Horror movie contest!!!!

....BOO!!!!! This post is simple and easy peasy. Watch these clips of horror movies and choose which one you think is the scariest of all. Warning...it's not for the faint of heart MWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5I1q4KhKNU

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qllpl9ne4o8&feature=related

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPYdK-R4Tyo

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsxo3pFpBYI&NR=1

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6KC1YSBBE8

Winner will be posted on the next post....so watch! ;)

Ectoplasm Pics....

Check these old photos out. They're supposedly captured images of ectoplasm. Ectoplasm is stuff that "oozes out of of ghosts and materialize and has the ability to perform telekinesis" http://www.skepdic.com/ectoplasm.html such as lifting objects, moving objects, etc. I think they're so fake like it's so obvious and it's almost comical even. Well...it's just me. You gotta see for yourself.

http://www.greetingsearthlings.net/wp-content/uploads/ectoplasm.jpg
http://www.prints-online.com/image/DUNCAN-ECTOPLASM_662091.jpg
http://www.prints-online.com/image/DUNCAN-ECTOPLASM_661895.jpg
http://www.echonyc.com/~horn/stacy/ectoplasm.jpg
http://laura.moncur.org/photos/Ectoplasm.jpg
http://www.photographymuseum.com/ectoplg.jpg
http://www.bellwethergallery.com/images/artwork/thumbs/scene08Stillthumb.jpg

Orbs....

Ever take a picture and when it's developed, a bunch of semi-transparent balls show up on it? Well those are called orbs. By a dictionary definition, orbs mean a spherical object. But in a paranormal sense, it's not that simple or straightforward.

Some think that orbs are the spirits themselves, appearing in a globular, semi-transparent shape. But some other think that it's not the spirits themselves. Rather, it's the transfer of energy from various sources. See, spirits need energy in order to manifest themselves. They draw energy from battery, electrical lines, people, etc. This theory ties in with a Physics theory which says that energy being transfered in such fashion would take a spherical shape. It also ties in with a high EMF (Electro Magnetic Field) reading in areas where the spirit activity is supposedly active. (http://theshadowlands.net/ghost/orbs.htm)

Not everybody believes that orbs are phenomenon of paranormal nature, that's for sure. And they're not of paranormal nature all the time, anyway. At times, it could be a reflection of a light, dust, dirty lens, precipitation, etc.

One time, I was just going around taking pictures of my neighborhood with my old 4.0 megapixels digi-cam. I got to this street corner of this fancy part of the hood and my camera started acting funny. Through the lens, it looked like there was this big pink blur right in front of me (it was so close, it was literally in my face). When I took the picture, there was nothing there. Then later I remember that when I used to take my dog for a walk, he used to get scared when we get to that area. So scared, that he wouldn't even walk and I had to carry him. Was it just a technical glitch or someone or something was getting curious of me? Hmmm......

Mercy Brown the Rhode Island vampire....

Exeter, Rhode Island. The year...1892. This was not a peaceful time for these people. Consumption was, well..."consuming" a lot of people. In modern times, consumption is called Tuberculosis. It's not that hard to treat Tuberculosis today but back then...not so much. People performed rituals such as digging up bodies to "banish the undead manifestation".

Mercy Brown was a farmer's daughter. Her mother, Mary, was the first in the family to die of consumption. Her older sister, Mary Olive, followed suit not long after. Her brother, Edwin, was very sick and was taken to an arrid area so he could get better. But instead, his conditions grew worse and he was taken home to basically die. Mercy was, in a way, luckier because her battle with consumption didn't last as long as Edwin's.

The grieving Mr. Brown tried everything he could possibly think of to cure his son. After losing his wife and two daughters, he certainly didn't want to lose his son. Like everybody else, he finally turned to folklorism for an answer. He thought that his family was being cursed so he decided to dug up his family's graves. The bodies of Mary and Mary Olive's started to decompose except for Mercy's. Her body looked to "well preserved". Everybody isntantly thought that Mercy was a vampire and that she was attacking Edwin. Desperate, Mr. Brown decided to take out Mercy's heart, burn it, mix the ashes with water and drink it to his son. Sadly, despite his efforts, Edwin died two months later.

I feel sorry for Mercy. She became a scapegoat of her family and society. People back then believed that they could "break the spell of the vampires and cure the sick" by burning the "vampires' hearts". As much as I feel sorry for Mercy, I can't really blame them for what they did. They didn't have any real scientific knowledge and they tried desperately to figure out what's really plaguing them. Dr. Michael Bell, a folklorist and author of the book Food for the Dead believes that "attacking vampires was a way for people to embody and physically fight whatver's plaguing them...in Mercy's case that evil was consumption". Do you believe that Mercy was a real vampire? Well...better have your crucifix and garlic. If not...run and pray to God your feet don't fail you this time...

Source: http://www.ghostvillage.com/legends/2003/legends20_06142003.shtml

Actual paranormal activities caught on camera or just our imaginations...

Watch the video...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gjtvx2UfIc

 

I think the most believable/impressive ones are:

- Warwick City Hall

- Copper Queen Hotel

- Hellfire Caves

- New Bedford Armory

- Crescent Hotel

If you don't think these are impressive, you need to get your eyes checked.

Winchester Mystery House....

William Wirt Winchester was a wealthy gun factory owner (Winchester Repeating Arms Company) who lived in the Victorian era. He had a wife named Sarah Winchester and a baby girl named Annie. A picture perfect little family...so far... Not long after, baby Annie died and fifteen years later, in 1881, Mr. Winchester followed suit. 

Sarah was left heartbroken and lonely but she was also left much of everything else. After her husband's death, she inherited around $20 million and 50% ownership of the company which means that she received around $ 1,000 a day (non-taxable until 1913). By today's standard, she received around $21,000 a day. She was a very wealthy widow. 

She turned to her friend, who was a popular medium, for solace. She told Sarah that the Winchester family might be cursed by the angry spirits killed by the Winchester rifles. She also told her to move out from her home at New Haven and to move to the West and to build a house for her and the spirits. Allegedly, she said, "Continue building, you will live. Stop building, you will die". 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_house

Thanks to her enormous fortune, Sarah was able to build a sprawling mansion in San Jose, California. That mansion defies every architectural principles. There are doors that lead to nowhere, staircases that lead to ceilings,etc. Sarah was also obsessed with number 13. There are thirteen candle holders in the chandeliers, thirteen Tiffany windows, etc.

I shared her fascination with the supernatural but I think that Sarah Winchester was a heartbroken, turned crazy woman more than anything else. And her friend the medium was a nut job. Why would the spirits curse her family and seek vengeance from her? That doesn't make much sense to me. 

Take the tour of the Winchester Mystery House....if you dare....

http://www.lostdestinations.com/winchstr.htm 

Astral beings speak to us...

People have tried to communicate with spirits for centuries. One way to communicate with them is through a seance. The word seance originated from a French word which means "seat", "session" or "sitting". Usually, a seance involves a medium, which means a person who can see and speak to the dead. In some cases, the medium is temporarily possessed by the spirit as a way for the spirit to come forward or to come through. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Séance

 

The show "Most Haunted" on Travel Channel does a seance on every episode. Their previous main medium, Derek Acorah, got increasingly violent when he's possessed by a spirit. He would scream in other crews' faces and almost shove them at times, if not being held down by the others. He was dropped from the show because it was discovered that he was faking the possessions. According to Dr, Ciaran O'Keeffe, names would be whispered in his ears before the show begins to shoot.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEP0usvErRI

I believe in seance because I did it with a couple of friends years ago when I was in 7th grade. It worked because the spirit really came. The spirit was easy to get rid of. Who knows what might've happened if the spirit was hard to get rid of. Anyone who says that seance is a bunch of bull haven't tried it before or haven't got the guts to try it. 

Exorcism....

Exorcism is an ancient part of many religions and spiritual beliefs, although some beliefs don't believe in exorcism, such as Sikhism and Jainism. It's defined as an action of evicting demons or other spiritual beings from a person's body. People who perform exorcism are usually clergy or people who have the ability to perform it. Exorcists use prayers and other religious materials such as religious icons, symbols, etc. when performing exorcism. I believe in exorcism. I'd seen priests performing exorcism in my church (it's a Catholic church). If you read my previous post, you'd understand why I believe in it.

Possession....

From the point of view of believers, demonic possession is generally defined as the 'invasion' of a person's mind by a spiritual entity. There are four types of possession:
-Demonic possession: the person is possessed by a demonic entity.
-Reincarnation: the person's past life is taking over him/her.
-Spiritualism: the person (usually spiritual mediums) contact the dead and is temporarily being taken over by the spirit so other people who are present can communicate with the spirit.
-Channeling: a spirit takes over a person to impart spiritual philosophy.

I personally believe in possession because in her childhood, my mother used to live a haunted house. She said that house was definitely haunted because it was located near a big cemetery and an old hospital. Her neighbors and a couple of my grandfather's servants had seen some ghosts. One day, a relation of my grandparents came for a visit. According to my mother, he was a quiet and reserved young man. Lo and behold, he was possessed by a spirit and sure enough he was acting really weird. He would get angry for no reason at all and he kept saying how he wanted to get married even though he had no girlfriend at the time. He was then taken to a paranormal and the paranormal said that he was possessed by a female spirit. She had fallen in love with him and she possessed him so that she can 'marry' him. The freaky thing is, a couple of months later he passed away. He never recovered from the possession until his death.

Residual hauntings......?

There are several types of hauntings. One of them is residual hauntings. Residual hauntings don't involve the presence of spirits. Rather, they' re like the playback of past events.

In residual hauntings, the ghost or spirit doesn't seem to recognize your presence. It's because the ghost or the spirit itself is not really there. According to paranormal experts, building materials like nails or bricks have the ability to "record" events (especially traumatic events) that they "witness" and play them back, just like camcorders do.

Personally, I believe in residual hauntings because I've witnessed them. But I'm not too sure about the "building materials being able to record events" theory. Whatever cause residual hauntings is still a mystery to me. Got any explanation?

Trust your eyes....?

Do you think it's a real ghost captured in this photo? I think so. What do you think?

Was it real or am I just crazy?

I may sound nuts to some people but I actually find paranormal experiences exciting and thrilling. There's just something about being scared out of your mind that's oddly addicting (plus you have a pretty cool story to tell everybody afterwards). The way I see it, I'm quite lucky to have experienced a few paranormal occurrences.

I used to live in a big, old house in the Forest Hills area. There's a room on the third floor that I'd never been fond of. I always felt that there's 'something' there. A friend of my parents who spent the night actually claimed that she saw a man standing in front of the door one night.


One night, I was up late doing some assignments. Suddenly, I saw an old man dressed in white standing in front of my desk. It happened very fast, probably for just a couple of seconds. When I told my family, they just laughed it off. They said that I was just too tired and I was seeing things,etc.

This happened a few months after. I was sitting in the library/computer room, just e-mailing some friends. That room had always been warm because the window's always closed. All of a sudden, the room got very cold and I heard people whispering behind me. Again, nobody really believed my story.

Since I was the one who experienced these things, I think I know what I saw. If you were in my place, what would you make of these experiences?

EVP

EVP stands for Electronic Voice Phenomenon. It's supposedly recorded sounds or voices of paranormal nature on radio or tape recorders. Some people believe that these voices are caused by ghosts or spirits who are trying to communicate with humans. EVPs are usually short and it takes a little bit (sometimes a lot) of time to decipher the voice. What paranormal investigators would do is walk around the location with the recorder and just ask questions such as, "Is there any astral being that wishes to talk to us?" or a more direct question like "Why are you still here"?, etc. Then they would wait for around 15-20 seconds before asking another question.

There are three types of EVP recordings*:
-Class A: To be considered as Class A, the EVP recordings must be able to be heard and understood clearly with a speaker by most people.

-Class B: Class B recordings include recordings that can be heard over a speaker but are a little bit hard to understand. Most EVPs fall under this category.

-Class C: Class C recordings can only be heard with a pair of headphones and are hard to understand. Keep in mind that not all EVPs can be understood.

*Source: http://ghosthuntingsecrets.com/blog

Believers in the paranormal have several explanations for EVP*:
- Discarnate entities: ghosts or spirits are not able to talk directly with humans but somehow they're able to "imprint" information on recording media.

-Psychokinesis: By definition, psychokinesis means "the ability of the mind to influence matter, time, space or energy by means outside the laws of physics". On EVP, communication might be done by humans through an "unknown form of matter/energy manipulation".

-Extraterrestrial entities: Sarah Estep, the founder of the American Association of Electronic Voice Phenomena (AA-EVP) believes that EVP might be caused by extraterrestrial beings.

Skeptics of the paranormal also have several explanations*:
- Interference: The frequency of the EVP recording devices can mix with the frequency of other electronic devices (intermodulation) which forms additional signals. These interference can be recorded as phenomena.

-Auditory pareidolia: By definition, auditory paredolia means a condition where the brain "incorrectly interprets random patterns as familiar patterns". In EVP's case, it's when the investigator interprets random sounds as human voice.

-Apophenia: It's human's tendency to "spontaneously find meanings or connections" in random things.

-Capture errors: These are noises that result from "over-amplification of a signal at a point of recording".

-Processing artifacts: These result from attempts to increase the quality of an existing recording through re-sampling, frequency isolation, noise reduction or enhancement which can alter the way the existing recording sounds.

-Hoaxes: Some recordings are simply regarded as frauds.

*Source: Wikipedia

To Believe Or Not Believe

Hi,

What are blogs for? Blogs are like an online diary or journal. That being said, it means you can write whatever the heck you like. You know, whatever interests you the most. Post something, share your thoughts with the world if you want and get some feedbacks along the way. Anyway, as you can see, I've titled my blog Specter. What's a specter? Well, a specter is a spirit, a ghost, "a source of terror" (according to Webster). My blog is pretty much about the world of the paranormal. Some people are believers and some people are skeptics. It's totally up to you whether you want to believe in ghosts or not. Me, personally, I find it very interesting and well....mysterious. Paranormal activity is not something that's very tangible. Sometimes evidence are hard to get and sometimes you just might get lucky and bump into something. So go ahead, speak your mind, share your thoughts about the paranormal. To believe or not believe...