This weekend another two locations that are well believed to be haunted have fallen victim to the very field that brought them notoriety. Without going through the commentary of which location is having problems for what reasons (you can find many opinions online and we won't speculate or add confusion to the muddied waters) The Crump Theater in Columbus, Indiana and the Old South Pittsburgh Hospital in Tennessee are having issues, and you guessed it, those issues seem to surround money.
So the purpose of this article is to reflect upon the field, and how things have gone over the past 5 years. There are many paranormal groups who have found "a research location" or a place they believe is very active within paranormal events. Then they convince the owners (or are the owners themselves) to open it to paranormal investigations for a fee. All great stuff, as some really awesome locations around the country became open to our field under the guise of making money to renovate or keep the place going. However, after years of investigations, many of these places aren't renovated, and some have actually gotten worse. Of course bringing in a few hundred dollars a month doesn't do much to truly renovate a place, and might barely help cover utility bills. So it's not to say each place rakes in money and then keeps it in their pockets. It is to say though, that many locations have third parties running the place for them and some of those parties are involved in shenanigans and pocketing the cash themselves. Hard to say sometimes who belongs in what category, but I bet each of you reading this knows someone or a location that has had this type of issue.
So we circle around to the question of paying to investigate locations. Many get into this field stating they are here to help people. Can't think of one instance where we pay to investigate a place that we're helping people (except helping to line their pockets for one reason or another). Paying to investigate isn't a bad thing entirely, but it certainly behooves us as investigators to do the basic part of our field: investigate and research the location before you go. Know who you're paying and how they account for the money. It's not out of line to ask these questions, and if they can't/won't answer, maybe that should be a red flag to you. For those of you who are simply thrill seekers, ghost hunters (but not really an investigator) paying to investigate a location is about your only choice to experience something since you won't be around long enough to truly research a place anyway.
As the title states, the end of the paranormal field as we know it is certainly in view. The networks are not buying paranormal shows as much as before so the people getting into this field to become famous are starting to shake out. Of course you have the YouTube wonders, but no one cares about them or takes them seriously anyway. The casual paranormal fan only watches what is on TV and doesn't seek out videos on YouTube that could be faked anyway. Hopefully soon we get back to people looking at us weird when we say we like to go looking for ghosts and paranormal activity. Teams are falling out of the field, locations are being so over-investigated that no one wants to go pay just to say "yea it's haunted" or "no we didn't experience anything". Teams want to be the first, they want to be leaders and have everyone point to them and say "wow those guys are awesome and really good investigators". Well in this field, it just doesn't happen much. You get a few cliques together who support each other, but by and large teams not familiar with each other personally just bash each other. In the end, we get no further in this field than where we were 10 years ago.
So consider who you're paying, what you're paying for and maybe some of the scammers and fraudsters will see no value in sticking around and will move on. Looks like they're starting to do that anyway.
So the purpose of this article is to reflect upon the field, and how things have gone over the past 5 years. There are many paranormal groups who have found "a research location" or a place they believe is very active within paranormal events. Then they convince the owners (or are the owners themselves) to open it to paranormal investigations for a fee. All great stuff, as some really awesome locations around the country became open to our field under the guise of making money to renovate or keep the place going. However, after years of investigations, many of these places aren't renovated, and some have actually gotten worse. Of course bringing in a few hundred dollars a month doesn't do much to truly renovate a place, and might barely help cover utility bills. So it's not to say each place rakes in money and then keeps it in their pockets. It is to say though, that many locations have third parties running the place for them and some of those parties are involved in shenanigans and pocketing the cash themselves. Hard to say sometimes who belongs in what category, but I bet each of you reading this knows someone or a location that has had this type of issue.
So we circle around to the question of paying to investigate locations. Many get into this field stating they are here to help people. Can't think of one instance where we pay to investigate a place that we're helping people (except helping to line their pockets for one reason or another). Paying to investigate isn't a bad thing entirely, but it certainly behooves us as investigators to do the basic part of our field: investigate and research the location before you go. Know who you're paying and how they account for the money. It's not out of line to ask these questions, and if they can't/won't answer, maybe that should be a red flag to you. For those of you who are simply thrill seekers, ghost hunters (but not really an investigator) paying to investigate a location is about your only choice to experience something since you won't be around long enough to truly research a place anyway.
As the title states, the end of the paranormal field as we know it is certainly in view. The networks are not buying paranormal shows as much as before so the people getting into this field to become famous are starting to shake out. Of course you have the YouTube wonders, but no one cares about them or takes them seriously anyway. The casual paranormal fan only watches what is on TV and doesn't seek out videos on YouTube that could be faked anyway. Hopefully soon we get back to people looking at us weird when we say we like to go looking for ghosts and paranormal activity. Teams are falling out of the field, locations are being so over-investigated that no one wants to go pay just to say "yea it's haunted" or "no we didn't experience anything". Teams want to be the first, they want to be leaders and have everyone point to them and say "wow those guys are awesome and really good investigators". Well in this field, it just doesn't happen much. You get a few cliques together who support each other, but by and large teams not familiar with each other personally just bash each other. In the end, we get no further in this field than where we were 10 years ago.
So consider who you're paying, what you're paying for and maybe some of the scammers and fraudsters will see no value in sticking around and will move on. Looks like they're starting to do that anyway.