Ghost Rider Investigations

We're in the initial phases of planning our upcoming 2010 hunting season. I'm making the needed inquiries for a grand-tour of the Western U.S. for a blitzkrieg-style hunt with our mobile research lab of the western U.S. The lab will have all needed equipment and also provides a means of staying overnight at remote locales with all the comforts we would need on-hand.

I'm making plans for a two to three person team to do a two to three week tour of the U.S. with planned stops to interact with other paranormal and UFO teams. Our focus on this tour will be to look for cases that overlap with UFO activity. Specific focus will be on orbs and the rash of sightings taking place in both paranormal and UFO cases.

We ourselves have noted blue orbs on a number of our cases. Here is a chance to do some original research over a huge cross-section of the U.S. specifically designed to seek out and investigation potential orb activity. We will, however, take advantage of doing more conventional paranormal investigation as it presents itself during the trip

Our eastern-most member, Christine B, sends us this article from her adventures from Canal Fulton near the Ohio area where she currently resides. On with the article! Click HERE to view the original article in PDF format with all photos associated with it.

On October 16, 2009 a few friends and I took part in a Historical Ghost Walk Tour in the Akron suburb of Canal Fulton. The old Erie Canal runs through the center of town, so there is lots of history in the area.

We arrived about an hour before the tour was scheduled to begin, so we decided to walk down North Canal Street. We found a delightful teddy bear shop open (Keillor’s), so we entered it to take a look around.

There were hundreds of adorable stuffed bears in the shop, but as soon as I walked into the store I felt a spirit presence. I walked up to the shop keeper and asked if the building was haunted. The owner, Linda Keillor, was very gracious and didn’t seem at all put off by my question. “As a matter of fact,” she told us, “There is a ghost named Agatha in the building, and she hangs out in the basement.”

The Ohio and Erie Canal was completed in 1832. The canal’s route ran along the path of the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas River valley, formerly the site of the most important north- south Indian trail in Eastern Ohio. The canal ran from Cleveland on Lake Erie to Portsmouth on the Ohio River.

I've been, admittedly, a tech junkie when it comes to paranormal investigations. It's a tough thing to go out and try to use all the gear we use, especially when you are on uncoordinated hunts with no team and it's all on you to get your evidence.

One of the biggest problems is getting clean audio on mobile EVP while going through all the confusion of a hunt. The audio quality definitely suffers when you are handling the device with one hand and trying to do other things like run a camera and EVP meter.

I've struggled with different scenarios until I was inspired by the idea of taking a wrist band with a pocket to hold my MP3 recorder. I figure that with two of them, one with the recorder and the other with environment sensors like EMF detectors and a temperature sensor, you could get immediate readings of an environment with hands-free to handle a camera or deal with climbing in and around difficult areas.

Graveyards

When my soul is restless

And things seem out of line,

I visit an old graveyard

To take a mystical step back in time.

 

I find the oldest tombstones

Then read the messages there;

I consider what their days had been

And how our lives in ways compare.

 

We all have lived though heartaches

As well as episodes of fun;

Surviving loss of loved ones,

And rewarded for a job well done.

 

Sometimes if I'm very still

 I can hear what they have to say

And feel them reaching out to me

Grateful for my momentary stay.

 

Christine B. © 2009

It is estimated that everyday, more than 10,200 guests appear on approximately 6,000 radio talk or interview shows across America. In addition, there are about 988 TV shows to consider for interview possibilities. Ninety-four percent of the guests are authors who do not have recognizable names. Radio and television talk shows need interesting guests to attract listeners and viewers. Authors are interesting people. The general public think that authors are experts and celebrities.

Why do radio talk shows to promote yourself or service?

   1. Most radio interviews can be done by telephone, with no travel required.
   2. Most interviews are live, and allow for Q & A from the listeners.
   3. With interviews ranging from five to sixty minutes, this forum provides adequate time for a you to talk about yourself, book or service.
   4. A guest can give out a toll-free number, website, or direct listeners to a bookstore to make a purchase.

Talkers Magazine describes the average talk radio listener:

1. A majority of the talk radio audience is 35 to 64 years old.
2. Economically, talk radio's audience is considered to be among mass media's most affluent. 42% of the talk radio audience has a household income in excess of $60,000 per year and 62% earn over $50,000.
3. Relative to other forms of mass media, the talk radio audience is clearly one of the most educated with a notably high percentage of listeners who have attended one or more years of college. 35% have graduated with a four-year college degree.
4. The gap between men and women in the radio audience has narrowed by two more percentage points, bringing it to 54% male and 46% female.

If you are available to do interviews with the media to promote your book or speaking business, the following checklist will prove helpful. Always remember, while you are there to promote your stuff, you must also provide entertaining content for the radio audience. Talk show hosts will seldom invite you back if you do not first have their audience in mind. In other words. . . your book will get you on, then you must have something interesting to say that is unique, controversial or fascinating (besides an occasional mention of your book).

We often interview guests from all over the United States. As such, some have never been on-air and need a little something to help them come to terms with being on the air. This guide is something we found and are just posting here for our guests to reference when we commit to a show with them. -- GRI.

The tips below were gathered from personal experience (appearances on over 450 radio talk shows) and from other speakers and authors who have coached me on improving my on-the-air presence while being interviewed by radio talk show hosts. In addition, as Associate Producer of the MarsVenus Radio Talk Show, the following guidelines are those that I recommend for guests who appear on our show.

Before you go on the air, take a few minutes to focus on what you want to say. Know your mission and your message. Take several deep breathes and relax. If you are doing the interview on the telephone, have your book and your notes handy. Never "read" from your notes, "speak" from them.

While you are on the radio to promote your books or other products, you must also provide entertaining content for the radio audience. Talk show hosts will seldom invite you back if you do not first have their audience in mind. In other words. . . your book will get you on, then you must have something interesting to say that is unique, controversial or fascinating (besides an occasional mention of your book).

Put aside any prepared agenda you may have and let the host lead with questions. Listener who listen to talk radio are smart. They know when someone is trying to "sell" them something. They want to be entertained and informed. Say things that make them think. Listeners (and hosts too) become quickly annoyed with guests who constantly repeat the title of their book, your website or name of your business and will often tune out.

As many of you know, I've hunted with TAPS members on a couple of occasions and I've always found them to be very polite and somewhat shy people.

They've got their opinions on things and I've concluded that they are famous folks who sometimes are a little bewildered at the sheer mass of humanity watching them at all times.

For many moons now, I've watched folks sit in judgment of this episode or that and who take issue with TAPS and GHI's approaches to things. A lot of things are charged. Everything from outright faking of evidence to personal attacks for reasons that border on the insane.

I've wondered where this all comes from. Considering how easy it is these days to capture EVP and other evidence with the sheer numbers of haunts now known to exist, WHY would one of the more experienced teams in the world fake evidence?

I heard it (in person) best said at a conference where GHI and TAPS were present and they said if they ever got caught doing such things, it would wreck the entire paranormal field. And their opinions on how easy it is to catch evidence made it clear to me that they had their priorities pretty well figured out. I think that they are on the level and  that we can trust their investigations and evidence presentations unless evidence is brought forth to prove otherwise.

I saw it in action over at the Wolfe Manor in November of last year and I decided that one day I'd have to get one. I'm talking, of course, about Geophones.

While sitting with Britt and Amy from TAPS on the top floor of the Wolfe Manor, I watched as these amazing devices reacted to the slightest touch. While the results were not clear for that investigation, I've been on enough hunts where we've heard footsteps and experienced wall knocks that I knew I'd eventually need some mean of detecting these things with a visual cueing system like this. I do think they can work but a team needs to use a lot of care in deployment and have rules in place to dictate the use of the geophone on a case. More on this later in the article.

A geophone is a device for measuring seismic vibrations. The large sensor has enough mass inside it to freely move a potentiometer or coil based device to then provide a signal to the electronics that amplify and record the signal in some form or another. They are not new to the world but they are new in paranormal research.

I had no idea of where to procure one, but decided it had to be some sort of relatively easy circuit build with a massive vibration sensor of some sort.

Then, today, I decided to do a show about paranormal research with Geophones and saw an article with a link to a kit that is probably the ultimate easy-build! BGMicro has the kits in stock and I immediately ordered one.

I've got a fully equipped electronics bench, so it will be pretty simple to build the kit. The photo shows that  the circuit is a very simple board with a few components, an IC chip and one very massive sensor. I'm going to put mine in a very slick enclosure for field work and use with video investigations.

We're going to do a show on Geophones in October and will discuss their construction, the potential uses of them and to talk turkey with guests who have had use of them in the field.

A great article and video on building your own was done recently on the Denver Paranormal Examiner by Alejandro Rojas and we include the link and video here for your enjoyment..

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TAPS looks to be using the same circuit as Alejandro used and it seems that BG Micro has a winner of a kit on it's hands. The cost is very reasonable, about $30 and one of the easier kit builds you can do for homemade paranormal gear. Britt's video on Youtube is shown below and you'll see the BG Micro kit in this video:

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I liked TAPS approach with the big metal base for their device. I'm inclined to test a range of materials to see what is easy to work with and can be fit into my already crowded bag of tricks when I hunt. I think a metal block would do well to secure the instrument to the floor but a rubber or plastic brick of some sort might also do as well. We'll detail our construction in this article when the kit arrives and we start work on it.

I'll detail the construction of mine in this article as an addendum and Youtube video later on when we get the kit.

This weekend a tragic set of events transpired as many people who had tickets to the Odyssey Star event lost their chance to get a great ghost hunt at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum under their belt along with meeting paranormal stars and heavyweights who bring a lot to the field.

I'm not one of those writing to detract or place blame. This article does make some observations, but I'm here to offer a solution and to try to create a right from what has been a huge mess.

Given that the U.S. Justice Department is involved now in looking at the events of this whole thing, the truth of all of this will come out with professional investigators doing their thing and the right things being done to help address and bring justice to the situation.

So, as I mentioned earlier, I'm writing this article to propose a solution and to address, egads!, the FUTURE! But, before I go there, I have a few observations to make.

The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum is a good group of folks from what I can tell. They have every right to charge and make money from their facility. They did try to give a free ghost hunt to each of the folks who paid and I applaud them for trying to do *something* to fix this situation.

Equally in the box for this is Odyssey Star and until ALL the facts come out, it does no good to level blame or assertions on various personalities (save for Brent Fair) until the investigations are done and final reports come out. Presumption of innocence is a cornerstone of our justice system and I think it best to stand back and wait on all of this.

And given the recent mauling both groups are taking over the problems with the Odyssey Star event for this weekend, I can honestly observe that no good deed goes unpunished. Odyssey and TALA tried hard to work things out and sometimes, in life, things just don't pan out. This is a business and sometimes mergers and deals fall through. It's a harsh fact of life.

A friend of mine is a promoter who does conventions and other similar types of events and she told me recently that a lot of people do not have the expertise or training when they mistakenly think they can do event promotions and gatherings of any appreciable size. What seems clear to me is that this is the case with the added twist of Brent running off and leaving two people with pretty much zero experience in this business of event promotion trying to pick up the pieces. And yes, they probably made mistakes and probably will make more. Time to get over it and try to figure out what to do next.

I was one of those who had a ticket for the U.S.S. Hornet event and that *did* go off well but was of a much smaller scale that this TALA event. The outcome of Brent Fair's actions has had a cascading effect that is just bad news for anyone and it's all too easy to pass judgment from a distance. 

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