This is where the RMPRS, whose members have been investigating paranormal stories across the state of Colorado since 1999, comes in. In the times that I met with Bonner, I noticed something very important about his group’s philosophy: the RMPRS are not ghosthunters. They have created the term Paranormal Claim Investigators for themselves to better explain what they do. That means that instead of going to locations anticipating finding ghosts, the group tries to look at every possible scientific or logical explanation before looking to otherworldly explanations. Bonner says they use the rule of Ockham’s Razor, the scientific idea that, given all explanations, the simplest is usually the most accurate. Even if the simplest explanations fall through, they do not jump to ghostly conclusions and will simply state that they could not find any reason for the particular activity.
“We investigate the claims; we don’t go in to find the ghost,” Bonner said. “We go ‘OK, what supposedly has happened here?’ and then we break each one of the claims down individually.” The group go out of their way to decipher urban legends to separate those from the true history of a location and investigate every possible explanation for the strange occurrences their clients bring to them.
Depending on the location, the RMPRS may use any of several branches of science to look at what could be causing paranormal activity. The group has consulted physicists, geologists, psychologists, and many other experts depending on the question at hand. While the members of RMPRS have started to use some of these skills themselves in their investigations, Bonner said that their most important tool is critical thinking.
“All this stuff doesn’t mean anything if you’re not applying it right,” Bonner said. He also mentioned that on occasion, aside from scientific experts, the group has been known to consult magicians for their ability to think outside the box.
I learned a number of things about visiting haunted locations from my conversations with Bonner. First and foremost is to keep an open mind, which prevents you from going into an investigation either thinking the location is not haunted at all or “knowing” it is haunted. This helps prevent what Bonner likes to call “confirmation bias,” where a team goes in based on previously collected evidence and automatically decides a location is haunted. Bonner said that an example of confirmation bias is ghosthunters going to a location and recording electronic voice phenomena (EVP) sessions in which they begin asking questions of any ghosts that might be present. He explained that at that point, an investigator is no longer questioning whether there is something paranormal present.
“If you’re talking to the ghost already, psychologically you’ve just set yourself up to ‘Yes, there’s a ghost here, and I’m going to talk to it,’ ” he said. For this reason, among others, Bonner and his team have a process of selecting which locations to actually investigate. From there they do their research on the history of the site, including interviewing people about their experiences.
Once they have a thorough background on the location—something they will sometimes spend months or even years on—they decide what equipment to bring.
“There are a lot of things claiming to be ghost meters, sensors, or cameras. It’s a marketing tool,” Bonner said. He added that it is important to have a good knowledge of how the equipment works, as none of it was originally made for ghosthunting or to properly evaluate the findings and their meaning. Both Bonner and another member of the RMPRS team, Matthew Baxter, have become certified in different kinds of equipment, from cameras, computers, and video recorders, to some more sophisticated devices such as Electromagnetic Field (EMF) readers. This is a particular favorite of Bonner’s to explain, because it is one of the pieces of equipment that television ghosthunters misuse the most. There are two kinds of readers: one finds man-made electronic items, such as wiring and televisions, and the other reads naturally occurring electronic fields.
“The only problem is it detects you, changes in the ionosphere, a thunderstorm 10 or 20 miles away. There are a lot of things that it’s not really good to use unless you’re really trained in it,” Bonner said. This means that when ghosthunters on television are carrying around EMF readers that are meant to find natural electric waves, the things they detect are not necessarily ghosts. The reader is more likely picking up the waves of the person holding the device rather than any paranormal beings.
This small example is one reason why both Bonner and Baxter have made sure to learn more about the equipment they use regularly in their investigations. Bonner also said that sometimes they have been able to resolve cases just by moving electronics to different areas so that they are not affecting people. They have a full list of other equipment that they bring depending on what the investigation requires. One item is an iPhone, or any other Apple product, for its 3-D accelerometer, which Bonner said can be used as an incredibly effective seismometer in conjunction with software for creating graphs.
Another thing to remember is not to buy into all the hype and practices of television ghosthunters. Most of what they do is for ratings. This is another thing the RMPRS can testify to firsthand, having been asked to participate in ghosthunting shows before. However, RMPRS sticks to its guns (and its science) and refuses to join in on the trend.
“When we do an investigation, it’s boring,” Baxter said of his group’s ghosthunting technique. “We go in, we set up all our equipment, and then we shut up. You see, if we make noise, it contaminates our own evidence, and then it’s worthless.”
As far as collecting evidence goes, RMPRS also tries to keep the site of an investigation in the exact condition it was in when the activity was reported. As an example of what not to do, Bonner cited television ghosthunters always turning off the lights (unless the person actually saw the ghost in the dark). The science behind ghosthunting is also key. One of the more popular claims of many television investigators is that ghosts leave cold spots. Bonner, however, disagrees and uses basic physics to explain why.
“They say that the reason that a cold spot happens is because when a ghost tries to manifest, tries to move something, does something, it extracts energy from the air to do whatever it is and that creates a cold spot,” he said. “This is a really simple physics question. I’ve asked a lot of people, and the kids get it all the time; the adults, no: anytime there’s an exchange of energy the byproduct is heat. If anything, we should be looking for hot spots.”
Ghosthunting can have a very serious side as well. One of Bonner’s biggest concerns is ghosthunting cases where people are so desperate to believe that their home is haunted that they are causing themselves psychological harm. Bonner said that, sadly, this is something most ghosthunters ignore. He added that most of the time RMPRS is not the first team the clients have called and, if that is the case, the team ends up doing damage control. Because many of the more popular ghosthunting groups are on TV—or are copying what they see on TV—they are doing things for the producers and the ratings, not necessarily for the claims they are investigating. He also mentioned cases where people have started causing physical harm to themselves or others.
These are the sorts of cases where it is probably best not to be involved. In researching a location before visiting, you may find that many of the supposedly haunted locations found on the Internet are not on public property. While some property owners may not have a problem with people looking around, there are also locations where the owners have made it quite clear they do not want people investigating any paranormal activity. In either case it is smart to check it out first, and always ask permission.
The world is full of interesting history and, with it, an occasional ghost story. With the right tools and a little bit of critical thinking, you might just strike paranormal gold. Even though the RMPRS founders are hesitant to say whether their findings have ever led to ghosts, Baxter remains somewhat positive.
“You can’t prove a negative, so we can’t say any place isn’t haunted,” Baxter said.
Please enjoy this book
