It is unfortunate that many times serious paranormal studies are subverted by either the fool or the charlatan. No matter if it is the self-proclaimed investigator who calls every “anomaly” in a photograph proof of paranormal activity (the fool) or the person who intentionally deceives others by telling them everything that they want to hear so that they can intentionally rip them off for their hard earned cash (the charlatan) it should be understood that each of these people plays a role, albeit a seriously damaging one, in the perception of paranormal investigators.

            In between these two extremes we have the paranormal cheerleader who seems to be a bit of both. Intentionally uneducated about paranormal mechanics and unintentionally naive about the subject as a whole the paranormal cheerleader calls everything that seems out of the ordinary in a photo a “ghost” while telling others fantastic stories about their adventures in “ghost hunting.” If you have done any amount of investigation, paranormal photo sharing or discussion about paranormal topics I can almost guarantee that, at some point, you have run into a paranormal cheerleader.

            To further define the subject, someone who is considered to be a paranormal cheerleader, which is also termed as an “automatic believer” or “instant believer,” is any person who, upon finding anything that they believe to be out of place in a photograph, EVP or video – anything at all that could possibly be a potential anomaly - begins to excitedly inform everyone around them that they have taken a photograph or EVP of paranormal activity – which is usually called “proof” by the latter. Too many times there are people out there like this who will claim to be ghost hunters, paranormal investigators, paranormal specialists and so forth that actually have no training or experience in the field what-so-ever. I am not saying that not knowing about something is wrong, not at all. Everyone knows that you have to start somewhere and the study of a subject before you can understand it is the logical place to begin, however intentionally claiming to know about something and not actually having that knowledge - lying about it – is wrong. The information that flows from the paranormal cheerleader seems to always come before they have really analyzed the photo, video or EVP, if that even happens at all. Because of the excitability and lack of research on the part of the paranormal cheerleader it has been found, on a rather consistent basis, that the content of the initial information about the findings in their evidence is erroneous in its content and is almost always discarded as drivel when it is properly analyzed.

            Serious investigators who value their reputation do not want to get caught up in this roundabout of feeble minded ignorance. For anyone from skeptic to interested academic to conceptualize and logically interpret the information that is presented as evidence from a paranormal investigation we should make the information about our investigations, evidence and conclusions logical and cohesive in form. As scientific investigators of paranormal occurrences we can not afford to perform investigations as a paranormal cheerleader or as an overly skeptical denialist. The key here is balance. It is imperative that we maintain our balance on the fine line between skepticism and enthusiasm and that the balance is tempered by good judgment and discretion.