Police respond to a racket in a school in Brazil

[Yazata]

This video, just as others I have posted, is compelling evidence for the paranormal.  It is what it is. It's that simple.

It's evidence for the "paranormal", I'll grant you that. Whether it's good evidence or not is another question.

But "compelling" is something else. 'Compelling' would seem to be entirely subjective, dependent on whether or not an individual feels 'compelled' by it to reach a particular conclusion. In other words, If I say that X is compelling, I'm not really talking about X at all, I'm talking about X's effect on me (and maybe about what I think its effect should be on other people).

And this slamming door in a theatrically lit corridor doesn't come close to being compelling for me.

I do think that it's interesting and I don't really know with any certainty what was happening, so I'm willing to leave it an open question at the moment. But that being said, I persist in suspecting that it was probably faked.

[Magical Realist]

And this slamming door in a theatrically lit corridor doesn't come close to being compelling for me.

When would paranormal activity be compelling for you? A full body apparition maybe? The appearance of your dead uncle John on your TV set? Perhaps being levitated to your ceiling one night in bed? I think the occurrence of the paranormal is inherently compelling and extraordinary. And I'd wager with the widespread proliferation of video cameras, go pros, and cellphones, we are about to see an age of increasing instances of the paranormal happening in people's everyday lives. We've barely scratched the surface on the compelling. Prepare to have your socks compelled off of you!

[Yazata]

And this slamming door in a theatrically lit corridor doesn't come close to being compelling for me.

When would paranormal activity be compelling for you?

That's a good question.

It's the same question that I face with religious divinities. People have asked: What evidence would convince me that I had experienced a god?

I'm not sure that any evidence would convince me. No matter how impressive a light show in the sky, it might be super-powered space-aliens. (The movie Independence Day illustrated that.) I remember reading a novel about the Biblical apocalypse really happening and the Earth being overrun with angels and demons that could just brush off the laws of physics and do whatever they like. And the survivors of Earth's governments and the remnants of their militaries hiding in underground facilities with scientists telling them that these aliens apparently could manipulate quantum mechanics in unknown ways such as to make any desired possibility real.

Same problem with the "paranormal". Just because something happens that I can't explain doesn't mean that my only alternative is to adopt an ancient religious-inspired ontology of life-force, pneuma, spirits and spooks.

In the 'experience a god' case, I would have to have more than evidence of something awesome and inexplicable. I would have to be convinced that the object of the experience was divine, and I don't know what kind of evidence that would be. (I don't know how to distinguish between gods and super-aliens.)

In the 'experience a ghost haunting' case, I would have to have more than evidence of something unexplained at the moment. I would have to have evidence that the inexplicable event was in fact the mark of a disembodied 'spirit'. But spirits aren't part of my working ontology any more than gods are part of yours. So using something like Hume's argument against miracles, I would probably always believe that there's another more likely explanation that I haven't found yet, one that doesn't involve spirits and spooks.

[Zinjanthropos]

Instead of creeping apprehensively down the hallway towards a banging door under flickering lights, why not install some means of communicating....the ghost drawing a pic or even putting down a few words on paper, whatever. Even if it looks like a worm painting, do we care? Ghosts throwing and slamming shit around seems less compelling than doing something constructive with a pen or paint brush. Making things going bang or tossing stuff around can easily be faked so why even bother with that crap. Let’s do something different than just videoing two jerks sneaking down a hallway in bad light. Surely if you know your poltergeist friends are there then let’s not treat them like a Halloween sideshow, maybe they have something to say that will put the question of their existence on the shelf. If we can develop quantum experiments then ones involving ghosts can’t be that hard. So what’s the hold up?

[Magical Realist]

Instead of creeping apprehensively down the hallway towards a banging door under flickering lights, why not install some means of communicating....the ghost drawing a pic or even putting down a few words on paper, whatever. Even if it looks like a worm painting, do we care? Ghosts throwing and slamming shit around seems less compelling than doing something constructive with a pen or paint brush. Making things going bang or tossing stuff around can easily be faked so why even bother with that crap. Let’s do something different than just videoing two jerks sneaking down a hallway in bad light. Surely if you know your poltergeist friends are there then let’s not treat them like a Halloween sideshow, maybe they have something to say that will put the question of their existence on the shelf. If we can develop quantum experiments then ones involving ghosts can’t be that hard. So what’s the hold up?

We don't know enough about ghosts to be able to expect any sort of behavior from them. For all we know they may be half insane, frustrated by being stuck here and taking out their anger on nearby objects. We should be grateful that they try to get our attention at all. And this video is a compelling example of that.

[C C]

We don't know enough about ghosts to be able to expect any sort of behavior from them. For all we know they may be half insane, frustrated by being stuck here and taking out their anger on nearby objects. We should be grateful that they try to get our attention at all. And this video is a compelling example of that.

Do they need magnetically receptive metal objects in order to exert manipulation? Rattling chains, banging ferrous doors, etc? Apparently not in the case of the bhoot: "In many regions, bhoots are supposed to fear water and steel or iron objects, so keeping those nearby is believed to scare them off."

[Magical Realist]

We don't know enough about ghosts to be able to expect any sort of behavior from them. For all we know they may be half insane, frustrated by being stuck here and taking out their anger on nearby objects. We should be grateful that they try to get our attention at all. And this video is a compelling example of that.

Do they need magnetically receptive metal objects in order to exert manipulation?  Rattling chains, banging ferrous doors, etc? Apparently not in the case of the bhoot: "In many regions, bhoots are supposed to fear water and steel or iron objects, so keeping those nearby is believed to scare them off."

The object can be made of anything. Glass, wood, plastic, metal, etc. Poltergeists are known for throwing stones. There is a belief that iron is repulsive to ghosts, but then I've heard of paranormal activity on old Navy ships. So I don't know how true that is.

[Syne]

When would paranormal activity be compelling for you?

When it is as commonplace as all the other possible explanations. As common as pranks, hoaxes, strings, visual anomalies, etc., and as widely and oft experienced as any other common occurrence. Then simply by sheer volume, the odds of it being genuinely paranormal would start to rival common experiences.

I would assume that even Yaz would find a god compelling if those who believed were actually granted wishes. Then he'd have a hard time justifying why believers get whatever they want and nonbelievers do not. It would just have to be prevalent and often enough to make the disparity unavoidable.

[Magical Realist]

When it is as commonplace as all the other possible explanations. As common as pranks, hoaxes, strings, visual anomalies, etc., and as widely and oft experienced as any other common occurrence. Then simply by sheer volume, the odds of it being genuinely paranormal would start to rival common experiences.

LOL! By that logic rare phenomena and anomalies could never be compelling because they're not commonplace. That's bass ackwards. A tornado is compelling precisely because it is so once in a lifetime. Ball lightning is compelling because it is hardly ever seen. And the paranormal is compelling because rarely is it ever caught on tape.

[Zinjanthropos]

the paranormal is compelling because rarely is it ever caught on tape.

Hardly. Part of compelling is being beyond refute. Unfortunately a video is not. What’s more compelling is learning how a hoax is accomplished, IMHO.