Page 89 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - October / November 2018

The Broken Technology of Ghost Hunting 89

The Broken Technology of noise. But mostly, ghost hunters use pre-existing technique, he published his findings in a 1967
technology: not just EMF meters, but also run- book called Radio Contact with the Dead. A few
Ghost Hunting of-the-mill digital recorders, used to capture years later, a Latvian psychologist named

electronic voice phenomena, or EVP. An Konstantin Raudive further developed and
investigator records her or himself asking elaborated on Jürgenson’s techniques, releasing
The best tools for tracking down questions in an empty room, with the hope that his own book on the science of recording the
upon playback ghostly voices will appear. voices of the dead in 1971.
spirits have always been the ones
All of this technology—both the custom Raudive’s transcriptions included some
fallible enough to find something. and the repurposed—works along more or less disturbing messages from the beyond. One voice
the same principle: generating a lot of static and told him: “Here is night brothers, here the birds
random effects, hoping to capture random noise burn.” Another reported: “Secret reports ... it is
Colin Dickey
and other ephemera. The ghost hunter, in turn, bad here.” But Raudive confessed that the
looks for patterns, momentary convergences, ghosts didn’t always speak so clearly. He
serendipity, meaningful coincidence. For the claimed that spirits would speak in multiple
The small, Syracuse, New York-based company believer, this is where ghosts live: in static, in languages, sometimes in the same sentence.
K-II Enterprises makes a number of handheld
glitches and in blurs. Sometimes they would speak backward.
electronic devices—including the Dog Dazer (a
Ghost hunting was born out of a love of Deciphering EVP became a matter of sifting
supposedly safe, humane device that deters
technological failure. In 1861, William H. through any acoustic anomaly that shows up on
aggressive dogs with high-pitched radio
Mumler, a jeweler’s engraver, was studying the a tape, however minor or incoherent, and then
signals)—but it is best known for the Safe
new trade of photography when the shadowy torturing that noise into some kind of meaning.
Range EMF. The size of a television remote, the
figure of a young girl appeared on a plate he was Electronic voice phenomena have
Safe Range EMF detects electromagnetic fields,
developing. As Crista Cloutier describes in The continued to rank among the most prominent
or EMF, measuring them with a bright LED Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult, “evidence” offered of paranormal activity, it
array that moves from green to red depending on Mumler knew it to be an error, a consequence of seems, precisely because humans are hardwired
their strength. Designed to locate potentially
accidentally reusing a plate that hadn’t been to dredge meaning out of chaos. Evolutionarily,
harmful EMF radiation from nearby power lines
sufficiently scrubbed of its previous exposure. we have long needed to discern the sight or
or household appliances, the Safe Range has
But then he showed the curiosity to a Spiritualist sound of a predator despite its camouflage,
become popular for another use: detecting
friend of his. “Not at that time being inclined which has led us to look for patterns where they
ghosts.
much to the spiritual belief myself, and being of might not be immediately evident. The quirks
Since its appearance in the show Ghost
a jovial disposition, always ready for a joke,” he and shortcomings of technology plays directly
Hunters, where the ghost hunter Grant Wilson
later admitted, “I concluded to have a little fun, into this biological need: throwing out random
claimed that it has been “specially calibrated for as I thought, at his expense.” static and noise that is primed to be transmuted
paranormal investigators,” the Safe Range He told the Spiritualist that the image into meaningful signals. Ghost hunters work
(usually referred to as a K-II meter) has become
was authentic, and that no one else had been through confirmation bias. Looking for proof of
ubiquitous among those looking for spirits.
around when he’d taken the photograph. His the paranormal, they will find it in anything, but
Search for it on Amazon, and many listings will
friend took the joke all too seriously, and in short most readily in static, gibberish, and errata—
refer to it as a “ghost meter,” an indispensable
order, Spiritualist publications had reprinted technological noise in which we’re hardwired to
tool in the ghost hunter’s arsenal. It isn’t alone
Mumler’s mistake as proof of life after death. find false positives.
among EMF meters: Of the best-selling EMF
Mumler himself soon changed his tune, The only thing that’s changed recently is
meters on Amazon, two out of the top three are
claiming he’d discovered a “wonderful the proliferation of consumer electronics
explicitly marketed as ghost meters. phenomenon that really needed investigation,” associated with ghost hunting. In an age of
Scanning the various product and began offering to make spirit photographs in iPhones and Fitbits, ghost hunters are just one
descriptions and reviews, though, what becomes
earnest. For ten dollars (normal sittings cost more niche market, lapping up the latest and
clear is that the K-II Safe Range is a relatively
about a quarter at the time), he’d take your greatest gadgets for sale. But there’s one crucial
unreliable electromagnetic field meter. It
photo, with the proviso he couldn’t guarantee a difference: most purveyors of consumer
operates only on one axis (you have to wave it
ghost’s materialization. electronics keep their consumers happy by
around to get a proper reading), and it’s
constantly refining them until they’re free of
unshielded, meaning that it can be set off by a
Mumler’s inadvertent invention of spirit bugs. Ghost tech works the other way, by
cell phone, a two-way radio, or virtually any photography cemented a connection between actively engineering glitches—the more, the
kind of electronic device that occasionally gives ghosts and technology that endures to this day— better.
off electromagnetic waves. The reviewer Kenny and specifically, the ways that mistakes and Such seekers can easily be written off as
Biddle found he could set it off with, among
accidents of technology appear as kooks and outliers, but there’s something
other things, a computer mouse and a camera
manifestations of the paranormal. Consumer paradigmatic in their use of faulty devices. The
battery pack.
technologies from photography to telegraphy to rise of the internet and other new technologies
Yet it’s precisely because it’s not
radio to the internet are almost always promised a new Information Age, one in which
particularly good at its primary purpose that
immediately seized on by believers as offering data, truth, and knowledge were the new
makes it a popular device for ghost hunters.
further proof of the paranormal. In 1953, three currency, where the future would be built on
Erratic, prone to false positives, easily children were watching Ding Dong School one information itself. Twenty years on, there’s an
manipulated, its flashy LED display will light up afternoon on Long Island when the ghostly face endless labyrinth of conspiracy theories, fake
any darkened room of a haunted hotel or castle. of an unknown woman appeared on the screen. memes, trumped up stats, and fabricated
Which is to say, its popularity as a ghost hunting
The face would not dissipate, even after the evidence. The world’s knowledge is just a
tool stems mainly from its fallibility.
television was turned off, and their father was Google search away, but it comes to us
The K-II isn’t the only consumer-
forced to face the television to the wall “for inextricably intertwined with the world’s
electronic item used by ghost hunters. Often it’s
gross misbehavior in frightening little children,” bullshit.
sold in kits that contain other devices, such as a
as The New York Times reported. The television The 21st-century media consumer is
Couples Ghost Hunt Kit, with two of everything,
died completely a day later, but not before its always working to sift through the noise in
so you can build “trust and lasting memories paranormal nature had made it a minor celebrity. search of a signal. Whether it’s a cousin’s anti-
when the two of you, alone in some spooky For Friedrich Jürgenson, it was a cassette vax Facebook post, the endless Farmville
stakeout, look to each other for confirmation of recorder. In the late 1950s, Jürgenson, a painter requests that have to be filtered out of a feed, or
your findings and reassurance!” There are
and filmmaker, was experimenting with the colossal avalanche of half-truths and lies
devices that have been engineered specifically
recording birds in his garden; when he played dumped during this election, most people’s
for ghost hunters, like a ghost box, which works
them back, he heard voices on the tape that he primary challenge online these days is blocking
by randomly scanning through FM and AM
claimed belonged to his dead father and wife, out the endless assault of static, trying to torture
frequencies to pick up spirits’ words in the white
calling his name. After several years refining his it into some kind of meaning.[]