Ghost Rider Investigations

I've been doing investigations for a number of years now and noted that investigations were always hit and miss with actual field time being something of a tough thing to get time to do.

Getting out and spending quality time was somewhat of a treat rather than a routine matter. When I counted the number of investigations I had been on in two years, it came to less than a dozen. And that really got to me. In fact, I didn't like it.

I'm a professional programmer and spend a lot of time immersed in new technologies. As a mentor, I also encourage my students to just dive into a subject, question everything and to not be afraid of failure. I advise them to regularly measure and examine what they get out of something with regard to the effort placed in. This is true for many things in life, including paranormal investigations.

So I took my own advice after years of work and collection of expensive gear for doing paranormal research and began to weigh what this was getting me and I realized that the gear won't do it's job unless it is put to work. Frequently. And I only take the gear that the case demands rather than weighing myself down with exotic tools that find limited use. It's a matter of workhorse tools that can be trusted friends on most investigations.

This is a real problem in field research of all types. As an information scientist myself, I look at science in terms of how one deals with implementing theory, research and collection of evidence to back these theories. Balance that with available time and budget and you begin to understand the realities. For an investigator to really prosper, they need field time, mentoring and to experiment on what interests them.

I mentioned a dozen investigations per year in my own case. In talking with others, there were many who had less frequency of investigative experience than I did. They universally expressed a desire to raise the frequency of investigative work, but without the politics and competition to perform to get the reward. They had tired of waiting for *permission* to go out and do what they wanted to do.

I had this same reaction after I examined the productive output of investigation work using frequency of field time as the benchmark. And it occurred to me that I could do something about it since, by this time, I was on my own and realized it was up to me to work the schedule of investigations.

Investigations do not have to be big elaborate affairs. They can be spontaneous. They can be fast and quick. They can even be done solo if certain basic safety considerations are taken into account. They can be done off-the-cuff when driving by a historical monument.

How?

Case research is no mystery. It's easy to find cases. All one has to do is use Google and to swap stories with like minded researchers to build that list up. So it's good to immerse yourself in the cases that you yourself are interested in. Share these with other friends who are willing to go with you.

Rate the cases if they are low-risk for single investigator checks versus ones that do require multiple investigators. Pretty easy to do. Then calculate when you can do them and set up the schedule. Keep a copy in your pocket or car so you can check the list if opportunity strikes and you can do a fast investigation.

Why can't we do three investigations a month? If you have the time, you can certainly do that. You might have time to do recurring long-term work on a subset of cases and still get lots of good time in. It comes down to what you personally can handle.

I recently bought a lower-cost digital recorder with the express purpose of rating it as an expendable piece of equipment. I reasoned that I could ramp up investigative time by using expendable gear to get field time even when not there in person.

A likely case is selected, the gear dropped in a hidden location and the evidence gathered. If I did 3 of these a month, then I get even more field time and evidence to verify potential hot spots and separate the wheat from the chaff with only a little extra effort. So it's possible to reduce the comparative limitations of a small team to a much larger degree as a matter of design and intent. Doing more with less. It's all about how resources are placed.

So we can get evidence by dropping recorders in haunted locations and hiding them for later pickup. My experience is that the digital recorder needs to be protected by placing it into a container or embedded in styro-foam or insulation. Especially since outdoor investigations are often in colder environments and this drains batteries quickly.

Keeping a digital recorder in the car, a compass for basic emf work and a low-cost digital camera gives you a capability that researchers would have envied even a few years ago. The sizes of these devices are such that the entire bunch can be carried in your hand. So it's entirely feasible to operate solo when needed and to do so economically and without waiting for permission from a hierarchy.

Spot investigations can be done during lunch breaks, on the way to or from home. Ten minutes is enough. I've managed some great EVPs in short visits to spots that have been selected from lists of candidate spots. The trick is to have that list in the first place. And therein lies the rub.

You have to work at research and really build the list up and keep it up. If you don't have this in place, then it's academic you won't have cases to work from. Hit the library, work the web for cases, talk with other researchers and then get out there and learn about your own community. You'll be surprised at what you learn by just talking to everyday people about what you are doing. More often then not, you'll learn about a haunt or case just by getting off your duff and getting out there and your feet and hands dirty while looking for the gold cases your always dreamed of.

Good luck!