Using Online Resources to Search for Accounts of the Paranormal

 Human reports of the strange, anomalous and paranormal are extremely varied. In my post "120+ Types of Paranormal or Anomalous Experiences" I list a great variety of such experiences. Some of this variety is shown in my visual below:

When trying to seriously study such phenomena, a very valuable type of resource is a publicly accessible online database, one that allows you to make particular queries and get search results. An example of such a database is the MUFON database. It is an extensive online database of UFO sightings, which is only one of the many types of paranormal phenomena reported.  Unfortunately, the MUFON database fails as an example of what we would like to see in a good online database tracking the paranormal.  The main reason it fails is that access to the database is currently restricted to members, and becoming a member requires a monthly payment. 

A better example of a publicly accessible online database tracking the anomalous is the free site of the National UFO Reporting Center at https://nuforc.org/.  On its page here, you see links that allow you to access UFO reports of particular types:

If I click on one of the "Shape of UFO" link, I go to the page below, which gives me a series of links, and also totals telling me how many observation reports of each type are in the database:

We see above that reports of circular UFOs  are far more common than reports of disk-shaped UFOs. 

By clicking on one of these links, I can browse through all of the observation reports of a particular type. For example, if I click on the Circle link, I go to the page below, which allows me to browse through 14,000+ reports of circle-shaped UFOs.

The page uses a pagination system allowing you to navigate to different subpages by using Next and Previous buttons. So we can see below that you can navigate to any of 147 subpages showing reports of circle-shaped UFOs. 

Clicking on any of these rows takes you to a report page that gives data on that particular report. Below is an example:

We have at this site a fairly good example of how to do a good online database allowing people to study reports of some particular type of observational anomaly. The site includes an interface allowing people to submit new reports of UFOs. Clicking on the File a UFO Report button at the top of the site takes you to a nice page that first warns you about various types of things that are misidentified as UFOs, and then has at the bottom a button you can press to file a UFO report:

I can imagine "bells and whistles" that would make this interface more useful.  It would be nice if the user interface allowed you to make more specific searches, such as a search of all the circle-shaped UFOs seen in California between one date and some other date.  But this site at least shows us what the first stage of a good online database of observations of the paranormal or anomalous would look like. The main limitation of the database is that it only handles reports of UFOs, and such reports are only a small fraction of the reports of the anomalous and inexplicable that humans make. 

There are other online databases that collect particular reports of the paranormal. Let us look at some of these, all free.

The www.iands.org site has a collection of reports of about 900 near-death experiences. The accounts consist of first-hand reports anonymously submitted to the site.  Lacking search capabilities allowing you to refine your search, the site is not a very good example of how to create a database of reports of anomalous human experiences. Any site collecting such reports should encourage witnesses to state their own name or at least provide an email address allowing people to send follow-up inquires to them. Reports by named witnesses are more reliable than anonymous reports. 

The www.nderf.org has a collection of 4000+ reports of near-death experiences. The accounts consist of thousands of first-hand reports semi-anonymously submitted to the site, and the witnesses are identified by names such as Wendy G. Any site collecting such reports should encourage witnesses to state their own name or at least provide an email address allowing people to send follow-up inquires to them. Reports by named witnesses are more reliable than anonymous reports. The site is a better example of how to create a searchable database of reports of anomalous human experiences than the site www.iands.org.  Each person submitting a report has been asked a series of questions. There is a search page allowing you to select only those giving particular types of responses to such questions.   

For example, I can use the interface to search only for reports in which witnesses claimed all of these things:

An out-of-body experience.

Seeing a bright, unearthly light.

Seeing their past. 

I get a total of 354 reports with all three of these elements, as we below:

So now we can do some analytics. Knowing  that a search without any search criteria gives 4080 accounts, we can estimate that maybe 9% of near-death experiences have all three of the elements listed above.  Similarly, I can search for only accounts including an out-of-body experience. This produces 2380 results, suggesting that out-of-body experiences may occur in most near-death experiences. Similarly, I can search for only accounts in which a witness supposedly saw past lives.  Such a search produces only 175 results, suggesting such reports are relatively rare when someone has a near-death experience. 

Another type of resource for searching for accounts of the paranormal are sites allowing full-text searches of old newspapers.  Newspaper search web sites can be used to make full text searches such as a search for the phrase "mysterious orb" or the phrase "saw an apparition."  Some of these "search old newspaper" sites charge a fee for use, but the sites below offer powerful searches of old newspapers, without costing you anything:

Site	Description	URL
Chronicling America site	Allows search of American newspapers between 1756 and 1963	https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
NYS Historic Newspapers	Allows search of New York newspapers	https://nyshistoricnewspapers.org/?a=q&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN----------
UCR Newspaper search	Allows search of California newspapers	https://cdnc.ucr.edu/
University of Manitoba newspaper search	Allows search of Canadian newspapers, and also 80 years of the Psychic News newspaper	https://digitalcollections.lib.umanitoba.ca/islandora/manitoba/newspaper_search

It requires some practice to be able to use these sites effectively. You can find all kinds of fascinating newspaper stories using these sites. But you will have to get a little practice at being able to recognize the best stories from looking at either thumbnails of such stories or nutshell quotations of the search phrase you used. 

A major online resource allowing you to search for accounts of the paranormal is the site www.iapsop.com, which preserves innumerable periodicals that specialized in collecting reports of the paranormal.  Sadly, the site lacks any full-text search capability.  Another major online resource is the Psi Encyclopedia  you can access here. 

Another major online resource allowing you to search for accounts of the paranormal is the site www.archive.org. You can search for books on particular subjects.  The results will fall into two categories:

(1) Books that anyone can immediately read, even if they are not a registered user at the site.

(2) Books that you can read online only by "borrowing" as a registered user. 

It is well worth becoming a registered user to take advantage of the second category, although there are still very many worthwhile books that can be read even if you are not a registered user.  My post below has links to many of those books:

Some Recommended Online Reading

Was the Orb His Dead Sister?

 Here is the beginning of a newspaper account from 1897:

We read in the account of a badly wounded prisoner (John Jordan) who is being transported by stage coach. We read this:

"There it was— a ghostly, phosphorescent spheroid of light, waving and swaying behind the horses and moving along the dashboard. At one instant it looked like a reflection and at another it seemed to be a small body emitting the pale light itself. The light shifted to one side and next appeared under the wagon, and as they followed it with their eves it rested over the body of the prostrate John Jordan, who was uneasily slumbering. In a moment the light waved up and down and vanished in the darkness to the rear. Nothing was said to the prisoner about the peculiar experience of the night. Later in the day, however, Jordan revived and began to talk. 

'Say, Sheriff,' he began, 'I've got something to tell you.' 

 'Yes?' 

 'I aint going to last long, Sheriff.' 

'Don't talk like that. You're badly wounded, but you'll pull through as soon as you set medical attention and an easy berth. ' 

' No, I'll not,' Jordan reiterated stubbornly. 'I've called the last turn, I feel it. Last night I saw my sister. My sister's dead you know. She's the only one that ever thought much about me. Maybe I ought to have been a better man. Sheriff, but let that pass. Well, Sis came to me last night. I saw her as plain as I see you now. She was all in white, Sheriff, all in white. She pitied me and pointed to mv eye, where I got them shots in my head.' 

Jordan was wounded in the head and a bullet or shot penetrated the eye. He is no better and is not expected to live."

You can read the full account here:

https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SFC18970612.2.77&srpos=30&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------

A Strange Sky Triangle

 Photo date September 11, 2024. Photographer: Mark Mahin. 

We see below a strange sky triangle I photographed this morning in New York City. Could the 3 sides symbolize the 3000 who died in the September 11 attacks of 2001?

Later in the day there was another strange "3":

A bit later there was another "3" consisting of three stripes, the top one thick, and the bottom one very thin:

Blue-Green Orb and a Yellow Orb

 Photo date: September 9, 2024  Photographer: Mark Mahin. 

We see below two orbs I photographed indoors. 

Today I was thinking of an interesting hypothetical explanation of orbs. Let us imagine some crustacean or octopus at the bottom of some pond or sea, not far from the shore.  Such creatures could never conceive of life on the land such as humans enjoy.  But humans could make little manifestations that a crustacean or octopus at the bottom of the water might notice. A human, for example, could drop pebbles in the sea that might sink down to the bottom of the water. To a crustacean or octopus, a pebble sinking down to the bottom of the water would be a strange anomaly it could not understand.

Just as humans can toss pebbles into the sea that sink to the bottom to puzzle creatures at the bottom, souls or spirits in some higher realm of existence might be able rather easily to make fleeting little manifestations in our earthly realm. One type of such manifestations might be orbs. It might be easy for such souls or spirits to make orbs that appear as fleeting blips in photos. An effort or energy a hundred  times greater might be required to produce an orb visible to the naked eye, such as are often reported; and an effort or energy 1000 times greater might be required to make something reported as an apparition or ghost.  In this analogy, humans are like the creatures at the bottom of the sea, receiving  occasional anomalies we do not understand from beings far more powerful, beings that may want to send signs of their existence. Of course, such ideas are speculation, and the causes of  photos like the ones above are still a mystery. But  the strong pattern repetition effect I have documented here may suggest some intelligent agency at work, with much more pattern repetition than we would expect by chance. 

He Says the Orb Turned Into the Weirdest Wonders

 Below is an 1894 newspaper account of what is probably the strangest orb sighting ever. The account starts with a sky orb, and then turns into a tale of the witness seeing the strangest sights in the sky. We end up with an account like none I have heard before. Click on the image to read it more clearly. 

If there is a symbolic meaning to such a vision, it is beyond my ability to interpret it. 

You can read the account below:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86091038/1894-08-21/ed-1/seq-1/

They Saw Weird Orbs

 Below is an interesting account of naked-eye observations of mysterious orbs by several different observers. The reported behavior is very strange. We hear of mysterious orbs rising up, lingering in the air, and then disappearing (or maybe  kind of bursting into flames). Click on the image to read it more clearly. 

You can read the account here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88063294/1942-08-02/ed-1/seq-68/

This is one of more than 100+ accounts I have published of people seeing mysterious orbs with their unaided eyes. You can read such accounts by clicking here, and continuing to press Older Posts at the bottom. 

Innumerable accounts of scientific interest can be found by using the Chronicling America site which allows you to do a full-text search on old newspapers.  A search for terms such as "ghost," "apparition," "clairvoyance," "mind reading" or "spiritual manifestation" will reveal many newspaper accounts of great relevance to the study of minds. But senselessly, almost all scientists fail to use such a resource.  The average scientist will search for information by doing some text search restricted to scientific papers, which makes no sense. Often such papers will be built on reports that appeared first in newspapers;  and it is often much better when studying any controversial topic to get the earliest account (often found in a newspaper), rather than a secondary source account. And there are very many important observations that were reported in newspapers but never written up in scientific papers. 

Ghosts in the News, Part 2

 Here is the second in a series of videos I am making. 

For Part 1 of this series, click here.

Orb With a Faint Four?

 Photo date: September 3, 2024. Photographer: Mark Mahin.

Below we see a mysterious orb I photographed indoors, one that rather  seems to have a faint number 4 in its right center part.