I <3 Brian Dunning.

inFact: Ghost Hunting

Listen to this awesome podcast (embedded at the end of this post) from the guys at HowStuffWorks discussing ghost hunter equipment in a real life, I-actually-understand-electronics-and-science way. Oooooh, this made me sooooo freakin’ happy.

Here is a text article to go along with it:  Ghost Detecting Equipment

I found this goodness via Ryan Johnson’s article on Skepticblog. Let me quote from him quoting them:

I found some really great videos by YouTuber HauntedHoax. He is all about the ghost busting, debunking and hoaxing for educational purposes.

The nice thing is that his videos are also entertaining. A lot of skeptic videos that try to be funny usually fail. I don’t know why, but the humor is just lame. This guy does it right.

Check out his channel here for all his videos:  http://www.youtube.com/user/HauntedHoax

I’ll embed two of my favorites below:

First a funny one:

And a serious debunk:

So awesome, so very very awesome:

Jason Sullivan of Midwest Haunts finally has cleared up my lingering doubt about ghosts. He is the first Ghost Hunter I’ve heard define a ghost.

His definition is at 3:17 and is this: “When a person dies, they turn into a new form of energy.”

That’s it, no citation, no support, no evidence, and no facts. Just a statement.

I could say “When a person dies, they turn into a marshmallow” and have just as much factual support for that statement as he does for his “energy”.

Update Jan 20, 2010: The sexy ghost photo story has been revealed to be a hoax perpetrated by the Ghost Tour company in collusion with the guy who took the photo. Full story here: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/1002032/tour-company-knew-truth-behind-ghost-photo

Original post follows:

I’m late to the party on this story. I saw the original story in my news feed and put it off to the side to review in-depth later.  Before I could, the whole thing got debunked.

I was listening to The Conspiracy Skeptic Podcast today. The host was talking about Moon Landing deniers and made the point that they are so blinded by their own misconceptions that they refuse to accept any evidence that doesn’t fit their own narrow world view. The basic question is “What would convince you to change your mind?”.  The host then went on to list a few things that he would consider evidence enough for him to believe that the moon landing was a hoax.  You can listen to the episode mp3 here in which he picks apart some claims made in the Phil Plait/Joe Rogan debate on the moon landing.

This is a good post by Bryan Farha on the Smoke and Mirrors blog about ghosts and ghost phenomenon that I wanted to pass along.  I’ll excerpt a few good parts below:

Why some murder victims would stick around for eternity to haunt a place while others seem to evaporate is one of the great mysteries of the spirit world.

Scientists who have investigated haunted places account for both the temperature changes and the sounds by finding physical sources of the drafts, such as empty spaces behind walls or currents set in motion by low frequency sound waves produced by such mundane objects as extraction fans.

Ghost hunter turned away in Buchanan

Commissioners vote down request to search cemetery for paranormal

By STAN MADDUX
Tribune Correspondent

BUCHANAN — Officials in Buchanan have turned down a man who asked permission to go into Oak Ridge Cemetery and hunt ghosts.

Some of the city commissioners were open to the idea but voted this week to oppose the request.

One fear was any findings of a haunted graveyard would not be good for the city’s image and draw people to the cemetery for seances and other paranormal related activities.

Arwin John, a 20 year old in Malaysia, made the local news with a rather long story about his ghost hunting club and activities.  The kid talks about seeing his first ghost at 10 years old and being hooked on paranormal investigation from then on. His parents finally buckled to his whining and got him some “equipment” and now let him stay out in local cemeteries. He has the usual tools for detecting dust, random noise, and nothing at all:

His research gear include thermal cameras, motion detectors, voice recorders – cassette and digital – and video-cams.