When it comes to hoodwinking your way to Internet stardom, nothing seems to beat the age old classic. Staging a haunting.
Our fascination with the supernatural is one that has extended hundreds of years, and whilst many who claim to have experienced hauntings are often dismissed as crackpots or eccentrics, they’re still inevitably guaranteed plenty of attention from those who want to believe.
Which is why the Internet is practically bursting with a plethora of homemade “ghost videos” from all corners of the globe. Thousands of people have tried – and subsequently failed – to capture that defining moment, where paranormal activity – the unseen forces of the undead – have been unquestionably and categorically filmed on camera for the entire world to see.
Take for instance Donna Ayres from Blackpool who took dozens of videos apparently showing paranormal activity from whom she believed to be her recently deceased brother. Uploaded to video sharing site YouTube, the videos quickly gained traction when they were picked up by several tabloid newspapers.
Upon a cursory glance the videos may seem somewhat underwhelming, since all of them could potentially be explained simply by tying a piece of thread to any of the household objects that were apparently under the influence of supernatural forces and the other end then being tugged by an off-camera and very much living hand.
But simply being underwhelmed does not provide sufficient reason to dismiss potential evidence. At least not for any seasoned ghost hunter.
What’s needed is proof. Shadows. A glance at the thread. An unintentional appearance of the living forces at work. Did any of her videos give up such evidence?
Yes indeed they did. One video in particular, where Donna attempts to use a Ouija board and planchette to contact the dead, shows much more than the video’s creator intended. The video – still currently present on Donna’s YouTube channel – provides ample evidence that the forces at work in her videos are very much of this Earth.
Any ghost hoaxer will tell you that you need to be wary of the shadows you cast when working off-screen. In fact anyone in video production would tell you the same thing. This golden rule was forgotten several times in this particular video, since the hand pulling the thread in the Ouija/planchette video casts a clear shadow at several moments. To illustrate the point beyond any reasonable doubt, we made a little video for you below.
The other videos in the Donna Ayres collection didn’t provide as much convincing counter-evidence as this, but one must assume that since all the videos relied on the apparently identical primitive invisible thread technique, since one video was faked, the others must also be discredited as fake as well.
Sorry Donna, your videos go down into the ever growing archive of the exposed and debunked. Nice try.