It is not uncommon
for false-positives to occur in investigations. As a participant in a paranormal investigation, you must not only be
aware of your surroundings, but also your actions. Although no one is perfect, it's important to be critical of your own
evidence before releasing it to the public. In this case, I'm talking about investigators or crewmembers creating their
own "evidence", or what is otherwise known as contamination.
Example
1: Thermal Imaging
For those who are lucky enough to investigate with a thermal
imaging camera, they should know that they have to be extremely cognizant of who has been where and how long ago they
were there. Thermal images can remain on a surface for up to ten minutes or longer, without feeling warm to the touch.
This is a thermal still shot of a banister at the Morey Mansion from an investigation
conducted by The Othersiders (Cartoon Network). We just happened
to investigate the Morey just 4 days after this episode aired. After talking with the owner, we learned that there was
at least a half-dozen crewmembers in the house in addition to the investigators. Besides that being way too many bodies present
for an investigation, it also raises the opportunity for contamination. It would’ve been too easy for a crewmember to
lean against the banister prior to the discovery of the hot spot.
Here is our thermal image of the exact same banister after I leaned against it for only two minutes.
You can see that the images are almost exactly the same. This kind of recreation can eliminate the false positives and let
you focus on legitimate evidence.
Example 2: EVP's
We have heard countless "EVP's" which have been passed off as evidence but were clearly caused
by someone else in the room. Most of the time, the investigators unknowingly produce the audio phenomena themselves. We at
OCPS have a procedure to always double-up on audio recorders whenever possible. There have been a few times where we thought
we had a legitimate EVP on our hands, only to find out through the second recorder that is was caused by one of us.
Example 3: Photo Interference
Photographic
evidence is one of the strongest pieces of evidence you can have because seeing is believing....or is it? There are many factors
which can jeopardize the outcome of a photograph: processing, lighting, shutter speed, weather conditions, and in this example,
flashes from other cameras.
It could be easy for the average person to think this might be some sort of manifestation. The
white misty glow looks trippy and the purple glow is even more interesting. This is actually a result of another investigator
taking a picture at the exact same time as this investigator. The flash from the other camera created a misleading abnormality.
These are just a few examples of how easy
it can be to have an investigation contaminated with false evidence. Just remember that your biggest critic...should be you.
It's also a good idea to have as many people analyze your potential evidence as possible before calling it evidence. In
the words of TAPS Co-Founder Grant Wilson, "If you spend all of your time trying to disprove your evidence,
and you're still left with something, then you have evidence."
