A Ghost hunter are people who go into locations that people believe are haunted and look for evidence of ghosts or other paranormal activity. These folks will use a variety of different types of equipment all intended to pick up the energy signals that ghosts and other energy beings can leave behind or use in their methods of attempting to communicate. Many ghost hunters will go by the term ‘Paranormal Investigators’ because that term better expresses what they do; few ghost hunters ever work with just ghosts but almost all experience the paranormal.
Ghost Hunter 101
Many people get excited about becoming ghost hunters and there are plenty of books, tools, kits and ideas out there to help you become a ghost hunter. However, one of the most important and yet often completely overlooked aspects of ghost hunting is gathering data in a scientific fashion that helps prevent it from being refuted. All too often ghost hunters go into a situation without a game plan – they’re just looking for thrills. Some of them might have an idea of what they hope to see or experience, but few have thought about how to record the information they come across and so any evidence they come away with can be too easily dismissed as fake. One of the most important things to remember about being a ghost hunter is that the decision to declare something ‘paranormal’ should only be made after every other explanation has been carefully and methodically ruled out.
Do Your Research
The most important step to becoming a ghost hunter is becoming familiar with the scientific method. It can be simply described as the steps taken to answer a question and prove your answer is correct. There are six basic steps: ask a question, research possible answers, develop your own answer, test your answer, analyze the data from your tests, and then let others know of your results. If you’re a ghost hunter begin by asking the obvious question – is this place haunted. Then spend some time doing background research. Learn everything you can about the place you want to explore and check out. Based on your research, construct your hypothesis: ‘Yes, I believe this house is or is not haunted because…’ and clearly note what methods you will use to prove that the house is or is not haunted. Make sure that each and everything you do is noted. You want to have clear notes showing what you did to prove that the house was NOT haunted, before you show the steps you took to show that it is. Make notes constantly showing if your procedures and ideas are working, how you set them up and how they are intended to work if they are not working as you thought they would. Leave nothing out!
Experiment
When your experiment is through and you have your results, go through and carefully analyze them. As a ghost hunter this step is very important. Don’t just jump to a conclusion. Go through all your data carefully. Remember, if there is any doubt at all that the cause of the ‘haunting’ is paranormal, then you cannot declare it paranormal! Instead, you should go back and try again, change your methodologies a little or try a different series of experiments. Then you can let people know what you’ve found!
