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Paranormal
Photography & the Smoking Ban
On
1st July 2007 smoking will be banned in all public buildings in England.
PSI’s Dave Wood considers the effect this might have on paranormal
investigation photography.
Many investigators I’ve spoken to have claimed the ban will make no
difference at all. This might be a reasonable assumption, after all how
many investigators actually permit smoking in areas under
investigations? Very few would be a reasonable guess.
However smoke - or lack of smoke - has raised more than a few
disagreements amongst researchers over time. Quite a number of ‘mist
photos’ (such as the one on the left) have been sent to, or taken by,
PSI.
In such circumstances people have claimed that the air was not cold,
ruling out condensation, which is fair enough, but have also claimed
that, despite smoking having taken place in the room there was no smoke
there at that time.
Does this remind anyone of the argument that ‘orb’ photos could not be
because of dust, because the room was just cleaned or was dust free? Of
course there is no such thing as a ‘dust free room’ - or at least not
one one does not have to pay £500 an hour to access for delicate
electronics work - and a similar argument can be made for a room where
people have smoked, regardless of whether they have smoked in the last
few hours.
If you are in doubt that smoke can ‘hang’ in theair for hours afterwards
just darken the room and shine a very bright light source. As well as
thousands of dust motes you will likely see clouds of smoke hanging in
the air.
PSI visited one location on several occasions. The owners were briefed
to not allow smoking on the day of the investigation. On the second
occasion the owners were unexpectedly away and had not briefed the duty
manager; we saw them stubbing out cigarettes just before the
investigation and ‘mist’ photos were taken throughout several hours of
the investigation.
But, as ever, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. We at PSI
will certainly be tracking the number of indoors ‘mist’ photos we are
sent from, or take ourselves in, public places after the smoking ban
comes into force. A significant drop would be a reason prediction to
make.
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