In love with frightening places: Gaurav Tiwari

There are an estimated 25 categories of 'supernatural beings' in India. Which ones have you encountered most often in your investigations?
Indian mythology is very timeworn and so are fictional religious 'entities'. As responsible researchers of paranormal phenomena, we first look for a scientific reason behind any haunting scene and then follow the spiritual aspect (which is very rare and nearly impossible to prove on scientific grounds). We follow a non-religious approach to categorise spirits. Those who walked once as human beings are human spirits. I do not personally think that naming a human spirit pret, chudail, etc. is giving respect to a deceased person. For us, spirits are the consciousness of a human being that survives physical death. They carry the same emotions, feelings, perception as they had while living. However, we have encountered some mean spirits whose nature matches with those entities defined by religion, such as prets, chudails, pishach, jinns etc.

What's the most hair-raising experience you've had as a paranormal investigator?
Fear is something we shed before we go on an investigation. It is basically fear of the unknown which scares us. As a professional paranormal investigator, I have fallen in love with so-called frightening places. Though, there are many places in India and abroad which can frighten any one even in the day. Bhangarh, India, tops the list with no ghosts. Wild animals, thick vegetation, creepy sounds and those sad ruins can send a shiver down your spine.
But the most haunted place that I've ever investigated is the Aradale Lunatic Asylum in Ararat, South Australia. This is the place where 10,000 lunatic patients died. This place is so haunted that even the Australian government has allotted it for ghost tourism. I have collected numerous significant evidences of spiritual existence at this place including a picture of a full body apparition of the famous ghost Nurse Carrey, who has been reported by many visitors. This was the place where I can really say I had a hair-raising experience. I was in a wheelchair during this investigation as I had fractured my tibia while filming for this investigation series called Haunting: Australia. I remember that my wheelchair got stuck at one point and I was unable to move it. It was all around me and I began to hear clear footsteps coming closer to me when I could see no one under my flashlight. It was unsettling for me for a while.

Any places apart from Bhangarh whose haunted reputations you've scientifically disproved?
Most places that we investigate turn out to be just stories. We debunked few stories of Bhooli-Bhatiyari in New-Delhi. We have also recently solved the mystery of computers in the Karkardooma Court library. There are many other points of interest where we seek to investigate but it will happen in due time and with due permission from the government agencies who manage such properties.

Indian Paranormal Society also specialises in UFO investigations. However, Ufology in India is still in its nascent stages compared to other countries. Why is this so?
Indian Paranormal Society has also been publicly looking into UFO and alien abduction cases over a few years in India. Though we would say we are still new with lack of proper equipment and resources for Ufology. Also, the lack of awareness about UFOs and the latest technology keep general Indians away from noticing any such phenomena frequently.
UFO sightings in India are very common and are frequently reported under Hynek's CE 1 or CE2 category sightings. But such news again gets repressed by our media, which calls them hoaxes or polishes it with some generalised rational reason. In countries like the United States, there are many organised private groups like Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) that also own satellites to study UFO phenomena.

From your research, what are India's most notable UFO sightings?
From what I have researched and the genuine reports I have collected in India about UFO phenomena, I can say that UFO sightings are periodically reported and follow the same timetable every year: October-November (west India), July-September (south India), December-March (north India) and March-June (east India). There are even reports of CE-3 category of sightings (sightings of aliens/'greys') from northeast India.

Like Ufology, cryptozoology is a well-known field abroad compared to India. Has the Paranormal Society come across any cryptozoological creatures, or have you been asked to investigate such occurrences in the country?
Indian Paranormal Society has looked into a few cryptic cases in India such as the case of 'bhoot-billi' in Pune and the 'mooh-nochwa' in Barabanki. At both places, when we arrived to investigate, we found there was pressure on people from the administration to not to open their mouths. We had to come back empty-handed without getting fair proof about such creatures existing there. But we could record statements from few people in Barabanki about the mooh-nochwa case that suggests it to be a cattle-mutilation/alien-phenomena case which was quickly repressed by the local administration.