Every job has equipment that helps get stuff done. For those who investigate the paranormal, things are no different.

Sadly, we’re not talking PKE meters and proton packs. Outside of the movies, we deal with much more mundane tools. In today’s vlog, I talk about some of those.

There are tons of bits of electronics and whatnot that could be used in an investigation. Most of them are repurposed from other professional arenas. Some are newer hybrid devices that combine various functions in ways that are specialized for ghost hunting… it’s kind of grown into its own industry (not a big one, mind you, but an industry none-the-less).

I didn’t mention the more utterly mundane things–like pencils, paper, notebooks, and such–but those are incredibly important. Not just for keeping track of the where and when of your evidence collection, but also to keep other important notes about things you notice. Feelings you have, sounds you hear, flashes of insight or intuition you may have. All that becomes very useful in the follow-up research that goes on in a real investigation.

Have you ever done a ghost hunt? I want to know if you have.

Check out today’s vlog to get my full take on the tech.

Don’t forget that you have some say over what goes on for the next 100 days… click the big green button below here to get to the page where you can submit topic suggestions and questions (so I know what kinds of things you want to see go on in these videos).

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I still want to hear more of your stories of ghostly (and other odd) encounters.

Yesterday, I talked a bit about different types of ghosts and that lead to the question: Why, if ghosts are dead people, aren’t there a whole lot more ghosts around? In today’s vlog, I propose some ideas on why we’re not constantly running into our deceased relatives.

Really, this whole subject is one of the questions that’s perplexed humans for a really, really long time. Most certainly before people started taking pictures of ghosts (on purpose or accidentally), but the advent of the camera opened up a whole new world for evidence of the afterlife. It also lead to some very creative hoaxes and, eventually, to the expectation of a hoax by default (yay, Photoshop!).

As is the case with UFO research, the plethora of hoaxers and the ease with which some pretty impressive hoax “evidence” can be manufactured is nothing short of a utterly maddening. See, we want to believe… but we know far too well that a lot of people out there just want to make us look foolish. (Even more foolish than some of us are willing to admit we may be.)

It’s really unfortunate.

But, today we just wonder a little about why there aren’t more sightings and pictures of real ghosts. Check it out and let me know what you think.

(Oh, and that picture that’s the background of the promo image today? That’s a shot from the Library of Congress: The Haunted Lane. Photo by Melander & Bro., 1889. I think we can pretty safely say it’s not a real photo of a real ghost.)

Don’t forget that you have some say over what goes on for the next 100 days… click the big green button below here to get to the page where you can submit topic suggestions and questions (so I know what kinds of things you want to see go on in these videos).

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Have you ever seen a ghost? What kind of ghost was it?

What? You didn’t know there were different types of ghosts? In today’s vlog I ramble on about three different types. Nothing quite as detailed or varied as good ol’ Tobin’s Spirit Guide, but a solid enough quick overview.

This builds a little on yesterday’s vlog about the spiritualism movement that lead hordes of people to want to talk to their deceased loved ones and the researchers who dedicated their lives to trying to figure out what, exactly, was up with all that. It’s from those early parapsychologists and everyone who’s built on their research that we know most of what we do.

We have vague ideas of how to detect ghosts. A ton of theories about what they may actually be (and how we can get different types, like the ones I talk about). Unlike certain movies, there’s no way to “catch” a ghost and keep it around. At least not any way that’s been proven to work… though I’m sure there are some practitioners of magical arts that would disagree.

The bottom line is that we still don’t know exactly what it is we’re seeing when we see ghosts. Or why some people can see them better than others. Or why they’re so inconsistently caught on our recording devices. I’ll talk about a lot of those theories in the future.

Check out today’s vlog about ghosts (and let me know if you’ve had any ghostly encounters).

Don’t forget that you have some say over what goes on for the next 100 days… click the big green button below here to get to the page where you can submit topic suggestions and questions (so I know what kinds of things you want to see go on in these videos).

[jbutton size=”xxlarge” color=”green” link=”http://durosia.com/vlog-questions” newpage=”yes”]Come Ask a Question Here[/jbutton]