A Scientific Measurement of Ghosts
I found this article fascinating, and thought that I'd share it with you. While there are a ton of "ghost meters" out there on the market, this one caught my eye. It comes from South Florida's Sun-Sentinel, who owns the copyright on this story. It is presented here strictly for you academic use:
South Florida man inadvertantly invents a 'ghost meter'
By Margo Harakas
Staff Writer
November 7, 2005
It was at least an hour before daylight would fade completely, but the shadows in historic Evergreen Cemetery were darkening rapidly.
Moving quietly among the tombstones and the trees were George Lechter, a Miami businessman, and a trio from the Palm Beach Paranormal Society.
All carried digital cameras and ghost meters, which Lechter manufactures.
"Normally you want to wait till night," explains Desiré Kesselman, of Boca Raton, a schoolteacher and co-founder of the society. She and her husband, Howard, a software designer, have been on 20 to 30 ghost hunts around the country. "Truth is," she admits, "most times you don't detect anything."
But the other times, omigosh! Like at the Castillo De San Marcos fort in St. Augustine and the Moon River pub in Savannah, Ga., where the couple witnessed several orbs or balls of light.
"You want to see?" asks Desiré, who has saved the shots on her digital camera. There they are, glowing points of light piercing a shield of utter blackness.
The group spreads out across Fort Lauderdale's oldest intact cemetery, pausing at the tombstones, eyes glued on their meters.
Lechter isn't the kind of guy to easily embrace the notion of ghosts.
Unlike the stars of the popular cable reality show Ghost Hunters, he's not a plumber by day and a specter sleuth by night. He's a mechanical engineer with a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and had you suggested a few short years ago that ghosts were in our midst, he would have smiled and shook his head in total disagreement.
But strange things have happened.
Fourteen years ago, Lechter launched a company (now called Technology Alternatives Corp.) to produce ultra-low-radiation computer monitors. When people asked how they could verify the claim that his monitor had nearly zero emissions, he responded by manufacturing a comparatively inexpensive gauss meter that they could use to take their own readings.
The big surprise came about a year and a half ago, when a ghost hunter called Lechter to say gauss meters, which are usually used to measure radiation and electromagnetic fields, had been used for decades to track down ghosts. And that, it turns out, is what a good number of folks were doing with Lechter's $40 meter. (He sells 30,000 a year, he says.) Lechter, the man who had never seen a ghost -- nor sought one out -- thought it all ridiculous, as any nonbeliever would. But his curiosity was piqued.
Only after hearing hundreds of compelling stories and seeing thousands of ghostly images posted online did he convert. "Finally, I came up with a theory of what ghosts are from an electromagnetic perspective," he says. Let's just say he compares human thought to radio signals and the light from stars, and maintains they all are manifestations of energy and that all persist into eternity. It's a comparison other scientific types might dispute.
Still, Lechter's here this evening, hoping to encounter a ghost, a spirit or some otherworldly apparition. Maybe by the grave of the Civil War vet. Or over there, where the child is buried. Or what about here, where Fort Lauderdale founder Frank Stranahan, who drowned himself, is laid to rest?
The best times for ghost hunting are 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., someone casually remarks, not 6:30 in the evening. Howard prefers stalking ghosts indoors so "you can rule out bugs, pollen and moisture" as the source of the blobs, light smears and strange markings that in photographs pass as ghostly images. Silently the group pushes on, searching one quadrant of the cemetery, then the next. A breeze flutters leaves in the trees nearby, but nothing moves the meters' needles into the ghost range.
A caretaker drives by to tell the visitors the cemetery is closing. "Ninety percent of the time," says Desiré, "you don't find anything." It's a pursuit that definitely tests one's patience. The Kesselmans plan another local outing soon. Target this time -- Stranahan House. Surely, they'll get lucky there. Margo Harakas can be reached at mharakas@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4728.
South Florida man inadvertantly invents a 'ghost meter'
By Margo Harakas
Staff Writer
November 7, 2005
It was at least an hour before daylight would fade completely, but the shadows in historic Evergreen Cemetery were darkening rapidly.
Moving quietly among the tombstones and the trees were George Lechter, a Miami businessman, and a trio from the Palm Beach Paranormal Society.
All carried digital cameras and ghost meters, which Lechter manufactures.
"Normally you want to wait till night," explains Desiré Kesselman, of Boca Raton, a schoolteacher and co-founder of the society. She and her husband, Howard, a software designer, have been on 20 to 30 ghost hunts around the country. "Truth is," she admits, "most times you don't detect anything."
But the other times, omigosh! Like at the Castillo De San Marcos fort in St. Augustine and the Moon River pub in Savannah, Ga., where the couple witnessed several orbs or balls of light.
"You want to see?" asks Desiré, who has saved the shots on her digital camera. There they are, glowing points of light piercing a shield of utter blackness.
The group spreads out across Fort Lauderdale's oldest intact cemetery, pausing at the tombstones, eyes glued on their meters.
Lechter isn't the kind of guy to easily embrace the notion of ghosts.
Unlike the stars of the popular cable reality show Ghost Hunters, he's not a plumber by day and a specter sleuth by night. He's a mechanical engineer with a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and had you suggested a few short years ago that ghosts were in our midst, he would have smiled and shook his head in total disagreement.
But strange things have happened.
Fourteen years ago, Lechter launched a company (now called Technology Alternatives Corp.) to produce ultra-low-radiation computer monitors. When people asked how they could verify the claim that his monitor had nearly zero emissions, he responded by manufacturing a comparatively inexpensive gauss meter that they could use to take their own readings.
The big surprise came about a year and a half ago, when a ghost hunter called Lechter to say gauss meters, which are usually used to measure radiation and electromagnetic fields, had been used for decades to track down ghosts. And that, it turns out, is what a good number of folks were doing with Lechter's $40 meter. (He sells 30,000 a year, he says.) Lechter, the man who had never seen a ghost -- nor sought one out -- thought it all ridiculous, as any nonbeliever would. But his curiosity was piqued.
Only after hearing hundreds of compelling stories and seeing thousands of ghostly images posted online did he convert. "Finally, I came up with a theory of what ghosts are from an electromagnetic perspective," he says. Let's just say he compares human thought to radio signals and the light from stars, and maintains they all are manifestations of energy and that all persist into eternity. It's a comparison other scientific types might dispute.
Still, Lechter's here this evening, hoping to encounter a ghost, a spirit or some otherworldly apparition. Maybe by the grave of the Civil War vet. Or over there, where the child is buried. Or what about here, where Fort Lauderdale founder Frank Stranahan, who drowned himself, is laid to rest?
The best times for ghost hunting are 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., someone casually remarks, not 6:30 in the evening. Howard prefers stalking ghosts indoors so "you can rule out bugs, pollen and moisture" as the source of the blobs, light smears and strange markings that in photographs pass as ghostly images. Silently the group pushes on, searching one quadrant of the cemetery, then the next. A breeze flutters leaves in the trees nearby, but nothing moves the meters' needles into the ghost range.
A caretaker drives by to tell the visitors the cemetery is closing. "Ninety percent of the time," says Desiré, "you don't find anything." It's a pursuit that definitely tests one's patience. The Kesselmans plan another local outing soon. Target this time -- Stranahan House. Surely, they'll get lucky there. Margo Harakas can be reached at mharakas@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4728.
posted by mitchel at 11:47 PM - 
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home