Dave is one of the founders of The Pasadena Paranormal Society

Why did you join Pasadena Paranormal?

In March of 2007, I lost my Brother-in-Law, Adam Swick suddenly to Sarcoidosis. His death at the young age of 30 left our family with a deep sense of loss. My wife, in particular was experiencing a horrific, debilitating sadness. She struggled with the belief that Adam’s soul continues to live on. Although my belief that our Lord had welcomed Adam into heaven gave me comfort, I was not able to instill this feeling in my wife.

On July 4th of that year, myself and my niece’s husband Brian ‘Scott’ Duncan began discussing (over quite a few beers) the subject of continuation of the soul and how we could try to prove that fact to others, and PPS was born. On a limited budget and little experience, we began to study the subject ‘ad nauseam’ and envisioned what we thought we wanted the group to be. We were both fans of the growing genre of paranormal shows and almost instinctively knew what we didn’t want the group to be; more so than what we knew what we wanted it to be.

Have you ever had a paranormal experience prior to your involvement with PPS (if yes describe)? – I have unfortunately never had a previous paranormal experience. I tend to be the group’s biggest skeptic and perhaps the lack of paranormal exposure fueled that skepticism. I believe that the spiritual soul continues beyond physical death, but without personal experience, it was only my faith that drove that belief. Now that I have experienced this for myself, there is no longer room for any doubt. I still review each case with an analytical raised eyebrow, but I think that lends quality to the evidence we garner.

What do you hope the group achieves?

I am very proud of where we are as a group for the short amount of time we have been together. I believe our desire to set ourselves apart from the cookie-cutter paranormal groups and aligning ourselves with members who feel the same conviction continues to shape the group. I think both Scott and I have never wanted an “It’s our group, so this is the way it is going to be” attitude. We are only successful as a group due to the diversity of our member’s and their input onto the way we change. We threw out a code of ethics and a beginning structure and through the efforts of everyone involved; PPS has taken on a life of its own.

I think our focus on the client’s needs as being our primary reason for group’s existence is a good one. We have discovered that our individual needs that brought us to this group in the first place are being satisfied as a natural extension of our work with the clients. We are constantly tweaking the way we do things and trial and error have become good friends of ours. We are now developing the area of paranormal investigations that we believe may be the most important service we could provide; helping the clients to cope with their experiences on an ongoing basis. After the investigation is complete and the reveal is done, the clients are left to sort through what they are experiencing and how to cope with that. We need to do a much better job of continuing to support the client on a perpetual basis than we have done in the past. I think we will be a much better group from this realization and effort.

What do you hope to achieve for yourself?

My personal needs have not changed from that July 4th party. My wife continues to struggle and although I don’t know if I can ever use our work with PPS to make a difference in her life, I pray that I can in the lives of others. I consider myself very fortunate to be included as part of this group and there is no doubt in my mind that we will continue to improve who we are and what we can provide to this field and those it affects.

Other biographical information

I am 51 years old, married to the love of my life for 24 years and have a beautiful thirteen year old daughter (God help me).

Over the next month this site will have updated posts about each of our investigators. These posts will be entitled Meet The Investigators and will allow our readers and clients get to know us a little better. These posts will also be linked to from our Team Members page so that you may view this information at anytime in the future. The first post will appear tomorrow and will continue each week until all of our team members have been introduced.

Even with the majority of ghost hunters standing by their statements that orbs are nothing more than dust there are still those who refuse to believe it. These people consistently point out the floating round anomalies saying things as “this is a spirit that is not strong enough to manifest completely” or “look how many ghosts are in this picture” or event “I’ll never go back in that dusty attic again there’s ghosts up there.”  We at PPS do not believe that orbs are anything but dust or the occasional bug and will not accept any such “evidence” as proof of a haunting. The ASSAP site that we have linked on the right has a great explanation of how orbs are created when the picture is taken but even with that some refuse to accept the truth. They offered up arguments about how orbs can be real if 2 or more cameras take a picture at the same time and the “orb” only appears in one of them. They dismiss the fact that its hard to take to completely simultaneous pictures and that in the microsecond difference of the clicks the dust particle may have moved. It was also hard to prove this since each camera only has one lens and it is almost impossible to get two completely different cameras to sync up exactly. That is until now, when a fellow ghost hunter by the name of Steve Parsons from Para Science in UK bought a new Fuji 3d camera conducted an experiment. The 3d camera has two separate lenses and shutters that will take pictures at the exact same time, the lenses are spaced apart so that they may be put together and viewed with 3d glasses. However in this case Dr. Parsons examined each individual frame to determine if the “orb” was dust or a spirit. Here is the article written by Para.science and the results. http://www.parascience.org.uk/articles/orbkill.htm

All of the information from our Broad Channel, New York case has been added to the investigation/evidence sections of the site. See here for full details about the investigation or here to get directly to the EVPs.

A few weeks ago a poll was posted to see how people viewed paranormal contact by asking if EVP was safer than using a Ouija board or conducting a seance. I was a little surprised to find that the majority of our voters said that EVP is safer.

A lot of groups and tv shows seem to tell people to “never use a ouija board” and some will go a little farther to include seances. Then these same groups will conduct EVP sessions and even suggest that the clients try recording themselves.

For a while PPS was among these groups, not necessarily recommending that clients record EVPs, but we never discouraged it either. We also took the stance that since there are so many conflicting theories about Ouija boards, we thought it would be best to play it safe and advised against their use.

But in all honesty all of these are just tools used to contact the other side and all tools can be dangerous in the hands of someone who doesn’t know how to use it properly. So the new official stance of PPS regarding EVP, Ouija boards and Seances are that if you have never been trained to use these tools properly and are unaware of the consequences then stay away.

Demonics are the rarest of hauntings despite what you may have seen on popular tv shows. Considering the rare occurrences of these types of hauntings there is an unusually high number of groups who claim to have a demonologist. If you look at our team member page you will notice that we do not have a demonologist, nor do we want one so please don’t contact us about the job. If you decide that you want a group with a “demonologist” check their credentials and find out how many exorcisms he/she has been involved on. Then ask how many of those exorcisms were recognized by high ranking officials within an organized religion. The truth is that most so-called demonologist’s only credentials are that the have seen “The Exorcist” more than 4 times. I’m sorry but if I’m dealing with a demon I need a little more accredidation than that.

Fortunately demonic possession/hauntings are EXTREMELY rare and in most cases if you are experiencing signs of a haunting it will be one of the types I mentioned in my previous posts.

Now back to how PPS handles a demonic situation, basically we don’t. We are well aware of the dangers of a demonic entity and also that we are not equipped to handle such a being. But I must reiterate that demonics are rare and a level headed group such as ours would probably be beneficial in that we would do everything in our power to prove that it is NOT a demonic. If we are not successful in this we will remove ourselves from the case and suggest getting clergy members involved. If we responded like so many “ghost hunters” do on tv by bringing in holy water and incense while spouting off “the power of Christ compels you”. Those that falsely claim to be able to handle a demonic presence can only make things worse and could endanger their own lives.

In our last post we mentioned that with residual hauntings nothing could be done since the entity doesn’t really know about its existence or yours.Intelligent hauntings pose a different set of challenges, first there is the trouble of proving that it actually is intelligent. To do this an investigator would have to collect enough evidence that shows clear responses to questions or commands that are not coincidence and then follow up with a second line of questions that yield the same level of response.

The next challenge is deciding how to handle the situation. It may be possible to communicate that you do not wish to be bothered but be careful how you express your request. Some groups may tell you to demand that they leave and that you must make it known that this is “your house” or that they are dead
and need to move on. I have a serious problem with this mainly because it is not proven to work and may be dangerous. When you yell at anyone, living or dead, you run the risk of making them angry. For this reason PPS will not in any way provoke anything that may be in your house, after all we get to go home after the investigation you still have to live there. Other groups will insist on getting clergy involved, this typically only works with non-human or demonic entities, so it probably will not work either.

What it all comes down to is that this used to be a person and may still reason like one. Your best bet may be to communicate with it in a calm non-threating manner. If it retained any of its humanity it may listen or it may just be comfortable where it is and not want to leave. If it does stick around after asking it to leave at least you won’t have to worry about it being angry.

Yesterday I posted about how PPS should not be thought of as ghost busters since we cannot claim to be removers of ghosts. I mentioned that the evidence and type of haunting will dictate the direction we take in order to resolve our client’s fears. A lot of times what seems like a sign of a haunting or malignant spirit may actually be explained by natural causes. This is why we don’t speculate on the type of haunting or course of action until a full investigation is complete and all evidence is analyzed. Which brings me to my main point of discussion for today, Residual hauntings.

A residual haunting is Any haunting where spirits are seen repeating the same actions, behaviors, or movements over and over again in the exact same way. It is most often compared to a tape that plays in a continuous loop and the entity has no knowledge of the individuals or environment around it. In this type of haunting nothing can really be done to get rid of the spirit since the “tape” will keep playing over-and-over again whether somebody is there or not. Some people believe that helping the spirit by telling it that it is no longer living that this will help it “move on.” This has not been proven to work as many still encounter the same experiences. This of course does make sense since the entity has no knowledge of your existence it would not be possible to communicate and telling it to move on would be as effective as telling your DVR (VCR for you older folks) to willfully leave your home.

There is an impression that paranormal investigators are in fact “ghost busters” this of course is inaccurate and conveys a belief that we will come in with proton packs and other fancy equipment and leave with your ghosts in tow. True, during our investigations we will bring in equipment but this is to document and capture evidence of your reported activity rather than remove the ghosts from your home.

Once it is determined that a house is haunted we will then provide some options on how to handle the situation.  As we’ve mentioned before hauntings fall into several different categories and how we proceed will be based on what the evidence shows.

Over the next few days we will post how PPS proceeds with different types of hauntings.