Cell Phones and the Paranormal

I am having to put this out there as it is becoming a problem with the rise of the iPhone and other cell phones with the ability to take pictures.

Recently our group was contacted about an alleged haunting. During the course of the back and forth info gathering emails on Facebook, I was told that pictures had been taken. The photos showed the alleged spirits haunting this family. Naturally, I asked to see the photos. The contact complied and I received an email with the photos. Of course, I was expecting to see random photos of dust particles being claimed as orbs. Instead, I opened the attachments of 5 random photos with images from an Android ghost app in them.

Can you say disappointed?

Thus the reason for this post

Because we have had experience with someone trying to pass of an app photo as the real deal, we are quite familiar with all the apps out there. And these photos were obvious fakes. When confronted, they admitted they were taken with an app.

With the rise of all the paranormal shows out there, there has also been a rise of iPhone and Android apps to go along with it. Which people take seriously. Granted, these apps were originally meant for you to scare your friends and be fun. But people in recent years have begun to hoax pictures and destroy the creditably of established paranormal experts.

Which is frustrating to we paranormal investigators.

Personally, I don't believe cell phone pictures. Cell phones are not an investigators best friend. If you are going to take pictures at an alleged haunted location, do it with a digital camera, not your phone. Now I understand iPhones take great pictures, but leave it in your pocket when it comes to the paranormal. Any photo we are sent, we set out to debunk. Because we were not there when the photo was taken, we go over them with a fine tooth comb, so to speak.

Now about the apps in general

In the words of our tech guy, if it has ghost in the title, it's BS. For example, iPhone's "Ghost Radar". The way the "Ghost Radar" works is it "scans" the area around you and pics up any "ghosts" that are around you along with having random words pop up (usually depends on the conversation around you what those random words will say). I will admit that the "Ghost Radar" is quite fun to play with and that is the point of the app. For fun. And it recently came to my attention that there are apps that will insert disembodied voices into your recordings. Again, fun to scare your friends but just BS

If you are a budding paranormal investigator, I suggest staying away from the phone apps with the word "ghost" or "evp" in the title. It will only cause embarrassment if you attempt to pass them off as the real deal. Stick with your handy dandy digital camera, camcorder and digital recorder. These are your best friends and they will never let you down when it comes to gathering evidence.

Until next time

Peach