Topography affects paranormal investigating in both direct and indirect ways. Directly, and most obviously, are the physical things you see. When you walk around there are certain things you notice. You know you are on a mountain or on the beach; you notice you are in a sprawling residential area or you are in a backwaters town; you may hear a river or walk up a hill. All of these things are physical and obvious, and easy to spot.
Along with some of those obvious notations come subconscious assumptions about where you are. For example: if you are in a big city apartment building you know there is electricity in the building, power lines all around you, indoor plumbing and lots of neighbors (some of whom might have pets); cars and bikes and motorcycles and airplanes will all be present – even if you are not immediately thinking of them, you are conscious of them.
Then there are indirect things that effect your investigation, things you might not notice in such an obvious way – like bugs, plants, air pressure, humidity, underground water systems, wells, septic tanks, sewers and what exactly the ground is made up of. How many people lived and died in the area before the paranormal activity took place? These are things that may or may not affect your investigation, even if it is indirectly, and things that you might not even think about.
Before we explore these ideas more thoroughly, we need to establish why topography relates to air pressure, bugs and traffic. When most people think of topography, they think of a 3-dimensional map showing elevation and physical features of an area – rivers, mountains, hills and grassy plains. While that is not incorrect, it does not encompass everything relating to topography, either.
The word topography comes from the combination of two Greek words: topo meaning place and graphia meaning writing. In the strictest definition, topography is the study of Earth’s surface shape and features – especially in relation to maps. However, in a broader sense it is concerned with general local detail, not only the physical features but also vegetation, civilization, history and culture.
So bugs, traffic and air pressure all factor into the topography of a place, even if it tends to be more indirect. After all, you are going to have different plants and animals in the mountains than you will in the desert, just like you’re going to have more cars in a city than you will in a small town. All of this is related to topography and all of it will affect your investigation.
Note:
It could be argued that things like air pressure and humidity don’t relate to topography, but instead are more tied to climate. However, different geological structures lead to different climates. For example, the climate is different in a rainforest than in a desert or a mountain. And while the physical reality of deserts and mountains on Earth are more in line with geography, topography is all about recording the things in any given area, such as deserts and mountains and rainforests. So the typography of an area (the recording of all of the physical features of the area as well as the vegetation and civilization) is related closely enough to the geography of the area (the actual physical features) that it plays in to the climate of the area.
Basically, the typography is based partly on the geography of the area, which affects the climate of the area. But the type of geographical features (recorded on the map that people read) attract more or fewer people (or a certain type of people) to an area which in turn affects the typography of the area (because people live there and build roads and bridges and structures), which also effects the geography of the area (because people might flatten a hill to build a mall) which then effects the climate of the area (because with people comes all of the various effects people have on their landscapes) which then changes the geography because it can cause erosion from poor land management and possibly reduction in the productivity of the land, which then causes people to move away because of the changes that have occurred, then again chaining the typography. [See figure 1.1]
Figure 1.1
Direct
Directly, your investigation and debunking is affected by typography, even though you might not consciously notice it. All the physical things around you can be considered part of the typography of the area. Even the history and culture of an area are considered part of an area’s typography. For our purposes, we’ll stick strictly to the physical.
Let’s see how typography might affect your investigation;
Scenario 1:
You are investigating a 2-bedroom house in a small town (roughly 1000 people) in the foothills of a mountain in Arizona. The house is located near the center of town. The town is not lacking in amenities, and when you drive in you pass a Denny’s and a Walmart, all less than 2 miles from the home. The owners are out for the night, but have a cat.
The things you notice and are informed of, even if you don’t know they are typography-related, are important. You know that the town is in the foothills in Arizona, so you can infer the terrain will be hilly and might have some cliffs, and the possibility of vertigo is there. Because it is in Arizona you know that there may be desert-type plants and animals – coyotes, rabbits, quail, and so forth. But you also know that the house is in the center of town, so you probably won’t be seeing much wildlife. You know that the house is near a Walmart and a Denny’s, both open 24 hours and both are likely to get some traffic, even in the wee hours of the morning. Do the cars drive by the house and cast shadows that could be mistaken for spectral-spooks? You also know they have a cat. Did you hear strange footsteps on the stairs? Perhaps it was the cat.
You know they’re going to have neighbors. Perhaps one of their claims is they hear “Chips-Chips” playing softly in their bedroom at 3am every morning. Maybe you hear it to! Maybe their neighbor is 80 years old and doesn’t sleep well, so she wakes up at 3am every morning and plays “Chips-Chips” loud enough to hear it and re-live her glory days. And maybe that’s just loud enough to sound like a ghostly memory of a song playing in the clients’ bedroom.
You not only used the typography of the town – the physical locations of certain things in the town – to help you debunk, but you used the typography of the house; you know they have a cat, you know there are 2 bedrooms; you know where it is located within the town. The cars driving by in the middle of the night for that last minute Walmart or Denny’s runs will affect your investigation – they cause noise that can be picked up by your audio devices, and could cause shadows if their headlights hit the windows just right. Knowing those things are not only important to your investigation but to debunking.
Another direct influence might be above-ground power lines. Since you are in a civilized area, power lines are bound to be close by. Those types of wires and transformers can give off high EMF readings, which can cause increased sensitivity over time. Does the owner have any large cables or power lines close to the house? Is there a transformer near by? What about the wires in their home? Do they have a lot of exposed wiring?
Indirect
Your investigation and debunking is also affected indirectly by the typography of the area. There are things you might not notice about a place, or might not directly take into the scope of your investigation. For example, when investigating somewhere in the wilderness – maybe a fort or a deserted town – you know you’ll be spending lots of time outdoors and you will have to account for what kinds of features (and creatures!) you might run across. Is it hilly? Will there be lots of sand? Is there a river nearby? You will consciously think about those things, thus turning them into direct contributors to your investigation and debunking. But what about when you are in a town or a city? Will you be thinking about the bugs (other than cockroaches or rats) and the proximity of rivers? What about underground water?
I call these things “indirect” because when you are somewhere like a city or a town, you might not think of them – even though they are perfectly capable of directly affecting your investigation, even in a city or town, and vice versa for a more remote location. Sure, the nearest neighbor might be ten miles away on the other side of a hill, but if he shoots a gun you would probably still hear it.
Maybe the place you are investigating has a septic tank. One of the claims might be a strange noise coming from downstairs, and during the course of your investigation you hear it too. During your debunking you could discover the noise is coming from the commode. That noise could have been caused by the septic tank – maybe it is too full or has some kind of bubble, forcing air out and making a strange noise misconstrued as paranormal. You might not know the noise is being caused by the septic tank, but you might be able to trace it back there. Thus, the septic tank has indirectly affected both your investigation and debunking. Not knowing that the septic tank was the one “burping”, you would probably attribute the noise to the pipes – and blame it on them, even though the root culprit was a gassy septic tank.
Or perhaps the house has an underground river close enough to the surface to make a well. One of the claims could be they hear strange noises or phantom winds in the basement. Could the underground river cause these? Possibly, but you might not know it is there. It is affecting you, even if you don’t know it. An underground river it might be a little bit harder to debunk, but it could be a contributing factor in another way – one theory is that places with certain types of mineral composition and/or running water underground “collect” information for residual hauntings. Does this mean just because you know your location has an underground river it is a member of the residual haunting club? Not necessarily, but it is something to consider while conducting your investigation, debunking and reviewing evidence.
A great many things affect investigations and the debunking of events taking place during investigations. But probably the most all-encompassing thing is typography. It is always there, whether you know it is or not, whether you want it to be there or not. So the next time you’re heading out to an investigation, take a look around, make note of your surroundings, and do some extra research of the area. The town might have a history of sewer crocodiles that sing pop songs in the middle of the night, thus explaining why the client is hearing their favorite top 40s hits coming from their shower. Or maybe it is something a little less eccentric, like an underground river. Either way, you’re bound to learn something you did not know before, and it is bound to help you out in some way.
The most important thing is to be vigilant of your surroundings – you have to know what is around you, you have to know the typography, so you do not jump to conclusions about something totally mundane. Like a mouse or a poorly shielded cable.