The Aster-P Project's origin is rooted in fandom for both paranormal and skeptical podcasts. Paranormal story-tellers often sound credible, and distressed. Yet skeptics say nothing unusual is going on. The contradiction is enough to drive a sane person mad. For fans of both science (skepticism) and paranormal, the question is: What can be done to bring these two camps together??
Looking to science for the best answer, the idea came up to identify the problem first.
Considering Academics and the Public
Those already familiar with academia may want to skip down to the STUDY MATERIALS.
Before we get there ourselves, a little introduction is in order.
Collecting Meaningful Data
How to survey the paranormal? National polls just measure "belief." The data has to be written down to be counted. Facebook is an obvious choice but the bar is set low. Twitter is trendy but short on detail. Reddit was the best choice. Their r/paranormal is relatively popular, with an abundance of detailed paranormal reports.
The relevant questions seemed to be: Are (a lot of) people really bothered by paranormal events? If so, why?
Following the Rules
If you play a game of Checkers, Chess, Football, or Golf, all the players present must abide by the same rules. What good would the game be if everyone broke the rules whenever convenient? The same holds for COLLECTING MEANINGFUL DATA.
Some rules we followed:
- Start from a neutral position
- Take a large sample
- Decide what info to gather
- Carefully gather the info
- Document everything
- Do not allow contamination from personal biases
- Do not pick/change results to be "favorable"
- Double check everything including results
- Write up all of the details in an IMRaD paper
- Edit and publish the paper
- Request peer review
- Be open to suggestions on how to do better next time
Each of these items have particular rules. IMRaD stands for Introduction, Methodology, Results, and Discussion. For more information on these rules, also known as the scientific method, see our forum on Good Science.
Highlights
The informal poll of a month's worth of paranormal reports resulted in a queue of 1,003 over 34 days, the complete amount of posts returned at the time of data procurement. Adjusted for seasonal and other factors, that indicates a yearly rate of over 10,000 reports just to that one forum on Reddit.
Ninety-seven (97) data points across 18 categories were collected, including event descriptors, level of fear, frequency of events, interactive/observed, parameters that might be observable and/or repeatable, and more.
Analysis of the first 100 reports was compiled into a paper, People Appear Distressed by "Paranormal" Events. The name was chosen from the results of the study. The full paper is available below. Feedback is encouraged, and will be considered.
Highlights from the study:
- Of the first 100 reports, over half (60%) expressed distress.
- Over half (57%) requested assistance with the matter.
- Almost two-thirds (67%) expressed skepticism and agnostic beliefs.
- Almost half (41%) described ongoing events.
- Over a quarter (26%) of the reports were measurable (observable and repeatable).
- Three-quarters of Americans believe in at least one paranormal topic.
View or Download Study Materials
The full paper is available for viewing/download, as are the sources.
FULL PAPER PDF - APP_S1_People_Appear_Distressed_by_Paranormal_Events.pdf[/i]
SPREADSHEET (much easier to data-mine) - APP_S1_SPREADSHEET.ods (from LibreOffice)
SOURCES (source links and PDF of each report) - APP_S1_SOURCES.zip (zip 210mb)
Helpful stand-alone materials, useful when viewing the paper text:
APP_S1_ALL_TABLES.pdf
APP_S1_REFERENCES.pdf
Feedback
Your feedback is welcome and encouraged. To be useful for the remaining study queue, a sufficient cutoff date will be imposed (TBD).
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QUICK LINKS - APP DELIVERABLES
Studies, Surveys, APParatus, SxS Guide Book, Best Claims
Study #1 (secondary research)
Study #2 (directed public survey)
Study #3 (post review)
Study #4 (best claims)
Guide #1 (home debunking)
Prototype PS APParatus
Study #5 (post trial)
Home
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