Hafeez

Adnan Hafeez

Instructor Cullam

Final Draft

English 102

March 15, 2008

Why do ghosts exist?

The world is full of phenomena which are not comprehensible to a common

person and are also not very well backed by the scientific reasoning of the current time.

Some of these phenomena include the random sightings of UFOs, psychokinesis,

predicting future, traveling in time, talking with the dead and many more. Most of such

phenomena that are not very well explained by science are collectively known as

paranormal phenomenon.

One of the paranormal phenomena that has been around for thousands of year is

the belief in Ghosts. Ghosts have existed in several cultures over many periods of time

and even in this modern day and age; they still seem to have a permanent place in

virtually every culture, region or a country. The concept of ghost offers a good old clash

between science and religion. So far in time, although with few exceptions, ghosts have

been seen, heard, felt or even smelled but have not been validated using any scientific

reasoning. Even though science has not backed the existence of ghosts, it’s still

fascinating to see how the concept of ghosts manages to stick around in literally every

aspect of people’s lives such as TV shows/movies, media, religion, culture and education.

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Considering how controversial the topic of ghosts is there rises a good need to

authenticate the validity of ghosts and a need to establish some sort of rationale behind

their existence. For the most part the existence of ghost is just a folklore sort of concept

that has been carried on from generation to generation by the word of mouth or in fact do

ghosts actually have a physical existence of some kind? Although recent polls in US

through ABC news indicate that majority of people in USA believe in ghosts, I would

like to establish some sort of relation between the people believing in ghosts and people’s

religious belief and cultural factors that surround people. I think there is a strong positive

correlation between people’s religious/cultural belief and belief in ghosts. For the most

part ghosts exist due to the mere fact that people want to believe in them. Ghosts are the

by-product of an influence of cultural and psychological factor on people’s mind and

exist entirely in people’s minds.

Validating existence of Ghosts:

There are a several ways people use to validate the existence of ghosts. Some of

the ways include real life stories/incidents, scientific data and ghost hunting trips. Let’s

analyze each one of them and see how we can disprove each one of the ways used by

people to prove ghost’s existence.

Real Life Stories and Interviews:

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Just like in a trial court, a witness’s testimony is considered highly powerful

evidence; I think the real life stories of people could be considered a very good tool to

validate the existence of ghosts.

To ensure the minimum level of cultural bias in the stories obtained for this

research there was a need to have the stories to come from different cultures and people

of different religion so that the stories are more diverse in their scope and could provide

with diverse information on ghosts. That was very easy for me to do since I know quite a

few people that come from different cultures and ethnic groups. To obtain the stories, 13

people (family members, friends and co-workers) were informally asked for some

paranormal experience in their life and amazingly all 13 of them had some sort of a story

to related that related to some sort of a paranormal experience. Everybody was asked to

rate himself/herself in terms of his/her religious devotions as Strictly Religious, Normal

Religious, Mildly Religious and Not Religious. The break down of the people stories

were obtained from in terms of their origin and cultural influence is as follows:

Number Interviewed Birthplace Religion

Four USA Christian

Three India Sikh

Three Pakistan Islam

Two USA N/A

One Philippines Catholic

One Pakistan N/A

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Stories coming from Pakistan had an interesting sort of similarities with stories that

people raised in the USA had to tell. In almost every single story from Pakistan, ghosts

spoke Punjabi and Arabic while the USA ghosts communicated in English. When asked

about the way ghosts were dressed when seen, the ghosts in Pakistan were dressed like

the people in Pakistan are dressed and similarly in the USA the ghosts were dressed like

the people are dressed in the USA. People with some religious beliefs seemed to have

more paranormal events happened in their life than the people that do not have any strict

religious beliefs. The sample size of people is not big enough to provide any solid

information but it does give a somewhat idea of people’s beliefs in ghosts.

The Radio Talk show “Coast to Coast AM with George Noorey” on 1190 KEX (the

shoe has real people come on the show and tell their ghost stories) was also listened to in

order to get some more stories for this research.

If we were to briefly summarize all the stories, the main concepts gathered from all

the stories are as follows:

1. Almost all of the stories happened at a night time.

2. Most of them happened while either somebody was sleeping or right when

something woke the person.

3. A good number of stories were also preceded with a traumatic event in the

person’s life.

4. Almost all of the stories involved an old house, cemetery, or a far country place.

5. Very few of the stories resulted in a death

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All the stories exhibited a great degree of cultural influence on their context and main

theme. One person’s story from Pakistan was related to how the ghost would not let the

person say the prayer because saying the prayer would make the ghost go away (Prayer in

Islam is just a recitation of verses from the Quran). The stories also stress the point that a

religion has some sort of bearing on how often a person encounters a ghost . Most of the

other stories were related to the automatic shutting of doors, objects missing around the

house, unknown crying sounds heard, getting suffocated while sleeping, feeling very

weak and not able to move any part of the body while sleeping and turning on/off of the

electronic equipment. It’s very hard to disprove a story since there really is no way to

either prove/disprove the existence of ghosts but most of the stories, with a few

exceptions, could be explained with using following rationales.

Psychological Factors:

Although I had assumed that every story is coming from a rational person with no

psychological disorder, the assumption is only valid up to a certain extent. Lots of people

take medication on a regular basis and most of the medication have as their side effect

symptoms such as hallucinations and sleep deprivations. These symptoms can cause

people to have strange feelings. Hallucinations can make people see objects that do not

exist and a sleep deprivation can make brain tired. When brain gets tired the perception

greatly decreases and becomes somewhat dubious to believe entirely.

Another important psychological factor is the influence of culture and religion on

person’s perception. The human brain interprets the environment by getting the

information from body’s sensory perceptions and then using the information received

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from perceptions, the brain builds an image of about the environment (Beverstein 2).

When a brain receives this information about the environment from the body’s

perceptions, the information is more than often in bits and pieces and the brain has to put

it all together (Beyerstein 1). Missing parts of the information are provided by the brain

itself and can influence the way brain builds an image of the environment meaning how a

human imagines the environment. The brains gets the missing parts from the information

stored in the brain about the environment and mostly come from a person’s experience

and knowledge of the world. That explains how one’s perception of the world and

personal experiences can influence the way one interprets the environment.

Another psychological factor that can cause people to see strange phenomenon

are hallucinations. Hallucinations can cause people to have strange experiences as well.

Hallucinations are defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for the Mental

Disorders (DSM-III-R) of the American Psychiatric Association as “a sensory perception

without external stimulation of the relevant sensory organ”. Thus according to the

definition hallucinations could very well occur in a normal person and the way person

obtains that missing information would depend heavily on one’s own idea about the

environment and how much a person has an influence of other factor such as drugs, stress

etc. (Beverstein 14).

Cultural Factors:

There are lots of cultural factor that influence the way one perceives the world.

There is a concept known as “Confirmation Bias” that explains the effects of cultural

upbringing on one’s encounters of a paranormal beings. Confirmation bias is a sort of

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thinking process in which person tends to notice and look for what confirm the person’s

belief in some idea (Gilovich). The reason why people have confirmation is due to the

fact that believing an idea that they already believe in is easier for them to accept

cognitively. If somebody was brought up thinking that strange sounds are always caused

by ghosts then believing that would always be easy for that person.

Geological and Other Factors:

There are some geological factors that can explain the sudden movements that

people experience. The random unexplained movements of objects could be due the

minor earth tremors. The noises could sometime be the result of the underground water

pressure (Tipton). These could produce noises such as a tapping noise and footstep sort of

vibrations (Tipton).

Sometime the floorboards are loose and can cause cracking noises when wind is

blowing. Rats, mice, squirrels, birds under floorboards or in a wall can produce strange

noises. Faulty electrical wiring can result in odd happenings, such as a light, television or

radio being turned on and off. A railroad track nearby can cause rattling of objects and

sounds, as can passing traffic, wind, or doors and windows that are not sealed properly.

An English expert in paranormal research, Guy Lambert, published a report

stating the appearance of ghosts can be explained by mists or vapors that occur naturally

when there is a difference of temperature in the room due to cooking or other heat

sources. Luminous appearances could be the result of phosphorescent gases given off by

decaying matter from cracked or broken drains.

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Although stories could be a good source in establishing the existence of ghosts,

due to the above mentioned factor, I do see some problem with their credibility. Not

everything that cannot be understood or explained automatically falls into the realm of a

paranormal world. There are a lot of phenomenon that need further exploration and

scientific based research to come up with concrete for the existence of ghosts. Real life

accounts of people are a good way to perform research and establish evidence but such

mentioned factors tend to invalidate their authenticity.

Scientific Evidence:

Ghost hunters are have long advocated the idea of validating the existence of

ghosts through the use of scientific methods. Some of the scientific methods used by

Ghost hunters are detecting magnetic field from ghosts, recording voices and taking

pictures. Even though most of the methods sound fairly scientific, when analyzed

carefully, there does not seem to much scientific claim for the methods.

First of all, all the research is mostly carried out by people who already have firm

believes in paranormal beings and are therefore highly biased in interpreting their

observed data.

Electormagnetic Field (EMF) Detection:

The most common method of validating the existence of a ghost is through the

use of an instrument called Electormagnetic Field (EMF) Detector. The basic concept is

that ghosts are made of an invisible energy known as a magnetic field and highly

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sensitive EMF detector can detect that. Although the idea seems very plausible there are

two problems with the concept of using EMF detectors.

The first problem with detecting EMF is that EMF is created around every flow of

a charge (Serwin). Anytime current flows through a wire there is an EMF created around

the wire. These days every house, building, street, car etc. are literally packed with wiring

and have electronic equipments everywhere that all run on electricity. So we have a

constant flow of electricity around us and EMF exists around us everywhere we go. It

would be very hard to distinguish which EMFs were created from ghosts and which one

from the flow of electricity.

The second problem is the fact that most of the EMF detectors these days are

made to detect EMF created by AC which is a manmade current whereas in nature the

most often occurring current is DC. DC what the human body operates on and assuming

ghosts are left over energy from the human body, they would most likely be operating on

DC also. An AC EMF will never be able to detect DC EMF.

Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP)

Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) is defined as the voice recorded that

represent some sort of a ghost voice when played afterwards. The history of EVP started

a long time ago when Edison first tried to communicate with the dead people using the

phonograph in the 1890s (Alcock). EVP gained more publicity when in 1959 Friedrich

Jürgenson, a painter and a singer, was recording the voice of singing birds and on play

back heard a few other voices in the background even though there was no one around at

the time of the recording (Hausswolff). Fredrich later used the same sort of techniques to

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communicate with his dead friends (Hausswolff). After Fredrich, EVP gained much

popularity as an authentic way to validate the existence of paranormal beings.

Scientists have generally given cross-modulation as a reason for having unknown

voices being recorded by the tape recorder (Imant). Sometime recorders can pick up the

radio frequency and record whatever the radio frequency carries with it and can give the

impression that someone is talking on the recorder. Most of the times the EVPs recorded

are not even intelligible to anyone and do not provide any conclusive way of proving

ghosts.

Interview:

To better understand the nature of ghost hunting trips and finding authenticate

evidence for the existence of ghosts, there was an interview conducted with Marice

Uranda, the Group Organizer and Lead Investigator for the Pacific Northwest Local

Haunts Research Group (PNLHR).

PNLHR is a volunteer association of 30 individuals that have a various sort of

interests in paranormal phenomenon. The group was started by Marcie Urenda, who

herself had a few malevolent paranormal experiences in her life which basically inspired

her to start the group that she could use to further her curiosity about ghosts. PNLHR

frequently go on to the paranormal hunting trips and use the traditional ghost hunting

instruments on their hunting. Some of the instruments used on the trips are EMF detector,

thermometer, Infrared cameras, voice recorders and motion detector. From the interview I

just wanted to get a feeling about what ghost hunting is like and whether they ever had

any success in capturing ghost on one of their equipment.

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Typically ghost-hunting trips are just what one might expect them to be. 4-5

people go to some place that is considered haunted with the equipment and try to capture

ghost on any one of the equipment. The people set up cameras on tripods, voice recorders

on various locations and walk around with EMF detector. So basically they just look for

some sort of an anomaly in the environment that could be captured on one of the

equipments. When asked about the success rate (success being defined as successful

sighting of a ghost) of the ghost-hunting trip, Marcie responded by saying that they have

seen, felt and heard lots of ghosts but have never captured them on any of the equipment

because the “equipment is never at the right place at the right time”. What that means is

sometime they would hear voice in one room but the voice recorder be in a different

room and some other time they might see something in a room but cameras may not be in

that room. Listening to that I thought if it was possible that ghosts might be trying to hide

from all of the equipment, which also implies that ghosts have a good understanding of

how the new technology works (ghost could be a deceased person that died a few

hundred years ago when none of the equipment that exists today was invented yet). I

could not get Marcie to comment on that. According to Marcie, it is just a coincident that

every time their equipment is at the wrong place.

Marcie thinks that ghosts are just a left over energy from the brain of a dead

person. When a person dies the brain of that dead person releases all the energy from

brain into the environment. Since energy can never be destroyed, the energy is just left

over to hover around in the world. This does not seem very plausible because if ghosts

actually exhibit all the characteristics that they are purported to be (moving around,

moving objects, appearing visible, producing sounds and emitting magnetic forces), they

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would require a great deal of energy to perform all of the characteristics. Either the stored

energy in ghosts would get used up over time or ghosts would require an external source

of energy to power all of the characteristics. This contradicts with the very fact that

ghosts are just fixed energy that cannot escape.

The interview gave me a pretty good idea about most of the ghost hunting

organizations. Most of them are made of individuals that are in it for fun and do not really

care much about proving existence of ghosts using hard science. Most of the members do

not have recognized qualification to use intense science to conduct ghost hunting

research. Most importantly all the equipment to detect ghosts is never intended to be used

for such purposes. The good example of equipment misuse is using AC EMF detector to

detect ghosts. This sounds fairly unscientific since ACs are always manmade and do not

exist in the nature.

One good thing I learned from the interview was that if we keep all the science

aspects of ghosts separate, ghost hunting does sound like a fun and it is exactly what the

paranormal hunting associations’ members are after most of the times.

In the end to sum up the results of my research, I would have to say that I have

more confident in me when I claim to make a statement like ghosts exists due to the mere

fact that people want to believe in ghosts. Belief in ghosts provides easy submission to

the idea of confirmation bias and conforms easily to one’s cultural and religious beliefs.

Although there has not been much of a scientific study done on the topic of ghosts, the

amount of research done so far does tend to invalidate ghost’s existence with concrete

evidences. Anytime a person experiences something unexplainable the last logical

explanation for it would be ghosts.

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Works Cited

Ogden, Tom. Complete Idiot’s Guide to Ghosts and Hauntings. Alpha Press. (October 4,

1999)

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Budge, Wallis (Translated). The Egyptian Book of the Dead. Forgotten Books Press.

1898.

Beverstein, L Barry. Visions and Hallucinations. Prometheus Books.

Frood, Allan. “Ghosts All in the Mind.” 21 May, 2003. British Broadcast Corporation

Inc. 8 February 2008. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3044607.stm>

Tipton, Kelli, “Can Ghosts be explained Scientifically.” The Daily Home News. 12

February 2008. <http://www.dailyhome.com/news/2004/dh-localnews-0328-ktipton-

4c27v2243.htm>

Gilovich, Thomas. How We Know What Isn't' So : The Fallibility of Human Reason in

Everyday Life . The Free Press. 1993.

Paman, Alex G.. Yolk. “Asian Ghost Stories” Alhambra . Vol 7, Issue 3 (Dec 31, 2001):

46.

Baru, Imant. “Failure to Replicate Electronic Voice Phenomenon.” Journal of Scientific

Exploration Vol 13, No.3. (2001): 333-367.

Howard, Robert G.; Kelleher, Daniel R. “The Psychical Experience of Time Described in

the Tibetan Book of the Dead: Mathematical Definitions and Practical Examples.”

Journal of Spirituality & Paranormal Studies Vol. 31 Issue 1 (Jan 2008) 25-38.

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Hausswolff, Carl Michael von. “Friedrich Jürgenson [1903-1987]” February 12, 2008.

<http://www.fargfabriken.se/fjf/life.html>

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