I have taken a few months off the blog simply to get my mind around what is going on in my life and what is important to me. Obviously with the loss of my dad, the life changing event takes a lot out of you. You question yourself, your own mental health and what you are doing with your life. The questioning is healthy. It helps you prioritize what is important as well as find what is in your life that you might want to get rid of.

I still love ghost hunting. I live for a good investigation and finding or debunking supposed accounts of paranormal. It is in my blood I believe. What I don’t like is a lot of the ‘political nonsense’ involved with paranormal investigation groups. If you want to know what I believe, please read my manifesto. I believe our job as paranormal researches is to actually do just that… RESEARCH!

However, so many individuals email me on a weekly basis asking to be a part of my group or for me to teach them how to ghost hunt. In the beginning I thought this was a noble cause. I found a comfortable spot to aid and educate new generations of ghost hunters however I rarely find the breed of hunter that necessitates the effort spent to train them. Sure, they are interested but they are not invested in it themselves. Most are into the instant gratification of spoon fed education without investing much time, effort or time into the process. They want simple answers, quick results and immediate findings. Not many people I have helped train is willing to listen to hours of ‘white noise’ because that is way ‘too boring.’

Let me put this into perspective. As of late, I have found my passion of hunting and trapping in the outdoors. I have a family friend that is my hunting buddy and we spend time out in the woods hunting deer, coyote, crow and other animals in season. Understand hunting requires determination. You have to have the right equipment (guns, traps, bullets, bait, knives, scopes, tree stands, etc). While some of this can  be acquired by a kind sharing friend, at some point in the process you need to buck up and buy your own equipment. Being a large gentleman myself, I could never use the camouflage of my hunting buddy who is nearly half my size. I also wouldn’t feel right to continue to shoot his expensive 223 rounds which cost twelve dollars for a box of 20.

Trapping for coyote, raccoon, and other fur bearing animals takes time, patience and lots of work. You have to learn the environment that you are trapping. You have to spend time educating yourself on the habits and traits of the animals you are trying to trap. You then have to learn how to set a trap so that it persuades the animals to come in for a closer look.  Finally, you have to spend a lot of time in trial and error before you realize what works for you.

New ghost hunters seeking knowledge need to do their research. They need to learn what are the signs and characteristics of particular hauntings. One must experience for themselves what works and doesn’t work for them as well as investing in the equipment themselves. Investing in equipment gives you ownership and responsibility for the work you are trying to perform.  It also makes you accountable to the team that you are doing your part in contributing time, effort and expense to insure a successful investigation.

So, if you are one who is sending me emails asking for free advice, don’t worry. I will still provide you help. However, if you are looking to join my group, learn directly from me… Well I do what I can, but take the time to truly invest in this fun hobby. Read, research and experiment are the keys to success.

Real Ghosts Sightings Videos Improve Group Momentum

Well I am back.

Last month I lost my father which totally took us by surprise. I wasn’t prepared to handle such a loss. We as a family had to deal with such an overwhelming task to go through and manage his estate and help my step mother to deal with the financial impact.

Now that this is behind me, I am back and ready to continue to give you helpful advice. Today we are going to talk about real ghost videos and how these sightings improve group momentum. While pictures are cool, even audio is falling to the wayside as video has become more prominent in our society. With cheap hosting, and the social networking taking the world by storm… you simply need to have good video as ‘convincing proof’ of performance of your group. That proof will then lead to more interested people to get involved followed with more opportunities to investigate locations.

This is exactly the case for our group. With more videos, audios and other media we have shared on the web, I have found that video seems to be the one medium to drive more interest in our project. While the authentic ‘real ghost sightings’ may be something that we struggle to prove, just by having the videos of potential phenomenon will increase healthy interests and discussion to further promote your group.

If you are struggling to get your group off the ground, start taking video all of your potential ‘real’ ghost sightings and make them available to the public provided that you have permission from the location to share your content. This open discussion will lead to improved research and techniques, better discussion on how to manage an investigation and help educate your potential clients as to what you do.

If you can share them on your website and the world, the better you are off. I guarantee that you will not regret it. It will help drive traffic to your website, engage potential members, and put at ease potential clients that you are the ‘real’ deal for ghost hunting in your area.

I hope this article helps, you can find out more about me and my group by going to http://poseycountyghosthunters.com

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Look and act professional!

So many groups, so many mistakes! Appearing professional is one of the most important aspects towards credibility of the field.

No statistical studies have been conducted regarding how many paranormal groups pop up daily on the Internet, but I’m willing to guess somebody thinks of forming their own group at the rate of one per minute.

This field has grown exponentially during the past five years. For the most part, that is a positive thing. Increased visibility of the field also requires improved sophistication regarding how we represent what we do.

The paranormal  has gained mainstream popularity but is still characterized by clichés and stereotypes. Make sure your group presents itself in a way to avoid reproducing these misconceptions.

First, spiff up your web presence, even if you have only a myspace page:
• Try to avoid the overly clichéd images for your group’s logo, such as skulls, occult items, or stereotypical images of “ghosts.” Of course, you want to make it clear what you are doing, yet you don’t want to frighten or misrepresent your intent to potential clients. If you are truly serious about paranormal investigation, don’t make your sight look like a tribute to a Ron Zombie film.
• Carefully edit your web content to avoid grammatical and/or spelling mistakes. I saw one website with misspelled words in the banner – the first thing people see! Poorly written prose makes your team appear uneducated and less credible.
• Make sure member names are visible on the site. It also helps to post pictures and a short bio. It is reassuring to a client to have familiarity with faces who show up for the investigation. Remember, if someone is letting you into their home or business, they have a right to know who you are (and vice versa).
• Don’t share specifics of any cases, either those upcoming or completed, on your website without having client’s permission. Don’t list a name or location, and certainly no specific address information. It is a wise policy to share nothing about cases until after the reveal.

On this note, get your group situated regarding paperwork. What do you need?
• Mission Statement: this explains who you are what your group wants to accomplish. This should be no more than a few short paragraphs.
• Liability forms: this is an important legal document that protects you and the client from any damage, physically or property wise, during the investigation.
• Confidentiality forms: to be signed by all investigators. This form makes sure your investigators won’t reveal case details and/or smooch cases for other teams.
• Client Evidence Release Form: perhaps the most important form your group needs. This form allows the client to determine how much, if any, collected evidence can by used on the group’s website or in any other educational, promotional publications. The more specific the form, the better. For example, the client may be fine with EVP on your website, but doesn’t want her location revealed. Make sure to cover all grounds on this form.

Finally, new groups often have to find cases on their own until they build up a reputation. When you approach locations for potential investigation, make sure any written correspondence is concise, well stated, and mistake free. No one will ask you to come into his or her property if you misrepresent yourself during the first impression. Ask those with writing talent to draft a basic form letter to be used when soliciting cases.

Of course, make sure all forms are free from spelling and grammatical mistakes.

In a field where one may find insecure, strange personalities, appearing professional demonstrates seriousness and reassures the client that you are reputable and trustworthy.

Deonna Kelli Sayed is a guest blogger at ghosthunterssecrets. She is an investigator with Haunted North Carolina, a proud TAPS family.  Her work has appeared in TAPS Paramag. She lectures on the paranormal and has appeared on ParaChallenged Radio.  For more information about Deonna, visit www.myspace.com/deonnakellisayed or follow her on twitter @deonnasayed.

Why Paranormal Group Team Members Fail

When you spend a few hours on location you can collect an enormous amount of evidence.

Add all the equipment you record data on (cameras, video, audio) and multiply that by the number of hours you were on location and that is a fair estimate of the number of hours at MINIMUM, you will have to spend reviewing the evidence.  You can see why the thrill of ghost hunting just got its first buzz kill.

Over the years, we have found that most people want to go on the ghost hunt. Few will take on the responsibility to review evidence. You can say you must in order to be a part of the group, however that is a whole other post.

The reason why most people get eliminated from our group and the reason why we have chosen to be a small paranormal team is simply we only want people who will take on the responsibility and own the review of the data collected.

I don’t need ghost groupies

So why don’t people rush to review the evidence? ENORMITY

Enormity doesn’t mean really enormous.It means I will suffer through long hours of boredom.

The problem with enormity of data collected is that people often put it off. It takes effort. Enormity should thrust us forward and want to tackle new obstacles in earnest to find proof of the paranormal.  All it does is cause us to procrastinate.

Show us too many digital audio recorders, and countless hours of footage to review, you’ll just get people running out the door.

What is the solution: Go SMALL

If you’ve got a small, finite sample of evidence for review, people will gladly help. This allows people to feel they have contributed, while not having to undergo a herculean task. People like to feel they are a part of a team and can take part of the credit. People like to win.

If you got a hundred hours of evidence to review, people will hide from you. Aim for small segmentation of evidence and people will come out of the woodwork to help.

Not fair, but true.

I posted an article on evidence review at Ghost Hunting Evidence Review

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Don't Always Believe What They Say

This weekend we went on a paranormal investigation of a private residence. It was a interesting trip to say the least. You get to learn about people and intimate details that always have you scratching your head.

Mom’s ashes in a plastic bag…. check!

While the owners gave a very convincing reason why, it still tripped me up for a second when I first heard it. Other than that, it was a good time to share and hang out with the PCGH Team. We used to be a much larger group. However, the core team members believe (I included) that a big group and the dynamics of running a big group often get in the way of the actual investigation. So while yes we are looking for new members, our doors are not wide open.

We have made some changes…

Posey County Ghost Hunters Website gets a facelift -> http://www.poseycountyghosthunters.com

Donna and Kelly (Other PCGH Investigators) will help keep things posted on all the things going on with our group. We even have a Facebook group. So be sure to come by and visit with us. We would love to hear from you.

I would also encourage you to visit and comment on my latest post on the “Sounds of Hell” Hoax by going to http://poseyghosts.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/well-to-hell-hoax/

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A strange thing has happened recently…

Groups are more concerned with making a name for themselves than actually helping the clients out with their problem. Case in point, we investigated a location this weekend that was a private location. Whether or not we found something while doing our research, it is up to the owner to determine whether we have the right to publish our findings.

What worries me is the ongoing trend for groups to ‘prove themselves’ by show the evidence they have captured while on location. I understand the draw to such thinking. When I first started my group, I too wanted to share with everyone just how good we where at getting results.

However, early on we came across one home owner who did not want us to publish our findings to the world. The funny thing was that they were my family. Why wouldn’t they want us to post our findings? Didn’t they want to help me build my group? Didn’t they understand just how important it was for me to show other potential clients that we had some real world experience and have captured evidence?

The truth is that publishing those findings wasn’t in their best interest if they ever thought about selling the property. Let’s just say for instance that we had a Bill Bean experience where the home was taken over by demonic forces causing his entire family to be broken apart. If I was able to capture proof of ‘dark forces’ involved at a location and I published it for the world to see, it would be hard to keep that information from a potential buyer to that property at ANY time in the future.

Remember, the information would be available for years to come!

Here are some things you might not think of when posting the results of your investigations:

• This is the clients personal property so don’t publish the address of the location
• Images and video of personal property expose the client to risk of theft
• Images and video of the owner may give the owner frustrations from those in their community
• Publishing results of a certain location can hamper the ability to sell the property in the future due to the real estate laws

So, I encourage you to think before you publish the results of the investigation. I would also encourage that you share the potential risk of publishing the results to your clients.

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While I am no Donald Trump... I can teach you a thing or two!

Today I have officially launched my Ghost Hunter Apprentice Program.

It could be  you…

I am looking for one dedicated individual that will work with me personally so they can learn the ropes for paranormal investigations.

Candidates must be enthusiastic, willing to put in time and effort to learn what it takes to be a real investigator.

I am looking for someone who not only is ‘interested’ but willing to invest time, money and resources in order to successfully become a tried and true ghost hunter.

Why the apprentice program?

Simple.

Lots of people want advice and learn what to do on a ghost hunt, but rarely put it to practice. I am looking for people who will listen, take note, and IMPLEMENT the techniques I have put in place to become a successful ghost hunter.

Do you have what it takes?

Simply fill out the following form and tell me why YOU would make a good apprentice!

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Over the last couple of months I have had the chance to try and fully embrace Evernote. My first encounter with this application came from using a sandisk drive to copy and carry files from location to location. The simplicity of evernote is that you can have anyfile, anywhere, anytime on almost anything.

Imagine if a well equipped paranormal team wanted to collaborate together on a particular investigation. What if every team member had access to all the photos, audio, and video clips to review and classify?

…all without the trouble of creating some infrastructure, security, and web technology to make it all happen!

You guessed it… Evernote to the rescue.

Here are some cool things you can do with Evernote:
Memorable stuff is always happening, so we’ve created lots of ways for you to get that stuff into Evernote:

Create
Create new notes using desktop, web, and mobile versions of Evernote

Snap
Take a snapshot using your camera phone or webcam. We’ll even recognize the text in the image.

Clip
Clip entire webpages, screenshots, and just about anything else you can copy

Drag-n-drop
Drag and drop content into the desktop clients for Mac and Windows

Email
Email notes directly into your account using your personalized email address

Scan
Scan receipts, recipes, tags, brochures, and anything else into Evernote

Record
Record audio wherever you are and listen to it whenever you want

Tweet
Send Twitter messages into Evernote by following @myEN

Now..

Imagine your entire team with collecting audio with the iPhone, snapping photos, or sharing experiences with the entire group in realtime? Essentially you can have a remote team anywhere analyzing the data as it comes in.

Here is a fun thing you can do…

Record an EVP session on your iPhone. When you are done, upload it to your evernote (this is built into the iPhone Evernote software). Now, your remote team who can be absolutely anywhere in the world can review the evidence and help give you feedback through text messages, or commenting back in Evernote.

Even better, if two members are on location and you capture something strange, you can upload it to Evernote and quickly share with other team members on site wether they have a blackberry, iphone, or some form of internet connectivity. This is real time collaboration, research and debunking at its best!

The basic Evernote is free which includes a free download to Mac, Windows and Linux. You can also get it on a U3 enabled thumbdrive, along with mobile versions for iPhone and Blackberry.

The premium version is $45 for the entire year with a half terrabyte upload capacity PER MONTH!

So, I wholeheartedly believe you should give this a try. Personally, I have found it to be hugely succesful to collaborate on writing projects, this blog, as well as paranormal investigations! You can’t go wrong.

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Deonna Kelli Sayed is an American-Muslim and investigator with Haunted North Carolina. Married to a United Nations diplomat, she has lived and traveled extensively throughout the Muslim world. Her article on Islam and the Paranormal was featured in the February issue of TAPS Paramag.

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