Investigating Poltergeist Phenomena
Poltergeists are probably one of the most powerful and destructive of the haunting phenomena. Cases have been recorded worldwide and are often the product of high levels of stress or emotion being exerted, usually by an adolescent child. This article gives a brief insight into the common attributes of a typical Poltergeist Haunting as well as the best methods for documenting and dealing with them.
A Poltergeist haunting can be terrifying. Objects have been known to launch themselves at unsuspecting victims, although never seeming to actually hit their target, often narrowly missing them by a narrow margin. This shows that this phenomena has a certain degree of intelligence by not hitting the witness with the object and therefore not scaring them off completely, instead the witness’s stress levels rise and fuel the attacks. This turns into a vicious circle known as (The Vexation Cycle). Energy builds up due to phenomena taking place, then the poltergeist uses this energy to cause the phenomena. Providing the witness continues to fuel the fire with the energy required, then the phenomena will continue.
The best way to break this cycle is to reduce the stress levels, explaining to the witness their reactions could be energising the next paranormal event.
There are a few attributes to this type of activity, the first of these is what’s known as the Displacement Affect. This is basically the distance an object has travelled from its original resting place. It is important to measure this affect because there have been a number of well documented incidents where Poltergeist projected missiles have been launched exactly the same distance on five different occasions. This shows a characteristic behaviour of poltergeist projectiles and also that they are manipulated with precision.
It has also been noted that these projectiles often have an unnatural trajectory, which shows that the projectile has been manipulated during its flight to land in a completely different room. Debris spread from breakable objects has been known to face the opposite direction to what it would naturally. For example, a glass that has been pushed off of a counter would naturally smash away from the counter. In certain cases the glass has actually smashed towards the counter indicating that a secondary force was exerted on the object during its flight, making the debris spread in a completely unnatural manner.
There are certain levels in which this type of activity rises and they have been put into 6 categories. These categories go from level 1 through to 6 and all contain a different set of attributes and all increase in intensity with each raise in level. This is because a trend has been seen in this type of phenomena which always involves an increase in phenomena before the haunting stops altogether.
Investigating Poltergeist phenomena can be very frustrating. It seems that the presence of scientific equipment, gadgets and any kind of image capturing equipment can be a deterrent for poltergeist activity. Also the presence of several investigators can also have an effect, they seem to be intelligent enough to avoid being caught in the act.
So to re-cap, be sure to check the displacement effect in order to document the distance objects are travelling as well as the trajectory of the object. Did the object seem to change direction in mid flight and land in an area that it couldn’t have possibly travelled to without some in flight manipulation. Ensure that you collect as much data as possible as this is without a doubt the most important tool in understanding this type of phenomena.
These are just a few facts that have been recorded in the past regarding Poltergeist Hauntings, however they are very important points to remember while investigating this fascinating side of the Paranormal world.
