This is probably one of the best things I've ever seen in my life.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Apophenia and Pareidolia, a new article!
We are very pleased to announce that an article discussing apophenia and pareidolia has finally been posted on our website. These two issues pertain to perceptual interpretation and its role in paranormal investigation. Often most forms of paranormal phenomena are explained by skeptics as occurrences of apophenia and/or pareidolia. Read this new article by Christopher Orapello and find out why this can't always be the case!
Sincerely,
Mid-Atlantic Paranormal Research
www.midatlanticparanormalresearch.com
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
This Weekend
This weekend we will be going out to conduct an EVP session at a friend's home. She is curious as to whether or not her husband, who has sinced passed away, is still in the home. She often feels his presence and would like to know.
In other news, the results from the August 23, 2008 investigation have been fruitful. Comparing the different recorders despite the false headphone jack in the one has proven useful. It would seem that the Olympus DS-30 DVR offers a good contrast to the recording session, but the other recorder is providing better quality EVPs. Some of them from this session may be showcased on the website once we can assess them as a team. Life and school have become primary focuses for all of us as of late, but I hope to have some new EVPs and a new article on the website soon.
This weekend will offer a change of pace and we are certainly looking forward to it.
~Chris Orapello
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
personal experiences with the paranormal
Chris O. and I were discussing personal paranormal experiences this weekend and I brought up the idea of my possibly writing about some of my more interesting ones for the blog. I've been at a bit of a loss over what to write for the MAPR blog ever since it was started, particularly since Chris O.'s accounts of our investigations are so prolific, and I'm not always quite sure what's appropriate to write about in here. Writing about my own paranormal happenings seems to have struck a happy medium with my twittering brain.
The incident I described below happened to me as a young child and is the absolute first brush with the paranormal I've been able to dredge up from my memory. It was uncomfortable to write about, especially after so many years, and it took me three glasses of iced tea and a mountain of cigarettes to do so, along with quite a bit of surly mumbling to myself. Even though over the years I've spoken about it to many people, I found myself strangely affected by actually putting it down in a written form. It made it more real to me; it stopped living in my memory as just a story of mine and took on a new life of its own.
I'm the kind of person who has a metric tonne of stories; I hand them out freely and gleefully like they're the best candy ever. I've lived the kind of life which has resulted in a thousand entertaining stories- many of them not paranormal related in the slightest. And I write them down frequently, with ease. Writing any of those others down haven't given me the same chilly feeling on the back of my neck.
On with the show.
---
I don't quite remember how old I was, but I clearly remember my family was living in Blackwood in an apartment complex which was then called Nob Hill. It was a large and sprawling web of buildings, identified only by letters of the alphabet. Throughout my first eight years, for one reason or another, we moved quite a few times throughout that network of buildings, although I really only have memories of the last building we lived in: G.
Our apartment in G building technically only had two bedrooms, but my industrious mother finagled the small space into having four. She had the master bedroom, my eldest brother had the second bedroom, my middle brother bedded down in a very large pantry area off of the kitchen, and I had a small bed in the hallway closet. A building inspector's nightmare, but we were only barely above the poverty level and our single mother did not have much money to play with.
One night, my mother had thrown a small party in the apartment for some friends of the family and due to the noise level, I was allowed the small and infrequent treat of sleeping in my eldest brother's bedroom. My closet bedroom was right off the living room and sleeping with the door shut was nigh on impossible in such tiny quarters. Five minutes of closing the door and it would grow unbearably stuffy in there, even in the winter months. In an effort to keep me in bed and asleep (meaning: with a closed door), I was put into my brother's bedroom.
I couldn't sleep, of course. Being a small and excitable child in a unfamiliar environment (I was not normally allowed to even step foot in my eldest brother's room), I was unable to relax enough to drift off. Adding to that was the fact I could hear things coming from the living room: bubbling snatches of conversation, music, and laughter; the clinking of beer bottles and whiskey glasses; the front door slamming whenever someone arrived or left. It was dark in my brother's room, with a taunting slice of pale light sliding in under the door. I hadn't wanted to go to bed in the first place and had tried to bargain with my mother for an extra hour of wide-eyed fascination, of being allowed in the company of so many adults. I was unsuccessful in this endeavor and thus, was banished from the living room for the rest of the night, still not sleepy enough for bed and full of complaints on the matter.
I laid on my side with my knees drawn to my chest, my preferred sleeping position even now as an adult, and fixed my eyes on that line of light cutting through the blackness of the bedroom. Not much time passed before I saw the door open slightly, maybe only four or five inches and letting in a spill of light from the living room, then close quietly again.
At first, I thought someone had mistaken the bedroom door for the bathroom and upon discovering their mistake, quickly closed it again and I huffed in irritation. All notions of this flew from my head when I saw a pale shape, formless and shifting against the carpet. It was maybe about as tall and long as a large dog and moved slowly and unsteadily on four leg-like protrusions toward me. It was like nothing I had ever seen before and I wordlessly watched it, unsure of what was happening.
When it reached the bed, it rose up and rested itself on the edge of the bed. It didn't seem to have a solidity to it, almost as if it were made of fog, and when my young brain clicked on this bit of information, I broke out in sheets of gooseflesh and my heart raced in my chest. I tried to call for my mother, but my voice was stoppered in my throat. It leaned closer to me and the nearer it got, the more frantic I became to cry out. I knew I could move away from it, my limbs still were able to function, but I was afraid to back away as that meant I would probably fall to the floor and like any self-respecting child of my age, that meant being entirely too close to Under the Bed for my liking. Caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place, I remained frozen in place.
It reached one of the leg-ish protrusions to my face and I slid my head away, afraid of the damp cold I could feel exuding from its touch. I couldn't make out any features of the form, it didn't have any, but when I moved away from it, I felt its sudden flush of anger at my resistance. The part of it trying to touch my face resolved into vague finger-like extensions and wound through my hair, beginning to pull me closer. When I pulled back slightly, it tightened its hold and yanked hard, dragging me by my hair to the side of the bed. I felt several of my hairs pull free from my head from the force of its tug.
The pain shooting through my scalp was enough to finally set my voice free and I began to scream for my mother, for anyone, to come help me. I dimly heard the music in the living room get turned down for a moment, as if someone had thought they'd heard something. Hoarsely, I screamed again. The form pushed itself into my face and my vision filled with its non-face, a liquid and swimming sweep of white smoke, before it suddenly let go and made for the door.
I back-pedaled myself through the bed until I hitched up against the headboard, with the blankets tangled in a disarray around me, shouting and crying for my mother. I saw the door open a few handful of inches and quickly close it again. Only seconds later, the door flung open and banged against the wall. My mother, with party-goers in a concerned clot behind her, rushed to me and gathered me into her worried arms. When I asked her many years later if she remembered this incident, she told me I had fought her for several minutes with my eyes wide and unseeing, completely unable to recognize who she was and that I absolutely refused to sleep in my brother's room ever again.
The incident I described below happened to me as a young child and is the absolute first brush with the paranormal I've been able to dredge up from my memory. It was uncomfortable to write about, especially after so many years, and it took me three glasses of iced tea and a mountain of cigarettes to do so, along with quite a bit of surly mumbling to myself. Even though over the years I've spoken about it to many people, I found myself strangely affected by actually putting it down in a written form. It made it more real to me; it stopped living in my memory as just a story of mine and took on a new life of its own.
I'm the kind of person who has a metric tonne of stories; I hand them out freely and gleefully like they're the best candy ever. I've lived the kind of life which has resulted in a thousand entertaining stories- many of them not paranormal related in the slightest. And I write them down frequently, with ease. Writing any of those others down haven't given me the same chilly feeling on the back of my neck.
On with the show.
---
I don't quite remember how old I was, but I clearly remember my family was living in Blackwood in an apartment complex which was then called Nob Hill. It was a large and sprawling web of buildings, identified only by letters of the alphabet. Throughout my first eight years, for one reason or another, we moved quite a few times throughout that network of buildings, although I really only have memories of the last building we lived in: G.
Our apartment in G building technically only had two bedrooms, but my industrious mother finagled the small space into having four. She had the master bedroom, my eldest brother had the second bedroom, my middle brother bedded down in a very large pantry area off of the kitchen, and I had a small bed in the hallway closet. A building inspector's nightmare, but we were only barely above the poverty level and our single mother did not have much money to play with.
One night, my mother had thrown a small party in the apartment for some friends of the family and due to the noise level, I was allowed the small and infrequent treat of sleeping in my eldest brother's bedroom. My closet bedroom was right off the living room and sleeping with the door shut was nigh on impossible in such tiny quarters. Five minutes of closing the door and it would grow unbearably stuffy in there, even in the winter months. In an effort to keep me in bed and asleep (meaning: with a closed door), I was put into my brother's bedroom.
I couldn't sleep, of course. Being a small and excitable child in a unfamiliar environment (I was not normally allowed to even step foot in my eldest brother's room), I was unable to relax enough to drift off. Adding to that was the fact I could hear things coming from the living room: bubbling snatches of conversation, music, and laughter; the clinking of beer bottles and whiskey glasses; the front door slamming whenever someone arrived or left. It was dark in my brother's room, with a taunting slice of pale light sliding in under the door. I hadn't wanted to go to bed in the first place and had tried to bargain with my mother for an extra hour of wide-eyed fascination, of being allowed in the company of so many adults. I was unsuccessful in this endeavor and thus, was banished from the living room for the rest of the night, still not sleepy enough for bed and full of complaints on the matter.
I laid on my side with my knees drawn to my chest, my preferred sleeping position even now as an adult, and fixed my eyes on that line of light cutting through the blackness of the bedroom. Not much time passed before I saw the door open slightly, maybe only four or five inches and letting in a spill of light from the living room, then close quietly again.
At first, I thought someone had mistaken the bedroom door for the bathroom and upon discovering their mistake, quickly closed it again and I huffed in irritation. All notions of this flew from my head when I saw a pale shape, formless and shifting against the carpet. It was maybe about as tall and long as a large dog and moved slowly and unsteadily on four leg-like protrusions toward me. It was like nothing I had ever seen before and I wordlessly watched it, unsure of what was happening.
When it reached the bed, it rose up and rested itself on the edge of the bed. It didn't seem to have a solidity to it, almost as if it were made of fog, and when my young brain clicked on this bit of information, I broke out in sheets of gooseflesh and my heart raced in my chest. I tried to call for my mother, but my voice was stoppered in my throat. It leaned closer to me and the nearer it got, the more frantic I became to cry out. I knew I could move away from it, my limbs still were able to function, but I was afraid to back away as that meant I would probably fall to the floor and like any self-respecting child of my age, that meant being entirely too close to Under the Bed for my liking. Caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place, I remained frozen in place.
It reached one of the leg-ish protrusions to my face and I slid my head away, afraid of the damp cold I could feel exuding from its touch. I couldn't make out any features of the form, it didn't have any, but when I moved away from it, I felt its sudden flush of anger at my resistance. The part of it trying to touch my face resolved into vague finger-like extensions and wound through my hair, beginning to pull me closer. When I pulled back slightly, it tightened its hold and yanked hard, dragging me by my hair to the side of the bed. I felt several of my hairs pull free from my head from the force of its tug.
The pain shooting through my scalp was enough to finally set my voice free and I began to scream for my mother, for anyone, to come help me. I dimly heard the music in the living room get turned down for a moment, as if someone had thought they'd heard something. Hoarsely, I screamed again. The form pushed itself into my face and my vision filled with its non-face, a liquid and swimming sweep of white smoke, before it suddenly let go and made for the door.
I back-pedaled myself through the bed until I hitched up against the headboard, with the blankets tangled in a disarray around me, shouting and crying for my mother. I saw the door open a few handful of inches and quickly close it again. Only seconds later, the door flung open and banged against the wall. My mother, with party-goers in a concerned clot behind her, rushed to me and gathered me into her worried arms. When I asked her many years later if she remembered this incident, she told me I had fought her for several minutes with my eyes wide and unseeing, completely unable to recognize who she was and that I absolutely refused to sleep in my brother's room ever again.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
HNJ podcast #68 is now available!
The Haunted New Jersey Podcast #68 - Gallery Reading with Ray Sette is now online and can be found at www.hauntednewjersey.com. I forgot to mention that Garrett closed the show by doing two quick interview sessions, one with Bryan Minogue from the Home Town Tales Podcast (www.hometowntales.com) and one with myself. Being a fan of the Home Town Tales Podcast, it was nice to meet Bryan.
Check it out!
~ Chris Orapello
Friday, October 31, 2008
New banner link!
A banner link and HTML code is now available on our links page from Mid-Atlantic Paranormal Research. Or simply retrieve that information below and cut and paste the code into the html of your website.
**switch skull_banner_little.jpg to skull_banner_big.jpg for a larger banner**
~ Chris Orapello
Sunday, October 26, 2008
We now have an email list!
We have begun a private email contact list for those individuals who would wish to be notifed about any updates, events, or appearances pertaining to us. To join, visit the Inquiries page of our website. Complete the form found on that page and be sure to put "Email List" in the subject line.
~Chris Orapello
Saturday, October 18, 2008
MAPR website has a new look!
Our website has a new look to it. We have a new color scheme and the font is also smaller so the site looks more professional and compact. I even brought a lot of the content together and centered the outside page layout. Also the skull graphic, which we have been using on our business card, has finally been included into the main design of the page header graphic (shown on left). I have always enjoyed this graphic for its elegance and style. The further benefit of this image is that the use of a skull in our logo carries so many associations (for example: human anatomy; medical science and regular science; the human condition; mystery; the unknown; mortality; psychology; and even death itself). It conveys so many aspects of what we do and what we are about as a paranormal research organization. It is probably the most appropriate image we could use. This simple skull image even finishes and ignites the appearance of the website, and provides an element which I believe our previous look was lacking. As you can tell I am very happy with the new layout!Let us know what you think!
~ Chris Orapello
Monday, October 13, 2008
An evening with Garret Husveth of Haunted New Jersey and Psychic Ray Sette
Last night Tara and I had the pleasure of attending a Gallery Reading / Haunted New Jersey Podcast (Show #68). The Reading was done by Psychic / Astrologer Ray Sette and was interesting. I had never attended such a session before so neither one of us knew what to expect. Ray managed to include the small group of us in what he was doing and tried to offer validation and insight to everyone present. Some of the things he was saying to one of the woman of the audience related to my grand parents, but since he was specifically addressing someone else I did not feel it was appropriate to speak up. It makes one wonder and some of the things he was coming up with were far from generalizations or simply guesses. I would definitely be interested in attending another one of his events and I hope to have the opportunity to do so in the future.
~Chris Orapello
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
MAPR second to TAPS? Kind of...
As of now, if you search Google.com for "atlantic paranormal," aside from the nine other links pertaining to TAPS (The-Atlantic-Paranormal-Society) that appear, Mid-Atlantic Paranormal Research shows up as the fourth listed link and the only non-TAPS related link on the first page.
Pretty cool.
~Chris Orapello
Monday, September 8, 2008
If you are "lights out," then you are probably in the dark!
This is an issue that has been surfacing in our investigative protocol. Why turn the lights out? Why not just leave them on? After all, infra-red cameras don't see that well without sufficient extra IR illumination and theoretically when you use IR light you are simply lighting up the room, but you just can't see the light so what's the point? The truth is there are no real positives to turning the lights out in order to investigate, but there are some negatives.
- It's tough to see and your eyes could play tricks on you.
- The cameras don't work as well so you can't document as much of the space as you could if the lights were on.
- It doesn't increase paranormal phenomena and may even enable false camera footage and photographs if one isn't careful.
- You could injure yourself or the environment by tripping, falling, or bumping into something.
I posed this question to the guys of Haunted New Jersey (Episode #65 - Check it out!) and aside from just working in the dark out of personal preference, or to enhance one's senses, the only reason they could say to turn the lights off were if the lights were creating a lot of noise. (Or in the situation of a case we are currently involved with, we turn the lights out when most of the household is going to bed for the night.)
Simply put, turn out the lights during an investigation if the situation warrants it, if not, keep them on! There's no need to be in the dark.
~Chris Orapello
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Experimenting With Audio
Last night we made our way to a regular location to do some recordings and to experiment with the several different recorders we have. They were placed on a table all within 12 inches of eachother. One recorder (A) had a disconnected plug inserted into the microphone jack with the hope to disable to onboard microphone, though previous experimenting revealed that doing this only quiets the microphone and not entirely stopped its effectiveness. The other two were used as normal, but one of the recorders (C) has monitoring capabilities so this feature was utilized while we recorded by using headphones. Though we have gotten EVPs at this location previously, nothing was actually noticed via the headphones during the session, which was also video recorded to act as a control to the setup.
A) Olympus VN-960PC DVR
B) Multimeter
C) Olympus DS-30 DVR
D) Extech #480823 EMF Meter
E) Olympus VN-4100PC DVR
F) Cell Phone for time keeping
G) Sony MDR CD50 HeadphonesWe have been experimenting with the multimeter to monitor the sound levels in the room while recording. Since the meters reaction time is slightly delayed it is tough to determine what it is reacting to at times, but if we can determine if whether or not it reacts to EVPs this may offer some further understanding as to their nature.
The results of last night's endeavors will follow once a full analysis of the acquired material has been conducted.
~ Chris Orapello
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
New EVPs added to website!
Two new recordings of Electronic Voice Phenomena (recordings of anomalous voices) can be found in the EVPs section of our website.
Not sure what Electronic Voice Phenomena is? Check out this
article.Here is an example of one of the EVPs found on our website.
File: Fort Mifflin, PA 9/23/06: You will hear me say “goodnight sir” and there is a response which almost sounds like the word “promotion."
Find this interesting? Then please check out our other EVPs
~Chris Orapello
Friday, August 8, 2008
As of late...
We have been extremely busy. We are in the process of working with a family in Delaware which proves to be an interesting case. Judging from their experiences, there appears to be multiple factors involved with their situation. So far, different forms of apparitions and possible Poltergeist activity (RSPK), Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis, have been experienced and witnessed by family members and friends.
Upon our initial visit with them several EVPs, Electronic Voice Phenomena, were found on the recording we made during our interview. These, and other recordings, may be included on our website in the future. We hope to visit with them soon to continue our research.
Take Care,
Upon our initial visit with them several EVPs, Electronic Voice Phenomena, were found on the recording we made during our interview. These, and other recordings, may be included on our website in the future. We hope to visit with them soon to continue our research.
Take Care,
~Chris Orapello
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
New Article: Photographic Anomalies
This new article, now available on our website, touches upon the commonly found forms of alleged paranormal photography (orbs, ectoplasm, vortices, and more) that has swept the internet for almost twenty years. It explains how and why these images occur, debunks them, and even informs people what they should be doing if they photograph something odd before ever posting it online.Check it out and get informed.
~Chris Orapello
Monday, July 7, 2008
EVPs from the Lizzie Borden House
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Our Open PSI Study Program has begun!
Finally available in the programs section of our website is the opportunity for individuals to take part in an on going study, which involves all forms of ESP and Psychokinetic abilities and phenomena. Our goal is to provide an open opportunity for individuals to learn about any phenomena or abilities that they may have or experience, for the furthering their own understanding of such phenomena as well as our own. The details regarding the study are determined by the individual in question and will be designed according their needs. As always, we respect the confidentiality and privacy of those we work with and who come to us for help.
Click here to visit our study overview and submission page Open PSI Study Program.
~Chris Orapello
Click here to visit our study overview and submission page Open PSI Study Program.
~Chris Orapello
Monday, June 23, 2008
My next article...
I am going to be writing my next article for the website, Photographic anomalies. I am looking forward to creating and debunking all the well known "ghost imagery" (I use this phrase loosely) that people and groups have come to use as "photographic evidence" of the paranormal. I think this article will be fun and will be one of few articles on the site to contain pictures. I can't wait!
Be sure to be on the look out for it.
~Chris Orapello
Be sure to be on the look out for it.
~Chris Orapello
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Monsterquest: Lizzie Borden House Episode
I hope some of you were able to watch the Monsterquest episode about the Lizzie Borden House. I saw it and I enjoyed it. I only wish the producers of the show used some of the other EVPs Al Rauber and Dave Manganelli got in the home. Al and Dave also experimented more than what was shown in the episode. I did like how the producers took some of the EVPs to an audio forensics specialist to atleast determine if they the voices were human. That was something you don't often see on such programs. Not many people know that EVPs can atleast be proven to be human, its the whole paranormal side of them which still needs proving.
The episode can be viewed online at History.com
~Chris Orapello
Saturday, May 31, 2008
New Member!
MAPR welcomes our newest member Christopher Fritzsche! Chris is a forensics psychology majoy at The College of New Jersey. Check out his profile on the members page of our website where he is finally listed after working with us since January 2008. We are glad to have a him on our team and are sure to expect great things from him.
~Chris Orapello
Saturday, May 24, 2008
New Articles Posted!
There are two new articles on our website! "Concerning Evidence and Evidential Responsibility" and "What does 'paranormal' mean?" both written by Christopher Orapello. Feel free to check those out and the other articles we have on our site as well. Please contact us with any questions or comments that you may have.
~Chris Orapello
Monday, May 19, 2008
May 10th Beginnings...
As of May 10th we have begun a summer long investigation with the intent of focusing on one particular location in South Jersey. We want to see what we can get and conduct experiments on the environment and experiment with different investigative techniques. We hope this series of investigations yields us some great results that we can publicly present in the Fall to the community of the location in question as a means of educating, entertaining, and challenging them in regards to the many possibilities of what the unknown world has to offer us. If all goes well this summer, the month of October is going to be great!
We are currently in the process of reviewing material from the May 10th investigation.
We are currently in the process of reviewing material from the May 10th investigation.
~Chris Orapello
Saturday, May 17, 2008
MAPR is now ITC capable!
As of now we have the capability to incorporate live communication sessions into our investigations with a new digital recorder which permits live monitoring as we conduct what use to be referred to as EVP work is now known as ITC due to its live nature. Instrumental Transcommunication (ITC) is live conversation conducted through an instrument, in our case a digital recorder, which allows for personal dialogue to occur between the researcher and an unknown correspondent. This new technical element is sure to yield some interesting results and enable us to achieve a new level to our investigations by being able to respond directly to the voices as they occur creating a more in depth content based recording session than we were able to do previously.
~Chris Orapello
Friday, May 16, 2008
How this all got started...
Although we as a group have only been around since 2007, the history of my involvement in the paranormal goes back even further. As with most individuals in the field, my interest began in 1980 with a personal paranormal experience when I was just three years old where for three consecutive nights a white lit figure stood in my doorway watching me before I fell asleep. Being only three years old and seemingly trapped in my room, my only option was to hide under my covers upon its appearance. Though my mother recalls me saying something to her at the time about the figure in my doorway at night, she dismissed it as me a being a young imaginative child. Who was this figure? I don't know who, but I always felt that it was my grandfather who, at the time, had recently passed away. Looking back as an adult and as a paranormal investigator I acknowledge the inability to claim or account for the experience as being legitimate paranormal phenomena or even the possibility that it had been my grandfather visiting me before he moved on, but whatever it was, or wasn't, the incident was certainly significant enough to me as a child to effect my whole life and make me who I am today.
Years later while in grade school, I ordered a book during one of our classroom book orders and had the great opportunity of ordering "How to Find a Ghost" by James M. Deem (Avon Books 1988), a book which I obviously still have to this day as indicated by the cover (shown on the left). Though this book was written for 8-12 year-olds, the information provided in it was strikingly useful and accurate. The accuracy displayed by Deem was due to him referencing the libraries and journals of the American and the British Societies for Psychical Research. As a result of this book I contacted the American Society for Psychical Research (http://www.aspr.com) and was placed on their mailing list which lasted for many years. The information found in Deems book predates the digital age so in retrospect it has a very grass roots take on paranormal investigation which is valuable in itself and I will always regard Deem's book as a fun introductory text to my journey as an investigator.
In later years (1998) with exposure to the Internet I came upon recordings published online containing alleged anomalous voices that were believed to be the voices of the dead. Referred to as Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) I found such recordings to be quite astonishing, so much that I purchased my own recorder at the time (a GE handheld tape recorder) and attempted to record such voices on my own, but due to lack of experience and determination I was unable to produce any results.
And so for many years my pursuit in the paranormal took a back seat to my other the love, the occult; which was a journey that took me out, around, through, and back to my interest in the paranormal ten years later. Through my exploration of the occult, as a result of my growing spiritual pursuits (I am a pagan), I experienced some very interesting personal phenomena which teetered on the paranormal. For example: the seeing of figures standing about me during a personal religious ritual and another experience when a past girlfriend and I were conducting a ritual outside on sacred ground, apparently without spiritual permission. During the ritual we both experienced the sound of clopping horse-hoofs walking to a halt within several feet of us, a sound familiar to any movie dealing with the old west. Upon which we experienced a sense of uneasiness and felt that it was time to leave. As we made our way out of the field, we experienced a feeling of being rushed out or escorted outside the perimeter of the field by something ushering us along and upon once being outside the field the feeling ceased. Once again these situations in retrospect are questionable as belief entices religious experience; and paranoia, or the knowledge of being somewhere where we perhaps shouldn't be, may have caused the feelings we experienced as we left the field that night. However, both incidents were personal, as are most paranormal experiences, and were not without impact since the sound of the horses-hoofs were heard by both people present.
In the spring of 2006 when my interests in investigating the paranormal not only reignited, but solidified within my being, bringing us to the current chapter in my life. Since then, I previously worked with a local paranormal group for six months during which time I learned a lot in regards to conducting investigations and through my personal work and studies I have been able to fine tune my own procedures as a researcher to yield what I feel are the best results. The best things I have learned from my colleagues and friends in the field is that in the pursuit of science, the goal is control; take nothing for granted; question everything; only present the best of what you find and discard anything you doubt no matter how much it hurts!
In early 2007 I founded Mid-Atlantic Paranormal Research to pursue science in regards to paranormal investigation; to help, aid, and assist those living in DE, NJ, or PA who contact us; to properly inform the public about the paranormal; and to hopefully be a group that can follow in the history and in the footsteps of well-known and respected parapsychologists, psychical researchers, and paranormal investigators however they can or choose to label themselves.
Rest assured, we intend on being around for a long time.
Thank you,
~Chris Orapello
Years later while in grade school, I ordered a book during one of our classroom book orders and had the great opportunity of ordering "How to Find a Ghost" by James M. Deem (Avon Books 1988), a book which I obviously still have to this day as indicated by the cover (shown on the left). Though this book was written for 8-12 year-olds, the information provided in it was strikingly useful and accurate. The accuracy displayed by Deem was due to him referencing the libraries and journals of the American and the British Societies for Psychical Research. As a result of this book I contacted the American Society for Psychical Research (http://www.aspr.com) and was placed on their mailing list which lasted for many years. The information found in Deems book predates the digital age so in retrospect it has a very grass roots take on paranormal investigation which is valuable in itself and I will always regard Deem's book as a fun introductory text to my journey as an investigator.In later years (1998) with exposure to the Internet I came upon recordings published online containing alleged anomalous voices that were believed to be the voices of the dead. Referred to as Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) I found such recordings to be quite astonishing, so much that I purchased my own recorder at the time (a GE handheld tape recorder) and attempted to record such voices on my own, but due to lack of experience and determination I was unable to produce any results.
And so for many years my pursuit in the paranormal took a back seat to my other the love, the occult; which was a journey that took me out, around, through, and back to my interest in the paranormal ten years later. Through my exploration of the occult, as a result of my growing spiritual pursuits (I am a pagan), I experienced some very interesting personal phenomena which teetered on the paranormal. For example: the seeing of figures standing about me during a personal religious ritual and another experience when a past girlfriend and I were conducting a ritual outside on sacred ground, apparently without spiritual permission. During the ritual we both experienced the sound of clopping horse-hoofs walking to a halt within several feet of us, a sound familiar to any movie dealing with the old west. Upon which we experienced a sense of uneasiness and felt that it was time to leave. As we made our way out of the field, we experienced a feeling of being rushed out or escorted outside the perimeter of the field by something ushering us along and upon once being outside the field the feeling ceased. Once again these situations in retrospect are questionable as belief entices religious experience; and paranoia, or the knowledge of being somewhere where we perhaps shouldn't be, may have caused the feelings we experienced as we left the field that night. However, both incidents were personal, as are most paranormal experiences, and were not without impact since the sound of the horses-hoofs were heard by both people present.
In the spring of 2006 when my interests in investigating the paranormal not only reignited, but solidified within my being, bringing us to the current chapter in my life. Since then, I previously worked with a local paranormal group for six months during which time I learned a lot in regards to conducting investigations and through my personal work and studies I have been able to fine tune my own procedures as a researcher to yield what I feel are the best results. The best things I have learned from my colleagues and friends in the field is that in the pursuit of science, the goal is control; take nothing for granted; question everything; only present the best of what you find and discard anything you doubt no matter how much it hurts!
In early 2007 I founded Mid-Atlantic Paranormal Research to pursue science in regards to paranormal investigation; to help, aid, and assist those living in DE, NJ, or PA who contact us; to properly inform the public about the paranormal; and to hopefully be a group that can follow in the history and in the footsteps of well-known and respected parapsychologists, psychical researchers, and paranormal investigators however they can or choose to label themselves.
Rest assured, we intend on being around for a long time.
Thank you,
~Chris Orapello
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