WEBVTT - Ghost Hunter Technology Revisited 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio. 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:15.440 Hey there, and welcome back to a spooky episode of 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:21.320 tech Stuff. I'm your host your ghost post Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:24.079 I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio and how 0:00:24.200 --> 0:00:27.080 the tech are you? So? Throughout this month, I'm doing 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:31.320 a few Halloween well themes seems like it would be 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:35.600 too strong a word, let's say Halloween inspired episodes. So 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:38.839 earlier I did an episode about zombie computers, which is, 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:43.760 you know, questionably tied to the Halloween theme. Today, we're 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:47.640 going to return to a classic topic that tech Stuff 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:51.960 covered way back in two Now. I'm not replaying that episode, 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:56.040 but I am revisiting it. So in t I and 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:59.560 my then co host Chris Palette sat down to talk 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:04.680 about tech commonly used in ghost hunting. And let's get 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:06.600 this out of the way first. Just like I did 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:12.120 twelve years ago, I am a skeptic. I do not 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:17.680 believe in ghosts. I think ghostly phenomena describes a collection 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:25.440 of misinterpretations, mistakes, willingness to believe uh scams in some cases, 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:28.360 the human tendency to look for explanations to stuff, and 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:31.800 you know when those explanations are not immediately evident. We 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:36.880 tend to invent explanations. For example, one thing we humans 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:42.520 are pretty good at is recognizing patterns in lots of 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:47.039 noisy stimuli. And this makes sense. It's a kind of 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:51.200 survival mechanism. You're right, If you're scanning the tall grass 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:54.920 and you notice a pattern that looks like a lioness's head, 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:58.400 well you might just save yourself from being a lions lunchable. 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:02.080 So it's a portant that we humans are able to 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:07.640 recognize meaningful shapes or meaningful sounds and white what might 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:11.720 otherwise seem to be like just random information. It's it's 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:16.120 recognizing the signal through the noise. There's a real value 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:21.080 to that. But that ability is not full proof. Sometimes 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:23.840 we don't see the pattern and we end up as 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:26.880 lunch so we just failed to notice it. Or sometimes 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:30.800 we see what appears to us to be a meaningful shape, 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:33.880 but really it's just a bunch of visual clutter that 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:37.960 doesn't actually form the shape we have perceived. So the 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:40.920 classic example of this is laying on your back and 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:44.280 looking up at the sky and saying what clouds look like? 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:47.440 You know, seeing shapes in the clouds. You might look 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:49.920 up at a fluffy cloud and see a face or 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:54.280 an animal or something like that, and we know that 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:58.320 the cloud isn't really a face. In fact, we might 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:00.959 even realize that if we were to view that same 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:04.440 cloud but from a different perspective. Let's say that we 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:07.280 were well up in the air in a hot air 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:11.919 balloon looking at that cloud, we might see that it's 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:14.200 it's made up of totally different shapes. It doesn't look 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:16.160 like a face at all, and it's only because of 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:20.000 our perception from the ground that we think that. But 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:23.280 you know, you move your perception a little bit and 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:26.320 it doesn't. The same thing was true of the infamous 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:31.919 face on Mars. There was this famous picture of this, uh, 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:35.440 this little physical region of Mars, where it kind of 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:37.560 looked like it was a face, like perhaps someone had 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:41.960 carved a face into the very rock of Mars. Except 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:43.960 then we found that if you viewed it from a 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:46.160 different angle, it didn't look like a face at all. 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:50.000 It was just a natural formation of hills and valleys 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:53.240 that when the light hit it at a certain angle 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:56.520 and when looked at from a certain perspective, looked like 0:03:56.560 --> 0:04:00.360 a face. So again, like our perception can play tricks 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:05.720 on us, otherwise optical illusions wouldn't exist, right, So that's 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:08.520 something that we need to remember. There's also a concept 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:13.000 called apophenia, by the way, the tendency to look at 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:16.120 something that doesn't have patterns in it, but we perceive 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:20.159 a pattern. We often call that paradolia. Right, So you 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:23.920 look at a cloud, you see a face, that's paradolia. Well, 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:28.080 there's a similar concept called apathenia. That's a term that 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:33.839 Klaus Conrad coined while writing about early stages of schizophrenia. 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:38.920 And Conrad was describing this tendency to see connections between 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:44.600 things that aren't actually connected, and beyond that, beyond perceiving 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:47.560 these connections, you get the feeling like there's a real 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:52.360 significance to it, a special meaning between these perceived connections, 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:56.560 even though in reality, objectively, there is no connection between 0:04:56.560 --> 0:04:59.760 these things. And you can sort of draw a line 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:04.000 from that tendency to stuff like conspiracy theories, where you 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:06.479 start looking at things that really don't have any connection 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:09.880 with each other and you start drawing connections to them, 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:15.440 and you start assigning causal relationships and motivations and active 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:20.160 steps towards pushing these things forward. That's where a lot 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:23.120 of conspiracy theories take place because we have this natural 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:25.800 tendency to do it to some degree. You know, some 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:29.360 people have a stronger tendency to do it than others, 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:33.039 And as Conrad was saying, that people who are particularly 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:38.120 susceptible to this often are demonstrating uh features that are 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:43.159 common to early stages of schizophrenia. So it's dangerous because 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:47.680 we can start building upon an early misperception. Right, we 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:53.440 make a mistake in drawing a conclusion about things we've observed, 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:56.359 and then we build upon that mistake, and before you 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:59.600 know it, you've got an entire structure of beliefs there 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:02.320 that's built on a faulty foundation. But by then it's 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:05.320 too late, right, you've already bought into a lie, or 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.680 at least a misinterpretation of the facts. So what this 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:12.400 tells us is that our brains are not completely reliable. 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:16.679 Our brains interpret information, but sometimes the ding dang gray 0:06:16.720 --> 0:06:21.400 matter makes mistakes. This applies to everyone. In fact, if 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:25.320 it didn't happen, then stuff like stage magic would never work. 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:29.440 Magicians count on the fact that our brains are fallible, 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:33.000 that we can be tricked. Scam Artists do it too, 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:36.680 but they're more nefarious about it, all right, All that's 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:39.039 just to establish the fact that we humans can encounter 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:43.839 stuff and draw incorrect conclusions. Now, the thing about ghost 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:47.960 hunting is that ghost hunters have kind of doubled down 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:51.320 on this and have gone even further through the misuse 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:55.800 and misunderstanding of technology. The hunters say their tech helps 0:06:55.839 --> 0:07:02.240 them detect ghosts. I say they are misinterpreting data. Uh, 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:09.120 perhaps by just you know, naturally misinterpreting it, sometimes willfully 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:12.880 misinterpreting it. Sometimes they don't believe what they're saying at all, 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:15.320 but they're doing this because it's a living. They're making 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:18.240 money through it. So I don't want to paint everyone 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:20.920 with the same brush. I think there are true believers 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:25.280 out there who are mistaken but sincere in their beliefs. 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:27.800 And I think there are scam artists who don't believe 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:30.080 a thing that they are saying, but they are, you know, 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:34.040 exploiting other people's belief in the paranormal in order to 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:39.080 make a living. But anyway, it's all fundamentally anti scientific. 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:42.320 And let's get to our first example to really dive 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:45.160 into that, and and that is trying to find meaning 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:48.720 in random noise because This plays back to things like 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:52.880 apophenia and paradolia, So in this case, I'm talking about 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:56.160 literal noise. And there are a couple of different ways 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:59.040 that ghost hunters tried to do this. They might try 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:01.880 and take an audio recording device, and this could be 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:05.800 anything from an older magnetic tape system like even real 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:08.880 to real tape systems in some cases, to stuff like 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:13.320 digital recorders that save audio files directly to solid state drives, 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:16.800 so you can have an analog recording or a digital recording. 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:20.440 There are a lot of different variations out there. Another 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:25.320 take on this is not the recording device necessarily, but 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:29.640 a playback device where they might scan through a spectrum 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:33.880 of radio frequencies to see if something emerges as you're 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:37.000 doing the scanning. We'll talk about that in a second too. Now, 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:39.040 in all these cases it helps if you take a 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:43.640 big old dose of magical thinking along with your technology. 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:46.400 That can go a long way to filling in gaps, 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:49.120 because when you start to ask questions about what's going on, 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:54.439 things fall apart fairly quickly. So let's start with recordings. 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:58.640 This alone gets pretty messy. So the simplest version of 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:01.840 this is that at ghost hunters have set up recording 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:06.120 devices in an area where there is supposed ghost activity, 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:08.640 and you might do this so that you can monitor 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:11.280 the area for longer periods without having to have a 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:14.400 human sit there the whole time. So you just let 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:17.160 a recording device go and then later you check back 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:18.760 and you scan through it to see if there are 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:22.200 anything registered on the recording device. Maybe you even have 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:25.720 one that only turns on when there's an audible noise, 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:29.400 and so you just have recordings of anything that actually 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:33.840 went beyond a certain threshold. Or maybe the idea is 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:35.840 that the spirits are going to be more inclined to 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:39.400 be chatty if there are no nosy breathers who happened 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:41.319 to be in the space breathers by the way, or 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:44.480 what ghosts call the living, which is something I just 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:48.760 made up, or another perfectly cromulent explanation. As you want 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:52.520 the recording to document anything that is actually experienced, because 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:56.559 otherwise you have to rely upon witness accounts. Those are 0:09:56.679 --> 0:10:00.840 thoroughly unreliable. We know that witness accounts are unreliable in 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:06.079 all really matters, because our our perception and our memories 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:09.600 are fallible, and we can make mistakes, especially the further 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:14.560 removed you are from the event, the more fallible it gets. 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:19.200 That's not to say that witness reactions have no value whatsoever. 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:23.679 They do, but they're always there's always a matter of 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:27.920 how reliable is the witness. The witness could be making mistakes, 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:31.280 the witness could be influenced by a line of questioning, 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:35.800 or the witness could be attempting to, you know, pain 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:38.240 a picture that wasn't really accurate in the first place. 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:42.640 They're all these possibilities. Then there's the matter of how 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.920 any sounds actually end up on recordings, because there are 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:49.760 different explanations for this, right, So there's the very straightforward answer. 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:53.720 There's the answer that maybe spirits were making audible noises 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:58.440 which could perhaps even include speech, and the recording device 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:00.800 thus picked it up because it's the same thing that 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:04.679 anyone would have heard. But they're also let's call them 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:09.240 paranormal enthusiasts who have put forward other hypotheses suggesting that 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:13.120 the spirits or ghosts or psychically gifted humans are somehow 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:18.080 able to project sound onto a recording without actually making 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:21.839 an audible sound. So, in other words, whatever the mechanism 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:26.199 is makes some sort of alteration to the recording process. 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:29.360 So in the moment when you're there, you don't hear anything, 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:32.599 but in the playback you hear a sound. This is 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:36.200 called electronic voice phenomena or e v P, or as 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:40.040 my friend Shay says, it's ghost a s MR. So 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:43.280 if we're using real to real magnetic tape, a ghost 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:47.319 hunter might put forth the hypothesis that a ghost used 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:50.720 its electro magnetic powers, which we'll talk about later in 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:54.800 this episode, to somehow manipulate the magnetic particles on the 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:57.800 tape itself, and that that's what created the sound you 0:11:57.800 --> 0:11:59.679 hear when you play the tape back. So even though 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:01.760 you didn't hear it in the moment, the sound is 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:06.320 there because the ghost has effectively bypassed the microphone and 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:11.120 recorded directly onto the tape. So that's that hypothesis, And 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:14.679 there are problems with this. First, depending upon the instrumentation used, 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:18.679 you can get artifacts during recording sessions. Uh And if 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:21.320 the tape you're using used to have another recording on it, 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:25.280 then the tape recorder might not be particularly good, and 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:29.880 it may be that you have faint artifacts, faint recordings 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:32.960 that are left from previous sessions on that tape. So 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:36.720 the stuff you're listening to wasn't even put there during 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:40.120 the recording session, but from a previous one. And so 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:45.080 that's a possible explanation for at least the magnetic tape 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:49.439 ones things where you could have artifacts from earlier recording sessions. Obviously, 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:52.080 if it's a brand new tape that was never used 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:54.520 in recording, that's not going to be the case. So 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:59.400 this isn't like blanket explanation for every moments, just pointing 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:01.800 out that there are our natural explanations for these sorts 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:05.520 of things. Uh, And there are other totally natural explanations 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:08.080 for odd stuff picked up on audio recordings, including just 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:12.880 faulty recording processes. There's nothing quite like having someone who 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:16.720 is unfamiliar with a tool who has then put in 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:20.120 charge of using that tool, like they're going to be 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:23.480 mistakes made and it may not be evident that a 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.880 mistake was made, but it's recorded, and that can lead 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:30.880 to all sorts of misinterpretations. If you give me an 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:34.360 electronic device I have never used before and you're very 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.200 vague with the instructions, chances are I'm going to do 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:40.560 a really poor job at using that tool properly, and 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:43.480 I might draw some conclusions based upon my use of 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:47.240 that tool, but they're completely incorrect conclusions because I wasn't 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:50.600 using the tool correctly in the first place. Then there's 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:53.360 the actual playback experience. This is where we get to 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:56.120 our brains playing tricks on us. We hear the playback 0:13:56.480 --> 0:13:58.680 and it seems so long ago. Now, we hear the 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:02.120 playback and we listen oh hard for anything that we 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:06.320 might identify as a meaningful signal. We're really listening hard, 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:11.400 and we might start to interpret connections and patterns in 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:15.960 the noise even when none really exist. We mistakenly identify 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:19.480 stuff as having intent and meaning behind it, when in 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:22.560 fact it's just random noise. That's just how our brains work, 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:24.680 and we have to be aware of that, and we 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:28.400 have to think critically before we run with that interpretation. 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:33.000 This also is the case was so called ghost boxes, 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:37.400 and this episode, because I'm head up, is going to 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:39.840 start running long if I'm not careful. So what I'm 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:41.640 gonna do is I'm going to take a quick break. 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:45.480 When we come back, I'll talk about ghost boxes and 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:49.120 what those are, but first let me go get a drink. 0:14:49.280 --> 0:15:01.080 We'll take this quick break. Okay, was rambling about ghost 0:15:01.120 --> 0:15:03.560 boxes before the break. What are those? Now? These are 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:07.920 devices that are meant to sweep through a band of 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:12.040 radio frequencies. Typically we're talking AM radio here, doesn't have 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:15.240 to be, but that's like the standard is using AM radio. 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:18.480 It actually kind of reminds me of being in the 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:22.360 car and hitting that scan feature found on most car radios. 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:25.760 And when you do that, what happens is your radio 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:28.760 is starting to seek out viable radio signals, right, like 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:33.160 a strong signal that represents this is something that would 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:36.920 come through onto the speakers, and once it does, it 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:39.560 will settle on that station for a few seconds, and 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:41.760 if you don't hit the scan button again, it will 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:45.120 then jump to the next available signal. And once in 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:46.760 a while if you do this, if you hit scan 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:50.680 on a road trip, you might end up with some 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:53.280 pretty funny results on occasion, like you might get the 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:56.360 opening bit of one song and the closing bit of 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:59.840 a totally different song, and it's just because of the 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:03.280 way the scan jumped. It might have a weird way 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:06.240 of fitting together. That's funny. Like that can happen, right. 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:08.800 It's not the best way to stay entertained, mind you, 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:12.000 but it can on occasion produce something funny. What ghost 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:15.520 boxes are doing something similar, except they sweep more quickly 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:19.000 through radio signals, so you're not really settling on any 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:22.320 one frequency for long. Plus you're going through all the 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:25.320 frequencies in the band over and over and over again, 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.160 so not just the ones that represent a signal, but 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:31.920 the static that's in between signals and again. The ghostly 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:35.120 mechanics of this approach, like what ghosts are doing to 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:40.600 supposedly communicate through this device, are really questionable. The ideas 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.080 that somehow a ghost is able to communicate as the 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:48.120 ghost box cycles through these radio frequencies, piecing together noises 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:52.680 that create words or phrases, so the little snippets of 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:56.120 sound could be reinterpreted to be communications from the great beyond, 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:00.400 but it's really just random snippets of sound and static. 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:03.680 I'm not even sure what the mechanism would be for 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:06.680 a spirit to communicate in this way. I mean, how 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:10.320 would a spirit even know to manipulate radio signals in 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:16.000 time with a tuner that's rapidly cycling through different frequencies. 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:18.080 I mean, imagine that you're trying to have a phone 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:20.879 conversation with someone, only in order to do it, you 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:24.120 have to run down a hallway where there are phones 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:27.240 mounted on the wall all down the hallway, and meanwhile, 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:29.560 your friend who's listening to you also has to run 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:32.520 down a hallway of speakers, each speaker tied to one 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:34.679 of the specific phones, and that's the only way you 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:36.960 can be heard. That seems like a lot of work 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:40.199 to me. How does a ghost even do that? So 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:42.960 there's no only no real explanation as to why you 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:44.920 would use a ghostbox in the first place, at least 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:48.680 not an explanation that makes sense, because all of those 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:52.400 explanations pretty much require you to first accept the existence 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:57.040 of ghosts or psychic phenomena from the get go. You 0:17:57.080 --> 0:17:59.040 have to accept that those are things that are real 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:03.879 from the start. They don't prove the existence of these phenomena, 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:09.080 they just are assumed to be associated with them, and 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:13.080 you get into the circular reasoning, right, like, oh, the 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:16.080 ghost box proves there are ghosts, and ghosts prove that 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:19.800 the ghost box works. That's not how science works, right, 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:24.040 That's not an accurate kind of of conclusion you can make. 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:28.399 But let's move on. We're gonna talk about a different 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:31.159 technology used in connection with ghost hunting. So get ready 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:35.919 to say cheese, because we're gonna talk cameras. The humble 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:38.960 camera has been an integral part of the ghost hunting 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:42.719 subset ever since its earliest days when it became a 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:47.240 tool used by spiritualists, and it kind of got started 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:51.280 as a joke that was interpreted as a real thing, 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:53.159 and then the person who made the joke realized they 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:55.560 could make a whole lot of money if they ran 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:58.040 with the joke being real. And I'm talking about double 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:00.879 exposure in this case. So for we're gonna talk about 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:07.520 photographic cameras like actual um film and and plate cameras, 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:11.120 the stuff that takes place before digital cameras. So these 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:13.639 are the kind of cameras that take images by exposing 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:17.760 some photoreactive chemicals that are coded on some substance UH. 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:21.480 They expose those chemicals to light, so a lens focuses 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:24.080 the light and directs it to whatever surface has these 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:26.720 photoreactive chemicals on it. So in the good old days, 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:30.679 these were photographic plates, and later that was replaced with UH, 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:35.720 with film that had the chemicals essentially painted onto them. 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:40.720 And then you would develop these photographic plates or film 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:44.119 through a process where you expose them to different chemicals, 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:46.120 you would develop a negative. From the negative, you could 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:49.840 produce a positive image and then boom, you've got your photograph. 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:52.119 But one thing you could do with these cameras is 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:54.840 you could take a double exposure. And that's just what 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:58.640 it sounds like. It's when you expose the same photoreactive 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:03.800 surface to light twice. You can actually do multi exposure, 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:06.000 though the more you do it, the messier the image 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:07.679 is going to be to a point where you're not 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:11.159 gonna see anything. And maybe you do it by accident, right, 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:13.879 maybe you failed to advance the film in your camera 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:17.280 and you expose the same frame of film to light twice, 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:19.560 or maybe you do it on purpose to create an 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:22.320 interesting effect. Maybe you're an artist and you're just experimenting 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:25.560 with this sort of stuff. But however he gets made, 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:28.960 a double exposure can have some really interesting features. You know, 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:33.080 figures that were perfectly corporeal during the actual photo session 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:36.960 could appear to be ghostly in the double exposure photo. 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:41.480 Artists have used this effect to create amazing and sometimes 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:46.040 you know, unsettling works. And there are modern tools in 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:49.639 editing software suites like Photoshop. They give artists the chance 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:53.639 to replicate those effects. Using digital photographs or even create 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:58.640 brand new effects inspired by double exposures. But it's all 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:04.000 stemming from the very physical phenomena with early cameras. Now, 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:06.480 at a casual glance, you might think the photographs you're 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:09.840 looking at depicts something supernatural because there are these kind 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:13.040 of ghostly images in there, and the less you know 0:21:13.080 --> 0:21:15.639 about how film works, the more likely you are to 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:19.240 misinterpret what you are seeing. If you have a background 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:22.800 in film and in film development, you would likely spot 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:26.280 double exposures right away. You would understand what you're looking at, 0:21:26.320 --> 0:21:28.959 you would know how it was produced. But to the layman, 0:21:29.119 --> 0:21:33.200 particularly back when photography was a young science, it could 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:37.160 seem like proof that the supernatural exists. But no, it's 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:41.160 just a multiple exposure of photoreactive chemicals that were subsequently 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:46.600 developed into a photograph. Then there are the orbs. Uh, 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:50.360 the orbs so orbs and photography refer to these little 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:55.120 spears of light that sometimes show up in photographs, and 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:59.120 ghost hunter types might claim that such orbs represent spirits 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:03.080 or ghost or psychic phenomena or something along those lines. 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:08.320 But the real explanation is pointedly not paranormal. It's just 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:13.400 very very normal. So why would orbs appear in a photograph. 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:16.960 It's due to a phenomenon called back scatter, and it 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:20.600 all has to do with light. So let's say you're 0:22:20.640 --> 0:22:23.720 a ghost hunter and you're in a creepy old mansion 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:28.480 and you're at the foot of a really particularly creepy staircase, 0:22:29.119 --> 0:22:31.240 and all the lights in the house are turned off 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:33.800 so that you can see any ghostly phenomena right away. 0:22:34.160 --> 0:22:36.400 And you've been told that there's a ghost that sometimes 0:22:36.400 --> 0:22:39.159 walks up and down this particular staircase, and that usually 0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:42.040 this ghost is invisible to the naked eye. So you 0:22:42.080 --> 0:22:44.840 take out your digital flash camera, you set it up 0:22:44.880 --> 0:22:47.720 on a tripod, you pointed up the staircase, and you 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:52.120 start taking flash photos. And the focal point of these 0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:54.919 photos is on the staircase itself, so you focus the 0:22:55.000 --> 0:22:58.120 lens so that it's on the staircase. Well, if you're 0:22:58.119 --> 0:23:00.240 in an old mansion, they're likely going to be dust 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:03.480 particles in the air. Depending upon the condition of the mansion, 0:23:03.520 --> 0:23:05.520 maybe there's quite a few dust particles in the air. 0:23:05.720 --> 0:23:08.280 Some of those dust particles may well be within the 0:23:08.359 --> 0:23:11.440 view of this camera lens. So when the flash goes off, 0:23:11.720 --> 0:23:14.840 the flash eliminates not just the staircase, but these little 0:23:15.040 --> 0:23:18.000 moats of dust that are floating in the air. Now, 0:23:18.040 --> 0:23:21.520 the particles aren't necessarily in the focal point of the camera, 0:23:21.720 --> 0:23:23.600 like some of them might be very close to the camera, 0:23:23.640 --> 0:23:26.600 but obviously the lens is focused on the staircase beyond, 0:23:27.000 --> 0:23:30.760 so these unfocused particles reflect light back at the lens. 0:23:30.920 --> 0:23:33.639 The lens is designed to collect and direct light to 0:23:33.800 --> 0:23:36.800 a sensor, so that gets recorded as this sort of 0:23:36.920 --> 0:23:40.240 circular blob of light, a little artifact, a sphere of 0:23:40.320 --> 0:23:43.600 light or orb. Dust particles that are close to the 0:23:43.600 --> 0:23:46.720 camera are going to appear very bright, sitting out against 0:23:46.720 --> 0:23:48.760 the focused part of the image because they're closer to 0:23:48.800 --> 0:23:51.240 the flash. So the bit of staircase you've trained the 0:23:51.280 --> 0:23:54.800 camera on is darker. This orb will stand out much 0:23:54.840 --> 0:23:57.080 better because it's a piece of dust that's a little 0:23:57.080 --> 0:23:59.679 closer to that flash and therefore shows up as a 0:23:59.680 --> 0:24:04.040 brighter spot in the image. So there's nothing supernatural about 0:24:04.080 --> 0:24:07.719 any of this. They're just dust particles or sometimes water droplets. 0:24:07.920 --> 0:24:11.000 The same thing can happen with underwater photography because you 0:24:11.000 --> 0:24:13.800 have all these little particulates in the water that can 0:24:13.840 --> 0:24:17.800 reflect light. Meanwhile, you're focusing on something that's further out 0:24:18.119 --> 0:24:20.920