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That's Grammarly.com slash podcast. Grammarly. Easier said, done. In 1901, Nikola Tesla had the most terrifying experience of his life. As he worked alone in the laboratory one night, he felt a presence. So he created a device to see if he can hear or pick up any signals from whatever it was that he felt.
He called it the Spirit Radio, and it worked. And Tesla wasn't alone. Throughout history, famous scientists who helped shape the technology we use today have spoken of ghosts and hauntings that shook them to their core. And while you might think these are nothing more than ghost stories, you'd be right. But there is scientific data that supports the existence of ghosts. Data that has been suppressed. Until now. ♪
Ghosts are generally thought of to be apparitions of the dead.
Specters, poltergeists, phantoms, all these names are given to the physical appearance of disembodied souls. When the presence of a ghost is felt or experienced by the living, it's called a haunting. Ghosts and hauntings exist in every culture, and all civilizations throughout history have their own superstitions and beliefs about what ghosts are and why they're here. In fact, the earliest funeral services weren't intended to honor the dead. They were ceremonies to make sure the spirits of the dead stayed dead.
In ancient Mesopotamia, the dead required a proper burial in order to reach Urcala, the underworld. If the funeral wasn't followed correctly, or the family of the dead failed to conduct the proper mourning rituals, the gods would grant the dead permission to return to Earth and haunt the living. These ghosts were believed to haunt people and places just like we believe today. The ancient Mesopotamians believed that ghosts could enter a living person's body and bring them bad luck, illness, and even death.
Almost everyone, regardless of faith or culture, has at least one creepy ghost story, something that happened to them or someone they know that involves ghosts. Oh, I got one. Of course you do. After I lost my job as a professor, me and a couple other guys started this business chasing ghosts around New York.
Well, things got crazy and ghosts were all over the place. And then the Sumerian god shows up and they end up making sweet love to Sigourney Weaver. Hang on. What? That's the plot of Ghostbusters. I know. Ackroyd stole that from me. I highly doubt that. Well, we'll see what you say after the lawsuit. Wait, what did you say about Sigourney Weaver? Oh, sure. Now you're interested, huh? You'll have to wait for my memoir like everybody else.
One of the first recorded hauntings was by the author and statesman Pliny the Younger in the first century AD. Pliny the Younger is mostly remembered for his dramatic firsthand account of the Mount Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD. But Pliny could also spin a good ghost story.
The most famous of Pliny's ghost stories is that of philosopher Athenodorus Canonites. Athenodorus was looking for somewhere to live in Athens and came upon a property that seemed incredibly affordable for its size and design, almost too affordable. Athenodorus was told that the house was haunted, and not being one for the, quote, vain terrors of imaginary noises and apparitions, Athenodorus rented the property, and everything was fine at first.
Then one night he was doing some writing when he heard chains rattling. Then began the clanking of iron chains. However, he neither lifted up his eyes nor laid down his pen, but closed his ears by concentrating his attention. The noise increased and advanced nearer till it seemed at the door and at last in the chamber. He looked round and saw the apparition exactly as it had been described to him. It stood before him, beckoning.
Okay, side note. Athena Doris was a famous stoic. Stoicism is a philosophy of acceptance, inner peace, focus, and controlling one's emotions. Basically, stoicism is go with the flow and don't sweat the small stuff. So a ghost shows up dragging chains and looking all corpsey, and rather than freak out, Athena Doris does the most stoic thing I've ever heard of. Without saying a word and without looking up, Athena Doris holds up a finger, indicating that he just needs a minute to finish what he's doing.
But the ghost kept rattling his chains, and when Athenodorus turned around, the ghost beckoned him once again. The ghost slowly stalked along as if encumbered with its chains, and having turned into the courtyard of the house, suddenly vanished. The next day he went to the magistrates and advised them to order that spot to be dug up. There they found bones commingled and intertwined with chains.
for the body had moulded away by long lying in the ground, leaving them bare and corroded by the fetters. The bones were collected and buried at the public expense, and after the ghost was thus duly laid, the house was haunted no more.
This story was corroborated by others who knew both Pliny the Younger and Athena Doris. This is one of the many examples of hauntings that convinced Pliny that ghosts were very much a real thing. But ghosts don't always fit the stereotype of being spirit-like apparitions that appear in the dead of night. Ghosts can also be poltergeists. Poltergeists have been investigated as far back as 856 AD when one tormented a family in Germany. Poltergeist in German means rumbling or noisy spirit.
Unlike typical ghosts, which have limited interaction with the physical world, poltergeists cause physical disturbances. This one threw stones and started fires. Just another day in Portland, eh? No, this was Germany. Ah. But how many of these hauntings we hear about are real? And what can we do to scientifically validate the concept that the dead might still be walking among us? Well, all we have to do is go on a hunt. Because ghosts are surprisingly easy to find.
Everyone has a ghost story, but how many people actually go looking for ghosts? Most people think of ghost hunting as a recent trend, something you see in cheesy reality TV. Or even cheesier YouTube videos.
What are they doing? Setting up a volleyball? No, they're going to catch a ghost. Oh, okay.
What the s*** was that? But people have been trying to actively locate spirits and contact the dead for thousands of years. Just recently, a cave was found near Jerusalem with artifacts relating to Roman-era death magic tools used to contact lost relatives. Did he find any ancient Roman volleyball nets? Not that I'm aware of. Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!
Modern ghost hunting can be broken down into two different areas. Contacting the dead directly via psychics or seances, or going to an allegedly haunted location in order to identify the presence of ghostly phenomena. Ghost hunting took off as a scientific pursuit in the 19th and 20th centuries, and things started out simple. People would gather, look for disturbances, make observations, and try to identify whether there were ghosts in their homes. One of the first books on the subject,
was published in 1936. It's called Confessions of a Ghost Hunter by Harry Price, 30 years into his career as a professional hunter. In the book, Price describes how that all that was needed to investigate hauntings in the early 1800s was a black parlor, a red lamp, and a circle of credulous sitters and vivid imagination.
Other early examples of ghost hunting methods that are still in use today include dowsing. And this is where Y or L shaped rods, often called dowsing rods, are used to locate hidden resources like groundwater, gemstones, grave sites, and all kinds of stuff without the use of scientific equipment. Then there's a tool that everybody knows, Ouija boards.
A Ouija board is also known as a spirit board or a talking board. And this is a flat board marked with letters of the alphabet and the numbers 0 through 9. Often the words yes, no, hello, and goodbye are also marked. It comes with a small heart-shaped piece of wood or plastic called a planchette. A group of people will sit in a circle around the board and gently place their fingers on the planchette.
Spirits will then communicate by moving the planchette around the board. It's pretty simple by today's standards, but back in the early 19th century, the Ouija board was revolutionary. People even wrote to Price in support of the board and its incredible ability to conjure the spirits of the dead. They even offered advice on how to get better results. Dear Mr. Nickel, I don't recommend you to any materializing medium, nor do I think that materialization is by any means the best form of manifestation.
It is the one most open to imposture, and my experience is that materializing spirits never say anything worth listening to. You had better experiment with the Ouija in that way if any of your circle is at all mediumistic. You will get much better results. I am yours truly, W.T. Stead. Everybody's an expert. Yep. Just like any YouTube comments. Yep.
A series of events led to ghost hunting becoming one of the most popular recreational activities and scientific pursuits. And two of the greatest minds in modern history were leading the charge, Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. These two great inventors are best known for their War of the Currents, the fight between Tesla's alternating current and Edison's direct current.
But they also spent years battling it out in the hunt for scientific evidence that validated the existence of ghosts. And they both got pretty close. Edison created the ghost phone. Tesla called his invention the spirit radio. The basic principle behind these devices is similar to a crystal radio, which receives radio waves and converts them into sound without the use of external power.
Both devices seem to work pretty well. And we have an entire episode on this, which is linked below, and you can hear what Tesla heard. And we even teach you how to build one yourself. Eventually, Tesla and Edison's two competing forms of electrical transmission would one day combine to give us all the tools we need to hunt for ghosts. While most videos and images of ghosts end up being fake, there are still countless examples of technological devices appearing to pick up signals from the dead.
And a lot of those can't be debunked. A process used in modern science to prove or disprove various theories is the collection of proxy data. Proxy data indirectly suggests a theory is true, like using tree rings to see how hot or cold different summers were when we don't have actual records, or how we can tell whether different parts of the planet were under the ocean because of the existence of sedimentary rock deposits in the middle of the desert, or marine fossils on mountaintops.
The more the data shows similar results, the more we can prove a theory is true. In ghost hunting, we have so much proxy data that it's hard to know where to start. There are a lot of instruments that tell us when energy and matter is fluctuating abnormally, suggesting the presence of a ghost. We even have audio and video equipment that can record things we'd never otherwise be able to see with just our naked eye.
Probably the most well-known scientific ghost hunting tool is an EMF reader, basically a modern day ghost phone meets spirit radio. EMF stands for electromagnetic field, and these are invisible areas of energy often referred to as different types of radiation, such as radio waves, x-rays, gamma, microwaves, sunlight, and even human brainwaves.
Some speculate that if consciousness or a soul is a form of energy, then the first law of thermodynamics might apply. The conservation of energy says that energy cannot be created or destroyed.
So if consciousness is energy, this energy continues in some form after death. And this energy might interact with the electromagnetic spectrum. And EMF meters detect these interactions and fluctuations. So think of it like this: You're in a room in an abandoned building with the door closed, no windows open. You're miles from the closest Wi-Fi or other energy that could show up on an EMF meter. At first, the reading will be steady.
Then, when a ghost is present, out of nowhere, you'll get a sudden spike. Look, come here. Come here. Come here. That's definitely a ghost. Yeah, well, they thought so. Oh, dude. I think I'm going to go hang out in the lobby for a little bit. With other people. Yo. Just get in there.
Ghost hunters believe that spirits can cause a shift in a magnetic field, causing EMF meters to pick up their frequency. The same goes for K2 meters, which also detect random spikes in electromagnetic energy that seem to come out of nowhere.
And many of these types of devices can also pick up the sudden temperature drops that are so uniquely associated with hauntings. You know how you get a sudden shiver or out of nowhere you feel like you're being watched? Well, ghost hunters say that's a spirit walking through you.
With most EMF meters, ghost hunters get two forms of proxy data: sudden unexplained changes in an electromagnetic field and isolated temperature changes. Another piece of ghost hunting equipment is an anemometer, which is commonly used by meteorologists to measure wind speed and pressure. In ghost hunting, you can use an anemometer to seek out sudden changes in airflow or detect cold spots.
They're also helpful in cases where someone suspects a ghost is slamming doors or moving items around their homes. Ooh, like in Poltergeist? Exactly. Cross over, children. All are welcome. All welcome. Go into the light. No! You said don't go into the light! There is peace and serenity in the light.
When you couple EMF readings with data from anemometers, ghost hunters can pinpoint tiny fluctuations in temperature and the electromagnetic field, which are then confirmed using infrared thermometers. If your EMF meter, your anemometer, and your laser thermometer are all telling you there's a ghost, well, it's kind of hard to argue otherwise. If it walks like a duck. Right. It talks like a duck. I got it. It's a duck.
There's also something called a radiating electromagnetism pod. A REM pod is a small device with an antenna that creates its own electromagnetic field. It reacts when anything that conducts electricity gets anywhere near it. That's amazing.
A REM pod has five different lights that indicate the strength of the disturbance. A REM pod is basically a modified theremin, which is an electronic musical instrument that's played without actually touching it. The musician manipulates the magnetic field around the instrument to change the sound. I missed that show. Doctor Who is still on. But is it, though?
Another piece of equipment is the Mel Meter, which was specifically designed for ghost hunting. Mel Meters use an antenna to detect motion. They have a gauge to track changes in temperature and have all the same elements as an EMF reader. I have absolutely no idea what's happening.
Most of these devices are pretty much the same, and they're a lot better at debunking a haunting than proving one. But in many cases, the information provided by these devices is enough to lay the groundwork for ghost hunters to take their explorations a step further and gather video and audio evidence of specters. Because it's one thing to detect a ghost, but it's something else entirely when you actually see one.
EMF meters, MEL meters, REM pods, these can all detect ghosts, but still the results are up to interpretation. But if you see a ghost, there's nothing to interpret. Photographs of ghosts are pretty easy to come by in the digital age, but the best results will come from cameras specifically designed to photograph ghosts: full-spectrum cameras.
A full-spectrum camera can pick up all forms of light, from infrared through ultraviolet. They're not that complicated to make. You can convert just about any camera into a full-spectrum camera. All you have to do is remove the infrared cut filter and replace it with a piece of clear glass, which makes it sensitive to UV. And by the way, even though you can convert most cameras to full-spectrum, don't try to convert your phone. You'll definitely break it. Ghost hunters use full-spectrum cameras to try and pick up things we can't see with our naked eye.
And surprising no one, they're most commonly used in dark spaces. But they work in all environments. Entities captured on full-spectrum cameras have been known to glow or emit their own light source. And these ghosts come in all shapes and sizes. Some ghost hunters prefer using just an infrared video light. These cameras are more than enough to film in near or total darkness.
Or if you want to be really basic and find ghosts in dark environments, you can just use a black light. Ghost hunters will often use black lights to reveal hidden or hard to find evidence of ghosts or messages from our ancestors. A black light is a type of light bulb that emits ultraviolet light. This type of light is not visible to the human eye, but when it shines on certain materials, it can cause them to glow.
Black lights are also excellent for revealing hoaxes. They can spot super thin laser lights, fishing lines, even holograms and other weird devices used when someone is staging a haunting. Another way to figure out if a haunting is a hoax is by using an SLS camera.
SLS stands for Structured Light Sensor. These cameras send out thousands of tiny points of light to map out a room or other type of space, revealing things that aren't apparent to the naked eye. Ghost hunters use SLS cameras to identify apparitions that alter the way light flows through the space. But how do we know that these figures and shapes are really ghosts and not aliens or shadow people or something else entirely? Well, it's actually pretty simple. We can just ask them.
We've come a long way since the ghost phone and spirit radio. We have tools right in our pockets that allow us to record everything going on around us and analyze that information to see if there's anything we've missed. There are many different types of audio devices that you can use in ghost hunting, and they all look for the same things. EVPs or ITCs. EVPs are electronic voice phenomena. ITCs are instrumental transcommunication.
EVPs are defined by pure disembodied voices. And these voices can be captured on an audio device, but you usually can't hear them. Ghost hunters often have to analyze and break down the layers of sound at a later time to hear the messages. ITCs are a little more nuanced. Instead of recording a sound that needs to be analyzed later, an ITC happens when ghosts interact with radios and other mediums in real time. Ghost hunters.
Most examples of EVPs and ITCs include single words or repeated phrases, maybe a short sentence at the very most. I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy. Usually they're nothing more than grunts or groans.
The quality of EVPs often fluctuates as well. They fall on a scale from Class A to Class C, Class A being the easiest to understand and are usually pretty loud. At one point, Jay says, Princess, are you in the room? And it sounds like she says, of course I'm in the room. Where are you? Princess, can you at least let us know you're in here? Can you say something?
Class B EVPs have some warping on particular syllables. They're lower in volume or sometimes sound like the person is far away. Class C EVPs are the hardest to understand or interpret. So if you know of anybody that did it, can you let us know or can you move just a little piece of plaster? It's nothing to hurt anyone. It's nothing to hurt anyone. It's nothing to hurt anyone.
When a message can't be clearly understood, some ghost hunters will turn to the Ovilus. The Ovilus is a device that contains a database of various words and syllables. It's said it can detect and translate energy fields. People call it a speakin' spell for the dead.
It's weird, I just sent Aaron inside and it said, abort, unholy chills. By picking up on certain fluctuations, the Ovilus works as a middleman between the world of the living and the world of the dead. When asked a question, pretty much any question, the Ovilus will respond. Do you know that we're going to come inside? Do you know where this voice is coming from? Satur.
Oh, wow. Thanks to all these scientific tools, the world of ghost hunting is abundant with proxy data, all that adding up to validate the existence of ghosts. So ghosts are real, right?
Our fascination with ghosts and ghost hunting has created a huge industry. Modern ghost hunting and haunted tourism are so big that some towns refuse to engage with their haunted histories. They don't want to damage their reputations or be descended upon by packs of YouTubers with wacky gadgets.
But that hasn't stopped people from traveling all over the world to hunt for the dead. And they spend a lot of money on devices to help them do it, with mixed results. EMF meters, for example. EMFs are invisible chunks of energy, sometimes referred to as radiation, that are associated with electrical power. Electrical transmission through these fields happens through alternating currents, AC, or direct currents, DC.
DC EMFs are pretty stable and don't really do much. But AC creates waves at a range of different frequencies and amplitudes. And these waves are erratic and prolific and all over the place. So it's logical that EMF and K2 meters give such wacky readings, even if no ghosts are present. Mel meters or REM pods have the same issues. They were made specifically for ghost hunting, but the readings don't mean anything. They don't prove that ghosts exist.
Thermometers are also limited. Scientists need precise laser technology for accurate and repeatable measurements of temperature. The most commercially available models only have a distance to light ratio of 12:1. They only give you an average temperature reading of a large area.
Oh, yeah.
People of faith often believe they're hearing messages from angels or demons. But for the most part, EVPs and ITCs usually turn out to be nothing more than a hoax. Welcome. Please come in.
There are no accepted protocols for gathering audio from ghosts. Ghost hunters just kind of make it up as they go along. The same thing happens when recordings are analyzed. Investigators can easily manipulate the sounds. ...
It's just too easy to fake an EVP and just as easy to hear something just because you want to. And that's basically what the Ovilus device is. Like I said, it's just a simple collection of environmental detectors that spit out a sound. Unfortunately, the desire to find ghosts exceeds the actual evidence they exist. Whether it's a photo from a full-spectrum camera or any type of audio recording, everything can be altered to reveal what the hunter wants to find. The first Ovilus
ghost hoax photograph was taken way back in 1861 by William H. Mumler. Mumler took a self-portrait with a plate that was already exposed. It looked like there was a ghost behind it. He shared the image with his friends as a joke, a 19th century meme. But as the photograph reached more people, some of them started claiming it was real.
It didn't take long before people were faking ghosts everywhere. Now, even if it's not manipulated with no consistency on how ghost hunters gather their data, how can anyone prove anything scientifically? You need to follow precise methodologies when trying to prove something with science. And ghost hunting does not follow the scientific method. Here we go.
One of the few tools used in ghost hunting that does capture somewhat accurate data is the SLS camera. But even those types of cameras are famous for picking up all kinds of anomalies. And they're also highly prone to human error and manipulation.
The scientific method requires long-term studies and measurable data. Experiments need to be conducted under very specific means and repeated multiple times to prove their accuracy. The way ghost hunters use this technology has actually set the entire field of research back, and the reality shows don't help. A young man she met here who was a seaman went away. A seaman, a man of the, you might call merchant brewing today.
Stop, Zach. Stop, stop. Let go of yourself. Let go of your hand. Let go of your neck. Stop. That's why it's so strange with me. But is lack of science a problem for ghost hunters or a problem for science? And what if we've been using the wrong type of science all along?
While none of the tools used by ghost hunters reveals any type of scientific evidence that ghosts exist, there's still one big thing they haven't done. They haven't proven that ghosts are not real. The human body is acutely attuned to its physical environment. Now, modern technology has dulled our instincts, but we still have them. We know when we're somewhere we're not supposed to be. We know when we're being watched. We know when we're not alone. Now,
Now, some people actually enjoy this sensation. And maybe ghost hunters just have an itch for fear that's best scratched by visiting with the dead.
Other people get into paranormal research because they miss a deceased loved one and want to regain that connection. Despite centuries of research, no one can say definitively what happens after death. No one can agree on what people experience during a near-death experience. Are people having a hallucination or is there something more to it? Ghost stories are one of the few things that unite all cultures around the world, now and through all of history.
And that's an awful lot of proxy data. Near-death experiences are often described the same way, regardless of culture. Now, something this universal could be grounded in truth. And maybe the answers are out there, and we just haven't discovered the right technology to prove they exist. At least, not yet. The implications of discovering ghosts are far more profound than just figuring out what happens after death. If ghosts are real, everything we know changes.
Even though modern ghost hunting is clouding the science, people are not going to stop believing in ghosts or stop looking for them. Believers and even non-believers seek a connection to people of the past. And this could be the recent past, like a loved one who just died, or it could be the distant past where a ghost can help us fill gaps in history. And the need to prove the existence of ghosts is also closely coupled with our natural fear of death.
Even if we overcome that fear, it's very uncomfortable to picture a world where we don't exist. So if ghosts are real, then the afterlife is real, and our consciousness or soul can live on. It's a comforting thought, and the foundation for almost all religions.
But maybe it's better we don't know. If there was proof of an afterlife, it might cause people to behave badly in this life. Or worse, it might cause people who are in pain to want to leave this life early. Because if there's an afterlife to look forward to, not an afterlife based on faith, but an afterlife based on fact,
then this life loses its value. So as long as there's no proof of life after death, we have to do the best we can for the short time we're here. We have to live in the present moment because we never know when the present moment will be our last. I think having a fear of death is healthy. It's not pleasant, but it's healthy and normal. Fear of death is nothing to be ashamed of. That fear keeps you present. That fear keeps you safe. And that fear, it's what makes us human.
Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. My name is AJ. That's Echo Fish. There is peace and serenity in the light. This has been The Y Files. If you had fun or learned anything, do us a favor, like, subscribe, comment, share. That stuff really helps the channel. And like every topic we cover here on The Y Files, today's was recommended by you. So if there's a story you'd like to see or learn more about, go to the Y Files dot com slash tips.
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I took a stroll downtown this evening When I heard music echo through the night The same old songs that I heard the night before So I started running so I wouldn't be too late I didn't think that I would ever see your face again But I was wrong Can't believe we're dancing in the street like everyone
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I didn't think that I would ever see your face again But I was wrong I can't believe we're dancing in the street All I ever want in your head was fear I can't feel my feet while we're dancing in the street Yeah, I like what you're doing tonight Ooh, ooh, ooh
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