Paranormal investigators have the privilege of being able to explore some of the most historic locations in the world. We have the opportunity to try to communicate with the spirits that reside in these locations. Depending on where you are at financially and geographically, sometimes you can only visit a place once. However, you can’t nail down the cause of a phenomenon with only one visit.
If you have the opportunity, you might take advantage of visiting a place multiple times. This can be one of the most beneficial things you can do as a paranormal investigator. Let’s break down the reasons why.
#1 You Can Track Patterns
This is my favorite part of investigating a location multiple times. I can keep track of consistent occurrences. For example, if something happens at 3:00 AM every morning, I can keep track of the incident. For example, if there’s a consistent response from the ghost to a certain question or action, multiple investigations can keep track of the consistencies. If the consistency stops, we can dive in and look at why.
I highly recommend journaling your investigations. This is so you can track consistencies. If you can replicate conditions that have produced a paranormal experience, that’s awesome!
#2 You Can Debunk the Legends
Remember that 3:00 AM incident I mentioned earlier? I can also try to debunk that incident. Maybe it’s a truck that drives by the location on its regular route. Or, perhaps the reason why people feel vertigo on the third floor of the haunted house is that there’s uneven ground. Of course, you might be able to knock out a bunch of this on your first visit. But multiple visits give you time to hear the legends, maybe experience said legend, and then try to debunk it after further study.
#3 You Have More Time to Research
I’m an investigator that researches quite deeply before an investigation. However, I’m not the norm. I know of other investigators that will research after to compare their encounters with history. When you investigate one location multiple times, you have the opportunity to dive deeper into history and do more follow up. The one concern I’ve seen from others is that the research can create a bias with the investigation team and it can create a self-fulfilling prophecy, so to speak. I partially disagree, as I believe if the team possesses adequate critical thinking skills and have self-awareness of the bias, it shouldn’t be a major problem. Basically, keep an open mind and check yourself periodically.
#4 You Can Try New Things
Sticking to the same thing over and over could result in a more stagnant investigation that will eventually make you feel stuck.
Once you’ve investigated a place once, you can try different things to stir up activity. Instead of asking the same old “introduction style” questions, you can ask more personal questions. You can research different things from the history your ghost is from like music, a game, or some kind of toy or accessory. It’s all about trial and error.
#5 You Build Relationships
To me, this might be the most important of all. Not only are you building rapport and relationships with the owners of the haunted location, but you’re also building rapport with the ghosts that haunt the place. I’ve investigated a few locations more than a dozen times, and often it feels like visiting old friends.
Not only do you get to know the ghosts at the location, but they will get to know you as well. On that note, you don’t always have to keep asking the ghosts about themselves. You can talk about yourself and your teammates. Share your story. On many occasions, I’ve found that the ghosts are just as interested in us as we are in them.
I have a tale I seldom tell
Cause those who hear don’t seem to care
But my event is not the same
Cause at the time I made a vow
To tell the world of my affair
I gather every strength I have
And hold my breath and tell my tale
And once again, just as before,
They roll their eyes towards the skies
And close their minds and hear no more.
A few comments regarding Investigating multiple times. I agree completely, which is one reason I seldom do the popular Pay-To-Play locations. One exception is a location that I have a working relationship with. I have done multiple investigations there and have used this as a basis for research into various aspects of investigating. For instance I have mapped the EMF patterns for the entire location. This allows me to know before going in where I might get false positives from equipment in the structure. I can avoid those or take steps to eliminate the problem. Without this background others would likely go in and get a strange EMF reading and think they caught something.
As most who know me are aware, I am a skeptic when it comes to the paranormal. To a skeptic keeping records is vital to debunk claims. You mention keeping a journal of your investigation, very important! I have used such records to debunk things. Suppose you investigate on a cold day or night and hear a certain sound. You come back later and don’t hear it, but the day was warmer. The third and fourth trip you hear it it once and don’t again. But you are keeping a record and eventually you see from your journal it only happens on cold days. You have just learned something that may help you debunk it. Of course other factors may also come into play, but the important thing is it takes multiple trips to build this data file.
I agree about knowing ahead of time what to expect. Unlike most I want all the data I can get before I start whether it is about a location or analyzing data for someone else. That means I want to know what you think you see in a picture or hear in an EVP before i start trying to analyze it. The reason is once I know what I am looking for I can concentrate on debunking just that particular piece of data. To do otherwise may mean I am unconditioned, but I think I can do a better job knowing what I am looking for instead of just going about things blindly, hit and miss.
You mention trying new things. Again very important. As one who develops new methods and equipment it is vital to know as much as possible about the background before testing out your project. Otherwise how do I eliminate a false positive if my new device captures one? It’s this very issue that is responsible for all the junk science some people keep introducing to the field. Recently I placed an electrostatic sensing system in my test location and allowed it to run for almost two months while I monitored the responses.. Yes, I obtaiined a few “hits”, but because I had location background data to work from I was able to debunk them. Ulimately the project was a failure; it captured nothing. (Failures happen frequently when doing experimental development work!) If more people did such testing we would not be up to our armpits in spirit boxes, SLS cameras, and other such junk science.
And building relationships is also important. Not just with spirits, but with the owners of such locations. It is only with such connections you can have the freedom to do in depth research. Plunking down a hundred bucks to roam around in the dark for a night might be fun as a social event but it takes much more work to do a serious investigation
Yes I believe that it’s necessary as a solitary person investigator it helps I don’t investigate historical hauntings there are houses and lands that had recent hauntings and cannot find records of the past so I go multiples times and visit the hauntings