Halloween's Coming: Will It Be Trick Or Treat?
27 October 2010
The LIVING promotional poster for the Paranormal Investigation: Live. ( Image courtesy of LIVING)
Dr Rebecca Knibb
University of Derby psychologist Dr Rebecca Knibb is preparing to offer her academic expertise on TV entertainment channel LIVING during the most haunted weekend of the year.
As Halloween approaches, LIVING will broadcast a two-part show entitled Paranormal Investigation: Live. And Dr Knibb, from the University's Centre for Psychological Research, has been invited to join a team of experts to analyse what happens.
Journalist and broadcaster Naga Munchetty, who most recently hosted BBC2's Working Lunch, is presenting the two-part thriller, and investigative historian and author Ashley Cowie will also be part of the team.
Paranormal Investigation: Live is on LIVING on 30 and 31 October from 9pm.
As part of the show, two competing teams of paranormal investigators will delve into supernatural activity at a secret location, revealed to them only at the start of the show.
Working with radically different tools and techniques, the teams will go head-to-head in an attempt to undercover true evidence of the paranormal as part of Paranormal Investigation: Live.
Dr Rebecca Knibb is a Chartered Psychologist registered with the Health Professions Council and Reader in Psychology at Derby. She is an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and sits on the Psychology of Paranormal Phenomena Research Group, a group established in 2008 by members of the Psychology team at the University of Derby interested in the methods and ethics of paranormal research.
Her training as a psychologist enables her to question unusual experiences and further investigate the reasons why people would interpret these as paranormal. In her own words, "It does not necessarily mean that the event was caused by a 'ghost' or 'spirit', more that we don't presently have an explanation for it."
Through her research, Rebecca believes that quite often phenomena which have been interpreted as paranormal have a rational explanation that has not been considered or has been discarded, and it is only once all scientific explanations have been examined and discounted that it can be 'paranormal'.
In 2006, Rebecca helped to organise the world's biggest ghost hunt at Alton Towers which attracted hundreds of participants.
Paranormal Investigation: Liveis produced by STV Productions and seeks to continue LIVING's decade-long association with the paranormal. It will take a serious, rigorous and investigative approach, encouraging fans to support the show and contribute to the content themselves.
Users will be encouraged to submit their own evidence such as images and video, as well as support - and debunk - other users' evidence, the best of which will be featured on the live show itself. The show and website will make the most of existing social networks Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to capitalise on the fan base behind other existing LIVING shows.
Paranormal Investigation: Live was ordered by Living TV Group's Head of Commissioning Mark Sammon and Commissioning Executive Alex Ayling. Mike Morrisey is Series Producer for STV Productions.
