Page 45 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - September 2021

The Broken Technology of Ghost Hunting 45

The Broken Technology of

Ghost Hunting

Continued from Page 44

Evolutionarily, we have long needed to discern
the sight or sound of a predator despite its
camouflage, which has led us to look for
patterns where they might not be immediately
evident. The quirks and shortcomings of
technology play directly into this biological
need: throwing out random static and noise that
is primed to be transmuted into meaningful
signals. Ghost hunters work through
confirmation bias. Looking for proof of the
paranormal, they will find it in anything, but
most readily in static, gibberish, and errata—
technological noise in which we’re hardwired to
find false positives.

The only thing that’s changed recently is the
proliferation of consumer electronics associated THEY DREAMED IT STORY: Twilight, Meyer;s romantic saga of a
vampire who falls in love with a small-town girl,
with ghost hunting. In an age of iPhones and
was a publishing phenomenon in the early
Fitbits, ghost hunters are just one more niche
If you think people are only creative 2000s. Meyer had never so much as a short story
market, lapping up the latest and greatest
gadgets for sale. But there’s one crucial during their waking hours, you’re before she started work on it, the idea for which
difference: Most purveyors of consumer dreaming. popped into her head while she slept. “It was
two people in kind of a little circular meadow
electronics keep their consumers happy by
with really bright sunlight, and one of them was
constantly refining them until they’re free of
a beautiful, sparkly boy, and one was just a girl
bugs. Ghost tech works the other way, by
who was human and normal, and they were
actively engineering glitches—the more, the
having this conversation,” Meyer said in 2010.
better.
“The boy was a vampire, which is so bizarre that
I be dreaming about vampires, and he was trying
Such seekers can easily be written off as kooks
to explain how much he cared about her and yet
and outliers, but there’s something paradigmatic
at the same time he wanted to kill her.” When
in their use of faulty devices. The rise of the
she woke up, she jotted down every detail she
internet and other new technologies promised a
could remember, but not because she thought it
new Information Age, one in which data, truth,
could be a book. “I just wanted to remember it.”
and knowledge were the new currency, where
To date, the Twilight series has sold more than
the future would be built on information itself.
100 million copies.”
Twenty years on, there’s an endless labyrinth of
conspiracy theories, fake memes, trumped up
stats, and fabricated evidence. The world’s DREAMER: Sir Paul McCartney
knowledge is just a Google search away, but it
comes to us inextricably intertwined with the STORY: During one “restless night” in 1968,
world’s bullshit. McCartney had a dream about his mother, Mary
McCartney who had died in 1956. “She came to
The 21st-century media consumer is always me in the dream and it was as if she could see
working to sift through the noise in search of a that I was troubled. And she sort of said it to me,
signal. Whether it’s a cousin’s anti-vax she said, ‘Let it be.’” When he work up, he
Facebook post, the endless Farmville requests immediately started writing, “Let It Be,” which
that have to be filtered out of a feed, or the begins with the lines, “When I find myself in
colossal avalanche of half-truths and lies times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me,
dumped during this election, most people’s speaking words of wisdom, ‘Let It Be.’”
primary challenge online these days is blocking
out the endless assault of static, trying to torture
it into some kind of meaning. []
DREAMER: Jack Nicklaus

TO ALL CONSPIRACY THEORISTS STORY: One night, he dreamt that he was
WHO REALLY BELIEVE IN golfing, but he was holding the club slightly
CHEMTRAILS differently than how he did in real life...and he
hit perfect shot after perfect show. “When I
Here is some food for thought for you to came to the golf course yesterday morning, I
consider. You have been trying to tell the world tried it the way that I did in my dream, and it
for years now that the government has been
worked,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle. “I
vaccinating the population through a
feel kind of foolish admitting it, but it really
conspiracy method you call “CHEMTRAILS.”
happened in a dream.” He stuck with that swing
If they are a reality, why have the governments
of the world used vaccinations on people for for the rest of his career, which included six
COVID-19 instead of using your DREAMER: Stephanie Meyer more wins at the majors.[]
CHEMTRAILS? Huh!?!