The Witching Hour

By Brad Smith

I can’t help but notice that every television show and every ghost hunting crew that I hear about doing an investigation at a haunted location always does the investigation at night. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that, but I keep finding myself questioning whether or not ghost hunting at night is actually necessary. There are 24 hours in a day, if a place is haunted, it will be haunted every second of those 24 hours, not just when the sun goes down. Spirits will be active periodically, but what if the ghost is more of an early bird than a night owl?

From a logical standpoint looking at the ghost hunter trade, doing the investigation at night would increase a person’s senses. They say that if a person loses one sense, the others would increase. So if we cut sight out of the five senses because of the dark, hearing, smell, taste, and touch theoretically would increase. That could be handy in trying to detect smoke, perfume, or any other smells associated with some ghost sightings. The same could go for hearing in hoping to hear footsteps or knocks or similar noises that bump in the night when looking for a ghost.

They also say that ghosts are most active at night, well, just because they are. It has also been said over and over that 3:00am is the anti hour because Jesus supposedly died at 3:00pm. Therefore, spirits are more active at 3:00am, or the opposite time. 12:00am is also known as the witching hour. Its obvious folklore has a lot to do with the legends of ghosts being active at night. If you think about it, back in the day when there was no electricity and people lived by their own means to survive, telling stories about monsters that come out in the night would be a good way to keep kids at home, or to stay in bed.

I have also heard a theory that ghosts are more active at night because they can draw energy from the damp air that happens to coincide with the morning just before dawn. The air normally becomes heavier at this point do to dew or fog that can sometimes form and the ghost can draw from this density to communicate. So therefore I would feel that ghosts would also be active on days that are overcast and rainy or foggy. I just wonder if there is anything actually scientific that could make a theory as to why it is believed ghosts are more active at only at night. I do not like to blindly believe something just because somebody says so without some sort of evidence or proof to back that claim up.

I would have to say that a majority of the ghost encounters that I feel that I have had personally have come in the day time. Multiple stories I hear from friends or other people who know that I am in to the paranormal field seem to tell stories of events that have happened in the day time. As I said earlier, if a ghost is kicking it in a house, it’s going to be there the entire time. If it’s an intelligent haunt, it will make itself known whenever it good well wants too, not just between 12:00am and 3:00am as some seem to think. It comes down to the fact that if everybody is doing one thing a certain way, everybody will get the same result.

I just wonder if the night time ghost hunting is more of a product of being scared of the dark than scientific study. Consider yourself walking around a house in the dark at 2:00am looking for some ghost that the home-owners or you have had multiple encounters. Of course you are going to be a little scared and apprehensive to your surroundings. Your mind is going to make you see things that may not necessarily be there, you are going to hear things that may not necessarily be a footstep or a knock. It has happened to all of us since we were kids and to some adults even now.

Of course the problem is that none of this can be proven whether ghosts are more active in the day or night. It’s just a guess at best with little hard-core proof to back either theory up. One could show tons of EVP’s, pictures of Orbs, and EMF detectors dancing like a drunk fairies but it’s still evidence that has logical explanations other than ghostly activity. Therefore it could not be used as hard-core proof because a skeptic could smash it with an answer for the activity.

I think I might look in to day-light ghost hunting a little more. Some night time ghost hunts just seem to pray on the ghost hunters own fears for the activity instead of there being real activity. It would sure be a lot harder to argue with evidence produced in the daylight where the proof could not be manufactured so easily. Hey, you may think I’m just wacked out on this one, but it is just a different angle to look at I suppose. Also, by the way, I just started my very first Twitter account…. My name is Bradsmith319. Get on there and give me a shout, I would love to hear from you.