Twelve Mistakes Made By Ghosthunters and How to Prevent Them

As always I will preface this episode with the statement that I am not taking shots at anybody in the field. I am pointing out opportunities for improvement in the field. The purpose of my podcast is to help educate those ghost hunters who wish to eventually become a paranormal investigator, or help paranormal investigators refresh and sharpen their skill set. Today I will discuss twelve mistakes commonly made by ghost hunters and how to prevent them. These are not in any particular order.

When I first started in the anomalous research field, just like everyone else I started off as a ghost hunter. Unless you come into the field with an advanced science degree there is quite the learning curve before you grow to become a paranormal investigator. As I often repeat in my podcasts I will start this one off by reminding everyone a ghost hunter and a paranormal investigator are two completely separate things. The two terms started being used synonymously around 15 years ago when paranormal television shows showed up on the scene. Almost every paranormal group that I have found is ghost hunting and is not conducting actual scientific investigations. I would estimate that over 95% of the groups out there are ghost hunting and are not conducting a paranormal investigation. If your investigation even remotely looks like something from a television show it is still ghost hunting. Even if you do thorough natural debunking it is still ghost hunting. Historically conducting a paranormal investigation meant that you were researching possible deeply scientific causes for what is being perceived as paranormal activity and ghost hunting was an attempt to find paranormal activity. This is not the pseudo-science that you see on television shows but actually proven science as I will discuss later. Somehow 15 years ago that clear separation between a ghost hunter and a paranormal investigator became very blurred and most ghost hunters are calling themselves paranormal investigators even though they are not conducting what would historically be recognized as a paranormal investigation. The entertainment world started using the term paranormal investigation as a buzzword 15 years ago even though what they were showing on tv and anything even somewhat like it is not a paranormal investigation. So let’s get to the list of 12 mistakes that are commonly made by ghost hunters.

1. One of the biggest mistakes that ghosthunters make is believing what they see on television is a paranormal investigation. Unfortunately, television shows have been used as a template by most paranormal groups on how to conduct a paranormal investigation. Unfortunately what you see on television is not a paranormal investigation. The different paranormal shows all use variations of a ghost hunt. These television shows have one goal and that is to make money and maximize the audience in order to do so. They have no intention of representing an actual paranormal investigation, but for some reason, people use television shows as a how-to guide on how to conduct one. If a television show was based upon a real paranormal investigation it would only be watched by a very small niche audience. It might succeed as a one-off documentary, but an episodic television show would all but surely fail. Your general audience wants to see the spookiness of a ghost hunt and not a paranormal investigation deeply routed in science. So if television is out of the realm of being used as a teacher where do you learn? It isn’t as difficult as you would think. All you need to do is find an actual paranormal investigator and ask them for a list of subjects for you to become familiar with and then you take that list, find reputable scientific written documentation about them, review the data and absorb it like a sponge. Later on, in this episode, I will touch on some of the subjects that you should become familiar with. After you become familiar with the majority of the subjects that a paranormal investigator is typically familiar with then you go out and have mock investigations attempting to find evidence of those subjects, get accustomed to them, and only after doing that do you begin taking on clients.

2. Another mistake commonly made by ghost hunters is seeing various forms of technology being used in movies and on television shows and believing that the devices can do what is claimed of them. EMF meters are not ghost or spirit detectors. The ovilus, SLS camera, ghost box or spirit box, and ouija board simply can’t do what is claimed of them. As an example in one of the Paranormal Activity movies, they used an SLS camera as a prop that reportedly saw paranormal beings. A few equipment makers saw an opportunity of making a lot of money from very gullible people and started selling these things as if they could detect paranormal entities. They can not, yet so many people believe that they can. It is imperative to take what you see on these television shows with a grain of salt. Someone came up with the bogus theory that upon death you gain the ability to either speak through radio signals or manipulate a device that receives radio signals in order to be able to communicate through it. As someone with the highest radio communication license that someone can earn I will say that that theory is totally bogus. Those who swear by these devices will surely fall into the next mistake that I will talk about.

3. Not learning about the technology that you use is another common mistake made by ghost hunters. By this, I don’t mean learning the basic operation of the device. I mean learn about the technology used in the device, its abilities, and limitations, as well as the scientific principles behind their design and operation. The vast majority of ghost hunting groups imitate what they see being performed on television shows, however, there is no scientific backing to what you are seeing on television. I will give you an example. Don’t you think that the producers of television shows know that the REM Pod or K2 meter can get set off by almost anything? That’s what they want them to do because the premise of the show is based upon observer expectancy bias. People assume that what they are seeing on the show is paranormal because that is what the show is based upon, and due to the fact that they are watching the show because they want to see paranormal activity. Would anyone watch the show if they didn’t use all of this gimmicky equipment with flashing lights? It would make for a much less entertaining show without the flashy devices that are used as if they can really do something scientific, but in the real world, they can’t. The show producers know this, as do the cast. However, they don’t care as they are making their networks profit and putting food on their own dinner table. I know some of these television personalities personally. They don’t typically believe that their methodology is sound and they know that they aren’t conducting an actual paranormal investigation. They are getting paid to entertain people and not to represent an actual investigation. It’s no different from watching news networks that put their own dramatic spin on the news in order to attempt to grow ratings and increase profit. These paranormal shows are not scientifically sound documentaries, they are highly edited and stretched semi-reality series made strictly for entertainment purposes. The devices that should be used in a paranormal investigation will not be found on a television show. It would be very beneficial if you learned the scientific premise behind the devices that you use and their actual abilities you would realize that they can’t do what they are presented to do on television shows. If you take the time to learn the science behind the device and any related science you wouldn’t waste time using devices that can’t begin to do what they are portrayed to do on tv, which has been emulated by countless ghost hunters across the world.

4. In example three I mentioned observer expectancy bias. This phenomenon is also called the experimenter-expectancy effect, observer expectancy effect, observer effect, or experimenter effect. It is a form of reactivity in which a researcher’s cognitive bias causes them to influence the participants of an experiment subconsciously. Confirmation bias can lead to the experimenter misinterpreting results because of the tendency to look for information that conforms to their hypothesis and overlook information that argues against it. In the paranormal field, that means someone who goes into a ghost hunt that is biased that a location has paranormal activity and interprets any perceived activity to be paranormal because they want it to be so. They may also attempt to convince others that benign occurrences have to be paranormal activity. For giggles, I occasionally watch some of the videos that ghost hunters put on the internet and get a chuckle at how they react to the most mundane natural occurrences as if they have found the holy grail of the paranormal. It is human nature to believe that you see what you want to see. If you wish to grow your skill set to become a paranormal investigator it is imperative to be aware of and shed the observer expectancy bias.

5. Thinking investigations have to be at night is another mistake that people have picked up by using television shows as a template for investigations. There are very few reasons to have investigations at night unless a client specifically says the perceived activity only happens at night. In most cases, there is a scientific explanation for what is perceived to be paranormal activity, and it is much easier to find that during the day when there are so many more natural and human activities occurring that can cause perceived paranormal activity. Having an investigation at night negates most of that stimuli and without it, you aren’t getting the whole picture. Investigations should start out with a few hours of daylight, and then a few hours of time after sunset if at that point you haven’t figured out a scientific explanation for what is being perceived as paranormal activity.  Another option is to do one during the day and another at night on another day. These overnight investigations are a product of television for the spookiness factor and generally are not necessary for an investigation.

6. Our next common mistake is investigating by walking around with equipment in hand. This is another gimmick used by television shows that completely contaminates the results of the investigation. Our bodies are basically an electromagnetic antenna that releases radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum which interferes with equipment very easily. Since ghost hunters have a love affair with various EMF meters and audio recorders it is important to not unknowingly cause discrepancies just by being in the same room with the equipment.  I see so many audio clips and video clips that are reported to be paranormal in nature, but you can’t rule out the sound of air passing over the microphone, the person holding the device’s stomach growling even if you don’t hear it, the person holding the device brushing it up against their clothing or unknowingly brushing their finger across it to where it makes a sound that the sensitive mic picks up. I could go on for ten minutes about various scenarios where holding onto the equipment as you investigate could cause problems. If you put down the equipment with a camera facing the readouts and watch the results from another room using a wired closed-circuit television the human contamination of the evidence can be minimized. Do not use wireless if possible as that is causing more EMF which can be problematic unless you can use a Farraday bag on the transmitter of the camera to minimize electromagnetic radiation.

7. People letting their egos get in the way of their personal growth and investigative techniques is another major roadblock that I often see. Most people dislike being wrong, but many people will blindly follow the incorrect path just because it was their idea to do so versus taking the advice of someone else. Over the years I have educated countless people on how to conduct a paranormal investigation and some people will continue to argue against my teachings for the sole purpose that they are not willing to admit that they are wrong, or accept that someone may know more about something than they do as if it made them less of a person for acknowledging it. Professional sports stars did not find their level of success without following the advice of their coaches and teammates over the years. Be willing to listen to the advice of those who have been in the paranormal investigation field for much longer than you have and I don’t mean seasoned ghost hunters, as I am referring to seasoned paranormal investigators.

8. The next mistake that I will discuss is that if you bring more than two to four people to an investigation you have way too many people there at once. In most cases, you only need two people for an investigation, or if a larger location you may need four people. If you wish to have four people investigate at a smaller location then there shouldn’t be any more than two people on the property at a time. Humans emit so much radiation and make so much noise, even when trying not to, that investigation contamination is almost guaranteed to happen. To minimize that there shouldn’t be more than 2 people in a location at the same time, and they should be with each other at all times. When it comes to investigations more is not merrier.

9. Another mistake that we should discuss is when a team fails to network and share data with other groups. By this, I don’t mean sharing perceived spooky ghost photos or audio and clips, I mean actual scientific experimental research that paranormal investigators engage in. I don’t know where or why it started but prior to a few decades ago paranormal investigators would share their scientific data with each other to try and reproduce scientific experiments in order to help advance the field. Now, all that I see are ghost hunters sharing reported spooky sound clips, videos, and photos. Groups in general are not working with each other. Many are more worried about becoming the next Jason Hawes and having a television show, and not wanting to share that unlikely potential people have fallen away from networking. In addition, some people are more concerned with making a name for themselves than having a positive impact and helping the research field to advance. For that to happen we must share our scientific experiments with each other and pool our data. Keeping it to yourself serves no purpose. Reach out to other groups for shared scientific experiments and share your methodology and results with others online so others can try and do the same.

10. Piggybacking off of the last mistake that I just covered we will discuss teams focusing more on quantity versus quality. By this, I mean worrying more about social media likes from people outside of the field who are paranormal fans that are biased to want to see the paranormal and those in the field with the same mindset. You could put up a photo of a cat sitting on a bed sleeping and someone will find some way to convince half of your followers that some random photographic artifact is paranormal in nature. I often get emails asking for recommendations about groups to conduct paranormal investigations for them. The first thing that I do is check out the group’s website and social media offerings. If they post a lot of material of “evidence” of the paranormal then I immediately rule them out as a possible recommended group. Posting that material shows an unscientific bias towards the paranormal and they can not be counted on providing an unbiased scientific investigation and are more concerned with trying to get themselves noticed by attempting to create spookiness where it doesn’t exist. If they are consistently forwarding memes or posting photos of people dressed scantily for attention I won’t recommend them. Also if their website looks like something out of a movie or a haunted house I also pass it by. It is important for your group’s integrity and image to not focus on a macabre or spooky image or post or forward other rubbish just because you or others think that it is cool. Potential clients will often look at you as an uneducated television fanatic if you post that type of material. Keep everything professional and keep the endless evidence that proves nothing as science was ignored off of the internet. If you didn’t thoroughly work the science then you have no standing that what you captured is paranormal in nature, because little or no attempt was made to rule out the normal, therefore it can not be paranormal.

11. Next up I will mention another mistake that ghost hunters make and that is using unproven and untraceable theories. How often can you tune into a paranormal television show and a cast member will be heard starting off an exchange with the sentence “well there is this theory in the paranormal field”? How many people have taken these reported theories as gospel and continue to teach them to others? I ask every one of you who is it that originated these theories, how did they use the scientific method to come up with the theory, and what controlled scientific experiments were conducted and confirmed by multiple independent parties giving the reported theories some validation? There is an easy answer to that series of questions. The answers are no one knows, they didn’t, no one could tell you because it didn’t happen, and there weren’t any because no real science or scientific method was involved. If you heard some theory chances are there isn’t any scientific credence to it and you shouldn’t waste your time chasing it. Unless you can use the scientific method to form an educated hypothesis, a scientific experiment to test the hypothesis and get others who are independent of your activities to be able to reproduce any results using the same scientific experiment and be sure there isn’t any possible way of contamination or bias of the results, then I don’t want to hear about your theories because they aren’t scientifically valid. This goes back to networking and knowing your science. If it can’t be reproduced in mass and be explained scientifically with certainty then don’t waste your time with these untraceable theories that have been passed around for years. Focus on the scientific method, and I mean the real scientific method and not the pseudo-science that you see on television, as after fifteen years and watching hundreds of hours of paranormal television, I have seen almost no real science being used.

12. The last thing that I will discuss is the often-made mistake of jumping right into an onsite investigation. I can honestly say that I rarely have to do an onsite investigation because I can typically explain reported paranormal activity with science through an interview with the client. When you take the time to learn about science you don’t have to waste your time with needless on-site investigations looking for something paranormal when you could have most likely easily explained it with science if you had taken the time to research it. So what is all of this science that I have been talking about? Such science subjects include infrasound, ultrasound, Helmholtz resonances, piezoelectricity, geology, physics, ionospheric propagation, tropospheric ducting, various meteorological anomalies, the effects of various electromagnetic wavelengths on human anatomy and the symptoms that they cause, quantum entanglement, Schumann resonances, and vibroacoustic phenomenon just to name a few. You can also learn about medical conditions that may mimic what is perceived as paranormal activity such as musical ear syndrome, pareidolia, synesthesia, tachypsychia, palinopsia, hypnogogic and hypnopompic hallucinations, dermo-optical perception, peripheral drift illusion, scopaethesia, claustrophobia, sleep deprivation, Déjà vu, jamais vu, & presque vu, cryptomnesia, apophenia, and Charles Bonnet Syndrome just to list off a few of the many possibilities. Did you think to learn about human behavioral causes of perceived activity such as mental health issues, the Semmelweis reflex, the Thatcher effect, the Doorway effect, the Butterfly effect, the Barnum effect, the Hutchinson effect, the Mandella effect, the Misinformation effect, and the availability cascade which are only a small sampling of the many human behavioral causes for perceived paranormal activity? Perhaps it would benefit to take some time to learn about all of the photographic anomalies that are often misinterpreted as paranormal activity such as parallax, halation, blooming, backscatter, bokeh, pincushion distortion, pixelization, under-exposure, over-exposure, dark current, chromatic aberration, and pixelization to name some of the more common ones. Are we learning about audio anomalies such as distortion, hissing, humming, EMF interference, and low-frequency rumble, just to name a few? As I mentioned earlier are we learning about the scientific purpose of the devices that we are using, the abilities of the device, their strengths, and weaknesses, and whether or not they can actually do what you think that they can do? I just listed a slew of scientific topics that a paranormal investigator is typically acquainted with. Are you familiar with most of these topics? If the answer is no, and I don’t mean this to be a derogatory statement, then you are simply ghost hunting and are not investigating the paranormal with science. As I have said television shows convinced many people that ghost hunting is a paranormal investigation when historically it was about science. The television shows used the term paranormal investigation as a buzzword even though they weren’t completing one. Now we have thousands of ghost hunters who think that they are paranormal investigators. I am sure most of them could be if they educated themselves on the vast variety of subjects that I mentioned as paranormal investigators tend to do. Please don’t take my comments as me talking down about ghost hunters. Most of them used television shows as their teacher or were taught by people who used television shows as their teachers and they truly don’t know what a real paranormal investigation entails and what a paranormal investigator actually is. The truth has been lost over the past 15 years due to television shows and social media enhancement of this effect.

In closing I will say that if you want to be a ghost hunter, ignore the sciences, and believe that you experience paranormal activity everywhere then I say have at it and enjoy your time as long as you aren’t taking on clients. If you are taking on clients you are taking on the responsibility of finding the truth, and not finding the paranormal just because your personal bias to want to find the paranormal becomes your priority. You can’t find the paranormal if you haven’t ruled out the sciences. You can’t rule out the sciences if you haven’t learned about them. There are those of us out there that truly are conducting scientific paranormal investigations, but somehow we have been lost in the fray and our methodology has been widely forgotten about. I implore you to network with an actual paranormal investigator that knows their science and to make the effort to learn about the sciences, especially if you are taking on clients, because they deserve to know the truth, and in most cases, there is a provable scientific explanation to what is being perceived as paranormal. If you aren’t able to find a scientific cause at least 95% of the time or even close to that number, then you are probably ghost hunting which should be left to a recreational activity. I have 30 years of research under my belt and I still consult with subject matter experts with advanced college degrees in the sciences to make sure that my findings are accurate. Remember if you are searching for the paranormal you are a ghost hunter. If you are learning about all of the various sciences that I mentioned, learning about all of the various photographic and audio anomalies that are often misinterpreted as paranormal activity, and are actively consulting with subject matter experts to confirm findings to cover all of your scientific bases, and are conducting scientific research and experiments to advance the field of study then you are a paranormal investigator. There is nothing wrong with being a ghost hunter. I am sure it is one heck of a fun thing to be and that ghost hunting is a fun thing to do. However, if you are taking on clients you owe it to yourself and to them to get educated on a wide variety of scientific subjects, learn your equipment and its capabilities, limitations, and scientific functioning of them, and as always remember that science comes before the spooky.