I would like to talk about the set up of a team or a group for paranormal investigations in this article. First I would like to tell you about the way that a group should not be correlated and then give you some ideas on how to form a good balanced group with the correct support structure.  Sorry for a bit of a rant in the article, sometimes I show how strongly I feel about something – OK, here we go!

In the mid 80's this old friend of mine was a paranormal investigator who specialized in UFOs. He believed that ever so often he is removed from his house and taken up to a mother-ship. To him everything is caused by the Aliens and UFOs and there was nothing supernatural except from another time that was not Alien in nature. He believes that there are no angels or spirits just Aliens and time travelers that may be Aliens. He did not get so bad as to sit around his house with tinfoil around his head to keep the Aliens from reading his thoughts but, he did have some weird habits that he said would keep him from being abducted, like sleeping on the floor when he thought he was going to be abducted. He was a meticulous investigator at the start of the investigation but when he could not get any evidence he would start making assumptions it was Alien. He always believed everything that a witness said and never believed that there could be mental issues with a witness. So now that you may have a picture of the person I am talking about so let’s get to the story.

He brought me his newsletter that he was publishing - I can’t remember the name so I will call it the Southern League of Paranormal Professionals Yearly or the "SLOPPY" for short.  He was putting together a group of like-minded individuals for support and to work as a think-tank and thought I would be interested. I agreed to come and attend a meeting at a member’s house before I had read the newsletter. I say this because the newsletter was all Alien and Government conspiracies and nothing about anything else paranormal. So, I had committed myself to attend the meeting that was going to be held a week before Christmas.

The meeting started with a meet and greet so that everyone would know who was who. I felt out-numbered by all the UFOlogists, no one did any other type of investigations but UFOs. I have done some UFO investigations but for the most part I tried not to just focus on one side of paranormal investigations. I try to look at the big picture at all possibilities that could be the cause of an event that I am investigating. What I can tell from the first few minutes of the discussion in the meeting was that I was out of place. The jumps in logic and turning everything into an encounter with Aliens kept me from participating with their league. They went into a discussion that Jesus was an Alien hybrid, that the star that appeared in the sky the night of his birth was a mother ship. They use the story of Immaculate Conception as evidence that the Aliens had abducted Mary and impregnated her on their mother ship. They even used the miracles of Jesus as evidence that he had to be a human Alien hybrid that was brought to the Earth to test humanity, which we failed.

They continued this way with anything that was spiritual, it was like it was OK to believe in Aliens but religion and spirituality was a no-no. They would take it on faith that Aliens exist but they wanted scientific evidence for anything else that would require some faith. Yes, some evidence is taken on faith that it means what we think it means, because of our limited knowledge and ability to gather evidence to prove an event some faith is required. This is until there are better devices that can not be influenced by natural phenomena and will be accepted by the scientific community. It would be in a way taking the faith that the evidence that we do get means what we think it means out of the evidence gathering process. The faith that we are interpreting the readings will be replaced by proof positive. This may be just a wish to be placed on a wish list  but it is still something that I look forward to in the future… science and spirituality working together to better mankind and our understanding of life. Just think what contributions could be made if some of the scientists put a little faith in spirituality like the faith they have put in their theories. They are able to see sugar molecules in another galaxy with their technology, just think what they could see if they put half the effort they spent on that into looking into spirituality.

It is hard for me as a paranormal investigator to know that there could be technology out there now that could be used for the investigation of the paranormal. Yes, over the years we have had a few scientists to start to believe in more than science, but still for the most part science is anti-spirituality. It seems that most of the scientists have joined the UFOlogists side of paranormal research and have ignored the spiritual side. I think it is mainly because scientists that become more spiritual are shunned by the scientific community. I hope again for more of a balance within any investigators into the paranormal this would include the UFOlogist. Not everything is Alien just as everything is not a ghost, we may never have the technology or knowledge to prove the existence of Aliens or ghosts but we will always seek to understand the unknown until it becomes known as fact.

This may again be a wish that will never happen; there are so many anti-spiritual people and scientists. They may think that spiritual people will believe in anything, that they ignore facts and only see the spiritual side of anything. Yes, there are some people that only see spiritual answers to situations also. These are those who believe every story of a haunting that they hear without any questions. They do not have a balance in their belief, they are just as one sided as some of the scientists. Here again they are not always wrong in their beliefs but it is just like the UFOlogist who is one sided in his/her beliefs they can be right half the time. If you only see things one way and there are two possibilities the chances are you will be right half the time. But if you are balanced in your beliefs then you can at least be on the right track to have a better that a fifty-fifty chance at having the right conclusions.

I hope that you are not getting me wrong about people that specialize in one side of paranormal investigation. If your specialty is UFOlogy then you will know more than most on the subject, but a good investigator will have knowledge of the other sides of the coin. In having a balance in your belief you keep more of an open mind so that you can find the truth. I myself have several people that I utilize that have a specialty that I may have some knowledge but they have more. The specialists I engage are the ones that do have a balance in their beliefs, this keeps the discussion of a case on the same track. Also, if there is something that I am missing that is obvious to them, I trust their balanced opinion. This is the type of support that a good investigator needs, not someone who always aggresses with you but someone that you respect and trust their opinion. This is a person that you can discuss all the different sides of a situation with, talk it out with them, helping you to see it from their point of view. So a group should have a balance of people that each has their specialty in the group with an understanding of other things. With each person having an understanding of a type of event, a type of evidence or even the different types of people that could be involved there is a better understanding between members of the group. This is not like when everyone totally agrees on the same thing but the way people can see other points of view and make an educated decision without losing their individual opinion. So a good group will have members from many different fields and they will have diverse beliefs and backgrounds. In diverse backgrounds I include religious, ethnic and regional location of their upbringing. So keep up your mind as open to who will be an asset in your group as you do in your investigations and you will have a good group.