Talk:Paulding Light

message: I did a little research and found that the lights that most people are looking at now are not in fact the paulding lights at all.  The true paulding lights don't appear in the tree tops in the path of the power lines. They appear much lower, on the dirt road and in the forest.  What you are seeing up in the power lines is nothing more than cars off in the distance, and you can prove it by taking a telescope or some high powered binoculars and looking at the site durring the day.  
Try looking here for more information:  http://www.unexplainedresearch.com/files_anomalies/paulding_light.html  Looks to me like they had the same idea as me.
I've seen the real lights briefly on my one visit to the sight and I tried to chase them down.  They disapeared just like the stories say, but my family swares that they were shinning the whole time I was looking for them.  I have no explaination for this but it has planted a bug in me that will keep me going back to try and figure it out.
Tec54 16:48, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I've removed a lot of poorly sourced fanciful speculation about the cause of this quite underwhelming and prosaic phenomenon from this encyclopedia article. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 00:06, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: And a little more than a year later I have found it yet again filled with unsourced stuff, so have done a cleanup. Admittedly the Michigan tourism site isn't a great reference, but it's a lot better than the iffy ghost busting sites the article was referencing. - LuckyLouie (talk) 02:57, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed fanciful speculation

message: People may have "cleaned up" references to the source of the phenomenon, but somebody needs to clean up the grammar. The very first sentence: "The legend of the light is that there was a railroad there and a signalmen on the track to stop an oncoming train about a stalled train on the tracks and that the second train had crushed him" is probably the worst confused, misspelled, run-on sentence anyone could dream up for a joke, let alone appear in a supposed definitive reference work. I would correct it, but it's impossible to be sure what the writer is trying to say. Billcito (talk) 20:08, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Since the original Michigan Backroads source link died, your best bet to sourcing the lead is something like this. - LuckyLouie (talk) 20:28, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: What I'm not sure of is that it seems the Paulding light and the Dog Meadow Lights are two different things. The article says they are the same (and I didn't edit any of that) and it looks like the Michigan Tour site says the same, but Weird US has them as separate sightings. Besides the Paulding Light is in a valley and not a meadow, so what is correct? It seems this event is full of misinformation. Cyberia23 (talk) 06:50, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It's unfortunate, but most of the "Weird X" and "Legends of" books are gotten to market quickly by weaving together any and every anecdote the author can get their hands on, resulting in a lot of misinformation getting into print, which is then repeated and passed on by other authors and websites. However they come off like Harvard University Press compared to the "Backwoods Wisconsin" web site,  which strikes me as a very poor quality source for this article: "Located in Watersmeet Michigan, the Paulding Light is a natural phenomenon which must be seen to be believed. ( a few beers help! )" - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:08, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

text:  - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:19, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grammar 

message: I made a call today to Ripley's Believe it or not Corporate office and was told by a Mr. Meyers, President of Ripley's Archives & Footage, that the offer of $100,000 was NEVER made by Ripley's and that this is a common rumor circulating the internet.  The current source on this article is extremely weak and is not directly linking the offer to any one episode or person of Ripley's of whom apparently made this offer.  A search of the internet for originating sources of this rumor also turned up nothing. ~~  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hiii98 (talk • contribs) 19:04, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: That's called "original research" because all we have are your claims that it isn't true because you made a phone call. Perhaps if Ripley's published on their website that the rumor was bogus then we'd have a source to link it to, but until then it's just going by your word and that's not good enough. Cyberia23 (talk) 01:21, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

text: Fine, I'll remove it. JFC Cyberia23 (talk) 05:26, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ripley's Rumor 

message: I fixed the "explanations" section because it was written as if paranormal mystery was the default with "skeptics" offering competing alternate explanations. I also moved the SyFy TV show material from the academic sources to a "popular culture" section, as it is a "paranormal investigation series" entertainment oriented show that tested the light for EVP, ghost voices, etc. - LuckyLouie (talk) 21:56, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Article cleanup

message: Regarding this edit combining the Scientific Investigation section with the Paranormal Investigation section "in order to not start an argument as to the scientific validity of the experiments conducted," we can't as editors refrain from judging the reliability of our sources. A group of engineering students conducting a transparent, methodical, and well-documented investigation is simply not comparable to a group of reality television stars wandering around listening for ghosts, and presenting them on equal footing is misleading. It's a stretch to call the show an investigation at all, when really it is popular media coverage.--Trystan (talk) 14:23, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: And he's just saying you're wrong. See WP:FRINGE for an in depth explanation of why. 173.58.37.123 (talk) 22:14, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: When TV shows intentionally misrepresent events in order to enhance entertainment value, we don't need to remain "neutral" or "leave it up to the reader" to decide. See Professional wrestling. - LuckyLouie (talk) 23:53, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

text: @Cyberia23 It's possible that the difference between a scientific investigation and a paranormal reality TV show doesn't matter to some readers, but to others, there is a tremendous gulf between them. It is not "making the decision for the reader" to label them accurately. On the contrary, by being more informative and not presenting them as two of the same thing, we are empowering the readers to decide for themselves whether they are equally reliable.--Trystan (talk) 17:44, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I do realized there is a difference on the approach of the investigations; whether one group did it to actually try and solve the mystery, or did it for television ratings, but in each case the group went out and conducted an investigation - so both are investigations despite their findings and should be under the same section, that simply being "Investigations." You all seem to think that I'm defending FoF's work over what the college did, and I'm not. I'm simply saying that even though the college may have showed it to be an illusion, you'll still have those who believe it's paranormal. Therefore, by separating them into two categories between what the writers of this article deem "mainstream" and "fringe" you're not taking a neutral stance on the subject. My suggestions, if you have to label it - the section should be "Investigations" and then maybe sub-category them into "Michigan Tech Investigation" and "Fact or Faked Investigation" or whatever.  Cyberia23 (talk) 21:28, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

text: No cross or nails. But have you read WP:FRINGE? It requires that we "deem things mainstream [or] fringe". And 'neutrality' does not mean we have to make fringe ideas seem plausible in order to avoid offending people who believe in them. Just saying. - LuckyLouie (talk) 22:16, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

text: Except in the article, we are not using the word fringe. Paranormal Investigation is an acceptable term to all paranormal investigators. If FOF didn't like the term, they wouldn't  use it (or used it as a working title). I see no reason to object to have a term that is acceptable and used in the paranormal investigation community.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.47.67.193 (talk) 04:21, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, sorry for the confusion, I wasn't saying we should use the word 'fringe' in the article. Calling it a paranormal investigation does conform to WP:FRINGE by clearly indicating the 'fringe' view (investigation includes tests for ghost voices, etc) of the FOF effort. - LuckyLouie (talk) 15:56, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scientific Investigation vs. Reality Television Coverage