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                                                                                                Why Do We Do What We Do?
                                                                            “-The Driving Force Behind Paranormal Researchers”
                                                                                                     By Juan A. Torres, CLPI

     When people first find out that I created Paranormal Association San Tan (P.A.S.T.), a non-profit corporation to investigate paranormal activity, I often get a look of disbelief until they realize that I am being serious. Of course the next question they ask is, “why?” Why indeed.
Everyone has their own story as to why they do what they do. For me, it started when I was a young boy growing up in Bronx, New York, with several odd occurrences that would happen from time to time in the home that I grew up in. Shadowy apparitions and various noises would occasionally plague my nights, whether my parents were home or not. If they experienced anything out of the ordinary, they never mentioned it, so I was left alone to ponder the cause of such circumstances.

     In those days (late 70’s) there wasn’t very much information out there about the paranormal but being the inquisitive young man I was, I began to research and read everything and anything having to do with the subject, my library card being put to much use in those days before the Internet. Later as a teen, I conducted “investigations” on my own, interviewing people that I knew who had their own experiences. Granted, these weren’t full blown investigations where I was going in and taking measurements, conducting vigils and such, but for a 16 year old boy growing up in the inner city who didn’t get an allowance, it was the best that I could do given the situation. What I didn’t realize at the time was that I had already started my research group by trying to make sense of these things rather than just writing them off as figments of my imagination.

     As my teen years ended, life got in the way of things and I had to get a “real job” which for me was serving in our armed forces, getting married and raising a family. During all this time, though, in the back of my head, I had always wondered what if? That in turn brings me back to the question of “why?” For me it was simple; I have to this day not found suitable explanations for some of the things that I experienced in my youth and it is this inability to adequately answer those questions that has driven me to create my own group, along with a deep desire for helping others.

     For those of us in the paranormal community, “why” is not just a question; it is the answer. “Why” is the question and the answer all rolled up into one. It is the driving force that makes you flip just one more page in that book you are reading about ghosts or stay up that extra hour at night at a friend’s to investigate that sound of “footsteps” they have been hearing on occasion. We do what we do because no one else will. Most people are happy being ignorant to the fact that there is more going on around us then can be explained by conventional methods and are just fine not knowing. For the rest of us, though, this is not enough. We need to understand who, what, where, when, why and how these experiences are happening. Are they scientific, religious, meta-physical, or what? Too many movies, books and television programs today present the paranormal in a negative, scary light where ghosts, spirits, and aliens are all out to get us. Granted, this may sell tickets but it also paints the wrong picture of the subject matter and is yet another