Saturday, January 21, 2006

Electro Magnetic Fields

OK, so you’re a ghost hunter, committed to hunting the ephemeral little beasties, but what would you do without your EMF meter?

Probably nothing. Because without your EMF meter, you couldn’t track anything, take digital pictures or record any cool EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon). EMF meters- and even sometimes fairly simple compasses, help find “hot” areas, where the kind of anomaly you are looking for is generally hiding.

EMF stands for Electromagnetic Fields which can be detected with an EMF meter, which is currently favored by many as a component of their ghost-hunting toolkit. The EMF meter is an energy-tracking device.

It is sometimes recommended that two of the ghost hunters in the team carefully cover the site of the ghost hunt, one for anything and everything ordinary that could trigger an EMF reading- and the other to carefully check out all the “hot:” areas which you will try to capture on tape, film or digital media. It is important that all areas, normal or “hot” be accurately recorded by both of the ghost hunters handling the EMF meter. The careful recording of data also applies to the temperature readings as well as to EMF. Some experts recommend that ghost hunters look at the entire site as a grid- and that the entire grid needs to be measured with EMP, temperature and then thoroughly photographed. So the entire operation is handled like a professional archaeologist might handle it, except you are digging for something with a little EMF, not just some iron pots or a ceramic vase.

EMF meters, however, are not some strange, seldom-used device, but are commonly used by electricians to trace interference with their equipment and to be able to separate active electrical lines from non-active. The range of EMF sought by ghost hunters is very small, between 2-4 mgs. The serious ghost hunter must be able to distinguish between EMF created by natural or man-made sources from this ghostly objective. They also must be able to see what the device is trying to tell them so a fully lit digital display is often necessary. Ghost hunters often work in the dark.

Although the emanation of EMF from ghosts is a working hypothesis, the existence of EMF in the area of various electronic devices, like computers or cell phones, from electrical lines, large deposits or aggregations of metal is not. In order to pursue a rational ghost hunt, that is to exclude other sources of EMF, the ghost hunter should take readings around light poles and electrical outlets, as well as checking out fields that could be attributed to household appliances. When the ghost hunter has eliminated these concerns, he or she must be ready to check for sudden temperature drops. If he is taking photos, he wants to note the exact temperature and EMF reading for each photo.