This is the part of ghost hunting few people talk about and the TV shows fast forward over. The investigation is over, the equipment is disassembled and you’re home. Now the important part begins.
Is Evidence Review Fun?
Evidence review is dull. It is tedious. It is boring. There is no easy way to make it fun and lively, so the best thing you can do is make it bearable. The way to do that is to break the task down into manageable chunks – for example, you could limit yourself to an hour a day.
You will also find yourself going over the same piece of footage or the same audio time and time again, generally while you try to work out whether what you have is paranormal or not. That can be maddening, particularly when no one else agrees with you. So evidence review is stressful and dull.
Why Review Evidence?
The simple answer is: because the equipment might have picked something up you missed. Actually, if you have a decent quality camera or audio recorder the equipment has definitely picked something up that you missed, although it might not be supernatural.
If you have left your equipment alone at any point, if you have a video camera with a microphone or if you’ve done EVP work, you must go over what has been recorded. EVPs, for example, can turn up on anything capable of recording audio.
You can also help other investigators substantiate or debunk their own evidence by determining if what they have recorded also shows up on yours.
Is There a Best Way To Review Evidence?
If you have video, watch it. Some people like to review it on the camera’s screen, or on a computer; others connect the camera to a TV and review in style (and surround sound). Keep a pad and pen close by so you can write down the timestamp of anything interesting. The same goes for audio evidence, which you can listen to directly from the recorder or by transferring it to a computer. In this case, owning a good set of headphones is recommended.
Some investigators log everything that happens. This produces a very complete picture of what happened over the course of the investigation and is really useful for comparing to other investigator’s logs to corroborate events. Other investigators prefer to simply record the times of things that catch their attention. This method is simpler and possibly faster.
Second Pairs of Eyes: Another Reviewer's Opinion
Let’s assume for a moment that you have something interesting. You’ve been reviewing for an hour, and although you’re pretty sure what you have is unusual, how can you be sure?
The best way to determine this is to give it to someone else to review. Co-opt a family member if need be. Without telling this person what to expect, play them or show them the evidence and see if they spot the same thing you do.
When to Let Go Of Your Evidence
There will be times when no matter how convinced you are that you’ve caught something interesting, no one else agrees. At this point, you have to be honest with yourself – do you really have something, or do you want to have caught something? You might also find it useful to accept “reasonable doubt” as a criterion for discarding evidence. If someone can come up with a good, simple explanation for what you see or hear then it might be time to set it aside as “debunked”.
Finally, never be disheartened. It might be that you review days and days of evidence without ever discovering anything of interest. Even so, the process of review is worth it; you never know when you’ll catch something amazing.
David Webb - I have rattled around. It's the sort of phrase you read in books and aren't really sure what it means until you suddenly look back over ...
