The Paranormal Activity franchise has been creeping us out since 2007 and this Halloween is no exception.  The fourth installment, in theaters October 19th, tells the story of a young, middle class couple that moves into a suburban 'starter' tract house.  They become increasingly disturbed by a presence that may or may not be somehow demonic but is certainly most active in the middle of the night. Especially when they sleep or try to…

After four films, we got the chance to talk to the man that the production consulted with to make sure that what we experience is the real thing.  Christopher Chacon is an anomalist who’s been investigating extraordinary phenomena like poltergeists, haunts, exorcisms and aliens since he was in college.  He began his career as an illusionist, but his curiosity and skepticism took him to where only a few people dare to go, the unknown.  He tries to figure out in a scientific manner what are the strange things that we are fascinated with but cannot decipher.

Entertainment Affair: From magician to anomalist, how did that happen?
Christopher Chacon: When I was in college I was an illusionist/magician and I had a lot of people approaching me saying they had a haunting in their house or a close encounter.  As a magician/illusionist I would help them, but very cynically.  I understand how people can misconceive events and come to the conclusion that they are extraordinary.  After doing that, I started working with a para-psychologist to open the perspective of people’s experience to these phenomena.  For ten years we began investigating on poltergeists, possessions.  It was a different approach because we were taking into account the psychological aspect of these experiences.  After that, I ended up being recruited by a scientific group who trained me as an anomalist.  The approach was completely objective and not come with a conclusion.  What I do now is taking what I know as a method to help people.

EA: How do you convince a skeptical?
CC: As part of my training as an anomalist, I did an experiment that consisted in dividing two groups of people, the believers and the skepticals and have them in a ‘haunted room’.  What my trainers did was place special effects in two control rooms.  When the believers walked into the room, they didn’t use any of the effects and when they walked out, they were saying they saw apparitions and heard voices.  What they experienced was derived from their imaginations because they wanted to experience it.  Then the skeptics walked in, and the researchers used all the special effects.  And here is where the interesting assessment came in, there were a significant percentage of skeptics that when they walked out of the room said that they didn’t see or hear anything.  The conclusion is that their belief system affected their ability to cognitively perceive the events.  They created a blind spot because their brains refused to see that something like that could occur.  The belief systems have a big effect on what you are observing.  If you want to experience it, you can’t be skeptical.

EA: How did your relationship with the Paranormal Activity franchise begin?
CC: It began with the original.  The writer, the director and the producers contacted me because they wanted to know how to market it.  They wanted me to discuss paranormal activities as a whole.  To tell the people who don’t believe in this, that it can be possible and to tell the believers to accept these experiences.  Paramount believes it’s a good marriage between the real phenomena out there and what they have created.

EA: From your experience in the field, how real are the depictions of the paranormal activities in this movie?
CC: The movie was created from their imagination.  In the film, the experiences that the characters are having is very reminiscent of real extreme encounters of phenomena that I have dealt with.  It is extraordinary.  What they’ve done in the film is to print a hybrid of each phenomena: poltergeists/possession/metaphysics for the sake of the story.  Now with a camera phone, you can shoot paranormal activities like the Paranormal Activities look.  The audience is so relatable to what it’s happening.  It looks relatable.

EA: The fact that they are relatable is the reason why people are so fascinated and at the same time so terrified by these movies, right?
CC: Absolutely!  The genre by itself rings people’s belief system.  People go to these films because they want to be scared in their private, safe, little bubble, the same reason why they go to a roller coaster.  You are in control and you feel more alive because your heart is pumping and you just can walk away.

EA: What are you working on right now?
CC: I am working with a poltergeist type of phenomena.  This family moved to a house they purchased and on the first day, they heard doors and windows closing, on the second day, they heard whispers and shadows moving around the house.  On the third day, they felt moisture of like someone breathing on them to the point that they and their dogs are freaking out.  We found in the center of the property inside the house what it seems like all white was being absorbed.  We brought a spectrophotometer to measure this and of course it’s abnormally white.  It is the same location where you feel like a wild vortex.  It is anomalistic.  People ask if it’s demonic or evil and I try not to think like that in trying to assess this phenomena.

EA: Have you changed your perception of religion since you began doing this kind of work?
CC: Yes. It happens naturally.  I was an open minded catholic.  Traveling around the world, I began to become aware of different belief systems and how they manage to explain things that are greater than ourselves.  I embrace a lot of belief systems.

See Paranormal Activity 4 in theaters now!