by Cody Hodge

Created on: May 21, 2009

Is science overlooking the paranormal phenomenon? I don't know if you can really answer that question fully. There are plenty of shows that delve into the paranormal, and they involve scientific methods of researching the paranormal. There are so many shows about the paranormal, and all kinds of reports that people have seen ghosts, spirits, or other things that we shouldn't be witnessing according to our knowledge of such areas. I doubt too many scientists take the issues seriously though, so are they correct in doing so, or are they overlooking something?

The big question to ask is if there is anything to research. Do ghosts exist? I have never seen one, nor have I ever been bothered by anything that goes bump in the night. I am not going to discount those who say they have, but some stories just seem so made up. I think that when it comes to ghosts, we are maybe looking for something that isn't there, or maybe witnessing something we don't understand. Again, I don't want to simplify the phenomenon, but I don't know if ghosts really are to blame for something moving.

There are a lot of shows on TV that are devoted to the study of the paranormal. A Haunting is a show on the Discovery Channel that deals with reports of hauntings. There are shows such as UFO Hunters on the History Channel, and MonsterQuest that explore the possibility that monsters do exist. The research that the shows do are usually very scientific, and it seems as if they are taking a serious approach to finding out just what is being seen. However, they never do find anything that they are looking for, and the shows usually end with more speculation than anything else.

Outside of Stanton Friedman, I have not heard any scientist who takes the UFO, or any other paranormal issues seriously. Honestly I think the fact is that there is nothing to find. Why waste time seraching for ghosts when we have so much we don't know about the living? I feel pretty safe knowing that when someone dies that they are dead, and aren't going to be haunting me in my sleep. In the Middle Ages, people would re-kill dead corpses so that they couldn't come back as vampires. Seems pretty silly doesn't it?

Until we can say for certain that nothing is going on, I will hold open the possibility that ghosts exist, or that UFO's are alien spacecraft. I think for the most part though it is just a bunch of legend taken too far. Maybe ghosts are the dead who haven't passed on, or maybe are just trapped in some sort of time warp, but I don't think so. I think that ghosts are just imaginary, and that the dead are safely buried under the ground. Chances are we are looking at things that we just don't understand yet, and so we resort to legend to sort it out.

Is science overlooking the paranormal? No. I think they might be able to find some pretty interesting stuff if they looked into it, but not that dead people can linger as ghosts. It seems pretty cool that we could die, and then come back to haunt your enemies, but I don't think that is what we are dealing with. Anything is possible, and in the spirit of science, I would say that we could be wrong. I don't think that science is making any big error by not looking into this too much though.

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