Module Six: Final Project Ideas

I am currently deciding between three datasets for the final project. Two of these are from amongst the selection provided to us already. These are the “Haunted Places in America” dataset and the “Account of Losses Sustained by the Oneidas & Tuscaroras...” dataset.

I am interested in exploring the Haunted Places in America data because it seems like a lot of fun. I’ve always been super interested in paranormal stuff, so the opportunity to work with paranormal data on any sort of academic project would be awesome.

In terms of questions, I think my main one would be determining what types of locations are most likely to have reports of hauntings? For instance, are hospitals more likely to have reports of hauntings than schools? It would also be interesting to see if any outlier states exist, perhaps with small populations but lots of reports, or vice versa.

I was drawn to the Account of Losses Sustained by the Oneidas & Tuscaroras dataset, because of my research into the “Sullivan Expedition” for my seminar paper. Having researched the destruction suffered for not allying with the revolutionary forces against the British, I’d love to dig into the other side more.

I’m not sure if I’d have a question for this data, my idea at this point would be more to make it visually accessible and boost recognition of Indigenous allies.

The third dataset I’m interested in using is the “Bigfoot Sightings” data compiled by BFRO and under Timothy Renner on Data.World. Similarly to my interest in the hauntings data, I was drawn to this by my interest in the paranormal. I am also interested in this dataset because both the raw data, and cleaned data are available, so I’d have versatility to adapt my project as I dug more into the data.

For just the Bigfoot data, I would want to see if there is a time of year, in a given region that an individual is most likely to see Bigfoot? Does that time of year correlate in any way to peak hiking times?

Timothy Renner also has provided datasets with sightings of Dogman and UFO’s, so it would be interesting to combine those three, perhaps even with the hauntings data as well. Without getting too much into it, there has been interesting research into Bigfoot that suggests “comorbidity” for lack of a better term, with other paranormal phenomenon. It would be interesting to see to what extent the data backs that up.

With the combined datasets I think it would be cool to see if certain states are more prone to paranormal activity than others, and whether more populated states report more of a specific type than others. For example, it could be assumed a more populated state would have more UFO or ghost reports, than outdoorsy encounters like Bigfoot or Dogman.