By Juan A. Torres – Paranormal Association San Tan
The Driving Force Behind Paranormal Researchers
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 the Bronx, New York, with several odd occurrences that would happen from time to time in the home where I grew up. 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 too 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 not to this day found any suitable explanations for some of the things that I had experienced in my youth. 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.
