The idea of the existence of ghosts has probably been around since the first person ever died. There has been numerous sightings and reports for thousands of years. The Ancient Greeks, Romans, Chinese and Egyptians all have references to sightings of ghosts or spirits. Since then the human race has advanced immensely. The invention of the light bulb, electricity, radio and the internet have all come around relatively recently in the great scheme of things, maybe the last 2 or 3 hundred years. It is probably because humans are adaptable to new things in both mind and body hence our craving to explore new things.

But all of this makes me wander, why haven't any of the countless reports of paranormal activity evolved into substantial evidence? There has been a steady supply of sighting and reports for many thousands of years yet there are still probably more people on this planet that don't believe in ghosts then do. Many scientists believe in Dark Matter, something which has even less evidence to back it up then ghosts yet why can we not yet fully accept their existence?

I thought about one possible answer after a visit to the local pub with my dad. I often discuss the paranormal with him in general conversation as he seems to show some interest in my team's work and is a good listener. I was describing a ghost I saw on camera on a recent investigation. It was a young lady standing in a doorway, she looked so real that I actually thought it was an old tape playing back some audience footage which someone had left in the camera. As I started to lift the camera off its stool I noticed on the viewfinder that the lady was now out of shot, when I angled the camera at it's original position she was gone. I thought I must be going mad but before I could say anything one of my team members who was with me mentioned that he saw what looked like someone's head. Of course, I was only setting up the camera and hadn't actually pressed record yet, typically!

I remember after telling this story to my dad that I said I was certain that if I was recording at the time, that this could be the best evidence for the existence of ghosts ever recorded. But my dad disagreed. He said that you can not prove that ghosts exists, because what constitutes as being proof? Who decides weather it is real or fake? And even if you could answer those two questions, he said, there will always be people out there who, like now, simply refuse to believe. They may not be able to explain the footage presented to them but ghosts don't exist, so it must be something else, they would say, and how can something be real if people don't believe in it?

This conversation and many others since have made me question the work myself, my team and all the other paranormal researchers do. If my dad is right in what he says then what are we continuing to work towards? If proving the existence of ghosts is impossible then what is our goal? My team has a policy that people are free to their own opinions, we present our findings from our own beliefs but if people who see it think it is a load of rubbish then that is their decision to make. So we can't simply force feed people information in the hope that we can convert them to believers. So is there even any point in continuing our research or are we wasting our evenings on a wild "ghost" chase?

Well personally I think that there is reason to continue regardless of this because I think that my dad is wrong, from a certain point of view anyway. I agree that no matter what evidence we captured today or tomorrow on our investigations there would be no way of proving it as 100% evidence. But what about evidence that we record 100 years from now, maybe 200 years or 1000 years from now? Remember earlier in this report that I mentioned how far the human race has advanced, even in just the last 1000 years? Just try to imagine where we will be in another 1000 years.

My point is, I think the problem is that we are just not advanced enough to understand nor accept the existence of ghosts....yet! But time goes on, the advances of Science are infinite and I am sure that one day we will make a breakthrough which will take us one step closer to referring to ghosts as common knowledge in schools, in society and the world of science we live in. But when we will make this breakthrough is dependant on us continuing our research, to continue to look at evidence from an open mind but to also be logical about your conclusions to the evidence bought forward to you. I wish you all the best of luck as you march on into the long nights on your hunt for evidence.

- Report by Richard O'Connor