YouTube LIVE Stream Test

 Hi everyone.  Recently got some new equipment and did a preliminary live test over on YouTube.  This was to check out the new mic, stream deck, and OBS setup to see how it all flows.  I don't think it turned out too bad and would love some feedback.  So please take a look.  Thank you.

Future of the Nocturne Society & Podcasts

 
Hi all

As we slowly creep towards October my thought always turn to the Nocturne Society, how it's changed over the years, and where it's going.

After my divorce in 2009 I became focused on my own issues and let the NS website become abandon.  Of course we all know if you don't update your content people go away.  So the once very popular website was mainly forgotten.  This was 100% my fault.  Since then I've made a few mild attempts to bring it back with a podcast and social media but nothing has really made it stick.  I've taken a few steps back and attempted to dissect the issues and here's what I've come up with.

First of all I don't think people are as eager to READ articles these days.  Reading take time and effort.  I'm sure when you saw this post you questioned if you even wanted to take the time to read it.  So while I think this blog and twitter has it's place to inform people what I've created I don't know that articles to read are of much use.

Next is my attitude towards the topic.  I'm a skeptic.  I'm not "all aboard the ghost train" like 90% of the paranormal community.  While I feel it's the most healthy and intelligent attitude to have towards these questionable topics, I do not find this the most popular one.

And finally my investment towards the Nocturne Society itself, both in time and money.  I of course have a full-time career that I find interesting and rewarding, so I'm not looking towards the NS to supplement that in way.  For me I find the NS and the topics to be interesting, exhilarating, and fun.  All that to say I've been casual about it.  A post here and there, a podcast here and there, isn't going to spell success for the NS.  I create NS using a basic headphone/mic, edited in Adobe Premier that I have for work.  I don't have podcast/streaming equipment.  I don't have a nice microphone, etc.

SO I've decided to take some steps towards raising the bar a bit around here.  First of all I will subscribe to Podbean which will allow me to have unlimited space for past and future podcasts.  I will be posting podcasts with video and/or do live streaming on our YouTube channel. Finally I've started upgrading my equipment by investing in a podcast specific microphone and stream deck.  Hopefully this will not only inspire me to create content but also raise the quality to inspire people to participate and join.

I'm going to investigate the "legality" of me taking my skeptical eye and reviewing existing YouTube "ghost content." I'd like to create some video content where I take a close look at these videos, not necessarily to debunk them but to give some observations, and ask some valid questions.  I'm just not sure what's allowed on YouTube.

And of course I'd love to get back to hosting a podcast and getting some interesting people to join me.

So I'm not saying hold onto your butts for a huge comeback but I'm taking some steps to get back into the swing of creating some interesting paranormal content.

I hope you'll join me.

Netflix Series Haunted: A Dash of Bullshit

 

I recently discovered the Netflix series Haunted. Described as "Real people sit down with friends and family to share terrifying true stories from their past, re-created through chilling re-enactments."

Certainly the episodes are interesting, and amazing if the word "true" is to be believed.  But as with most stories of the paranormal you need to pick through the sensationalize color and focus on those small grains of truth.

I just started watching and already one episode, The Slaughterhouse; really raised my bullshit alarms.  The episode summary says, " Two sisters grow up scared and alone in a real-life house of horrors, where their sadistic father does unspeakable thing."  Initially this doesn't sound paranormal at all, is sounds like abuse.  As the story begins indeed the daughters do say they father was in fact abusive to them and that he worshipped Satan.  However it goes further than I'm willing to accept with the father and mother luring people to their place and murdering them.  They even go on to imply that many people over the years were murdered and buried on the property, with the grandson saying his grandfather told him where he shouldn't dig.

I find this a bit too much for me to accept as truth.  These are modern times, if there are bodies on the property contact the police, file a report.  The man said to have committed all these murders is claimed to have died so if they were afraid of him, now step forward. But no, no police reports or missing person reports were shared to help prove this story.  We're just supposed to accept this is all the truth and move on.

Was this man insane and abusive?  I can believe that.  Were these women traumatized by their father's treatment of them and their mother's lack of action to stop it? I can believe that too.  But to say in these times their father killed people, buried the bodies, and kept parts of them as trophies I'd have to see a police report.  You can't come public with a claim like that and not have anything to back it up.

Like I said with most paranormal claims you need to take them with a grain of salt but this episode made me question the validity of the entire series.  Still interesting but now they're just stories to me, and the idea of there being any truth to any of it has been thrown out the window.

Do You Believe Ghosts are Ghosts?

 

So I'd like to ask the old question is, "Do you believe in ghosts?" And if you do, do you also believe ghosts are spirits of the dead?

There are some theories that say what we hear going BUMP in the night aren't restless spirits at all, but instead are entities from other dimensions interacting with ours. You could call them aliens or demons or ghosts if you like. But they are things that are there which we don't yet understand.

 

When the Nocturne Society was more active I would receive emails asking for help from people.  One woman contacted me and said she had "things" in her house.  She said at night she would see shadows about the size of a normal dog moving around.  She had hardwood floors and said she could hear their claws clicking on the floor as they walked.  Several times she would get up and turn on the light in an attempt to catch them but they would run down the hallway into the kitchen and disappear.  She was convinced there was a dimensional portal in here kitchen that these things were coming from.  

Which would you rather it be? Would you rather it be spirits of dead relatives instead strange inter dimensional beings? Does one freak you out more than the other? I mean Grandma wouldn't want to scare you right?  But a dimensional being, who knows what it's motivations are.  Maybe nothing malicious at all.