telophase | (no subject)

I'm not entirely sure what chain of clicks led me to this cheap EMF meter on Amazon being sold as a ghost-hunting tool, but I'm glad it ended this way, as many of the reviews are hilarious.

4 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Very Useful, April 10, 2009
By I. Shiel (London, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
I hadn't previously been aware of the ghosts all around me but using this device I have been able to find them everywhere. As I write this I can detect the presence of a ghost of someone whose name begins with M or R, another ghost that wants to talk to someone called David or Derek, and the ghost of my deceased gerbil.

My only complaint is this device keeps detecting the ghost of Cliff Richard. This is clearly erroneous as Mr Richard is still very much alive. I took this up with the manufacturers and they believe that Mr Richard may have had a surgical operation during which a part of his body was removed and this part is now haunting me. So you should bear in mind that this device is a little bit too sensitive!

Other than that I think this gadget is fantastic and ghost hunting is a lot more sociable than metal detecting. I've now met lots of dead people and most of them have been quite interesting.

3.0 out of 5 stars Let me tell you something - bustin' makes me feel good., April 10, 2009
By Nigel R. Field "nrgfield" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
I had mixed results with this product. I purchased it after experiencing a series of strange and unexplained phenomena at my house. Although the product did suggest the presence of ghosts and appeared to be functioning correctly it later transpired that a local property developer was faking the ghosts in an attempt to scare me off and purchase the house cheaply. And he would have gotten away with it, if it wasn't my meddling.

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!, April 10, 2009
By Jon Ronson - See all my reviews
I'm fortunate enough to be haunted by a ghost that is actually made out of electricity. The EMF Detector has consequently proved effective at tracking down Moaning Electro Horror Child even when she's hiding in hard to spot places like the cupboard where we keep the Christmas decorations. Highly recommended.

EDIT: I am upset to report that as a result of successfully capturing and banishing above ghost, it has returned in anger to horribly slay my family. I now wish I had never purchased the device. Not recommended.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Other than that I think this gadget is fantastic and ghost hunting is a lot more sociable than metal detecting. I've now met lots of dead people and most of them have been quite interesting."

These are fan-tas-tic~ *lmao*

I would think, and maybe it's just me, that if you were seriously trying to hunt down paranormal activity, you would want the best, most accurate, and most finely made EMF detector you could get, not some bargain-basement handheld. And I would expect you to be concerned with being trained in its use proficiently enough to filter out all the EMF noise that we generate everyday. (Question: Have the Ghost Hunters guys ever tried to do a hunt in a casino? It'd probably be hilarious, given the sheer number of electronic slot machines out there.) I suppose it's like the difference between a trained archaeologist and someone who digs random holes in the ground looking for arrowheads and "buried treasure."

No, no, you see, they want results. ;)

I'm amazed at the number of times the GH guys mention EMF activity while waving the detector around in a room filled with cameras and sound equipment.

There's also the opposite diagnosis, which is a hypothesis repeated as fact, that too much EMF activity can produce weird feelings of someone in the room with you, motion out of the corner of your eye, and so forth. The only study I know of didn't find that to be the case - IIRC, they stuck people in, basically, a giant Faraday cage to isolate them from environmental EMFs, then put a source in there with them some of the time, and waited t see if the subjects reported sensations. Nobody reported anything like that in a way that was able to correlate with the EMF source being on.

They're on television; of course they want results. If they don't have results (or drama, or both), they get cancelled.

I know I posted on this experiment (http://www.haque.co.uk/haunt.php) before. It sounds like the one you mention, but they seem to have been adjusting humidity and other environmental conditions, rather than just the EMF.

Most of the ghost hunting groups out there want results, IME. They do an wonderful job of deluding themselves that they're investigating scientifically.

I think that there is some part of every person who wants ghosts to exist. If ghosts exist, then there is something that happens to a person when they die, and if ghosts are real, then the possibility of something else existing, like a Hereafter of some sort, becomes something more of a surety, rather than just faith.

*giggles and giggles and giggles*

Just when I think people suck and my orbital killer robots can slay half the human race any time now, something awesome like this comes along.

I love how the first one specifically mentioned their pet gerbil.