[Hooping.org's Editor Philo Hagen spins up something paranormal.]
by Philo Hagen
Last year I shared an interesting story about a hooper in Texas and her experiences in dealing with the paranormal, experiences she believed were being heightened and increased by all of the hooping taking place in her home. Using the pseudonym of Angela Rivers at the time, Jen Rose of Hip Hazel Hoops wrote to us asking, “I was wondering if you’ve ever heard from anyone about hooping attracting or creating any kind of paranormal activity. I think this might be happening to me and I was wondering if you’ve heard of it happening to anybody else.”
Fearful of what neighbors in her building may have thought at the time, Jen and her husband Josh have since moved out of that most unsettling loft inside of an old factory and warehouse that takes up two entire city blocks and into a peaceful duplex in a quiet neighborhood. The shadow people, the mysterious lights, the loud banging noises, the furniture moving and bed shaking have all become things of the past. Jen said, “I sometimes miss the activity in our loft, but we all sleep so much better here. My cat even stopped shedding!” Before we jump to the conclusion that her rather harrowing hoop space experience downtown was all just some kind of fluke, Jen also explained that nobody has hooped in her new home yet either. “The lack of hoop space here is the only thing that sucks about this place,” she told Hooping.org, adding, “I plan to remedy that as soon as I can save up enough cash to build a hoop spot in the back, although I want to do it just for me this time and not as a business.” While things may have gotten much quieter now for Jen, that hasn’t necessarily been the case for everybody else.
Ani May Gyrle hadn’t intended on posting this practice. But, after playing it back she noticed light orbs appearing she had not been aware of at the time. “I’ve noticed seeing the light orbs again in a couple of other videos recorded after this too where I was just sitting around talking with my daughters. No hooping or LED lights cause it to happen.” She also noted, “I practiced both outdoors and indoors on this night and the light orbs could be seen in both places. I also switched to a regular day hoop indoors. There was no one else home with me. There is only the one mirror indoors and no mirrors outdoors and the orbs are flying by in random directions.” She lives in Sacramento, California, USA.
Kayla Smith is a professional hoop dancer and she decided to grab her video camera and head out to record her first hooping video of the gorgeous fall season. But when she played her video back she too discovered something unexpected. “It’s super weird,” she told Hooping.org. “I was alone and when I was creating my video is when i heard it.” Electronic voice phenomena (EVP) are basically recordings of voice or voice-like sounds that are not audible to the human ear. Nobody hears them at the time, but when playing back the recording the phenomena is documented nonetheless. In Kayla’s case you’ll hear the voice in question near the end of her video. She lives in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, USA.
Carla Snow of Flowlab made her way to the gym recently to hoop it up alone before anybody else got there. She set up her video camera and anchored it down and hit record. Nothing seemed unusual at the time, but when she got home and played the video back she too found something unexpected. “I set the camera up in a hurry and it was somewhat crooked – but some unseen hand straightens it out at 0:18.” She lives in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
With Jen’s experiences last year and looking at these few examples I can’t help but wonder if this is all merely a coincidence or if something else is going on. Does hooping attract paranormal activity? On one hand hooping does seem to attract the attention of most everyone. Why would spirits be an exception? Or is it possible that the rotational spinning acts as something of a conduit? We may never know the answers, but the questions sure are fascinating.
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Philo Hagen is the Co-founder and Managing Editor of Hooping.org. He’s been spinning things up online and off since April 2003.