 |
Ghosts of Ohio Newsletter - April 2007 THE GHOSTS OF OHIO NEWSLETTER Spring is in the air (or so they keep trying to tell me) and there are some great things popping up at The Ghosts of Ohio. We have exciting news about our newsletter and our “ghostly science projects” (details below). We also took a look at our organization at the end of 2006 and made some decisions regarding how we can continue to not only improve our group as a whole, but also how to continuing striving to learn all we can about the field of paranormal research. As a result, we made several changes to how we operate. To begin with, we started booking guest speakers for our monthly meetings to discuss all sorts of topics related to ghosts and paranormal research. Past topics have included analyzing photographs and a brief overview of the different ways to review audio samples said to contain EVPs. As always, we will keep you informed of our findings. Needless to say, with all this great stuff going on at The Ghosts of Ohio, if you've been waiting for a good time to join our group, this would be it! Cheers, James A. Willis CHANGES TO THE NEWSLETTER And don't worry; none of the sections like Tools of the Trade or our movie and book reviews are going anywhere, even though they won't be in every issue. We even have a bunch of new sections to share with you. As always, we welcome your thoughts and suggestions. info@ghostsofohio.org ROADSIDE CLEANUP Which brings me to an interesting question we get asked a lot: what's the weirdest thing you've come across while cleaning the road? Well, while finding a whole slew of computer parts was a little odd, nothing holds a candle to when we had to flag down the local police because we found a Molotov Cocktail laying alongside the road. If you don't think that's weird, just imagine the scenario: a ghost group who adopted a section of road to clean up calling the police to report finding a homemade explosive device. GHOSTLY SCIENCE PROJECTS MYSPACE INVESTIGATIONS THE GHOSTS OF OHIO MERCHANDISE TOOLS OF THE TRADE Why do we film in the first place? One reason is to see what normally occurs in an area. If someone were to tell us that whenever they go to bed at night they see a shadow move across the room, filming the room would give us some insight as to what normally happens during that time frame. Perhaps, after viewing the tape, we realize that a passing car has caused a shadow to move across the room. If the house is on a noisy street, the person may have grown accustomed to the sound of the traffic and not realize that headlights are causing the shadow. We can also set up a camera in a closed room so that we are certain that no one is doing anything that might be causing an alleged paranormal event to occur. The primary reason that we use the video camera is to try and actually capture a paranormal event on film. Hopefully, we will record an event that we can clearly determine was not being manipulated by anyone in the area. We also try and record video evidence that cannot be seen by the human eye – this is why we use IR video cameras. Our Sony camcorders have night shot capabilities – we can disengage the infrared filter that is in all cameras so that we are able to film infrared light. Using the cameras in night-shot mode gives us the ability to see clearly in complete darkness, or 0 lux. Most people have seen this type of filming, where everything has a green tint to it, on television. However, unlike what is seen on TV, our cameras are mounted on a tripod. Mounting the camera ensures that we always get the same shot, even as the film is changed throughout the night. When filming in infrared, small IR lights illuminate the area and make visible things that wouldn’t normally show up on video, including bugs, dust and sometimes unexplainable items. This can make it challenging to review the tape, because we have to be able to accurately identify each of these items. Did we see an object that just floated across the screen? Was it moving quickly and in random directions, or did it just zip across the screen? It takes some practice and a little group discussion, but we can usually determine what it was. If we come to the conclusion that it wasn’t something normal, we have to start thinking about what else it could have been. This is when the time and date stamps are useful, because we can cross-reference the video with what was going on in other areas of the house from investigation notes, audio files and photographs. The combination of all the evidence can help further explain if something was truly a paranormal anomaly or some other naturally occurring event. Once again, you can see that it’s never just one thing that we look at to identify a paranormal occurrence. We always come back to looking at each event thoroughly, taking into account all of the evidence we have collected from various sources and using logic to determine what the data tells us. JOIN THE GHOSTS OF OHIO MOVIE REVIEW True Ghost Stories from Ohio with Richard Crawford. Richard Crawford and his filmmakers, Andy Crosier and Richard Shane Reinert, don’t break any new ground with their one-hour DVD, True Ghost Stories from Ohio with Richard Crawford. What they do offer is a fairly standard collection of paranormal stories and local history all set in Clermont County, Ohio. True Ghost Stories has five sections or stories, all related by Crawford, who tells the stories on camera either in a gather-round-the-campfire tableau or on location at the various haunted sites. These five tales are Dead Man’s Curve, including accounts of the Faceless Hitchhiker; the Promont House in Milford, Ohio; the remains of Utopia, Ohio, a spiritualist commune on the banks of the Ohio River, and the stories of the ghosts of those who supposedly lost their lives in the flash flood that killed most of the village’s inhabitants in 1847; the Smyrna Cemetery, where the Shawnee sachem “Sweetlips,” executed by her tribe because of her love for a white man, is buried beneath a tombstone that glows more brightly than all the other headstones; and Pond Run Road, which Crawford claims as the origin of the classic Hook-handed Man urban legend. It is by no means a shabby line-up of spooky tales, and I especially liked how the filmmakers bookend the DVD with tales of haunted roads and the eerie figures that populate them. Where True Ghost Stories falls short is the very fact that it is a video. In each installment, Crawford presents the broad outlines and such details as are available for each story as an oral history. More and more I tend to believe that oral storytelling is the native medium for the supernatural tale, but simply filming oral storytelling tends to destroy the effect. This is not to say that there are no good ghost stories on film or television or in print; there are many. It’s just that, all things being equal, ghost stories that purport to be real pack more punch when told in person, human to human. If you want to tell a ghost story on film, real or fictitious, you have to dramatize it, because (let’s face it) you probably don’t have convincing video footage of the ghost. “Real” documentaries about ghosts are rarely scary for this reason; the so-called evidence presented is simply not compelling. It may be intriguing, an intellectual curiosity, but it probably isn’t scary or even entertaining. True Ghost Stories bills itself as a documentary, and the genre is so loose that I will not argue with the term. It is a documentary to the extent that it documents Richard Crawford telling stories about several allegedly haunted sites in Clermont County, Ohio. Though evidence is occasionally discussed, none is ever presented. What True Ghost Stories does most effectively is present Richard Crawford as a storyteller. Watching it makes me feel as though I would rather read his book, if only because I sense that he’s not really getting a fair shake as the host of a video documentary. I am encouraged to think this by his frequent references to the ghost walks and tours he has conducted throughout Clermont County and by the none-too-subtle product placement of his book, A Haunted History of Clermont Ohio, which he holds in front of him during all of the seated tableau scenes, and for which there is also ad space given at the end of the credits. Skulls Rating: 1 skull INVESTIGATE THIS! **The Ghosts of Ohio organization does not condone or encourage trespassing or the breaking of any laws in order to obtain photographs. We will not post any photographs on our site that appear to have been obtained by such means. In addition, we will not post any photographs of private residences unless you are either the current owner or have obtained written permission from the owner(s). GHOSTLY WHISPERS Dead Man's Curve/Spook Hollow (Oregonia/Warren County) ADMINISTRATION The Ghosts of Ohio Newsletter is a free, quarterly email newsletter. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change your email address, please visit http://mailman.ghostsofohio.org/mailman/listinfo/ghostsofohio. Please do not send vacation notices or other auto-responses to us, as we may unsubscribe you. The Ghosts of Ohio collects your name and email address for the purpose of sending this mailing. We will never share your name or email address with advertisers, vendors, or any third party, unless required by law. The Ghosts of Ohio will never sell, trade, or rent your personal information. |
