SPARC said

4) And playing off that last point a little is the seriousness of the investigators and participants themselves who wish to align themselves with this project. A completely free database open to anybody who desired access and who had no vested interest in its data integrity and intrinsic value to the community, could EASILY become polluted with care-free and erroneous data therefore destroying the entire viability of its intended purpose and diluting what could have conceivably been a very potent repository of usable data. We felt that there was too much at stake to allow the data to be subject to casual look-e-loos and vandals as well as unintentional non-ownership type practices. When someone pays into a project with time and money, they want to see it succeed.

But please, feel free to comment as we appreciate ALL feedback on this topic as well any other suggestions and critiques.
Cameron Ellis
SPARC Team

My question is even with this reasoning, how can you assure the validity of the data being presented to the database? As you mentioned in an earlier post, the field is awash with amny investigators who have no inkling how to gather proper, unbiased data for scientific study. It seems to me that in order for this to be a valid scientific database, all those participating would need to submit data gathered using a similar methodology for collection and understand what they are doing.

It is a catch-22; however, you have to begin somewhere.

The SPARC team has had some healthy debate on this very topic and tried to look at it from as many angles as we could. We looked at the pros and cons of public opinion, investigator utilization, the scientific communities’ perspective, moral obligations and also from a realistic lens as well. The reasons we eventually decided on setting a nominal fee (and we do mean nominal, like "babysitter salary" nominal) at some point in the undetermined future were these:

1) We viewed the database as a tool for the investigator, a constantly evolving, growing and "sharpening" tool utilized by those requiring reliable research data, field work support or test theory scrutiny and data to test those theories. This is not a service that a client or victim would rely on for relief or help... that would go against our mission statement and personal values. However, there was positive discussion of the database being a proxy referral service as we ARE building a network of linked investigation teams at the same time and THAT of course would be free to any client in need as long as we have participants in their area. But for the investigator this would be like any other tool that has been developed and maintained like our equipment, software, paranormal periodicals and books for example. While I believe some of the equip we use are questionable as to their viability in the field, most of them took hundreds of man hours for development, testing, promotion and production. It’s our choice whether to believe they work and spend the money for them... the end result being whether we feel they will ultimately help the client. And that’s all that matters. Software is the same, large $ for R&D and they have been INDISPENSABLE.

2) Sure there is the small cost of administration and maintenance to an ever-growing database (I know, it’s what I've done as a career for non-profit organizations for many years now... hence where the idea came from), as well as the funds needed to promote and keep this tool available for the masses. However, we did not want to charge such an exorbitant fee as to place it out of reach for just about ANYONE who has internet access. We want to be altruistic, fair AND reasonable with a philanthropic umbrella over EVERY aspect of our projects and unfortunately any good 501(c)(3) has to have a productive fiscal model to do that and stay alive. Sure, non-profits can get greedy and veer off path... and it doesn’t take long before those fiscally based initiatives becomes their downfall through lack of community support. SPARC wants to be able to improve upon the database as we go, give it more functionality and possibly offer other types of resources as well that may be equally important or useful to the investigator.

3) While our main goal is to help those in need by finding answers to a GIGANTIC field that is largely unknown and under-researched, those efforts cannot move forward without funding. It’s how our world turns and unfortunately is how serious attention is garnered for a shared problem. Now that might seem like we're lazily jumping on a band-wagon as a good excuse to stuff our coffers but the truth is that even cancer research requires MILLIONS (perhaps billions) of dollars annually to maintain the work and attention required to find better treatments or possibly even a cure. Just good faith and volunteer work would NEVER see that come to fruition. Substantial investment brings more serious and deliberate attention to a prolonged problem, and with more serious, deliberate attention comes more TALENT from an ever growing community who wants to offer their expertise and knowledge. I might even venture to say that a completely volunteer paranormal community MAY BE one of the largest inhibiting factors to parapsychology being relegated to largely enthusiasts and hobby "ghost" hunters and left virtually untouched by the professional scientific establishment.

4) And playing off that last point a little is the seriousness of the investigators and participants themselves who wish to align themselves with this project. A completely free database open to anybody who desired access and who had no vested interest in its data integrity and intrinsic value to the community, could EASILY become polluted with care-free and erroneous data therefore destroying the entire viability of its intended purpose and diluting what could have conceivably been a very potent repository of usable data. We felt that there was too much at stake to allow the data to be subject to casual look-e-loos and vandals as well as unintentional non-ownership type practices. When someone pays into a project with time and money, they want to see it succeed. Philanthropy alone doesn’t drive innovation unfortunately. I worked for Goodwill for years and there was always a certain section of the population that criticized them by saying, "Hey... you claim to want to help people (which is what Goodwill does..we helped those with disabilities)... why don’t you GIVE AWAY all those donations in your stores to people who need them instead of charging for them!?"I think most people see the ridiculous logic in that... no money, no stores, no payroll, no employees and no 91% of revenue used to help people with disabilities. They've been around for over a century doing what they do for a reason.

There were other lesser factors as well with many of the concerns focused around the perception of what we we are trying to do and the possibility of being misunderstood. There will always be nay-sayers and critics in ANY move you make but we felt in order to be a responsible steward of a potentially profound tool for the community, we needed to provide some safeguards and approach this as you would any other successful non-profit business model including the fiduciary responsibilities that come along with it. Trust me, for the few dollars a month we are talking about here, we aren’t running off to the Bahamas any time soon.

But please, feel free to comment as we appreciate ALL feedback on this topic as well any other suggestions and critiques.
Cameron Ellis
SPARC Team

We actually had planned to do a database a few years ago, but it didn't get off the ground.

Can't wait to check it out!

SPARC Collaborative Evidence Database

Who wouldn’t agree that the linking of thousands of law enforcement agency databases over the past decade has not sky-rocketed crime investigation efforts into the stratosphere? It’s amazing that up until recently we were able to solve as many crimes as we did without the sharing of facial recognition, DNA, incident, conviction and trend data between agencies, law enforcement, investigators and analysts. The coordination between the FBI, CIA, state and local law enforcement is still improving but has grown in leaps and bounds just in the past 10 years. The fact that so many crimes may go unsolved for many years (or forever!) due to the isolation of pertinent related data that stayed “protected” within individual agencies is nothing short of a tragedy and waste of law enforcement and judicial resources.

So why do the hundreds of paranormal investigation groups across the United States DO EXACTLY THAT EVERYDAY? To horde experiences and data within our individual groups is a total and complete waste of our time and valuable information. Since paranormal investigation is still informal, populated almost exclusively of enthusiasts, techie-geeks and “sensitives” and therefore truly still in its infancy, a territorial approach to our field has unfortunately segregated geographic resources, talent and most importantly information… UNTIL NOW.

I don’t think the comparative collection, analysis and evaluation of the thousands of recorded or observed paranormal events nationwide can be understated in its value to the paranormal investigative community as a whole. We literally all currently suffer a “can’t see the forest from the trees” problem unnecessarily, a problem that could VERY easily be rectified with the creation of a central online database allowing the cataloging and analysis of all of our shared data. And as the database grows, some very exciting trends may unexpectedly arise from collaboration between us all.

Imagine being able to chart trends in class A EVP recording by moon phase, time of day, or GPS coordinates. How about researching a correlation between UV apparition evidence and weather conditions? Or even the number of investigators and relative positive anomalies of any kind but sampled ACROSS THE NATION… the benefits of trend and positive condition analysis are limited only to the accuracy of the data collection and your imagination. In a field that has been fueled largely by speculation, individual trial and error and hypothetical shots in the dark, it’s astounding we have made any headway at all. The omission of this fundamental approach to what is an observable science has illegitimized our cause for too long.

The Society for Para-Analytics Research and Collaboration (SPARC) was created solely for what its name implies; to be a centrally accessible repository of paranormal data, experiences and observations made up of hundreds of investigation teams across the nation for the purpose of defining trends and conditional factors to better measure and potentially PREDICT and CAPTURE paranormal evidence.
To begin however, we need to populate a foundational database made up of a large cross section of the paranormal investigative community… that’s YOU! We will be launching a beta phase dedicated to data collection in the very near future but only to groups by special invite. The reason we will be doing this by invite is because we want a wide sample of geographical, ideological and unbiased participation. We will choose roughly 25 -30 groups across the nation to participate and will award them for their hard work with a lifetime membership and access to the SPARC database so long as community rules aren’t violated. After the beta phase is over and an official launch date has been announced, any investigative team or entity may pay for a nominal monthly membership allowing them access to add records, run queries/reports and export data through secure login.

Paranormal unity and scientific collaboration will lead the way in this field helping to bring it out of the shadows and into the light ... are you going to be involved ?

KK, this is some scarey stuff, for a young girl to handle.

I hope things are remaining peaceful for her and your family.

Thanks for your concern. I appreciate it. It was actually frightening for my whole family, but it was especially terrifying for my niece.

The girls are living with my brother full time now because their mother threw them out because they don't like her new boyfriend /angry.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':(' /> and things are completely quiet, paranormally speaking at his house now. No one has been scratched or injured and the bad dreams they were all having have stopped. We're all praying that the quiet lasts.

Speaking of my ex-SIL, she was heavily involved with a very dark occult group for a while and may still be, as far as I know. I can't help but wonder if a lot of the bad things were brought on by her activities. It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that they summoned demons, etc. It also wouldn't surprise me if she was encouraging the activity at her house. At the very least, she was completely unconcerned about what was happening to her daughters and has made no effort to do anything about it despite their fear.

I apologize if I sound bitter. I am really angry with her.

I hope things are remaining peaceful for her and your family.

She swears that she has not messed with a ouija board and I believe her. She has a healthy respect for the paranormal and I really don't think that she would play around with it.

She has tried telling it to leave her alone, but she says that has only made things worse. She had lost confidence that she has the power to make it stop and was feeling completely helpless. That's one reason that I was so concerned for her.

I do believe that she's sensitive, much more so than I. I wish I knew someone who could be a psychic mentor to her, or better yet, help her to shut down her abilities since they are making her so miserable. What 17 year old wants to see apparitions, etc?

Everything harmful seems to have started when she went to Waverley, but she has been seeing things at her mother's house for several years, long before she went there. That house was really active. They've moved, but are still seeing some of the apparitions from that house both at their mom's new house and at my brother's, so apparently they can travel. It's not clear if it's one of these spirits that is harming my family or something that attached itself to her at Waverley. She genuinely believes that the scratches started with that visit.

I say harming my family because my dad is now waking up with terrible bruises and the first hour that I was there a glass flew out of the cabinet and hit my mom dead in the face, leaving a big bruise. A full glass of coke disappeared and reappeared soon after that. We all looked everywhere for that darn coke and then found it exactly where it was supposed to be, even though all of us had looked there for it first thing. Irritating, but harmless, unlike the glass throwing.

Things are definitely active there and the two incidents happened when none of my nieces were there, which makes me pretty sure that it's not caused by them.

I thought my family would laugh at me with my sage and holy water, but they all took it very seriously and were very solemn and respectful of the whole process. They each even read a prayer. Sometimes your family can surprise you.

I did the house cleansing and blessing and both my brother and dad said that they slept better that night than they have in ages. My brother liked the sage so much that he has decided to smudge his office and car. I've made a convert.

My niece says that things feel "normal" to her for the first time since she went to Waverley, so hopefully we managed to drive whatever was attached to her away. The house has been quiet with no further activity since we did the cleansing. Long may it last.

Thanks to all for listening and giving me advice and suggestions.

That's good. If things start up again, I may have a friend who can help. Send me a private message if you need.

So I wonder - does your niece participate in seances, play with the Ouija board or other things like that? Sometimes when you go in too open to a haunted place and do not protect yourself, I think it is possible for attachments to occur. Has your niece tried just asking whatever is bothering her to leave her alone? It sounds simple, but ultimately she is in control of her person.

Another thought - perhaps she has awakening sensitivities that something at Waverly triggered? In that case, perhaps seeking assistance from a psychic mentor to help her gain better control may also help.

She swears that she has not messed with a ouija board and I believe her. She has a healthy respect for the paranormal and I really don't think that she would play around with it.

She has tried telling it to leave her alone, but she says that has only made things worse. She had lost confidence that she has the power to make it stop and was feeling completely helpless. That's one reason that I was so concerned for her.

I do believe that she's sensitive, much more so than I. I wish I knew someone who could be a psychic mentor to her, or better yet, help her to shut down her abilities since they are making her so miserable. What 17 year old wants to see apparitions, etc?

Everything harmful seems to have started when she went to Waverley, but she has been seeing things at her mother's house for several years, long before she went there. That house was really active. They've moved, but are still seeing some of the apparitions from that house both at their mom's new house and at my brother's, so apparently they can travel. It's not clear if it's one of these spirits that is harming my family or something that attached itself to her at Waverley. She genuinely believes that the scratches started with that visit.

I say harming my family because my dad is now waking up with terrible bruises and the first hour that I was there a glass flew out of the cabinet and hit my mom dead in the face, leaving a big bruise. A full glass of coke disappeared and reappeared soon after that. We all looked everywhere for that darn coke and then found it exactly where it was supposed to be, even though all of us had looked there for it first thing. Irritating, but harmless, unlike the glass throwing.

Things are definitely active there and the two incidents happened when none of my nieces were there, which makes me pretty sure that it's not caused by them.

I thought my family would laugh at me with my sage and holy water, but they all took it very seriously and were very solemn and respectful of the whole process. They each even read a prayer. Sometimes your family can surprise you.

I did the house cleansing and blessing and both my brother and dad said that they slept better that night than they have in ages. My brother liked the sage so much that he has decided to smudge his office and car. I've made a convert.

My niece says that things feel "normal" to her for the first time since she went to Waverley, so hopefully we managed to drive whatever was attached to her away. The house has been quiet with no further activity since we did the cleansing. Long may it last.

Thanks to all for listening and giving me advice and suggestions.

Another thought - perhaps she has awakening sensitivities that something at Waverly triggered? In that case, perhaps seeking assistance from a psychic mentor to help her gain better control may also help.

I'm not asking anyone to believe that this is happening. I just hope people will have some suggestions in case it is really happening.

After all, what can it hurt to do cleansings, etc. At least it might make her feel better and that's a good thing, IMO.

I really hope people have some good suggestions. PM me if you don't want to post publicly. I won't tell.