Ghost Hunting 101
The other night, my wife and I attended a "Ghost Hunting 101" seminar held at the public library by members of a ghost-hunting group called "Haunted Utah". I guess it was being held in the spirit of the month of Halloween. It was a class on techniques employed by ghost-hunters (at least the more scientifically minded ones) to explore paranormal phenomena associated with "hauntings."

It seemed most of the people there had some little ghost story from their own life or from a friend / family member, and they were interested in consulting with experts. My wife and I were there mainly to pick up some background information. My wife is a professional storyteller with a fondness for ghost stories, and I've actually had a horror game concept on the back-burner for a couple of years and felt I could also use some additional background information. Plus it just sounded like a fun date.

It didn't dissapoint.

How To Hunt Ghosts
The session was informative, though it didn't provide much more information than you could pick up by watching a couple of hours of "Ghost Hunters" on SciFi. But the two ladies, Tiffany and Marie, were extremely candid and shared a lot of their opinions and observations. They explained EVP, or Electronic Voice Phenomena, in great detail, as well as ghost photography. They shared a few of their experiences. Tiffany is a self-admitted scaredy-cat who gets frightened half-to-death on nearly every investigation (though she claims she isn't bothered at all by horror movies).

Really, their techniques aren't much different from that of the guys on "Ghost Hunters," but they did provide some interesting tidbits I put into my notes. They explained how most of ghost-hunting is tedious work and meticulous attention to detail (especially taking notes on what's happening, so you avoid false positives). They talked a bit about identifying "real" orbs from things like dust or rain particles in photographs. Likewise, they talked about how easy it is to misclassify mist or vortex phenomena (the latter is most frequently a hair close to the camera lens).

They detailed the kinds of equipment you should bring to go ghost-hunting. Apparently, they've not noticed a significant difference between using higher-end and cheaper tape recorders or cameras. They prefer analog equipment over digital purely for the sake of providing evidence. Digital may be of higher quality, but digital originals can be easily faked.

They shared their own war stories of all the things that can go wrong in an investigation. Tiffany had some scars from trying to find a remote graveyard and getting lost in the woods after dark. Marie nearly fell through a floor on one occasion. They've both accidentally left the tape recorder on "pause" for an extended period of time trying to collect EVPs.

Some tidbits we picked up:
* They get EVP's on only about 20% of their investigations. "Orb Phenomena" in photographs is fairly common, occuring on about 80% of their investigations - to the point where Tiffany said, "You get bored with orbs." But the other photographic phenomena is extremely rare.

* Results tend to be better during certain times of the year. Fall is the best season. Marie blamed this on the cyclical nature of the Earth's magnetic field. Time of day is less important, though they tend to do their investigations between 9 and midnight.

* Batteries tend to lose power on investigations. In fact, they'll often go dead during the investigation, but will work fine afterwards. They advise bringing far more batteries than you think you'll need. Marie speculated that "ghosts" draw energy from the environment - also explaining the existance of things like "cold spots" (though I think I remember them saying they'd never experienced one themselves).

* Hauntings aren't limited to areas where tragic deaths occured, but rather any place where strong emotions were experienced. Theaters and public schools are apparently ripe places for hauntings.

* One of the "most haunted" places in Utah is the Capitol Theater in downtown Salt Lake City. I've been there a couple of times to see shows. Anyway, it was the site of their "best" ghost story - as they were conducting an investigation, asking questions of whatever entity was there, they clearly heard a voice in an EPV shout, "GET OUT!" They didn't hear the voice during the investigation, however.

* And no, they don't get paid for investigations - in fact, a few places want to charge them by the hour to be there. So it's not exactly a lucrative career.

* They are also not "House Cleaners," which is the term used for the more "Ghostbuster" types that get rid of ghosts. These are often clergy / shaman / psychic types.

Anyway, it was quite the interesting night! Very fun and informative.

Do I believe in it? I don't know. I'm a religious guy, and I've seen way too much in my life to summarily dismiss anything. And some of the EVPs on the Net, if they are legit, are pretty compelling. The orbs - not so much, they look too much like non-orb dust particles to me.

I don't know if any of what we learned will be of any use to me as part of an upcoming game design, but an awful lot of research that goes into game design never actually makes it into the final game.
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:51 AM (Permalink)