This is a photo I was sent yesterday from someone in purporting to be of the "Ghost of the Bride of Room 473" in the Algonquin Hotel in St. Andrew's, NS, a story Holly Stevensand I investigated in 2009 for Ghost Cases.
My reply went as follows: "Thank you for sending along the photo. It's amazing what people can do with Photoshop these days."
But just because I was sent a clearly faked photo doesn't mean that the St. Andrew's story is itself bogus. Indeed, it was one of the cases that Holly and I looked into where we ran into some strange occurrences ourselves during the investigation.
I don't believe for a second that the "orb" was the spirit of the dead bride of legend. But could it have been a case of Holly buying a ticket into the paranormal "theater" that I often talk about, and an advanced non-human intelligence putting on a little show for us to discover later?
One of the most satisfying parts of conducting an investigation of an allegedly paranormal incident or place comes when you actually manage to obtain some "hard" or "real" evidence, as opposed to just the stories of people who claim to have seen or experienced something unusual. In my opinion, the best type of evidence that can be obtained of any alleged paranormal activity - short of actual physical evidence of an alien spacecraft, or a ghost - is photographic or video evidence of something which may be anomalous.
Many people have claimed over the years to have that kind of evidence, but most of them, in my opinion, are lying. How can you tell? Simple - if these people make the "evidence" available for everyone to see, particularly if they do so for free, then regardless of whether the evidence shows anything paranormal or not, at least we know that the person who claimed to have the evidence actually did have something, and they were willing to let others examine it and offer their opinions on it. In short, they were interested in the exchange of knowledge.
If they won't do that, you can bet biscuits to navy beans that they either don't have the evidence, or that they have dramatically overstated its worth. Unfortunately, in the unregulated world of so-called paranormal "investigation", few people are ever called out on this type of claim - instead, they are asked back time and time again on radio shows and to conferences in order to discuss their "evidence", almost always promising that its delivery is right around the corner... and then they don't deliver, for one reason or another (interference by the "powers that be" is always a popular excuse). When challenged to "put up or shut up", they usually do neither. Like the energizer bunny, they just keep going, and going.
That's not science. It's not even pseudoscience. It's hucksterism.
I was taught and trained to do things differently.
During the filming of Ghost Cases, Holly and I conducted an investigation of the Algonquin Hotel in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, which is supposedly haunted by the spirit of a bride who was stood up at the altar about a century ago, and committed suicide as a result. As will be seen in the following videos, which are excerpts from the footage we shot that night, we obtained some evidence.
Now, I'm not going to purport to tell you what it is - I'll leave that up to the reader, and I encourage folks to discuss it here in the comments section, or elsewhere. The point is that we have gathered some evidence, and I'm eager to have folks look at it, and then see where the proverbial chips fall.
First, by way of context for the footage, here is some of the background story and events that led up to the moment when it was obtained, because the context is important - particularly as it relates to what happened in room 473:
And here is the evidence itself, and a conversation between myself and UPIA investigator Dave Sadler, to whom we showed the footage when we were working with the UPIA in the United Kingdom a few months later:
And now, here are some enhanced still photos, made by Steve Mera from the UPIA:
So, what does this evidence show?
To say that I am skeptical about "orbs" as proof of something paranormal would be an understatement (as I note in the second video), but the circumstances, particularly the fact that Holly looked behind her just after the orb appeared, despite the fact that there was no-one else in the room, and she stated afterwards that she had no idea why she looked behind her just at that moment, makes me pause, and at least consider the possibility, given the confluence of events, that there might be something anomalous about this orb. Of course, that's not the same thing as saying that we encountered the spirit of the dead bride in room 473 - it's just me saying that I find it... interesting.
But as any good investigator should, I leave you with the evidence that we gathered, and encourage you to judge for yourselves.
Episode 7, part 4 of the A & E Biography series My Ghost Story, about the Algonquin Hotel in St. Andrew's, New Brunswick, features my Ghost Cases co-host Holly Stevens and footage from the second episode of our series. You can view the A & E segment here.
I wish the producers had spent more time placing the incident in context, but that's American television for you - a lot of flash, and a lot of quick edits and special effects, sometimes at the expense of the story itself. Still, the segment is well done, Holly did a great job, and the footage remains compelling.
To get the fuller and much more interesting story, watch the original Ghost Cases episode on Eastlink TV, or check out my Paracast interview segment at The Other Side of Truth podcast, where I discuss the case (listen to it here).
