What would be compelling evidence of ghosts/spirits?

This is NOT a thread about whether you believe in ghosts or not; rather, I would like your thoughts on what you would consider to be absolute proof that ghosts/spirits of dead people exist? The problem is that videos, photos, sound recordings, and eye witness testimony can all be faked quite easily these days, so it is hard to imagine what might be compelling evidence that proves the existence of ghosts or spirits.

Let's assume that you had a significant financial backer and could organize whatever team of people and whatever equipment you needed. Success, however, would be to develop and implement a plan with a goal of acquiring evidence that would be compelling "beyond a reasonable doubt" for the average person. Of course, the project could fail and find no ghosts/spirits) but I would like this thread to focus on what "success" would look like.

 

Unless you have a scanner that can capture the spirit leaving the body you really don't have evidence. So I'd concentrate on creating a scanner that can do that.

Fake, but one of the best I've seen so far:

 

Do you really know how that sounds? that is the same thing as saying you need one of those
electric gizmos in order to capture ghost sounds, even then, that is not real proof, and honestly,
you have no idea about these "ghost" shows that come on the TV as we have no idea if
they use heavy editing/photoshop on these shows; fake ghosts can get good ratings, however,
if they actually run across zero ghosts, then nobody would ever watch these type of shows....

It even sounds absurd that mankind would even be able to create any type of equipment that
could capture a soul coming out of a body, or even ghosts in general. We "think" the essence
of a ghost revolves around "energy" however, what if the energy is creating an illusion of a ghost?

The only way to know for sure is to witness first hand, other then that, there is nothing that
I am aware of that can capture the ghost/soul as we really do not know if it is the real thing
of the result of the output of energy just creating the illusion of a ghost....

As I was growing up, I recall some church members getting togeather to go over to this
families house as they had weird shit going on, stuff moving around, etc...even though
I have never witnessed any such events, this family clearly believed something was going on...

same goes for UFOs, there are lots of UFO sightings, however, when it comes to proof, then
you see nothing more then fake/vague photos and/or videos of something for the most part, unclear....

same goes for GOD, we have a bible, little else too say, no proof that god exists, maybe god was
created by the church in order to make people feel guilty, turn from evil, or even about "MONEY..."
maybe god was created to provide "hope" for the hopeless; If you believe in god, then you have hope
that you will go to a better place in the afterlife, and spend eternity with jesus christ; faith is not proof....

not everything can be solved...
not everything will be solved...

proof is in the pudding...
We never can reach the pudding...

 

Hold your horses. It maybe something that doesn't exist yet. When it comes to a scanner we naturally assume that it should be an MRI, x-ray, UV or thermographic scanner. A scanner I am thinking about is not invented yet. So, I'd focus on inventing it first.

@jrbiz what would you focus on? And most importantly, what made you ask the question in the first place?

 

you want to give a ghost an MRI? Would this fall under ObamaCare, GhostBCBS?

What I find interesting about those that die, and have some sort of vision "i saw the light..."
Have you ever heard anyone die, and come back that said "I was burning in fire n' brimstone?"....
is it me or do they all report peace, love, serenity, etc...If you would to ask a sciencetist about
this, then I would imagine they would say something like, well, their brain isnt 100% dead yet,
in order words, the brain is producing some type of chemical reaction, then they are brought back....
but wait, again, none of this is proven, the living is just hearing 2nd hand accounts from others....

 

Well, I have always been a little interested in ghosts/spirits because if they do exist and are proven, it would be solid evidence of life after death. I'd like that.

What I was thinking was more along the lines of what an organization could do to prove to me that they exist? As previously mentioned, videos, photos, etc., can all be faked. My only thought, to date, would be to assemble a blue-ribbon panel of expert skeptics. First, all members would have to believe that ghosts/spirits do NOT exist to make the team. It would need to include phd physicists, chemists, electronics engineers, aeronautics engineers, from academia and government and many other types of professionals, including CGI experts, expert magicians, expert investigators (e.g. a senior FBI agent,) AI experts (to create a program to "objectively" analyze data), and anyone else that would make sense for this project. They would be provided with whatever equipment or resources they felt was needed to accomplish their mission. Their mission would be to capture a wide range of evidence from a number of the "most haunted" places around the world and debunk them all.

Now, should they develop compelling evidence that they cannot debunk, no matter how hard they try, and they all have to grudgingly admit that the place is haunted by a ghost/spirit, would that be compelling evidence?

 

I've had a freaky experience with a Ouija Board.

 

You know, I have seen enough TV "documentaries" on ghosts and the danger of Ouija boards that I would not want one in my house. However, 50 years ago, when I was a kid. More households than not had Ouija boards in my neighborhood. We kids used them as we would any board game. The adults would use them too at parties. I never heard of anything negative to come from this type of use. I guess the times may have been too innocent back then to activate the evil that people say are in them now.

But, the question is if you knew you could cause weird things to happen on command with a Ouija board, what evidence could we gather (e.g., video, eyewitnesses, infrared, etc.) that would be compelling to a reasonable person? Videos can be faked, eyewitnesses fooled, etc. I am trying to figure out what evidence someone or some organization could present to me that would be absolutely convincing and I could go forth knowing that ghosts or the paranormal exist.

 

Hi there, I have heard that ghosts cannot be captured in cameras and video. I think this was edited. There are some people who can see the paranormal exist. My brother has anxiety and he used to wake up at night saying that he saw ghosts in his dream. He visited to voyance direct who helped him in curing his anxiety and this thing was happening due to his anxiety and depression.

 

The problem, again, is how could we absolutely prove that ghosts or spirits actually exist? Eyewitness testimony, videos, pictures, etc., are not foolproof as they can all be faked. Unless we can capture a spirit (in a bottle, in a mirror or some other medium) there will always be doubts. Even then, it would be difficult to convince skeptics. We could prove that Sasquatch or Extraterrestrials exist by finding a body. The challenge is how do we definitively prove that spirits exist?

 

We don't and we never will however I do believe people see spirits as I've seen them.

But I don't think the spirits are what we believe them to be. They are more than likely something our brain shows us to warn us. Our brain is powerful and we don't use it to its full capacity. We may one day prove with brain activity scans that ghosts are just figments of our imagination.

UFOs on the other hand should be real. If you think that this planet evolved the way it did and the rest of the universe stayed dormant then you are fairly naive.

 

You bring up an interesting point about imagining spirits and using brain scans to verify same. If we were to go about trying to prove (or disprove) that ghosts exist, we would have to rule out it actually being some form of advanced brain activity. I suppose that a case could be made that such powerful mental projections could be "seen" by others and a camera, as well, to explain how multiple witnesses the same sighting saw the same thing.

 

Yes I imagine a case could be made after all some things have proved to be figments of the imagination and fact.

eg. Mass hysteria and sympathetic pregnancy. Both actually cause physical damage to a human being but both are just brain activity that triggers other psychological and physical problems. Someone's brain tells them their pregnant in sympathetic pregnancy and I've head of stomachs swelling etc..

Whether you would catch a ghost imagination would be the difficult one. If we could accurately catch a ghost on camera it would of been done by now. We've had suggestions and debunkers for a long long time which is why I suggest it could be your brain making you see ghosts. We're taught from a young age what a ghost looks like so the signs are there to trick us. Then fear does the rest.

 

Well, there certainly are a lot of photo's and video's that purport to show spirits/ghosts. Granted that the vast majority are faked or misunderstood. But if 99.999% of them are not accurate and .001% of them are real, then that would prove that spirits/ghosts exist. Just one actual spirit/ghost photo or video would show that they do exist. But it would not likely be believed because they can be so easily faked. That is why I am trying to figure out what would be definitive proof for someone to say that they now believe that ghosts/spirits exist?

 

Theoretically, as you said, if even the 0.01% are real then there is proof already existing. Perhaps one should wonder about how to verify actual from false encounters with unusual situations.

 

The issue, of course, is what would be compelling evidence to verify actual from false encounters? Still have not come up with a good answer to this question.

 

If several people in the same room saw a 'ghost' pass through a wall that would be pretty compelling. If it was just me though, I'd think I was hallucinating.

 

Then we begin to wonder, what if claims made by some of the people are legitimate and in fact, the proof is already present!

 

That evidence would be compelling only to the participants. I am trying to figure out what evidence could be gathered that would convince others who were not directly involved?

 

The problem, from a evidence perspective, is the unreliability of eyewitness accounts. Many studies show how easy it is for eyewitnesses to be wrong, to mass hallucinate, etc. That does not mean that some of them are not 100% absolutely right; what it means is that their accounts would not be compelling evidence, IMO.