Thanks for letting me read and post here.

I'm interested in what you do but so far, I've seen nothing that would stand up to scientific scrutiny and be judged as the work of "ghosts".

There seems to be a lot of confirmation bias eg "I believe in spirits / ghosts / afterlife and here's some unexplained stuff that confirms my belief".

Are you genuinely investigating or are you so biased in your pre-conceived beliefs that you are actively seeking anything that supports your views?

You all seem like nice people though and I have no desire to be unduly confrontational but I can't do anything other than challenge the conclusions drawn as they aren't based on any evidence that would support them.

best wishes to you anyway

VS

Hi,

Well yes, I think we are generally seeking to find evidence (although you said 'anything') to suppoort our views. But you must remember that to many, these views are a reality, not simply a hypothesis or notion, but a proven personal reality. And you must also remember that sometimes, evidence for some people is personal evidence...

I think essentially you have to remember that none of GPS are scientists and GPS is not a scientific organisation. We are a society, a group of people who are interested and are seeking to verify the existence of ghosts- we try to use scientific reasoning and techniques in order to try and quantify and record measurements that we think relate to genuine paranormal activity, but we are not scientists. I think most people here do believe and do want to believe in the existence of ghosts and many personal experiences account for this belief (actually seeing a ghost is as much proof as most actually need to believe).

At the end of the day we enjoy doing what we do, we seek evidence that is relevant to how we percieve things and enjoy the challenge of trying to find new ways of 'ghost hunting'.

Not all of us are believers, I myself am not convinced.

Yes I think sometimes people do see or hear things because they want to, but on the whole I think most people here do a very good job in not jumping to conclusions. You will often see large debate on the forums over evidences and often things that look like they are paranormal are completely debunked and accepted as such.

You must remember also that although the majority of us hold beliefs about our understandings, mainstream science and it's scientists also hold their very strong convictions about how they understand the world. This too is 'unscientific'. There are thousands of examples of this, just try talking to a parapsychologist or maybe look into the well respected Society for Psychical Research (SPR), an organisation whose ranks are full of academics, doctors and scientists alike.

Hope that helps!

Robb
[i]

Hi VS

welcome VS hope you enjoy it here

I personaly am a beleaver due to things that have happend to me. i have been listening to some skeptical podcasts recently and they thing i notice about alot of skeptics (not all) is they sit and go over the evidence with out leaving there chair and on this one particula podcast they actuly got some facts wrong so i cant take everything they say if their not doing there homework haha. say i got a full aperition on camera and i know for a fact that it is realy alot of skeptics will sit there and say that could of been your mate and some video editing. the thing that i would love to catch for example is say i got a video of a spirit of someone i knew and then people will say well you made that and then i showed them a copy of their death cert. showing you that they died 12months before hand. but then skeptics will say well you must of made that before they died so realy there is no way we can win cuz someone somewhere will come up with something. but to the person who lost there love one and seeing them on camera after they have passed would be 100000000% proof to them.
we have gone in to locations that are "haunted" and found nothin and found a few things that could explain something they were experiencing and we advise them. and when we do find something we dont turn around and say thats paranormal. we say we cant find an explernation for why this happens.

anyways im guna go to bed now as its late as im typing this haha.

talk soon

Matt

Hi Welcome to GPS

Me myself am on the fence, the reason i wanted to join the team is not only to help people but to find some concrete evidence that ghost exist. I've experienced things, I've heard and seen things but nothing i can say is 100% paranormal.

Everyone is different and people's believes again are stronger then others for example on Orbs i totally dismiss them due to the fact they are so easy to replicate with dust, insects etc... whilst other people totally believe there paranormal.

Like has been said were not scientists or claim to be, were just normal people trying to find answers just like you


Matt

Hi very Skeptic,

welcome to GPS forum.

I do agree with you in some ways, but that is only due to the fact, that just too many teams classify almost everything as paranormal what they find, without gathering material to back it up.

I think that you will find, that GPS is one of the few teams, that do exactly the other thing. Most of our team members DO believe in spirits, but that is because they have experienced too many things in their lives, that are just not explainable. But still we ALWAYS try to find a rational explanation for our findings, even our strong believers.
Unlike a lot of other teams, we do invest in top of the range equipment, update us frequently on new theories, scientific results etc.

as Robb said before, we aren't scientists, but with our common sense and the knowledge that we have, I personally think, that we aren't doing too bad in debunking evidence. Should be we in doubt about a video or photo, we even send it to specialists. In a few cases, even they weren't able to explain things.

As a pure skeptic, you might say:"Ok, but even that doesn't proof anything!"

And in a way you might be right, because some people need diagrams, tables and tons of numbers and studies.

The problem with the research of the paranormal is, that, according to theories, we are mostly dealing with human spirits, and like any living human being, you just can't force them to jump in front of the camera and deliver a show.
To proof or disproof the existence of ghosts, several long term studies of hundreds of locations would be necessary, because (also according to theories) there are so many different kind of hauntings.

Our aim is, to gather as much material as possible in our field studies. Our hope is, that maybe one day, scientists and teams like us can work together to hopefully come to a conclusion.

But I am getting carried away here

Why don't you open a discussion thread in another section of the forum? I am sure our users and our team will be more than willing to join in.
I would also like to invite you to tell us about your thoughts about our findings. rational, backed up explanations are always welcome.

This forum is a very friendly and tolerant place. Due to the subject it is essential to tolerate the beliefs of others, never mind how strange some of them might be. No one here will judge or discriminate other users and everyone here is treated friendly and with respect.


So I hope you will enjoy your time here. Looking forward to read your posts,

Hella