Is Paranormal Activity a Haunting?

We hear this a lot as paranormal investigators and maybe we have even said it ourselves, “Based on the paranormal activity, this place is haunted”. It seems that in the paranormal world, these two terms are almost interchangeable but the reality is they are not. You could have paranormal activity but not have a haunting.

So when is paranormal activity a contributing factor to a haunting? First off we need a basis for what we are trying to say here. Let’s turn to Merriam-Webster (at least the .com version). A quick look up defines haunted as “to visit or inhabit as a ghost” and paranormal as “not scientifically explainable”. This at least puts on the right path to help answer the question.

The word paranormal came about around 1920. If you think about it, there are a lot of things going on in this world that the first time someone saw it; could have been labeled paranormal. The aurora borealis, Old Faithful at Yellowstone or even a solar eclipse all had to have been at one time “not scientifically explainable”. So it is feasible that the strange orbs we photo, the mists we catch and the shadows we see are just that, paranormal until science can explain one day what is happening and have nothing to do with a haunting at all.

So let’s turn our attention to haunted. A pretty rock solid definition except for one glaring word…ghost. There is no definitive proof that ghost exist. How can you have a haunting when the definition itself is based on something that has not been proven to even exist? Come to find out, it is not that hard.

Scientist seem to do it a lot, just look at “dark matter” for example. According to Merriam-Webster it is “nonluminous matter not yet directly detected by astronomers that is hypothesized to exist to account for various observed gravitational effect”. So basically, astrologers know something is holding our universe together so they “made up” an energy force hoping to prove it concretely later.

That has a familiar ring to what paranormal investigators are doing. We have all this data gathered, we believe…oh, wait, hypothesize that this data is from the souls of people that have died in a previous time and hope we can concretely prove it later. So a valid argument could be made that the paranormal investigations of today could be the science of tomorrow. For now however it is not and we have to rely on one “not scientifically explainable” event to help explain another “not scientifically explainable” event.

So yes, we have to use paranormal activity to explain a haunting. We also have to be very careful how we connect those two together as well. Having IR cameras capture unexplainable sparkling lights in a room with no one there is paranormal, having those same lights appear as an investigator is asking questions and having equipment indicate energy fluctuation and now we may have a possible haunting connection.

There is a lot of paranormal activity being captured that one day will have an explanation tied to it thanks to all the great teams out there collecting data. It is also my belief that one day because of those same great paranormal teams out there investigating that there will be paranormal activity directly linked to a haunting and ghosts as well.

Related posts:

1. Paranormal Activity at the Landon House
2. Paranormal Activity at Phelps Mansion
3. The Paranormal Activity at Von Minden Hotel
4. Paranormal Activity at Rolling Hills
5. Paranormal Activity at the Old Copper Railroad