Speaker 1: Welcome to Text Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: M Hey there, and welcome to text Stuff, a podcast
Speaker 1: from my Heart Radio. I am your host, Drack Cool,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, and I love all things deck. I I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I know that was that was even more cringe worthy
Speaker 1: than my quizter appearances on Ridiculous History. Yeah, I I
Speaker 1: apologize that you all had to listen to that. Anyway,
Speaker 1: It's time for a text Stuff classic. And this one
Speaker 1: actually comes as a recommend a from carry on Twitter,
Speaker 1: who said that I should really revisit one that I
Speaker 1: did way back in twenty ten. See back on February first,
Speaker 1: two thousand ten, we published an episode titled ghost Hunting Technology.
Speaker 1: Chris Pallette, my original co host, and I walked through
Speaker 1: the various gadgets and technologies used by ghost hunters, and
Speaker 1: we explained what that technology actually is foreign and how
Speaker 1: it works and what it's supposed to do. And I
Speaker 1: talked a lot about how the use of such technology
Speaker 1: is misguided when it comes to, you know, putting it
Speaker 1: towards ghost hunting, and that it's based on faulty reasoning,
Speaker 1: and the big thing is that it really boils down
Speaker 1: to ghost hunters operating as if ghosts are already a
Speaker 1: known fact, like that they four fact exist, and then
Speaker 1: they explain how tech behaving in some particular way supports
Speaker 1: that fact and counts as evidence of their being a ghost.
Speaker 1: But we haven't established that ghosts are a fact, so
Speaker 1: you can't point at anything and say it's evidence that
Speaker 1: a ghost exists. You've got to prove the ghost exists first,
Speaker 1: and then through lots of different, you know, experiments determine
Speaker 1: what elements point to whether or not a ghost is present.
Speaker 1: You can't just say that light is flickering, therefore ghost.
Speaker 1: That's not how science works. Anyway, since we're on all
Speaker 1: Hallow's eve Eve, I thought it would be good to
Speaker 1: run this as a classic episode, and you can hear
Speaker 1: how ten years ago I argued for critical thinking. And
Speaker 1: when the classic episode is over, I'm gonna have a
Speaker 1: few more things to say about the topic of ghosts.
Speaker 1: So please stick around because there's more to come. Anyway,
Speaker 1: enjoy this classic episode. I don't know that we have
Speaker 1: a ghost of a chance of getting through this without
Speaker 1: you losing it, but we should try. I ain't afraid
Speaker 1: of no ghost, so you may have already guessed what
Speaker 1: our topic is, but it comes to us courtesy of
Speaker 1: a little listener mail. List listener mail comes from Will
Speaker 1: from Austin, Texas, and he says, Hi, guys, I just
Speaker 1: recently started subscribing to the podcast and always have it
Speaker 1: playing in my car to and from work. I am
Speaker 1: in the I T field, and even though I feel
Speaker 1: like I have a somewhat firm grasp on some of
Speaker 1: the concepts that are discussed, it is always nice to
Speaker 1: have something explained in a visual manner. There's which is
Speaker 1: odd for an audio podcast, right you know that maybe
Speaker 1: he senses that there's something I am curious about which
Speaker 1: seems to be all the craze right now, and that
Speaker 1: is all of the different ghost hunting shows on TV
Speaker 1: right now. I'm a sucker for them myself and end
Speaker 1: up watching them somewhat intrigued with the technology that they use,
Speaker 1: the things they catch within the infrared spectrum, the e
Speaker 1: m F meters and e m F pumps that they
Speaker 1: used to attract entities, and the digital recorders used to
Speaker 1: capture what is called e v P electronic voice phenomenon.
Speaker 1: From what I understand, there's nothing hard and fast that
Speaker 1: says E m F detectors are legitimate for detecting levels
Speaker 1: of magnetic activity. So it would be really nice to
Speaker 1: hear y'all talk a bit about the technology used in
Speaker 1: TV shows like Ghost Hunters, Ghost Labs, Ghost Adventures, Paranormal State.
Speaker 1: Thanks will Well, I think we're going to have a
Speaker 1: spirited discussion. Yes, I'm going to rattle my chains, you know.
Speaker 1: I will say that that my wife is a fan
Speaker 1: of a lot of these shows, um, and I have
Speaker 1: only watched bits and pieces of them, so I am
Speaker 1: less familiar with them. But um, one of the things
Speaker 1: that I found out when I started getting into this
Speaker 1: is that, uh, they're not using a whole lot of
Speaker 1: high tech gadgetry in order to investigate the paranormal and
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff off the shelf. What little they're using,
Speaker 1: they're using incorrectly. Okay, I'm going to preface this by
Speaker 1: saying I'm going to preface this by saying I am
Speaker 1: a skeptic. And when I say skeptic, I don't mean
Speaker 1: someone who automatically denies whether or not something exists. When
Speaker 1: I'm saying skeptic, I'm talking about a person who requires
Speaker 1: there to be some sort of empirical evidence that something
Speaker 1: exists before I just go ahead and accept it. And
Speaker 1: as far as ghost hunting goes, there is such an
Speaker 1: enormous lack of empirical evidence that any of this is
Speaker 1: doing anything that I find the whole industry that has
Speaker 1: sprung up around ghost hunting to be infuriating. And I
Speaker 1: really do mean that, because, Okay, folks, if you want
Speaker 1: to type in e m F detector into any search engine,
Speaker 1: I guarantee you that at least one, if not several,
Speaker 1: of the main results that pop up first, are going
Speaker 1: to be about ghost hunting equipment. And here's the thing.
Speaker 1: They don't detect ghosts. I mean, there's no proof that
Speaker 1: they detect ghosts. There's no proof that ghosts even affect
Speaker 1: elector of magnetic fields, which is what e m F
Speaker 1: detectors and meters are designed to detect. There's no proof
Speaker 1: that a ghost exists number one. And then there's no
Speaker 1: proof that if they do exist, that they affect these fields.
Speaker 1: So why would using this tool be an indication that
Speaker 1: there is a ghost present? Well, that's uh, that's sort
Speaker 1: of the whole thing is that I mean, is that
Speaker 1: people are using these people are using these devices um
Speaker 1: in hopes of finding something, and in many cases it's
Speaker 1: either in disproving the existence of a an entity in
Speaker 1: the room or proving it. I mean it's not it's not. Hey,
Speaker 1: let's stick a tape recorder in the room for an hour.
Speaker 1: And it drives me nuts because why would this device,
Speaker 1: over any other be a good indicator that there is
Speaker 1: a presence in the room. That's what. That is the
Speaker 1: point where I'm already having my first problem with the
Speaker 1: whole ghost hunting thing is that it's like you arbitrarily
Speaker 1: assigned ghosts this ability to do something based upon I
Speaker 1: don't know what, and that somehow watching a little needle
Speaker 1: move indicates that there must be something here. You can
Speaker 1: just as easily say, hey, let's take this metal detector
Speaker 1: and will run it over the ground and every time
Speaker 1: it beats, that's where a ghost is. Because I mean,
Speaker 1: there's you just you're making up the rules as you
Speaker 1: go along. You can't do that. What you have to
Speaker 1: do first is established that there is such a thing
Speaker 1: as a ghost, and then determine whether or not a
Speaker 1: ghost is able to affect an electromagnetic field, Because then
Speaker 1: you could say, okay, this tool will detect this thing.
Speaker 1: That's the way science works. People. You don't sit there
Speaker 1: and assume something is true and then try and find
Speaker 1: a way to justify it. Here's how it works. You
Speaker 1: observe some sort of phenomena, You try and create an
Speaker 1: explanation for that phenomena. You then test your explanation. If
Speaker 1: your explanation holds after multiple tests done by multiple people
Speaker 1: under multiple situations, and it still holds true, then you
Speaker 1: can say you know something. You can't just say, hey,
Speaker 1: this needle move, therefore there's a dead person in the room. What. No,
Speaker 1: that's not how it works. I joked that we could
Speaker 1: call this podcast how critical thinking works. Honestly, people, critical
Speaker 1: thinking is so important. If you don't use critical thinking,
Speaker 1: if you just swallow that the needle moved, therefore something
Speaker 1: is in this room, then I don't know what to
Speaker 1: tell you. Okay, well, let's uh, let me breathe, let's
Speaker 1: back away from that from that edge. We're gonna have
Speaker 1: to stay with this edge because we have to talk
Speaker 1: about what E m F detectors actually do. Well, that's
Speaker 1: the thing, I mean, that's what I'm saying. Let's opinion aside.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about this stuff that actually works what opinion. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm just well, that's but that's the thing, though, there
Speaker 1: are other people who claim that they have heard and
Speaker 1: seen things using this equipment. Countless I'm saying, and I
Speaker 1: don't know I have. I have no doubts that there
Speaker 1: I have no doubts that there are people out there
Speaker 1: who truly believe that they have experienced something that is inexplicable,
Speaker 1: just as I have absolutely no doubt that the things
Speaker 1: they experienced were completely explicable because they did not have
Speaker 1: the necessary facts or ways of determining those facts at
Speaker 1: their disposal at the time. And also, these events tend
Speaker 1: to become more um outlandish or or perhaps we should say,
Speaker 1: more extravagant over time as we think back and we
Speaker 1: tell stories over we tend to elaborate and and I'm
Speaker 1: not even saying people are are fibbing or anything like that.
Speaker 1: They could completely believe in what they're saying. There are
Speaker 1: stories I've told where I've gone back and looked at something,
Speaker 1: you know, like like a video of a performance I
Speaker 1: was in and realized that the story I tell is
Speaker 1: not matching up to reality. But in my mind, that's
Speaker 1: exactly the way it happened. We all do this. It's
Speaker 1: just in case I think what it's done is spawned
Speaker 1: an entire industry. Well, you know, you're right that there
Speaker 1: there is no empirical evidence. There's nothing in scientific journals
Speaker 1: that indicates that any of these pieces of gear that
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about has any ability to really
Speaker 1: find a ghost. There's nothing in any scientific journals about
Speaker 1: it that I was able to find in my research. Well,
Speaker 1: but the first step, of of course, is the fact
Speaker 1: that there's no scientific evidence for a ghost. So you
Speaker 1: can't be device could find something. That wouldn't be the point.
Speaker 1: But I looked, Um, I'm glad you did. But and
Speaker 1: you know what I found out. What's that some one
Speaker 1: of the culprits behind the idea of using electronics to
Speaker 1: try to find spirits or you know, some kind of
Speaker 1: paranormal activity Thomas Edison. He actually said that, Um, and
Speaker 1: I didn't get the quote. I should have gotten the quote.
Speaker 1: But basically he said that he believed that there was
Speaker 1: a way to create an electronic instrument that if a
Speaker 1: ghost existed, would be that the instrument would be capable
Speaker 1: of detecting it, some sort of ghost detector to lice. Now,
Speaker 1: he he never built anything like that, and he never
Speaker 1: That doesn't necessarily mean that he believed in ghosts, because
Speaker 1: actually he said he didn't know whether or not they existed.
Speaker 1: If they didn't exist, there should be a way to
Speaker 1: detect them, is what he was saying. And of course
Speaker 1: I actually saw quotes from him in a couple of places. Um,
Speaker 1: but it's kind of funny to imagine that, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that that some people said, Okay, well, let's
Speaker 1: try to build something that will detect a ghost. And
Speaker 1: if you believe that a ghost, if it exists, is
Speaker 1: creating some kind of field um magnetic or electrical, or
Speaker 1: you know, giving off some kind of signature in another
Speaker 1: plane that you cannot see, then you might try to
Speaker 1: use things like infrared cameras or e m F detectors
Speaker 1: or ion density detectors to try to find something that
Speaker 1: would indicate why you feel cold when you walk in
Speaker 1: this room. That just it seems so strange to me,
Speaker 1: because you could just as easily say, you know, I
Speaker 1: believe ghosts exist, but the only people who can detect
Speaker 1: them are female, left handed redheads. I mean, that's just
Speaker 1: as valid a point as saying ghosts must exist therefore
Speaker 1: they give off some sort of electromagnetic field. I don't
Speaker 1: want to haunt you with the threat of ads, but
Speaker 1: it's time for us to take a quick break. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry again. Well, this is one of those things that
Speaker 1: that surprised me when I started doing the research was that, um,
Speaker 1: the people who have been doing this for a while
Speaker 1: basically take a plain old tape re quarter and a
Speaker 1: camera and a notebook and they go in and they
Speaker 1: sit down and they try to find, you know, see
Speaker 1: if they see anything unusual. They take pictures, um and
Speaker 1: try to make notes of anything they don't get. They
Speaker 1: don't buy a lot of fancy and there are plenty
Speaker 1: of um who who do this in the hopes of
Speaker 1: finding some sort of proof of of that there are
Speaker 1: such things as ghosts, but who are also very intellectually honest,
Speaker 1: and they they objectively look at each and every indicator
Speaker 1: and determine whether or not there is a physical explanation
Speaker 1: for it or not. And in those cases, I think
Speaker 1: you'll find that most of those ghost hunters have so
Speaker 1: far come up zero percent on the ghost and a
Speaker 1: percent on some sort of physical explanation. Yeah, but that's
Speaker 1: not again, let me make this clear. That's not to
Speaker 1: say that ghosts do not exist. I can't say that.
Speaker 1: There's no way that I could say that ghosts do
Speaker 1: not exist and be honest with myself about it. I
Speaker 1: don't know. What I can say is that there's no
Speaker 1: empirical proof that they exist, and until there is, I
Speaker 1: just don't believe in them. So, but let's talk about
Speaker 1: let's talk about the what electromagnetic field meters do. What
Speaker 1: you're designed to do. So these are devices that, as
Speaker 1: you would imagine, detect fluctuations in electro magnetic fields, and
Speaker 1: various things can create fluctuations. Usually it's some sort of
Speaker 1: electronic device, because, as you've probably heard us talk about before,
Speaker 1: electricity and magnetic fields are closely related. You can induce
Speaker 1: one using the other. So these detectors, what they're designed
Speaker 1: to do is to detect fluctuations in the field, mainly
Speaker 1: for electrical purposes, and so you might detect a fluctuation
Speaker 1: around electronics where you might have something that's not properly grounded.
Speaker 1: It's really an indicator to tell you, Okay, wait, the
Speaker 1: wiring in my house isn't as good as I thought
Speaker 1: it was, and I need to have this looked at
Speaker 1: or the shielding on this this power cable is clearly
Speaker 1: not as strong as it needs to be, and that's
Speaker 1: why I'm getting interference with my other electronics. That's what's
Speaker 1: meant for um it's and what what drives me nuts
Speaker 1: as seeing companies that are selling e m F meters
Speaker 1: which do have a legitimate useful application and they're saying
Speaker 1: it's a great e m F meter slash ghost detector
Speaker 1: then drives me crazy because again there's no proof that
Speaker 1: it's actually detectually detecting bathing other than electromagnetic fluctuations that
Speaker 1: could be explained by wiring or magnets or whatever. And
Speaker 1: in fact, I saw one site and I'm not going
Speaker 1: to name the site, but I saw one site they
Speaker 1: had a frequently asked question section and said what reading
Speaker 1: am I looking for on this gadget and said a
Speaker 1: reading of two to seven milligos may be due to
Speaker 1: spirit activity? How do you determine that? How did you
Speaker 1: just say that, Oh, if you get a measure of
Speaker 1: two to seven, that means there's a there's probably a
Speaker 1: ghost there. This it's made up out of whole cloth
Speaker 1: because there's no basis effect behind it. But at any rate.
Speaker 1: E m F meters are legitimate tools for electricians, not
Speaker 1: necessarily for ghost hunters. And maybe ghosts do affect e
Speaker 1: m F fields somehow, or I shouldn't say e m
Speaker 1: F fields because now I'm repeating part of the acronym.
Speaker 1: But maybe they do have some sort of effect on
Speaker 1: electromagnetic fields. But without any evidence to back that up,
Speaker 1: we can't say for sure. And it turns out that
Speaker 1: in most cases, in fact, I would have would probably
Speaker 1: argue all cases whenever you use a meter and the
Speaker 1: bill needle is starting to go around and find a
Speaker 1: hot spot, there's probably just a wiring issue that would
Speaker 1: explain it. Um. Yeah. Another another item that I saw
Speaker 1: that it's more higher tech I guess, um, would be
Speaker 1: the ion density counter. Yes, and that could be used
Speaker 1: for a lot of things. Um. What it does is
Speaker 1: it tries to detect the number of ions in a
Speaker 1: cubic centimeter of air, and it can be used to
Speaker 1: detect things like rate on um, whether there are combustible
Speaker 1: vapors in the area, electrical arcs. Right, very legitimate uses, UM,
Speaker 1: and this really uh plays into the whether you know,
Speaker 1: into the skeptics view of whether or not this gadget
Speaker 1: would be useful in detecting any paranormal activity. You would
Speaker 1: have to assume first that whatever the paranormal activity is
Speaker 1: gives off ions. Well, that's number one. I thought that
Speaker 1: was assumed at this point. I'm I'm spelling it out, okay,
Speaker 1: because there's here's here's why I spell that out. I
Speaker 1: think there are a lot of people who use these
Speaker 1: devices who have no idea what the device is truly
Speaker 1: meant for, or at least was originally meant for. It's
Speaker 1: a good point, and they don't understand what it really
Speaker 1: means when they get a reading off these devices. So
Speaker 1: I know it sounds like I'm going super basic on this,
Speaker 1: but it's really to drive home the point of there
Speaker 1: are legitimate uses for these devices that have nothing to
Speaker 1: do with ghost hunting, and if you keep that in
Speaker 1: mind before we move on to the whole ghost hunting thing,
Speaker 1: it helps explain away a lot of the quote unquote
Speaker 1: anomalies that you might find. I'm sorry, I interrupted you,
Speaker 1: Please go on. Well, the thing about an ion detector
Speaker 1: or eye in density detector is the air has to
Speaker 1: be very very still around it, so it's a particularly
Speaker 1: sensitive device and lots of things can affect the reading
Speaker 1: on it. So like a draft, Yeah, a draft will
Speaker 1: affect the reading. And you know if a draft comes in, um,
Speaker 1: you know, you might say, oh wait, the needles moving. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It turns out that a lot of ghost behavior can
Speaker 1: be explained by poor zelent around the window. Sounds like
Speaker 1: a joke, but it's really true. No, no, no, it's
Speaker 1: but it's it's funny because you know, just apparently just
Speaker 1: the slightest thing will um, you know, it really needs
Speaker 1: to sit still and be left alone for a while
Speaker 1: for it to be to give off an accurate reading
Speaker 1: of whether or not there are a lot of ions
Speaker 1: in the area, and of course the whole if there
Speaker 1: were ghosts, would they give off ions? So there you are.
Speaker 1: You're talking about devices that are very sensitive and can
Speaker 1: easily give off false positives. That's another problem, and that
Speaker 1: it's very easy to interpret a false positive as evidence
Speaker 1: of some sort of supernatural activity, when in fact it
Speaker 1: may just be that there was a breeze that blew
Speaker 1: by and that's what affected the reading. Um. Knowing how
Speaker 1: to use this equipment properly eliminates a lot of the
Speaker 1: doubt around the equipment, all right, So what else. Um, well,
Speaker 1: you know, then some people actually have been using Geiger counters, apparently,
Speaker 1: because which is designed to detect radiation exactly. Again, there's
Speaker 1: no I don't think a lot of them do. And
Speaker 1: I haven't heard, but I saw that in a list
Speaker 1: of equipment that you might here with you. I mean,
Speaker 1: if if a ghost is able to affect electromagnetic fields,
Speaker 1: why wouldn't a ghost be radioactive? I mean, why wouldn't
Speaker 1: ghosts be able to create jello out of thin air?
Speaker 1: I mean, we we could just go ahead and keep
Speaker 1: on attributing stuff to go all day long. And you know, again,
Speaker 1: my metal detector example earlier on its completely valid. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna just grab whatever tools and use them
Speaker 1: to this purpose, why not a metal detector. I mean,
Speaker 1: we've we've seen motion sensors being used as a ghost
Speaker 1: hunting material as well. Um, lots of stuff can trip
Speaker 1: motion sensors, and I wonder if a ghost would trip
Speaker 1: a motion sensor. I mean, I don't understand how the
Speaker 1: I don't understand the set of rules that ghosts apparently obey.
Speaker 1: That's part of the problem is that if they trip
Speaker 1: motion sensors but not other things. I mean, how does
Speaker 1: that work? I find it a kind of confusing night
Speaker 1: vision goggles too. That's that's actually a question I have,
Speaker 1: and maybe maybe somebody can answer that for me. And
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to sound like I'm making
Speaker 1: fun of any of these shows, but if the ghosts
Speaker 1: can be seen in the lighter that, I mean, why
Speaker 1: are all these shows shot in the dark? Let me
Speaker 1: explain that, because I really don't know. I have a
Speaker 1: I have a good reason for the whole dark ghost thing.
Speaker 1: That has everything to do with psychology, all right, and
Speaker 1: actually there's some physiology here as well. So at night,
Speaker 1: you're in you're you're at your house. At night, you
Speaker 1: settle down to go to sleep, and you hear a
Speaker 1: strange noise. At night, your house tends to be more
Speaker 1: quiet than during the daytime. People have settled down, right,
Speaker 1: everyone's in bed, so noises that would normally be covered
Speaker 1: up by just the activity in your house during the
Speaker 1: daytime are no longer covered up. Your your mind is
Speaker 1: still alert. So you're laying in bed and you're thinking,
Speaker 1: is there someone moving around the house. I just heard
Speaker 1: a creaking noise I could just as easily be the
Speaker 1: sound of your house. Settling. Uh, it could be the
Speaker 1: sound of a board warping slowly, just boards do warp
Speaker 1: over time. Sometimes they make noise. Sometimes it's like a
Speaker 1: low moaning noise, which might sound familiar to people who
Speaker 1: are familiar with the whole ghost mythology thing. Um, so
Speaker 1: that's part of it. Is just that that's the physiological
Speaker 1: part of it. But psychologically it's that you know, Uh, nighttime,
Speaker 1: that's when we're not concentrating on anything else. Our mind
Speaker 1: can completely focus on these events. And humans like to
Speaker 1: create patterns out of things. They like explanations for things.
Speaker 1: And if we can't easily explain it by something that
Speaker 1: we're really familiar with, it's very easy to jump on
Speaker 1: the unfamiliar supernatural train and say, oh, well, this must
Speaker 1: have been caused by this paranormal activity. So you'll see
Speaker 1: similar things, like if you look into the clouds and
Speaker 1: you see a human face, it's because humans like patterns.
Speaker 1: We find patterns and stuff all over the place. That's
Speaker 1: actually called a paradolia is what's referred to as so
Speaker 1: paradolia is where we start seeing patterns and things. We
Speaker 1: usually actually paradolia specifically about faces, being able to recognize
Speaker 1: faces and things like the water. You know, you might
Speaker 1: look into some muddy water and say, oh, my gosh,
Speaker 1: I just saw a face looking back at me. That
Speaker 1: wasn't a reflection, it was actually a face. Because we
Speaker 1: see these things, our mind creates a pattern and we
Speaker 1: convince ourselves that we've seen something that wasn't necessarily there. Uh.
Speaker 1: The same sort of thing happens when we hear noises.
Speaker 1: We start to our brains start to to fill in gaps,
Speaker 1: and as a result, we add information there that wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily there. Originally, the spirits are quiet, but the advertisers aren't,
Speaker 1: So we're going to take another quick break. I would
Speaker 1: argue that this is also the case when you're talking
Speaker 1: about the whole electronic voice phenomenon stuff where you've taken
Speaker 1: a recorder and you you listen to the sounds that
Speaker 1: have been left on that recorder and you start to
Speaker 1: try and pick stuff out. You'll find a lot of
Speaker 1: sound files out there where people will claim, oh, if
Speaker 1: you listen carefully, you'll hear a woman crying in the background,
Speaker 1: where you'll hear someone saying something that you just can't
Speaker 1: quite make it out, or maybe you can even sort
Speaker 1: of make out a few words. I would argue with
Speaker 1: a lot of those, it's just random noises that our
Speaker 1: brain kind of pieces together and tries to make sense
Speaker 1: out of, because we don't really like random well, um,
Speaker 1: you know, they say, or at least the information I
Speaker 1: got when I was doing some research on it, indicated
Speaker 1: that people who are engaged in ghost hunting activities will
Speaker 1: tell you that they don't hear these sounds when they're
Speaker 1: actually in the room, but when they go back and
Speaker 1: listen to the tapes, something has made that noise appear
Speaker 1: on the track. And of course the a lot of
Speaker 1: people who disbelieve that say that, you know, this is
Speaker 1: what's called I t C instrumental transcommunication, which is UM
Speaker 1: or no, that's what the proponents say that that's what
Speaker 1: it's called. They're trying to talk to you via the
Speaker 1: recording UM, and the people who are against to say, no,
Speaker 1: that's electrical interference. Something is you know, making these noises
Speaker 1: pop up um on your uh, you know, on the
Speaker 1: tape recorder, on your digital recorder that you used to
Speaker 1: to do this and it's a flaw um. But you know,
Speaker 1: they people stared at computer screens trying to analyze the
Speaker 1: wave form, looking for the patterns again, You're looking for
Speaker 1: them again. It's just I think it's just our desire
Speaker 1: to be able to organize the universe in a way
Speaker 1: that makes sense to us. And I mean, that's that's
Speaker 1: what science is all based on. It's trying to understand
Speaker 1: the universe. It's just that science takes a very specific
Speaker 1: procedure to do so, whereas things like the Ghost Hunters,
Speaker 1: they leap to a conclusion without necessarily having the proof
Speaker 1: to back it up, and then they're looking they're kind
Speaker 1: of looking for the proof after the conclusion, or they're
Speaker 1: taking anything that happens as some sort of evidence for
Speaker 1: the conclusion they've already arrived at. But that's more fun.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Okay, it's a good note on the
Speaker 1: table between us. But I think I think that's the point.
Speaker 1: I think that's the point of doing all of this stuff,
Speaker 1: is that you know, they like to go out and
Speaker 1: investigating and they're hoping that they'll find something, and some
Speaker 1: of them just make a lot of money. There are
Speaker 1: people who depend upon this kind of belief system in
Speaker 1: order to make a living, and some of them are
Speaker 1: true believers and some of them are not and it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter to the ones who are not Actually, you know,
Speaker 1: the ones who don't believe in it, they don't care that,
Speaker 1: you know, there may or may not be anything to it. Um.
Speaker 1: Before we sign off on this, this whole thing, we
Speaker 1: should also probably talk about photography and orbs. Are you
Speaker 1: familiar with the whole orb phenomenon, The glowing balls and
Speaker 1: supposedly indicate that there is a spirit present um. Actually,
Speaker 1: what it really indicates is just a bad flash. It
Speaker 1: turns out digital cameras have the flash located a little
Speaker 1: too close to the lens. That's why you hardly ever
Speaker 1: see any kind of orbs in a professional photograph. Because
Speaker 1: professional photographers keep the flash well away from the lens,
Speaker 1: you don't tend to get this weird um orb effect
Speaker 1: which often it's not always, but often caused by the
Speaker 1: flash reflecting off of something in the photo, whether it's
Speaker 1: a reflective surface or dust or water vapor um, the
Speaker 1: flash tends to reflect the light is bouncing back at
Speaker 1: the lens and it shows up as an ORB in
Speaker 1: the photo. Also lens flare. That's the other really big
Speaker 1: common cause of these orbs. It's not necessarily that uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the the your ancient ancestor is trying to
Speaker 1: make contact with you. It's that your digital camera kind
Speaker 1: of sucks. Okay, so uh And people might say, well,
Speaker 1: why why is it blurred? Well, that's probably because we
Speaker 1: don't tend to hold still very well. Whenever you're taking
Speaker 1: a photo of your shutter speed is is fairly slow.
Speaker 1: Then Uh, even though the flashes on and off in
Speaker 1: a second, the fact that your hands are moving while
Speaker 1: the cameras taking the photo can cause a blurring effect.
Speaker 1: And that's why some of them aren't perfect orbs. They
Speaker 1: just look like a little blurry motion. Um. And there
Speaker 1: are other things that can happen as well. I've seen
Speaker 1: video tape where people said, look, this must be some
Speaker 1: sort of ghost. You see the form that passed in
Speaker 1: front of the There was one of a gas station
Speaker 1: or it looked like a weird blue form passed in
Speaker 1: front of the the the the the gas dispensers, and
Speaker 1: I was thinking, um, no, that actually was probably a
Speaker 1: bug that was on the lens of the camera. And uh,
Speaker 1: as soon as I thought that, I started to do
Speaker 1: some research, and I started looking at other people who
Speaker 1: were really good at at analyzing video, and that seemed
Speaker 1: to be the prevalent theory that there was something on
Speaker 1: the actual camera lens, and so it made it look
Speaker 1: like it was much larger than it was, and it
Speaker 1: made it look like it was passing in front of
Speaker 1: the background as opposed to the foreground. So, uh, there's
Speaker 1: lots of ways that are our brains will trick us
Speaker 1: into thinking we've seen or heard or experience something that
Speaker 1: may not be the case. Well, I think until until
Speaker 1: people get more scientific, they'll probably continue messing around with it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I think of it as someone who just
Speaker 1: grabs a bunch of unrelated tools and they don't understand
Speaker 1: really what they're meant for, and they're using them for
Speaker 1: something totally different, and they think that that's somehow valid um.
Speaker 1: And again, someone may go out there today and prove
Speaker 1: definitively the ghosts exist and that they just they exhibit
Speaker 1: certain behaviors, but to this date, they have not done that,
Speaker 1: and it's more like just people flailing around arguing that
Speaker 1: they're their methods are valid without any any way of
Speaker 1: backing it up. Which is why I go berserk, because
Speaker 1: there's just there's so much money being made out there
Speaker 1: by these people that it's just not we could be
Speaker 1: putting that that effort, that thought into actual science. That
Speaker 1: would be great. And that was the classic episode of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff about ghost hunting technology. Now I want to
Speaker 1: say a few more things before we sign off, because,
Speaker 1: as I recall, I actually haven't listened to this rerun.
Speaker 1: I find it hard to listen to myself. I remember
Speaker 1: doing this episode even ten years ago, but I also
Speaker 1: remember getting kind of head up about it. So I
Speaker 1: want to clear a few things up first. I want
Speaker 1: to say I happen to love ghost stories. I think
Speaker 1: they can be really fascinating and genuinely creepy. When I
Speaker 1: was in school, I checked out every single book in
Speaker 1: the library about ghosts and you know, spooky folklore. And
Speaker 1: some of my favorite movies are ghost story movies, like
Speaker 1: The Changeling that was a film from nineteen eighty. It's
Speaker 1: one I really love, despite the fact that the third
Speaker 1: act goes off the rails. Uh. I love the sixth sense,
Speaker 1: I even love the others. One of my favorite things
Speaker 1: to watch right now are let's play videos of people
Speaker 1: playing a game called phasma Phobia. And in that game,
Speaker 1: you play as a ghost hunter. You use some of
Speaker 1: the technology we mentioned in this episode to try and
Speaker 1: track down and identify ghosts. It looks like it's great fun. Sadly,
Speaker 1: it looks like it's also best played with groups of friends,
Speaker 1: and that would mean I need to convince friends to
Speaker 1: play with me. But that's my own, you know, burden
Speaker 1: to bear. But in all these cases we're talking about
Speaker 1: works of fiction or folklore. It's it's no more real
Speaker 1: than a fairy tale or a vampire story. So I
Speaker 1: think you can enjoy spooky stuff while also remaining skeptical
Speaker 1: of real world manifestations of that spooky stuff. I can
Speaker 1: enjoy a horror game or a movie without leaping to
Speaker 1: the conclusion that there are real world ghosts out there.
Speaker 1: I certainly haven't seen anything remotely coming close to actual
Speaker 1: evidence that ghosts exist, or that the phenomena that's been
Speaker 1: observed to be ghosts can't be explained by a more
Speaker 1: mundane cause. Heck, I don't think you can even say
Speaker 1: that if such a thing as ghostly activity exists, I
Speaker 1: don't think you can necessarily link that to the concept
Speaker 1: of a ghost, as in an entity that represents a
Speaker 1: dead person. None of that is all I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just fantasy. There's no science behind it, So have a
Speaker 1: happy Halloween, you know, enjoy some spooky entertainment, but be
Speaker 1: comforted that, as far as science has been able to determine,
Speaker 1: ghosts are only within our own imaginations. So thank you
Speaker 1: for listening. If you have anything you want to add
Speaker 1: or you want me to cover in future episodes of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, let me know on Twitter. The handles Text
Speaker 1: Stuff hs W, I'll talk to you again really soon,
Speaker 1: and Pleasant Nightmare is Happy Helloween. Text 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.