Pt 3 Ghosts in this part I will give a slight overview on some of the equipment used in paranormal investigation and why it's used.
through part 1 and 2 I've talked about ghosts, spirits, mediums, and science. so lets take a look inside the ghosts hunters (paranormal investigators) kit bag.
A mobile recording devise, dictaphone is perfect for this even better is one that can link via a USB to a computer (will explain why later) this will typically be used for trying to record Voice phenomena of EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) The concept is the user will sit quietly in a room and ask questions such as for example "is anybody here" then a pause as if you were expecting a response for say 10 to 15 seconds, then next question may be something like "can you tell me your name" again leaving a gap. the objective is to assume that you will get a response on your dictaphone and you are trying to gain as much information about who your are communicating with as possible, however questions with a more emotional response are more successful, such as "what was it like when the germans came" *germans being the invaders, used while we were in the channel islands however you can use anything instead.
continue for say 3 / 5 minutes, however be sure that your recorder is in a place while recording that cant be interfered with such as holding in your hand as the slightest movement of your hand will cause a sound that when played back can sound like a shuffle of a whisper.
once the experiments are complete and your safely home in the warm in front of your computer download the samples from your devise and open up an audio editor, (wave pad is 'ok' however we use adobe sound booth, you will see your recording in a sound wave, a squiggly bit where you spoke and a flat line where you left a pause. use headphones and listen very carefully to the flat line for any responses, remember it is very rare to collect quality EVP so don't get disheartened if there is nothing there. i will talk about how to analyse these in greater detail another day.
The point and shoot camera
take as many photographs as you can if possible with a wide aperture and no flash (it will be in the settings somewhere) although not using a flash in dark conditions will cause the shutter to be open for longer you will need a tripod. your not looking for orbs, there is no proof that these are paranormal there is only proof that these are caused by moisture, dust etc so for the sake of a debate we don't need to worry about ignore them for now. My experience tells me that ghosts are normally photographed by mistake and normally they are in the background somewhere, so take care in reviewing your pictures and pay special attention to mirrors, windows, doorways, corners, etc.
EMF detector
a devise that can measure an electro magnetic field not to detect ghosts however it will detect the presence of a magnetic field that can go someway to explain other sensations you may feel (coved in Pt2) these scenes are of course amplified when you have no sight because your in pitch darkness.
Air Temperature devise
The point of this is as it says on the tin or title in this case, to measure the temperature of the air, you may notice investigating the paranormal that temperature changes occur as in cold and hot, you may feel that the room has gone ice cold but in fact it hasn't you have !! your air temperature devise will guide you in terms of if there has been a temperature change and possibly where its coming from and what causes it, (there is an effect called the convection effect which i will cover another day)
IR video equipment,
InfraRed video equipment can see in the dark your going to try and record an apparition with your video camera, or you may want to use your camera to record a room while your not in it, or you may want to use your camera to monitor an object you have placed to see if it moves in someway.
IR CCTV Equipment
Used to monitor several locations at once CCTV can be great for protecting your experiments from people that think its a great laugh to fake ghost stuff, animals that can make unidentified sounds, etc or even you never know capturing paranormal footage such as objects moving or even a person that actually isn't there !!
ITC experiments
Instrumental Trans Communication, there are many overly complex abbreviations in this field, basically its a broad title for an experiment you do that creates communication with a paranormal source. For example using a piece of kit called the Oviouls the equipment itself has sensors that measure the environment around it, should anything change in this measurement it will attribute the value of the change to a word in its normally 1000 word dictionary and display or sound out the word, we have found that this experiment is best when all the words are examined as a sequence of words rather than as individual words. (more on the complexities another day)
Ouija, Glass moving, automatic writing, will follow on from Pt3 but until then ... are you sure your alone ?
catch you in part 4 for the Ouija myths and truths..