I went into my research thinking there had to be an explanation for the paranormal. Turns out, there are many explanations because there is not enough scientific evidence to back up one or any of the stories I have read. With being said, my research was constantly steering into all different directions.

First I wanted to study the different beliefs people had pertaining to their paranormal superstitions. I found that many of the stories and theories ended the same way. For example, my first source, the book “Eerie Eau Claire,” in which Lewis left it upon the person viewing the stories to decide where they stood in a broad spectrum. Where one end meant you were a believer and the other meant being a non-believer, and if you were unsure you would fall somewhere in between the two.

The difficult part when researching paranormal views is that I came across biases often. I thought it would be important to incorporate both sides of the story, so I made sure I found sources that included a mixture of responses that could explain how a paranormal belief someone has, was not proven because there is not good enough evidence to back it up. For example, the photograph of the ghost girl a woman found in her picture she had taken a few years back before discovering the ghostly figure of a small girl. There was not enough proof to prove it was a real ghost or just a fake, it could have possibly been an illusion like the Paulding light legend.

Once I learned that stories are just stories and that there are people who oppose and people that believe, I decided to research why people choose to believe in the paranormal especially after I found the Paulding light article. That article was such a shock because even after the light was concluded as an optical illusion and not a ghost, people still chose to believe in the legend, even after scientific evidence said otherwise.

From there, I became curious to the psychology behind paranormal beliefs. In this case, known as parapsychology, which is the study of the paranormal in a humans mind. This helped me understand a person’s way of thinking and how they see things that they only think are there. I learned that psychologist do not believe in the paranormal because “extraordinary things need extraordinary proof (Honorton 4).” I have come across many experimental studies in one of my sources that share what a psychologist has discovered with the help of physics, skepticism, different experimental methods, and lots of data and replications of the same results to support the findings. Thus, making them a valuable and helpful source towards answering my research topic.

My topic question, why do people chose to believe in the paranormal? Is answered with what I have been saying all along; there is no evidence therefore parapsychologists believe people rely on their supernatural beliefs for comfort. “Magic, religion, and all forms of reality distortion are simply species-specific responses unique to the human animal, it’s an adaptive technique making us feel more secure and protected (Lawrence 1).” Some people need to believe in something. Without believing in something, there would be no hope for anything. “Creating illusion and escaping reality provide self-worth, meaningfulness, and power, functioning as a kind of counter-intelligence (Lawrence 1).”

Honorton, Charles. “Does Psi Exist?” American Psychological Association, 1994. Web. 9 Nov. 2013.

Lawrence, Samuel. “Why People Believe Weird Things.” Psychology Today. N.p., 9 June 2013. Web. 9 Nov. 2013.