Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome back to a spooky episode of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff. I'm your host your ghost post Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio and how
Speaker 1: the tech are you? So? Throughout this month, I'm doing
Speaker 1: a few Halloween well themes seems like it would be
Speaker 1: too strong a word, let's say Halloween inspired episodes. So
Speaker 1: earlier I did an episode about zombie computers, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, questionably tied to the Halloween theme. Today, we're
Speaker 1: going to return to a classic topic that tech Stuff
Speaker 1: covered way back in two Now. I'm not replaying that episode,
Speaker 1: but I am revisiting it. So in t I and
Speaker 1: my then co host Chris Palette sat down to talk
Speaker 1: about tech commonly used in ghost hunting. And let's get
Speaker 1: this out of the way first. Just like I did
Speaker 1: twelve years ago, I am a skeptic. I do not
Speaker 1: believe in ghosts. I think ghostly phenomena describes a collection
Speaker 1: of misinterpretations, mistakes, willingness to believe uh scams in some cases,
Speaker 1: the human tendency to look for explanations to stuff, and
Speaker 1: you know when those explanations are not immediately evident. We
Speaker 1: tend to invent explanations. For example, one thing we humans
Speaker 1: are pretty good at is recognizing patterns in lots of
Speaker 1: noisy stimuli. And this makes sense. It's a kind of
Speaker 1: survival mechanism. You're right, If you're scanning the tall grass
Speaker 1: and you notice a pattern that looks like a lioness's head,
Speaker 1: well you might just save yourself from being a lions lunchable.
Speaker 1: So it's a portant that we humans are able to
Speaker 1: recognize meaningful shapes or meaningful sounds and white what might
Speaker 1: otherwise seem to be like just random information. It's it's
Speaker 1: recognizing the signal through the noise. There's a real value
Speaker 1: to that. But that ability is not full proof. Sometimes
Speaker 1: we don't see the pattern and we end up as
Speaker 1: lunch so we just failed to notice it. Or sometimes
Speaker 1: we see what appears to us to be a meaningful shape,
Speaker 1: but really it's just a bunch of visual clutter that
Speaker 1: doesn't actually form the shape we have perceived. So the
Speaker 1: classic example of this is laying on your back and
Speaker 1: looking up at the sky and saying what clouds look like?
Speaker 1: You know, seeing shapes in the clouds. You might look
Speaker 1: up at a fluffy cloud and see a face or
Speaker 1: an animal or something like that, and we know that
Speaker 1: the cloud isn't really a face. In fact, we might
Speaker 1: even realize that if we were to view that same
Speaker 1: cloud but from a different perspective. Let's say that we
Speaker 1: were well up in the air in a hot air
Speaker 1: balloon looking at that cloud, we might see that it's
Speaker 1: it's made up of totally different shapes. It doesn't look
Speaker 1: like a face at all, and it's only because of
Speaker 1: our perception from the ground that we think that. But
Speaker 1: you know, you move your perception a little bit and
Speaker 1: it doesn't. The same thing was true of the infamous
Speaker 1: face on Mars. There was this famous picture of this, uh,
Speaker 1: this little physical region of Mars, where it kind of
Speaker 1: looked like it was a face, like perhaps someone had
Speaker 1: carved a face into the very rock of Mars. Except
Speaker 1: then we found that if you viewed it from a
Speaker 1: different angle, it didn't look like a face at all.
Speaker 1: It was just a natural formation of hills and valleys
Speaker 1: that when the light hit it at a certain angle
Speaker 1: and when looked at from a certain perspective, looked like
Speaker 1: a face. So again, like our perception can play tricks
Speaker 1: on us, otherwise optical illusions wouldn't exist, right, So that's
Speaker 1: something that we need to remember. There's also a concept
Speaker 1: called apophenia, by the way, the tendency to look at
Speaker 1: something that doesn't have patterns in it, but we perceive
Speaker 1: a pattern. We often call that paradolia. Right, So you
Speaker 1: look at a cloud, you see a face, that's paradolia. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a similar concept called apathenia. That's a term that
Speaker 1: Klaus Conrad coined while writing about early stages of schizophrenia.
Speaker 1: And Conrad was describing this tendency to see connections between
Speaker 1: things that aren't actually connected, and beyond that, beyond perceiving
Speaker 1: these connections, you get the feeling like there's a real
Speaker 1: significance to it, a special meaning between these perceived connections,
Speaker 1: even though in reality, objectively, there is no connection between
Speaker 1: these things. And you can sort of draw a line
Speaker 1: from that tendency to stuff like conspiracy theories, where you
Speaker 1: start looking at things that really don't have any connection
Speaker 1: with each other and you start drawing connections to them,
Speaker 1: and you start assigning causal relationships and motivations and active
Speaker 1: steps towards pushing these things forward. That's where a lot
Speaker 1: of conspiracy theories take place because we have this natural
Speaker 1: tendency to do it to some degree. You know, some
Speaker 1: people have a stronger tendency to do it than others,
Speaker 1: And as Conrad was saying, that people who are particularly
Speaker 1: susceptible to this often are demonstrating uh features that are
Speaker 1: common to early stages of schizophrenia. So it's dangerous because
Speaker 1: we can start building upon an early misperception. Right, we
Speaker 1: make a mistake in drawing a conclusion about things we've observed,
Speaker 1: and then we build upon that mistake, and before you
Speaker 1: know it, you've got an entire structure of beliefs there
Speaker 1: that's built on a faulty foundation. But by then it's
Speaker 1: too late, right, you've already bought into a lie, or
Speaker 1: at least a misinterpretation of the facts. So what this
Speaker 1: tells us is that our brains are not completely reliable.
Speaker 1: Our brains interpret information, but sometimes the ding dang gray
Speaker 1: matter makes mistakes. This applies to everyone. In fact, if
Speaker 1: it didn't happen, then stuff like stage magic would never work.
Speaker 1: Magicians count on the fact that our brains are fallible,
Speaker 1: that we can be tricked. Scam Artists do it too,
Speaker 1: but they're more nefarious about it, all right, All that's
Speaker 1: just to establish the fact that we humans can encounter
Speaker 1: stuff and draw incorrect conclusions. Now, the thing about ghost
Speaker 1: hunting is that ghost hunters have kind of doubled down
Speaker 1: on this and have gone even further through the misuse
Speaker 1: and misunderstanding of technology. The hunters say their tech helps
Speaker 1: them detect ghosts. I say they are misinterpreting data. Uh,
Speaker 1: perhaps by just you know, naturally misinterpreting it, sometimes willfully
Speaker 1: misinterpreting it. Sometimes they don't believe what they're saying at all,
Speaker 1: but they're doing this because it's a living. They're making
Speaker 1: money through it. So I don't want to paint everyone
Speaker 1: with the same brush. I think there are true believers
Speaker 1: out there who are mistaken but sincere in their beliefs.
Speaker 1: And I think there are scam artists who don't believe
Speaker 1: a thing that they are saying, but they are, you know,
Speaker 1: exploiting other people's belief in the paranormal in order to
Speaker 1: make a living. But anyway, it's all fundamentally anti scientific.
Speaker 1: And let's get to our first example to really dive
Speaker 1: into that, and and that is trying to find meaning
Speaker 1: in random noise because This plays back to things like
Speaker 1: apophenia and paradolia, So in this case, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: literal noise. And there are a couple of different ways
Speaker 1: that ghost hunters tried to do this. They might try
Speaker 1: and take an audio recording device, and this could be
Speaker 1: anything from an older magnetic tape system like even real
Speaker 1: to real tape systems in some cases, to stuff like
Speaker 1: digital recorders that save audio files directly to solid state drives,
Speaker 1: so you can have an analog recording or a digital recording.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of different variations out there. Another
Speaker 1: take on this is not the recording device necessarily, but
Speaker 1: a playback device where they might scan through a spectrum
Speaker 1: of radio frequencies to see if something emerges as you're
Speaker 1: doing the scanning. We'll talk about that in a second too. Now,
Speaker 1: in all these cases it helps if you take a
Speaker 1: big old dose of magical thinking along with your technology.
Speaker 1: That can go a long way to filling in gaps,
Speaker 1: because when you start to ask questions about what's going on,
Speaker 1: things fall apart fairly quickly. So let's start with recordings.
Speaker 1: This alone gets pretty messy. So the simplest version of
Speaker 1: this is that at ghost hunters have set up recording
Speaker 1: devices in an area where there is supposed ghost activity,
Speaker 1: and you might do this so that you can monitor
Speaker 1: the area for longer periods without having to have a
Speaker 1: human sit there the whole time. So you just let
Speaker 1: a recording device go and then later you check back
Speaker 1: and you scan through it to see if there are
Speaker 1: anything registered on the recording device. Maybe you even have
Speaker 1: one that only turns on when there's an audible noise,
Speaker 1: and so you just have recordings of anything that actually
Speaker 1: went beyond a certain threshold. Or maybe the idea is
Speaker 1: that the spirits are going to be more inclined to
Speaker 1: be chatty if there are no nosy breathers who happened
Speaker 1: to be in the space breathers by the way, or
Speaker 1: what ghosts call the living, which is something I just
Speaker 1: made up, or another perfectly cromulent explanation. As you want
Speaker 1: the recording to document anything that is actually experienced, because
Speaker 1: otherwise you have to rely upon witness accounts. Those are
Speaker 1: thoroughly unreliable. We know that witness accounts are unreliable in
Speaker 1: all really matters, because our our perception and our memories
Speaker 1: are fallible, and we can make mistakes, especially the further
Speaker 1: removed you are from the event, the more fallible it gets.
Speaker 1: That's not to say that witness reactions have no value whatsoever.
Speaker 1: They do, but they're always there's always a matter of
Speaker 1: how reliable is the witness. The witness could be making mistakes,
Speaker 1: the witness could be influenced by a line of questioning,
Speaker 1: or the witness could be attempting to, you know, pain
Speaker 1: a picture that wasn't really accurate in the first place.
Speaker 1: They're all these possibilities. Then there's the matter of how
Speaker 1: any sounds actually end up on recordings, because there are
Speaker 1: different explanations for this, right, So there's the very straightforward answer.
Speaker 1: There's the answer that maybe spirits were making audible noises
Speaker 1: which could perhaps even include speech, and the recording device
Speaker 1: thus picked it up because it's the same thing that
Speaker 1: anyone would have heard. But they're also let's call them
Speaker 1: paranormal enthusiasts who have put forward other hypotheses suggesting that
Speaker 1: the spirits or ghosts or psychically gifted humans are somehow
Speaker 1: able to project sound onto a recording without actually making
Speaker 1: an audible sound. So, in other words, whatever the mechanism
Speaker 1: is makes some sort of alteration to the recording process.
Speaker 1: So in the moment when you're there, you don't hear anything,
Speaker 1: but in the playback you hear a sound. This is
Speaker 1: called electronic voice phenomena or e v P, or as
Speaker 1: my friend Shay says, it's ghost a s MR. So
Speaker 1: if we're using real to real magnetic tape, a ghost
Speaker 1: hunter might put forth the hypothesis that a ghost used
Speaker 1: its electro magnetic powers, which we'll talk about later in
Speaker 1: this episode, to somehow manipulate the magnetic particles on the
Speaker 1: tape itself, and that that's what created the sound you
Speaker 1: hear when you play the tape back. So even though
Speaker 1: you didn't hear it in the moment, the sound is
Speaker 1: there because the ghost has effectively bypassed the microphone and
Speaker 1: recorded directly onto the tape. So that's that hypothesis, And
Speaker 1: there are problems with this. First, depending upon the instrumentation used,
Speaker 1: you can get artifacts during recording sessions. Uh And if
Speaker 1: the tape you're using used to have another recording on it,
Speaker 1: then the tape recorder might not be particularly good, and
Speaker 1: it may be that you have faint artifacts, faint recordings
Speaker 1: that are left from previous sessions on that tape. So
Speaker 1: the stuff you're listening to wasn't even put there during
Speaker 1: the recording session, but from a previous one. And so
Speaker 1: that's a possible explanation for at least the magnetic tape
Speaker 1: ones things where you could have artifacts from earlier recording sessions. Obviously,
Speaker 1: if it's a brand new tape that was never used
Speaker 1: in recording, that's not going to be the case. So
Speaker 1: this isn't like blanket explanation for every moments, just pointing
Speaker 1: out that there are our natural explanations for these sorts
Speaker 1: of things. Uh, And there are other totally natural explanations
Speaker 1: for odd stuff picked up on audio recordings, including just
Speaker 1: faulty recording processes. There's nothing quite like having someone who
Speaker 1: is unfamiliar with a tool who has then put in
Speaker 1: charge of using that tool, like they're going to be
Speaker 1: mistakes made and it may not be evident that a
Speaker 1: mistake was made, but it's recorded, and that can lead
Speaker 1: to all sorts of misinterpretations. If you give me an
Speaker 1: electronic device I have never used before and you're very
Speaker 1: vague with the instructions, chances are I'm going to do
Speaker 1: a really poor job at using that tool properly, and
Speaker 1: I might draw some conclusions based upon my use of
Speaker 1: that tool, but they're completely incorrect conclusions because I wasn't
Speaker 1: using the tool correctly in the first place. Then there's
Speaker 1: the actual playback experience. This is where we get to
Speaker 1: our brains playing tricks on us. We hear the playback
Speaker 1: and it seems so long ago. Now, we hear the
Speaker 1: playback and we listen oh hard for anything that we
Speaker 1: might identify as a meaningful signal. We're really listening hard,
Speaker 1: and we might start to interpret connections and patterns in
Speaker 1: the noise even when none really exist. We mistakenly identify
Speaker 1: stuff as having intent and meaning behind it, when in
Speaker 1: fact it's just random noise. That's just how our brains work,
Speaker 1: and we have to be aware of that, and we
Speaker 1: have to think critically before we run with that interpretation.
Speaker 1: This also is the case was so called ghost boxes,
Speaker 1: and this episode, because I'm head up, is going to
Speaker 1: start running long if I'm not careful. So what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do is I'm going to take a quick break.
Speaker 1: When we come back, I'll talk about ghost boxes and
Speaker 1: what those are, but first let me go get a drink.
Speaker 1: We'll take this quick break. Okay, was rambling about ghost
Speaker 1: boxes before the break. What are those? Now? These are
Speaker 1: devices that are meant to sweep through a band of
Speaker 1: radio frequencies. Typically we're talking AM radio here, doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be, but that's like the standard is using AM radio.
Speaker 1: It actually kind of reminds me of being in the
Speaker 1: car and hitting that scan feature found on most car radios.
Speaker 1: And when you do that, what happens is your radio
Speaker 1: is starting to seek out viable radio signals, right, like
Speaker 1: a strong signal that represents this is something that would
Speaker 1: come through onto the speakers, and once it does, it
Speaker 1: will settle on that station for a few seconds, and
Speaker 1: if you don't hit the scan button again, it will
Speaker 1: then jump to the next available signal. And once in
Speaker 1: a while if you do this, if you hit scan
Speaker 1: on a road trip, you might end up with some
Speaker 1: pretty funny results on occasion, like you might get the
Speaker 1: opening bit of one song and the closing bit of
Speaker 1: a totally different song, and it's just because of the
Speaker 1: way the scan jumped. It might have a weird way
Speaker 1: of fitting together. That's funny. Like that can happen, right.
Speaker 1: It's not the best way to stay entertained, mind you,
Speaker 1: but it can on occasion produce something funny. What ghost
Speaker 1: boxes are doing something similar, except they sweep more quickly
Speaker 1: through radio signals, so you're not really settling on any
Speaker 1: one frequency for long. Plus you're going through all the
Speaker 1: frequencies in the band over and over and over again,
Speaker 1: so not just the ones that represent a signal, but
Speaker 1: the static that's in between signals and again. The ghostly
Speaker 1: mechanics of this approach, like what ghosts are doing to
Speaker 1: supposedly communicate through this device, are really questionable. The ideas
Speaker 1: that somehow a ghost is able to communicate as the
Speaker 1: ghost box cycles through these radio frequencies, piecing together noises
Speaker 1: that create words or phrases, so the little snippets of
Speaker 1: sound could be reinterpreted to be communications from the great beyond,
Speaker 1: but it's really just random snippets of sound and static.
Speaker 1: I'm not even sure what the mechanism would be for
Speaker 1: a spirit to communicate in this way. I mean, how
Speaker 1: would a spirit even know to manipulate radio signals in
Speaker 1: time with a tuner that's rapidly cycling through different frequencies.
Speaker 1: I mean, imagine that you're trying to have a phone
Speaker 1: conversation with someone, only in order to do it, you
Speaker 1: have to run down a hallway where there are phones
Speaker 1: mounted on the wall all down the hallway, and meanwhile,
Speaker 1: your friend who's listening to you also has to run
Speaker 1: down a hallway of speakers, each speaker tied to one
Speaker 1: of the specific phones, and that's the only way you
Speaker 1: can be heard. That seems like a lot of work
Speaker 1: to me. How does a ghost even do that? So
Speaker 1: there's no only no real explanation as to why you
Speaker 1: would use a ghostbox in the first place, at least
Speaker 1: not an explanation that makes sense, because all of those
Speaker 1: explanations pretty much require you to first accept the existence
Speaker 1: of ghosts or psychic phenomena from the get go. You
Speaker 1: have to accept that those are things that are real
Speaker 1: from the start. They don't prove the existence of these phenomena,
Speaker 1: they just are assumed to be associated with them, and
Speaker 1: you get into the circular reasoning, right, like, oh, the
Speaker 1: ghost box proves there are ghosts, and ghosts prove that
Speaker 1: the ghost box works. That's not how science works, right,
Speaker 1: That's not an accurate kind of of conclusion you can make.
Speaker 1: But let's move on. We're gonna talk about a different
Speaker 1: technology used in connection with ghost hunting. So get ready
Speaker 1: to say cheese, because we're gonna talk cameras. The humble
Speaker 1: camera has been an integral part of the ghost hunting
Speaker 1: subset ever since its earliest days when it became a
Speaker 1: tool used by spiritualists, and it kind of got started
Speaker 1: as a joke that was interpreted as a real thing,
Speaker 1: and then the person who made the joke realized they
Speaker 1: could make a whole lot of money if they ran
Speaker 1: with the joke being real. And I'm talking about double
Speaker 1: exposure in this case. So for we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: photographic cameras like actual um film and and plate cameras,
Speaker 1: the stuff that takes place before digital cameras. So these
Speaker 1: are the kind of cameras that take images by exposing
Speaker 1: some photoreactive chemicals that are coded on some substance UH.
Speaker 1: They expose those chemicals to light, so a lens focuses
Speaker 1: the light and directs it to whatever surface has these
Speaker 1: photoreactive chemicals on it. So in the good old days,
Speaker 1: these were photographic plates, and later that was replaced with UH,
Speaker 1: with film that had the chemicals essentially painted onto them.
Speaker 1: And then you would develop these photographic plates or film
Speaker 1: through a process where you expose them to different chemicals,
Speaker 1: you would develop a negative. From the negative, you could
Speaker 1: produce a positive image and then boom, you've got your photograph.
Speaker 1: But one thing you could do with these cameras is
Speaker 1: you could take a double exposure. And that's just what
Speaker 1: it sounds like. It's when you expose the same photoreactive
Speaker 1: surface to light twice. You can actually do multi exposure,
Speaker 1: though the more you do it, the messier the image
Speaker 1: is going to be to a point where you're not
Speaker 1: gonna see anything. And maybe you do it by accident, right,
Speaker 1: maybe you failed to advance the film in your camera
Speaker 1: and you expose the same frame of film to light twice,
Speaker 1: or maybe you do it on purpose to create an
Speaker 1: interesting effect. Maybe you're an artist and you're just experimenting
Speaker 1: with this sort of stuff. But however he gets made,
Speaker 1: a double exposure can have some really interesting features. You know,
Speaker 1: figures that were perfectly corporeal during the actual photo session
Speaker 1: could appear to be ghostly in the double exposure photo.
Speaker 1: Artists have used this effect to create amazing and sometimes
Speaker 1: you know, unsettling works. And there are modern tools in
Speaker 1: editing software suites like Photoshop. They give artists the chance
Speaker 1: to replicate those effects. Using digital photographs or even create
Speaker 1: brand new effects inspired by double exposures. But it's all
Speaker 1: stemming from the very physical phenomena with early cameras. Now,
Speaker 1: at a casual glance, you might think the photographs you're
Speaker 1: looking at depicts something supernatural because there are these kind
Speaker 1: of ghostly images in there, and the less you know
Speaker 1: about how film works, the more likely you are to
Speaker 1: misinterpret what you are seeing. If you have a background
Speaker 1: in film and in film development, you would likely spot
Speaker 1: double exposures right away. You would understand what you're looking at,
Speaker 1: you would know how it was produced. But to the layman,
Speaker 1: particularly back when photography was a young science, it could
Speaker 1: seem like proof that the supernatural exists. But no, it's
Speaker 1: just a multiple exposure of photoreactive chemicals that were subsequently
Speaker 1: developed into a photograph. Then there are the orbs. Uh,
Speaker 1: the orbs so orbs and photography refer to these little
Speaker 1: spears of light that sometimes show up in photographs, and
Speaker 1: ghost hunter types might claim that such orbs represent spirits
Speaker 1: or ghost or psychic phenomena or something along those lines.
Speaker 1: But the real explanation is pointedly not paranormal. It's just
Speaker 1: very very normal. So why would orbs appear in a photograph.
Speaker 1: It's due to a phenomenon called back scatter, and it
Speaker 1: all has to do with light. So let's say you're
Speaker 1: a ghost hunter and you're in a creepy old mansion
Speaker 1: and you're at the foot of a really particularly creepy staircase,
Speaker 1: and all the lights in the house are turned off
Speaker 1: so that you can see any ghostly phenomena right away.
Speaker 1: And you've been told that there's a ghost that sometimes
Speaker 1: walks up and down this particular staircase, and that usually
Speaker 1: this ghost is invisible to the naked eye. So you
Speaker 1: take out your digital flash camera, you set it up
Speaker 1: on a tripod, you pointed up the staircase, and you
Speaker 1: start taking flash photos. And the focal point of these
Speaker 1: photos is on the staircase itself, so you focus the
Speaker 1: lens so that it's on the staircase. Well, if you're
Speaker 1: in an old mansion, they're likely going to be dust
Speaker 1: particles in the air. Depending upon the condition of the mansion,
Speaker 1: maybe there's quite a few dust particles in the air.
Speaker 1: Some of those dust particles may well be within the
Speaker 1: view of this camera lens. So when the flash goes off,
Speaker 1: the flash eliminates not just the staircase, but these little
Speaker 1: moats of dust that are floating in the air. Now,
Speaker 1: the particles aren't necessarily in the focal point of the camera,
Speaker 1: like some of them might be very close to the camera,
Speaker 1: but obviously the lens is focused on the staircase beyond,
Speaker 1: so these unfocused particles reflect light back at the lens.
Speaker 1: The lens is designed to collect and direct light to
Speaker 1: a sensor, so that gets recorded as this sort of
Speaker 1: circular blob of light, a little artifact, a sphere of
Speaker 1: light or orb. Dust particles that are close to the
Speaker 1: camera are going to appear very bright, sitting out against
Speaker 1: the focused part of the image because they're closer to
Speaker 1: the flash. So the bit of staircase you've trained the
Speaker 1: camera on is darker. This orb will stand out much
Speaker 1: better because it's a piece of dust that's a little
Speaker 1: closer to that flash and therefore shows up as a
Speaker 1: brighter spot in the image. So there's nothing supernatural about
Speaker 1: any of this. They're just dust particles or sometimes water droplets.
Speaker 1: The same thing can happen with underwater photography because you
Speaker 1: have all these little particulates in the water that can
Speaker 1: reflect light. Meanwhile, you're focusing on something that's further out
Speaker 1: from the lens, So it's just this very small surface
Speaker 1: that's relatively close to the camera flash and therefore reflecting
Speaker 1: light back to the camera lens. It happens in an instant,
Speaker 1: so when we take the photo, we don't see the orbs.
Speaker 1: You know, that's not how our eyes are are catching this,
Speaker 1: but they are showing up in the images that we captured. Again,
Speaker 1: we get to the question of if this were a
Speaker 1: paranormal entity, how does this work? Exactly like, assuming that
Speaker 1: this is a ghost, how is it that's showing up
Speaker 1: as an orb on the image? How would a camera
Speaker 1: pick up something that we cannot see with our own eyes,
Speaker 1: Because how is the camera able to see it? If
Speaker 1: we cannot, how is it able to produce something that
Speaker 1: we can see? Wants it's a recorded image, but we
Speaker 1: can't see it when it's in the moment. Now I
Speaker 1: do understand how folks could start to think that a
Speaker 1: camera could do this, because we do have things like
Speaker 1: infrared cameras. Right we humans can't see in the infrared
Speaker 1: range of light. Infrared light is invisible to us. I mean,
Speaker 1: we can feel infrared as heat, but we can't see it.
Speaker 1: But with infrared cameras, we can capture images in infrared.
Speaker 1: But the images that we look at, the ones we
Speaker 1: see from these cameras, Obviously that information has to be
Speaker 1: converted into the visible spectrum for us to see it. Typically,
Speaker 1: the warmer areas appear in the early part of the
Speaker 1: visible spectrum. So your red's, oranges and yellows, right, that's
Speaker 1: those are the hotter things. If you're taking a picture
Speaker 1: with a thermal camera and it's red, you know that's
Speaker 1: a hot part of the image. The cooler parts appear
Speaker 1: in the latter half of the visible spectrum, so you're greens, blues,
Speaker 1: and purples indicate cooler areas of an image. So if
Speaker 1: we have an infrared or thermal camera, uh, well, that's
Speaker 1: device that's capable of capturing stuff that are humanized cannot see.
Speaker 1: So based on that, I can understand why people might
Speaker 1: think that somehow a normal camera could capture a ghost
Speaker 1: image that would otherwise be invisible to us. But there's
Speaker 1: no mechanism to describe what it's capturing or how that happens.
Speaker 1: So unfortunately for ghost hunters, that's just not what's happening.
Speaker 1: It's literally just light reflecting into the lens and causing
Speaker 1: an artifact in the image. All right, well, then we
Speaker 1: got the big daddy of technology used in ghost hunting,
Speaker 1: the cren de la creme, the piece de resistance, the
Speaker 1: old e MF detector or meter or reader. E m
Speaker 1: F stands for electro magnetic field. Although a ton of
Speaker 1: these are marketed as just ghost hunting or ghost detecting technologies,
Speaker 1: it is it's really ludicrous to see how many are.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think I read one study that said
Speaker 1: two out of of three e MF meet is that
Speaker 1: they found were related to paranormal investigations, which is not
Speaker 1: what they were made for. But you know, it's a
Speaker 1: great way to sell them. If you're a manufacturer that
Speaker 1: makes the MF meters and you don't mind the fact
Speaker 1: that people are buying them on the mistaken pretense that
Speaker 1: they could detect ghosts, it could be a really effective
Speaker 1: marketing tool. Okay, so it's time for a quick brush
Speaker 1: up on electro magnetism. This is one of the fundamental
Speaker 1: forces of the universe. The others, as we understand them,
Speaker 1: are the strong force, the weak force, and gravity. Now,
Speaker 1: these forces all have different strengths at different ranges. So
Speaker 1: the strong force, for example, is in fact the strongest,
Speaker 1: but it has a very small range on it's on
Speaker 1: the sub atomic scale, so it doesn't work beyond that.
Speaker 1: Gravity is the weakest of the fundamental forces, but it
Speaker 1: has infinite range, so everything in the universe technically has
Speaker 1: a gravitational effect on everything else in the universe. But
Speaker 1: this is a very weak weak force, so really we
Speaker 1: only start to notice it. We humans only start to
Speaker 1: notice that when we have stuff that's got a lot
Speaker 1: of mass, like planets and moons and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: where we start to really see the effects of this force.
Speaker 1: The electro magnetic force is stronger than gravity, but weaker
Speaker 1: than the other two. It also has infinite range, so
Speaker 1: it's not nearly as strong as the strong force or
Speaker 1: even the weak force. It's the physical interaction between electrically
Speaker 1: charged particles, and this connection between electricity and magnetism is fascinating,
Speaker 1: and I'm pretty sure that everyone who's listening to this
Speaker 1: has at some point played with a basic electro magnet,
Speaker 1: probably made one in science class at some point. So
Speaker 1: the way that we used to do it when I
Speaker 1: was in school was we would take an iron nail,
Speaker 1: like the kind you would use in construction, and we
Speaker 1: would take some insulated copper wire, usually insulated copper wires
Speaker 1: that no one was gonna get a shock or anything.
Speaker 1: We would wrap this wire around the nail several times,
Speaker 1: creating coils all along the length of the nail. Then
Speaker 1: we would attach the ends of the copper wire to
Speaker 1: the two terminals of a battery, which would allow an
Speaker 1: electric charge to move through the wire. So current moves
Speaker 1: through the copper wire. It's direct current because it's going
Speaker 1: in just one direction. And that means that the the
Speaker 1: electricity is looping around this nail over and over, and
Speaker 1: it turns the nail into a magnet. And the nail
Speaker 1: has a north pole and a south pole, just like
Speaker 1: a permanent magnet would. And if we were to use
Speaker 1: that to pick things up that were ferromagnetic, you know,
Speaker 1: there you go. You've just made yourself an electro magnet.
Speaker 1: So electricity can generate a magnetic field. Likewise, if you
Speaker 1: take a permanent magnet and you start to move it
Speaker 1: past a conductor, you know, move it so that the
Speaker 1: magnetic field of the permanent magnet encounters this conductor over
Speaker 1: over again. You can induce a current to flow through
Speaker 1: the conductor. That's the basis for a lot of our technology. Actually,
Speaker 1: everything from electric motors to dynamos two transformers all depends
Speaker 1: upon this relationship between electricity and magnetism. And we've got
Speaker 1: a lot more to say about that and how that
Speaker 1: relates to e m F meters. But before we get
Speaker 1: to that, let's take another quick break. Okay, we are
Speaker 1: up to the e m F reader or meter or detector.
Speaker 1: Ghost Hunters use these to look for fluctuations in electromagnetic
Speaker 1: fields in an effort to apparently detect ghosts. I guess
Speaker 1: the idea is that ghosts, through some unexplained mechanism, are
Speaker 1: capable of manipulating electromagnetic fields. How they do this is
Speaker 1: never really explained in the satisfactory way in my opinion.
Speaker 1: You might get some pseudo scientific explanation of that, but
Speaker 1: often you don't even get that. You just hear people
Speaker 1: starting from the assumption that ghosts can do this. But
Speaker 1: even with the pseudo scientific explanations, it really doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense because you've again you have to establish the
Speaker 1: existence of the cause before you can declare it as
Speaker 1: the cause. Right, saying that the m F detector went
Speaker 1: beat because of a ghost and then saying the ghosts
Speaker 1: exist because your detector went beep. That's just circular reasoning. Again,
Speaker 1: it doesn't actually prove anything. So you have an e
Speaker 1: m F meter and the readings fluctuate and boom, there
Speaker 1: be ghosts nearby, according to ghost hunters. But what's really
Speaker 1: happening here. Well. E m F meters or detectors have
Speaker 1: very sensitive components that are easily influenced by electrical and
Speaker 1: magnetic fields and the strength and the fluctuation. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, the amount and the rate of change of
Speaker 1: those fields determines how much response these components in the
Speaker 1: e m F detector give off. Right, how how influence
Speaker 1: are these elements inside the detector itself. That's a measurable quantity.
Speaker 1: You can measure how much it changes. So by measuring
Speaker 1: how the components respond, we can determine the presence and
Speaker 1: even the strength of an electromagnetic field. Now, I admit
Speaker 1: this is a super high level version of what's going on.
Speaker 1: It is not getting into the nitty gritty mechanics, and
Speaker 1: there is a much more technical explanation, but honestly, it
Speaker 1: gets deep into the physics of electromagnetic fields and complex
Speaker 1: equations that we use to derive field strength, and it
Speaker 1: frankly goes over my head pretty quickly. So rather than
Speaker 1: bumble through a bad explanation, I just want to reduce
Speaker 1: this to the fact that these meters measure the amount
Speaker 1: of change that they encounter as electromagnetic fields affect the meters.
Speaker 1: That's it, that's all they're meant to do. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of an under easy to understand when you realize
Speaker 1: that magnetic fields can induce current to flow through conductors,
Speaker 1: and that a current moving through a conduct or it
Speaker 1: creates a magnetic field. Once you understand that, having a
Speaker 1: little of device that has very sensitive elements inside it
Speaker 1: that can respond to this, that makes it pretty simple
Speaker 1: to understand from a high level. So e m F
Speaker 1: readers can really be divided into two broad categories. You
Speaker 1: have single access meters and try access meters or try
Speaker 1: axes meters, and you can think of an axis in
Speaker 1: this case kind of like an antenna. So a single
Speaker 1: access e m F detector has what would amount to
Speaker 1: a straight antenna, and to get a full reading, like
Speaker 1: a full accurate reading with a single access e MF meter,
Speaker 1: you would have to slowly rotate the meter to properly
Speaker 1: measure an electromagnetic field. If the antenna was perpendicular with
Speaker 1: the actual electromagnetic field, it's not going to pick up
Speaker 1: much of a signal. It's because it's out of alignment.
Speaker 1: If you rotate it so that it's out of that
Speaker 1: perpendicular orientation, then you would start to see the meter
Speaker 1: go off. If in fact, you were within a magnetic field,
Speaker 1: an electromagnetic field at a ninety degree rotation from the
Speaker 1: perpendicular with relation to the field, you should get the
Speaker 1: highest reading in whatever spot you're in. So moving into
Speaker 1: or out of an electromagnetic field will cause a detector
Speaker 1: to go off, which makes sense, but it means that
Speaker 1: moving around in an area where you have an electromagnetic field,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get ratings, and that can get really confusing
Speaker 1: really quickly. It might seem like the field is moving around,
Speaker 1: when in fact it's just that the detector is passing
Speaker 1: through a static field, which to the detector amounts to
Speaker 1: the same thing as being stationary, while a fluctuating field
Speaker 1: is around the detector um. So it can be easily misinterpreted.
Speaker 1: Is what I'm really getting at, So for ghost hunters,
Speaker 1: it can appear as though a field is spontaneously appearing
Speaker 1: and disappearing, but in fact that's not necessarily the case.
Speaker 1: I mean, it could be the case, but it could
Speaker 1: also be that the single access detector has moved into
Speaker 1: an alignment where it's not going to pick up the
Speaker 1: field in the first place. So the field could still
Speaker 1: be there, but the detector isn't sensing it because of
Speaker 1: its orientation. But you rotate the detector and spooky, the
Speaker 1: ghost is back. Now this is not really the case
Speaker 1: with try axes detectors. So as that name suggests, here
Speaker 1: you've got detectors that can pick up electromagnetic fields along
Speaker 1: three axes at the same time, not just in a
Speaker 1: single orientation, but three different so x, y, and Z
Speaker 1: if you If you think of it that way. They
Speaker 1: are more expensive than single access detectors, but they can
Speaker 1: create a more meaningful reading without having to rotate the meter,
Speaker 1: so you can use them more effectively. But one of
Speaker 1: the most popular devices in ghost hunting is a single
Speaker 1: access meter. One that's used frequently is called the k
Speaker 1: TO safe range, often just referred to as the k
Speaker 1: TO eater. Themeter has a couple of other features that
Speaker 1: make it popular with ghost hunters, and I'll touch on
Speaker 1: that in just a minute. Now, some things we need
Speaker 1: to consider about electromagnetic fields are that all electrical devices
Speaker 1: generate electromagnetic fields. So the electrical wiring and a building
Speaker 1: generates an electromagnetic field, and different things can impact how
Speaker 1: strong those fields are. So, for example, if the wiring
Speaker 1: and a building has really poor shielding, let's say, like
Speaker 1: the insulating material around the wires have kind of rotted away,
Speaker 1: then you're likely going to detect stronger electromagnetic fields in
Speaker 1: that area, assuming that you know those circuits are actually active. Also,
Speaker 1: electromagnetic fields can penetrate some material and it can reflect
Speaker 1: off other material. So it's just like I mean, light
Speaker 1: is electromagnetic radiation when you get down to it. Just
Speaker 1: like light can pass through certain things and it bounces
Speaker 1: off or reflects off of other things, the same is
Speaker 1: true with electromagnetic fields. So that means you might encounter
Speaker 1: fields in places you didn't expect. Right, Maybe there's a
Speaker 1: place where there's no visible source for an electromagnetic field,
Speaker 1: but that may be because the source happens to be
Speaker 1: on the other side of a barrier, like on the
Speaker 1: other side of a wall and you just can't see it.
Speaker 1: Or maybe it's that there are reflective surfaces that have
Speaker 1: essentially bounced the field to where you are, and while
Speaker 1: it doesn't look it's close to like a source, it's
Speaker 1: in fact because it's been reflected there. Electricians who are
Speaker 1: hired to seek out faulty wiring they know that an
Speaker 1: e m F detector is just the first step to
Speaker 1: actually tracking down the source of an electromagnetic field. So
Speaker 1: if they're looking for the faulty wires, they know, all right, well,
Speaker 1: this is my starting point, but it doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: I'm at ground zero for wherever the faulty wiring maybe.
Speaker 1: So that means if you're using an e m F detector,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of things that can support your
Speaker 1: erroneous use of that technology. If you pick up a
Speaker 1: reading somewhere that doesn't appear to be near electrical sources,
Speaker 1: well you might jump to the conclusion that something else
Speaker 1: has to be causing this fluctuating electromagnetic field, and since
Speaker 1: there isn't apparently an electrical system at fault, it has
Speaker 1: to be ghosts. And yeah, that's a huge leap to make,
Speaker 1: but it's essentially what you see with ghost hunters who
Speaker 1: rely on e m F meters. Knowing that electromagnetic fields
Speaker 1: might be passing through a wall or that they might
Speaker 1: be reflected off a surface tells you that you can
Speaker 1: encounter them in places that you wouldn't expect to and
Speaker 1: that they're all from perfectly mundane sources. But let's get
Speaker 1: back to the K two for a second. So it
Speaker 1: has a poor reputation for e m F detectors, at
Speaker 1: least according to the Atlantic and a piece titled The
Speaker 1: Broken Technology of Ghost Hunting, writer Colin Dicky says, the
Speaker 1: meter is known to be poorly shielded, which means this
Speaker 1: meter is particularly sensitive, and we'll pick up signals from
Speaker 1: very small sources, including stuff like cell phones. So maybe
Speaker 1: you've had an experience like this, like maybe you're listening
Speaker 1: to music on some cheap headphones and your phone is nearby,
Speaker 1: and your phone gets a notification, and at the moment
Speaker 1: that your phone gets this notification, the music you're listening
Speaker 1: to gets this weird digital stutter. I used to have
Speaker 1: some desktop speakers that were bad about this. If I
Speaker 1: had my phone on my desk and I was listening
Speaker 1: to music on the speakers, then I would get the
Speaker 1: diddy did they did? Did it sound? Whenever any kind
Speaker 1: of signal hit my my cell phone, Well, those signals
Speaker 1: have interfered with the electrical signal going to the speakers.
Speaker 1: This happens when the headphones or speakers have just poor
Speaker 1: shielding around the wires that lead to the speakers and
Speaker 1: the signal interferes with that. So, with better insulation than
Speaker 1: the wires are protected and you don't get this digital
Speaker 1: stutter well with an E M F meter. If it
Speaker 1: has poor shielding, it means the meter is likely to
Speaker 1: go off a lot more frequently. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: a hair trigger, uh, and a well shielded meter isn't
Speaker 1: going to do that at That could mean that you
Speaker 1: could be standing in the middle of an attic where
Speaker 1: there are no electrical systems anywhere close to you, and
Speaker 1: if someone around you gets a text message, the meter
Speaker 1: might register a fluctuation because it's picking up interference from
Speaker 1: the cell phone signal. And, as Dickie points out, the
Speaker 1: faults of this meter actually turned into assets for ghost hunters.
Speaker 1: Erratic performance plays into the narrative of looking for a
Speaker 1: mischievous ghosts. It's not the meter that's to blame. It's
Speaker 1: that they're ghosts around you. Now, there are other tools
Speaker 1: that ghost hunters will occasionally rely upon, thermal cameras and
Speaker 1: heat sensors and thermometers, for example, to detect things like
Speaker 1: cold patches, but again, detecting an area that is colder
Speaker 1: or warmer than its surroundings that doesn't actually tell you
Speaker 1: that much. Let's say that you've got a crew with you,
Speaker 1: you're doing a ghost hunt. You're in an abandoned building,
Speaker 1: and you set up in one room and you start
Speaker 1: looking for orbs, and you're turning on recording stations to
Speaker 1: capture e v P, a lot of people moving around
Speaker 1: getting things established, and then you move away from this
Speaker 1: base of operations and you start picking up cold spots.
Speaker 1: Could that be a ghost or is it just that
Speaker 1: the room you came from had some heat build up
Speaker 1: because you had warm bodies moving around, you had electronic
Speaker 1: equipment being turned on that gives off heat, and then
Speaker 1: the area you're moving into hasn't had these sorts of
Speaker 1: heat sources, so the heat is slowly creeping into other
Speaker 1: parts of the building and it creates the illusion of
Speaker 1: these cold spots. Other stuff that can also cause cold spots,
Speaker 1: like a blocked or clogged air event can do that.
Speaker 1: Drafts from outside obviously can do that. Just being in
Speaker 1: a building where maybe you're in a far point from
Speaker 1: where a thermostat is, so the temperature at your location
Speaker 1: isn't gonna match wherever the thermostat is because it's it's
Speaker 1: it's too far away, right, Like poor thermostat location can
Speaker 1: really cause very uncomfortable conditions within buildings. We're sure if
Speaker 1: you're near the thermostat, you're experiencing whatever temperature you've set
Speaker 1: it to. But the further you get away from that,
Speaker 1: the the greater deviation you experience from whatever that's set
Speaker 1: temperature is. Well, that could be an explanation for things
Speaker 1: like cold spots or warm spots. I think ultimately the
Speaker 1: role that tech plays and ghost hunting is one that
Speaker 1: is meant to support the belief in ghosts. Any outcome
Speaker 1: is seen to be evidence supporting that. A lack of
Speaker 1: interesting stuff on recordings or video or film, all that
Speaker 1: means is that ghosts were not active at the time
Speaker 1: of investigation. Anything you do gather counts as evidence. Any
Speaker 1: lack of evidence is dismissed, So it's a head's eye
Speaker 1: win tails, you lose kind of situation. On top of that,
Speaker 1: a lot of text role relies upon the misuse or
Speaker 1: the misunderstanding or both of that technology. Arthur's see Clark
Speaker 1: famously said any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,
Speaker 1: Meaning if we were to teleport into the future and
Speaker 1: see what technologies future humans were using, to us, so
Speaker 1: would seem magical because we don't understand how it works. Well.
Speaker 1: It doesn't actually have to be that advanced to seem magical.
Speaker 1: It just relies upon ignorance. We just had to have
Speaker 1: a limited understanding of the technology for it to seem
Speaker 1: magical to us. So if you think of cameras as
Speaker 1: just devices that produce images of stuff that is definitely there,
Speaker 1: then you don't understand how a reflection off a mode
Speaker 1: of dust could create an orb and you're more likely
Speaker 1: to accept the idea that the blob of light is
Speaker 1: supernatural in nature. And of course, tech plays a part
Speaker 1: in supporting our desire to know what happens after we
Speaker 1: have shuffled off this mortal coil. As William Shakespeare once said,
Speaker 1: it is natural to wonder what, if anything, lies for
Speaker 1: us after we pass away, and while we usually think
Speaker 1: of ghosts in terms that are creepy and scary, the
Speaker 1: idea is also something of a comfort, because, of course,
Speaker 1: if ghosts exist, it suggests that there is some sort
Speaker 1: of continuation of our personal experience even after we expire.
Speaker 1: We want there to be ghosts because that means we
Speaker 1: don't just cease to exist after we die. We are
Speaker 1: highly incentivized to believe in an afterlife, but just because
Speaker 1: we want to believe does not necessarily make it so. Now,
Speaker 1: perhaps there is an experience after death. I am no
Speaker 1: expert on the subject. I cannot say one way or another.
Speaker 1: I haven't died, I don't know, so maybe there is.
Speaker 1: But I feel confident in saying there is no compelling
Speaker 1: evidence the ghosts as they are frequently portrayed in entertainment
Speaker 1: like ghost hunting shows are a thing. I feel there's
Speaker 1: no compelling evidence whatsoever to support that, and certainly none
Speaker 1: relies upon the misinterpretation of the use of technology. Now again,
Speaker 1: from the spiritualist days of the late nineteenth century up
Speaker 1: to ghost hunting programs that are on today, I feel
Speaker 1: like so much of that is based firmly on misunderstanding
Speaker 1: or willful ignorance of what technology is and how it works,
Speaker 1: and then twisting that to support an interpretation that in
Speaker 1: turn supports this preconceived idea that ghosts exist. So that's it.
Speaker 1: That's my bummer of an episode about ghost hunting technology.
Speaker 1: There are obviously other technologies used in ghost hunting that
Speaker 1: we could talk about. Um And I'm sure that lots
Speaker 1: of you out there have seen programs that had some
Speaker 1: pretty compelling experiences on them. You also have to remember
Speaker 1: that editing is a thing that it's way easier to
Speaker 1: shoot a whole lot of footage than edit together something
Speaker 1: that is remotely interesting. Um. And also, like you know,
Speaker 1: some people fake stuff. I'm not saying everyone does, but
Speaker 1: some people definitely do. And uh, it just takes a
Speaker 1: little bit of that to create something that feels compelling
Speaker 1: when ultimately the Emperor has no clothes. All right, that's
Speaker 1: it for this spooky episode tech stuff. I plan to
Speaker 1: do a few more spooky related themed shows before Halloween
Speaker 1: gets here. Hope you are all well and that you
Speaker 1: are having a good time. I really hope that you're
Speaker 1: enjoying the spooky season. If that is your thing, I
Speaker 1: know it's my thing, like even being a skeptic, I
Speaker 1: still enjoy it. Like I like ghost stories, and I
Speaker 1: like ghost story movies and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: I really enjoy them. But to me, their stories, and
Speaker 1: that's where it starts and ends. If you have suggestions
Speaker 1: for topics I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: feel free to reach out to me. There are a
Speaker 1: couple of ways you can do that. One is to
Speaker 1: download the I Heart Radio app. It's free. You can
Speaker 1: navigate over to tech Stuff. Just put tech Stuff in
Speaker 1: the little arch bar will pop up. You'll see that
Speaker 1: there is a little microphone icon on there. If you
Speaker 1: click on that, you can leave a voice message up
Speaker 1: to thirty seconds in length. And if you want me
Speaker 1: to use the message in a future episode, just let
Speaker 1: me know, because I only do it if you tell
Speaker 1: me to. But you can reach out that way, or
Speaker 1: you can do so on Twitter. The handle for the
Speaker 1: show is tech Stuff H s W and I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you again really soon Y. Tech Stuff is an
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.