What gear for ghost hunting?

[GoodGuysEatPie]

I'm curious. I've worked as an engineering technician in various fields, lab technician, watchmaker, programmer, materials specialist, and have a broad background that required taking precise measurements, maintaining records, and presenting data. These days my passion is digital video, and a couple of groups have advertised that they are looking for people to help investigate paranormal phenomena. I was thinking that if I decided to take part, it might be worthwhile to bring a new perspective and equipment set to the challenge.

Beanbag

I'm not sure that these groups would like you very much. You frequent a skeptic's board, so it is possible that you will spot their baloney very quickly. If you have all that experience in precise measurements, you know a lot about background, signal-to-noise, systematic errors and random errors in measurements, etc. Once you account for all of those, you take the ghost hunter's fun away. Because, let's face it, most of them want and expect to find something paranormal. If you're a real skeptical scientist, I think you'll just get frustrated and bored with a ghost hunting group.

~ggep~

 

[Beanbag]

I'm not sure that these groups would like you very much. You frequent a skeptic's board, so it is possible that you will spot their baloney very quickly. If you have all that experience in precise measurements, you know a lot about background, signal-to-noise, systematic errors and random errors in measurements, etc. Once you account for all of those, you take the ghost hunter's fun away. Because, let's face it, most of them want and expect to find something paranormal. If you're a real skeptical scientist, I think you'll just get frustrated and bored with a ghost hunting group.

~ggep~

Ah, but how would they know it's me?

Honestly, the intent is to upgrade their capabilities, get some decent measurements for once, and then let them draw their own conclusions from the data. I'm not thinking about laughing at them, just working with them and getting a feel for how they operate. This isn't like infiltrating a Sylvia Browne show .

In a perfect world, I'd like to find a level-headed group to associate with and try some "real" science, with quantifiable measurements. This is partly because I don't think I could keep a straight face around psychics.

Beanbag

 

[Skeptic Guy]

Don't bring a tape recorder, it records sound (duh) and ghosts don't have larynx's so can't produce sound. I used to go over the the TAPS website and it's just full of people trying to put a pattern to the garbage they caught on tape.

Don't bring an EMF detector, unless you expect the ghosts to be using cell phones.

And all you'll do with a thermometer is find drafts.

All you need is maybe a notepad and pen and your critical thinking cap. I have a few of those and am willing to sell it to you for a few shekels.

 

[Denver]

Since so far there is no convincing evidence that ghosts really even exist, I'd recommend looking at what people are using now, and use something totally different (since the current stuff obviously is not working). So be creative, and just try new things or anything that seems reasonable to you. You won't do any worse than the current lot. Maybe you'll have a breakthrough with your own approach.

The other issue, is that there seems to be a difference between ghost hunters, and paranormal investigators. Ghost hunters base their work on the assumption that there are ghosts to find, and mostly seem to already be believers. Paranormal investigators just listen to claims, and try to experience and explain them. So from what I've seen, paranormal investigators can be skeptics, while that's not too likely of someone identifying as a ghost hunter (though I expect there are always exceptions).

 

[Fnord]

Holy Water.

I prefer the 'Jack Daniels' brand over the 'Southern Comfort' brand, but imported single-malt from Scotland is the best. A few draughts and you'll be seeing ghosties, ghoulies and things that go 'bump' in the night all over the place! They seem as attracted to the stuff as are the living...

 

[cj.23]

Does anyone know or ever heard why ghost hunters seem to only hunt at night and with the lights off? From reenactment stories I have seem about haunting ghost can be active during the day and with the lights on. My theory: It is a lot easier to scare yourself with the lights off. Anyone have some better theories?

-Kyle

Hey Kyle, my first rule of ghost investigation is never work at night. The witnesses are usually asleep to start with!

cj x

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

In real science you have to show that your measuring tool actually measures what you say it does. I haven't even seen any attempts to do that with the ghost hunting devices. Someone just decided that cold spots and EMR were evidence. No one has made any attempt to test if one gets the same readings in locations one does not believe there is evidence of ghost activity.

 

[Autolite]

Ghost hunting? I am not even sure if they are in season yet...

 

[Gurdur]

Does anyone know or ever heard why ghost hunters seem to only hunt at night and with the lights off? From reenactment stories I have seem about haunting ghost can be active during the day and with the lights on. My theory: It is a lot easier to scare yourself with the lights off. Anyone have some better theories?

It's easier to get away with groping in the dark.

Plausible deniability, plausible deniability. And in the dark, who knows where a bit of slap and tickle and how's your uncle may go?

.... The witnesses are usually asleep to start with!

That makes groping even easier.

______

What gear for ghost hunting?

Cheesecloth, cheesecloth and phosphorous. Radium only if you've given up caring.

 

[cj.23]

It's easier to get away with groping in the dark.

Plausible deniability, plausible deniability. And in the dark, who knows where a bit of slap and tickle and how's your uncle may go?

Of course, but groping distressed young ladies is all part of the business. It's how you resolve a haunting.
FX: Ghostbusters theme
"Bust feeling makes my ghost good..."

cj x

 

[Clairvoyant_Kyle]

Ghost hunting? I am not even sure if they are in season yet...

Now that’s funny!

-Kyle

 

[blutoski]

In real science you have to show that your measuring tool actually measures what you say it does. I haven't even seen any attempts to do that with the ghost hunting devices. Someone just decided that cold spots and EMR were evidence. No one has made any attempt to test if one gets the same readings in locations one does not believe there is evidence of ghost activity.

There have been calibration attempts, but the problems revolve around defining a baseline by locating a 'known unhaunted' and 'known haunted' location.

The positive results (locations consistently correlating between equipment and mediums/intuitives' double-blinded positives) could be bad randomization.

In other words, there have been attempts, but otherwise, I agree with your conclusion.

 

[blutoski]

What do these people use in their line of "work?"

Different ghost investigators use different approaches. Teams on TV are not representative.

The best formalized system was developed by [PSICAN].

I wouldn't go so far as to say that I 'approve' of their approach, but it could be worse: they say that the two tools you need to take to an investigation are a pencil and notepad.

 

[Uncle Vanya]

A shotgun and a chainsaw (for extra effect lop off a hand and replace it with your chainsaw).

Ghosts are undead, after all.

Evil (un)dead.

 

[Dr H]

I'm interested in seeing just what people are looking for, and the equipment they're using these days. I can understand the "no digital camera" line because the images are way too easy to manipulate, plus depending on the sensors and the electronic shutter methodologies used that interesting aberrations can be created in the camera itself.

Um... it's not all that hard to manipulate film images, either. I do it all the time. And
aberrations will occur with any lens if the appropriate conditions obtain: lens flare; "ghosts"; chromatic fringing; light-falloff; barrel distortion; etc., etc.

Countless people have mistaken simple lens flare for "ghost orbs", and it's a piece of cake to produce an actual transparent "ghostly" image through double exposure in a dark or dimly-lit room. And if nothing else, the print from a film image can be scanned into a computer, PhotoShopped(tm), and then printed back onto photo print paper.

So I don't really see any particular reason to avoid digital cameras, unless you intend to take really long time exposures of still images.

Candles for detecting air currents seems kinda old hat, plus a bit dangerous. Cavers would hang a long strip of aluminum foil from the chamber ceiling to measure air flow (some caves "breathe," and watching the foil gave you an idea of the period). I think quarter-mil aluminized mylar would probably work better, plus there's some really handy non-toxic theatrical smoke-in-a-can that would be good for tracking air currents.

Portable -- even hand-held -- aenemometers are available.

The electronic evidence interests me, mainly because I'm wondering just how they manage to pull a discernable signal out of all that noise. I would think something similar to brain-wave analysis, where you hunt for specific frequencies, would be the rage, what with all the FFT and signal-processing packages available for laptops available these days.

Depends on what you mean by "signal". One of my alter-egos is as a music composer, and I have done considerable work in electronic and experimental music. I have built whole series of pieces in which the sound source was nothing more than a white noise generator. By running white noise through a bunch of filters and manipulating the filter parameters you can produce an astonishing range of sounds, pitches, timbres, envelopes, etc.

In other words, there is no signal hidden in the noise; the signal is being created from the noise. With enough gear you can get people to believe they are hearing anything from cellos, to drums, to voices in the finished product. Also, there is a natural tendency of the human brain to attempt to organize sustained random input into recognizable patterns. With sufficiently immagative listeners you can get away with less gear and get the same reaction

I'm looking for hardware, not for having a bunch of psychics wander the grounds and then give me their impressions. Yeah, you can play statistical games with opinions, but I'm more interested in things that are quantifiable, rather than qualitative. Of course, I realize that if such a thing had been achieved, then Randi would probably be one million dollars poorer.

The real issue is -- and always has been -- that the subject matter you propose to study ("ghosts") has never been adequately described in quantitative or qualitative terms. In other words, there is no agreement on what sort of measureable physical parameters might be associated with "ghosts," and so deciding what sorts of things to physically measure is problematic.

If you have the equipment (and the budget) there are all sorts of physical things that can be measured, from temperature variations, to radio waves, to nuclear-magnetic resonance. You could have a seismograph and measure the movements of the tectonic plates. You could use a photovoltaic array to measure the amount of moonlight incident on the scene under scrutiny. You could bring in a mass spectrometer and run a profile of gound water chemistry. . . and on, and on.

None of which will tell you if you have measured a "ghost", since there isn't any agreement on what sorts of things, if any, can be measured about ghosts (if, indeed. there is any such thing as a "ghost" to measure.)

BTW, I'm impressed by the rapid response to the thread, of which I'd rate the responses as 65% serious.

Well, if you've got the cash to blow and you happen to be a techno-geek into equipment for its own sake, I suppose it could be an interesting hobby. But IMO all you will be doing is collecting equipment.

Have fun.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

There have been calibration attempts, but the problems revolve around defining a baseline by locating a 'known unhaunted' and 'known haunted' location.

The positive results (locations consistently correlating between equipment and mediums/intuitives' double-blinded positives) could be bad randomization.

In other words, there have been attempts, but otherwise, I agree with your conclusion.

Considering that last sentence, take this as a criticism of the ghost claimers and not of you, but that argument fails on its circular nature.

The whole reason temperature variances and EMR were chosen to test for ghosts in the first place was because those two things were supposedly associated with ghost sightings or other ghost experiences. If they are not so associated, then it wouldn't be bad randomization, it would be failed correlation.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Beanbag, you don't need any gear.
Just a sharp pair of eyes and an objective attitude.


If you want to use any equipment, use only stuff you are familiar with. Don't borrow equipment unless you know how to use it. Charge all batteries and carry spares.
Most important is record keeping.
A compact digital camera with a spare battery and / or charger- take lots of pics of doors and movable objects, as other people will swear a door has closed / opened and it's nice to have an actual record of how a place looked when you got there and of who was near the door when it mysteriosly closed. If you have two, or several memory cards, record video as well. Record what the other people present are doing and saying as they are the source of any data you are likely to get. You won't get a clear pic of a dead cavalier, but you may be able to show that someone else's mysterious shot was caused by them having a finger over the lens.

A notebook and several pencils. (Pens quit at strategic moments)

A voice recorder. Don't worry about EVP, just use it to record the behaviour of your fellow ghost hunters. Make sure they know you have it. (cameras record sound, too!).
In fact, forget the ghosts. Watch the watchers. You will learn much about psychology and nothing about ghosts , except what you should already know. There are none.

As for temperature, any thermometer will do. Water freezes at zero. If there's rain on the window, it ain't freezing, even if you have goose pimples.

We all get spooked in spooky places. Accept this and note your own reactions. Then dismiss them and get back to watching. If you are with one partner, don't play silly pranks. He / she may be really scared. Watch for nervousness in others and allow for it in their behaviour.

Oh and take a flask of hot coffee. Or two.


ETA- Interested to see that cj23 came up with pretty much the same list I did, despite leaning (I think) considerably more towards the "There's something there", POV than my extreme hardline sceptical stance.
So this may be a reasonably definitive toolkit, whatever your stance.

 

[blutoski]

Considering that last sentence, take this as a criticism of the ghost claimers and not of you, but that argument fails on its circular nature.

The whole reason temperature variances and EMR were chosen to test for ghosts in the first place was because those two things were supposedly associated with ghost sightings or other ghost experiences. If they are not so associated, then it wouldn't be bad randomization, it would be failed correlation.

Originally, it was a post-hoc correlation situation, but I'm talking about the challenge for actual double-blind testing.

What I meant by 'bad randomization' is the tendency for humans to report similarly, even if the phenomenon is supposed to be randomized.

This was the problem with the remote-viewing experiments:
* The sender was asked to pick a random location out of seven photographs.
* He went to that location an attempted to transmit to the receiver back in the lab.
* The receiver back in the lab was asked to select the location from the set of seven photographs.
* The correlation was far above average.

Explanation: some locations were more interesting than others, and *everybody* chose them, giving a false positive. They shouldn't have let the sender select the target - the problem was improper randomization. It was also probably a mistake to have husband/wife teams, since they were far more likely to share interest in the same photograph.



In the case of ghost hunting, these electronic devices give wonky readings in every location, but it is left to the operator to arbitrarily describe readings as 'anomalous' whenever they more or less find it convenient. ie: when they're in a creepy location.

It's not a coincidence that the psychics also report a spectral presence in creepy locations.

So, the challenge would be to set up an experiment where we could move the ghost around from creepy location A to non-creepy location B, but we can't. The experiment just can't be randomized.

 

[cj.23]

I think SoapySam our agreement stems from the basic fact that when faced with a ghost case we would both take the same method of investigation - namely, what did the witnesses see?

This is the thing I find utterly bizarre about the modern ghosthunting scene - its fascination with technical gizmos. Now I a can sort of see why - in the 19th century new discoveries in EMR like X rays, popular knowledge of atomic structure, and increasing use of radio waves etc led to a situation where the "psychic" may have appeared just another level of relaity not easily empirically observed, but real nonetheless. Hence the great interest in scientific circles in the early SPR, etc, etc.

As time progressed, so more and more technology was adopted by ghosthunters. Elliot O Donnel and Harry Price popularized a particular approach to hunting ghosties, namely the vigil approach, where the aim is to capture evidence of a "spirit" on camera, or on some recording medium. I refer to it as the "safari approach."

The important thing about this approach is that you are trying to witness the phenomena for yourself, and get proof.

I'm afraid I cynically always felt it rather unlikely the Headless Harlot of Old Happenstance Hall would flash her ectoplasmic orbs at me, no matter how long I waited.

My approach, and that of most SPR associates who work in this area has historically been rather different. Don't focus on trying to see the ghost, focus on the witnesses. So sure i have hundreds of hours of tape I guess, and a lot of notepads filled with accounts, but I have always been primarily interested in not seeing ye olde spook myself (with a few rare occasions on "poltergeist" type cases) but on "what did they experience, if anything?"

Shows like Most Haunted and Ghosthunters (USA) might tangentially touch on the witnesses, but only to provide a context for the shows main protagonists who are out to "get the spook". In 19 years of dedicated research, I can claim about five really unusual experiences personally, to me or my colleagues. Bearing in mind I have worked on three long term studies involving dozens of nights in the same locations, sleeping eating and living with the witnesses, and have a 200 investigations + to my name, well that is a bloody low "hit" ratio. Any TV crew filming my adventures in spook land would be panicking by the end of series one, as ratings reach only those whose cat has urinated on the remote and are physically unable to turn the tv off or smash it, and those suffering from chronic insomnia!

I have done about 20 investigations with gadget armed colleagues in the last three years, none of which has produced anything of interest. Well we found radio alarm clocks can give off high levels of EMF, that several houses have their mains earthed to the water pipes, and that 1970's tills give off extreme amounts of EMR compared with modern microwave ovens. Does that count?

Yet "everyone knows" ghosthunters come armed with gadgets, and my interest in interviewing the witnesses in daylight and trying to recreate what happened,rather than sitting around in the dark straining every nerve to "feel something", and frankly sceptical approach to psychic evidence has made me rather a pariah in certain circles -- so be it.

I take the common sense attitude most ghost cases grow out of misperceptions of perfectly normal phenomena, and that understanding the people and the history of the haunt, not as in "was a Victorian child murdered here?" but as in "when did this story start, who was the first witness, and how has knowledge spread from that point on of the alleged haunt?" is a better way to proceed. It don't make good TV though!

cj x

 

[Soapy Sam]

I think SoapySam our agreement stems from the basic fact that when faced with a ghost case we would both take the same method of investigation - namely, what did the witnesses see?

Absolutely.

This is the thing I find utterly bizarre about the modern ghosthunting scene - its fascination with technical gizmos. Now I a can sort of see why - in the 19th century new discoveries in EMR like X rays, popular knowledge of atomic structure, and increasing use of radio waves etc led to a situation where the "psychic" may have appeared just another level of relaity not easily empirically observed, but real nonetheless. Hence the great interest in scientific circles in the early SPR, etc, etc.

Indeed. I don't blame Lodge et al for thinking wierd things lurked in the unknown. Wierd things did- and then as now it was physicists / chemists who were finding them. Ectoplasm and X-Rays were equally odd. One proved real, one not, but the only way to find that out was research.
What is interesting is how gullible these eminent scientists were when presented with deliberate or accidental fraud- which is basically Randi's First Law.

As time progressed, so more and more technology was adopted by ghosthunters. Elliot O Donnel and Harry Price popularized a particular approach to hunting ghosties, namely the vigil approach, where the aim is to capture evidence of a "spirit" on camera, or on some recording medium. I refer to it as the "safari approach."

The important thing about this approach is that you are trying to witness the phenomena for yourself, and get proof.

I'm afraid I cynically always felt it rather unlikely the Headless Harlot of Old Happenstance Hall would flash her ectoplasmic orbs at me, no matter how long I waited.

My approach, and that of most SPR associates who work in this area has historically been rather different. Don't focus on trying to see the ghost, focus on the witnesses. So sure i have hundreds of hours of tape I guess, and a lot of notepads filled with accounts, but I have always been primarily interested in not seeing ye olde spook myself (with a few rare occasions on "poltergeist" type cases) but on "what did they experience, if anything?"

Spot on. What interests me here is how witnesses mislead themselves and each other unconsciously. I do not believe in spirits at all - but I do believe some people honestly see things (which I take to be internally generated) and that other people, knowing those people to be honest, themselves believe in the reality of the hallucinations they have not, themselves, seen.

This is where chasing the witness trail is crucial. After the event, person A will say he saw X until repeatedly brought back to the question "When did you see X", when he will blithely admit that he did not actually see X himself, but person B did and A was with B at the time- So instead of doubting B's sighting , they support it despite failing to see it. Third parties then accept that X must be real , as both A and B "saw it". There is no conscious fraud here- just bad record keeping and normal human interaction.
Much other witness evidence is simply due to inattention or nervousness. Some is due to investigators misusing equipment they are unfamiliar with and again producing anomalies, but this time electronically. This includes the old issue of battery failure- which is so often seen as proof of spirit activity, instead of proof that batteries drain if overused by excited people.

Shows like Most Haunted and Ghosthunters (USA) might tangentially touch on the witnesses, but only to provide a context for the shows main protagonists who are out to "get the spook". In 19 years of dedicated research, I can claim about five really unusual experiences personally, to me or my colleagues. Bearing in mind I have worked on three long term studies involving dozens of nights in the same locations, sleeping eating and living with the witnesses, and have a 200 investigations + to my name, well that is a bloody low "hit" ratio. Any TV crew filming my adventures in spook land would be panicking by the end of series one, as ratings reach only those whose cat has urinated on the remote and are physically unable to turn the tv off or smash it, and those suffering from chronic insomnia!

I have done about 20 investigations with gadget armed colleagues in the last three years, none of which has produced anything of interest. Well we found radio alarm clocks can give off high levels of EMF, that several houses have their mains earthed to the water pipes, and that 1970's tills give off extreme amounts of EMR compared with modern microwave ovens. Does that count?

Well, actually... yes. This is real data.

Yet "everyone knows" ghosthunters come armed with gadgets, and my interest in interviewing the witnesses in daylight and trying to recreate what happened,rather than sitting around in the dark straining every nerve to "feel something", and frankly sceptical approach to psychic evidence has made me rather a pariah in certain circles -- so be it.

I take the common sense attitude most ghost cases grow out of misperceptions of perfectly normal phenomena, and that understanding the people and the history of the haunt, not as in "was a Victorian child murdered here?" but as in "when did this story start, who was the first witness, and how has knowledge spread from that point on of the alleged haunt?" is a better way to proceed. It don't make good TV though!

cj x

I have no TV and have never seen any of the "Most haunted" series.
It sounds to me that your approach makes far more sense. While I do not believe paranormal phenomena occur, I do think research into why people think they do is important. Sadly, I find those who feel this way tend to be mostly believers by definition. What the SPR and SSPR need, is more honest sceptics- but the believers tend to view sceptics as well-poisoners (which seems to echo your experience).
In addition- and this is rarely discussed - many people who report or complain of hauntings are emotionally or mentally disturbed to start with- and their belief does nothing to help. Such individuals must be handled with delicacy and compassion, - not as lab rats.