You were contacted by your client and asked to conduct an investigation regarding their claims of paranormal activity. Your investigation complete and your evidence reviewed, you should be scheduling a follow up meeting with your client in which to present your findings. We refer it an "Evidence Disposition Meeting" which is more commonly known as "The Reveal".
There are many organizational components you should have in place long before you undertake your first investigation. One of the organizational components that you should have is the Standards and Definitions under which your organization develops and will present its' conclusions. It is simply the framework and standards to which your organization and the evidence must answer.
In fact, we prepare and conduct all facts of our cases as if were we would end up in court presenting them before a judge and jury. Rules of evidence, chain-of-custody, and our organization's Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and Standard Operating Guidelines (SOGs) are carefully adhered to and documented.
In defining our Standards and Definitions for Evidence Disposition, we turned to the time tested civil and criminal standards regarding the rules of evidence. We then customized them to a breath and scope which is applicable to paranormal cases and investigations while maintaining the original intent and integrity of the civil and criminal law standards.
Standards and Definitions for Evidence Disposition
1. Burden of Proof Standard: Paranormal evidence that is so convincing by either nature or
character, that would cause a reasonable person to act upon, or in response to it as a
paranormal event or happening when other such possibilities/explanations have been
exhausted.
2. Preponderance of the Evidence Standard: Paranormal evidence of sufficient nature or character that
when considered in whole, favors the characterization of "paranormal activity and/or a haunting" (a
paranormally active declaration), in lieu of a non-paranormal characterization or explanation.
3. Reasonable Doubt Standard: Clear and convincing paranormal evidence that when considered in whole is
so compelling that it quantifies the findings and conclusions drawn upon the evidence as “indisputable fact” to
a “reasonable person”. This standard requires that the Burden of Proof Standard and the Preponderance of the
Evidence Standard be met over such a period of time sufficient to establish the paranormal activity
as a norm.
4. Reasonable Person Standard: A person of/with requisite knowledge of the paranormal, who posses the
ability to assess the evidence on its own merits objectivity and independently. This standard further requires
that a reasonable person be able to present viable or alternate theories and explanations which would be
consistent with; and appropriate to the environment and conditions which existed at the specified location.
(For example, a reasonable person could not present the alternative that an electrical power surge caused EMF
meters to spike if there is no power supplied to the building and no Underground Electric (UGE) supplies known
to run under or in sufficient proximity the building).
