by Karen Frazier, Managing Editor
Paranormal Underground e-Magazine

I was about to crawl into bed with a good book and a puppy, but then Jim and I started talking the paranormal. That got me thinking. And so, here I am, in my jammies blogging. Lucky you.

Here’s the thing. There are a ton of reports about the paranormal. People experience strange things every day. In huge numbers.

So does that mean that every odd thing experienced and reported is paranormal? Not by a long shot.

The word paranormal just means something that is outside of the range of a normal explanation. Really, that encompasses a lot of phenomena.

But, for something to be truly classified as being paranormal, I think it first has to be picked apart from every possible angle and put back together in new ways. If you were to take that huge cluster of reports of “paranormal” activity and funnel them all down to those that truly have no known, logical explanation, that leaves very few at the core. Probably less than 5%. But don’t quote me on that number. I just made it up. And remember – I’m supposed to be in bed right now.

It is that 5% (or whatever the REAL number is) that interests me. Those things that truly have no known explanation are the things that I want stick under the microscope and study. I’m curious that way.

Ideally, we need scientific ways of investigating that small percentage of claims that make it through our filter and are deemed paranormal in nature. Right now, we don’t necessarily have those methods.

But here’s the good news. The dialog about the paranormal is expanding. More and more people are taking notice, and more and more people are looking for answers. This can only be a good thing, because perhaps out of all of this will come people with new ideas about how we can measure and assess that 5% of claims we can’t explain.

I’m not talking the TV people here. While I certainly think that the paranormal field owes a debt to paranormal television and the public interest it has generated in the field, there is a down side, as well. Millions of people watching these shows may believe that what they see on Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures or Paranormal State (to name a few) is the “right” way to investigate the paranormal. And that causes a narrowing of investigatory methods at a point in history when we want and need to broaden the way we do research.

So what does this all mean? It’s quite simple, really. The paranormal field is wide open for the ingenuity of anyone who has a theory and is willing to scientifically validate new methods of investigation. I have long said that if paranormal phenomena is ever proven to be legitimate, then it most likely will not come about from evidence gathered by the methods we use to investigate and measure now. Instead, it will be something else – some new piece of information or technology – that will help us get a closer look at that 5%.

How can you help? Keep your minds open and listen to those little niggling thoughts that poke at the backs of your minds. Perhaps one of those ideas will prove to be the one that finally blasts the whole field wide open, giving us a glimpse of the other side.