
Ghostly Activities New Approach To Ghost Hunting
2020 has been a year of (ghost hunting) self reflection and testing for me. I’ve spent more time studying physical science and applying it to my ghost hunting technique. For 2021, I’m going to change things up and take a different approach. Get the scoop after the jump.
The Problems With Equipment
Oh boy. My gadgets aren’t really made to detect ghosts. I think we all knew that. They simply detect environmental anomalies, and they’re too sensitive to separate a ghost from normal occurrences.
If you didn’t know, I moved to a new house this summer. It’s a new construction and it is very well insulated and grounded. Mount Rainier, a volcano, is about 30 miles away.
I decided to test my different gadgets to see if they get the same results in a house without a haunting as they do AT haunted locations. I’d compare my home investigations with my ghost hunt reports.
For the tests, I used the usual gear:
- REM pod
- Mel 8704-R meter
- EDI+
- Footstep tracker
- Zoom H4n
- Full-spectrum camcorder
Reality of Ghost Hunting Gadgets
I didn’t capture any anomalies on video, so I’ll leave that out.
Most of the other gear triggered on the slightest, natural anomaly. For the EMF detectors, they would flicker and randomly increase and decrease in the middle of the room (± 0.1mG to 2mG). The temperature had the most variations and the EDI+ would trigger its air pressure warnings. Any temperature change by a few tenths of a degree cause them to go off. An increase in temperature would make air pressure higher; colder temperatures lower air pressure. The geophones popped when cars drove by; trains crossed a half-mile away; and subtle swarm quakes happened from Mount Rainier. I captured what I thought was EVPs, but I live in a big open area with a few neighbors. I mapped the EVPs collected to when they were outside, but I couldn’t hear them. What can I say? Sound waves travel.
The wannabe scientist in me was simply disappointed. I mean, you really do need a completely closed environment to protect against normal people activity. If I were at a haunted location and captured these changes, I would say it’s likely haunted.
But it also inspired me to be more particular in experiments and locations.
Engagement As The Primary Experiment
In 2021, I’m going to focus more on experiments that show force and movement. If an apparition and EVPs get collected along the way, that’s just icing on the ecto-cake.
The reason deals with physical science. If you can get an force to move something like one of the glowing cat balls, then you have a physical manifestation. You can say something came into the natural world to take action.
The normal world is filled with anomalies. There’s nothing that says a ghost will create electromagnetic fields or cold spots. It’s just a guess. There’s also too many valid reasons for EVPs. Even apparitions under different light conditions can have very normal reasons.
But physical movement is another thing.
Documentary As Evidence Collection
I’m going to focus more on video. I know, I know. I’ve been doing that. But I haven’t shown the full setup and reasoning behind the experiments. I’ll film from the client interview, through the setup, and the evidence collection.
My ghost hunting team does see if any setup could give a false positive, like stepping near a glowing cat ball, to see if it will trigger. We check to see if each gadget could be defective before the experiments.
I’ve usually focused on just the evidence snippets for this site. Now, you’ll get the full she-bang.
As I was writing this, I thought that these videos will look like a ghost hunting show. That’s not really my intent: I just want to show the experiments, but you need the full context to see if the evidence is legit.
So, this pandemic-thing needs to wind down before I can really get out there. Let’s hope by summer 2021 things will be back to normal.