Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, your ghost
Speaker 1: host Jonathan Strickland, an executive producer at iHeart Podcasts, And
Speaker 1: how the tech are you? And as we creep ever
Speaker 1: closer to that creepiest of days, Halloween, it's time for
Speaker 1: another spooky episode of tech Stuff. Now. On Monday's episode,
Speaker 1: I talked about how photography gave certain Charlatans a tool
Speaker 1: to purposefully fool the grief stricken and the gullible into
Speaker 1: believing they were sitting for photos with ghostly companions, when
Speaker 1: in fact, those grieving people were really just victims of
Speaker 1: photographic tricks like double exposures and superimposed negatives. Today, I
Speaker 1: want to talk about a device that has no purpose
Speaker 1: other than to supposedly detect the presence of ghosts. These
Speaker 1: are called RM pods. Now. I made this joke on Monday,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna go ahead and make it again because
Speaker 1: I was very sad to hear that RM pods are not,
Speaker 1: in fact little relaxation capsules that you can just crawl
Speaker 1: into and then listen to the band Ram sing about
Speaker 1: shiny happy people and Andy Kaufman and such. Instead, rim
Speaker 1: pods are devices that are meant to detect electromagnetic fluctuations,
Speaker 1: which many in the paranormal biz believe indicates the presence
Speaker 1: of other worldly spirits. Now I mentioned this in Monday's
Speaker 1: episode as well, but once again, for the folks in
Speaker 1: the back, that's not how science works. You don't go
Speaker 1: hunting for effects and then invent causes for those effects.
Speaker 1: That's the stuff of myth. It's like thinking back to
Speaker 1: prehistoric days when humans wondered what the heck was causing thunder,
Speaker 1: and the best they could come up with is that
Speaker 1: some extremely powerful gods we're having a hissy fit of
Speaker 1: one sort or another. It's akin to writing here, there
Speaker 1: be dragons on a map, because you don't actually know
Speaker 1: what is beyond a certain part of the map, and
Speaker 1: so just to be on the safe side, you imagine
Speaker 1: something really awful and maybe that way you don't actually
Speaker 1: have to go out there and find out for sure. Now,
Speaker 1: the proper way to go about this whole thing would
Speaker 1: be to first find evidence of the existence of ghosts,
Speaker 1: like something that shows that ghosts do in fact exist.
Speaker 1: Then you observe these ghosts to figure out what the
Speaker 1: heck they do, what are they capable of doing? You
Speaker 1: don't look for weird phenomena and then say, well, I
Speaker 1: don't know what caused this, so it must be ghosts.
Speaker 1: I suppose paranormal investigators would argue that there's a long
Speaker 1: history of associating ghosts with EMF fluctuations, But since ghosts
Speaker 1: have never been proven to exist, let alone that they
Speaker 1: can affect or manipulate electromagnetic fields, that doesn't really work
Speaker 1: for me. You know, some people say, well, the living
Speaker 1: can affect electromagnetic fields, so it stands to reason that
Speaker 1: the spirits can as well, but that doesn't really track.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter how long we've associated ghosts with EMF fluctuations,
Speaker 1: it's never actually been proven to be a thing. So
Speaker 1: if I just associate I don't know, the sensation of
Speaker 1: an upset stomach with the color blue, it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: the color blue is causing my upset stomach, even if
Speaker 1: I've associated it, like, until we've proven that the color
Speaker 1: blue is doing it to me, it's just coincidence, And
Speaker 1: in this case, it's coincidence between something that's real, that
Speaker 1: is the fluctuations of electromagnetic fields, and something that has
Speaker 1: not been established to be real, that is ghosts. But
Speaker 1: now that we've got all that out of the way,
Speaker 1: let's talk about ariods. And there hesitate to use this
Speaker 1: word inventor Gary Galka. Now, first, Galka was highly motivated
Speaker 1: to make devices that could potentially detect ghosts for a
Speaker 1: real and tragic reason. And I don't want to downplay this.
Speaker 1: This is horrible. Galka tragically lost his daughter, Melissa in
Speaker 1: a car accident in September two thousand and four. She
Speaker 1: was just seventeen years old, and I cannot even begin
Speaker 1: to imagine the emotional and psychological impact that had both
Speaker 1: on him and the rest of his family. He has
Speaker 1: a wife and two other daughters, and that's just heartbreaking.
Speaker 1: Just a reminder, like the guiding principles for tech stuff
Speaker 1: I've always said are critical thinking and compassion. I do
Speaker 1: suggest we use critical thinking when we examine the work
Speaker 1: and claims of Galka, but we also show compassion because
Speaker 1: that's a horrible loss. But according to Galka, he and
Speaker 1: his family were experiencing unusual phenomena over the days, weeks,
Speaker 1: and months following Melissa's death. Now, Galka owns a business
Speaker 1: called DAS Distribution, which designs high tech measurement systems such
Speaker 1: as non contact measurement devices, and Galka builds sensors and
Speaker 1: instruments that could be incorporated into other technologies for a
Speaker 1: wide array of industries. So think about devices that are
Speaker 1: meant to detect stuff like humidity within a controlled environment,
Speaker 1: like if you've ever been in a museum where they've
Speaker 1: had humidity sensors that kind of thing, or devices that
Speaker 1: are designed to detect defects or malfunctions and equipment and
Speaker 1: processes or devices that aid in the precise measurement when
Speaker 1: working in fields that have no wiggle room for ambiguity,
Speaker 1: where you absolutely have to get measurements down to the
Speaker 1: most precise unit you can. That's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that Galica worked in and Galka turned this ingenuity toward
Speaker 1: developing different gadgets in tended to aid the average ghost hunter.
Speaker 1: These include things like spirit boxes, which I've talked about before.
Speaker 1: Your typical spirit box is essentially a radio. It's a
Speaker 1: receiver and it's cycling through radio frequencies typically pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: They can go slower, but the more modern ones that
Speaker 1: get a little bit more traction these days go fast,
Speaker 1: and the belief is that ghosts, through some means of
Speaker 1: manipulating radio frequencies, can communicate through these kinds of devices.
Speaker 1: But a gadget that has a lot of ghost hunting
Speaker 1: types gravitating towards it over the last couple of decades
Speaker 1: has been the mel meter, which is named after Galca's
Speaker 1: daughter Melissa, and rim pods. So rim pods are kind
Speaker 1: of a stripped down version of the mel meter, or
Speaker 1: the mail meter is like an EMF meter that has
Speaker 1: an rim pod built into it, at least the more
Speaker 1: advanced mailmeters are. I'll talk about them later in the episode,
Speaker 1: but let's start with the rm pods first and then
Speaker 1: we'll get into what makes melmeter slightly different. So the
Speaker 1: basic idea behind the rim pod is that it detects
Speaker 1: disruptions in an electromagnetic field, which the pod itself generates.
Speaker 1: So the pod creates an electromagnetic field and then essentially
Speaker 1: keeps a weather eye on if anything interferes with that
Speaker 1: electromagnetic field, which sounds pretty high tech, but it turns
Speaker 1: out the basic electronics inside rim pods, at least inside
Speaker 1: the original version anyway, is a hobbykit variation of what
Speaker 1: you would find inside of theremin Now we know that
Speaker 1: because in twenty nineteen, a skeptic and science enthusiast named
Speaker 1: Kinney Biddle, who has written articles for The Skeptical Inquirer
Speaker 1: over several years, he bought an RM pod and he
Speaker 1: took it apart to see what makes it tick, and
Speaker 1: you can read his full explanation at Skeptical Inquirer dot org.
Speaker 1: His piece is titled ghost Hunting Gadgets the rim Pod.
Speaker 1: But at the heart of the operation was a little
Speaker 1: circuit called a junior Thereman. We'll talk about that in
Speaker 1: just a moment. Now. I did an episode about Thereman's
Speaker 1: way back in twenty eleven. Could Lord have been doing
Speaker 1: this for a long time anyway? The Thereman is an
Speaker 1: interesting musical instrument. It was invented in nineteen twenty eight
Speaker 1: by a guy named Lev Turman, who had been changed
Speaker 1: his name to Leon Thereman, and the device thus bears
Speaker 1: his name. Interestingly, he didn't set out to make a
Speaker 1: musical instrument to begin with. His actual goal was to
Speaker 1: build a censor capable of detecting objects, kind of in
Speaker 1: a way similar to how sonar works underwater. His methodology
Speaker 1: didn't quite work out. It never could extend to a
Speaker 1: point where it would be useful, Like if you did
Speaker 1: detect an object with electromagnetic fluctuations, it would be when
Speaker 1: the the object was close enough for you to kind
Speaker 1: of see it and potentially touch it, so the meter
Speaker 1: would not be of much use. However, he did figure
Speaker 1: out a way to leverage this and create a musical
Speaker 1: instrument that would require no contact. He thought of it
Speaker 1: kind of like you would play this musical instrument as
Speaker 1: if you were a conductor of an orchestra. Your hands
Speaker 1: would never have to make contact with the instrument at all.
Speaker 1: They would move around it and manipulate an electromagnetic field,
Speaker 1: and then you would generate a sound through this instrument
Speaker 1: that way. And it's not lost on me that nearly
Speaker 1: a century later, Galica would essentially reverse this process of
Speaker 1: turning a device meant to detect objects into a musical instrument,
Speaker 1: and Galka would take a circuit meant to emulate a
Speaker 1: musical instrument and turn it into a device that detects something,
Speaker 1: not objects, but gigigos. Now, even if you've never seen
Speaker 1: a thereman before, you've likely heard the noise it makes
Speaker 1: this weird, warbly sound. You sometimes hear an old sign
Speaker 1: fiction or horror films that whoaoo kind of stuff, very
Speaker 1: warbly and unearthly. And your basic theramen is a box
Speaker 1: that has two antenna extending from it. Typically one goes
Speaker 1: vertical and one goes horizontal. And by positioning your hands
Speaker 1: near the two antennas, you can cause the theramen to
Speaker 1: create an electronic sound, and you can manipulate that electronic sound.
Speaker 1: If you move your hand closer to or further from
Speaker 1: the vertical antenna, you affect the pitch. If you move
Speaker 1: your hand closer to or further from the horizontal antenna,
Speaker 1: you affect the volume. To get more technical, a theremin
Speaker 1: has a pair of oscillators connected to a circuit to
Speaker 1: affect the pitch, so the vertical antenna. Here, one oscillator
Speaker 1: is variable and the other is set to a fixed value.
Speaker 1: The fixed value oscillator produces radio waves at a stable
Speaker 1: static frequency. The variable oscillator can, as the name suggests,
Speaker 1: generate a variable radio frequency, and the two signals mix
Speaker 1: in a process that's called heterodyning, in which one frequency's
Speaker 1: value is subtracted from the other. Now, the volume antenna
Speaker 1: is simpler. It uses a single oscillator to generate a
Speaker 1: frequency that you disrupt by moving your hand closer to
Speaker 1: or further from the connected antenna, and that signal then
Speaker 1: goes to an amplifier and ultimately to speakers to create
Speaker 1: the warbly effect that we hear. And Leon Therreman first
Speaker 1: noticed that the human body could disrupt electromagnetic fields while
Speaker 1: he was working with an oscillating circuit that was just
Speaker 1: generating a radio frequency, and he saw that when he
Speaker 1: moved into the electromagnetic field, the frequency that was produced
Speaker 1: by this circuit changed. And as Kenny Biddle found, that
Speaker 1: was the basic concept of the arium pod as well,
Speaker 1: except that instead of a device designed to make music,
Speaker 1: it's meant to indicate if some sort of ghost is nearby,
Speaker 1: or at least if something is interfering with the antenna's
Speaker 1: electromagnetic field, which is more accurate. So let's describe the
Speaker 1: device as Biddle in countered it. When he took it apart.
Speaker 1: His RM pod had an exterior made of PVC coupling,
Speaker 1: so the kind of stuff that you can buy at
Speaker 1: your average hardware store. It was cylindrical in shape with
Speaker 1: an extendable antenna in the top of it, and it
Speaker 1: also had four translucent rods extending from the top. These
Speaker 1: he believed were made out of hot glue stick, and
Speaker 1: filling the PVC coupling was resin with more hot glue stick,
Speaker 1: apparently mixed in potentially to help cut down on the
Speaker 1: amount of resin needed to fill the whole thing, and
Speaker 1: the four ends of the glue stick stuck up out
Speaker 1: of the resin, and at the base of those glue
Speaker 1: sticks were LED lights, so the lights would shine up
Speaker 1: through the length of the hot glue stick so that
Speaker 1: you could see the light at the top of the
Speaker 1: RM pod right, so kind of an inexpensive way of
Speaker 1: making sure the LEDs would show through. There was also
Speaker 1: a small speaker at the center of the top of
Speaker 1: the RAM pod that would emit an electronic noise if
Speaker 1: the electromagnetic field were disturbed. The antenna, speaker, and the
Speaker 1: lights under the glu sticks all connected to a junior
Speaker 1: thereman circuit, and this in turn connected to a battery,
Speaker 1: a nine volt battery in this case, and the circuit
Speaker 1: basically recreates the function of a theremin. According to Biddle,
Speaker 1: the whole thing or the circuit at least the junior
Speaker 1: Thereman circuit cost around twenty dollars. So the original rim
Speaker 1: pod was essentially a junior Thereman with some LED lights
Speaker 1: added to it. And if you get close to the
Speaker 1: junior Thereman's antenna, which is Biddle described as just a
Speaker 1: piece of wire, you interrupt the electromagnetic field that it
Speaker 1: generates and you cause it to go woo woo ooo
Speaker 1: or whatever. You would need to be about six inches
Speaker 1: or closer in order to set it off. Now, presumably
Speaker 1: the wire from the junior Thereman's circuit connected to the
Speaker 1: extendable antenna that protruded from the top of the rim pod,
Speaker 1: and of course the lights would light up as well
Speaker 1: in case you didn't pick up on the electronic squeal. Okay,
Speaker 1: more about the rim pods in just a second, but
Speaker 1: first let's listen to some spook key advertisements. We're back.
Speaker 1: So Kinnny Bindle, he takes this rim pod and he
Speaker 1: takes it apart, and he looks at what makes it tick.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that he kind of bulked
Speaker 1: at was that if you took all these components separately,
Speaker 1: they'd probably cost you, I'm going to say less than
Speaker 1: thirty dollars. I mean the junior thereman's circuit was twenty bucks.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that that was probably the most expensive component
Speaker 1: in that device, So you're talking around. Let's be generous,
Speaker 1: let's say forty dollars or less, but I think it's
Speaker 1: probably less than thirty. Galka's company sold them at a
Speaker 1: substantially higher price. So the current model, which is not
Speaker 1: exactly the same thing that Biddle disassembled in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: goes for about a one hundred and seventy dollars. Now
Speaker 1: I should add that the current rim pod also includes
Speaker 1: a temperature sensor in it, which was not in the
Speaker 1: one that Biddle disassembled in twenty nineteen, and this temperature
Speaker 1: sensor will alert you if the temperature around the pod
Speaker 1: changes by plus or minus five degrees. But as I said,
Speaker 1: the original rim pod didn't have a censor in it.
Speaker 1: It was essentially a junior therem And kit with some
Speaker 1: LED lights. So it was a novelty. In other words,
Speaker 1: it was a novelty that had been repackaged and marketed
Speaker 1: as a ghost hunting tool and then sold for a
Speaker 1: heft markup. At least that's what Biddle found a piece
Speaker 1: in NBC News back in twenty twelve mentioned that Galka's gadgets,
Speaker 1: including but not limited to rim pods, had a range
Speaker 1: of prices that went from seventy nine dollars on the
Speaker 1: low end to a whopping three hundred and fifty bucks
Speaker 1: on the high end. So this makes me very uncomfortable
Speaker 1: because again, he didn't invent something new. He took existing
Speaker 1: devices and combined them in a way that really, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, was not transformative. Like you could have just
Speaker 1: used the junior therem in circuit as is. You didn't
Speaker 1: need the LED lights necessarily. I mean, you could connect
Speaker 1: those two a circuit as well and power it and
Speaker 1: get the same sort of result. But you could just
Speaker 1: use the junior therem and circuit and listen for anything
Speaker 1: that sets it off because it interferes with the field
Speaker 1: that it generates, because that's essentially what the ram pod
Speaker 1: is doing. That you could do that for like twenty
Speaker 1: bucks plus whatever it costs you to buy a battery
Speaker 1: for the darn thing, and then to have to pay
Speaker 1: upwards of one hundred and seventy dollars for that kind
Speaker 1: of thing seems a bit excessive in my opinion. Biddle
Speaker 1: describes the way ghost hunters use this gadget. I'm actually
Speaker 1: going to quote him directly here. Quote. When it comes
Speaker 1: to ghost hunting, enthusiasts typically use the rim pod as
Speaker 1: a spirit communication device. The device is placed in an
Speaker 1: allegedly haunted location, room, hallway, staircase, et cetera, and ghost
Speaker 1: hunters begin asking various questions. The ghosts are directed to
Speaker 1: touch the device or make it light up. A positive
Speaker 1: response occurs when the device lights up and makes noise,
Speaker 1: and the spirits are thanked for their participation. End quote.
Speaker 1: A little bit later on that same article, Biddle also
Speaker 1: writes quote. In the event the ghost hunters receive no response,
Speaker 1: the questions are often repeated multiple times, or the ghost
Speaker 1: hunters move onto different questions until the device eventually lights up.
Speaker 1: This is a similar method that to that used during
Speaker 1: EVP Electronic voice phenomenon sessions, where ghost hunters are waiting
Speaker 1: for a vocal response rather than hearing a tone played
Speaker 1: along with some lights. If no response comes at all,
Speaker 1: I often hear excuses such as the spirits don't want
Speaker 1: to talk tonight, or it doesn't always work, but it
Speaker 1: worked great last time. Quote. As Biddle points out, the
Speaker 1: problem here is that there are plenty of opportunities for worldly,
Speaker 1: mundane stuff to set off a device like an rim pod.
Speaker 1: Not only has no one yet established the existence of ghosts,
Speaker 1: let alone that they're capable of interacting with or manipulate
Speaker 1: electromagnetic fields. We know for a fact there are plenty
Speaker 1: of things that do interact with electromagnetic fields that are
Speaker 1: not ghosts, you know, like cell phones or walkie talkies,
Speaker 1: or even natural sources of radio waves. Biddle describes tests
Speaker 1: in which he found rim pods to react to two
Speaker 1: way radios from as far away as forty feet if
Speaker 1: you were inside like indoors, or as far away as
Speaker 1: twenty feet if you were outdoors. He even observed an
Speaker 1: rim pod reacting when walkie talkies were used on the
Speaker 1: floor above or below where the pod was. So if
Speaker 1: someone's upstairs and they're using the walkie talkie to chat
Speaker 1: with someone, the rim pod could potentially pick that up
Speaker 1: and go off, and you might not hear the person
Speaker 1: upstairs talking, but you'll see the rim pod go off,
Speaker 1: and you'll think, ah, ghosts. Often ghost hunting crews use
Speaker 1: two way radios in order to stay in communication with
Speaker 1: each other, or you know, someone could have a cell
Speaker 1: phone on them and if they're sitting close enough to
Speaker 1: the pod while the cell phone is connecting to the
Speaker 1: closest tower to get updates, it could set off an
Speaker 1: rim pod. So it's easy for an rim pod to
Speaker 1: be set off either on purpose. Let's say that there's
Speaker 1: someone who has an incentive to have the pod go off.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're the host of a ghost hunting show and
Speaker 1: they want the camera crew to capture some activity on
Speaker 1: this rim pod. You know, maybe having a crew member
Speaker 1: nearby just you know, casually have to use the two
Speaker 1: way radio for something and whoa, hey, by coincidence, the
Speaker 1: rim pod has gone off that looks good on camera.
Speaker 1: Or it could just be done by accident, right. It
Speaker 1: could be that you're sincerely looking for ghosts. You are
Speaker 1: not trying to fool anyone. You're really just being as
Speaker 1: straightforward as you can be. But because you're using two
Speaker 1: way radios, you might accidentally set off the rim pod
Speaker 1: and you have what you believe is a positive response,
Speaker 1: when in turn, it really is a false positive. Biddle
Speaker 1: laments the fact that ghost hunters rarely introduce controls to
Speaker 1: eliminate outside interference with their equipment. This is I've found
Speaker 1: to be true pretty much across the board, like some
Speaker 1: ghost hunter types actually do try to use controls and
Speaker 1: they get very lackluster response, like lackluster results, because as
Speaker 1: it turns out, when you start to control for potential
Speaker 1: interference that the existence of ghosts seems to just disappear.
Speaker 1: So again, ghost hunters, I think are incentivized to not
Speaker 1: use controls because if they do, then they don't get results.
Speaker 1: So Biddle says, well, one way you could control for
Speaker 1: this kind of thing is you could use a Farred
Speaker 1: cage in order to isolate an rim pod from environmental interference,
Speaker 1: and thus the POD's own electromagnetic field will remain untouched
Speaker 1: by anything outside like two way radio traffic or cell
Speaker 1: phones or whatever, and only something inside the cage would
Speaker 1: affect the rim pod. So I figured, that's a great
Speaker 1: excuse to talk about what a Faraday cage is and
Speaker 1: how it works. And just as a side note, this
Speaker 1: was kind of fun while I was researching Faraday cages
Speaker 1: because you know, I know general how they work, but
Speaker 1: I wanted to get a refresher. I found an article
Speaker 1: on how stuff works, which is my old employer, and
Speaker 1: I was delighted to see that my old co host
Speaker 1: and editor had a byline on that article. That's Chris Pollette,
Speaker 1: by the way, my original co host for tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: And so that was just nice because I miss Chris.
Speaker 1: He's great. I loved working with him, both as a
Speaker 1: writer and as a podcaster. Anyway, the Faraday cage is
Speaker 1: named after a guy named Michael Faraday Cage. Wait, no,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, just Michael Faraday. But the earliest experiments were
Speaker 1: performed by one, let's see, Benjamin Franklin. So old Benji
Speaker 1: was experimenting with electricity. You might recall that he did
Speaker 1: that a bit. So he took a can that was
Speaker 1: made of silver, and he electrified the can, and he
Speaker 1: experimented with lowering a piece of uncharged cork that was
Speaker 1: on a non conductive thread and lowered it into the
Speaker 1: can and had it touched the bottom of the can.
Speaker 1: And what he found to be strange is that if
Speaker 1: he were to bring the cork near the outside of
Speaker 1: the can, like if you were to dangle the cork
Speaker 1: so that was next to the exterior surface of the can,
Speaker 1: the cork would get attracted to the can. It would
Speaker 1: become charged. It would pick up an electrostatic charge and
Speaker 1: it would be attracted to the can surface. But when
Speaker 1: he was doing this on the inside of the can,
Speaker 1: that didn't happen. The cork did not appeared to become
Speaker 1: electrostatically charged, and Franklin couldn't figure out why. He was stumped.
Speaker 1: He actually wrote to a friend of his that maybe
Speaker 1: someone else would figure it out, because he could not
Speaker 1: understand why it would work on the outside but not
Speaker 1: the inside. Well decades later, Michael Faraday's experiments led him
Speaker 1: to observe that if one created a metallic cage or
Speaker 1: a container of some sort, like if you made a
Speaker 1: mesh of metallic material and you electrified the mesh, it
Speaker 1: actually would electrify the exterior surface. The charge would only
Speaker 1: be on the outer surface of the cage, not the
Speaker 1: inside of the cage. So essentially you had created a
Speaker 1: hollow conductor. All the conductivity happened on the outside, but
Speaker 1: not the inside. And he even created a very large
Speaker 1: experiment in which he lined in entire room's walls with
Speaker 1: metallic foil. He electrified the foil, and he used a
Speaker 1: very sensitive instrument designed to detect electrical charges on the
Speaker 1: side of the room and found no electrical charge on
Speaker 1: the inside, just on the exterior surface of this foil.
Speaker 1: Now beyond that, his later observation showed that within a
Speaker 1: Faraday cage, electromagnetic radiation also doesn't penetrate. So if you
Speaker 1: were to put your cell phone inside of Faraday cage,
Speaker 1: your cell phone would not receive any notifications or get
Speaker 1: any updates. The cell phone would just be isolated from
Speaker 1: the outside world, at least in terms of electromagnetic radiation.
Speaker 1: And so if you place an rim pod inside of
Speaker 1: Faraday cage, that would ensure it would not be affected
Speaker 1: by stuff like two way radio communication or other external
Speaker 1: sources of electromagnetic radiation. So presumably a ghost would be
Speaker 1: able to get its spectral hands on an rim pod
Speaker 1: by passing through the cage, like we assume that ghosts
Speaker 1: are able to pass through materials. And yet the one
Speaker 1: time Biddle talked about observing a team using a Faraday
Speaker 1: cage as a means of a control the rim pod,
Speaker 1: it didn't go off at all. So that seems to
Speaker 1: indicate that the Faraday cage, once it eliminated the sources
Speaker 1: of external interference, it also eliminated the possibility that there
Speaker 1: was a ghost there. Now, I suppose you could argue
Speaker 1: that ghosts, due to their as yet unestablished relationship with
Speaker 1: electromagnetic radiation, are somehow bound to the physical laws that
Speaker 1: all other stuff obeys. But since we haven't proven ghosts
Speaker 1: even exist, it seems silly to make that argument, just
Speaker 1: as it seems silly to argue that they could manipulate
Speaker 1: electromagnetic radiation in the first place, Like by what logic
Speaker 1: if you say, well, well, of course the ghosts didn't
Speaker 1: affect the rim pod. It was shielded by a Faraday cage,
Speaker 1: and the ghosts can't pass through. Why in fact, while
Speaker 1: we get to it, why could it affect the EMF
Speaker 1: the electromagnetic field in the first place? Anyway, While Galka
Speaker 1: created the first ram pod, I refused to use the
Speaker 1: word invented because, as bid Old demonstrated, it was really
Speaker 1: a theremin's with some lights added to it. Well. Others
Speaker 1: have since created variations on the rim pod. They still
Speaker 1: call them rim pods in most cases, but they're not
Speaker 1: all made by Galka's company. Some are made by other companies.
Speaker 1: One that I found personally really upsetting was from a
Speaker 1: company called spirit Shack. It's a UK company. They market
Speaker 1: a Teddy Bear with rim pods built in so the
Speaker 1: bear's pause illuminate when it detects a fluctuation in the
Speaker 1: electromagnetic field. And it's meant to be a device used
Speaker 1: to communicate with the ghosts of children, which absolutely turns
Speaker 1: my stomach because I feel this is device that exploits
Speaker 1: the profound grief of a family in a way that's
Speaker 1: really disturbing, and it's hard to reconcile the fact that
Speaker 1: a company makes money off of this thing, right, it's
Speaker 1: not just that, Like I understand the need or the
Speaker 1: desire to be able to reconnect with a lost child,
Speaker 1: like that is understandable. You know, that is a profound grief.
Speaker 1: What I don't understand is a company that makes a
Speaker 1: gadget that has no proven utility for this specific purpose
Speaker 1: and they're selling it to people for the Or you're
Speaker 1: a ghost hunter who's exploiting a family that is going
Speaker 1: through this kind of grief. Maybe you sincerely believe you're
Speaker 1: actually trying to help reach closure or get a reconnection
Speaker 1: or whatever, but to me, it just comes across as opportunistic.
Speaker 1: In the worst of circumstances, anyway, we're going to take
Speaker 1: another quick break. When we come back, I'm going to
Speaker 1: talk about the mel meter, which, at least in some
Speaker 1: versions of the mal meter, is like an arim pod
Speaker 1: on steroids. We'll chat more about that after we take
Speaker 1: this quick break. Hey, we're back to talk about the
Speaker 1: mel meter, named after Melissa Galka, the daughter who tragically
Speaker 1: passed away in two thousand and four in a car accident.
Speaker 1: And the mail meter incorporates some of the same tech
Speaker 1: as rim pods, at least in some versions of the malmeter.
Speaker 1: There are you know, different levels of malmeter. The malmeter
Speaker 1: typically has more metaphorical bells and whistles than the rim
Speaker 1: pod does. The very basic malmeter sells for ninety nine dollars,
Speaker 1: so it's actually less expensive than the rim pod and
Speaker 1: it quote measures EMF and ambient temperatures end quote. So
Speaker 1: it's you know, similar to modern rim pods in that
Speaker 1: it does deal with electromagnetic fields, but in this case
Speaker 1: it's a meter, not just a detector. The rim pod
Speaker 1: just makes a noise and generates lights when something interferes
Speaker 1: with its electromagnetic field. The mal meter measure electromagnetic fields. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's also got a high intensity red flashlight built into it,
Speaker 1: as well as the thermo couple or sensor that detects
Speaker 1: temperature changes. So the coupler actually plugs into the top
Speaker 1: of the device. You can unplug it if you want to.
Speaker 1: That's particularly important if you want to preserve battery life
Speaker 1: because the sensor does put an extra strain on the battery,
Speaker 1: as does the backlight for the display of the EMF meter,
Speaker 1: So if you're in a brightly lit area, you probably
Speaker 1: would want to turn the back light off or else
Speaker 1: you just be chewing through batteries faster than you need
Speaker 1: to be. The advanced melmeters also have an rim pod
Speaker 1: built into them, so they'll have an antenna that extends
Speaker 1: from the melmeter. Not all melmeters do. Some of them
Speaker 1: just have the little thermo couple sensor, which looks like
Speaker 1: an antenna, it's not. It's a temperature sensor. And then
Speaker 1: the more advanced ones have an extendable antenna because they
Speaker 1: have an rim pod, so they generate their own electromagnetic
Speaker 1: field and they will light up and make noise if
Speaker 1: something comes close to it, just like just like a
Speaker 1: junior thereman circuit wood that's connected to LED lights anyway,
Speaker 1: So the one I looked at that was the Top
Speaker 1: of the Line even had a laser projector, so it
Speaker 1: projects laser dots so you can keep an eye out
Speaker 1: for anything that moves between the mailmeter and whatever surface
Speaker 1: you're pointing it at. Apparently, the top of the line
Speaker 1: model also has an expansion slot so that you can
Speaker 1: potentially boost your mailmeters capabilities with whatever it is the
Speaker 1: company comes up with next, presuming that whatever it comes
Speaker 1: up with next is actually compatible with the rest of
Speaker 1: the circuitry in the mail meter that you're using now.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, the mail meter is another example of
Speaker 1: a gadget that just repackages already existing technologies such as
Speaker 1: EMF meters. So EMF meters can be used by folks
Speaker 1: like electricians and stuff if they're looking for faulty wiring
Speaker 1: in a house or whatever. Most electricians are using things
Speaker 1: like voltme and stuff are multimeters that plug into outlets.
Speaker 1: There are some no contact meters that electricians will use.
Speaker 1: Typically they're using those in environments where it would be
Speaker 1: dangerous to make contact. So you're like, like high voltage situations,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, danger danger high voltage. That's for
Speaker 1: my friend Shay the EMF meters that you typically see
Speaker 1: in ghost hunting. I don't know how how widespread they
Speaker 1: are for electricians, but I do know that they're not
Speaker 1: nearly as expensive as the ones that are marketed for
Speaker 1: ghost hunting. Again, ghost hunters are highly motivated because they're
Speaker 1: seeking out stuff that is unsupported, and that I think
Speaker 1: adds to the motivation to actually go out there and
Speaker 1: find something right, and so they will spend more money
Speaker 1: on devices that aren't necessarily worth the cost. So the
Speaker 1: EMF meters and mail meters, I can't speak to the quality.
Speaker 1: They might be very good. I don't know, but a
Speaker 1: basic digital EMF meter costs between thirty and forty dollars.
Speaker 1: That's a basic one. They do go up from there.
Speaker 1: You can also get analog ones, but those are less expensive.
Speaker 1: The Mel eight seven zero four R seven to one
Speaker 1: premiere model of Mel meter is priced at three hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty nine dollars that you can pick it up
Speaker 1: on sale for just two hundred and seventy five bucks
Speaker 1: as of the time I'm recording this two hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy five dollars. Keep in mind, the basic EMF meters
Speaker 1: are thirty to forty dollars. Now, to be fair, the
Speaker 1: top of the line mailmeter also has that laser projector
Speaker 1: and the ram pod capabilities built into it, so it's
Speaker 1: more than just an EMF meter, But I don't think
Speaker 1: it's a multi axis EMF meter. It might be, but
Speaker 1: I don't think it is. In a separate article, Biddle
Speaker 1: wrote about a ghost hunting team using a basic mail
Speaker 1: meter that was a single act says EMF meter. So
Speaker 1: what do I mean by that? Well, electromagnetic fields are
Speaker 1: three dimensional things, right, they exist within three dimensions. But
Speaker 1: EMF sensors often only measure along one axis one direction,
Speaker 1: so in order to get a full reading, you would
Speaker 1: actually need to change the orientation of the meter in
Speaker 1: order to measure along three separate axes to get an
Speaker 1: accurate reading. So think of it like you have the
Speaker 1: meter set horizontally to measure along one axis, you turn
Speaker 1: it ninety degrees so that you measure along a second axis,
Speaker 1: and then you turn it vertical to measure along a
Speaker 1: third axis. There are EMF meters out there that can
Speaker 1: measure along all three axes simultaneously, and they are the
Speaker 1: more expensive ones. So if the malmeter in fact is
Speaker 1: a multi axis EMF meter that would explain at least
Speaker 1: in part the price. But Biddle seems to suggest at
Speaker 1: least the malmeter that he observed was a single access meter.
Speaker 1: I don't know if the more advanced ones are as well,
Speaker 1: but you know, if they are single access, then that
Speaker 1: that markup is even more impressive. I'll say the ghost
Speaker 1: hunting trend, I'm guessing has boosted sales of various radio
Speaker 1: frequency and EMF detectors more than any of the mundane
Speaker 1: use cases for those technologies. So I guess that's good
Speaker 1: news for the electronics companies out there that make these things.
Speaker 1: But I still maintain that it's largely it's a waste
Speaker 1: of time. It's a misuse of technology. The only way
Speaker 1: to get results is to either use the technology in
Speaker 1: ways that are improper or with improper controls to eliminate
Speaker 1: other explanations besides the supernatural. And what it largely does
Speaker 1: is that it contributes to ignorance, specifically ignorance as with
Speaker 1: regards to what technology does and what it can do.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what I object to second most most,
Speaker 1: the thing I object to most is the manipulation of
Speaker 1: people's emotions. You know, people who are experiencing loss, And
Speaker 1: I do think it's valuable for people to find sources
Speaker 1: of comfort and to find ways to process grief so
Speaker 1: that they can continue on with their lives while still
Speaker 1: honoring those who were part of their lives before. I
Speaker 1: think that's really important. I do not believe that most
Speaker 1: of the ghost hunting stuff that goes on provides that
Speaker 1: level of comfort. I worry that it exacerbates a problem
Speaker 1: and makes it worse. Those are the two prongs I
Speaker 1: mean again, critical thinking and compassion. Those are the two
Speaker 1: guiding principles for this show. If we use critical thinking,
Speaker 1: we have to say if ghosts exist, we haven't proven it.
Speaker 1: And the processes that people are using in order to
Speaker 1: hunt for ghosts are unproven to even be connected to
Speaker 1: ghosts in the first place. So it's putting the cart
Speaker 1: before the horse. And if we're doing this and it's
Speaker 1: all folly and in the process we're hurting people emotionally
Speaker 1: and psychologically who are trying to deal with grief, then
Speaker 1: we would actively be making the world worse, and in
Speaker 1: my opinion, the world we don't need to help with that.
Speaker 1: We can do better than that. We can take actions
Speaker 1: that make the world a better place now. Maybe someday
Speaker 1: in the future someone will establish the existence of ghosts
Speaker 1: in a way that is undeniable, and if that does happen,
Speaker 1: I will certainly change my tune. I have always maintained
Speaker 1: I'm not a denier. I'm a skeptic, but I'm a
Speaker 1: skeptic who has a very very high bar when it
Speaker 1: comes to proving that something supernatural exists, and so far
Speaker 1: no one has met it. But it's not possible to
Speaker 1: meet it, just hasn't happened. In the meantime, I do
Speaker 1: hope all of you out there who are looking forward
Speaker 1: to Halloween have a wonderful time. I hope all the
Speaker 1: trick or trading goes great, the parties are fun, that
Speaker 1: you're safe and happy, and have all the appropriate level
Speaker 1: of scares that aren't related to like anything truly scary.
Speaker 1: I hope that all comes true for y'all. I certainly
Speaker 1: love Halloween. I love ghost stories. I love movies about ghosts.
Speaker 1: I just think of them kind of similar to the
Speaker 1: way I think about fairy tales. I really enjoy them,
Speaker 1: but I don't believe them anyway. Take care, happy Halloween,
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again. Really soon. Tech Stuff
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