Why are ghosts here?

Many people believe in a heaven or some place like it, and wonder why ghosts bother to stay and be ghosts, rather than moving on and "going into the light".  I hear this question from a LOT of family and friends.  


It's a TERRIFIC question, and the only answers we can offer are theories, since that's the best we can do in this field of study.


Here are a few reasons spirits may "hang out":

• They have a message to get across or business to finish.  Maybe a spirit cannot rest because there is a misconception about themselves that they want clarified.  Perhaps it is believed they killed themselves, but they didn't, and they only want the truth to be known.  Maybe they want to make sure that a certain part of their estate is handled the way they want it handled... it might stay around to make sure it goes as planned.
• There is a friend or family member who still needs them.  This is one of the sadder situations.  There might be a survivor who is so grief-stricken and cannot bear to continue, so the spirit feels the responsibility to stay with that person until they are strong enough to move on.  Only then, can the spirit move on.  This is one great reason to go ahead and grieve a loss of someone you love, but be clear that you don't expect or want them to stay and "babysit" you.
• They may not know they are dead. 
• They may want to just witness something... for example: a mother who dies in childbirth may want to stay around to see that child grow to adulthood.
• They may just be frightened or confused about moving on.
• They might have such strong positive memories about the times they spent in a place while they were alive, that they want to spend more time there after death.  It may feel like a safe haven... like home.
• And, although it isn't as common as all the reasons above, a negative entity can sometimes keep spirits in a place against their will.  Then you have a "bad guy" trapping spirits who are trying to leave.   

Just to clarify, just because a spirit is around doesn't mean it is bad and "unworthy" of moving on to a better place.  There are many reasons they may hang around, and only some of them are listed above.  

A terrific resource for more information on how to identify what you are dealing with, and how to proceed is Michelle Belanger's The Ghost Hunter's Survival Guide, a book that I highly recommend.  This book has oodles of info for the aspiring ghost hunter.

Important to note:  Just as we should not force our opinions on others in the living world, the same goes for spiritual entities, except in extreme circumstances.  There may be some reason an entity is still around, and if so, it would not be right of us to try to force them "into the light."  IF it were a negative entity, that's a different story, but that's a whole different subject.    

My first client case...

So I encountered my first client investigation this past weekend!
It was out of town, about 2.5 hours away, in Cobb, CA (the Clear Lake area, Lake County).  Since it was so far from home, we all stayed and made a weekend of it.  
Occasionally, I had 1 bar on my phone, but otherwise, no cell service... I felt like I was "off the grid" all weekend!  

Our client was having claims of apparitions (fully visible entities), shadow movement, sounds of voices, knocking and taps, and things being moved without explanation.


The weather was crazy!  Rain, hail, wind... it was chilly.  To top it off, there were 3 earthquakes in the area while we were there! The residents joked it was because the paranormal investigators were there poking around!  We did a short investigation 5-9am Saturday, and another more detailed one 10pm-1:30am Saturday/Sunday.... Looking for this guy:

I handled the digital video for the first session, and encountered battery drain three times.  Most paranormal researchers theorize that entities can take energy from the surrounding environment - from electronics, natural energy like lightning, and other sources, even people.  Anyhow, the battery went from full to empty instantly.  I shut it down, and when I restarted it the battery had rebounded to full.  Apparently, that is typical of "battery drain" from paranormal sources.  

I used the restroom while there, and while I was in it the doorknob jiggled strongly, like someone was trying to open the locked door.  When I got out, I asked the group and no one claimed to have been anywhere near the bathroom.  And right before we left, phone lines fell from the pole behind the building and were lying across the porch... lovely weather we were having!

One of our team members got two great EVPs, where an entity is saying "I won't leave.... Huckabee...." (two EVPs originally about 20 seconds apart, separated by silence, but I cut out some of the silence for this clip):

I got to use the fancy shmancy full-spectrum still camera for the evening investigation, and we got an interesting orb photo from it.  I normally don't like orb claims ... so many of them are from dust reflecting light, bugs, or even dirt on the lens.  But it is highly unusual to get an orb photo with a full-spectrum camera because it doesn't have a traditional light flash to cause a reflection off of dust.  So, I'll call it very interesting, but it doesn't prove anything.


My digital watch zero'ed out (went back to 01/01/2001 12:00) 3 times... I re-set it the first two times, and tossed it into a bag after the third... it hasn't given me problems before - so maybe my watch had battery drain as well.  A teammate and myself heard a whistle in the cellar, but it wasn't caught on any recorders - dang it!  We got a temperature change on request, from 61 degrees to 63.8.... not hugely significant, but it was stable temperature before, and slowly changed as we asked it to.


And my pièce de résistance: in response to questions during an EVP session, I felt my hand being touched... 3 times! CRAZY-strange.... pressure on my skin, but it also felt tingly, like when your foot falls asleep and starts to wake back up...  Weird, and very cool too!


We have our team meeting soon and I'll find out what the other members got from the investigation, and what we will be bringing back to the client! That's the difference with doing client cases... the work only begins with the investigation.  It's followed by more work to put together what we theorize is going on, and we need to come back to the client with evidence (if we have any, which we do this time), and suggestions if they want any.  Most importantly, clients want to know that they are safe... this client has nothing to worry about.  Things may move, they may see people who aren't alive, but they are in NO danger.