Who is Beardo? The sceptical believer behind Beardo Gets Scared

I'm Beardo, and I make paranormal content from a really awkward middle ground. I believe I have had strange experiences, I believe other people have had strange experiences. The paranormal is fascinating to me, but, I'm not going to pretend that every bit of dust that reflects into a camera lense is old aunt fanny, I'm not going to pretend that every knock is some malevolent entity from the other side trying to warn me that 3am is death, and I certainly wont believe every badly edited shadow figure is proof of an afterlife.

I want to believe, I also won't be mugged off by bad evidence and fakery!

That statement right there, that is what I mean by sceptical believer, or at least what I mean when I label myself that.

I am not here to sneer or mock people for having a belief, I don't do this to ruin fun or poop on the party. And I'm not going to pretend that I have all of the answers in either debunking or investigating, you wont see me dramatically pointing out dusty old aunt fanny while heavy breathing and looking shocked.

What I do is seperate the genuinely interesting, from the misidentification and from the blatant fakery. Because somewhere between blind belief and total cynicism is the much more fun much more interesting place I sit.

So what is it I actually do?

On Beardo Gets Scared, I look at paranormal videos, ghost investigation videos, haunted locations, spirit boxes, EVP's, poltergeist claims, viral "PROOF" and all manner of internet based spooky nonsense that gets passed around like it's the holy grail of paranormal evidence, because no dude, bro, you didn't nearly die, you have not quit and that app isn't a direct line to Satan himself.

Sometimes I react

Sometimes I go to locations to investigate

Often I debunk

And sometimes I wonder how a grown adult can mistake broken radio signals for the voices of the dead.

But my goal has always been the same:

Find the truth behind the claim

That doesnt always mean something is fake, sometimes it's a misunderstanding, sometimes it's bad information, sometimes it's wishful thinking, sometimes it's misidentification.

Often times, it's editing, exaggeration, fishing line, masking, dodgy apps, expensive junk equipment, blatant lies and people desperately trying to convince you that isnt their brother with the oppacity turned down, or that, that bin bag is a shadow figure CAPTURED ON CAMERA we nearly died again.

But, on occasion something pops up that is genuinely weird enough for me to say, "oh that's interesting. That's the stuff I want to find, it just seems YouTube isnt exactly the greatest place for that.

I don't debunk the paranormal, I debunk bad claims.

That is important to me, people hear the word debunker and assume that we debunkers all hate the paranormal, we all hate believers and we just want to turn up to locations, stick our head in, shout fake and be done with it.

That's not me, I have spent thousands of pounds on hiring reportedly haunted locations, I have travelled the country in search of something interesting.

So I don't think every person that believes is stupid, I don't think every paranormal investigator is dishonest.

But, I do think the paranormal field has a massive problem

In fact it has several, just quickly for this blog,

1, bad evidence is often treated as proof

2, entertainment gets dressed up as a legitimate investigation

3, obvious fakery is defended and protected by loyal fanbases

4, asking reasonable questions of extraordinary claims is treated as some form of personal attack!

It isn't, questioning a claim is not attacking a person, but, I will call out fakery and dishonesty when I see it, and I will defend myself against campains to smear me and other debunkers. Wanting better evidence and more transparency in the field doesn't make me closed-minded. It means I care enough to look at if something is actually true.

Why I started doing this

Like a lot of people I have always been fascinated by the paranormal, in fact as a kid, the idea of ghosts and ghould terrified me, but, I kept reading about it, ghost stories as scary as they were fired my imagination, hearing those tales of "I don't believe in ghosts, but!", hearing peoples creepy tales of haunted buildings, UFO encounters, time slips and other strange experiences had me always wondering, is there more going on than we currently understand.

That's the kind of stuff that is interesting, as a kid, the enfield poltergeist case had me utterly convinced it was all real, some TV shows came out and they had me hook line and sinker, I could ghost hunt and find proof.

But over time, especially with the TV shows and the rise of paranormal content online, I started seeing the same things over and over again, every knock was a ghost, in time I caught the people talking to those knocks of being the originators of them in the first place! Every shadow was some sort of demonic entity, every SLS stick figure was surely proof of physical beings and not a coat rail, and every app saying "I died here" was proof that YouTube sleuths could link to a murder and poeple in living memories feelings be dammed! But everytime someone would say something evil like, "could that just be something easily explainable, communities woulod ignite like holy water being thrown on an 80s movie vampire.

So I started making videos, they were reaction videos but quickly the videos evolved into something else, a middle ground, where not everything was creepy, and unfortunately more often than not on YouTube there was some form of trickery going on. But, not everything is fake, not everything is real, so...

Lets actually look at it

Frame by frame, with humour, and yes true the odd facial expression that says....can you smell bullshit?

Being open minded means I'm open to being wrong!

People right now are up in arms at the sceptical community, we are all closed minded. These people have mistaken open minded with accept everything immediately! But being open minded means that you are willing to consider all possibilities, it means changing your mind or at least being willing to, when evidence just doesn't hold up.

And guess what, that applies to sceptics as well, if something genuinely compelling comes along, I want to see it, I want to challenge it and I hope it holds up, I want to be challenged, I want to see weird stuff, I want to be creeped out, but not by editing gags and fishing line. I don't need that stupid thumbnail that looks like you just stepped on lego, I don't need fog machines and masking techniques.

This website

This is going to be the home of more than just video links, there will be more blogs just like this, real life updates, investigations, discussions about properties I've investigated, behind the scenes pictures and thoughts, event news, merch drops and probably more than few rants about paranormal nonsense that has annoyed me before breakfast.

Think of this page as a basecamp for the channels and the facebook page, another place where we can drag paranormal claims out of the darkness and shine a big bright light on it. It'll be serious, it'll be sarcastic, sometimes I may get a bit unhinged or angry, but, I will always be honest, even if I am wrong.

Final Thought

I truly believe the paranormal deserves better than fake evidence and garbage devices. I truly believe that paranormal viewers and enthusiasts deserve better than being manipulated. I believe I should be able to question without becoming the vilain, and I believe we deserve a lot better than that creak was lucifer himself shifting his weight.

Welcome to the website, welcome to the weirdness and as I start every video Beardo's Weirdos Boils and Ghouls, welcome to Beardo Gets Scared, a place for believers, sceptics, ghost fans, truth seekers, non believers and for anyone that watched a YouTube video and thought "hang on, is that a wire glint"