There are a lot of videos posted by mellowb1rd user on youtube about poltergeist activity in his home. This is one of them. He has good good rating on almost all of his videos? Are his videos real, if fake, how are they fake?
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I think this is a duplicate of: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/788/do-ghosts-exist – Nov 03 '11 at 23:11
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4Well, there is no proof that it's anything better than some simple special effects... – Sklivvz Nov 04 '11 at 00:06
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3`He has good good rating on almost all of his videos?` Is this a question? Why don't you look it up yourself? – user unknown Nov 04 '11 at 00:47
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3all of the objects could have easily been moved by someone outside of the field of view - there are two entrances to the kitchen, most of the activity happens near these entrances, and the chairs could have easily been moved from underneath the table. – Catherine Holloway Nov 04 '11 at 02:07
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7"Random dude on youtube using cheap effects to "prove" ghosts" hardly qualifies for a widespread claim. How do you expect us to answer it _with sources_ ? Let's draw a line somewhere. Voting to close as too localized. – Nov 04 '11 at 05:50
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1That ghost has no credibility -- he/she is a total klutz! – Randolf Richardson Nov 04 '11 at 07:46
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1As much as I would like to claim it is a duplicate of the other question, the accepted answer there concludes "The best we can do is to debunk specific claims of ghost appearances." That means we have a call to action here. – Oddthinking Nov 04 '11 at 08:43
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5just because someone has a high youtube rating doesn't make him a reliable source (the reverse is more likely the case, sensationalism is very popular). – jwenting Nov 04 '11 at 12:17
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2I would certainly say that those effects don't appear to be very special. – Monkey Tuesday Nov 08 '11 at 10:23
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TL;DR: This is poor evidence of poltergeists. It is (almost certainly) a fake.
We need to consider which of the following two conjectures to believe:
1) The user MellowB1rd is completely honest. He is showing an accurate recording of poltergeist activity. That poltergeist recording demonstrates direct contraventions of our best understanding of the universe - including straight-forward physical laws like Conservation of Linear Momentum. The poltergeist theory also directly contravenes our understanding of Physicalism of the Mind. Despite these results overturning so much of what we know about the universe, they can only be observed through an anonymous person's kitchen, via their camera on YouTube.
2) That user MellowB1rd is a top-grade troll. He uses any of a number of plausible special-effect techniques which have been proposed by his critics on YouTube (Here as some. MellowB1rd himself summarises a few), from as sophisticated as CGI or compressed air lines, to invisible wires and kicking over chairs from behind the camera.
(I couldn't say which techniques he uses, but I notice that his own rendered logo on YouTube implies he has more experience with CGI than his claimed occupation might suggest.)
As skeptics, we can see that there has been a lot of high-quality evidence gained over the years for the physical laws. Anyone claiming they are wrong is making an extraordinary claim and needs to provide extraordinary evidence to the point that believing that there is no such things as poltergeists would be more obtuse than believing there is no such thing as Conservation of Momentum. Easily faked YouTube videos does not constitute such evidence.
We should provisionally accept that MellowB1rd's videos are fake.
Oddthinking
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3option 3: he's honest but is mistaken in believing the observed activity is a poltergeist. Farfetched maybe, but possible. – jwenting Nov 04 '11 at 12:18
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3@jwenting, I confess I did consider that option, but I just couldn't see how it could apply. Come up with a plausible scenario in which (for example) his mates are pulling a spectacular prank on him, and I will happily edit it in. – Oddthinking Nov 04 '11 at 12:31