Okay, so. For a few years now I have been an active member of the paranormal community. No, this isn’t a piece of work written from beyond the grave or brought you by alien satellite transmission, it means that I am just merely a member of the ever growing population of people interested in investigating UFOs, ghosts, psychic phenomena, and just about anything else currently unexplainable. Like how the tax man finds me every year and where socks disappear to when in the dryer.
As far as I can tell, most people in the paranormal community know about urban legends but don’t think about how to interpret them or use the study of these legends to their advantage. With the world wide web and Hollywood consuming and spreading urban legends like mad into contemporary society, it is important to be able to sort fact from fiction. Often ghost hunters go chasing after fakelore, false or misleading lore, thinking that they are true tales of the bizarre. Looking for Sweeney Todd’s ghost is an example of this; some scholars believe that Sweeney Todd was one of the first examples of an urban legend fed by the media.
How many of you can remember being teenagers going out and exploring locations often talked about locally as being haunted, or in some cases locations that have been broadcast through a larger media as being haunted? I know I raise my hand up here. It’s this thrill that still drives us as ghost hunters well into our adulthood, adrenaline and dopamine rushes that keep us going out time and time again. This is paranormal gatecrashing, that spark that starts entire lifetime of looking into the paranormal with awe and curiosity. By studying urban legends we can expand our curiosity into examination and our awe into wonderment over the mythos tied into these locations.
Urban legends are where history and legend combine to create a fascinating world of mystery. As Dr. Jan Harold Brunvand, a predominate scholar of folklore in America has written; “folklore is fascinating to study because people are fascinating creatures.” I heartily believe this to be true; mankind has created fantastic things and continues to discover new and exciting bits of our universe. What drives this is our continuation to ask questions, questions from “is this place haunted” to “ what is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?” Although hard science may not reinforce the work of a ghost hunter, soft sciences do. So go out into the field, take your digital recorder and your flash light, and maybe you’ll get a EVP saying “42.”
©2010 Kat Klockow use with permission
