visual hallucinations are
extremely rare and often of a nature that the 'hallucinator' is aware
of the unreality.By contrast the sorts of 'hallucinations' for 'hauntings'
are very real to the observer (reportedly), and very detailed.
There is typically no mention of restraint either in a 'haunting'
context ... and only rarely of the chest/throat variety in
adbuctions.OK ... there's the issue of deluded/willful deceit ... but you
have that in any study (including the one you linked) where
you have respondents.As for your lamp-post friend ... I agree that checking how often
lampposts turn off when they are not there is a reasonable
verification. That's a control to investigate a supposed causative
agent. That's not what you described with going to another
house with the EMF meter.

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Without specifics, I can't make any judgment of this claim. IOW, it means nothing

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You either cannot make a judgement or you judge that it means
nothing ... which is it?

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1) I don't know, that's why you do do the double blind test.

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What I meant was, surely a meter either records something or
it doesn't. Investigator bias cannot change that.

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2) Because you notice "anomolies" in a "haunted" house and don't in one that you aren't "supposed" to find anything in. This is basic experimenter bias and has to be controlled for in every
experiment, anywhere.

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Again (with EMF) either the meter records a fluctuation or it
doesn't.OK ... jumping up and down saying 'There it IS haunted.'
pre-supposes a causal link. That's what's being sought though
so that's not a typical response.I'll see what online-stuff I can find.

Those are exactlt the types of things to investigate.And also include the possibility of sounds travelling through
piping from remote locations and other structural features that
could cause the effects witnessed.I don't doubt that that's the case in a large percentage
of 'haunted' locations.There are reported features that can't be explained that way though
and unless you take the 'They're all lying' approach (which one
cannot discount) it bears another look.

I'd agree with that too.There are reports (independent observers spaced over time
with no reason to assume prior knowledge) who report things
in a little more detail than that though.They basically fall under 'ghost stories' though and without
proper investigation can be written off as 'prior knowledge'
or 'makeing it up'.