I will say when we had Ghost Hunters, we told them very very little, especially the sensitive information about a death that occurred on site. They did end up focusing on a couple areas that they were not pointed to but that had been rumored to have ghosts beforehand, but keep in mind they are likely googling to find various legends, stories, guest images. They had two tense moments on film that we knew were because of a squirrel and a deaf cat, we found it hilarious that they were on film as being played like they were ghosts. Literally they said no living thing was present and our deaf cat yowled, and it was not edited out. 

I will advise, that if you are filming clean you floors and cobwebs and such, the dirt shows up on TV when  they do the spooky foot step re-shoots. 
Also, you will get an influx of people for about a year after, which is the best reason to do it. 



On Wed, Aug 29, 2012 at 4:36 PM, Mark Janzen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hi Dave,
 
This sounds like a great and very pertinent course. Thanks for that.
 
I admit I do not have a policy to share, but rather a request.
 
Can you add something to your syllabus, if you do not already have such a topic, that addresses effective/politically appropriate means of educating investigators in the histories of the structures they run their events in so that they do not embarrass themselves by discovering "evidence" in modern reconstructions of historic buildings and/or fake cemeteries?
 
In my experience the investigators need as much education as the museum personnel that need to monitor and interact with them
 
Thanks.
 
Mark Janzen

On Wed, Aug 29, 2012 at 2:34 PM, David Harvey <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hi Everyone,

In mid-September I will be teaching a two-week short online course for Museum Classes Online on "Paranormal Investigations In Museums and Historic Sites". The course is structured to introduce museum colleagues to the topic and how these investigations work, to assess the pro's and con's, and then at the end the participants formulate their own policies or programs. The course is also open to people who investigate the paranormal who want to understand the museum or historic site perspective and how best to integrate their practices when they approach us.

There are many things you will discover in the course that you may not know - for instance that many paranormal groups are devoted to history and preservation and often do events as fund-raisers to help their local historic sites and museums.

I would love to update my information in regards to policies (sample policies would be wonderful if you can share them) and also I'd love to hear from museums or historic sites who have their own paranormal / ghost programs or who work with a local paranormal group to run one. I have already have examples but would love to get it all up to date. Please send them to my email off of the list.

The formal announcement for the course will be coming out soon.

If any of you are interested in taking the course you can go to http://www.collectioncare.org/training/trol_classes_ms013.html to read the course description and to register.

As many of you know I have a long career in conservation so I will obviously have a segment in the course devoted to preservation to reinforce awareness as to why museums and historic sites have many policies related to that.

Cheers!
Dave

David Harvey
Senior Conservator & Museum Consultant
Los Angeles CA
CityOfAngelsConservation.weebly.com

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