First off, let me explain that I am not a skeptic. I have seen too much unexplainable stuff in my life to not be a believer. I just have a big problem with some things that are claimed to be evidence, but have perfectly reasonable scientific explanations.

I’m also not saying that NONE of it is evidence, I’m just saying, “Be extremely careful of calling something evidence”.

You should be skeptical of ANY digital evidence. The reason is that we live in an analog world. All digital devices convert analog images and sounds into digital formats that are not perfect representations of the original. They can introduce digital artifacts.

A digital artifact is any undesired alteration in data introduced in a digital process by an involved technique and/or technology.

Hardware malfunction: In computer graphics, visual artifacts may be generated whenever a hardware component (eg. processor, memory chip, cabling) malfunctions, causing data corruption. Malfunction may be caused by physical damage, overheating (sometimes due to GPU overclocking), etc. Common types of hardware artifacts are texture corruption and T-vertices in 3D graphics, and pixelization in MPEG compressed video.

Software malfunction: Similarly to hardware malfunction, artifacts may be caused by software issues such as bugs in the algorithms, such as decoding/encoding introducing artifacts into audio or video, or a poor pseudo-random number generator would introduce artifacts into statistical research models.

Compression: Controlled amounts of unwanted information may be generated as a result of the use of lossy compression techniques. One such case is the artifacts seen in JPEG and MPEG compression algorithms.

Aliasing: Digital imprecision generated in the process of converting analog information into digital space due to the limited granularity of digital numbering space. In computer graphics, aliasing is seen as pixelation.

The first thing that bothers me is “Orbs”.
Cameras work because light reflects off an object and back into the lens of the camera, where it hits either film or a CCD panel that records the light. That’s not so bad if you’re not using a flash (Ever notice there’s no orbs in daylight?) But when you use a flash, you’re focusing a high intensity beam of light directly in front of the camera. Anything, and I mean anything, in front of the camera is going to reflect that light back to the lens. A very small particle that is highly reflective is going to look huge and transparent, because the amount of light reflected back is higher than the size of the particle.

When using an IR video camera people will often say, “It’s not a bug or dust because it doesn’t move like dust or a bug, look it changed direction!” Any kid that has ever played with the dust in a bean of sunlight coming in a window will tell you that just moving slightly will change the direction the dust is moving. Moving your hand or blowing air through the beam makes the dust move in all directions and swirls around your hand.

Unless an orb flies up to my face and says “Hi!” it’s probably dust or a bug.

EVPs
Again, this is something that drives me crazy. There are all kinds of things that can be captured on a digital audio recorder that you may not hear real time. Most digital recorders are VERY sensitive, far more sensitive than your own ears. It can pick up things that are outside the area that you may be in, people talking in another room, a car, or truck going by.

The second thing you may not know is that the Flash Memory that is in a digital recorder has a limited lifespan. The average is about 300,000 Read/Write cycles. That means, every time you record, listen, delete, re-record, listen . . . you are slowly killing the memory. But the memory doesn’t fail all at once, it fails in blocks, at different times, you may even have failed blocks on a brand new device. If you happen to have a failed block in the middle of a recording, you may hear part of a previous recording, a loud pop, or just some weird noise.

Another thing that digital recorders may have trouble with is “Noise” from other digital devices, like cell phones, cordless phones, wireless network devices and even microwave ovens. They can actually pickup sounds from those devices. Ever been near a speaker when you receive a cell phone call and hear the speaker make a “ch ch ch ch ch ch” sound? It was especially bad with Nextel phones, but all cell phones do it.

And last but not least is the “If you believe it, you will hear it” syndrome. I have had people bring me an EVP and say, “It very clearly is Abe Lincoln reciting the Gettysburg Address!” I listen and it sounds like the noise my dogs stomachs make when they get into my frozen Burrito stash. I’ll look at the person and see they are very proud of their find. I almost hate to tell them that I can’t make out a single coherent word.

EMF
Electro Magnetic Field . . . The name says it all. What gives off an Electro Magnetic Field? Damn near everything. The Earth itself has a MASSIVE EMF; it’s what protects us from Solar Radiation and being burned to a crisp by the Sun’s rays. The Sun also has an EMF that makes the Earth’s EMF seem like a little spark. Ferrous metals (Iron, Steel) can have an EMF, any type of electric motor (like the ones in video cameras), magnets obviously and even the Human body can give off a slight EMF.

I hate when I hear someone say, “There must be a ghost here, the EMF went up 0.3”. Really? 0.3? A lamp cord can give off 30-50 milligauss! Your cell phone while on a call can be in the 100 milligauss range. Radios, TVs and Walkie-Talkies can also give off pretty high EMF.

If you’re on a steel ship, like an old warship, the EMF readings can have wild swings from one room to the next. Part of the ship may have been magnetized by the motion of the water slapping against its sides.

That is just some of the things that can go wrong. I will add to this list and I'm always open to discuss.

--Tyrstag

I agree, Tommy. Too easy to refute a lot of things. But when it comes to anomalous objects in photos and video, always worth taking a close look, even if it doesn't end up being "paranormal." Always look at any evidence, digital, analog or even personal things you've seen with your own eyes with a sense of healthy skepticism, but don't be afraid to keep your eyes open for patterns.

Now that's what I'm talkin' about. Thanks to one of the old guys for bringing this up.

I'm with ya brother; I absolutely hate orbs...I really do. You can use flash, but get it off the camera! Cheap point and shoots are notorious for orbs; and for some reason, it seems like so called paranormal groups are using cheap pieces of trash to capture what they would like to think is a spirit. 99% of the time, it isn't.

"Never rub another man's rhubarb." The Joker. Lol. You managed to do that tonight Tommy. Well done. Since we're on a tangent here, I don't like the words evidence and investigation. Why? For all the reasons you gave below. With all that technology, is it really evidence and what is it an investigation of? In most cases, it's a thrill ride with 2-3 second EVPs, most of which seem to be questionable.

CC and I were at a great location last week. What did we learn? The unexplained can happen above the ability of the equipment.

This is a great topic. A lot of people could get a new perspective just from this thread alone.

Thanks Tommy.

As far as I understand it emf detection started when the proved what high levels could do to your health. I don't think it's the equipment per se but the knowledge of the people using it. To me personally regardless of what kind of evidence you're after, if ALL you are going to look at is that then you're missing out on a lot.
Your own experiences in a place as well as others experiences are valid too. I hate it when people say 'prove it' after you tell them something that's happened. I always feel like you're calling them an outright liar. Well maybe they are and maybe they aren't. My ideal is this; if someone tells you something, then shows you something..maybe you need to take a trip to that location and see what you see.
As far as digital stuff, I like it as the hiss and hum of the tape is gone. I still prefer a regular camera to digital.
Of course if you really want to know what's up with a pic take it to a local tech school that has a photography program. Make friends with some of the students. Who knows...maybe they can look at some of those things for a class assignment and get credits for it while you get some real answers for what can and cannot happen.

Good Post!

I personally believe in Ghosts, but I know that an old haunted building is going to have all of the same noises an old non-haunted building. In other words not everything that goes on at a haunted location is paranormal.

I have started requesting that people read the actual sceintific/technical research on orbs before I comment on them. I have hurt a lot of feelings in my day by saying that in my opinion someone's prize photo was dust. Now I ask them them to read the official explanation of the orb zone and then explain to me how their particular orb differs from the ones described and proven to be dust, moisture, etc.

www.assap.ac.uk/newsite/articles/Orb%20Zone%20Theory.html

I get really annoyed when I hear someone call EM by itself evidence. It is a useful tool to locate possible activity but as a stand-alone piece of data it is pretty worthless. Even communication sessions using models such as the K2 are questionable as more than a personal experience. I can make my K2 talk to me all night by dialing the time/temp on my cell phone.

EVP is often a lot harder to dismiss, but there are a LOT of false positives out there and I am sure some of my own have real-world explanations. The biggest problem with EVP (not counting "disembodied voices" that we hear with our ears) is that there seems to be more than one type of transfer. Right now actual, serious research is being done on the EMF side of the phenomena.

Dark, pixelated photos are another pet-peeve. If anyone doubts that our eyes play tricks on us, let me send you my pony in the clouds photo.

But I guess what I hate to see the most is when people in the field become so convinced that something is paranormal that they tune out the real world possibilities. The recent popularity of the field has produced some advances that might not have come around othewise, but so many people are only interested in finding the unknown without doing the research on what is known.

Wes_Forsythe wrote:


Very well said. Do you think that a lot of the "tuning out" of people has to do with what they perceive from watching the so called professionals on TV? I do, only because I watch the popular people on TV and walk away from that experience with a feeling that they don't know as much as they would like people to think they do. And they teach their lack of understanding to the masses who try to duplicate what they do. The thrill and emotion of the "investigation" overrides reality; which is what I get you are trying to say here.

I also agree with Amanda above that a film camera is a good way of photographing the different locations. I will say however that I use a digital camera for infrared work for the effect I get. While I hope to get something/someone in the photo, it's first the content of the location that causes me to use this type of medium. When not using that method, I prefer to use a Nikon film camera with Fuji Acros B & W film; which BTW has one of the widest [if not the widest] latitudes of all B & W films. I believe one is more likely to get "something" on film than on digital. If one does want to use digital, get a decent DSLR and know how to use it; as opposed to getting a point & shoot digital and putting it on "Automatic".

Steven Matrix wrote:


See I'd have to get someone to show me how to best use one of those things. Your ears and eyes do play tricks on you..all the time. The building my apartment is in is around 100 years old. Yeah I hear weird things all the time. It doesn't make it paranormal. I just moved here and I chalk a lot of that up to being new here both in this building and in this state. Some it is of course the pop and creak of old wood (anyone who knows about old buildings will tell you the wood used then is far more stout than what is used today) and yeah it does sound like someone coming up the stair case. A friend of mine owns the whole building and I work for her so therefor there is NO ONE here after hours but me. You could say I am on a perpetual lock down..lol. I do have a digi recorder and am trying to figure out how to load recordings onto my laptop. After I figure that out I will see if I can get anything on sound. If I do..great..if not..great.
Now do I think this place is haunted.....I'm not sure but not ready to say yes it is given the reasons above. I have heard things, footsteps the murmur of voices sometimes and seen odd shadows and yeah this place has a creepy feeling to it sometimes....of course look how old it is and tell me you wouldn't get creeped out sometimes all alone.

Wow,
Thanks Guys! But it's Tyrstag . . . not Tommy.

As I was writing the post I was thinking that I was going to be blasted by all the "Cool Kids" who watch the TV shows and think that's real ghost hunting. I'm really glad to see so many people agree with me.

BTW, I NEVER said that I don't use the equipment, I do use it all. I'm a gadget geek, I teach IT for a living. But that's also what makes me skeptical of digital evidence. I know all the things that can be wrong with it.

When I watch the TV "Professionals", I watch with a grain of salt and turn it into a drinking game. I pick a different word each episode. "Orb", "EMF", "EVP", "Dude Run!!"
I drive my wife nuts with my giggling at their "evidence". Sometimes shouting at the TV in anger at how much they are trying to stretch the truth to make it seem like they caught something spectacular.

@ Amanda_O Yes, the original purpose of EMF and Tri-Field detectors was to find Hot Spots of high EMF for health reasons. the term Tri-Field just means it has 3 antennas, tuned to: A/C magnetic field, AC electric field, and radio (including microwaves).

@ Wes_Forsythe I agree, most of the time noisy old houses are just noisy old houses. Pixelated video with a shadow moving across the screen is one of my absolute favorite things to get mad about. that's just a DV camera being a DV camera.
The only problem with using a film camera is that regular film doesn't work with IR, you have to have some sort of visible light source.


--Tyrstag

tyrstag wrote:


Oops sorry, I called you Tommy because Tress did.

That's why I use digital when shooting IR. You can shoot film with long exposures in dark places however if you have decent B & W film. You could use color, but I don't think it's as good.

If the cool kids come after you, we'll take care of them. Lol.

In all honesty, I think that all the cool kids are sitting down and watching paranormal drama queens. If anyone can prove me wrong, I'll send you a free air guitar, postage paid.

tyrstag wrote:



Whoops that's my fault. I got your sn mixed up with Tryanjr (Tommy)