International Paranormal Investigators

Well it’s here. After many weeks of IPI Members working very hard behind the scenes to bring this to you, we are pround to announce the birth of the second stretch of IPI.

The IPI Blog is here for all paranormal interests in the field. From the peopel who are thinking on starting a group to the vetrans of the field. A place where you can come to find resources and valuable insight on what it is truly like to be a researcher in this field.

It is our hope to educate in a way that leaves the path open for people to follow in a way that benifits all. By sharing some of the knowledge of what it is like to work in this field so that ones may have a better understanding of the kind of commitment one must take on when approching something such as this.

This Blog is full of valuable information that is constantly being added to by the community on a regular basis.

Resources, downloads, videos, and articles to help you find out what you need to know.

Enjoy. We hope you find what you are looking for ……if not please dont hesitate to contact us .

Posted: 25 Oct, 2009 8:19

Lets Talk Tech…

An introduction to some of the better known Ghost Hunting tools of the trade
By, Paul Bradford SPI & GHI.

Ok so as a ghost hunter you know that if you want to produce evidence then you’re going to need something to capture that evidence. Yes it’s a general rule of thumb that all you really need is a pen and paper and an open mind, but lets face it if it was that easy to prove the existence of ghosts most of us would go back to collecting stamps or soda caps, For me capturing, or at least attempting to capture evidence is the best part of the hunt. But how do we go about doing that? Being that there is only a handful of tools specifically designed for the use of Ghost Hunting how are you going to know what’s the best tool to use?

So should you take out that second mortgage for the latest thermal imaging camera or can you just spend $30 on a cheap digital camera. Let face it with so many different people telling you need this or you need that it can be somewhat overwhelming as to know what you really need. So heres a good rule for the person starting out:

“Only buy equipment you can use outside the field of paranormal investigation”

Why, I hear you ask, why not just get a loan and buy 8 Security Cameras, a DVR and Full spectrum camera? Well that may come later but first, reality check, its not like it is on TV! Anyone who has been investigating the paranormal for a number of years will tell you it can get very boring at times, and evidence review SUCKS! It may seem all adventurous and exciting but it rarely is, nine times out of ten you come away with little to no evidence at all, during the investigation your sitting in the dark essentially talking to no one for a few hours. And when it comes to the going over what you’ve caught buying all those cameras dosnt seem like a great idea now, four cameras six hours each, audio also, you do the math…..

So if you want to get yourself something a nice place to start would be to look at a camcorder, a favorite manufacturer amongst ghost hunters is Sony, more so because of Sony’s Nightshot capabilities. Something to look at when deciding which camcorder to use is how many LUX, if you look at LUX as a lit candle, when a camera says it has 1 LUX it means that it can see in a room with the light of only 1 camera, when it says it has 0 LUX it means it can see in a room with no light at all (this usually means it uses Infrared Illumination to see in the dark). You have a number of different mediums to record to also, you have 8mm, Hi8, DVD or even internal hard drives each has its pros and cons, its worth talking to others about what they use and what they’ve found works for them. The good thing with any camcorder is that you’ll use it in your daily life as well, and IF in 6 months you decide hunting ghosts isn’t for you you’ve not wasted your money on something you don’t have a use for. Another thing you can get is a nice digital camera, again the general rule of thumb is 5 megapixel and above, but any camera above 3.1 would suffice and like the camcorder if you do decide to leave the field you’ll still be able to use your digital camera for other stuff.

But how do you go about deciding what to buy? Look at the equipment your team already has (if your with one) what do they really need, something I noticed a little while ago while I was investigating with another team is that out of 6 people, 5 of them had the same EMF meter now it might just be me but why do you need to all have an EMF meter? And worse yet why all the same? So see what others have and check to see what they don’t have.

As I pointed out earlier there really is only a handful of tools specifically made for the paranormal field, believe it or not (and this may shock you) and EMF meter ISNT design to find ghosts, its design is to identify areas in which there are large Electro Magnetic Fields, now EMF is all around us radio waves are a form of EMF called RF and then theres the extremely low frequencies referred to as ELF, a theory is the these EMFs are the reason that people report the feeling of being watch, paranoia or even nausea, additional reports say that EMF can induce hallucinations again this is theory and only some scientific data has been collected and as yet the theory has not been confirmed fully. Another possible reason for using an EMF meter is the theory that an entity requires energy to manifest, now when it does this it needs to draw the energy from one location to another the theory is that the EMF meter will be able to identify this movement of energy and essentially trace it to a source (the point of manifestation) again this is just another theory.

What about “cold spots”, well the tool best suited to identify “cold spots” would be a thermometer but ‘Buyer beware’ about a year ago there seems to be a trend and I saw a lot of groups running out and buying these infrared thermometers and laser precision thermometers neither of which are going to be much good when what you want to measure is ambient air. Both these types of thermometer measure their point of impact, what I mean is if you point the laser at a wall it’s the temperature of the wall you’ll be measuring not your surrounding area. But wait, what is a “cold spot” again we turn to theory, energy is heat now going back to what I previously said about how an entity may draw upon the energy from one location to another it would basically mean that the heat is being taken out of that area leaving behind a “cold spot”. So when looking for a thermometer you want something that will recorder the air in your immediate area, something like a 5-10ft radius, a new tool to the market is the Mel-8704 Meter this is one tool that was specifically designed to be used in the field and measures both EMF and temperature.

How about capturing EVP or ENPs, firstly what is an EVP or ENP? Electronic voice phenomena and Electronic Noise Phenomena are sections or samples of unexplained voices , and sounds that can only be heard and recorded by using electronic devices these sounds and voices are distinct and can be heard just above the sounds of background. Some of the first reported EVPs caught, date back to the 1950’s and were recorded simply using a reel to reel and microphone. But Technology has advanced since then and it seems that most groups out there can get EVPs but only in the past year has the focus been more on the recorder used, when looking into recorders something to look at is the frequency range capabilities of the device. Theories about the existence of ghosts are that they are present but in another wave length one that is potentially invisible and inaudible, what I mean is if we look the light spectrum you have your visible light and your invisible light it’s the same thing with sound you have sound frequencies you can hear and those you can’t, the frequencies inaudible to the human ear are called Ultrasound and Infrasound however depending on the frequency range of the audio recorder some of these otherwise unheard sounds can be recorded and played back at a frequency you can hear. Frequencies are measured in Hz the human ear can hear frequencies of around 20Hz to 20,000Hz, though the lower frequencies are more felt than heard, so when looking for an audio recorder look for one with a large frequency range some like 50Hz -19,000Hz, it is said that most EVPs are caught in the range of 40Hz – 200Hz. To test your own audio recorder there are websites available that will run conduct a sound test running through a cycle of 10Hz-200Hz one sure place can be found here: http://audiocheck.net . There are some who claim that digital recorders are susceptible to pickup rogue radio broadcasts and therefore these so called EVPs are possibly just a local radio station or taxi firm contaminating the data, something I personally do is make use of a ‘Faraday Cage’ this is a small ‘grounded’ wire mesh box that is designed to block any sort of radio wave penetrating its walls and therefor blocking any contamination of the audio recording, and cheap alternative to the mesh box is to use an anti static bag this works exceptionally well.

So there`s a few things to bare in mind when we talk about Ghost tech.

Para.Science members conducted groundbreaking research beneath Edinburgh’s haunted streets as part of the 2007 Mary King’s Ghost Fest.
Using specialised equipment designed and manufactured by team co-founder Steve Parsons, unsuspecting members of the public were blasted with Infrasound to test the idea that this powerful but inaudible sound energy might be responsible for some of the ghostly encounters reported inside Mary King’s Close.

Click here to see the prelimiary results from this exciting experiment
A pair of massive 3 metre long sound generators developed from an earlier design by the National Physical Laboratory were used to generate infrasonic frequencies below 20Hz. The system known as ARIA – Acoustic Research Infrasound Array was first used at the “Silent Sound” concert performance held at Liverpool’s historic St. George’s Hall on September 14th , 2006. It has also featured in a Discovery Channel 2 hour long Infrasound special “The Tiger’s Roar” first shown on February 11th 2007.
ARIA is capable of delivering Infrasound as low as 12Hz at an earth-shaking 140dB although for the experiments at Mary King’s Close it was running at much lower sound levels.

Experiment:

A team of Para.Science researchers led by co-founder Ann Winsper collaborated with Parapsychologist Dr. Ciaran O’Keeffe to study the psychological and physiological effects on members of the public touring the close to try and determine if exposure to Infrasound may be responsible for reported incidents of paranormal like experiences.
This is a unique experiment prompted by the work of the late Vic Tandy from Coventry University. He produced a series of papers putting forward the hypothesis that infrasound may cause some individuals to have unusual experiences that they may subsequently believe to be paranormal (Tandy & Lawrence, 1998; Tandy, 2000). Subsequent papers (e.g. O’Keeffe & Angliss, 2004; Wiseman et al, 2003) have examined the link either as one of several proposed links (e.g. Infrasound associated with emotional response to music) or merely put forward a tentative link (e.g. Fielding & O’Keeffe, 2006).
As part of the 2005 Ghost Fest Vic Tandy undertook ambient Infrasound measurements at several areas within Mary King’s Close and discovered that in two of the areas said to be haunted, infrasound energy was found to be around 20dB higher than in other parts of the Close. He identified key Infrasound frequencies at 10Hz, 13Hz and 17Hz as being present. Using a second set of equipment again designed and manufactured by Steve we aimed to repeat Vic’s measurements and also to extend them to see if it is possible to identify the sources of the ambient Infrasound. This equipment is designated ARID – Acoustic Research Infrasound Detector and is the partner system to ARIA.

ARID

ARID is unique and purpose designed as for its role in paranormal research. It provides the ability to display and measure in real-time any audio frequency from 100Hz to 1Hz using a powerful spectrum analyser. It also permits simultaneous recordings of the very low frequency sound and Infrasound to be made, allowing for storage further analysis to be done at a later date. ARID has been designed to be portable and can be used at almost any location both indoors or out.
Currently, ARID is being used in an extended series of Infrasound measurements at a range of haunted and control sites around the UK to establish for the first time a proper series of baseline Infrasound data that can be used to support further research into the hypothesised link between Infrasound and the paranormal. This series of Infrasound measurements is partially funded by a generous grant from The Society for Psychical Research.

References:
Fielding, Y. & O’Keeffe, C. (2006). Ghost Hunters: A guide to investigating the paranormal. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
O’Keeffe, C. & Angliss, S. (2004). The subjective effects of infrasound in a live concert setting. Paper presented at the International Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology, Graz, Austria. Sponsored by European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music.
Tandy, V. & Lawrence, T. R. (1998). The Ghost in the Machine. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 62, 360-364.
Tandy, V. (2000). Something in the Cellar. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 62(3), 129-140.
Wiseman, R., Watt, C., Stevens, P., Greening, E. & O’Keeffe, C. (2003). An Investigation into alleged hauntings. British Journal of Psychology, 94, 195-211.

The “Human” Aspect of Paranormal Investigations 

Recently, I attended a spiritual seminar in Cassadaga, Florida.  While I’m not what I would consider psychic, I have been told that I am empathic or sensitive to the emotions of those around me…living or dead.  While it has taken me quite a long time to understand and accept that possibility, I realize that it does in fact explain quite a lot of things that seem to occur in my life.  That, however, will be the subject of another column at a later date.

For me, the seminar brought a great deal of insight into one of the most serious issues that I feel plagues the majority of paranormal investigative teams…the “human” aspect.  All of us in our daily lives question the sincerity of those around us.  We complain about our doctors not having “good bedside” manners.  We complain about the plumber, electrician, cable guy, etc. doing a fast and shoddy job, then leaving quickly to make it to the next paying appointment.  We all catch ourselves saying “I bet he’d do a better job if it was his own house or family.”

The same can be said for paranormal investigative teams.  Whether the team is scientific, spiritual, or a mixture of both…very few teams seem to place the level of emphasis on the “human” aspect of the client.  We seldom take into account the serious nature of the investigation, in as far as it relates to the need of the client.  By the time that we are called into an investigation, the clients are generally already angry, confused, terrified….even ready to close the business or move out of the home.  In many cases, they have already exhausted the traditional means of fixing the problem…plumbers, electricians, contractors, exterminators…who have charged them for their labor and have solved nothing.

Teams conduct their investigations with an established level of professionalism and even confidentiality…yet time and time again we never effectively establish a good personal relationship with the client…one human being to another.  Sitting down with the client, talking to them on a personal level and relating to their crisis, is an essential way to share the client’s emotional, physical…even psychological burden.  By doing this, you show them that you genuinely care….not only about the work that you do…but also about them as a person.  Listening to their concerns, their ideas and theories on what is happening…and working with them…not over them…to resolve the problem, encourages their hopes for success. 

When possible, teams should have someone available to deal with the client on this level…whether through the use of a trained counselor or just someone who has a natural affinity for interpersonal relations.  This is quite often a difficult area for teams to cover, but it should be addressed as best as humanly possible…for all concerned.

Remembering that we are as vulnerable to activity as our clients should always remind us of our need to be “human” in every aspect of an investigation.  At any given moment, we could find ourselves a “client” and in need of a paranormal team that shows not only professionalism, but a much-needed “human” touch to their work.

As for me, the greatest reward for a successful investigation is a heartfelt “thank you” and more importantly…”thank you for believing in me”.       

–Joey Ward
Founder and Director of the West Georgia Paranormal Research Society
South Atlantic Head Rep for IPI