{"id":1403,"date":"2009-03-01T01:10:03","date_gmt":"2009-03-01T06:10:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paganpages.org\/content\/?p=1400"},"modified":"2009-02-24T14:37:51","modified_gmt":"2009-02-24T19:37:51","slug":"paranormal-investigations-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/2009\/03\/01\/paranormal-investigations-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Paranormal Investigations"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, you want to be a ghost hunter? <\/strong><\/p>\n

The paranormal has become quite a hot topic over the past few years and a lot of that is because of television.\u00a0 There are mixed feelings about the effect of television on the paranormal field.\u00a0 On one hand, it has made it much more mainstream and acceptable.\u00a0 People are much more open to talking about their ghostly encounters these days and tourism is booming when it comes to locations with haunted history.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, it has everyone thinking they can run out and buy some gear and hunt ghosts.\u00a0 What happens then is that people become reckless, often times scaring the bejesus out of innocent property owners by telling them they have a house full of demons when in truth they have crappy plumbing.\u00a0 People see all these \u201cas seen on TV\u201d gizmos and think they have all the answers to the afterlife.<\/p>\n

If you watch much paranormal television, you will see several different gadgets, thingamajiggys, and do-dads used to \u201cdetect ghosts.\u201d\u00a0 Some of the gadgets actually print \u201cThe Ghost Meter\u201d on them.\u00a0 There\u2019s the EMF Meter, the KII Meter, the Tri-Field Meter, the digital voice recorder, the Ovilus, the thermal imaging camera and so on and so on\u2026<\/p>\n

The truth of the matter is none of these electronic goodies detect ghosts.\u00a0 These gadgets detect changes in the atmosphere.\u00a0 It is theorized that when a ghost is present, there are changes in the atmosphere; however, the existence of ghosts has yet to be proven, so this is all really conjecture and somewhat educated – and more often than not, uneducated – guess work.<\/p>\n

People that want to start their own paranormal investigation teams often say they will do it once they can afford all the equipment.\u00a0 I\u2019m here to tell you, the only equipment you need is a camera, digital or 35 mm, a video recorder, a tape recorder, a flashlight, a notebook, and the most important and least expensive piece \u2013 good old common sense.<\/p>\n

A lot of paranormal enthusiasts get irritated at groups that always seem to be \u201cdebunking\u201d hauntings.\u00a0 It\u2019s just not nearly as fun as having a bona fide haunted house.\u00a0 Debunking is not a negative thing.\u00a0 It\u2019s the responsible thing to do.\u00a0 For example, if you are examining a haunting and the occupant is complaining of sleeplessness or \u201cseeing things\u201d and you notice their bedroom is full of electronics such as televisions, DVD players, CD players, alarm clocks, lamps, etc., it could very simply be that they have too many electronics in their bedroom and not ghosts at all.\u00a0 High levels of EMF have been found to cause hallucinations among other physical ailments.\u00a0 Of course, if you go into that room with your Ghost Meter, it\u2019s going to go crazy.\u00a0 The occupant\u2019s issues will likely cease upon removing all the EMF from the area where they sleep.<\/p>\n

My partner had a similar case where the occupants were complaining of the baby not being able to sleep and other odd things taking place around their house.\u00a0 She noticed that all of the switch plates were metal.\u00a0 She had them rearrange the baby\u2019s room and told them they needed to contact an electrician.\u00a0 It turned out their house was not grounded and there were high levels of EMF being emitted into the rooms.\u00a0 Once the electrical issues were fixed, there were no more \u201cghosts.\u201d\u00a0 Now, yes, I did say a camera was an item you want to have in your ghost hunting arsenal.\u00a0 But you need to know how to use it properly.\u00a0 There are a lot of paranormal folks that will swear those orbs they get in their photos are ghosts.\u00a0 Well, they obviously didn\u2019t get the memo.\u00a0 Science has proven most orbs captured on digital cameras are caused by dust, reflections, bugs, moisture, smoke, etc.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t believe me, run your finger over a door ledge and snap a picture \u2013 you will get a ton or orbs.\u00a0 Coincidentally, there\u2019s an awful lot of dust being stirred up in some of the abandoned locations and cemeteries.\u00a0 It\u2019s also interesting to point out that before digital cameras came along there weren\u2019t nearly as many orb pictures as there are these days.\u00a0 I am not an expert photographer by any means, but when one person wrote to Canon to inquire about orbs, this is what they were told:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have checked your camera and are happy that the camera meets all design specifications.\u00a0 The problem you have been experiencing is due to a phenomenon not associated with the camera.<\/p>\n

When a picture is taken and reviewed afterwards, circular spots may be noticed on the picture. The problem does not occur with every picture.\u00a0 Additionally, the spots are randomly positioned throughout the picture.\u00a0 Highest concentration is in areas closest to the flash unit when the picture was made.<\/p>\n

The cause of the problem is common to a lot of digital cameras with small CCDs, not just the Canon digital cameras.\u00a0 Such digital cameras have a greater depth of field compared to 35mm cameras, due to their smaller focal distance.\u00a0 This occurs in even higher degree when the camera is set to wide angle.<\/p>\n

Because of the above, small dust particles, droplets of water, etc., drifting in the air close to the camera and not within depth of field for normal 35mm cameras, are within depth of field for digital cameras.\u00a0 Under normal circumstances this is not too big a problem, as these are very small.<\/p>\n

When flash is used, its light illuminates these dust particles or water droplets, and these therefore show up and are extremely obvious on pictures taken.\u00a0 The problem is worsened, because the flash unit is positioned close to the lens barrel.<\/p>\n

Due to the setup and operation of digital cameras using small CCDs (charge coupled device), there is nothing that can be done about this phenomenon.\u00a0 You can take some measures though, to prevent this problem from occurring as much as is possible.<\/p>\n

Switch off flash in environments where there are likely to be small dust particles or water droplets in the air.\u00a0 To compensate for this lack of flash, you can increase the ISO value on your digital camera if this feature is available on your camera.<\/p>\n

Use an external slave flash unit further away from the camera and partially cover the camera’s flash.\u00a0 These units are not available from Canon, but there are third party companies producing such units.\u00a0 Make sure a slave flash unit is chosen which can also be set to synchronize with the second flash as used by Powershot cameras.\u00a0 With Powershot cameras, the first flash is used to measure, the second is the actual flash.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Canon customer correspondence) <\/em><\/p>\n

This is not to say that nothing supernatural ever gets captured on a digital camera.\u00a0 This is also not to say that orbs are never anomalous.\u00a0 There are strange things sometimes captured on cameras, but the sensible thing to do is to have them analyzed and not just assume it\u2019s ghostly.<\/p>\n

One of the new toys in the paranormal world is a gizmo called the Ovilus.\u00a0 It\u2019s also referred to as digital dowsing.\u00a0 It\u2019s a device that creates phonetic speech from the environment.\u00a0 It is pre-programmed with a set of 512 words that sometimes coincidentally make sense in certain places.\u00a0 Each word is assigned a number and when the EMF changes, the words are spoken.\u00a0 It\u2019s very random.\u00a0 Since EMF is not ghosts, I think it\u2019s pretty safe to say the words generated from this device aren\u2019t coming from ghosts either.\u00a0 Is it interesting and entertaining?\u00a0 Sure.\u00a0 Is it ghosts talking to you?\u00a0 Not likely.<\/p>\n

I am pointing these things out because it\u2019s all too easy to get caught up in all the hype of technology and throw common sense out the window.\u00a0 People think they\u2019re being \u201cscientific\u201d with these gadgets but without an incredibly good working knowledge of the technology behind them; they are in reality being reckless and ignorant.<\/p>\n

All of these items can enhance an investigation if the operators are educated about them and understand the margin for error and realize that they are not in fact detecting ghosts with them.\u00a0 It\u2019s not necessary to break the bank getting these things if you\u2019re seriously looking into investigating.\u00a0 I contend that a good amount of common sense and a library card are the best pieces of \u201cequipment\u201d you can have \u2013 and they\u2019re both free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, you want to be a ghost hunter? The paranormal has become quite a hot topic over the past few years and a lot of that is because of television.\u00a0 There are mixed feelings about the effect of television on the paranormal field.\u00a0 On one hand, it has made it much more mainstream and acceptable.\u00a0 People are much more open to talking about their ghostly encounters these days and tourism is booming when it comes to locations with haunted history. On the other hand, it has everyone thinking they can run out and buy some gear and hunt ghosts.\u00a0 What happens then is that people become reckless, often times scaring the bejesus out of innocent property owners by telling them they have a house full of demons when in truth they have crappy plumbing.\u00a0 People see all these \u201cas seen on TV\u201d gizmos and think they have all the answers to the afterlife. If you watch much paranormal television, you will see several different gadgets, thingamajiggys, and do-dads used to \u201cdetect ghosts.\u201d\u00a0 Some of the gadgets actually print \u201cThe Ghost Meter\u201d on them.\u00a0 There\u2019s the EMF Meter, the KII Meter, the Tri-Field Meter, the digital voice recorder, the Ovilus, the thermal imaging camera and so on and so on\u2026 The truth of the matter is none of these electronic goodies detect ghosts.\u00a0 These gadgets detect changes in the atmosphere.\u00a0 It is theorized that when a ghost is present, there are changes in the atmosphere; however, the existence of ghosts has yet to be proven, so this is all really conjecture and somewhat educated – and more often than not, uneducated – guess work. People that want to start their own paranormal investigation teams often say they will do it once they can afford all the equipment.\u00a0 I\u2019m here to tell you, the only equipment you need is a camera, digital or 35 mm, a video recorder, a tape recorder, a flashlight, a notebook, and the most important and least expensive piece \u2013 good old common sense. A lot of paranormal enthusiasts get irritated at groups that always seem to be \u201cdebunking\u201d hauntings.\u00a0 It\u2019s just not nearly as fun as having a bona fide haunted house.\u00a0 Debunking is not a negative thing.\u00a0 It\u2019s the responsible thing to do.\u00a0 For example, if you are examining a haunting and the occupant is complaining of sleeplessness or \u201cseeing things\u201d and you notice their bedroom is full of electronics such as televisions, DVD players, CD players, alarm clocks, lamps, etc., it could very simply be that they have too many electronics in their bedroom and not ghosts at all.\u00a0 High levels of EMF have been found to cause hallucinations among other physical ailments.\u00a0 Of course, if you go into that room with your Ghost Meter, it\u2019s going to go crazy.\u00a0 The occupant\u2019s issues will likely cease upon removing all the EMF from the area where they sleep. My partner had a similar case where the occupants were complaining of the baby not being able to sleep and other odd things taking place around their house.\u00a0 She noticed that all of the switch plates were metal.\u00a0 She had them rearrange the baby\u2019s room and told them they needed to contact an electrician.\u00a0 It turned out their house was not grounded and there were high levels of EMF being emitted into the rooms.\u00a0 Once the electrical issues were fixed, there were no more \u201cghosts.\u201d\u00a0 Now, yes, I did say a camera was an item you want to have in your ghost hunting arsenal.\u00a0 But you need to know how to use it properly.\u00a0 There are a lot of paranormal folks that will swear those orbs they get in their photos are ghosts.\u00a0 Well, they obviously didn\u2019t get the memo.\u00a0 Science has proven most orbs captured on digital cameras are caused by dust, reflections, bugs, moisture, smoke, etc.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t believe me, run your finger over a door ledge and snap a picture \u2013 you will get a ton or orbs.\u00a0 Coincidentally, there\u2019s an awful lot of dust being stirred up in some of the abandoned locations and cemeteries.\u00a0 It\u2019s also interesting to point out that before digital cameras came along there weren\u2019t nearly as many orb pictures as there are these days.\u00a0 I am not an expert photographer by any means, but when one person wrote to Canon to inquire about orbs, this is what they were told: \u201cWe have checked your camera and are happy that the camera meets all design specifications.\u00a0 The problem you have been experiencing is due to a phenomenon not associated with the camera. When a picture is taken and reviewed afterwards, circular spots may be noticed on the picture. The problem does not occur with every picture.\u00a0 Additionally, the spots are randomly positioned throughout the picture.\u00a0 Highest concentration is in areas closest to the flash unit when the picture was made. The cause of the problem is common to a lot of digital cameras with small CCDs, not just the Canon digital cameras.\u00a0 Such digital cameras have a greater depth of field compared to 35mm cameras, due to their smaller focal distance.\u00a0 This occurs in even higher degree when the camera is set to wide angle. Because of the above, small dust particles, droplets of water, etc., drifting in the air close to the camera and not within depth of field for normal 35mm cameras, are within depth of field for digital cameras.\u00a0 Under normal circumstances this is not too big a problem, as these are very small. When flash is used, its light illuminates these dust particles or water droplets, and these therefore show up and are extremely obvious on pictures taken.\u00a0 The problem is worsened, because the flash unit is positioned close to the lens barrel. Due to the setup and operation of digital cameras using small CCDs (charge coupled device), there is nothing that can be done about this phenomenon.\u00a0 You can take some measures though, to prevent this problem from occurring as much as is possible. Switch off flash in environments where there are likely to be small dust particles or water droplets in the air.\u00a0 To compensate for this lack of flash, you can increase the ISO value on your digital camera if this feature is available on your camera. Use an external slave flash unit further away from the camera and partially cover the camera’s flash.\u00a0 These units are not available from Canon, but there are third party companies producing such units.\u00a0 Make sure a slave flash unit is chosen which can also be set to synchronize with the second flash as used by Powershot cameras.\u00a0 With Powershot cameras, the first flash is used to measure, the second is the actual flash.\u201d (Canon customer correspondence) This is not to say that nothing supernatural ever gets captured on a digital camera.\u00a0 This is also not to say that orbs are never anomalous.\u00a0 There are strange things sometimes captured on cameras, but the sensible thing to do is to have them analyzed and not just assume it\u2019s ghostly. One of the new toys in the paranormal world is a gizmo called the Ovilus.\u00a0 It\u2019s also referred to as digital dowsing.\u00a0 It\u2019s a device that creates phonetic speech from the environment.\u00a0 It is pre-programmed with a set of 512 words that sometimes coincidentally make sense in certain places.\u00a0 Each word is assigned a number and when the EMF changes, the words are spoken.\u00a0 It\u2019s very random.\u00a0 Since EMF is not ghosts, I think it\u2019s pretty safe to say the words generated from this device aren\u2019t coming from ghosts either.\u00a0 Is it interesting and entertaining?\u00a0 Sure.\u00a0 Is it ghosts talking to you?\u00a0 Not likely. I am pointing these things out because it\u2019s all too easy to get caught up in all the hype of technology and throw common sense out the window.\u00a0 People think they\u2019re being \u201cscientific\u201d with these gadgets but without an incredibly good working knowledge of the technology behind them; they are in reality being reckless and ignorant. All of these items can enhance an investigation if the operators are educated about them and understand the margin for error and realize that they are not in fact detecting ghosts with them.\u00a0 It\u2019s not necessary to break the bank getting these things if you\u2019re seriously looking into investigating.\u00a0 I contend that a good amount of common sense and a library card are the best pieces of \u201cequipment\u201d you can have \u2013 and they\u2019re both free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1403"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1409,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403\/revisions\/1409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}