Want to find
some ghosts? There’s Apps for that.
Becky
Ray, an 44-year old investigator and a founder of the Paranormal Activity in
Kansas City, Mo., one of hundreds of volunteer ghost-hunting groups across the
country. She often gets calls this time of year to look into reports of ghosts.
She grabs a notebook, her flashlight and a hand-held device called a K-II EMF
meter, "its super-sensitive." It was originally sold to homeowners to check
out power lines and electromagnetic fields. The $50 instrument, is the size of
a television remote control, It is the go-to device for ghost hunters who probe
paranormal activity in graveyards, homes, buildings and other places. She swears
by the meter for picking up the presence of a ghost.
Curt House,
32, of Paranormal Investigators and the founder of Triangle Paranormal
Investigations uses the K-II to track down spirits in Raleigh, N.C., but more
and more finds himself relying on a newer ghost-hunting gadget: his iPhone.
It's tricked out with apps that claim not only to track electromagnetic fields
as the K-II does, but also to translate inaudible sounds into words and predict
lunar and solar activity thought to foster apparitions, plus, if it gets
boring, he can play Angry Birds. they're good for ghost hunters including amateurs.
"Within two minutes of turning it on, there's always a ghost right behind
you," he says. Choose your weapon.
For the last decade, avid ghost hunters have
relied on the K-II, buying almost all of the 30,000 devices manufactured every
year. But now, the EMF meter is under competitive threat from dozens of digital
devices that claim to offer a new link to the afterlife. The Ghost Hunter M2
iPhone app ($.99) uses the phone's built-in magnetometer to measure
electromagnetic fields and the accelerometer to track faint movements like
ghostly footsteps. Ghost Séance ($3.99) says it uses a recorded medium's voice
to summon "good spirits" only.
Jack Jones the
inventor of the K-II meter, an iPhone app that purports to scan the area around
the user to locate paranormal activity. The programs' developers say they can
perform functions that might otherwise take a suitcase full of gear. They also
expose new people to the field. Versions of one of the leading apps, Ghost
Radar, have been downloaded more than six million times.
"People
are really interested in paranormal activity but can't afford to buy the K-II. I
can throw something out there for a buck. There's a market for this. It’s smart
to use a smartphone as a sensor for electromagnetic fields, especially if the
phone is periodically pinging a tower or receiving email or text messages. A
phone is just spewing this stuff. You'll say, 'Oh my God, there's a ghost,' but
no, it's a phone in your pocket. Does Casper exist? I don't know, but if this
instrument says there's an electromagnetic field, there's a field."
Mr. Jones,
developed Ghost Hunter M2 with his twin brother, David, who says,
The app
compensates for an iPhone or iPod’s known level of electromagnetic activity. It
measures EMF about as well as the K-II but performs many more functions. The
smartphone has really accelerated the field of paranormal investigation. In the
digital dustup, purists prefer to collect data with widely accepted engineering
tools to better convince a skeptical public. You Tubers test out Ghost Radar,
one of the most popular mobile apps for detecting "ghosts. Other ghost busters
say the digital applications have the potential to open new avenues for
tracking spirits, which many believe manipulate energy to communicate since
they no longer have traditional voices. Mr. Jones an ex-cop and current
Transportation Security Administration and night supervisor at the
Raleigh-Durham International Airport says, “The new technology can yield
exciting albeit cryptic results. People told the Wright brothers they were
crazy. They had to go out and show it could be done. “A similar fight erupted
over the use of digital cameras in this kind of work in the 1990s. Professional
ghost hunters at first insisted digital cameras were unusable because a speck
of dust near the lens could create an orb commonly mistaken for an apparition.
The images could also be easily manipulated and had no negative to prove the
original content. Taylor, president of
the American Ghost Society and an influential author, condemned digital cameras
as "ghost hunting at its worst." Now digital cameras are de rigueur in the
trade, with higher resolution cameras minimizing orbs and generally accepted
techniques for distinguishing a dust particle from an apparition, now uses a
high-resolution digital camera. Times have changed.
DR. KARL WALLACE D.D.S.
To read more go to: karlwallaceblog.blogspot.com
