As the character Andy Dufresne said in Stephen King's Shawshank Redemption:
“It all comes down to a simple choice: you either get busy living, or you get busy dying.”
In fact - what is a hobby if it isn't simply what we do when we're not busy dying? Most of our lives are centered on working for people we don't like, doing things we don't want to do, so that we can buy things that we don't need. Yet, in our spare time, we do those things that we love to do.
One of the hobbies that is the most rewarding, yet at the same time the most frustrating, is researching the paranormal. How many times has a ghost jumped out at you in the middle of a perfectly lit room, paused while you ran to grab your camera, and then posed for a few photos with Aunt Shirley?
However - it's also a hobby that more folks are interested in than you'd ever realize. Most just never admit it. Ask your friends if they've ever seen a UFO or a ghost. You'll be surprised.
I research the Paranormal. It's a hobby that has turned more and more into a passion and a job. But it's a rewarding pursuit because ultimately you are searching for much more than just another ghost or some cigar-shaped UFO hovering over the desert in New Mexico - you are searching for the truth about life, about our universe, and about the reality that exists around us.
Because, let's face it, if there truly are things that exist in the world that we can't see…then what are the implications of that?
So how does one go about researching the Paranormal? There are too many paths to cover in one article - some folks concentrate on dragging equipment such as EMF meters, video and sound equipment to haunted homes in the hope of catching tangible evidence of these beings from some other dimension.
My own focus is on UFO's - where and why people report them, and what it is they are really seeing. My background is engineering, so my approach is a scientific one that accepts every hypothesis, from the possibility of extraterrestrials from another planet hovering over their homes, to the possibility that electromagnetic radiation from the local satellite tower barely 30 yards from their backyard fence is somehow affecting the biology of their brain.
The possibilities are endless.
So how does one research such phenomenon? One way would be to travel to each location, set up recording and sensor equipment, and observe. Hard enough to do when you have no job - almost impossible when you're working 40 hours a week.
So the next best thing is to interview folks who have experienced unexplainable phenomenon. This is what I do. I discover people who will openly admit to such an experience, and I call them and record the interview. Through logging their experiences, I am recording a piece of evidence within the larger mystery of the universe. Somewhere, hidden in their testimony, are clues to the cause behind the epidemic of sightings and experiences that people experience every day.
Many of us have friends who have stories relating some eerie and intriguing experience - unexplainable sounds in the attic of an old home, or a bright light over the field behind their home - speeding off at blinding speed into the sky.
Are they all crazy? Or are they experiencing glimpses of our world that lingers on the very edge of our senses.
It is with these interviews that make up what one might call my “hobby” of the paranormal, that I hope to one day isolate the one common factor that ties them all together. To provide at least one answer to the seemingly unanswerable questions that people have been asking for generations.
