SGHA Research

This information/article is copyright, 2006 by Cody Polston, Bob Carter and SGHA. All rights reserved.
Location: Rancho de Corrales Restaurant, New Mexico
Date taken: 31 October 2001
Photographer: Stationary IR camera
M/E/EM fields: EM field of 2 nt in corner of the room
Camera model: Sony CCD TR 517

 

 SGHA Research ~ Analysis of the video taken at Rancho de Corrales

The following is an analysis of the video taken at the Rancho de Corrales restaurant in Corrales New Mexico.

During the ghost hunt, people kept running into chairs. Ghost hunter Jessica was instructed to push the chairs back in to prevent further mishaps. Shortly afterwards an unusual EM reading is located in the corner of the room. As the ghost hunters move in to investigate, the reading disappears and the chair on the right appears to move out from under the table by itself. (Click the image to see the video, 5,340 kb)

This is a smaller version of the video above and also contains various other oddities that were captured on video that night.

(Click the image to watch the video.)

Location of people during the event

The illustration on the left shows the position of the investigators during the event.

A odd electromagnetic field is discovered in the corner of the room by Cody. All of the investigators move towards the corner of the room to check out the EM field.

Cody and Bob are off camera during the whole event. Don is behind the table on the far wall and moves towards the corner when Cody calls him.

When the EM field is lost, Jessica moves around to the other side of the table and resumes pushing the chairs in.

Erica is standing in the doorway watching the room. She does not notice the chair moving.

Photo 1

Analysis of the moving chair video

Two main hypotheses were developed in an attempt to skeptically explain the movement of the chair in the video. The first is that Ghost hunter Jessica inadvertently moved the chair by pushing in the chair at the end of the table, making the other chair appear to move by itself. This particular hypothesis was easy to rule out. The actual tape is from a stationary IR camera, 2 hours in length. We simply had to rewind the tape to the section before Erica (the woman with her back to the camera) walked into the room. The chair at the end of the table was in the exact same position before the event as it was after, it had not been moved at all. In addition to this, a frame by frame analysis of the video shows that Jessica's left arm is visible when the chair starts to move, showing her exact position when the movement starts. (photo 1)

Photo 2 (thumbnailed)

This illustrates that she is still fumbling with the camera case on her left hip when the chair starts to move out and also shows the position of her body in relation to the chair.

The only possible way for her to move the chair at the end of the table is with her right hand only. However, from the position she is in, this would require her to twist her hips to the left, moving her left arm in the process. The analysis clearly shows that she did not do that. Additionally, rewinding the tape further, the chair is already pushed all the way in before the event occurs.

The second hypothesis was that Jessica moved the chair directly across the table, pushing the other chair out.

Once again, a frame by frame analysis shows Jessica moving around to the other side of the table well after the chair have moved. Additionally a photograph taken after the event shows the amount of movement and the position of the chair afterwards. (photo 2)

Attempts to replicate the movement of the chair using the other two chairs were unsuccessful due to the amount of distance the chair traveled away from the table (approximately 18 inches). The cause of the movement is unknown at this time but is quite interesting due to the timing of the EM field appearing and disappearing and that it was reported phenomenon associated with that particular area.

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