We all agree that a spirit needs energy to manifest, or to move an object. We also seem agree that the spirit will typically draw from the surrounding areas for that energy. Where does that energy come from?  Certainly it comes from others in the room or from any battery operated equipment located near them, but where does it come from when those items are not there? What if the activity is in a building where there is no electrical wiring to draw from, no people or batteries? The space is completely devoid of all electrical properties known to us today that can hold an electrical charge. How does a spirit get its energy?

Most of us have heard of the psychic hours being from 9 PM to 6 AM. How is it that these became the psychic hours? Is it because this is when activity is most noticed? Yes that’s part of it, but why? I was recently reading a trade magazine for electrical engineering and suddenly I realized a piece of our paranormal puzzle was right in this article on the grounding of a building’s main electrical system. Now that I said that I need to get into a deeper explanation.

Everyone has heard of solar power. A solar cell or photovoltaic cell is a device that converts solar energy into electricity by the photovoltaic effect. Photovoltaic’s is the field of technology and research related to the application of solar cells as solar energy. Sometimes the term solar cell is reserved for devices intended specifically to capture energy from sunlight, while the term photovoltaic cell is used when the source is unspecified. When sunlight falls onto a solar cell, the solar cell material absorbs some of the light particles called photons. Each photon contains a small amount of energy. When a photon is absorbed it starts a process of freeing an electron in the material of the solar cell. Because both sides of a solar cell are electrically connected with a wire, a current will flow when the photon is absorbed. The solar cell now produces electricity, which can be used instantly or stored in a battery.

Let’s take this to another step, what is a wire? A wire is basically a conductor with an insulator. Now let’s pull some of this together, solar power, photons, electrons and a conductor. The majority of the buildings that have been investigated over the years have some form of concrete in them, if not they have attributes of the concrete, i.e. lime. Concrete absorbs moisture quickly and looses moisture slowly. With the mineral properties of concrete (lime and others) and their inherent pH means concrete has a supply of ions to conduct current. As a result the soil surrounding the building becomes “doped” by the concrete. This means that the soil pH level rises which in turns makes the soil a good conductor for electrical energy and lighting currents. What this means is the building and the ground it sits on are able to conduct electricity.

On the solar side of this typically from 6 AM to 9 PM a building has sunlight hitting it for almost 15 hours a day. This sunlight is being absorbed into the building structure as a photon which in turn will be releasing its electricity into the conductor it is in. The flow of incoming energy ceases at 9 PM and then the energy starts to release becoming available for any spirit in the area to hop on in and use some natural juice. For areas outdoors with no concrete I’m sure if there is a soil test conducted we will find a high pH level which is also a good conductor for the release of photons into energy.

Obviously this is only a theory I have at this point. I need to study this is more detail and formulate an undisputable way of showing this energy flow. With further study of what these haunted locations are built from and built on I believe we will find our source of energy. The Sun is the key to it all. How about that, we go around in the dark to study what the sun makes happen.

The following appeared on our Myspace on July 02, 2008

One of the most difficult tasks we will do as paranormal investigators is review potential photographic evidence. To properly review our photo's we need to be open-minded but at the same time have a skeptic's eye. This type of evidence is open to interpretation so we need to be very clear on how we define a positive photo. We have to be strict in our evaluation of photos so that if there is any doubt of what the photo contains, we must put it aside as an unusable photo.  Quite often these unusable photos are positive ones but for various reasons we cannot use it as evidence in a case. A main example of this is you have taken a photo and it has an apparition in it, but you took the photo directly at a mirror and the reflection of the flash now makes it possible for a variety light effects to have occurred.  This now makes the photo unusable, it stink's but we can't use it.

First let's talk about how to take a photo:

Make sure you note any potential items that could lead to a false positive photo. Street lights, mirrors and other reflective surfaces. In public buildings make sure you note the exit signs, these are on emergency power and will always be on. Make sure you clean your camera's lens regularly thru out the investigation. Without realizing it you could be touching the cameras lens.  Watch for dust or dirt being stirred up in the area you are photographing. 

Mist or Ectoplasm Mist photos are a great piece of evidence so let's try to eliminate all potential false positives by not smoking at the location and watching our breath in the winter months. There are ways to tell the difference, but try to eliminate the second guessing.

The photo of a vortex is also great evidence, but these could also be easily replicated. Once again we need to eliminate the outside sources that could lead to a false positive. If you have long hair, tie it ALL back. Remove your camera strap if possible. If not have it in securely in your hand or over your wrist.

Take as many photos as possible during an investigation especially when there is some type of external stimuli that has occurred, a positive reading on an EMF detector or a temperature drop. Don't forget to also take multiple photos when someone is having some kind of sensation, this may be a spirit trying to make contact.

What is an Orb?

We all know form our reading that orbs are balls of energy that is visible in the area of light between visible light and infrared light. Now this does not mean you have captured a spirit on a photo. We also know that it is a common belief in the field that an orb "could" represent the start of spirit manifestation, so we do look for them and we also issue them as evidence from an investigation. A true orb is perfectly round in shape and could be emitting a light. Sometimes we just see the outer edge of these orbs. Orbs are everywhere, take a photo right now in your living room and you may find one. Does this mean uncle Harry has stopped in for a visit, maybe or maybe not? We are trying to make that determination in what we are doing with our investigations.

Some people totally dismiss orbs due to the potential they are something else. I disagree and believe they need to be included as evidence; however we need to rule out the potential for something else. Arguments consist of these orbs only being a solid light emitting object, but if you are lucky enough to capture the forming of an orb you will see that it appears as a circle first then forms into the round object.

We do know that orbs are everywhere, but they have been documented in higher concentration in a known haunted location. The average amount of orb photos in most locations is around 4%. This is why we ask for the number of photos taken by you on an investigation report. When we do the final report we list the total number of photos taken versus the positive photos obtained and come along with our percentage. If we are above the 4% number then that is a good indication of something occurring there.

How do we tell an orb from dust?

Believe it or not this isn't that difficult, but it does depend on how you view your photos. First never make a determination of a positive photo by looking at it thru your camera. Always view your photos on your computer at the highest resolution you can. When you see what could be an orb slowly zoom into it and look closely at it. Look at the shape first, is it truly round in shape or are there any deviations in the circumference? Does it look slightly oval? If so then these are dust particles, which look very similar to orbs. They appear sometimes full and the bounce reflection of your flash gives it the appearance it has a light emanating from it.

 If you want to practice at looking at this, get out your camera and get a couch pillow or something similar and bang it with something. Immediately start taking photos, this is dust but when you first look it will appear to be a group of orbs. Look closely at them on your computer and you will start to see the deviations I'm talking about.

Why some photos are partially blurred out and we say they are good?

There many photos, clear and not so clear that say they are true apparition photos. Are they? Well that is also open to interpretation. I have been on site when apparition photos were taken and I have seen many photos that claim to be apparition photos. The ones that I have seen personally and have been witness to by people I respect, all have the same style of image in them, and that is they are focused throughout the shot but where the apparition is located it appears blurry and a bit out of focus. 10 years ago we would say it was a developing error, but we can't say that with today's digital technology.

Vortex

A vortex is believed to be a spot where spirits pass from one plane to another. This is an anomaly that we can photograph. The problem with this is that it does look like a camera strap or hair so we need to be sure where the camera strap is at the time of a photograph.

Light rods

Typically in our field when we photograph light rods they are actually orbs moving at a high speed. They will appear as streaks in your photo. Hair could also give you the same impression so put your hair back.

Ectoplasm Mist:

As stated earlier this is a great piece of evidence to obtain. The problem is the potential for outside influence. Watch your breath in cold temperatures, no smoking, lookout for candles, fire places, etc anything that may have recently been ignited.

Now how can you tell you have a good photo of ectoplasm mist? If it is your breath there may be a bluish or even brownish tint to it. It will also have some stringy looking vapor to it. If it is cigarette smoke it will have a bluish tint and be stringy as well.

True mist looks like a piece of cotton, a consistent solid cotton piece that is mostly white or grey in color. The start of the mist maybe somewhat stringy so you need to make sure you document what you were doing and where you were.

I wanted to talk about paranormal research. What is it and what are we doing by visiting these places. Research is just that, we are visiting places trying to see if we believe there to be paranormal activity and document it. Can we prove that there is paranormal activity in a particular location? Not yet, but that is what we are striving for. Each investigation hopefully brings us a step closer to what is happening out there.

None of the equipment used today by any of the paranormal research and investigative teams are made for paranormal investigating. They are made for other activities and are used in our research as a means to an end. The main ingredient that is believed to be associated with a haunted location is energy. Electro-magnetic energy to be exact, this type of energy is everywhere. So are ghost everywhere? I believe they are, it is only those that choose to let us know of their presence that we are aware of. 

So what of the equipment we use in a scientific approach to investigating, we use EMF detectors. What is an EMF detector; well it is a piece of equipment that measures the nearby electro-magnetic field. So why do we want to measure the nearby electro-magnetic field? It is believed that if a spirit is passing on by that it will cause a fluctuation in the electro-magnetic field and this we can measure. So what exactly do we measure, we measure using units of measurement called gauss. Named for German mathematician Carl Frederich Gauss, the gauss is a unit of magnetic field measurement. Often abbreviated as G when referred to in official publications and in scientific formulas, gauss is understood to equate to one Maxwell per square centimeter. The essential idea behind this measurement is to be able to quantify the amount of magnetic flux density with a magnetic field. We typically look for 2-7 milli-gauss anything higher we typically can trace to a something man made in nature.

What else do we use? We use Infra-red thermometers, Infra-red lighting for recording in the dark. What is so important about infra-red? What is infra-red? This a bit scientific, but here it is. Every form of matter with a temperature above absolute zero emits infrared radiation according to its temperature; this is known as characteristic radiation. The cause of this is the internal mechanical movement of molecules. The intensity of this movement depends on the temperature of the object. Since the molecule movement represents charge displacement, electromagnetic radiation (photon particles) is emitted. These photons move at the speed of light and behave according to the known optical principles. They can be deflected, focused with a lens or reflected from reflective surfaces. The spectrum of this radiation ranges from 0.7 to 1000 um wavelength. For this reason, this radiation cannot be seen with the naked eye. This area lies within the red area of visible light and has therefore been called “infra”-red after the Latin.

What does this mean? Basically we are looking for emitted electromagnetic radiation. This can be measured with a thermometer and therefore we have a way of recording a temperature drop. Then what caused that temperature drop? This is where you need to investigate. As investigators we would like to see a 5-10 degree temperature difference, but we need to understand what caused the temperature difference. Is it a window an air diffuser, an open door? We must first rule out all of the possibilities and then we are left with the passing of an object that has emitted energy which we were able to record. It is believed that this is a spirit.

What is the overwhelming flow of all this. There is one word that is repeated throughout here and that word is “believed”. So by visiting these haunted locations and private homes we are trying to rule out natural cause for things happening and we are saying we “believe” there to be something happening here. But mostly what we are doing is helping people better understand their own surroundings and teaching them how to live with what is happening. 

Until we can do laboratory experiments in a controlled environment we will never be able to remove the “believe” out of what we do. Never forget to believe you are helping people by doing what we do.