Dark World: Into the Shadows with the Lead Investigator of the Ghost Adventures Crew (27 page)

5. Some paranormal activity can be justifiably explained as a cognitive action. “It’s all in your mind,” as some would say. And sometimes it is, as I will explain soon. The human brain is one of the frontiers that we still do not fully understand, and there are certainly phenomena that can be explained as tricks of the mind. Apparitions moving out of the corner of the eye are especially open to skepticism because it’s been proven that objects on a person’s periphery can seem to move when they’re not.

Simply saying, “I saw a spirit and I know what I saw,” isn’t enough and does nothing to advance the field of paranormal research. Empirical, observable evidence has to be gathered. Skeptics frequently use the “cognitive function” defense to explain away paranormal activity, so multiple electronic recording devices (video and audio) are a must when conducting paranormal research to limit the margin of error. We’ll look more at this later in the chapter.

There’s also the question of money that holds paranormal research back. There is little to no profit in creating a center for paranormal research and only by creating entertainment shows out of investigations can researchers continue to have funds to carry out their work. Until paranormal investigators can demonstrate the practical value of their research to the public they will continue to be on the fringe and not receive real funding to advance the science. Ironically the paranormal was once a wellfunded field with interest from prestigious universities and the federal government. But it was an immature science that still had to find its value, which it is doing now.

Multiverse Theory

While I am convinced that ghosts wander among the living, I don’t want to close off the possibilities that their existence is due to a law of nature that we simply don’t understand yet. I think paranormal activity could be the evidence quantum physics needs to prove their theories and in turn their theories could help prove spirits exist and an afterlife waits for all of us. Of course both fields have huge obstacles to overcome, especially in the way of tangible evidence, but together we may be able to solve some of the mysteries of the universe.

Bobby Mackey’s is an evil place and I’m convinced that some sort of portal through time and space is held within its walls. As I mentioned earlier, I returned to Bobby Mackey’s in 2010 for a private investigation with about fifty people. Nick caught a voice on his digital recorder, and when he played it back, we realized that the voice was mine. I had not uttered those words, “Hey guys. Be careful,” any time in the recent past. A short while later, our paranormal friend, Tara Bohren, heard the voice of her daughter on the digital recorder.

So what could it have been? First off, the voice captured that evening was not audible with normal human hearing. It was captured on something we call a “shack hack” and recorded on a digital recorder. It’s a device that continually scans all AM or FM frequencies to provide constant white noise to communicate on. Theoretically it also gives them snippets of words from the radio to grab a hold of and manipulate into their own words. In essence it provides a blank canvas for ghosts to paint on.

I will admit that the shack hack is controversial and sometimes picks up interference and stray radio transmissions, but these are never more than blips of sound with no substance. To ask a question and get an answer (or two) indicates an intelligent being is responding and you have not merely captured a stray radio transmission. Also when you put the recordings on a spectrograph and look at the waveform, it’s possible to see how fast the frequencies are being scanned. It scans fourteen frequencies per second. At that rate it’s impossible to make out a phrase, sentence, or even a word spoken by a human being broadcast over any regular radio frequency. It’s like taking an old car radio and spinning the dial as fast as possible. All you hear is garbled blurbs, and yet we captured the same voice speaking a full sentence for several seconds. MY voice.

Since I had not been conducting any investigating upstairs that evening and I had no equipment that could transmit a signal, I made the assumption that this recording was not made that evening. I was also fairly certain it was not from the past (we would later compare the phrase through old recordings to see if I had uttered it during a previous investigation, and I had not).

As I already mentioned, my initial attempt to explain this is to go to the source—that the messages were from demons trying to make us angry or cause us pain. But there’s another possible explanation that requires you to open your mind and take the parking break off your perception of the things you think you understand, like time and space. It’s called quantum mechanics.

It’s a fascinating science that’s similar to ours in the need to accept new laws of physics, yet quantum mechanics is an accepted field of study while ours remains muddled in disbelief. I am by no means a quantum physicist, but I believe that some of their theories and research provide possible explanations of paranormal activity as natural processes. I think this event in the basement of Bobby Mackey’s could be a good example of the multiverse theory.

The multiverse is a hypothetical set of multiple possible universes that together comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, and energy as well as the physical laws and constants that describe them. Multiverses might sound like something from a comic book (and I’ve read a lot of them) but the theory has gained traction in cosmology, physics, astronomy, philosophy, psychology, and fiction. They are referred to as “alternative universes,” “quantum universes,” and “parallel dimensions.” It’s basically a model that predicts that we are just one of an infinite number of worlds, all of which have copies of ourselves going about their lives in a nearly identical pattern to our own.

Proof of the existence of parallel dimensions can be found in physics and cosmology. We know there are stars with enough mass to collapse in on themselves, forming what we call black holes. Within a black hole, it’s theorized that there is a point called a “singularity” where all physical laws may cease to exist. Time, space, gravity, electromagnetism, and light become unpredictable and one or all of these forces may not even be present. Without one or more of these basic forces, a new dimension forms that does not conform to the laws of physics as we know them. It’s a parallel universe. When looked at this way, the possibility that we are just one of an infinite number of parallel universes is feasible.

Assuming there are parallel universes, let’s add to that Einstein’s theory of relativity, which taught us that time travel forward is possible, but time travel backward is not. However, time travel sideways into parallel dimensions (which could be a second or two behind us) is an intriguing possibility. As David Deutsch said in his 1997 book,
The Fabric of Reality
, “this would require a path between the two universes that is hardwired into the structure of the multiverse. Whether such paths exist or not is an unresolved empirical question.”

Letting your mind go for a minute, it’s possible that the recording of my voice could have been from a parallel dimension that exists merely seconds ahead of our own. In that universe, I discovered something and called it to the attention of my fellow investigators. At the same time, Tara Bohren’s daughter, whom she decided to bring to the event in this parallel universe, asked for help. It sounds weird, but according to some of the most brilliant minds we have, it’s entirely possible.

Black Holes and the Paranormal

The field of physics has debated these sorts of scenarios and possibilities for decades now. At the heart of their disagreement is the question of whether or not information can be destroyed. For a very long time the field of physics believed information (such as your memories) could not be destroyed. But Stephen Hawking challenged that and said black holes simply vanish over time, which means that basic information can be destroyed. That theory drew a line in the sand between those who agreed and those who said that information is eternal and is never lost.

Both sides use black holes as the focus of their theories because the laws of physics that we have formed over hundreds of years now completely break down in black holes. If we can figure out what truly happens around black holes, then we can unlock a lot of other secrets of the universe, including the paranormal.

The puzzle of whether or not information can be destroyed has a huge impact on the paranormal because if the traditional physicists are correct, then your soul does not vanish when you die, but instead becomes a part of the universe. That also leaves the door open for the possibility of pulling the elements of the soul back together briefly, which is what we call a manifestation. So some of the most brilliant and respected minds in the world of physics have actually given us reason to believe that it is scientifically possible for ghosts to exist, though not in the traditional sense of heaven and hell, demons and angels, Yankees and Red Sox. This is a more scientific approach, and while I lean more toward the spiritual side of the paranormal, I like to keep an open mind to what science thinks.

Let’s look at the work of Doctor Stuart Hammeroff and British mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose. They came up with a theory based on years of work in both medicine and physics. Hammeroff and Penrose showed a connection between the human brain and the fabric of the universe that goes like this: The brain is made up of neurons and microtubules that determine the architecture of the cells in the mind. They’re like onboard computers for the brain that allow it to function as a quantum computer (which is very different from traditional computers). The traditional view of the brain is that activity causes neurons to fire (thoughts) and then cause connected neurons to fire to send signals around the brain like dominoes. It’s called a traceable path, which is similar to how a conventional computer works.

However, Hammeroff and Penrose showed how activity in one part of the brain can cause activity in a completely unconnected part of the brain. It’s a connection made by unseen microscopic components that they call entanglements, or a nonlocality connection. A change in one set of microtubules can cause a change in another set that is not even connected.

So if we take that information and apply it to a bigger stage, it’s possible that every speck of the universe is connected and can contain quantum information. So microtubules can connect and entangle not only with the brain, but also with every part of the universe. It’s possible that the whole brain can exist in the universe at large. This also implies that the soul is not constructed of just neurons, but the very fabric of the universe itself.

When the heart stops and blood flow ceases and the body’s microtubules lose their quantum state, the information contained in the body becomes part of the universe. It is not destroyed. Hammeroff and Penrose showed that information and energy can exist outside the body as a soul in the universe. To be fair, they never meant their theory to apply to the paranormal. I made that connection.

Time Rivers and Relativity

Does time travel in a straight line? Most of us say yes, but there are some who say that time is not at all a straight line. Many quantum physicists agree that time is not linear and is actually a three-dimensional force that wanders and meanders around the universe following a pattern that we have not figured out yet. We classify time as a straight line because that’s the only way our brains can comprehend it, but think about this— do you see any straight lines in nature? Rivers flow down the path of least resistance and trees grow in various directions to maximize their exposure to sunlight. Time could be the same. Einstein theorized that time is another dimension, woven together with space to form a fabric that is distorted by matter, which makes it anything but a straight line.

I agree with this theory and think time and space both flow in a random pattern on all three dimensions, which makes it possible that it can double back and overlap on itself. At these points where it either overlaps or comes close to overlapping is where it’s possible for the space between the past, the present, and the future to be thin, which makes it possible to open a window on the past or the future. Gaining physical access to that window has theoretical issues, but capturing stray communications between times is certainly possible.

How does this affect the paranormal? I believe these windows are where we find residual hauntings. We think of residual hauntings as a loop of the same event in time happening over and over again like a broken record. It could be that these are spots on the time-space continuum where time flows from a defined source and overlaps the stationary moment. The basement of the Birdcage Theater is a good example. Thousands of people have reported hearing the same poker game playing out in the basement of the theater. It could be that this is really a “hotspot” in the flow of time where the fabric of space and time is very weak between the past and present.

There’s another aspect of time to consider. Though most of us think of time as being constant, it’s really not, unless you are a machine. Newton defined time as constant and precise, but Einstein proved him wrong. Einstein proved that, for humans, time is relative to the situation people find themselves in.

Think of this example: There are four people in a car driving from Washington, D.C., to South Florida for a Disney World vacation. The father (who is driving) has a clear perception of time and distance because he’s watching the mile markers go by and his odometer slowly get higher. Time is constant to him. The mother in the passenger seat reads a book and has no concept of how far they’ve gone or what time it is, so to her, time is going by quickly. The son in the back seat is playing video games and is having so much fun that he does not want the trip to end. To him, time is going too fast. Meanwhile the daughter has to pee, so every second of the journey is agonizing and therefore very slow. All four of them have completely different perceptions of time.

For a teenager who’s fawning over a new boyfriend or girlfriend and can’t wait to see that person in school on Monday, the weekend sucks and goes by very slowly. For an adult, when was the last time you couldn’t wait for a weekend to end? It’s rare. Adults crave that space in between the working days and don’t want it to end. Every Monday you can hear “that weekend went by too fast” echo through the halls of corporate America.