A Short Essay on the Value of Youth in Paranormal Investigations
SeanF...@gmail.com
(3/21/2007) - While browsing the web today I stumbled across Paraex, a
ghost investigation team in Central Ohio. The Field Investigator
candidate requirements reminded me of why I founded NKYPYG:
To qualify, all candidates:
Must be at least 21 years of age.
NKYPYG was born after I located the closest ghost investigation group
to Covington, KY - a group located in Xenia, OH (which doesn't appear
to be around anymore, btw) - and their investigator requirements
required you to be at least 18. Shortly after that I took the MUFON
Field Investigator Test and learned that although I could turn it in,
they would hold it until I was 18. I was classified as an "Associate
Member" and I could be nothing more since I was under 18.
Of the few things bridging the gap between UFO and ghost
organizations, this annoying restriction appears to be one of them.
For legal purposes, it's perfectly understandable that a non-profit
would not want field investigators - who could get injured - to be
under the age of 18. However, in the field of the paranormal - a field
looked down upon by many mainstream scientists - there are many
reasons why we should be including youth in our investigations.
First and foremost, the youth are our future. You hear this touted in
many places and fields, but it is of the utmost importance in Ufology.
There have been essays by the "old guard" (see Friedman's
"Perceptions" column in the June 2003 MUFON UFO Journal, to which I
have previously written a response to) where they acknowledge the need
to get youth more involved, to take the place of past Ufologists who
are passing away more and more each decade (see MUFON membership
numbers, 1960's vs. 1990's). But their recommendations on how to get
the youth involved in these organizations is simply too out of touch
with today's generation. Example in point: Friedman's article
suggested that youth could get involved in MUFON by going to their
local libraries and searching through newspaper microfilm for past UFO
reports. Trust me, while this is an important step in investigating
historical UFO sightings, you're not going to get the youth to care
about UFO's this way. Simply put, top UFO organizations will die out
(as they have been doing for years) if they do not appeal to
generation after generation.
Today's youth is hands-on. While there are still a select few who
benefit from lectures, the vast majority prefer getting out there and
doing what they're learning. This presents a unique opportunity to
paranormal groups because today's field technology is substantially
cheaper than it was in previous years. For under $100, a team of three
could easily be outfitted with enough equipment to perform a good,
standard preliminary investigation of a site and report back to
headquarters about whether or not the site warrants further
investigation. In Ufology, the same could be said about interviewing
witnesses rather than investigating a site. When it comes down to it,
there simply aren't enough good investigators out there. See last
month's MUFON CMS Ranking Report, for example, in which 16 states
weren't even able to assign cases to investigators - two of those
states being Ohio and Kentucky - simply because there aren't enough
available investigators to tackle them. It is ridiculous that MUFON
would deny the under 18 crowd (the upper bracket of which can drive
cars, btw) the right to investigate these cases simply because of
their age.
In other scientific fields youth are encouraged to participate, not
only in lectures and classrooms but by getting in the laboratory and
conducting experiments. Even in the field of parapsychology, I was
able to carry out a round of déjà vu experiments being put on by
Cornell University while in a psychology class my junior year of high
school. There are also summer camps as early as elementary and middle
school where participants get to use the same equipment as
professionals in locations where they might also get injured (I can
recall my Astronomy class during Duke TIP at KU traveling with
telescopes to a private field outside of Lawrence, KS and spending
much of the night there: a scenario similar to any UFO field
investigation). It appears that "real scientists" have solved the
problem of how to let minors get involved: it's called a waiver. We
used to use these for my NKYPYG group. You simply have the students'
parent or guardian sign that it's ok for their son or daughter to
participate in your organization, including field work. Add some legal
"fine print" that prevents them from suing your organization and
you're free to allow the students to participate.
So now that the legal barriers are aside, what else could youth offer
to a paranormal investigation? Seeing as how much EVP research
involves audio at strange frequencies, youth could be helpful in
identifying the source of a noise that appears to only play back on
audio tape to adults. It's simple science that the younger you are,
the greater your range of audible frequencies. Just think about the
new "mosquito" ring tones and The Mosquito, a device that attempts to
keep youth from loitering in a location by playing an annoying sound
at a frequency that only they can hear. In addition to better hearing,
youth also tend to have better eyesight, which can be very helpful if
an anomaly manifests at a distance during an investigation.
Ultimately, it will be the youth who carry on your organization. With
popular shows like Sci-Fi's "Ghost Hunters" capturing youth's
attention and teaching them incorrect investigation methods and
techniques (which could be as much Sci-Fi's fault as TAPS's), it will
be up to paranormal organizations to re-train them at the age of 18 or
21, and we all know that it's easier to learn the right way the first
time than it is to change your way of thinking later on in life. Why
not properly train youth as soon as they are interested in being a
field investigator, and why not tap that already readily available
resource to increase your case assignment and completion ratios? Even
if your group only allows youth to investigate a case under the
direction of an adult field investigator, that's a step in the right
direction for the paranormal field. To be respected by "established"
scientists, our best bet is to let tomorrow's scientists know just how
professional our investigative standards are.