Tips For Researchers

By Bill Knell

There are two types of people who investigate the Paranormal. Those who do it and those who are obsessed by it. Before you decide to get involved with paranormal research, you might want to set some limits for yourself. It’s very easy to get involved with other researchers who spend all their grocery money and spare time hunting the weird. More then a few new comers to the field have found themselves in the dog house with their friends and family because of people like that.

Learning to network with other investigators is an art. Start by deciding who is most likely to have real information you can use. There are many out there who merely repeat what they hear on radio shows or read on the internet. These people are likely to waste your time and run up your phone bill. Contact people who are involved in specific cases. They tend to be more focused, less influenced by gossip and usually have good information to share. Quality of contacts, not quantity, is what you should always strive for.

The news and entertainment media is always eager to contact people involved with the paranormal. They can help you by providing free access to their audience members, which will always include a number of people touched by the paranormal. Be sure to have an easy contact phone number or email address (not a twenty word long vanity address, but something simple) for those who want to get in touch. Then the fun begins.

People will expect you to explain what has happened to them. In many cases, you will not be able to do that. There are cases you may not want to be bothered with and others that are beyond your area of research. Always have a good list of other researchers that you can forward those kinds of cases to. This will satisfy people who have contacted you and let the media folks who shared their audience with you know that you took the time to answer every inquiry. Word spreads among the media and you may get additional exposure and guest spot invites.

Resources are always a problem. Unless you are fabulously wealthy, you are going to come up against a limited budget and too many ways to spend it. Focus your efforts on areas of the paranormal and cases that really interest you. Farm the others out to other investigators. Avoid referring people or cases to big paranormal research organizations. Most will not follow up on them and don’t really care.

Always be on the lookout for free resources. It might surprise you to know that many Educators have an interest in the paranormal. Some may offer you the opportunity to contact them for free advice or services like lab work or expert opinions. The best way to find these people is to write letters (do not email). Write to some of your local Universities and target Department Heads. Introduce yourself and invite those interested in paranormal research to offer you their expertise in their specific fields (science, psychology, psychiatry, geology, etc). While you may end up getting calls from skeptics, you are just as likely to find some objective scholars willing to help.

Perfecting the art of conversation is a must. The ability to set people at ease and converse with them will always be your best investigative tool. While physical and photographic evidence is important, it’s what people say and the details they provide to you that will be the key to understanding any unexplained event. Be a Listener. Seriously consider what paranormal witnesses have to say and avoid injecting your own views.

A good paranormal investigator is one that puts it all together. You assemble data, let the experts interpret it for you and make a determination. If you cannot, be honest. Because the paranormal is not an accepted area of study for most scientists or scholars, all we have are facts. Rather then study those facts, many skeptics dismiss them out of hand. It’s your job to look at all the facts of a particular case, spot similarities, point them out to those who have had the experience and form your own theories.

Beyond technique, there are some built in sinkholes that many researchers fall into. The two biggest are self-importance and exclusivity. As the old saying goes, never believe your own press. The media and people interested in the subject will approach you and some will sing your praises. Whether sincere or not, those praises can easily go to your head if you let them. Even if you can control your own self-importance, you may end up with many followers. Some will be a lot more intense then others.

Self importance leads to exclusivity. Before you know it, you are the only one who is right. Even now, there are many UFO and Paranormal Resarchers who simply cannot stand the idea that anyone else is out there doing what they are doing. These kinds of people attract their own and are an embarssment to the rest of us.

The easiest way to avoid these sinkholes is by keeping what you're doing in perspective. First, don't become obsessed by the subject or the work. It's easy to get too involved. Limit your research to what really interests you and keep your association with others cordial. If they want to spend all their grocery money on investigations and every bit of their free time answering some UFO hotline, let them do it.

People with the best information or tips to share avoid researchers on the edge. That's why people who become obsessed are always seeing a conspiracy behind every tree and think every light in the sky is a UFO crash. It's all they have. Given that, when they do parade someone before the public who claims to be some fabulous military or other whistleblower, we have to wonder how much of that is true?

The only way to survive and prosper as a UFO or Paranormal Researcher is to work with like-minded people, keep things in perspective and let it always be about the information and not you. Keep your eyes on the skies and your feet on the ground!

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