How and why ghosts are “measured” with scientific measurements
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Because it makes for good TV, and the actors on those ghost hunting shows either don’t have any idea how the equipment works, or are actively scamming their viewers.
Certain ideas, like ghosts can be detected by electromagnetic scanners, get suggested by someone in the ghost hunting community, and then spread around through conversations, magazines, and TV shows until no one knows where they started and everyone believes it.
they aren’t, all that shit is made up for tv and those instruments are fake or just detecting background noise in the environment.
“ghost” (or some sort of “psychic”) meters are often ELF EMF meters (Extremely Low Frequency Electro Magnetic Field). Typically 30-300Hz or static magnetic fields. The specific frequencies “ghost meters” look at will vary.
These meters fluctuate on *everything*. And typically they have to be tuned because the signal is amplified so high that it’s like a 2% difference between the needle stopping on the extreme left and on the right. So it looks much more significant than it is.
ELF EMF is just not remarkable. It will naturally vary as you approach metal. It could go up or down but will usually have some consistency- bring the meter closer to this pillar, reading goes up. Pull it back, reading goes down. Cars driving by on the other side of a wall can make it spike briefly and drop back down.
The exact rules for what an ELF EMF will be at any spot are complex and difficult to predict. However, bottom line is there’s no indication it’s anything significant, ghost, magic powers, or anything of scientific or practical value. I mean if it found not ghosts but gold that would be great. But it’s just seeking out noise that fluctuates on the scale of seconds to give people the idea that something is happening.
They aren’t. We have yet to prove the existence of ghosts.
[We’ve also ruled out the existence of ghosts that emit or reflect visible light. Or move objects around. Or make any kind of sound.](https://xkcd.com/1235/)
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