There used to be a time when a story like this would really interest and excite me. But these days, I tend to look at the ghost hunting community with a more skeptical and suspicious eye. There are quite a few things wrong with this story. Can you figure out which ones are making me suspicious?
How the scientific community sees us.
A paranormal “expert in residence” will be on hand at the opening of a theme park ride next month to monitor any strange activity after fears that an ancient burial ground has been disturbed.
A new ride at Thorpe Park in Surrey was moved to another part of the site after workers said they started noticing ghostly sightings nearby, including what appeared to be a headless monk.
Since details of the ghostly goings on were revealed, the park has been inundated with requests from mediums and paranormal experts and enthusiasts, to visit the site and carry out detailed research.
Managers have now decided to hire paranormal investigator Jim Arnold for the opening day of the new season, March 17, to monitor the site and the new water ride, Storm Surge.
“If the spirits are unhappy with anything, we should pick something up straight away. We’ll be working with Thorpe Park to monitor the situation for the next 12 months,” he said.
Mike Vallis, divisional director of Thorpe Park, said: “The interest as to whether we might have disturbed a paranormal element has been immense and advice from more than 30 paranormal mediums and religious members, who contacted the park, has been to bless the site, which we have done, for peace of mind of staff and customers.”
First of all, calling this Jim Arnold person an “expert” of the paranormal is misleading. There are no paranormal experts. Nothing paranormal is yet proven, and therefore all we have are theories. No facts, therefore no experts.
Secondly, this amusement park seems pretty open about advertising this new ride that was supposedly on haunted grounds. If they were that concerned, why not shut the ride down? Instead, they are releasing this information, and having a paranormal investigator on hand to help with the publicity. I mean investigation.
And they “hired” this paranormal investigator? Why are they paying him money?
Ghost hunters and business alike have exploited and capitalized on this paranormal fad, and with detrimental results. For businesses, it seems to be all about taking any shred of a ghost story at their location and turning it into hourly tours, Halloween attractions and charging paranormal teams $1000 per night to investigate. For ghost hunting TV shows (“Ghost Hunters,” “Ghost Adventures,” and any other show with “ghost” in the title) it’s all about ratings, faking evidence, and yelling “What was that? Did you see that?” And paranormal groups aren’t innocent of wrongdoing, either. So many groups want to be “number one.” There is the chest beating, the territoriality, people charging for services that nobody can even prove are effective, and so on. And in the end, everyone ends up looking bad.
There used to be a time when a story like this would really interest and excite me. But these days, I tend to look at the ghost hunting community with a more skeptical and suspicious eye. There are quite a few things wrong with this story. Can you figure out which ones are making me suspicious?
How the scientific community sees us.
A paranormal “expert in residence” will be on hand at the opening of a theme park ride next month to monitor any strange activity after fears that an ancient burial ground has been disturbed.
A new ride at Thorpe Park in Surrey was moved to another part of the site after workers said they started noticing ghostly sightings nearby, including what appeared to be a headless monk.
Since details of the ghostly goings on were revealed, the park has been inundated with requests from mediums and paranormal experts and enthusiasts, to visit the site and carry out detailed research.
Managers have now decided to hire paranormal investigator Jim Arnold for the opening day of the new season, March 17, to monitor the site and the new water ride, Storm Surge.
“If the spirits are unhappy with anything, we should pick something up straight away. We’ll be working with Thorpe Park to monitor the situation for the next 12 months,” he said.
Mike Vallis, divisional director of Thorpe Park, said: “The interest as to whether we might have disturbed a paranormal element has been immense and advice from more than 30 paranormal mediums and religious members, who contacted the park, has been to bless the site, which we have done, for peace of mind of staff and customers.”
First of all, calling this Jim Arnold person an “expert” of the paranormal is misleading. There are no paranormal experts. Nothing paranormal is yet proven, and therefore all we have are theories. No facts, therefore no experts.
Secondly, this amusement park seems pretty open about advertising this new ride that was supposedly on haunted grounds. If they were that concerned, why not shut the ride down? Instead, they are releasing this information, and having a paranormal investigator on hand to help with the publicity. I mean investigation.
And they “hired” this paranormal investigator? Why are they paying him money?
Ghost hunters and business alike have exploited and capitalized on this paranormal fad, and with detrimental results. For businesses, it seems to be all about taking any shred of a ghost story at their location and turning it into hourly tours, Halloween attractions and charging paranormal teams $1000 per night to investigate. For ghost hunting TV shows (“Ghost Hunters,” “Ghost Adventures,” and any other show with “ghost” in the title) it’s all about ratings, faking evidence, and yelling “What was that? Did you see that?” And paranormal groups aren’t innocent of wrongdoing, either. So many groups want to be “number one.” There is the chest beating, the territoriality, people charging for services that nobody can even prove are effective, and so on. And in the end, everyone ends up looking bad.
