Sunday, April 11, 2010

EMF meters and Ghost Hunting


My girlfriend and her mother love Hunt the Ghost or Ghost Hunters, or whatever those shows are called. You know those ones where they use high tech equipment like cameras, microphones, thermal imaging and all kinds of stuff that’s used by cable guys and electricians to tell you if there’s a ghost around? Well they were watching one time and got the idea to use the EMF meter in their shed while they were using the Ouija Board that night. I don’t belive in the parker brother’s game personally, but that’s not why I’m here. I was watching them swear that they were communicating with spirits and the small fractions of jumps and activity on the EMF meter only proved them right. I asked them why and they said something along the lines of, “Didn’t you see those professional ghost hunters? They use EMF meters.”

Then I got to thinking about the subject and started doing some research. So naturally I asked the only man I know who can rattle off the instruction manual for just about any device found in the garage, my dad. Basically, the EMF meter, also known as an Electromagnetic Field Meter, is mainly used to detect AC current from things like wiring, lighting, appliances and other devices. In addition to needing scans from multiple directions if it is a single axis scanner, however some scanners are tri-axis and can take all directions readings at once.

What does all this technology actually have to do with the paranormal? Well, according to many sites devoted to the hunting of ghosts, ghouls, goblins and gremlins, such as the folks at Proof Paranormal, found that “Paranormal investigators have found throughout the course of their research over the years that spirits manifest themselves by feeding off of energy.”

They do not however, elude as to how throughout their supposed years of research they discovered spirits feed of off present energy sources. They go on to say that people swear in some places that their cell phones and electronics go dead faster and they attribute that to spirits feeding off of energy. So the spirits resonate this consumed energy or something I guess, and that’s why EMF meters spikes when ghosts are around.

So when the Ghost Hunters go headlong into renovated castles, mansions and historic tourist sites filled with call boxes, lights, radios and televisions with their cell phones, radios, video cameras, image detectors, sound recorders and lights in hand, no wonder their EMF meters always show a signal! I’d say that maybe it would help if you just had an EMF meter and were somewhere outside and away from electronics, perhaps the middle of Gettysburg’s battlefields. But then again you’d have to be able to rule out any EMF readings due to the weather because the sun, moon, storms and other natural things can throw out a reading as well.

Even giving the ghosts the benefit of the doubt and saying they do feed off of energy. The further back we go in time, history, legend or whatnot the more paranormal things seem to be present. What did the old timey ghosts eat? I doubt that if ghosts do exist that they often died of starvation before Benjamin Franklin came along.

Does the EMF meter really aid in detecting ghosts? I suppose it’s possible, I can’t prove that it doesn’t. Maybe I’ll ask my girlfriends Ouija board and see if I can get the answer.

2 comments:

  1. The thing i have with EMFs is that practically everything gives off an electromagnetic field. So I am more inclined to think that its a little overblown. Overall all the evidence that these ghost hunters provide are circumstantial at best and really do not prove much of anything.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I never really thought about all of the instruments used to create the ghost hunting shows would actually interfere with the EMF reading. I myself am not a believer in ghosts but for some reason, if those shows are on, I get sucked in. If more people though in a more logical fashion, I wonder if these people would begin to see that there probably are no such things as ghosts. Then again, this belief has been around for centuries and no one seems to be able to prove that they don't exist.

    ReplyDelete