Adaptability in Ghost Hunting



J&G have us believing that you walk into a client's home. You do a breezy interview, note the hot spots and stories, set up the equipment and then promptly pair off; Amy and Adam, Tango and Steve, Jason and Grant. You walk around. You ask some questions. You sit back and get that KII meter going. Same ol'/same ol'.

Every case is different. I would never be a professional exterminator and go into a home and set up rat traps. I'd find out if the problem was termites, cockroaches, silverfish or other. When I discover a baby's room, I might not spray toxic chemicals. I'd look for pathways and patterns for the critters so I can keep more raccoons from getting in the attic.

Adaptability depending on the terrain, reactions and the circumstances!


When you've done the proper pre-screening (this can involve extensive questionnaires and a few weeks to a month's worth of logging activity by the clients), you then get a picture of just how you might want to approach the situation.

It gets even more hairy when you arrive at the home to find out that the kid's room where the activity is happens to also be the home office where two computers, a router and modem and more equipment stay on day and night. Depending on what you find, you have to be ready to change your game plan.

Does this haunting seem to be aggravated by a particular member of the family? You might decide to sit with that person and do a little EVP session at a table with no one else present. You might also consider taking them out of the home so you can test just how much is dependent on their presence.

House has a really high baseline EMF? Try doing a little EVP session with the power on and then with the breakers thrown.

One room not getting any action? Focus on that room.

Why not track it with something often times better than vision--hearing! A simple fishing wire string with a jingle ball hanging by a tack from the ceiling--these can be placed going down a hallway where footsteps are heard. If the windows are closed, people sitting still and air turned off, you can track something that actually makes the balls jingle. What can we figure out from this? You'll understand if you're dealing with a residual sound or an actual entity propelling itself through the course.

Try novelty. In some cases, all the begging, pleading and goading might not work. But, what if you sat down and rocked on the floor and talked to a dolly with the recorders going? What if you and another team member spoke a made up language? Hmm....

The bottom line is there is no cookie cutter way to go about this and if an outside-the-box investigator goes about this, each hunt can provide something new in understanding phenomena, knowing what incites it, coming up with new testing methods and--(say it with me--you hear it enough here) "furthering the field!"

Comments

  1. A transformer would be a great ghost hunting asset! :D

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  2. Wow, and here I thought working in radio was a cool gig. You have the greatest job in the world. Even better than a storm chaser. I wonder what the most concrete thing you have ever come across is... I once found a great ghost-typer on Craigslist, which is sweet because I'm a really slow typer. But the dude is always popping up behind open cupboards and freezer doors when I shut them. Scares the crap outta me every time, but he needs the job as the economy has been rough on ghosts as well.

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  3. I've seen full body apparitions and had physical interactions and heard plenty of voices and saw things move on their own, but the one that seriously had me in terror--read about it.
    http://autumnforestghosthunter.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-childhood-haunts-angry-poltergeist.html

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  4. those babies they always stir some shit in theit rooms, so parents have to call ghost hunters.

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  5. This might be a silly question, but what do ghost hunters think of movies like Ghost Busters and others like it. Do you/they find it entertaining or do you think that it trivializes and mocks what you do?

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  6. I don't know a ghost hunter who doesn't find Ghostbusters to be totally badass! It's like the ultimate--gear, a cool firehouse, a hearse, and adoring citizens, as well as ectoplasmic fun! Of course, it nowhere resembles the real deal (ghost hunting is a TOTAL snooze), but we do feel an affiliation with those outcast nerds. All of us are ones ourselves!

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  7. In my experience, once the balls start jingling, the hunt usually turns into a pursuit of a different kind. ;)
    But seriously, it's odd that you posted this, because I'm working on a post about how easy the TV crowd (and their hangers-on, copycats, and wannabes) make exorcisms seem!

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  8. Haha. I offered to run a seance at BC, but some of the members were cautious about the use. I'm open to spiritual and physical investigations. I figure that if there's some aspect of this that is launched by the living humans, things of a spiritual nature can help them tap that. I ran a session in the Birdcage where I had everyone sitting as a group, studying the infamous stairwell the woman in white goes down. I called on her to show herself and we all concentrated to will it to happen. All that concentrated energy on her and she didn't show. I find that telling. If you recall, Jason & Grant were not expecting it at all, although just prior, Jason felt something tug his shirt. He's highly sensitive, so I'm thinking he had a premonition feeling something was about to happen and it often occurs in a physical form. Oh, and if you or anyone else knows how to put sound files on here, let me know. I'd love to put up some wicked EVPs we've uncovered from the BC. We're just like 1 1/2 recorders out of 16 into it and we've already gotten some wicked stuff.

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  9. I'm not sure how I found your blog, but I am glad I did! This has always interested me...

    I'm curious about the bells on a fishing wire... in order for the entity to make a sound with it, wouldn't it have to have mass?

    On 'Ghost Hunters' one night, they sprinkled flour on the floor, and later discovered foot prints... that doesn't seem possible...

    Can you explain this for me?

    Again, I am so glad I found your blog!

    ~shoes~

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  10. Hey Shoes-digging your name! I own about 40 pairs of you! Heehee

    I laugh about the Jason putting down powder. There's a difference between trying to capture phantom sounds and trying to capture the invisible man. I think anyone with a bit of commonsense (like yourself obviously) wonders why the hell a ghost would leave a shoe footprint. I'm not sure Jason understands what the hell a ghost is. Apparently, it is the invisible man. If a footprint was captured there's a couple of ways that can happen and the most common way would be that the crew they hauled up into the attic moved around to film them in the dark and stepped into the flour. The other option is one I ran into because in my younger days of hunting I tried the baby powder on a nightstand and where my oily handprint was, the powder sort of melted there over time. The bell idea is part of something I want to delve into more with an experiment with colored light and fog. If we think of our room as "I am standing here and something happened over there" we are thinking of it in two points. If, however, we say "I am person sharing a 3-dimensional space with other things, what is in that space?" then we have to account for the "negative" area in this picture--the very air of the room and open space. If something touches me or causes a chill and goosebumps, it's somehow gathered itself up enough to give me physical sensation. So, now the question becomes is this something coalescing in space? How can I find out what its properties are? We try with electrical gadgets, but if we had fog and a colored light in a room with no air movement, anything that is dense enough in its energy to cause us a tactile feel, might actually disturb the fog. The same for the bells--is it something moving with enough current to disrupt just slightly these very easy to move strings/bells? We could track it and perhaps learn at the same time if it sets off EMF with a meter set to sound nearby. If the bells and the meter sound at the same time, then tracking with an EMF meter might have some validity. Hope that helps. Jeez, I think, dear, that you've inspired another post!

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  11. Thanks so much!!

    As for the shoes, I have Red ones and Black ones... the Red ones are for the class room... I teach in the university system here in my State... the Black ones are for formal situations...

    Thanks again!

    ~shoes~

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  12. Shoes--a teacher. You have my rapt attention! That post you inspired goes up in a couple hours.

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