Formication – Feelings of Cobwebs on the Skin

 

Some people report the sensation of feeling as though they have just walked through a cobweb, only to find no cobweb present.

 This is a common sensation felt by many ghost hunters in the paranormal community. The explanation expressed by experienced ghost hunters is that the sensation is caused by an ion change in the atmosphere, but there is no empirical data to verify this claim. However, psychology explains the phenomenon as Formication (sometimes known as Paraesthesia), which is a type of tactile hallucination. It is most commonly reported as a feeling of 'bugs walking on or under the skin'. In more recent times it has been reported as the sensation of one’s mobile phone vibrating in a pocket against the skin when no phone is present. [1]

 

Formication is also a common side-effect of amphetamine usage with many heavy users reporting instances of it. Sometimes referred to as “meth-mites”, formication can lead to sores, gouges in the skin and ulcers. The wounds come from the drug user picking, scratching or digging at their skin trying to remove the imaginary insects they feel walking across their body.[2]

 

Formication can sometimes be experienced in other ways, such as skin itching, pins and needles, and tingling sensations.  It is also claimed that sometimes the cause can be static electricity, but in most cases of Formication, there are no physical triggers for the sensation.

Researched and written by Allen Tiller © 2018

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[1] Tim Jewell & Timothy Leg PhD, (2017), Formication, Healthline Red, https://www.healthline.com/health/formication

[2] Jerome Litt M.D, (2009) Formication: So What’s Bugging You?,  Psychology Today, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/odd-curious-and-rare/200911/formication

Paranormal Research: National Library of Australia’s TROVE (Part 3)

Referencing on Trove

Prior posts on this topic: 

Paranormal Research: The Manning Index of South Australia 

Paranormal Research: National Library of Australia’s TROVE (Part 1) – Basic Search

Paranormal Research: National Library of Australia’s TROVE (Part 2) - Advanced Search 

It is essential that researchers and writer in the paranormal field reference their work. Not only does this stop criticism from potential sceptics, as you can show where ideas and events are sourced from, it also stops plagiarism. Plagiarism is already rife in the field, and the more we stop it, the less infighting we will have.

Another valid point, that I am very vocal about on social media, is referencing our writing, showing our legitimate sources lends credence and respect to the field. It shows those in the scientific and research fields that we are serious about finding the truth about whatever it is we are researching. That we are more than just pseudoscience. 

So whether you are planning on writing a book or blog about ghosts, it is essential that you reference the materials you use in your research. It proves what you are talking about was reported widely. It proves you are not making the story up yourself, but it also proves you are not stealing the original work, word for word, or even worse, changing the story to fit your own narrative, as so many tour groups in this field are guilty of doing. 

Referencing is a standard convention within the academic and professional research communities, which is designed to inform the reader of the sources of information used in a piece of written work. 

There are several referencing systems in common use, with certain systems being preferred in different academic disciplines., my preferred styles are Chicago and Australian Harvard. I tend to lean more toward Chicago style now, and use extensive footnoting. (which we will get to in another blog post) 

There are two parts to every referencing system (or footnoting): 

1. The “in-text reference”; a reference to a source of information placed within the body of the work. 

In text Referencing Example: “Doyle write about looking for a Skeleton on Rundle Street. (The Register, 1921).” 

2. The “reference list”; a list of all sources referred to in the work, located at the end of the work. (A slight variation is the Bibliography). 

Luckily for us, Trove makes things a simple for referencing. 

If we search a newspaper story on Trove. You will find on the left-hand side are several symbols. The first is an information symbol, this is where Trove cites the work for you. Most of the time the 3rd citation down is Harvard. 

So, you can copy and paste, or write it down as is, and add it in your Reference List/Bibliography or in-text referencing: 

(Harvard Example)

‘1921 'GHOSTS AND SKELETONS', The Register (Adelaide, SA : 1901 - 1929), 25 February, p. 3. , viewed 05 May 2017, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article55150338

Because of the layout of Blogger, I cannot add the content of this talk in its entirety in one blog post. This transcript was originally presented as an interactive video presentation at the City Library in Adelaide and does not transcribe well to this format. 

© 2017 - Allen Tiller - originally presented by Allen Tiller as part of the 'Haunted Buildings in Adelaide' - Paranormal historian in residence project at the Adelaide City Libraries in conjunction with the City of Adelaide.

Can Ghosts Cast Shadows?

Ghosts, thought by some to be the spirits of the dead, are allegedly seen across the world, in almost all cultures. Some witnesses’ report being terrified of apparitions, whilst others have experiences of euphoria, calmness or life-changing spiritual interaction.

Usually, spirits are reported as either looking very solid, and similar to a person known to the observer, or they are various shades of colour (white, grey, green, blue or red), see-through (in various shades of colour), or black, sometimes with the description of a black so dark, even in the night the spirit appears blacker than its surrounds.

One thing not usually reported, most likely as the observer is in fight or flight mode, is if the spirit is casting a shadow. Speculation that is widely held in the paranormal community is that spirits don’t cast shadows, as they are see-through objects, and therefore, a shadow won’t be seen, but is this really true, as many see-through objects cast shadows?

If one were to witness a physical apparition of a spirit, one would believe that the spirit is operating in our physical world, and therefore some basic principles of physics would therefore apply.
On the other hand, if spirits are purely a mental projection or hallucination, that we perceive through our “mind's eye”, then physical world limitations would (and should) not apply.

Therefore, if we take than an apparition appears to us in the physical world, then it must be made of basic building blocks of some kind, chemicals, or the smallest building block, atoms.

So, do Atoms cast a shadow? (Yes, they do!)

An Australian team of scientists from Griffith University in New South Wales, led by Dave Keilpinski, photographed a single ytterbium ion in an electric field. The idea was to see how many atoms together are needed before a shadow is cast. As it turned out, a single atom cast a shadow.[1]

So, let's break this down, a shadow occurs when an object in a beam of light prevents a small portion of that light from continuing in the forward direction. A shadow is formed where less light is hitting the surface behind the object.

There are three ways in which light can be prevented from moving forward;

• Light Absorption: Light stops at an object, it is absorbed and converted to thermal energy (heat), because it does not reflect or refract.[2] 
• Light Reflection: Light hits an object and is reflected off the front surface and is redirected.[3] 
• Light Refraction: Light hits an object and passes through the object, with the light's direction being bent by the object.[4] 

Refraction is the key principle to consider in the case of a ghost casting a shadow. For instance, refraction is light that is bent when the index of refraction differs from one location to the next. The air of itself, cannot refract light as it is a uniform structure, but by changing the temperature of the air, refraction can occur. Air expands when heated, and contracts when cooled. If a warm pocket of air sits next to a colder pocket of air, indices of refraction will occur, causing the shadow of “heat” on a surface that often looks like a wave.

In the case of an alleged apparition, should it not have a light refraction index, and cast a shadow?
To add further to this simplified explanation is that most appearances of alleged apparitions coincide with a “hot or cold” spot. Therefore, if truly in our physical realm, a spirit should always cast a shadow.

At the end of the day, all the above is my own personal speculation on why a ghost night cast a shadow. It cannot be proven one way or another without a ghost present and willing to be tested on. If you think my speculation has merit or not, please feel free to comment on the Haunts of Adelaide Facebook page in the comment section.


Researched and written by Allen Tiller © 2018

The Haunts of Adelaide: https://www.facebook.com/TheHauntsOfAdelaide/

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[1] Boyle, R., For the First Time, A Snapshot of a Single Atom's Shadow, Australian Popular Science, (2012), retrieved from https://www.popsci.com.au/science/for-the-first-time-a-snapshot-of-a-single-atoms-shadow,377984

[2] The Physics Classroom, (1996-2018), Light Absorption, Reflection, and Transmission, Physics Tutorial, The Physics Classroom, retrieved from, https://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/light/Lesson-2/Light-Absorption,-Reflection,-and-Transmission

[3] Science Learning Hub, (2018), Reflection of Light, New Zealand Government, retrieved from https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/48-reflection-of-light.

[4] Science Learning Hub, (2018), Refraction of Light, New Zealand Government, retrieved from https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/49-refraction-of-light.

What is the best Equipment for recording EVP?

What is the best Equipment for recording EVP? 

If you are interested in the paranormal and have seen the ghost hunting TV shows, you would know straight away what an EVP is, but if you haven’t had an interest, it stands for Electronic Voice Phenomenon.

 It is believed by most ghost hunters that EVP are the voices of the dead. Sceptics believe it is actually noises that we give meaning too (Apophenia[i]), they often point to the fact that the same people will not hear the same thing, unless one person states what they are hearing, then 90% of the time, both will hear the same thing after that time.
The sceptics do not consider the tireless work of Parapsychologist Konstantīns Raudive, who in the 1970’s spent many hours in his laboratory experimenting with EVP in closed, scientific conditions, logging various voices through his experiments.

The debate about EVP, like many things in the paranormal continues to this day, but I digress!

With all things in paranormal evidence gathering one needs to keep “evidence” in its purest form. In photography and videography this is referred to as a RAW Image File – which is basically a file that the camera has yet to process into a “standard saving format" such as TIFF or JPEG. Raw files are basically the exact image the camera sensor sees, before the computer inside process’s it and turns it into a JPEG or other files format

Audio formats s also have a variation of Raw files (lossless audio) known as WAV which stands for WAVE AUDIO FILE FORMAT - WAV is the Microsoft version of this format, Apple Macs use AIFF format (FLAC, and ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec, used by iTunes) are other types of Lossless audio)

Wav. is the recording in its rawest digital form and is usually uncompressed audio recordings. This format is easily compressed into other formats such as MP3, but as with all compression, will lose some audio quality with the filtering that compression causes.

One disadvantage of the WAV file is its large size, which is due to the rawness of the audio. Many recorders limit this to a 4-gigabyte chunk, which is equivalent to about 6.8 hours of CD-quality audio.

Sony Sound Forge uses a 64bit recording option allowing for greater audio sample quality.

Mp3 was devised by the Moving Picture Experts Group or “MPEG” as most people know them. MP3 uses the “Lossy compression algorithm” to encode and compress data, this causes a significant loss of data to make file sizes smaller and easier to transfer. 

Advantages of MP3 are the ability to split and “album-wrap” audio files and the ability to upscale or downsize a file format and audio quality – however, neither of these are useful to the paranormal investigator.

Essentially what we are looking for is to keep our EVP files as raw as possible for ourselves and other investigators, as well as audio specialists to be able to evaluate what we have captured in its purest digital form. The MP3 format does not allow us to do this, thus the WAV files format is a much more useful tool – the only downside being when one tries to make a video of their EVP capture, some video editing programs use MP3 encoding as standard and therefore the audio quality will drop in the video.

 This can also apply to uploads to some social network sites and site similar to Youtube. 

Voice Recorders utilising WAV recording include (but not limited to😊

Zoom H1 Handy Recorder (the same model I used on Haunting: Australia)
Tascam DR-05 mk2 Linear PCM Field Recorder
Olympus LS-14 Linear PCM Digital Voice Recorder
Roland R-05 Studio WAVE/MP3 Recorder
Sony PCM-M10

Don’t be disheartened if you cannot afford a top of the range voice recorder, at the end of the day most modern phones will do the job just as well. They may not record in WAV. But that shouldn’t stop you at least trying to record an EVP session – heck, back in the early days of EVP, people were using real-real tape recorders, I even have a cassette recorder in my equipment bag and have recorded decent EVP session on it.

 Saying that though, if you are trying to hold your EVP session up to scientific scrutiny, then its best to use a high end, stereo recorder with WAV. Capabilities. It is also crucial you have at least one video camera locked off on a tripod filming you and your surrounding while you record – film using a visible timestamp that is synchronised with your watch. When you start your EVP session read the time out loud.

 Why is this crucial? The video will show any movements you make, it will also record background noise, or any noises you make subconsciously. In your EVP review, note how many minutes/ seconds from stating the time you hear anything you think might be an EVP, then go to your video and double-check that it is not you moving about, or something else you haven’t accounted for!

There are many audio programs for editing your audio such as:

Audacity
Sony Soundforge
Wavepad
Acoustica Digital Audio Editor

And a ton of others!

Good luck on your next EVP session, and say hi to the spirits for me!

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[i] Apophenia is the human tendency to perceive meaningful patterns within random data.

ORB's

(This article, in its original form, was first published on the Eidolon Paranormal website in 2011. This is an updated article with new information, new sources and extra clarification.)

ORBS

What is an orb? 

The term orb describes unexpected, typically circular artifacts, that occur in flash photography — sometimes with trails indicating motion — especially common with modern compact and ultra-compact digital cameras.

Orbs are also sometimes called backscatter, orb backscatter, or near-camera reflection.

In the Paranormal/ Spiritual Community, orbs are often associated with spiritual energy or ghosts (yet this remains unproven)

There is much debate and controversy as to whether "orbs" in photos are spiritual (ghosts) or dust, moisture, insects or other airborne particles. 99.9% of orb photos seen in the spiritual/ paranormal community are nothing more than airborne particles.
Camera focal points, flash distance from lens point and environmental conditions create photographic anomalies that create the “orb” in the photo. This is the truth and has been studied by numerous paranormal groups, camera manufacturers, sceptical societies and individuals, and proven to be FACT.

But why do psychics and so many people claim that they are spirits?
 Quite simply, some (fake) psychics want you to believe they are psychic, and many will tell you what you want to hear. Other’s may genuinely have intuition and maybe picking up on a spirit in the photo, or energy from you, which has nothing to do with the orb (or the photo) at all.
Other “orb attributions” are purely psychological where people create a "subjective social reality” (cognitive bias). This can be to “fit in”, to give closure, to feel as if a loved one is around them in some way. 

 Many believers in Orbs point to evidence of the older film cameras, that have no flash, recording orb photos. Some also point to night-vision video cameras capturing orbs, but what they don’t realise is that the camera itself, or a nearby IR light source is bathing the area with a light unseen by our own eyes, and when a particle, be it dust or and inset, or something else passes through this light, depending on its angle, distance from the lens and other factors, an orb will be created. This effect is most clearly seen on CCTV camera’s when a person opens a door and the draft of wind that follows carries dust particle through the room creating multiple “orbs”.

So, you’re saying all orbs are dust, and that should be the end of it?

No, despite my years of research and testing into the subject, talking to entomologists about bug structure and how they might reflect orbs, I still believe there are 0.1% chance of some photos being a genuine anomaly that is yet explained – attributing to a ghost or spirit though, that I am undecided upon (after all why couldn’t it be a fairy, a wisp or some other magical being – why a ghost? And why would something of human size (in energy) manifest as something so small in spiritual energy?) 

 I once took a photo of a fully formed apparition in a cemetery, I could see the apparition quite clearly (and another paranormal investigator had seen the same spirit in the same place many years before me – hence why I was there – He also took a photo of it, and received only a light anomaly) but for reason unknown, in the photo I took, the apparition appears as an orb.
Also, myself, and other team members have witnessed “orbs” with our own eyes in cemeteries and houses, but they were very different to the ones we see so often in photographs.  They appeared to emit their own light from a central point and pulse at the same time (almost like a heartbeat), moving through the air much like a jelly-fish moves through the water – they did not appear on camera, and we ruled out every possibility we could, and could not recreate the objects no matter how much we tried.

 Even though I have seen these strange light anomalies with my own eyes,  I do still believe that the majority of "orb" photos out there are contaminants from the local environment where the picture has been taken, with insects and dust being the most common causes.

 I suggest looking at your environment, taking notes of wind strength, dust, insects and anything that can cause loud vibrations (such as a band in a hall), moisture, rain etc. and if you cannot control these conditions when getting your orb photo, then you can probably discard it as a contaminant and not a spirit (or other mythical entity).

  I also suggest testing your camera in controlled conditions say, inside your own house, put the camera on a tripod and throw some powder, or dust into the air while taking a flash photo just to see how the "orbs" will look in your photo. This will also give you some idea of how the flash to lens ratio works - We at Eidolon Paranormal have done our own experiments with dust, and other objects to see for ourselves that most photos out there are dust or other contaminants -

The Picture below has been produced by a team in the USA named. "Midnite Walkers". Midnight Walkers went to extensive lengths to take photographs of various insects in their local region and explain how insects and incorrect camera use, or settings, can cause various shapes or patterns that some teams or investigators will claim to be spirits, or Angels (with no solid evidence to back their claims).

We would like to thank MidNite Walkers for granting Eidolon Paranormal the use of their pictures on our website.

 Composite picture showing the typical irregular shape and high brilliancy of insect orbs. Image sizes have been scaled to a similar size for easier comparison of shape and brightness.

 This photo was taken in St Johns cemetery by the Eidolon Paranormal team in 2009

The ground had ash on it from a recent fire and it was beginning to rain lightly. After walking through the ash pile, kicking up dust we took the photo. Notice the red dust/red orb, the ash dust appears white/grey and blue - the raindrop appears bluish-grey and has the most density

Midnite Walkers have also granted us permission to use their conglomeration ORB photos as a reference tool for our readers, and future paranormal investigators

Coloured Dust Orbs: Composite image of coloured dust orbs (image size have been scaled to similar sizes for easier comparison)

Grey Dust Orbs:  Composite image of grey dust orbs (image size have been scaled to similar sizes for easier comparison)

Eidolon Paranormal also conducted some experiments within controlled conditions (as mentioned earlier on this page) here a few of our "controlled orb experiment" photos

 

Aerosol Spray

Chocolate Drinking Powder

Sugar

A few of you may be wondering why we chose these, and other household items. It was purely because they were controllable with differing mass, liquidity, and weight, and all would react in differing ways within the field off the camera flash

An orb created by a moth

Two orbs explainable as moisture and dust - both present at the same time at St Johns Cemetery, Kapunda.

An unusually shaped orb taken with an Ir Camera,  that appears to be moving in the direction of the"arrow". Recent inspection has led us to believe this is an insect

 Eidolon Paranormal would like to express our deepest appreciation to

"Midnite Walkers Paranormal Research Society" who are based in Minnesota, United States of America, for allowing us the use of their photos and text.

If you would like to see the above experiments, in full, or other experiments performed by Midnite Walkers, please follow the link below to their website

  

http://www.midnite-walkers.com (first accessed in 2011)

Bibliography

 New Zealand Strange Occurrences Society. 2017. Photography and the Paranormal - New Zealand Strange Occurrences Society. [ONLINE] Available at: http://strangeoccurrencesparanormal.weebly.com/ectoplasmic-residue---blog/photography-and-the-paranormal. [Accessed 07 March 2017].

HowStuffWorks. 2017. How Night-vision Cameras Work | HowStuffWorks. [ONLINE] Available at: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/night-vision-cameras.htm. [Accessed 07 March 2017].

How Do Night Vision Cameras Work?. 2017. How Do Night Vision Cameras Work?. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.howtogeek.com/291282/how-do-night-vision-cameras-and-goggles-work/. [Accessed 07 March 2017].

Orbs. 2017. Orbs. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.paranormal-encyclopedia.com/o/orbs/. [Accessed 07 March 2017].

ASSAP what are orbs?. 2017. ASSAP what are orbs?. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.assap.ac.uk/newsite/articles/what%20are%20orbs.html. [Accessed 07 March 2017].