In this second instalment, we delve deeper into the world of scepticism and debunking, focusing on detailed case studies and the cognitive pitfalls that often accompany the process. By looking at a couple of specific examples from recent years, we will explore how debunkers’ overconfidence and premature conclusions can lead to significant reputational harm and the spread of misinformation. By understanding these cognitive pitfalls, we can attempt to navigate the sceptic’s minefield and perhaps encourage a more constructive dialogue within the paranormal community.

Case Study: My Haunted Hotel

My Haunted Hotel is an ongoing investigation based at a 400-year-old hotel, Ye Olde King’s Head in the English city of Chester. The hotel has been set up with 24/7 video camera surveillance throughout the building, covering almost the entire building, inside and out. Paying guests can book into the hotel and investigate it themselves, free to use whatever methods they choose, while being guided by a team of in-house investigators who monitor the building’s CCTV cameras and coordinate the investigation events. What is notable about the business – which has expanded since its original inception into My Haunted Project – with other locations in the UK and North America – is the “debunk first approach”, where the team will go out of their way to debunk events wherever possible.  They are also known for their transparency – aside from the private residence attached to hotel where the building owner and his family live, virtually no area is off limits to guests.

In September 2023, debunker The Shape posted a video where he claimed to have debunked the hotel. Unfortunately, he made several incorrect assumptions about the venue, misinterpreted on screen phenomena (including mistaking a dust particle for a thrown object) and made other accusations without basis. The project team presented a rebuttal video which comprehensively demonstrated the errors in The Shape’s assessment. He later acknowledged in part the errors he made in his debunk video and apologised to the team, although the video itself remains published on his channel, and the only place you can find said apology is within the My Haunted Hotel rebuttal video.

The damage, however, had been done, and as of the time of writing this article (April 2025), there is still a stigma attached to the project as fallout from the video. There are still people online attacking the project and its staff, citing The Shape’s discredited debunking video.

While this illustrates the dangers of debunkers failing to do their due diligence in fact checking, another criticism levelled at the project is that for a single location to produce apparent paranormal activity every week simply isn’t realistic.  This criticism has been levelled by debunker Beardo (of Beardo Gets Scared) on posts on his Facebook page, saying that having that many spontaneous incidents in one location isn’t something he has experienced as a paranormal investigator.

On a superficial level, this argument might make sense.  While paranormal phenomena are extremely rare, it might be seen as stretching credibility to get that lucky when most ghost hunters can spend hour after hour on a location and get absolutely nothing.  However, it isn’t quite as simple as he portrays it to be.

Firstly, of all the debunkers who have criticised the project, Beardo has visited the hotel, and has recorded experiences that he has unequivocally stated that he is unable to debunk.  Secondly, and perhaps more relevant to the matter at hand, his investigative experience outside of My Haunted Hotel is predominantly limited to shorter evening or overnight stays at a location in the traditional style of most paranormal YouTube content.  By comparison, the setup at the My Haunted Project locations employs constant surveillance via audio and CCTV cameras, 24/7.  It stands to reason that such continuous coverage increases the likelihood of capturing phenomena, purely due to the extended time dedicated to observation.  Comparing constant round the clock surveillance to a few hours on location is not an equitable basis for comparison.

Another thing that Beardo fails to consider is the fact that the weekly episodes produced by the project are heavily edited down “highlights” drawing from thousands of hours of multi camera angle footage spanning the course of a week (or weeks).  This editing process means that what is presented to the viewing public represents a tiny fraction of the data collected, the vast majority of which will show absolutely nothing of interest at all.

Finally, assertions by Beardo and others about the frequency of activity captured at the hotel (or indeed any other location) don’t stack up logically.  If we are to accept that certain places are haunted, then it would have to be taken that the nature and frequency of paranormal incidents will vary greatly between locations.  This assertion that “too much” activity is happening on a weekly basis implies the existence of some undefined threshold at which the frequency of paranormal events would be considered believable.  However, no such standard has ever been articulated, leaving this kind of argument vague and subjective.

Ultimately, the approach of My Haunted Project sets it apart from other “traditional” paranormal investigation groups or event companies, and it demonstrates that debunkers, when assessing cases should be mindful of the need to judge each one on its own merits and quirks.

Burden of Proof

 Overconfidence and prematurely jumping to conclusions based on limited data, such as watching edited video footage without the full context, can ultimately lead to significant reputational harm to businesses and individuals.  Levelling accusations of fakery without evidence, especially towards a monetised business (including monetised YouTube channels) can in fact place debunkers in a vulnerable position legally- if the subject of their allegations were able to prove such accusations were false and resulted in financial or reputational damage.

This seems to come from a fundamental misunderstanding of where the burden of proof lies.  Referring to the oft-quoted Carl Sagan, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”, many debunkers seem to take this to mean that the burden of proof always lies with the paranormal investigator- after all what claim is more extraordinary than saying ghosts exist?  There seems to be the perception that the paranormal is fair game and they can get away with saying what they please – unfortunately for them this is not the case.  By making allegations of fakery, the debunker is making their own extraordinary claim, which requires its own extraordinary evidence, and to make such a claim without proof is done at their peril.

This underscores the importance of thorough investigation and the need for debunkers to approach their work with humility and caution, ensuring they have all the necessary information before making definitive claims.

Criticise Methods, Not Personalities

Beyond the issues already discussed, debunking, if it is to be treated as discipline in and of itself, faces other challenges, particularly when it comes to the subject of their analyses. There is a tendency among debunkers to criticise personalities over methods, which can distract from the goal of debunking and merely serves to fuel grievances. This is perhaps fuelled again by the nature of operating within a space which favours sensationalism, and interpersonal drama is one way to achieve that aim. This has been demonstrated on occasion by channels like The Side Eye Guy, whose production style is to use humour to poke fun at paranormal videos, but much of his content will often resort to personal attacks on creators with critiques that have little to do with the paranormal.  He used to counter such criticism by claiming he is not a debunker, but a reaction channel instead; however, he appears to have abandoned this pretence lately and appears quite happy to be referred to as the former.

Perhaps related to these ad-hominem attacks, there is also a tendency among the debunker community to attribute the least charitable interpretation onto the motivations of paranormal groups when presenting supposedly paranormal “proof.”  While it is true there are masses of hoax paranormal footage on the internet, there is also a larger issue with scientific literacy among many paranormal groups. Many of these groups genuinely do believe that the times that their K-II meter lights up to red, or the SLS camera projects a stick figure onto the armchair in the living room, they are uncovering proof of the paranormal. Misinterpretation is a huge issue in the paranormal community, perhaps more-so than deliberate acts of fakery. It would be far more productive, and less antagonistic, to try to educate people what these things actually represent, rather than making accusations of fakery or ridiculing people’s beliefs.

Scientific literacy is an issue that is not limited to the paranormal community, debunkers also have this issue. There is the tendency to start with the conclusion that all paranormal activity is fake (perhaps a side effect of calling oneself a debunker), which can easily lead to confirmation bias where data is cherry picked to support the conclusion and anything that might confound the desired outcome is disregarded.  Debunkers have also been known to parrot dubious claims or overstate the significance of certain environmental factors in order to offer a scientific sounding explanation to “rule out” paranormal causes. A good example of this is the idea that high EMF can cause hallucinations (while simultaneously being somewhat vague on what “high” EMF means). The origin of this theory comes from Persinger’s God Helmet experiments, where it was theorised that certain electromagnetic stimulus applied to certain regions of the brain could cause sensations of an invisible presence close by. The issue with this is that subsequent peer review of Persinger’s findings failed to replicate his results, and his studies are largely regarded as being too flawed to be credible.

Overconfidence is another issue that debunkers could face. One recent example is the situation with Cody and Satori…

“The Paranormal Couple”

The Cody and Satori controversy first entered the consciousness of most people during a week-long 2023 Halloween special series covering the “Conjuring House” by the massively popular YouTube duo, Sam and Colby. While there, they met a young couple working at the venue as guides, though it became clear the pair had a method of “spirit communication,” where Cody and Satori would hold hands facing each other and ask questions of the spirits. Satori would then ask the spirits to spell out answers by knocking on corresponding letters while she recited the alphabet.  By doing this, they could effectively spell out much more detailed responses than the usual “knock once for yes, twice for no” call-out methods.

Sam and Colby seemed visibly affected by this, and were clearly impressed, to the point that the entire week of what would have been an investigation of the house became largely dedicated to seances conducted by the self-proclaimed “Paranormal Couple” for the benefit of Sam and Colby’s revolving cast of YouTuber guests.

Controversy surrounding this knocking communication method came about because among other revelations, footage surfaced of a much younger Cody using a similar method over a decade earlier, despite the claims by the couple that they had discovered the method only recently since they started dating.

Over a short period of time, the prevailing debunker hypothesis came to the forefront that the knocking sound was being produced by Cody snapping his toes. This line of thinking gained traction in large part due to the case’s resemblance to the infamous Fox Sisters case.

The Fox Sisters rose to fame in the mid-19^th century, claiming to be able to communicate with spirits through knocking, only to later confess that they were themselves creating the sounds through cracking their toe joints. This historical precedent provided debunkers with a tangible explanation for the phenomena demonstrated by Cody and Satori, but there is also a danger that there may have been some overconfidence in this hypothesis.

While there have been, as already discussed, some indications pointing towards the toe-snapping being the cause, it should be noted that Satori herself referenced the Fox sisters while discussing her communication method. This deliberate acknowledgement would be a curious one to make, as Satori would surely be aware of the scepticism drawing such a parallel would inevitably invite. Given her background – she is an experienced paranormal investigator herself and the daughter of Jason Hawes, it would seem unlikely that she would draw a comparison that would undermine her credibility. If the phenomena were fabricated (and I am not for one moment suggesting that it is genuine), it could be speculated that highlighting the Fox Sisters in the way that she did might well be misdirection to divert sceptics and debunkers towards an inaccurate hypothesis, which can be later revealed to be incorrect, thereby “proving” the sceptics wrong. 

It should be noted that the couple attempted to do exactly this a few months after the controversy first started around them, by enlisting Satori’s father Jason Hawes to publish a 360-degree video showing them perform their “method”, while barefoot with their feet off the ground.  Unfortunately for them, the video didn’t fully convince the debunker community, as it failed to rule out other sources of artificially producing the sounds, and while the video allowed for a full unrestricted view of the attic room they were in, there was no accounting for what might be happening in adjoining rooms.  Despite the knocking sounds still being produced during the video with their couples’ bare feet in full view, the toe snapping narrative remains the dominant hypothesis among debunkers.  Also, it appears the original video has since been taken down.

Regardless of whether this is truly a case of misdirection, the possibility that it might be highlights an important blind-spot within the debunker community. While scepticism is the bedrock of scientific rigor, it can also lead to fixation of specific hypotheses, dismissing the possibility of alternative explanations or more nuanced possibilities. In the case of Cody and Satori, while the toe-snapping hypothesis is the widely accepted explanation, the truth is that it has never been definitively proven to be correct.

This example shows that debunkers, in their excitement to claim a scalp (particularly a high profile one such as the daughter of Jason Hawes) run the risk of being humiliated if the rug-pull comes and the hypothesis that they put all effort into pursuing is shown to be incorrect.

To avoid such eventualities, they should remain open to multiple explanations and not get tunnel vision fixating on just one. It shows that if debunkers are to maintain credibility in their assessments, there needs to be a balance struck between critical analysis and flexibility.

And That’s All for Now…

As we conclude this second instalment, we have seen how cognitive biases and overconfidence can undermine the credibility of debunkers and fuel unnecessary conflict within the paranormal community, while also risking reputational harm and even potential legal issues if debunkers are too cavalier with their assertions. The case studies and examples discussed highlight the importance of thorough investigation, humility, and a balanced approach to scepticism.

In the next and final instalment, we will explore the nature of online discourse, fan interaction, parasocial relationships, and the challenges of maintaining constructive dialogue in an increasingly polarized environment. Stay tuned for a deeper dive into these critical aspects of the paranormal debate.