As a true paranormal investigator I have and will investigate anything that is paranormal. Over many years of looking into the paranormal I have dealt with many different types of events. If we look at what constitutes the paranormal we see that it will include many different types of sightings and encounters. The word "paranormal" is defined as supposedly beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. As a paranormal investigator I try to gather scientific evidence that will prove or disprove a paranormal event or sighting. One of the ways of gathering evidence is through the use of cameras and video images. But because of all the people over the years who have perpetrated hoaxes with these types of media you will need more than just a picture. The scientific community has a way of dismissing evidence that would stand up in any court of law. So, as a paranormal investigator you will have to decide what you want to prove and to whom you want to prove it.

I’ve read stories of investigators who had all their ducks in a row with interviews, tape or digital including audio and visual, pictures and logs or the readings that they recovered from scientific instruments. They still have not been able to get the scientific community to look at for the most part any of their evidence. So what does any of this have to do with UFOs being paranormal too? Many of the new ways of gathering evidence come from the paranormal investigators that are only investigating UFOs. Many of these investigators are scientists that have broken away from the scientific community to follow their hearts. They want to prove the existence of extraterrestrials and that they are coming here to visit us. Some may not believe in any other type of paranormal event, but they bring with them techniques for evidence gathering that any paranormal investigator can use.

If you are going to look into a UFO based event or sighting you must discern how is it different from a supernatural event. For the most part, UFO sightings are a one time deal, not a recurring type of event. Some areas do have more sightings than other areas, but they will be somewhat different. You will be looking at a much larger area for your evidence. The sky is a large area to watch all at one time by yourself. You may go to a site that has had many UFO sightings over several days and see nothing because you were looking in the wrong part of the sky.

A large part of paranormal investigations are the interviews with witnesses of the events. The same is true for the UFO investigation with the witness being a key figure in your fact gathering. You will have to play the role of a skeptic to make sure that you do not lead your witness to give you what you want to hear. You will have to ask questions that are not leading in any way. Then you can take the time and note the area of the sky where the event occurred and check to see if there are any natural reasons for what was witnessed. To do this astrology and astronomy will play a big role in UFO investigations. Astronomy is used to see if there were any visible planets in the sky at the time of the eye witness report. Astrology is used to see if there were any energetic indicators for a UFO based event. You will also talk to other people in the area to see about possible aircraft flight patterns. You will have to check with any local airfields to see if they had any flights in or out on the dates and times in question. If there is any physical evidence to gather, make sure that you use the proper evidence gathering technique to do so. This includes a witness to the gathering and tagging process and to the sealing all the evidence containers in a way that they can not be tampered with. Physical evidence can be a hard thing to get analyzed due to the nature of the cost and difficulty in accessing the equipment. Even if you get physical evidence and have all your ducks in a row I think that until a UFO lands and we have communications with the occupants the scientific community will still not acknowledge that any of this exists. Just like supernatural events, until the scientists experience events personally they will shoot holes in all the work.

Here is what happened to me that led me to do some research into UFOs. Many years ago in Pensacola, Florida there were numerous sightings of UFOs. This was unknown at first to the general public but many tourists and natives were witnesses to the events. We would travel to Ft. Pickens National Park each year for a two week vacation in June. Ft. Pickens is located near Pensacola and is water locked with the Pensacola Bay on one side and the Gulf of Mexico on the other side. To get to Ft. Pickens you have to travel one of the two bridges that lead to this area. This area being a national park is not built up like the other areas that are on the beach. We would fish and go to the beach every day and I would sometimes fish at night on the small pier or on the beach. My father would drop me off if I was going to fish all night at the pier and he would pick me up in the morning. There would be other people there and one of the rangers was always around so he felt it was safe.

The second time I fished all night I ended up alone at around 3:00 am. This was not a problem for me because I was catching Spanish mackerel and having lots of fun. I do not know what time the tide ebbed but the fish stopped biting at the same time. So, I decided to fish for the bigger fish that were on the bottom and set up two rods for them. I cast the rods as far as I could out into Pensacola Bay with a lot of weight and big bait. I moved all my stuff near where I put my rods and set up so I could watch for any bites. I sat down behind the rods so I could be looking up at the rod tips to see any movement. Where I was sitting I was facing Pensacola Naval Air Base and the aircraft carrier that was moored there. I do not know how long it was but suddenly there were planes at the base taking off heading out into the gulf. I watch them take off and it seemed that they were in a big hurry because they had their afterburners on full blast. I had never seen the planes do this the whole time I had been there and it made me pay more attention to what was going on around me. There were no boats or ships anywhere that I could see except for the carrier that was moored. I was looking out over the bay at the water that was calm like a big lake when I noticed a light in the water. I looked up at the sky to see if it was the reflection of the moon but there was no moon in the sky - only stars. The light was a long way off from me on my side of the bay and it seemed to be the same distance from the other side so to me it seemed in the middle of the bay. I kept looking at the light and trying to figure out where it was coming from but could not see anything anywhere that had a strong enough light.

While I was looking for the light source it seemed to me that the light was starting to move up the bay. I was watching this light move and made up my mind that it had to be a sub. It was keeping to the deepest part of the bay so that it would not have to surface and it had some of its lights on. I would watch it for a while as it moved slowly up the bay then I would watch my rods. This went on for 20 or 30 minutes then the light picked up some speed and was out of my sight or went too deep to see. That was when a plane flew over the bay and then another; I think it was the two that I saw take off. They were low and they seemed to be circling the area where I last saw the light. When they flew off up the bay the light appeared and was moving very fast this time from where the planes were going. It seemed closer to the top of the water and moving too fast for a sub. It was heading back out to the gulf and it seemed closer to me or that it was bigger - it was hard to tell. It traveled the area in at least 30 minutes where it traveled before in maybe 2 minutes. Then came the planes very fast in the same line as the lights out to the gulf. This time after the planes and lights went by there were waves from the object’s wake. I did not see the planes or the light the rest of the night and around an hour later the sun came up.

When my father arrived to pick me up I asked him about what I saw. He was in the Navy and was stationed on a carrier so I knew he would know some of the things they do for practice. He said that it did not sound like a training exercise because they were using their afterburners near an area that was inhabited. I asked the ranger about it and he said that he had seen the planes do the same thing two weeks earlier and asked about it at the base. He said that the person at the base said that they did not have any flights that night or any training scheduled until July. At that time I only thought of UFO’s as being in the sky. So when we got home, I started to read more on the topic and found some other people’s stories where they had seen an event just like what I had witnessed. This was one of the events in my life that led me to start looking into the paranormal and questioning what constitutes proof.

This next story was told to me by another paranormal investigator. It happened when an investigation of an event led him down a different road than he anticipated. He started his tale with, "this is the weirdest thing that had ever happened to me.” I had not known the guy very long but he had been on an investigation that included some really weird people so his statement got my attention very quickly. He knew that I would want the facts of the case before the meat of the investigation, so he told me how he had been contacted a week earlier by a friend who knew he did paranormal investigations. His friend had a relative that was having some problems and his friend hoped that he could help them. He said that he met with the party that experienced the event and that they seemed normal enough even though they were kind of ‘hippie-like.” He said they were really into the all natural way of life and that they were vegetarians. They told him that they had experienced an event that they described as a poltergeist type event. So he planned his investigation accordingly being cautious to bring extra batteries and an extra camera. He said that he knew that this type of event could cause equipment malfunctions and battery drains.

He said that he approached the investigation according to the witness’s wishes staying at their house overnight. He had arrived at the scene around 10:00 pm and had them give him a tour of the house and the surrounding grounds. He said it was an old farm house on well over 100 acres of pastures and farm land. He said they set up in the room where most of the events happened and started to take readings and wait for something to happen. The investigator said that after they had some tea he went outside to smoke and that this was when things got weird. He said that he remembered lighting his cigarette and then it was morning and he was nude in the field a good 200 yards from the house. He said that he walked back to house looking for his clothes and trying to remember what happened. He found in a straight line back to the house each item of his clothes and then his cigarettes. He knocked on the door now fully clothed and the people answered the door surprised to see him. They said that they thought he had gone home and that must have offended him in some way. He asked them why they thought that when his car was still parked right where he left it. They said that they did not go out after the tea and thought he left. He said that this seemed strange to him and even stranger was the way that they were acting. He gathered his things and left them saying that he would be in contact with them. He noticed that they did not seem to care that much one way or the other.

When he got home he took a shower and looked all over his body to see if there was anything weird that was not there before. He could not find anything but that after he thought long and hard about it, he had come to the conclusion that he must have be abducted by a UFO. I asked him if he was running an audio recorder on his investigation and he said yes. I asked him if he had listened to the tape. He said that he had not yet, but had it with him and wanted my opinion as to what happened to him. I said, “Let’s listen to the tape and see if it gives us any clues.” He had a digital recorder that would record for around 8 hours. Instead of listening to the whole recording I said, “Let’s see if we can find the part when you went out to smoke on the tape and start from there.” It did not take him long to find when he went out to smoke and you could clearly hear him excuse himself and close the door. There was silence for 15 minutes then the lady said, “What was that?” Then you hear the male say, “It is just that guy that was in here barking at the moon.” Then you could hear something very faint that sounded like a dog howling. The male then asked his wife what type of tea they were having that night and you could hear her say, “Peyote and morning glory seeds tea.” I then asked him if the tea was good and he said no it was bitter and no amount of sugar would help. I asked him if he knew what peyote and morning glory seeds did. He said as far as he knew they were some type of herb that the couple said would help him to witness the paranormal event. I asked him if he wanted to know what happened to him and proceeded to say that it was not paranormal at all. He said that he was sure that he must have been abducted. I told him what peyote and morning glory seeds could do to him and he still did not believe me... I told him that they would cause hallucinations possibly blocking memories of the event. He still did not listen to my explanation and was sure that he was abducted by a UFO and they would come back for him soon. Needless to say he had decided that he was abducted and that no amount of evidence would change his mind. He did not take a skeptical look at his own event to see that there was a natural explanation of what happened. OR the man and wife were aliens and had staged the whole thing with the recording to keep him from having any credibility. The Men in Black never appeared and I was told never to tell his story but it may have been the tea that I drank last night that was very bitter that made me write this.

The first story that happened at Ft. Pickens was from my own childhood and I know that the event happened just as I had said it did. The second story about the tea, being naked in the field and barking at the moon was used as an example. And as an example, I may have taken some liberty with the content of the story. I don’t know how much because I am on my second cup of tea...