I heard about LaSpirits while browsing the September 26th edition of SWIFT on the JREF website. The article discussing LaSpirits written by Alison Smith, titled “LSU Ghost Hunters?”, mainly focused on the leisure course run by LaSpirits founder Brad Duplechein. I’m not going to get into the specifics of the course here, as I was not able to attend it, which is rather unfortunate in itself. I was, in fact, in Louisiana visiting family during the weekend in which the first section of the class was being run.
What this article will be focusing on is the fact that LaSpirits claims to be a skeptical group of ghost hunters. I will give them the benefit of the doubt, but I’ve heard people make the claim to be a skeptical group before, and that didn’t turn out so well.
LaSpirits Website, Part 1
The website for LaSpirits is quite typical, I have to say. The whole thing is designed like a ghost house, from the font to the images and flash decoration, it is designed to set a mood. This, I have to say, is a warning sign. They have a disclaimer at the bottom of the main page that says despite their non-tranditional site, they do not condone the use of ouija boards nor do they practice black magic (as if such a thing were practicible). They then go on to say, that “We approach every investigation in a skeptical and analytical fashion.” Good, I love to see people being analytical and skeptical, and having a group of people who are scientific about ghost hunting would be a breath of fresh air.
There is a problem, however. If you check practically every other inch of their site, you’ll see just about every bit of garbage in the ghost hunting world represented. TAPS is represented aplenty in their links area to the right on the main page, their photo gallery is filled with pictures of “orbs” and other cruft. I’ll get to that later on in this article. I would love it if just once, I would be wrong about my assumption that all ghost hunters are ignorant of the facts, but I am less convinced that I am wrong the more ghost hunters I read about.
Photo Gallery > Apparitions
The first link available in their photo gallery is a list of apparition photographs. This is where we start going full force into the woo. For a group that claims to be skeptical and scientific, there is very little explanation of each photograph. For example, where was this taken? What time of day was it taken? What was the lighting like in each photograph? Was the photograph taken with a digital or film camera? What were the aperature settings of the camera for the photograph?
These questions are necessary to discern whether or not these images are legitimate. I can’t even make out whether or not the owners and operators of the LaSpirits website even took all of the images themselves. Judging by the aparent age of some of them, I would think they are not all original, but I could be wrong. The thing is, I just don’t know, as they have no information. Two of them are attributed (as of this writing) to a first name only (Mark, Michelle). If you want to see how unbelievably poor the quality of these pictures are, don’t take my word for it: check for yourself.
For one, we have this ghostly apparition that looks like muck on a window, with an orb thrown in for good measure. Then there’s the ever convincing picture of a face behind a mirror that’s not really a mirror (hint, look at the wall behind the “mirror” on the right side. This is glass. More than likely there is a portrait behind the glass that wasn’t noticible before the flash). And who could forget the three figures in this excellent and clear image. And surely, this very bad double image couldn’t possibly be because of lens flare, no way. It’s just got to be a ghost, it’s just got to. Who cares if the hat is damn near identical to the man in the middle of the photo, and that the features mimic the man in every way. If you aren’t sure what I’m talking about, I know it’s hard to see. Check the guy in the middle. Don’t squint too hard, though.
Photo Gallery > Vortexes
There are comparatively fewer images on this page than in the Apparitions page, but the quality has not gone up at all. There is actually less wording introducing these images than for apparitions. I am beginning to wonder if they even look into any possible explanations for what is going on, as off the top of my head I can think of several.
For the “Bright Vortex” in the bottom right, it is quite obviously a lens flare. The “Very bright and active vortex” on the top left looks almost like a doodle in paint, but I imagine it is a comparatively long exposure capturing the movement of an LED based light source, as they tend to flash quickly, vs being steadily on. Actually, now the more I think about it, the more it looks like a fake. Try taking a picture in the dark and see if it is ever that clean. There is absolutely no noise in that photograph whatsoever.
Photo Gallery > Orbs
I don’t even know where to begin with these. The LaSpirits site says that orbs can often be re-created with dust. Well of course, they then have many examples of orbs, which are all completely indistinguishable from dust being inside the focal point of the camera, with only a few exceptions. They even have an orb picture that has a spot in it that looks like a face! Obviously, these people have never heard of the term Pareidolia (or they are not paying attention).
There is not a single picture on the orbs page that should be mistaken for anything other than dust or reflective objects reflecting the flash back to the camera. Ignorance is not evidence.
Photo Gallery > Extoplasm
At this point, I am trying very hard to stop myself from laughing at the juvenile nature of these photos. This page has mist forming at grave sites and by a fence as examples of ectoplasm. Other pictures look like smudges on the lends, or in the case of the second image on the page, smoke, possibly from a cigarette.
Photo Gallery > False Positives
They actually have a section dedicated to false positive images, as if the rest of the images were prime examples. If you are a skeptical organization, this is not how you would organize your site. Everything leading up to this point is trying to make it seem like they have captured real paranormal images, and these are just the rejects; evidence of their skepticism and scientific nature.
Let me be absolutely clear, what these imges should be telling you is that 1) the human brain loves to find patterns in things, and classify them. 2) Images should never be proof of anything, because in many cases they don’t tell the full story (they are only a snapshot), and can be faked. Photos used as evidence are quite laughable.
When it comes down to it, it is absolutely rediculous to think that cameras are special enough to be able to see things the human eye cannot discern when they are so obvious. The main difference here is that you can do a ton of interpretation after the fact. I’m sure if you stare at any picture for long enough, you can find something.
EVPs
On the page for EVPs, LaSpirits claim that EVPs are “one of the only paranormal events that have been acknowledged and verified by scientists.” I would wonder which scientists they are talking about. Surely, things can be caught on tape that sound like voices, but humans are so suggestive that if you stare at a TV that is out of tune for long enough you will find a pattern, and that is almost truly random.
The EVPs that are contained on the LaSpirits website are anything but clear. These sounds could be made by anything from the wind, to a person walking by. It’s quite laughable to think you can try recording soft voices when people are walking around and in conversation (many of the EVPs have people talking and moving around in them). And as with the images, there is no information whatsoever about the circumstances of the recording. In this case, the number of people present, the location of everyone, just in case someone had said something out of the range of most peoples’ hearing, whether or not people were moving around, wind conditions, etc.
These are not evidence, they are trash.
Videos
This is even more silly than the photos or EVPs, simply because you get a much better picture of what is going on, as well as the setting. Among the handfull of videos, you will find:
cellphone interference - This is a pattern that is easily identifyable as a cellphone. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been on my computer, or listening to the radio, when all of a sudden, this exact pattern of interference came over my headphones or the speaker. Usually, it preceeds a call, but I’ve had it happen when there was no call accompanying it, if the cellphone was checking in with the network or somesuch.
Even if it wasn’t a cellphone, we are literally in a sea of EMF. Not all of it is even terrestrial like the dozens of radio stations, cellphone towers and radar stations; stars produce x-rays, microwaves, gamma rays, and everything in between.
creative editing - There is a gap between various parts of this video. Who knows how many questions were asked where there was no spike afterwards. This is exactly like psychics - if you remember the hits and forget the misses, of course you think they’re psychic. In this sea of radiation that we live in, if you ask enough questions, you will of course find an EMF spike afterwards.
wind/air currents - I mean come on, the bottle didn’t move all that much. I can also hear something mechanical in the background. A fan, maybe? I can see someone defending them, saying “well they were feeling around the bottle for air currents.” For an empty sprite bottle, I doubt you could feel the tiny air current it would take to preturb it like in the video. As a matter of fact, you could create such a current yourself just by moving around.
bugs - They say this is too “planned” to be a bug, whatever that means. The first thing I thought when I saw this was “moth”, and even after watching it several times, that’s what it looks like. Notice, too, that the video quality is a quarter that of even youtube. Nice evidence, guys.
more dust - Just because you don’t think it looks like dust doesn’t mean that it isn’t. It’s clear that whatever it is, it’s well inside the camera’s focus, so it most likely isn’t moving that fast. Again, horrible video quality makes it almost impossible to speculate, although the video quality is a good bit better than the bugs entry.
In Closing (for now)
There is a lot more on this site than I could cover even if I had enough time. Just browsing through their paranormal 101 section, I see a number of occultist listings from psychic phenomnena, to cryptozoology (of the bigfoot, loch ness monster, etc type), to demonology. Just to give you another glimpse into the mind of these people, I will leave you with a quote from their page “What is a ghost.”
When a person dies their individual systems shut down independently, your kidneys fail, then your respitory system shuts down, then your heart stops beating and finally your brain stops functioning. Since all these systems are controlled by electrical impulses the electricity has to go somewhere. It is a general law of physics thatenergy can not be destroyed, so where does the energy go when your body shuts down? It is released into the atmosphere!
This was copied word for word from here. This paragraph requires such a lack of understanding of how the body and physics works that I’m surprised the person who wrote it even graduated high school. Scientific, indeed. They’re doing a good job hiding it. This website proports to be scientific, when it is more of the same drivel-laced woo that we’re used to seeing from ghost hunters.