November 27, 2007

Halloween Ghosts 2007

I am more than a month late in adding this year's spooky media roundup. There is always a flurry of ghost related articles around All Hallows Eve. However, it seems that this year there were slightly fewer "serious" ghost stories than in years past. I only include a story if it takes seriously the idea that ghosts might really exist. Thus articles about ghost stories for children and the like are excluded.

Posted by nolandda at 06:10 PM

October 09, 2006

Central State Movie will Promote Paranormal Nonsense

Central State, a new movie by Hoosier filmmaker Dan T. Hall, will premiere on October 21st. The title of the film refers to the now defunct Central State Hospital which housed the mentally disabled and mentally ill of central Indiana between the years of 1848 and 1994. The film treats quite seriously the claims that the hospital is haunted.

Modern science is just beginning to understand why people attach strong emotions to objects and places. Bruce Hood, Professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Bristol, is currently conducting research in this area.

Professor Hood asked members of [his] audience, if they were prepared to try on an old fashioned blue cardigan in return for a £10 reward. After receiving no shortage of volunteers, he then told the volunteers that the cardigan used to belong to Fred West, the mass murderer. On hearing this most of the volunteers put their hands down. Though a few did try it on, others moved away from them.

In fact, the cardigan had not belonged to Fred West. The experiment demonstrated that the belief that it had, made even the most rational of people feel uncomfortable.

Professor Hood said: "It is as if evil, a moral stance defined by culture, has become physically manifest inside the clothing."

It is true that many criminally insane people spent time in this old hospital. It is also true that some of the early practices of both medicine and psychiatry were painful and barbaric at best and morally abhorrent at worst. However, neither the bad people nor their bad deeds can stick to a place after the fact. A place is just a place, no matter how awful its history.

Update: This story (Indianapolis Star: 2006-10-06) discusses the film and has quotes from Mr Hall

Update: The Indiana Medical History Museum is located in the old pathology building on the grounds of Central State Hospital. They have a number of artifacts from the early history of the medical sciences in Indiana. Their FAQ indicates that they don't believe in ghosts either. Sounds like a sensible and interesting place.

Update Again: It looks like WTHR, the NBC affiliate out of Indianapolis, linked to us in their story about this film on 2006-10-23.

Posted by nolandda at 12:39 PM

August 15, 2006

Ghost Tours as Entertainment

Jim from IndyScribe went on a ghost tour with Historic Indiana Ghost Walks and Tours. He was kind enough to write up a very nice review. He takes a skeptical point of view and comes to the right conclusion. Walking around creepy old houses, graveyards, et cetera is good spooky fun, but there doesn't seem to be any compelling reason to believe in ghosts.

Posted by nolandda at 12:08 PM

June 12, 2006

Indiana Ghost Trackers at the TCPL

On Saturday July first the Lafayette chapter of the Indiana Ghost Trackers will be taking questions from the public at the Tippecanoe County Public Library. They will also demonstrate their 'ghost hunting techniques'. Since it is open to the public I assume that skeptics are welcome to attend and voice their doubts.

Posted by nolandda at 02:24 PM

February 19, 2006

Ghost Hunting Course Offered at IUSB

I couldn't make this stuff up if I wanted to. It is now possible to take a six week course on ghost hunting through Indiana University, South Bend's Continuing Education Program. You can find the course listing here

According to this article (Elkhart County Truth 2006-02-11) the course, which runs 99 dollars, will cover "the basics of what spirits, ghosts and demons are, how equipment is used to document them and how to discern between natural occurrences, made-up stories and actual ghosts -- the paranormal."


Posted by nolandda at 11:55 PM

June 18, 2005

Porter County Update : Indiana Ghost Tracker's Report

From the Minutes of the Porter County Board Of Commissioners
Tuesday, June 7th, 2005
Full Minutes Available Here

Com. Harper, "The next thing is the final report from the Ghost Tracker, I think the county attorney put this on the agenda. Do we have anyone here? Apparently there is no one here."

Atty. Rinkenberger, "They called on my voice message and said someone would be here so maybe there are late."

Com. Harper, "Maybe they are here and we don't even see them."

Later: INDIANA GHOST TRACKERS

Mr. McDowell, "This is for the investigation at the courthouse. We did find some I guess you would say paranormal activity outside the normal. There are what you call orbs that was unaccountable as a dust. We do have pictures. We also had some whispering on tape recordings, answering of questions. It wasn’t real, real solid except for a couple times people got a name like Paul _______. Evidently there was somebody that did work at the courthouse one time and he was a worker there when the courthouse caught fire, he was a worker there and he died. Other than that, it is one of them that kind of was off and on. We would like to some time again come in and do another investigation and see if anything else comes up. We did have a couple that did get kind of scared, had some things happen to them, but other than that, we got a lot of pictures, and what you call EVP, which is electronic voice _____. We have them on a disc for you and pictures so you can look at them if you want."

Com. Harper, "Thank you very much and thank you for working with out police as we asked you to."

Mr. McDowell, "They had a blast and we had a blast with them too."

Posted by nolandda at 11:23 AM

June 07, 2005

Is Porter County's Court House Haunted?

Ghost tracker Mike McDowell has crunched the data, looked at the available evidence and formed a hypothesis about paranormal activity at the Porter County Courthouse.

"With the evidence, as far as whether it's haunted or not; I would lean towards it," McDowell said.

He didn't want to say much Monday because he'll give a full report on the April 30 courthouse investigation by the Ghost Trackers of Northwest Indiana to the County Commissioners at 6 p.m. today.

McDowell did say much of the paranormal activity came from the courtroom on the second floor, which was the county commissioners' chambers until the mid-1990s renovation. Julie Bodnar, a clairvoyant that went with the group, sensed something in the courtroom, the trackers picked up electromagnetic energy that couldn't be traced to any electrical source, and a maintenance worker said she had experienced a paranormal event in that area.

Full Story

Posted by nolandda at 04:16 PM