Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Paranormal Pizza Kitchen?



There are plenty of videos on the internet featuring people who claim to have experienced paranormal activity and showing the room or hallway where they describe what they saw or felt, but what is somewhat unique about the video above is the fact that it contains footage from a security video showing objects moving, apparently without explanation, in an ostensibly empty restaurant.

Another uncommon aspect of the above video, which was posted recently on the website of a local Louisiana television station,  is that the alleged paranormal activity took place in the kitchen of a friendly little corner pizzeria, rather than an old Victorian mansion or aging beachfront hotel.

Skeptics may say that the two large ice scoops that can be seen flying through the air to the floor in the security footage might have been pulled by someone off-camera using monofilament fishing line, or some other trickery in order to gain attention and possibly increased business, and that is certainly a possibility to investigate further.

However, the worker who claims to have found the scoops on the floor the next day and then gone back through the security footage to find the video evidence also claims to have been hit in the back by a flying bottle of Tabasco sauce and to have experienced other strange events involving moving objects while working.

Skeptics may then wonder what Tabasco sauce is doing in a kitchen where pizzas are prepared, but keep in mind that the scene of the alleged activity is in Louisiana, the home state of the flavorful hot sauce created by avid gardener Edmund McIlhenny in the 1860s.  Perhaps the pizzeria in question has a secret sauce that contains Tabasco (if so, it may be worth a visit).

While it is of course important to apply critical analysis and "due diligence" to any evidence which appears to contradict the well-entrenched models or paradigms which form the foundation for our understanding of the universe, it is also true that just because these frameworks are well-entrenched or long-standing does not necessarily mean that they cannot be incorrect or incomplete.

As more and more "data-points" of evidence turn up which appear to call the conventional model into question, it is only reasonable to keep an open mind rather than resort to dogmatic dismissal and ridicule (which, unfortunately, appears to be the first response of many defenders of the existing paradigm in many fields of human experience today).