Debunking to me sounds like something you do to dissemble a bunk bed. It doesn’t sound like a term you would use in the paranormal at all.
But it’s one, if not, the most important words when investigating the paranormal.
We’ve all been there at one time or another. Something happens…. Something occurs that at the time you can’t figure out how. Say for instance a door slamming when there is no breeze or maybe a whisper is heard from a part of the room that no one was in at the time.
It’s exciting! Could this be it? Could this be THE time where you can confidently turn around and say “THIS is paranormal”?.
Mmmmm…. Not just yet.
If you’re interested in the paranormal, getting familiar with how possible phenomena occurs is really important. That loud bang? Where did it come from? What can cause loud bangs in walls naturally?
Doesn’t sound very exciting does it? But, there is good reason as to why you need to do this.
Paranormal Investigators are meant to observe potential paranormal phenomena first and then look at what could cause it — that is NOT paranormal.
Imagine hearing a whisper in the other room to immediately declare “it’s a ghost!” and then only to find out months later after reviewing any video footage that it was in fact another person that caused the whisper. It can happen to the best of us and not because someone is trying to be deceiving.
Sometimes as humans we forget when we murmur under our breaths. It doesn’t mean malice, just the fact that one has forgotten at that time that they had whispered. You see, we don’t generally keep track of all our movements consciously all the time — it’s just being human.
So how do we start ruling out explainable reasons before we look at paranormal ones?
A good place to start is looking at whether the phenomena could be environmental or psychological.
What does this mean?
Let’s break it down.
Psychological: You heard a whisper in the other room, what could it be? Our minds are amazing instruments but are yet also programmed to get us out of danger and know our enemies from our friends. So being able to recognise a voice meant the difference between friend or foe.
If a whisper is heard then we start to look at why we as humans would hear a whisper when there wasn’t one. If you started initially researching this then you would come up with the term “Audible Paradolia”. Audible indicating sound and paradolia as in where we sense something and our brains turn it into something familiar, when it wasn’t meant to be in the first place.
Think about it, voices are the most common sound we hear so if there is a sound, we will try to categorise it as something familiar.
Environmental: A loud bang was heard in a room next door with no one in it. What could naturally cause this sound? Was it a thud or a knock? Go into the room and see if you can re-create the sound by looking for objects that may have fallen or even knocking on different parts of the room. Yes, you will feel like a right idiot walking around a room knocking on surfaces and saying “did it sound like this?” but being able to debunk naturally occurring phenomena is important.
Debunking isn’t exciting — I get it. But if you are interested in investigating the paranormal, arming yourself with knowledge of how non paranormal phenomena occurs ultimately saves you time and much needed energy.
How?
Because having a good background on explainable stuff means if something does occur, you aren’t wasting your time by being under the impression its paranormal when it’s not. You can actually focus on the things that do happen that can’t be explained straight away — and THAT is exciting.
Wanna get ahead of the game and learn the 3 key areas to focus on?
