Ghost Hunting 101 | Paranormal Investigation Tools & Theories

My name is Greg. Today we're going to be talking about ghost hunting. Andy here is going to explain to you and me, well, those that don't know what ghost hunting is, he's going to break it all down for us so we can get an idea of what we're looking for or what to expect.

Right. One of our goals is to go out and try to do some of this ourselves. So we need to be a little more familiar with all of the things that go into ghost hunting and paranormal investigation as a whole. There's, you know, plenty of equipment that's involved that we're not really familiar with. I haven't been out. Greg knows pretty much zero about ghosts in general, let alone the actual hunting of them. One thing is you need to be a little more educated on the types of hauntings that we might encounter. Like certain places might have several of these. As we talked about on Waverly.

Right. We already kind of touched on the shadow people, which confused the ever living crap out of me. And then in our Black Eyed Kids episode, we talked about some kind of shape shifting situation, which is not necessarily a haunting, but. But spooky stuff.

Some of these. Some of these things cross over.

Okay. Yeah. Spooky stuff in general. I think all of it kind of like falls under the umbrella, right.

Until we really know what things are. I mean, they. They could be maybe Black Eyed Kids are a haunting of a sort.

Who knows? I don't know. I definitely don't know.

So we're going to go down a few different little categories here.

Okay.

We're going to start with a residual haunting.

Okay. That word makes sense.

It's a real word. Okay. So if it's a residual haunting, it's not going to necessarily interact with you. It's going to be repetitive, almost like watching a recording of something that happened in the past.

Okay. So something happening over and over again, kind of a predictable situation.

Right.

I see the same thing unfolding numerous times.

Yeah. It could be something as simple as an apparition walking down a hallway. It could be going through a basic task that they do, maybe cooking or cleaning or just walking into a room.

So it's like it's. It's a memory. It's.

Right, It's. It's. It's almost like an imprint on a location.

Okay, so is that something. That's a location specific thing, Right? That's something that happened here. And they're going through these. The same things are happening and you're kind of seeing it.

Right. And it could be.

Is that all. Is that a ghost necessarily, or is that going back to the weird energy thing that we talked about?

Well, that's. That's definitely a thought. Like, it could just be that there was a trauma that happened here, or just enough energy occurred in this place.

That you're keeping to see this still occurring in flashes.

Right. And there's even thought that maybe this isn't a haunting. Maybe a residual is maybe a glimpse into the past, whether it's a. I don't know, a portal or a time slip of sorts.

Okay. Okay. You know, an interdimensional thing where, like,.

Maybe we're classifying it as a haunting, but, I mean, well, interdimensional. Maybe it's not even of our world. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's a strange way to look at it, but, you know, maybe. Maybe that person didn't ever live in that house. Maybe they lived on that house in dimension X or.

Right. I mean, if you get to like a multi earth kind of theory thing, you'd be going, all right, well, the. The choices made here are different from the choices made here. And each one of those things create a branching reality and then so on and so forth. But it. You could still have that in encroaching that reality, encroaching on your current reality.

Right.

Something. Some kind of weird.

So theoretical thought, science, if we were investigating a residual, I would say would be looking at the history of the home.

But, yeah, basic stuff. We're trying to look into another dimension. I think it'd make more sense to look into the history of the place.

Well, I mean, we could look into other dimensions.

Yeah, easy.

You know, I don't want to, you know, just step right to that.

No, no. I mean, you don't want to make that kind of leap.

That. That's kind of a big season finale type thing. Right. That's big cliffhanger. Yeah. You know, given away that I can look into other dimensions. I don't. It's kind of early to be given that to the people. So if it's not a residual, if. If it's something that is more interactive, we're going to call it an intelligent haunting. Okay. So this would be something kind of maybe you would see in the movies where you've got cabinets opening, you've got noises you can't explain, you've got footsteps that are not repetitive necessarily. It's something that is clearly trying to get your attention.

Okay, here's my. So it's trying to get my attention. Right. So this is something you said intelligent haunting is something that's a little more active. It's not.

Think. Think of Waverly with the boy that interacts with the ball. At the ball.

Okay, yeah, right. But what. What makes that intelligent? Because if I can say that, like, if I. At Waverly, I roll the ball, the boy rolls it or bounces it or throws it or flings it on my face or whatever, that doesn't seem necessarily intelligent to me. It still seems like a response. Like a response to something. A response to some kind of stimuli does not equal intelligence. I would think that intelligence would be communication.

I mean, if we're looking at EVPs. If you're looking at.

Okay, okay. So that's encompassing all of this stuff. It's very wide.

Yeah. You're. You're more likely to get an EVP off of an intelligent haunting than a residual.

Yeah, but something that moves. Moves furniture. Okay. I'm a. I'm a ghost. I used to be a human. Why can't I just be like, yo, I'm gonna pick up this pencil. If I can move and open cabinets, why can't I pick up a pencil and then put something onto paper and be like, read this?

Well, it's funny you say that.

Oh, okay.

There are instances of. Not necessarily a spirit writing itself, but maybe writing through someone.

Okay, why couldn't. Probably a subject for another writer themselves. If they're intelligent and they're able to do all these other. Interact with all these other objects, why can't I flip up your laptop and write you something? In a word, Doc. Why is everything got to be so abstract? Well, that cabinet is open, and I didn't open it. Well, you don't. That's not intelligent. That does nothing. That's no problem for the dead person.

The intelligence on the classification here is strictly just.

They move stuff.

Yeah. It's not necessarily saying that.

Why aren't they moving?

That they matter and even know they're dead. Maybe it takes more energy to do certain things. These are all hypotheticals.

I get you. I got you. I mean, at a certain point, I.

Am not a spirit, so I don't know what goes into necessarily moving an object.

Why can't a spirit send me a text message if they're able to do all this other stuff?

Okay.

If this spirit has been dead since the 1800s, they can still. They still know how a pencil works. They still know how these things work. I just don't understand.

Maybe they're looking for a quill. Do you carry a feather with you?

I'm a ghost and I'm watching you day to day life. And I see that. Oh, well, they wrote a note they put on this, this they put on the refrigerator with a magnet. Oh, I noticed they use this object because I'm a ghost and I'm watching them.

Well, maybe he's not watching. He's got other things to do.

What other things does a ghost have to do other than open all my cabinets, move all my furniture around?

Well, that takes a lot of time. I can't just sit around and figure out how a cell phone works.

They have all the time in the world.

And plus I'm busy figuring out how does digital recorder works.

They've been dead for 200 years and they can't observe something and figure it out?

How do you know?

Sounds like ghosts are really stupid, but go ahead.

Obviously you know more than I do. They've been dead for 200 years, all of them.

I'm just saying, I'm just saying if you happen to have a 200 year old ghost, it doesn't matter if I have a 20 year old ghost. Should be able to figure it out. They at least know how computers work. Why hasn't anybody ever sent a message, a clear, indicated message.

Now that you say that.

Now that every time that I say something you say now that. Now that you've said that, I have an example that I've pulled out of my butt. Go ahead.

Well, I don't have an example of a ghost using a computer, but it could happen.

Anything could happen. If I say a thing and you go yeah, that could happen, but it hasn't. That's the problem. Problem.

There are things that we could discuss.

You just don't want to discuss them. Right?

We're not on that, we're not on that subject. We're talking about ghost hunting right now.

Then we'll, we'll pin that.

We're talking about, we're talking about classifications.

I get it. I'm just trying to question this classification.

I can't say that every ghost that we're going to encounter was, you know, from mit. They like, they're not necessarily intelligent. That's just the classification. They could be a,.

Could walk, watch me write something every day for eight years or however long this chimpanzee has been dead and they could figure out how to pick up a pencil and at least scribble something on a, on a, on a sticky note.

Not if they don't know where you keep them.

This is. All right, you want to know what? I'm ready for the next one.

Let's go to the next one.

Okay.

All right.

This one's gonna make me even more mad.

Very similar to intelligent.

All right.

It's a pretty similar category. I know you've heard the word before. Poltergeist.

Poltergeist. I've watched the movie.

So you've heard the word then.

Exactly.

It comes from German.

Ah, poltergeist. Poltergeist.

And it means noisy or technically rumbly ghost.

Ooh, rumbly ghosts. So mean ghost. Is that what we're saying? Not necessarily Disruptive ghosts.

Disruptive is probably more. More accurate. It's a lot of the same. A lot of. Of commotion, a lot of noises, a lot of clanging cabinets.

Is poltergeist a subcategory to intelligent Haunting?

I would kind of say so. It's. It's a separate category, but similar. Yeah.

I don't know why.

One of the differences is these usually ramp up. So you start out with just some noises, and then maybe it's. You can't sleep at night because it's all night long. Or it's.

So there's a progression to it. There's a progression.

Or.

Or it just starts out.

These. These could even lead to more physical attacks. People have reported scratches on their body through. In certain haunted places that we would category as more of a poltergeist.

Go ahead. Go ahead.

You. You know, maybe the objects that are moving could hit you as it ramps up. Usually the poltergeist ramps up, whereas the intelligent is just. Things are happening here.

It's kind of annoying here and there.

Yeah. Is it a different type of ghost? Maybe. Is it. You know, just. Maybe there's not really a difference in the ghost. Maybe this one is just more vindictive or more mischievous or.

But again, there's so many more effective ways of communication. I'm gonna repeat the same thing. If a ghost has so much control over the area that it's in, why is it acting like a tired toddler?

But is that what's important to them? Maybe. Maybe they don't care to tell you why they're there, why they're doing what.

They're doing, what motivation does a ghost town. But I mean, I mean, really, if I'm dead, and maybe I don't know that I'm dead. Okay, let's go.

That was another point I was going to make.

I don't know.

A lot of times maybe they don't know that they're even gone.

Guess what? I don't know that I'm dead. But then I'm trying to talk to.

You and you're not answering.

And I'm gonna write it on a piece of paper.

Are you?

Yeah.

If you're in a. If you're in a crowded room and you're trying to get someone's attention and they're just like, no, I don't care what you got to say. Are you gonna write something down and put it in front of them?

If I've tried over and over and over again, eventually I'm going to learn that, you know what me push around this furniture and slamming their drawers, or.

Are you going to reach out and scratch them or throw a cup at their head?

I'm not going to do me as an. I'm not going to do that to somebody. Why would I do that?

But every person is different, though. There are people that would get violent.

This doesn't make any sense. Because that's not your first stop.

You're also not dead.

It just doesn't make any sense. Why are dead people so stupid?

Like I said, it's not intelligent. Is just. No, it has nothing to do with their actual smarts.

People.

And a lot of people, only really,.

Really stupid people are ghosts.

No.

Then none of this makes any sense to me.

Well, that seems to be your problem. I don't.

I don't know why I'm. I'm doing. I'm. I'm asking simple questions and I'm getting dodgy answers.

Well, I'm not a ghost.

I get it.

So I can't explain to you how much it takes to write a message.

Why does it take more effort to write a message versus throwing your furniture around and scratching the ever living?

I know you're not attached to your body. Maybe. Maybe they're not even thinking I want to get this person's attention. Maybe they're just like, incidental.

Maybe they're struggling with trying to get control of.

I'm trying to figure out how to be a proper ghost.

And so is that the next category? Proper ghost?

No, you're not gonna like the next category. Oh, we're gonna talk about that in a minute.

A lot of things already.

No. And this is going downhill quickly.

Okay. All right.

I can't wait.

Let's.

Okay. You want to move on? Let's forget about. Because that's the intelligence of the ghost. Okay. All right. Let's forget about moving objects. Let's forget about writing on pieces of paper.

Gotcha. I'm pushing that out of my mind.

Because all three of those categories, we would definitely Most likely associate with a former human. With a deceased person. Correct.

Okay.

Like we. We would both be on the same page there.

Sure.

If it. If we're going along the normal ghost hunting routes. Those are. Those are just. Those were people cool.

Yeah.

All right. Maybe dumb people. According to you.

Very stupid, stupid people. But people gotcha.

That maybe couldn't move on or whatever.

Whatever. I don't know. Go ahead.

So the next category would be a demonic haunting.

Okay.

You're nodding your head at me in agreement with your displeasure of this category. And I haven't even described it yet.

Nope. Already I got mad.

So obviously not a human.

Okay. Yeah, it's a demon. It's in the name.

It's. Yeah. Pretty easy. It's not somebody that died in the house. Something has invaded your home that is not of this world.

Why?

Because he was bored, I guess. I don't. You're asking me questions that I can't answer. This.

The demonic stuff. Right. I mean, I think. I think with all this. And I. Part of the reason that I struggle with this stuff, it requires a certain kind of belief in. In. In religion.

Correct. If you're. If you're taking the strict definition of a demon.

Yes.

And obviously a lot of people in this world are religious, so that's where that comes from.

Right.

Now, is it your biblical demon born in a lake of fire and decided to come up and pay tribute to Lucifer and do his bidding? I mean, not necessarily. If there's good in this world, whether it's biblical good, religious good, naturally you would think there is evil.

Okay.

There's a good and a bad. There's good and bad people.

This whole balance thing that everybody always gets like, all right, we're going to talk about ghosts. You want to know the one that's most feasible? Okay, I'm going to kind of recap where we're at. The one that's the most feasible, but still terribly outlandish is the beginning. Now we're going to get into demons, which is adding a other. All kinds of other magicy.

We have escalated very quickly.

Yes. All kinds of. You're asking a lot from someone to be like, all right, so now demons like you just dropping this out there like I'm playing doom. That is even further fiction from. Once again, the ghost aspect.

Let's get away from the definition that you get from the category. The category is assigned by.

We can't say demon without. How do you. Well, it's a demon. But don't worry about all the other baggage that comes along with the word demon.

Well, I mean, we know as much about this as we do the other one. So maybe this is a dead person. That is just really bad.

Okay. All right.

We're going to define it the way that I have seen it. But even the people that have defined it before, we don't know if they're demons. We don't know if they're dead people. We don't know if it's anything. This is just a different category of what has been reported.

Okay. All right.

I'm going to use the word demonic because of the associations with it.

Okay.

We're differentiating it from the other ones in a specific way. This is.

We're putting a title to it. We're not too worried about what the words mean. We're just saying we are separating this from the other category.

On the whole, if you say demonic, most people are going to get the same bad ideas. Well, but even if it's not the exact same definition, but it is associated.

With all that stuff because you have things like exorcisms, you have the whole. The medieval demon thing where it comes like, you know, like the Dante's Inferno and all that stuff. Like, you're adding this other layer on top of it. Demonology.

And it does fall into that category. This is where you get exorcism. This is where you get people that believe in that. Having priests come in and bless the house. Because this is a different type of haunting.

Right.

This is something they associate with pure evil. So this is where they. They get that.

This is where all that stuff's tied very close to very closely religious. Yeah.

And so generally, the people that are going to categorize it as a demon are going to be heavily religious.

Is. Is it a common thing? And this is a genuine question. And I don't. The religious aspect, I don't have a problem with somebody's religious and what they want to believe in. I personally don't. Don't believe in that stuff. But it is to each their own. There's no judgment associated with it. Is a lot of this, like, the ghost aspect of it, would you say? A lot of people are people who believe, like, have a religion, not even one that's necessarily that structured, but they think when there's that comfort, right, you die, you go somewhere else. We don't want to just die and don't exist anymore. You know, you want to have your conscious continue and you. Do you believe. Do you think that most believers in ghosts are also believers in some kind of religion or Afterlife, even if it's not even a structured religion.

I would, I would definitely think so. I mean, okay, if you just look at us, you, you've already expressed yours, you have no beliefs. You, you did grow up with some beliefs, but, but for a long time you, you haven't really had any interest in it whatsoever.

It just doesn't make any sense to me personally.

And so you're not really interested in the paranormal stuff, especially the ghost stuff. It's something that you didn't really ever believe in. And so, I mean, that kind of fits what you're saying. I grew up religious. I have gone away from it. And I mean that's where some of my interest maybe came from it because growing up I did believe in that kind of stuff and was taught that kind of stuff.

But you still also kind of, you also consider yourself a believer. You do think these, you do think there is something.

Yeah, I don't necessarily think it fits into a religious system necessarily. Like I said.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Demon. To me, demon is a word definitely associated with the Bible. I'm talking about more religion, personal faith. Personal faith. Right, right, right. But I'm just saying there's definitely good and evil out there. Just as a concept.

I see it and we're getting really deep in the weeds, but I like it. Evil is an easy way to describe human, just humans.

It's, it's definitely a human concept.

Well, it, but it's easy way to separate myself, who I consider good from somebody who does something heinous. It's easier for me to add that distance between me and that person so that I can go to bed at night and not have to worry about it. When really all those terrible things that happen in the news and things that happen in the past and everything else are, it's, it's human nature. Now there are mental conditions, there are sickness. But labeling people as evil is a way for us to just feel better about ourselves because all we really are, I mean, we are inherently violent creatures. Right, right. Like, it's just, it's the nature of humans to do terrible, awful things to one another and to other things. It's it and, and sectioning yourself off by going, that's evil in my mind is, is self serving. It's just making you feel better about it.

I mean, it can definitely be a matter of perspective.

It actually is because every, every person has a great propensity for good and evil. I didn't make that up. Somebody else said that that's smarter than me. But it's we're no different like animals and everything else. Like we're the same. We are animals. We do the same thing. We just can. We've just added a construct on top of it. And then for us to feel like we are not a part of that obviously heinous and terrible part of humanity, we label it as something else. And I just think that's a little bit irresponsible in a way. That's my rant, but that's. I'm going in unnecessary conversation, but a necessary conversation for everybody to understand where I'm coming.

So kind of necessary though, I mean, because of how this is categorized and we're going to encounter a bunch of people that will strictly go by these guidelines and we're going to encounter counter people who are more loose with them.

Right.

So it, I mean, it's a conversation that's going to come up, you know, whether we're talking about cryptids or we're talking about ghosts or we're talking about aliens, all of those things are going to encounter religion and morality and, and everyone's beliefs are going to influence their beliefs in this stuff.

Yeah.

And. And so it is a relevant conversation, I think most, most importantly in the ghost section of the paranormal.

And there might be a better format for us to explore this deeper.

Right.

Other than talking about the basics of this. I just can't help but to go off topic.

No, I mean that was, that was a perfect time with this category that like, I knew this was going to set a debate off.

Right.

Just because of the name of it.

Yeah, just because of the. Just because of what it implies, really.

I mean, I, I could have just.

Called it bad ghosties.

Bad ghosties are more, more forceful. I mean, there's many ways to. Category that is just the most common. And yes, it does come from a religious aspect. Does it necessarily have anything to do with that? No, this is all just perspective.

I feel so much better that I had like a solid, A solid two minutes.

I'm very glad. I'm glad you got all that off your chest.

Yeah, I feel better.

So I would. Can I continue? Okay. Okay, we'll finish. About the demonic hauntings, the bad ghosty hauntings.

Mean ghosties.

Mean ghosties. They. They tend to cause more harm. Obviously they're bad ghosties. They do that. So it's not just noise, it's not just commotion. It's not just footsteps in the attic. It's. This is where you get into possession. This is where you get into physical harm that can be done. This is where. These are the ones where people are wanting to move immediately. This is where people are calling in priests or calling in, you know, some sort of specialist. This. This is where you don't just have ghost hunters come in and check for an evp. Like, this is a bad situation. It's. It's more serious than the other ones. They believe that these are the kind of spirits that feed off of your fear. They. They want you to be scared. They're. That's why they're doing the more interactive things. We talked about that on Waverly with the shadow beings, the shadow figures. Are they related? Maybe? Like, these are the type of things that. That live on that kind of stuff. If you believe that aspect of it, could it just be that the people are more frightened of it? Could it be that it's maybe a ghost that has learned more? Like you said, maybe they. They know how to interact with things more so they get a reaction that the other ones don't.

These are ghosts looking for particular responses.

Like, it seems to be.

Yeah. Like, they're out there and not worried about.

They're not worried about whether they're going to be found. They're not worried.

They're, like, attacking their own attack mode.

Right.

Gotcha.

This is. This is the one you don't want to encounter.

Okay.

I mean, maybe you do. Sounds fun.

I mean, I don't want to get beat up by something invisible.

I.

It sounds terrible.

I'm okay with being scared out of my mind a little bit.

Okay. Yeah.

I mean, maybe not the possession part of it.

I mean, I guess that would prove something one way or another. Yeah. Possession would be terrible.

I'm not a fan of pea soup.

Yeah. No, I don't want to be vomiting.

At all, so, you know, not a fan of vomiting either.

I like my head did not rotate 360 degrees. That'd be great, too.

I mean, if the camera's running, though.

I mean, get it. Get that footage. Got to get that footage. So, you know, anything. Anything for the gram.

That's right. All right, so that's the categories. Let's. Let's get a little bit more scientific.

Okay.

This is the kind of stuff that you're gonna be able to counteract maybe.

Okay.

Or at least look into a little.

More, do some research, and then have a revival.

Some of the, you know, some of the tools that are used.

I'm not a scientist, so I can't necessarily say that I'm a.

But go ahead. Well, no, but. But you can do a little research. Talk to a little people. This is where we're going to get a little deeper into this kind of stuff.

Okay.

So I mean the obviously cameras, right? Any sort of camera. Obviously the more high end the better.

Okay. Maybe just resolution wise, it's just.

Yes, but you know, any type of camera you're going to take on an investigation, any photos you can get, you know, base evidence and then, you know, does something show up that's an easy1. An EMF. Electromagnetic fields. Supposedly if a ghost is trying to show itself or trying to interact, it's going to set off electromagnetic fields. It's going to give off electricity.

Okay, why is that? I mean every human, a human body generates.

You do generate some, but dead usually just the energy of this feels like manifesting.

This feels like talking about the spirit. Which again goes back to some kind of religious life. Well, they're looking for the electricity. Is not the human body like electrical impulses from the brain to the heart to the. It's. Oh no. This is your essence that generates electricity.

Well, it could be that or it could just be the, the manifestation of something. I mean there's energy all around us, but in order to interact with something, it's going to give off some sort of energy.

Yes, there's a, there's different, there are different definitions of energy, but.

Correct.

There are different types of energy, but energy is energy. So you know, you have kinetic energy, but that a kinetic energy wouldn't be something that would be electric, magnet, electromagnetic field.

Right.

This is, this is what, this is the confusing part to me. I don't, I. In general, I don't understand why. And maybe that's something we're going to.

Have to look at.

Yeah, I don't think that's something that you can answer either.

Right. This is just something that is.

It sounds like hooey to me. Unless we're talking about the spirit and if somebody believe in that and then say that we can detect it, then. Okay, but saying that this is a device that's scientifically proven.

We definitely need to find out more about why this was ever thought of to be used. It is something now that, you know, when there is an evp, when there is something moving in the room, there is usually a detection of energy. So the EMF does go off if they have one.

And that could be. There's. There's such a wide array of things that could set that off.

No, and, and that's one thing that you want to do. They usually when you're investigating like a home that is you know, currently being lived in it obviously has electricity flowing through it. They have power. You want to shut all that off. You want to make sure you're not near outlets, wiring, that kind of stuff, because that will set it off. So that's precautions that you need to take. Obviously, if you're in an abandoned building, there shouldn't be any wiring that's going to set it off. So there.

Is that really what you'd have to do. You'd have to. Whatever place you're investing, which would be. This would be impossible. But you'd have to build Faraday cage around the place. Like, you'd have to isolate.

That would be very helpful.

You'd have to isolate. That's the only way that you would get any reasonable. There's microwaves, radio waves. There's so much stuff everywhere. In general.

Well, you want to start off with base readings, too. You want to, you want to take it around the room, see what again, I understand.

Yeah. You want to gather the.

Obviously it could change.

You want to, you want to get a control. Right. You want to get a control and then you want to run. But there's just, there's so many variables associated with it that I, I don't know how that would be a reliable detection method.

Right. It's. It's going to detect things. You're going to get, you're going to get energy.

You don't know what you're going to get.

Right. But is it a coincidence that it goes off at the same time that you got a recording or that the cabinet shut?

Right.

Part of it is that I get that it can obviously detect something at the same time and you could have two random occurrences.

I'm struggling, and this is me as a skeptic and as just me as Craig. I don't believe that somebody's had a meter out and watched a drawer slam shut and then looked, looked at a reading. I do not believe that that has happened. Anybody can tell me that this has happened. Somebody that says, oh, I was there. It didn't happen until I see it happen. This is, this is part of the problem. You can't tell me. Well, we get a spike in our EMF reader as soon as the drawer closed. No, you cannot just say things like that without showing me those things happened. So anything that does not have EMF and video record at the same time with timestamps that prove that it happened at the same time, it did not happen, period.

I can't wait till this happens to you, period.

This is the problem with all this stuff, and this is my problem with the ghost hunting thing in general. A lot of it is people telling people that something happened that means nothing. Everybody has a cell phone, everybody has a camera of some type. There better be this data collection and this video evidence associated with it. If it, if that does not exist, then your claims are. Your claims don't mean anything. It's just the way it works. I think especially with this ghost hunting thing, everything should be documented so that everybody can see it. Because if we want to have an argument about if this is real or if this is not real, we better have some actual proof. And I mean proof, not just somebody saying that something happened.

I think you're getting very upset about electromagnetic fields. And let's move on to the next one. Let's just, let's move forward.

Okay.

I appreciate it. I appreciate you getting very upset about the passion over emf.

Yes. I can't wait for the next thing for me to get agitated about.

Oh, I'm excited about you getting upset about this.

Okay.

I'm getting a chill about this one. It's the IR thermometer, the infrared thermometer. I mean, you've seen a movie. What happens when a ghost appears?

It gets cold. The breath, you know, you can see your breath. Right, right.

So if a ghost appears in the room, the IR thermometer should drop. The temperature reading should go cold.

Okay. By how many degrees does it count as a ghost? Exactly?

Huh. I am not a professional ghost hunter.

Right.

So I don't know the numbers to tell you.

Uh huh.

We're gonna find out.

I guess we will.

When our EMF and thermometer go off at the same time and the ghost shut taps you on the shoulder, it writes me a letter and well.

Oh yeah, okay. Sorry.

You wouldn't understand it. We're not gonna have pens and paper out. That's.

I'm absolutely gonna bring a pen and paper.

How barbaric is that? I don't have pen or paper on my list of ghost hunting apparati.

I'll bring a laptop.

Well, of course we're gonna do that. We gotta have something to record the date on.

Nevermind. All right, go. All right, so it gets colder. Next. I got nothing else for that.

I knew you'd love that one.

Yeah, I mean, what am I. It's gonna be the same argument that I had before. Nobody can give me anything on this. I mean, this is why it's so important for us to go and do it. We have to be able to go. Nothing Nothing. Nothing. And if we do see something. Right. The idea is to put all this data together and to be able to show it, not talk about it. Talk about it is one thing. I can make a goofy TV show on the History Channel about, oh, I filmed in the wrong direction, but did you hear that noise? Nobody ever shows me anything. There needs to be something that is shown. Yes. This is the shot across the bow. This is the episode that it happens. You need to show proof.

Obviously, you don't know how television.

When you show me proof, I meant this is to anybody. You show me proof. Talking about it and saying that something happened means nothing. That's it.

Okay, so you don't like the thermometer.

I don't like any of it. I don't like any of this.

But what you're gonna love.

Go.

Is motion detectors.

Perfect. All right, go. Tell me about motion detectors.

Tell me how well they detect motion.

Thank you. Yep.

When you get near it and you move, it goes off.

Cool.

And we're just. Skip that because I know you don't like it.

Wait a second. No. All right, so what kind of are we. Is any of this locked down to a certain set of equipment? Like, is there something that's calibrated depending.

On where you go on the Internet, you can buy specific ones for way overpriced amounts that work better.

Okay, so we're talking about, like, yeah, what are people using? What is the control? What is. All these things are important. You can't just walk out somewhere, go, like, I got a motion detector that I bought from Walmart that I put two AA batteries in, and I held it up, and then it made a beep noise.

But that technically it should. If it's working for one, it should work for no.

All. No, no, no, no, no. Because you have different levels of sensitivity. You have some of them that are going to be terrible that you're going to get Baba. That's gonna pick up any particulate in the air and it's gonna go off. Then you're gonna have other ones that don't pick up anything that you have to have devices and equipment that has a certain. I can. I can tell when this set of data.

This is.

Okay, I can write that set of data off because I know that this reacts to this, this, and this. So I know anything here. And there's. There's no rhyme or reason to anything. That's my.

Should be a more defined parameter for each of these. Everything there definitely should be.

You should be able to test with, you know, you should be able to go, this is the one that to use. Not because it's the one that gets results, because it's the one that may not get results.

It makes. It makes the most accurate results is what you should be looking for.

The problem is also, it's a ghost. Why does it set off a motion detector?

Well, if it's moving near it, it would set it off.

What is a ghost made out of? That would set off a motion detector. I'm so confused by this.

Well, so am I.

So it's an emf. Okay, so it's electromagnetic energy.

It's still.

But it sets off a motion detector. Why would it set off a motion. Which is.

This is why more scientists need to be involved in this instead of just people.

I think there's a reason why more scientists aren't involved with this. Because they look at it. Because this doesn't make any sense.

They're not involved in it because it's not a proven thing that they can test. They. But that is. Should be out there.

That is also true. But. No, but the problem is when you putting these things together and we haven't gotten. Well, we've talked about two different things or three different things, and none of them line up together. None of them are working the same aspect. Why would. If a ghost is made of electricity, why would it turn cold? Doesn't make any sense. So now we're already getting into something else. We don't have a clear path. We're just going, well, it's this thing, this thing, this thing, this thing. Cause we pulled all these things out of our butt and we went, this is how ghosts work. When nobody has any idea how any of it works because they've got 30 different tools that measure 30 different things.

Well, maybe if they'd pick up a pen and a paper and go, well, the reason I give off cold temperatures is because of this science. And the reason that I give off electricity is because of this. So maybe it's the ghost's fault. No, maybe I was blaming the scientists, but maybe it's the ghost's fault.

No, no. The problem is, is when you're looking for a bunch of different things that are unrelated, you're gonna find something. It. You're. You're casting the widest net possible. You're casting a net the size of the Atlantic Ocean to fish the Atlantic Ocean. Like, it doesn't make any sense.

If you're casting a net the size of the Atlantic Ocean to fish, you're probably going to catch some fish.

Exactly. That's exactly my point.

That's a good thing, That's a bad thing. You don't want to catch fish?

No, I want to be able to catch this one particular fish. In this one particular. When I start to go, if your.

Net is the size of the Atlantic Ocean, you're going to catch the one fish you were looking for.

You're going to make me mad. But you're also catching a thousand other fish that mean nothing.

All right, so let's get to the important things that you need. The big evidence items. You want a digital recorder. We want to get an evp, an electronic voice phenomenon. You take a digital recorder, any digital recorder. Some people think some work better than others. A lot of people think analog works better. Basically, you set up the recorder, you can ask questions, you can just leave it sitting. And the electronic voice phenomenon would be a voice appearing or noises appearing on the recorder that you didn't even necessarily hear while you were sitting there. People think that the spirits can manipulate and cause the recording to happen even without you hearing it.

So is that done? Is the reason why people can't hear it is because it's frequency or because they're not listening? Because usually recorders, right. Like any kind of. Like a microphone like we're using right now. Right, right. Records with inside of a certain frequency.

And I think that's what it is.

You think it's frequency related?

I think it could be Frequency. Frequency.

I'm going to tell you that most recorders record in a certain frequency. That is for the human voice.

Yes.

So if I'm asking a question and I don't hear anything and I go back and I listen to this recording, I should have heard something. It's just I've heard some of the EVPs.

Yes.

I've. I've not listened to a lot of them. And I've heard things like. Incidentally, like, you know what I mean? You're watching this stupid program again. I want to talk about the History Channel and the History Channel. And they're like evp and usually it's. And they're going, see, he just said, my name is James and I live down the street. And I went to go get this marble rye from the bakery. And they just do all this stuff and none of it lines up with it. If something is speaking to me, if there's a call and response, I should be able to hear it. Now recording the idle room noise, that's a whole other thing because you're dealing with built up frequencies that could possibly Happen. It's the same thing with, I'm talking, if I'm talking into a room and this room has, if it's any room, it's gonna have some kind of reverberation. And if you don't have it acoustically treated, you're gonna have frequencies that build up in a corner, and those frequencies build up a corner and those frequencies release and they get picked up by a recorder. That's the way sound works, right? Sound travels, sound bounces, sound traps, and different frequencies get trapped in different places. So my thing is, if somebody can't hear it, it sounds like it's just ambient noise.

But how did it end up in there without you hearing it then if it's just ambient noise?

Well, there's also a problem with artifacts, right? Like there's digital artifacts and there are analog artifacts because you're recording to a medium of some sort, right? Digital recording to some kind of solid state medium, and then analog recording to tape, right? All those things introduce certain artifacts. Like it just happens.

And this is something we have kind of discussed as we've talked about this type of thing. And it's something that we need to get our own evidence and then we need to get somebody that can analyze it, that is an expert on recordings.

And also a lot of it is using common sense, right? Like, I know there's been a lot of EVPs, right, that have been examined by people.

Yeah, Other people have done that.

And people, like, people go, can't really explain it. But you, you know, the same way as the, the ghost argument, right, Is taken like, well, you can't say it didn't happen because you don't have explicit proof. The same thing can be said for the other side, right? You can say, well, you can't tell me that it was a ghost because you didn't see the ghost talking and picking up the recorder going, hey, what's up? Name's Steve, right?

It's a lot of inconclusive.

So you're going to have an argument back and forth. But if you just, if you, if, if you use some common sense, and I'm sure there's some things that are really like, I might even listen to because I haven't heard a lot of EVPs. Again, maybe something. I'm like, whoa, that's weird. You know what I mean? Like, oh, that sounds, that sounds.

As we get into certain, you know, stories, we're going to listen to some more. And so there's going to be some that you can hear that obviously some of them are going to be, well, that could just be whatever noise came into it. And it's. It's not really a voice or anything. And then there's going to be some that sound like voices.

Right? And I don't doubt that. I don't doubt there's some of them. They're like, well, that sounds pretty convincing. But there's. There's always going to be some kind of explanation to the contrary. And, and, you know, you talking about us going out and gathering our own data. Here's what I'm going to say about this data that we gather when we start doing this stuff up. You know, we still got some time before we do that, but we want to go out, we want to gather data. We want to get better at it. You know, it's going to take us some time to get all the equipment. You know, we might do it one time, not have this equipment and then give this equipment and come back to it. We really want to look at it and go, we are not going to fool you guys. That's the biggest thing. It's not going to be. I'm gonna be staying in another room and then going, right, that stuff is not gonna happen.

Right. What we're telling you is truth about where we're coming from. He has no belief in it. He doesn't think any of it is real. But he wants to listen to it. He wants to go out and examine it for himself. He wants to be able to maybe contradict some of these points. And at the same time, I do believe in this stuff, but I don't believe that every single thing is definitely fact.

And I don't know how many sources are trustworthy. That's my biggest point. I don't know how many people are manipulating this.

Even if I believe something, I don't know that they didn't deceive me.

Right? I mean, and I'm not saying everybody's a bad actor. No, I'm not trying to say that people are a bad. Every person's a bad actor. There are bad actors gonna happen. And I'm not saying everybody that goes out and they ghost hunt and they get an evp. I'm not saying those are people that are manipulating anything. I'm not saying all of them are like that, but there are some of them that do that. The guarantee is that we won't do that.

Right. And. And we are both interested in getting factual information, Whether it proves or disproves either one of our sides. We just be honest.

Here's the biggest thing is we'd have to be really stupid to think that it was gonna do one thing or the other, because it's gonna end up being the same thing anyway. It's gonna be, well, you can't prove that it didn't happen.

Right. We're gonna end up arguing over whether some of it is true or not true.

Gonna be doing the same thing. We're just gonna be trying to offer as. Offer what we can, like the best way that we possibly can. Are there gonna be flaws? Are you all gonna call us out when we mess this stuff up? Absolutely. And that's part of the deal. You all hold us accountable. I want you all to be like, nah, you did that wrong. That's stupid. Especially, no, you need this and this and this and this in order to do that. And then, oh, no, you need to talk to this person and explore this thing and do like, that's the point of this show is for me to be against the whole thing and to be with it. But both of us still have an open minds on both sides. And then you all go, you're both wrong. This is why you messed up. And then even our possibly harsh your words are, we need to be able to go, yeah, they're probably right. We need to do that over again. Like, that's just the way this thing's going to work.

But be careful. He's very sensitive.

I'm not. All right. God, so many rants on this episode. Not from you at all. You just been, like, really calm.

I mean, I'm just telling you the facts. See, this is how this works.

We got what else. We got. What else got.

All right, the last one we're going to talk about is. Seems to be the most popular investigative tool recently. It's the spirit box.

And we recently acquired one of those spirit boxes.

We just did.

Yeah.

Basically, a spirit box flips through radio frequencies with white noise in between, you know, picking up a few seconds maybe of each station. The thought is that if a spirit or entity is nearby, it can relay a message through the frequencies.

Why is that, the thought?

Same reason all these other things are the thoughts.

Exactly.

It works.

Made it up.

It works sometimes.

And so what constitutes what working?

Well, the. The methods of using this have varied. Originally, the spirit box, you just set it up and words come through. You take the words for, you know, if they happen to associate with the location you're in or the spirit you believe you're talking to, then obviously, you know, it seems like they're putting a message through now a new method that was developed using the spirit box, which is a little bit more exact, is maybe the word I'm looking for is. It's. It's a little more scientific. It's using a little bit more equipment to get a better answer. It's called the Estes method. It's named after the location it was came up. It was developed at Estes, Colorado. It was used at the Stanley Hotel, which I don't know if you're familiar with.

No.

You have seen the movie the Shining?

Oh, yeah.

That is the hotel that is based on.

Okay.

It is a supposedly very haunted location. Plenty of investigations go on there.

Was that before or after the movie?

This is well after the book. This is well after both of those.

Okay. Was it haunted before? Like, was it a known haunted location before? Yes, it was book in the movie, right?

Yes, it was. It was based upon the hotel. Like.

Okay, so. So when he was. Stephen King wrote the. Was it Stephen King? Yes, Stephen King wrote the book. It was. Because it was already kind of a known haunted.

Right. And it's not named that. It's not the Stanley Hotel in the movie. It's.

Yeah, I don't know what it's called, but. Yeah, I know. Talking about. But it's based off that.

Based on hauntings that occur there.

Gotcha.

So Carl Pfeiffer, Connor Randall, Michelle Tate are investigators. They are. They've been regulars investigating the hotel. So they came up with this method using the spirit box. You use soundproof headphones, and you blindfold. A blindfold. So one person sits with the headphones on, connected to the spirit box and a blindfold on.

So like a deprivation chamber.

So basically, you're. You have no idea what's going on around you. You're kind of cut off.

Yes.

And you have other investigators in the room with you? At least one. And the other investigators are asking whatever they quest, whatever questions they feel are relevant, you know, whether it's to a certain spirit or just about the location, whatever they feel that they want to ask. And the person that is in the setup with the blindfold, the headphones, they will just say what they hear through the spirit box.

So they'll repeat what they hear out loud.

So any words that they feel come through, they just spit them out. And so you're not hearing the questions. You're just spitting out answers.

Okay.

And then you ideally would be recording this whole scenario so that you could go back and piece it together. Obviously, the people that are asking the questions are hearing what the other Person is saying back. So you're getting instant reactions there.

So with this method, when they employ this method, which I understand what's going on. Right. The other person's not influenced by trying to piece together words on the fly about what they're asking because they're just repeating what they're hearing.

Right.

So are they given like a physical prompt to be like, all right, questions over, no answer. No, they're just reading out stream of.

You're just saying, as soon as you're set up, you, you start saying what you hear.

Okay.

And, and you know, the only prompt you would get would be, hey, we're done, you know, oh yeah, it's over.

Now you can take everything off. Yeah. Okay.

So, you know, you start when you start hearing things.

Okay. Yeah. You just go, once it's fired up, you're going. And they could be asking questions and then.

Right. You might hear answers before they're asking or you might not hear anything until they've asked a few questions. It's, you know, it's just what you hear.

Now, has there been proven results from their specific. I'm not talking about other people employing. What was it called again?

The Estes method.

The Estes method. I'm not talking about other people employing the Estes methods, but the people, the inventors of the Estes method have, they've got, have they've gotten it's good results from it.

There have been some that I've seen that did, you know, the answer did link up to the question. They, a couple of them were on the show Hellier on Amazon, there's a couple of seasons of that and they used it in that investigation. A couple of things matched up. They, you know, obviously have used it on their other ones.

How much like do we know the percentage of things that match up and things that don't match up? Like are they calling out, oh, that's nonsense. That's. Well, I mean, a lot of questions and two might have been an answer.

And a lot of it is, you know, looking from your perspective is going to be coincidental or it's going to be, it still could possibly be influenced. So I'll give you that.

So it's running through radio stations, right?

Correct.

Like broadcast.

It's just your regular AM or FM.

Stations just like spinning through the knob.

Right.

Like going through all, all those. So you're getting, you're getting like nothing. Then you're getting maybe some background signals. You're getting like those stations that are halfway in between on frequencies and then you're getting those actual radio stations and then you're putting together anything.

It's a quick snippet of each. It's a second or two of. Of whatever comes up, and then it's white noise in between.

It's a scanner. It's just scanning through all these stations. Yeah. In rapid succession. Right, okay.

And so it seems like there's a.

Lot of room for just coincidence.

There's room for coincidence. It is very intriguing if a specific, specific answer comes up that does match up to a question that you don't know anything about.

A lot of that has to do.

Obviously, there is. There is some bias maybe, because going into an investigation, most of these people know what happened there. However, you don't know what question is being asked. So if you're just going, oh, my mind's on, you know, so and so's death, and you spit that out. But they asked about something completely different then.

But I don't know how much that has. I mean, yes, you have a human element that's involved with it. Right. The biggest problem is putting somebody who. Who believes in these things inside that setup. And then also, you have to think that the success rate needs to be documented. Because if I ask a thousand questions, right, And I don't know, I'm gonna give generous numbers. 300 Were kind of close or maybe tangentially or in some way could be an answer, and then a hundred of them were in it, were a direct answer. Every single one of those would have to be documented, re. Listened to. Because you'd have to remove the human element from it. The interpretation of what somebody is speaking out loud, which the ghost, the spirit box does record. Yes, Right. The one that we got. You put an SD card in so I can record. Yeah, for a time frame. And then you're just matching up time.

So that way you could technically go back and listen and make sure that if I said I heard the word Benjamin.

What makes this successful, though, that's my biggest thing, is employing a technique. And yeah, maybe it's still a technique in. I don't know. How long ago was this? They did.

It's been like seven years.

Seven years. Okay, so there's still a lot of room for data collection and analysis and then determining if you're, you know, I don't think you're even looking for an overwhelming success, but you're just looking for a good percentage of these things to be an answer. Because if not, the technique means nothing.

Right.

Like, it's going to take a long time probably to do that. I mean, I don't know how connected the ghost hunting community is because they should really be sharing this with one another. They should be databasing a lot of this stuff and being like, okay, well, here's all this. We've recorded this much, we've had so that you can put actual success rate and percentages. Because you're trying to prove that a method works. Right?

Right.

If you employ some kind of method and you just go, that's our method. See you later. You're not getting anywhere.

Right. There needs to be a more documented approach to it.

Yeah.

And there needs to be a more like a set parameter. There needs to be kind of a guideline.

Yeah.

Because you asked about success rate and what kind of answers you get. Well, to me, there's several ways to look at that. You're. You're skipping through radio stations and stuff. So I mean, if I'm asking, hey, what's your favorite song? And you, you hear a song and you answer part of the song. Well, that's. That's not a good answer.

That's not an answer.

Yeah. Because you're going through radio or, you know, if you're asking a specific detail about a spirit or a person that died there or whatever, and you get a pretty good answer. If I ask, how did you die? And you're in the spirit box and you hear gunshot or you hear head wound, these are probably more exact answers than you're gonna get. But I mean, if you hear something like that, that's pretty solid.

You almost need like a commission. You need a board of people to like independent review for everything that you do. You need peer review. Review.

And I also have another idea about that too, though. If, if I'm asking a question that's not even specific to them, if I'm answering, you know, if I'm asking, what day did Abraham Lincoln die? And I get an answer for that.

Right.

Then that's a whole different thing.

That's.

That's so specific, you know, because now you're. You're looking into the concept of do they have all the knowledge Correct.

Or what knowledge do they.

Or do they just have knowledge about their own selves or, you know. Oh, yeah, it's interesting, you know, so there needs to be. Not only are you getting good, correct answers, are you getting good evidence?

What kind of questions?

What kind of good evidence are you getting? You know, that seems to be the parameters you need to set.

You know what would be interesting would be a tailored set of questions for a location. So we go out and say, we employ this method. Right. We have a location specific set of questions that may, you know, depending on the party. Right. Like, so you, you prepare a set of questions. I prepare a set of questions based on the history or whatever spirit that we think that we encounter. And then you're going to have to have a specific set of questions that are going to be what should be known. Right. Some kind of history. Something away and separate from just a.

Normal like history book type question. Yeah, that maybe some people that's, that's where you get into who knows this answer? Who doesn't know that answer? Is that common knowledge that anybody would know?

But, but you would.

But still you have a list. The variable is, when am I asking that question? When are you answering that question? Just because you might know the answer, you don't know I'm asking that question.

That's what I'm saying. Yeah, but you, you'd have a list of those questions that you're. And the other, the other important thing is with those questions, it shouldn't matter if I'm responding out loud or not. Because if we're recording what's happening on the spirit box and I'm asking those questions, it should just be the recording and the timestamp I asked at this point. This lines up with this timestamp. This is what we heard on here.

Right. The actual, the fact of you saying what you hear in the headphones is just for an instant reaction, but you could hear it wrong, or you might hear it that time and you hear one thing and then we go back and listen.

If I'm being completely honest with a spirit box that's recording, it shouldn't matter either way because there is no mistaking and not interpreting it correctly. It shouldn't matter if I have a blindfold on and I have and I can't hear. Should be able to ask the question, record it, you match up the time stamps. It doesn't matter.

Technically, if we're recording it, then we should be able to go back and listen to it and hear the question asked and then hear the spirit box spit out an answer. It should be right. It's.

We're trying.

Obviously, it's a human element. Well, and it's things that are developed for TV programs.

But it's not like a little bit. It's not like we're not gonna try it. Like, I, I agree.

No, we need to do it anyway. We didn't. We need to do it live with someone answering. And to me, I feel like it's more interesting if you would be the one in the blindfold, in the. In the headset. Because.

Just rambling like an idiot.

Well. And you're not gonna know as much of the history, so you're not going to be influenced by a spirit and you don't believe that there's anything there. So you're not going to be influenced by. I get thinking someone's going to answer a question.

It seems like the magical part of it is, oh, there has to be a human conduit in order. That feels like it's getting into that stuff. That's the only reason that you would need a human in this kind of wow factor. Is that what we're looking for?

I'm not necessarily saying us, but yeah, it would be cool from. For me to ask a question and then you to answer it without being able to hear it, regardless of whether a ghost is giving you that. Even if you just answer it. I mean, maybe you're psychic.

I think that I just have a feeling it's gonna be mumbo jumbo. We'd have to ask so many questions. We'd have to ask a lot of questions.

Well, we might. Or we might go five for five.

We'll have to put it into play. We'll see what happens.

Like, that's the fun of it.

You know what? And I want to have fun with it, too. Like, I want to be trying to gather as much evidence as possibly can, but we need to have fun with it. If we don't have fun with it, then nobody else will have fun with it.

Right. I. I don't want to go out and be bored and then, yeah, super lame. Everybody else be bored too, then that's not gonna really equate to anything.

Yeah.

That kind of defeats the purpose of doing this whole show in the first place, right?

Absolutely. If it's not fun, why do it? Is that all we got?

I. Yeah, that's about it. Yeah. I mean, other things are going to come up as we go along. Maybe we're going to find some new methods of our own.

Absolutely. Yeah.

And we're going to be talking to other people, getting ideas of how to implement this. So I think we can wrap it up there.

All right, cool. Yeah. Let us know what you all think. Do you know of other techniques? Have you had anything that's worked for you? Is there anybody that thinks like I do? Is there anybody that thinks like Andy does? Our social media stuff. Instagram is no such thing as ghost pod. Our Facebook is no such thing as ghosts. Our email is no such thing as ghostpodmail.com get ahold of us any of those ways. Give us some feedback. Tell us what you all think about it.

Do you have any evidence of your own or any experiences you'd like to share with us? Hit us up at the email address.

Yeah. Do you all have EVPs that you recorded and you want us to hear them and listen to them and, and, and so we get an idea what's going on there. I know there's a lot of EVPs out in the wild but maybe you have something that you know we haven't heard before.

Yeah.

Also go on itunes and rate the podcast. Helps us, helps us get seen and you know, like I said, all that stuff is all about feedback, ways we could do better, things that we can improve on. That's what we're looking to do and we'll see you on the next one.

Sam.