Spirits are in all things
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Who Ya Gonna Call? or My Experience as a Ghost Hunter
Spirit Trap Part 1
At the paranormal group meetings, we are encouraged to watch and critique ghost hunter shows on television. Since there are over 20 series, there is a lot to choose from. I have watched one of the more popular shows on a weekly basis, but had no idea how many there were on television until I did a search on the internet. They seem to range from, "I think the cold spot is because you are standing under an air conditioning vent," to "THIS HOUSE IS A PORTAL TO HELL AND EVERYONE IS POSSESSED! RUN!"
Many of the different series I watched had a similar pattern. There often seems to be one guy who looks like he just stepped away from a moonshine still in the mountains of Appalachia. He has a beard and is built like Bigfoot. He has a look on his face like someone smacked him with a 12-pound catfish. His name is usually Bubba. However, one show I watched still stands out in my memory. It is like going into Walmart and seeing something you wish you had never seen. If there was a brainwashing service, you would stand in line.
This show started out in a typical fashion: an abandoned hospital, a caravan of SUVs, the shot of a group of people getting out of the vehicles, and at least one of them hitching up their pants. Everything seems to go in the typical pattern. They split up into groups and wonder about the old hospital, scoping it out in the daylight. There is the peeling paint, some leftover broken furniture, and dark hallways.
As one group explores the basement, Bubba says, "I just saw a shadow!" which draws the cameraman's attention down a dark hallway. Logic would tell us ‘there are three guys, wandering around with flashlights in a pitch-black basement, shining their lights around in order to see, and they notice a ‘shadow?’ Dark room, peeling paint, broken furniture, and flashlight beams darting around – and they see a shadow. And they are surprised! This goes on for a couple of hours with various bumps, tapping, creaking, and shadows, all of which they say are signs of ghosts, not an old, decaying building.
But then, this is where the show really goes down the rabbit hole into the twilight zone between science, imagination, and utter absurdity. The ghost hunters wrap up the preliminary investigation for the day and decide to return the next night after building a ghost trap. Yes, "a ghost trap" or, as one of the characters described, "a solar panel ghost zapper." Holy Shades of Ghost Busters, Batman! I had to watch the show several times to figure out how the contraption they created was supposed to work.
The inspiration for the ghost zapper is the belief that ghosts drain energy, such as batteries. Often, during a ghost hunt, flashlights, video recorders, and other electronic devices go dead. Unwilling to admit that they didn’t check the batteries before the ghost hunt, the technician blames a ghost for sucking out the juice. The explanation is that ghosts need energy to "manifest." Using the manifest theory, as opposed to the “sorry I forgot to change batteries” theory, the ghost hunters devised a trap using a chicken wire covered gate and a solar panel. The ghost hunters will attract the ghost by connecting a car battery to opposite sides of the chicken wire to send an electric charge through the wire. The solar panel will then suck the ghost in where it will register on a volt meter and then be trapped in a capacitor. Their reasoning is that, since a solar panel ‘absorbs’ energy, the solar panel should suck the ghost in like a drink through a straw, where it can be trapped in the capacitor (a device similar in function to a battery in that it will hold a charge). Don't try to figure it out. It will only make your brain hurt.
The device they construct consists of a 5x5 aluminum tube frame with chicken wire strung across. A car battery is connected to opposite ends of the frame, and a small solar panel is attached to the middle of the wire. Scientifically, this plan has more holes in it than the chicken wire. But we started down this dark hallway, and there was no turning back.
That night, the group hauls the 'ghost trap' up to the hospital's top floor to the operating room, which seems the most active. Thebattery is connected to the chicken wire, and the group starts inviting the ghosts to do something to make their presence known. Suddenly, the volt meter on the ghost trap goes off. No, it doesn't sound an alarm; it just goes off, like dead, like ‘batteries drained.’ Could some playful poltergeist be messing with them? Could it have drained the battery in the voltmeter instead of floating into the trap? Could they have captured a ghost, and the sudden surge of energy burned out the meter? Could the technician have forgotten to check the batteries? Tune in next time to see what this group caught in their “ghost zapper.”
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I would like to make note once again, that poking fun of ghost hunting is my style. I believe that something we call ghosts do exist. I also believe that the people that search for evidence are intelligent, rational and basically honest people. There is a certain amount of theater involved in the ghost hunting shows to attract an audience, and it is this theater that I am targeting for amusement.
Chapter: The Spirit Zapper Part 2
"Chasing ghosts without proper training will get you killed." That is part of the disclaimer before the Ghost show I watched recently. It made me wonder, "What are they doing!!??" Are they chasing these ghosts into the gates of hell?
The Ghost Hunters on the show that had this disclaimer had constructed a ghost trap. With the disclaimer in mind, it made me wonder what a "trapped" ghost would do. What if the ghost was in a really bad mood to start with, and then they get sucked into a trap. Even if I were in a good mood, this sort of thing might rub me the wrong way... if I were a ghost... or a mouse. I might be one angry ghost when I got out of the trap. Maybe that was the reason for the disclaimer.
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The ghost trap consisted of chicken wire strung across a metal frame connected to a battery to 'electrify' the wire and thus attract ghosts. Once attracted, the ghost would be sucked up by a solar panel attached to the chicken wire, recognized by a volt meter, and imprisoned in a capacitor. I didn't make this up; the show was listed as "Reality."
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The group had been talking to the spirits, trying to entice them into 'stepping a little closer' when the volt meter went blank. The group all gathered around the meter and pondered the significance. Nobody thought of the universal electronic repair method; whack the side a couple of times. The general consensus was that the voltmeter had experienced such a surge of energy from the ghost that it had drained the batteries.
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Mysteriously, the volt meter comes back on and registers a high voltage. Everyone seemed shocked and mystified. How could the meter have come back on all by itself when nobody had whacked the side? The conclusion the ghost hunters reached was that the ghost apparently just made a play for the electrified wire and was sucked into the solar cell and overloaded the volt meter as the spirit was pulled into the capacitor. Either that or the energized chicken wire shorted across the solar panel, and the electrical surge overloaded the volt meter and charged the capacitor. But, we will go with the ghost theory because it is more plausible.
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So now, there are high-fives all around as the group is confident they have just captured a ghost. Again I wondered what a ghost would think, having been lured by an electric fence, sucked into a solar panel, and imprisoned in a capacitor. Nobody seems to question whether the ghost might be a little ticked off. One of the ghost hunters' first rules is, "Don't antagonize a ghost." That is why you very seldom hear ghost hunters yell something like, "Show yourself, you yellow-bellied spirit! I dare you to move my chair! You can't do it, can you? Because you are a weak, good-for-nothing spirit!" The feeling in ghost-hunting circles is that if you antagonize the wrong ghost, they may slam your chair with you sitting in it against the ceiling so hard that you join them in the spirit realm. Or, they may follow you home. Explain that to your wife!
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Having entrapped the spirit, the next step is to pack up their ghost-hunting equipment and return to their "laboratory," which resembles a shed in someone's backyard. In this laboratory, the ghost hunters have constructed a Faraday Cage. The Faraday cage, for those of you who slept during high school science class, was invented in 1836 by Michael Faraday. It consists of an enclosure with conductive walls of foil or wire that can be charged with a high voltage. Imagine a bird cage with an electric cord plugged into an outlet and the ends stripped and attached to opposite ends of the cage. Also, imagine a fried bird. On the other hand, don't imagine that.
A Faraday cage can be made of any size if you have sufficient current. It can even be constructed large enough for a human to get inside. Imagine your mother-in-law stepping into the Faraday cage you built in your basement, and then imagine you throwing the switch. You casually say, “Don’t worry Margret, you can touch the walls. It won’t hurt you.” On second thought, don't imagine that either. And forget I ever suggested such a thing.
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Faraday actually was not attempting to capture spirits; Michael was just trying to prove a theory that the electrical field around the cage canceled any external fields. Today, Faraday cages are used to shield sensitive electronics from electromagnetic interference and secure data by blocking external radio signals, and... in ghost hunting.
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In ghost-hunting circles, Faraday cages are thought to trap energy (like unsuspecting spirits). Our ghost hunters believe they can contain the spirit they captured inside the Faraday cage. Obviously, these ghost hunters have not watched the myriad of movies where this sort of thing ends quite badly. They put their little capacitor inside the cage and connected a volt meter (to tell them when the ghost exited into the cage and starts to run his cup over the bars). They have sensitive listening devices, video camaras trained on the cage and a thermometer for temperature changes. Then they wait. The camera doesn't show it, but I am certain one of the hunters goes up to the cage and says, "Here, spirit, spirit." Finally, they pull the capacitor out of the cage and connect a more accurate meter. The meter reads no voltage. They deduce from this that the spirit has left the building (or at least the capacitor). At this point, they feel like they have succeeded in freeing the spirit of its earthly bounds; another great job done.
Can we view ghosts as a type of energy? Some of the indicators that have been widely linked to spirit presence are a decrease in temperature, lights flickering, and dead batteries. Could the theory that, in order to manifest themselves, spirits pull energy from their surroundings be true? There is still no scientific evidence, only speculation and eyewitness accounts. It makes one wonder, is a living person's soul a type of energy?