Investigation Methodology and Data Standards — Source Review

Finding. Blinding, randomisation or counterbalancing, and within-subject designs are basic design principles that reduce experimenter bias and improve the credibility of findings.

Source. Munafò, Marcus R., et al. A manifesto for reproducible science. Nature Human Behaviour, 2017. View source

Source type: Peer-reviewed · Reliability: High — landmark reproducibility paper with broad cross-disciplinary uptake. · Classification: Established science

Why it matters for PRN. This is directly transferable to paranormal investigation. If the people collecting data know where the “haunted hotspot” is, know the story in advance, or know which file is the “interesting” one, they can unintentionally bias collection and interpretation.

Finding. NIST defines chain of custody as a process that tracks who handled evidence, when it was collected or transferred, and why, across collection, safeguarding and analysis.

Source. Ayers, Rick; Brothers, Sam; Jansen, Wayne. Guidelines on Mobile Device Forensics. NIST Special Publication 800-101 Revision 1, 2014. View source

Source type: Organisational report · Reliability: High — U.S. national standards body guidance; definition is widely transferable beyond phones. · Classification: Established science

Why it matters for PRN. PRN fieldwork often talks about “evidence” without formal evidence discipline. This source provides a practical minimum standard: every transfer, handler, time stamp and purpose should be logged if a file or device is going to be treated seriously later.

Finding. Digital-preservation guidance recommends transferring hashes with evidence where available and making a record of the transfer in line with chain-of-custody procedures.

Source. Guttman, Barbara, et al. Digital Evidence Preservation. NIST Interagency/Internal Report 8387, 2022. View source

Source type: Organisational report · Reliability: High — current NIST preservation guidance, concrete and highly actionable. · Classification: Established science

Why it matters for PRN. For PRN, this means raw files should be copied in a way that preserves integrity, then hashed and stored with transfer records. Without that, later claims that “nothing was changed” are much harder to defend.

Finding. Scene contamination guidance explicitly recommends considering background control samples and elimination samples where appropriate, showing that “controls” are not optional add-ons but central quality measures.

Source. Forensic Science Regulator. Contamination controls – Scene of crime (FSR-GUI-0016). UK Government, 2023. View source

Source type: Organisational report · Reliability: High — UK forensic regulator guidance with direct application to field collection logic. · Classification: Established science

Why it matters for PRN. Although written for forensic scenes rather than paranormal work, the principle transfers cleanly. PRN investigations should collect environmental controls, equipment controls and ordinary-room baselines so that unusual readings can be compared against what happens when “nothing paranormal” is supposed to be present.