Most people (most young people) making their first steps in investigating the paranormal think that it’s all about running through dark places with a digital camera and a flashlight, shooting photos of ghosts. Unfortunately, it’s not the way it looks like – it’s still entertaining, but in a different way…

You see, investigating any kind of paranormal activity isn’t very… active :). You can forget about action-packed adventure, close encounters with the unexplained, seeing ghosts walking through corridors, or seeing people flying around the room after being thrown by some kind of a demonic force. Let me tell you about the reality of paranormal investigations…

The reality of paranormal investigations

Paranormal investigations are all about:

1. Visiting places – places, in which in most cases nothing will ever happen, as the place isn’t haunted at all; people want to believe it is, because they heard legends and rumours; and in most cases, the explanation for any paranormal activity is very logical and very normal, like problems with electricity, or water pipes; therefore, paranormal investigations do visit many places in literally nothing is going on beside the owner being scared to hell by a water pipe :P.
2. Talking to people – if you don’t like talking to people, don’t think you will become a good investigator, such person need to talk a lot, and more than that, paranormal investigator need to know how to listen what people are saying; paranormal investigator will have to do a lot of interviews with owners, employees, friends, family, and dozens of other people during each and every investigation.
3. Historical research – every paranormal investigation that include haunted location requires a lot of historical research; you need to know what happened in the past in this particular location, who lived here, what happened to people who lived here, literally you need to know the story behind the place you’re investigating; therefore you need to do some research, visit a library, local archive, and once again, talk to people; if you don’t like history, you won’t be a good investigator.
4. Observation – when we’re on paranormal activity site (PAS, yay – finally) in most cases we’re ending up sitting whole night waiting for something to happen; and in most cases nothing happens :P. After the night, we’re sitting in front of computers analysing the data – videos, photos, audio records etc.; and once again we’re waiting for something to, this time, appear on our screens; in 12 hours of recording, we’re ending up with 1 weak EVP thing, and that’s all – you’re ready for that?

As you can see, we just can’t talk about any action here, for most people it’s boring, even if you’re an energy worker or a psychic, or just a sensitive person, the things you might experience aren’t very action packed. But when you’ll finally end up with heavy haunting, well – that’s another story I’m yet to tell you :).

Being a paranormal investigator means you need to be patient, sceptical yet open-minded, friendly to people and prapared that in most situations nothing will ever happen. People are always surprised when I’m telling them: “no, I’m not hunting ghosts, I’m doing research, for most people it’s boring, but for me all these historical references are awesome!” :). If you feel the same way, perhaps you are indeed right person for this job?

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