J’s Blog

Thanks to the Skeptical Viewer site, I came across another video on youtube that some people believe has a ghost in it. Here’s the local (I presume) news report on the matter. The video is from a surveillance camera in the Asheville High School in NC, captured on August 1, 2008. Here’s another report on youtube of it, this one from CNN. And lastly, right here is the video of just the “ghostly” images.

If all this seems familiar, then right you are. This report is of the “blue gas station ghost” footage. The “ghost” was captured by a security camera at a gas station in Parma Ohio in November 2007. Here’s Captain Disillusion’s debunking of this video.

Before both of those took place however, there was the Santa Fe “Courthouse Ghost”, also caught on a security cam. This one was captured on June 15, 2007.

So just what is going on? Why are ghosts suddenly targeting security cameras in various places around the U.S.?

Are they bored? Are they finally trying to make contact with the living world? Or are they just lonely?

What if what’s captured on these videos aren’t ghosts at all? I know that’s the conclusion some people, like the paranormal “expert” in the first Asheville video, automatically jump to but there’s a much simpler explanation: insects crawling on or flying near the lens.

I know it’s not nearly as exciting as catching an apparition on tape, but all natural explanations should be considered and tested (if possible) before one concludes something is paranormal. That title (or simply unexplained) should be reserved for evidence that defies all attempts to debunk it. Are you listening, Ghost Hunters? That isn’t what happens though. Instead, tremendous leaps of logic are made, the existence of something unproven is assumed to be fact, and people come to conclusions based on what they believe (that unproven assumption) instead of actual facts and seemingly without giving the alternative explanations serious thought.

The media isn’t any help either. Of course they would rather it be a ghost instead of something simpler. They don’t even try to provide any natural explanations, much less do an actual investigation to see if they could reproduce what’s in the video. They too act as if the existence of ghosts were proven beyond all doubt and this flimsy piece of “evidence” is proof of them. So much for trying to get to the truth.

The next time a video like this pops up on the internet, think of these three incidents, and remember: the bugs are out there.