Ghost Hunting - can technology help to prove if ghosts exist?

Things That Go Bump In The Night

By Graham Pitcher

You either believe in them or you don’t, but can technology help to prove if ghosts exist?

Whether you believe in ghosts or not, it is an inescapable fact that ghosts fascinate the human race. With many different cultures around the world holding as a central tenet some form of life after death, it is perhaps inevitable that human beings should have created the idea of ghosts and imagine them to be the spirits of the dead.

English literature is full of ghosts. From such classics as Dickens' A Christmas Carol, where the ghost of Jacob Marley converts Ebenezer Scrooge from his miserly life, to out and out ghost stories, which have no more motive than to scare the wits out of the reader, ghosts in their various forms play a major role. And ghosts are an important part of folklore worldwide.

But literature is only one area where ghosts have entered popular culture. Television has used the ghost effectively in its programme making – take the recent example of the revived 1960s series Randall and Hopkirk (deceased) &ndash and, of course, the cinema has not held back, with such oeuvres as Bill Cosby’s Ghost Dad, the latterday classic Ghostbusters and, going back more than a few years, David Niven ascending an escalator in A Matter of Life and Death.

But, while ghosts on television and in the cinema tend to have something of a knockabout image, the ones that people say they have encountered in real life are entirely different. Whether the reason is because we get a sharp reminder of our mortality, 'real life' ghosts tend not to have entertainment value to those who encounter them.

Ghosts are reported as taking many different forms. One form, popularised in comic books, for example, is the white sheet with two black eyes. But the more traditional apparition is, well, ghostly: the wispy eminence passing with ease through walls; or the cavalier doomed to tread the halls and corridors of a stately house, carrying his head under his arm.

Wherever you live in Britain, there are local ghosts; often associated with unfortunate circumstances. One of the more famous hauntings is on Blue Bell Hill in Kent, not far from New Electronics’ office. On a particular stretch of the road leading up Blue Bell Hill, there have been regular reports of a young woman who walks out in front of cars and, from the driver’s point of view, is run over. However, in each case, when the driver got out to check for a body, there was none to be found. In each case, the girl has turned and stared at the driver before the car runs over her. In one case a man claims that on driving past that particular hill he looked in his rear view mirror to see a girl in his back seat, on turning around she had vanished. And at Franks Hall, New Electronics' office near Swanley, we have our very own ghost. Like many other ghosts, ours is female and very shy; only a few people have been 'lucky' enough to see her when she walks.

Believe what you will about ghosts, but the fact remains that the overwhelming number of sightings have been made by individuals and the only evidence there is for those ghosts is the word of those who saw them. It may be that ghosts are shy, like New Electronics’ house ghost, because they don’t appear with any great frequency in front of more than one observer. And the new fangled art of photography has not helped either. Whilst many 'photographs' of ghosts have been published – either in books or, more recently, on the internet – few have real credibility.

So, are ghosts a figment of the imagination or is there something more to it? And if there is something more to it, what can technology do to prove or disprove their existence?
According to Ghostbusters UK, one of the first people in the UK to take ghost hunting seriously was one Harry Price. He is, apparently, most famous for his 1929 investigations at Borley Rectory, which has been called the most haunted house in England. Price's list of recommended equipment included:

notebook, pens and pencils
torch and spare batteries
cotton and sealing wax (for 'sealing' rooms so entries/exits could be detected)
flour or other fine powder to reveal footprints
a watch
a thermometer
a camera

His plan was to set himself up in the haunted house and to seal all possible entrances with cotton so that any physical entry would break the seal. The floor is scattered with floor in strategic places so that anyone moving around will leave footprints. Having eliminated the possibility of fraud, the ghost hunter sits back and waits for something to happen. Every ten minutes or so, the investigator reads the temperature and notes what is happening. Fine for 1929, perhaps, but with the power of modern electronics, can the latter day ghost hunter call on some of the highly capable test and measurement devices which are available?

Robin Furman of Ghostbusters UK says the organisation is attempting to investigate the paranormal in as 'scientific' a way as possible. He says a modern investigator would hope to collect a lot more information using, for example:

a tape recorder
a video camera
some electronic temperature measures

“We have attempted to use a computer to gather a continuous log of data on temperature and light levels,” says Furman. “We started in the mid 1980s with a BBC Micro. This allowed four sensors to be connected - we usually used three temperature sensors and one light sensor. Our current equipment is a bit more advanced; a laptop computer with a Pico Technology a/d converter unit. This supports 11 sensors, with data recorded using Picolog software.”

According to Furman, this equipment has been used at a number of sites over the years. “But,” he says, “the problem is always that you need the ghost or poltergeist to cooperate. Even at a house where the occupants were tormented by poltergeist activity every night, nothing happened when we spent the night there with the computer.”

He also says that computers seem more prone to malfunction in some haunted houses. “For one investigation, I checked the computer at home and it worked normally. At the haunted Hotel, it could not be persuaded to produce anything sensible at all. Back home, the computer worked perfectly again!”

Standing Wave

Vic Tandy, a ghost hunter from the University of Coventry, has his tale to tell. “I was working for a company that manufactured medical equipment. Three people worked in a laboratory made from two garages back to back – about 10ft wide and 30ft in length. One end was closed off by doors normally kept closed and the other end had a window.”

“The company designed anaesthetic or intensive care life support equipment, so there was always some piece of equipment wheezing away in a corner. When I heard suggestions that the lab was haunted, this was the first thing which I thought could be behind it and so I paid little attention. One morning, however, none of the equipment was turned on and I arrived just as the cleaner was leaving, obviously distressed that she had seen something. As a hard nosed engineer, I put it down to the wild cats, wild other furry things, moving pressure hoses or some sort of lighting effect.”

But Tandy said that, as time went on, he noticed one or two other odd events. There was a feeling of depression and occasionally a cold shiver. There was a growing level of discomfort, but the workers were all busy and paid it little attention. One night, Tandy was working on his own. As he sat at the desk, he began to feel increasingly uncomfortable. He was sweating, but cold, and the feeling of depression was noticeable. It was as though something was in the room with him. There was no way into the lab and all the equipment checked out fine. Tandy went to get a cup of coffee and returned to the desk. As he was writing, he became aware that he was being watched and a figure slowly emerged to his left. It was indistinct and on the periphery of his vision. The apparition was grey and made no sound. There was a distinct chill in the room and, as Tandy recalls: “It would not be unreasonable to suggest I was terrified.” When he built up the courage to turn and face the thing, it faded and disappeared.

The following day, Tandy was entering a fencing competition and needed to cut a thread onto the tang of a spare foil blade. He used the engineer’s bench vice in the lab to hold the blade. He went in search of a drop of oil to help things along and, as he returned, the free end of the blade was vibrating up. This, and his experience the previous night, prompted an immediate twinge of fright. However, as vibrating pieces of metal were more familiar to him than apparitions, he decided to experiment. If the foil blade was being vibrated, it was receiving energy which must have been varying in intensity at a rate equal to the resonant frequency of the blade. He placed the foil blade in a drill vice and slid it along the floor. The vibration got bigger until the blade was level with the desk, half way down the room. After the desk, it reduced in amplitude, stopping altogether at the far end of the lab. Tandy realised he was sharing the lab with a low frequency standing wave! Quick calculation showed its frequency to be 19 Hz.

Tandy said there were two questions to be answered: where is the energy coming from, and what does a 19Hz standing wave do to people? The first was answered quickly when it was found that a new fan had been installed in an extraction system. When the fan was switched off, the standing wave went away. “The second question,” he said, “required a bit more research.”
Having searched the literature, Tandy found a reference to low frequency sound causing 'sensations of fear, including excessive perspiration and shivering'. Once modifications were made to the fan, the standing wave disappeared and, along with it, Tandy’s 'ghost'.

Scientific Principles

Tandy is now investigating haunted sites and trying to apply scientific principles. “We are choosing places where more than one person has seen something,” he said. “We’re trying to get people to describe what they see and get several people to describe similar instances.”
One such site has been investigated recently and the results are due to be published next month.
“We are investigating on three layers,” he said. “Firstly, where people have 'felt a presence. On the next layer, we’re looking at people who 'see' things in their peripheral vision. It’s not uncommon for people to see things out of the corner of their eye, but disappear when you try to look at them — and they are invariably grey. On the final layer, we’ll be investigating things you can hold a conversation with.”

Tandy, who insists he approaches the question from a neutral point of view, says anyone who reports anything to him will be accepted as valid. “There’s a real temptation to say 'we know', but if you're going to be scientific, it’s better to say 'we don’t know'.”

A significant problem for Tandy has been finding equipment which can work in the infrasound region (5 to 30Hz). Previously, he used a bench top spectrum analyser, now he uses virtual instruments on a portable computer to measure sound pressure and to determine spectral content.

Tandy is getting support from Pico Technology and Cirrus Research. “Both companies have been incredibly supportive. The Pico ADC-216 spectrum analyser is happy at this level and its dynamic range of 100dB is valuable in sound measurement. The Cirrus microphone has a flat response to 0.1Hz, which is incredible.” Other Cirrus equipment in use includes: MK:224 0.5in microphone capsule; the MV:181A preamplifier; and the ZE:901 preamplifier power supply.

Now, he is working on the design of a low frequency measuring device to allow him to 'see' whether there's infrasound present or not. But the final word goes to Furman. “There’s never been a machine invented that will tell you when there’s an event taking place and we should remember Plato when he said 'A thing isn’t seen because it’s visible, it’s visible because it’s seen.'”

Caught In The Act?

A report on the BBC last year suggested that a ghost may have been filmed by security cameras at Belgrave Museum in Leicester.

Curator Stuart Warburton said: “The security cameras at the back of the hall triggered off one night at about 4.50am, and then suddenly... two figures appear on the film. The camera freezes for about 5s and then the figures disappear. And then we have a mist that swirls along the top of the wall, which we cannot explain.”

Belgrave Hall was originally owned by the local MP John Ellott and many believe that one of his daughters is the ghost of Belgrave Hall.

You can see what the security camera captured at the following url: news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_270000/270457.stm

Furman and Ghostbusters UK have also had some success in capturing apparitions on video. “We got called to a nightclub in Manchester called Butterflies because its security system kept going off. We put in a 24hour video system and caught an apparition on tape. The video showed a chap walking down a corridor, breaking an infrared beam, then disappearing through a wall.”

This article first appeared in the 27 June issue of New Electronics and is reproduced with permission. For more information on New Electronics, go to www.neon.co.uk