Blame it on the Moon and other Excuses

Posted by Pamela S. on Thursday, July 19th, 2012

One thing you learn when you are a private investigator, or a police officer, is that no matter how jaded you are, something can always happen to surprise you. You need to be prepared, because you can’t control your environment.  Everyone has seen or heard things that make them wonder if the world is just a crazy place, but we see more than the average person.

I’ve written about a lot of depressing topics lately, so I figured it was time to have some fun, or at least explore a kind of water-cooler topic.

Do people really act crazier when there is a full moon? My neighbor, the police officer, seems to think so. At least he says that they arrest a lot more people on the night of a full moon, and some of the situations are more peculiar. So, maybe you can blame it on the moon.

Someone wrote to NASA and asked them this question. Apparently this topic is outside of their area of expertise, but they responded that scientists don’t see a correlation between the phases of the moon and crime. The reason that police and other emergency responders notice this phenomena is because people are more likely to remember a full moon; hence they will remember what happens on that night. It is also brighter during a full moon, and when you can see better, you notice more. If you live in a big city, there is so much more ambient light that you may not notice how much light a full moon casts. Since I moved to a rural area, I am amazed at how bright the night is when the moon is full and the sky is clear. That is a plus for catching people who skulk around in the dark and for private investigators conducting night surveillance.

Psychology Today is in agreement; there is no scientific evidence. That tiny new-age or mystical part of me (very tiny) still likes to think it is true, that the heavens have some kind of effect on us. There is no scientific evidence for a lot of things, such as mermaids, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist, they just haven’t been discovered yet.

If you are the superstitious type, here is a “Phases of the Moon” calendar so that you can be prepared for those night surveillances, when the vampires and werewolves come out. Or the crazy Twilight fans.

Private investigators spend a lot of time on the Internet doing research. I spend at least eight hours a day online, usually more like fifteen. By two in the morning, I wonder how much I have actually learned.

In 2008 Nicolas Carr wrote “Is Google Making Us Stoopid?” in the Atlantic Monthly. Carr points out that people aren’t reading entire books the way that they used to. He mentions a study of online research habits, conducted by scholars from University College, London, which found, “ It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of “reading” are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense.”

I agree with this, and it is getting worse. Now it is to the point where many people don’t even want to read paragraphs, they want visuals. Why read a blog post or article when you can look at an infographic? I have added some infographics to this post. What do you think? Some bloggers take up their entire post with an infographic. I’m not saying that you can’t

gain some valuable information or statistics in an easy to read and entertaining fashion, but we are dumbing down. Private investigators need to keep their minds sharp. That means reading. Sentences.

I tried to lighten up the mood of this post even further by finding some good P.I. jokes. Guess what? There are plenty of lawyer jokes, cop jokes, but no good private investigator jokes, good being the operative word. We have a sense of humor too. You try sitting in a vehicle for over eight hours on a hot, relentlessly sunny day, or a moonless night, alone, with a full bladder and a craving for coffee.

Former FBI Assistant Director Tom Sheer has recruited the best from the FBI, DEA, IRS and Secret Service to build a formidable team at Sheer Investigations. Our private investigators have the sensitivity and experience to handle the most delicate investigations.