Occasionally I see posts asking about specific investigation techniques and people discussing if they work or not. Things like the Estes Method cause a lot of conversation because some think it works well while others think it is mostly auditory pareidolia. I think it is more complicated than a “yes” or ‘no” answer on “working”.

Most of the things we do in an investigation are aimed at producing anomalous phenomena (voices, sounds, movement) but we don’t have consistent methods that have been shown to work across multiple locations. So, we try anything. It’s kind of like throwing a fistful of rocks at a target and seeing if anything hits. In my experience, phenomena often occur when we aren’t trying to produce or encourage it so it would seem that setting up equipment and going about our business would be the best method of investigation. Field studies are observational studies; you are observing the environment to better understand the conditions that make something occur. But observation is boring and it feels like we aren’t doing anything. (Unless your team lead makes you do baselines and then you are grumpy because you are having to do work.)

I believe this is why we try some of these more controversial methods. We need to feel like we are doing something, anything, to facilitate phenomena. A lot of this is just keeping us entertained during an investigation instead of producing repeatable and verifiable results. There may be something to the idea that radio frequencies allow voices out of our hearing range to be audible but without correlating data, it is hard to prove that this is what is happening. It is also possible that phenomena may react to some of the things we do during an investigation, not because the thing we are doing is producing phenomena, but because “they” are curious or confused or just annoyed. So it isn’t the technique that is producing the phenomena specifically, it is our presence in the space doing something that may encourage something to respond.

Maybe the formula is: People Doing Things + “Haunted” Location = Weird Stuff Happens

Of course, there is also the formula: Empty “Haunted” Location + ???? = Weird Stuff Happens

So, which one is it and do specific investigation techniques work to produce phenomena? The jury is still out for me. What I know is that these activities keep us in the building longer because we are “investigating” which increases the odds that we can experience something. I have watched enough surveillance video from locations to know that most of the really interesting things happen when no one is asking for something to “perform”. But how many investigation teams want to visit a haunted location and clean the house, or make dinner, or just leave for hours while their equipment runs? Most teams visit locations for an experience so we must entertain ourselves with the idea that our activities “may” help facilitate paranormal phenomena.

Until I have a better answer, I am just going to keep throwing handfuls of rocks at the target to see what sticks while collecting data to help me understand why something may or may not have worked. Your results may vary.

Until next time, keep looking for answers and Happy Investigating!