Take ghosts, for instance. No sober scientific theory accounts for ghosts, and the pragmatic adult conclusion is that they simply do not exist. However, many sober adult people firmly believe in ghosts, and many more are willing to concede the possibility.

You can look back on probably all the culture in the world and find instances of people offering tokens of appeasement or outright gifts to spirits, genii, ghosts, or whatever name that is given to these supernatural creatures. There are books and treatises about the existence of ghostly manifestations of the dead. Although a culture’s belief system may differ on whether said ghosts are typically malevolent or benign, people still celebrate rites to appease ghosts. Gift baskets filled with food and drink are sometimes part of spirit or ancestral worship. Mexico’s Dia de los Muertos along with the Japanese Bon Festival are geared more to ancestral worship. During these celebrations the spirits of ones ancestors invited to partake in food and entertainment. Gift baskets filled the special treats, drink, and art are often brought to Bon Odori festivals. The celebration of Dia de los Muertos will have family members carrying gift baskets filled with foods such as candied pumpkin, pan de muerto (“bread of dead”), and sugar skulls and beverages such as atole. Many people will spend all night beside the graves of their relatives often sharing picnics at the grave site. But I digress.

These people who honor their dead have no qualms about whether or not ghosts exist. However, for others if scientific proof is rendered impossible or problematic, how do you prove the existence of the paranormal? Once you eliminate the obvious hoaxes and mistakes (itself a process that is open to criticism, given the over-enthusiasm by some to claim photographic artifacts and tampering without solid evidence for the argument) you are still left with a staggering supply of evidence that points toward something that is not addressed by any accepted theory.

Some people believe that the spirits love celebrations including holiday celebrations, marriages, births, funerals and celebrations of life in their honor, such as the Chinese Ghost Festival, and the European traditions of All Souls Day. Spirits are silent witnesses to all of our festivities and special moments in life. I find that a comforting thought, even though you can not prove it yet, scientifically.

There has been some very convincing footage on video as well as still shots that might point to the existence of proof that there are at the very least some sort of energies at work that can not be explained. I have, in my experience, seen many images which could not be explained short of an unseen entity of some sort being present at the time it was shot.