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In a Paranormal State of Delusion

You hear strange noises in the middle of the night. You wake from a restless dream only to see an apparition staring at you from the foot of your bed. You feel a hand on your shoulder. What could be causing these mysterious and frightening things? You want to feel safe in your house but you can’t because you are obviously being harassed by evil entities hell bent on destroying your peace of mind and sanity. So who are you gonna call? The Paranormal Research Society of course. You can find this crack investigative team on A&E on Monday nights on a show called Paranormal State. The lead investigator, Ryan, had some scary experiences with the paranormal as a child (no details given) and he is now in search of answers. He has assembled a team and they now help people solve their own ghost mysteries.

There are two different types of paranormal investigators. The ones that use actual science to get to the truth such as Benjamin Radford and the ones (like the PRS) who use theatrics and useless equipment to try to validate what they already believe to be the cause. The cause, of course, being ghosties. The latter is the most ubiquitous and the ones who get the most publicity. I suppose “You don’t have ghosts, you have squirrels,” just doesn’t make for riveting television. The stories you hear from people who think they are haunted are quite often quite fabulous. It makes one wonder what is really going on. Sure, the reason could be dead folks coming to poke us and generally be a bother in the backside but I find that highly unlikely and refuse to accept that as a first and final answer or even as an answer at all. If I had the know-how, I would love to pursue a career in scientific paranormal investigating because I want to know the REAL reason, even if it means something as mundane as faulty electrical.

I want to discuss one episode of Paranormal State in particular because it highlights a mundane reason for a “haunting”. Ryan and his crew go into a situation with many pre-conceived notions that I believe hinder their ability to properly conduct an unbiased investigation. 1. They believe that the person in question is being haunted. Quite simply, there be ghosts. 2. They believe that there are people that can communicate with said ghosts. 3. They are very religious. Now I don't really think being religious would hinder a person but they believe it to such a point that they think evil entities can actually possess people and that exorcism is a viable option to remedy such a situation.

The episode starts with the team interviewing the family, in this case, a mother and daughter. They determine that the family is feeling ill and occasionally see a presence in the room with them. There are reports of nausea and mom feels pressure on her head and chest. The first tentative thought that popped into my head was carbon monoxide posioning. A team member does some historical research and discovers that the house is built only a few hundred feet above an old coal mine. There were two deadly accidents in the mine and sadly, not all of the men were extracted. Voila! The house is obviously haunted by the tortured souls of these miners who died so suddenly and tragically many years ago. Phew! Glad we know now what sort of ghosts we're dealing with here. Then Ryan makes his biggest mistake. He calls in the immensly irritating Chip Coffey. Chip bills himself as a "clairvoyant, clairaudient and clairsentient psychic, as well as a fully-conscious medium." Wow, fit that on to a business card! He walks around and spews nonsense about what he "senses." No evidence is given for what he says. we just have to take his word for it. Chip isn't the only medium used on Paranormal State but the rest are just as useless and entirely unhelpful.

The team then does something they call "dead time." It involves asking the spirits to reveal themselves by making some kind of noise. There is the usual drama and Blair Witch vision and we are occasionally rewarded with some random bump. For some reason, this must always be done in the middle of the night and in complete darkness. I guess it's a good way to heighten the excitment and make everyone good and jumpy. Through the course of this "investigation", Ryan and his team also begin to experience physical symptoms while in the house. Once again, I think of carbon monoxide poisoning. One morning, Ryan is called to the house, it seems that mom was "attacked" by the ghost and was taken to hospital by ambulance. While at the hospital her symptoms appear to be lessened. Ryan finally gets a clue and calls in a home inspector. Lo and behold they find.....wait for it.....a carbon monoxide leak. It seems that one of the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning is hallucinations along with all the other things that the family and team experienced. Not as exciting as dead miners moaning and lamenting but the lady of the house was very happy that her problem was solved. Ryan, on the other hand, actually looked a little dissapointed that the answer was not what he had hoped for.

If the PRS hadn't gone into the house with all their little pre-conceived notions then they may have solved this mystery earlier. I know I did. So if you start seeing things and feeling ill. Maybe check for gas leaks before calling in the Ghostbusters.

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