10 Ghostly Mysteries of Canada

No.10 - The Walker Theatre's Ghostly Performers

Winnipeg, Manitoba

Inspired by a prominent Chicago theatre, Corliss Powers Walker's extensive 2,000-seat theatre opened in 1907 and would prove influential in shaping Winnipeg's artistic history. Walker would also create a series of theatres across the country. By the time he stopped working at Winnipeg's theatre in 1933, the seeds had already been sown for a haunting.

Stage actors Laurence Irving and Mabel Hackney drowned in 1914 and ever since they've been apparently engaged in ghostly singing, shouting and stage performances. Recordings have documented the sounds, and the ghostly twosome is known to hold impromptu performances to this day.

No.9 - The Hatley Castle Ghost

Victoria, British Columbia

The building now known as the Royal Roads Military College was originally a castle replica built by the former Premier James Dunsmuir in 1908. Known for its popular social functions, the house was eventually bought by another family in the 1930s. They soon began seeing the ghost of a young man killed in an earlier war.

When the building became a military college, the young ghost remained and he was joined by the ghostly Laura Dunsmuir. She would regularly mess up blankets, drop kitchen pots and watch the soldiers, all in an alleged effort to save them from a wartime death.

No.8 - The Haunted Five Fishermen Restaurant

Halifax, Nova Scotia

One of Canada's earliest schools in 1817, this historic Halifax building became

an art school and eventually a mortuary. As fate would have it, the mortuary was present during the sinking of the Titanic and the Halifax Explosion of 1917.

In 1975, the building became the Five Fishermen Restaurant, and while the food is great, so are the ghosts. Staff and paranormal investigators have recorded strange knocks, seen fast shadows ducking behind the bar, and felt taps on the shoulder. The ghosts have remained mostly invisible, except for an old grey-haired man who enters the bar during the l ate hours.

No.7 - The Banff Springs Hotel's Hidden Room

Banff, Alberta

The opening of the Banff Springs Hotel introduced tourists to the wonders of the Canadian Rockies. What these visitors didn't know, however, was that the hotel was built with a hidden room that only the construction crew knew about. Undiscovered until 1926, the area around the room was blamed for housing spirits and frightening guests.

The 1928 re-opening of the hotel removed the room, but spirits have continued to linger. A ghostly bellhop named Sam offers to open doors for guests and a long-deceased bride haunts the bridal suite and re-enacts the living moment when her dress caught on fire.

No.6 - The Great Amherst Mystery

Amherst, NovaScotia

After an attempted sexual assault in 1878, Esther Cox was victimized by an alleged poltergeist. The attacks began as noises and progressed to the point where Esther was experiencing seizures and continual pain. A death threat even appeared on her bedroom wall.

Actor and psychic investigator Walter Hubbell stayed with Esther's family in an attempt to save her. It was determined that the poltergeist was several spirits, most notably that shoemaker Bob Nickle, but no one knew why Esther was targeted. After going to jail for arson (which she blamed on the poltergeists), Esther was released and the spirits let her be.

No.5 - The Dagg Poltergeist

Clarendon, Quebec

The Daggs were a peaceful family in a Quebec farmhouse in the late 1800s. After they adopted a Scottish orphan named Dinah, a poltergeist began to harass them. Smashed windows, strange fires and moved objects were commonplace, and finally owner George Dagg asked journalist Percy Woodcock to see the events for himself.

Woodcock, Dagg and 15 others watched as the poltergeist started multiple fires, moved kitchen jugs through the house, and tossed stones through windows. Each witness signed documents stating that they had seen the poltergeist and after creating a sufficient spectacle, the spirit left the Daggs alone some three months later.

No.4 - The Baldoon Mystery

Wallaceburg, Ontario

Between 1830 and 1840, John McDonald bought a lucrative patch of Ontario land. He immediately got offers to resell it, especially from an old woman who wouldn't take no for an answer. McDonald refused, only to be plagued by supernatural activity like crashing poles, unknown footsteps and bullets flying through his windows.

Fearful, McDonald visited a psychic who told him to wound any strange birds lurking nearby because it would also wound the perpetrator. McDonald noticed a black headed-goose and after hitting it with a rock, he noticed the next day that the old woman from earlier was now suffering from a broken arm.

No.3 - The Wynyard Ghost

Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

Major Wynyard was a British officer serving in Canada during the American War of Independence. On October 23, 1823, Wynyard was having dinner with his fellow officers when a ghost entered. The other men were afraid, but Wynyard recognized the spirit as his brother. The spirit waved and disappeared before the men noted the date and time of the appearance.

Following the incident, Wynyard received mail from his family in England. A letter informed him that his brother had died two days to the hour after his ghostly appearance in Canada. With multiple witnesses and written documentation, this ghostly tale refuses to go away.

No.2 - Peter MacIntyre's Cemetery Visit

Tracadie, Prince Edward Island

Peter MacIntyre joined some men for an evening of drinking and fireside chats. One man told the others about a spirit that was haunting the Scotch Fort Cemetery. MacIntyre wasn't afraid and offered to go the cemetery alone and put a hay-fork in front of a grave to announce his visit.

The next morning, Peter was found dead at the graveyard with a clear expression of fright and his hay-fork stuck through the back of his jacket. Did one of the men set him up? Was an angry spirit responsible for his death? No one knows for sure.

No.1 - The Haunted Mackenzie House

Toronto, Ontario

William Lyon Mackenzie was Toronto's first mayor. Politics ran through his family as his great grandson William Lyon Mackenzie King eventually became prime minister. During Mackenzie King's tenure, his great-grandfather's old house was up for demolishment, but he agreed to keep it standing as a museum.

The Mackenzie House still stands, but it has been haunted for over 50 years. Ghostly sightings of the old mayor and his wife have been described in detail, as have sounds of his old printing press and his master piano. For visitors, it's now a classic museum that is filled with history and supernatural spooks.

Happy Halloween!

With prospects of ghosts and goblins right around the corner and pumpkins alight with candles, the spookiest of seasons is upon us. One of the traditional plants associated with this season are pumpkins, or “Jack-o’-lanterns.”

The history of the “Jack of the Lantern” dates back to several legends. One legend is based on an old Irish tale. According to this legend, Jack was a mean person who played a trick on the devil. This made the devil mad, so the devil sentenced Jack to walk the earth carrying a lantern made out of a turnip with a burning coal inside.

Jack became “Jack of the Lantern.” This was later shortened to “Jack-o’-lantern.” From this legend came the Irish tradition of placing lighted jack-o-lanterns by doors on Halloween.

Another legend is based on the Celtic celebration of the dead. Celtic ritual believed that the souls of the dead returned on the evening before November 1. Pumpkins were lit in a celebration of the harvest and as an honoring of dead ancestors.

The first fruit that was lit and carved was actually turnips and gourds. The Irish also carved potatoes. Sometime along the way, it was discovered that pumpkins were bigger and easier to carve. European customs included the lighting of pumpkins with scary faces to ward off evil spirits.

Several other legends abound, but all the legends agree that the lighting of the lantern helps ward off evil spirits.

The Suicide Woods of Mt. Fuji

"The perfect place to die." That's how Aokigahara was described in Wataru Tsurumui's bestselling book The Complete Manual of Suicide. A dense, dark forest bordering Mt. Fuji, Aokigahara is infamous throughout Japan as a popular spot for those taking their final journey. In 2002, 78 bodies were found within it, replacing the previous record of 73 in 1998. By May of 2006, at least 16 new suicides had already been found. More than a few of them were even carrying copies of Tsurumui's book. No one knows how many bodies go undiscovered.

Signs emblazoned with messages such as "Please reconsider" and "Please consult the police before you decide to die!" are nailed to trees throughout the forest. However, the woods have such a reputation that these minor deterrents do little to stop the determined. Local residents say they can always tell who is going into the forest for its stunning natural beauty, who is hunting after the macabre and who is planning never to return. "We've got everything here that points to us being a death spot. Perhaps we should just promote ourselves as 'Suicide City' and encourage people to come here," the exasperated mayor of Aokigahara has been quoted as saying.

Part of the appeal is dying at the foot of the sacred Mt. Fuji. Part of it is the foreboding nature of Aokigahara, so dense and thick that from just a few kilometers inside it no sounds can be heard other than those produced by the forest itself. Legends surround the place; for instance, there are said to be massive underground iron deposits that cause compasses to go haywire, trapping innocents along with the purposely suicidal. Japan's Self Defence Force regularly runs training exercises throughout Aokigahara, and claims to have had no trouble with their military-grade lensatic compasses. They admit, though, that commercially available equipment would be pretty much useless.


Aokigahara is considered the most haunted location in all of Japan, a purgatory for yurei, the unsettled ghosts of Japan who have been torn unnaturally soon from their lives and who howl their suffering on the winds. Spiritualists say that the trees themselves are filled with a malevolent energy, accumulated from centuries of suicides. They don't want you to go back out.

However, even in these haunted woods, regular humans still have a job to do. Forestry workers rotate in and out of shifts at a station building in Aokigahara, and occasionally they will come upon unfortunate bodies in various states of decomposition, usually hanging from trees or partially eaten by animals. The bodies are brought down to the station, where a spare room is kept especially for such occasions. In this room are two beds: one for the corpse and one for someone to sleep next to it. Yup, you read that correctly. It is thought that if the corpse is left alone, the lonely and unsettled yurei will scream the whole night through, and the body will move itself into the regular sleeping quarters. In inimitable style, the workers jan-ken (rock-paper-scissors) to see who gets to sleep with the body. And you thought your job was rough. (above taken from the SeekJapan website http://www.seekjapan.jp/article-1/767/The+Suicide+Woods+of+Mt.+Fuji )

Hunting ghosts in Regina

REGINA -- If there's something strange in your neighbourhood, who you gonna call?

Ghost Hunters! ... Research Team.

Dana Hryhoriw and Wendell Kapay are the Ghost Hunters Research Team (GHRT). They've been helping people with paranormal problems since 2004 -- for free, mind you, all for the greater good.

"One of the biggest things for us is we're not exactly what you see on TV," explains Hryhoriw. "To us, these spirits were and are still somebody's loved ones. We go by respect first and foremost. We try to communicate with the spirits rather than banish them."

Hryhoriw and Kapay say they help roughly 30 people in Regina every year deal with suspected spirits or unexplained noises in their houses. Every investigation is strictly confidential.

"Usually when we go there we'll take a look at every alternative possible. We don't necessarily go there looking for a spirit, but we also don't debunk our client's claims," Hryhoriw says.

They communicate with the spirits using a variety of equipment including night-vision camcorders, cameras, voice recorders, motion sensors, thermometers, candles and compasses.

"I like to use a compass ... Because of the magnetic force of the spirit, it makes the compass kind of dance around when you stand still," Hryhoriw says.

They've saved clips on their tape recorder: A girl's voice in an empty graveyard, a mysterious voice saying "hi" in a suspected haunted house. They've also accumulated creepy photographs over the years. Some have random smoke appearing, while others have orbs streaking through the frame.

They have always considered ghost hunting a hobby, but when they moved from Wynyard to Regina in 2004 they formed their research team. More precisely, the research team formed after the night Hryhoriw saw her first ghost.

She says she and her partner wanted to explore Darke Hall at the University of Regina campus on College Avenue. Just as they were leaving, Hryhoriw says she saw something she'll never forget.

"I looked up at the front doors of Darke Hall, and there was a man standing there," she says. "Just the way he was standing there and looking at us, it was like 1,000 volts of electricity surged through me. It took my breath away."

She didn't know at the time that this mysterious man, who appeared and disappeared in the old hall, was actually Francis Darke, the founding father of Darke Hall. They went to a library to find out more information on the hall when she saw him in a book.

"That's the man I saw," she says pointing to his picture in the library book. The man, 64 years deceased, appeared to her looking the same as he did in a photo taken in the early 1930s.

Both Hryhoriw and Kapay experienced the paranormal at a young age. Kapay explains some of the noises he heard as child.

"I would hear things in the night that I shouldn't have been hearing," he says. Like the rocking chair that would rock back and forth when only he and his brother were home. When his father died, Kapay believed that his spirit stayed in the house.

"Cupboard doors were opening and closing on their own," he says.

Hryhoriw's first real paranormal experience happened while she was in the eighth grade. She was very close to her grandfather when she was young, and in the months before he died she had the same dream every night.

"I was in school, wearing these certain type of clothes. I'd get a call to the office, so I'd leave my homeroom, go down to the office and they would tell me, 'Get ready, your parents are picking you up, your grandpa has passed away,'" she recalls.

Night after night, the same visions played in her dreaming mind. In every dream she had the same clothes on and every time the same result occurred. Disturbed by the dreams, she decided against wearing those particular clothes together and valued every moment with her grandfather.

One day she had slept in so she threw on some clothes in a rush. When she got to her homeroom class, the moment played out just as it did in her dream.

"The minute the secretary said, 'Please send Dana to the office,' I looked down and I realized I was wearing those clothes and I cried all the way to the office," she says. "It hit me like a ton of bricks."

Losing someone so close to her stung, so she's vowed to help out others who have lost loved ones as well.

"If somebody has unfinished business, or they passed away without being able to say goodbye to a loved one, for me, my ultimate goal would be to capture that message and just to be able help them pass on," she says.

With Halloween approaching, calls are coming more frequently for the Ghost Hunters. Because so many people ask for their help, they won't stop their investigations, not until the day they finally get an answer.

"For most people it's one of the most popular unanswered questions: What's out there?" she says. (above taken from the Leader-Post website )

How To Photograph Ghosts

GHOST STORIES can be frightening... ghost voices in EVPs can be intriguing… but what people really want in the way of haunting evidence are photographs. Photos and videos of ghosts provide the most dramatic evidence for the existence of the spirit world, providing we can be certain that they have not been Photoshopped or otherwise hoaxed. That's why so many ghost hunting groups are so eager to point to the orbs and "ecto" in their photos – they desperately want that hard evidence. Unfortunately, orbs and "ecto", in my opinion, stand as rather poor evidence for ghostly activity since so many other things, such as dust and water vapor, can account for them.

So how can we succeed at photographing ghosts? Here are some ideas.

GO WHERE THE GHOSTS ARE

This seems like an obvious point, but how do we know where the ghosts are? Well, at any given moment, we don't, really. They could be all around us, for all we know. But our best bet is to go to locations where ghost activity has been reported.

Many ghost hunting groups like to hang out in cemeteries with their cameras and recorders. Although I've heard some very good EVP from cemeteries, I haven't seen many convincing photos or video taken there. Just because people are buried there, why should ghosts linger in cemeteries any more than in other locations? (I think the ghost hunting groups just like the spooky atmosphere.)

A better bet would be houses, buildings and other locations where people have actually experienced ghost activity – better yet, where ghostly apparitions have actually been seen.

EQUIPMENT

The type and quality of the photo equipment you use can be important. Most people are using digital cameras these days, and although you don’t need an expensive model, the higher the resolution the better. Cameras of low resolution can produce images with a lot of digital artifacts, especially in low light situations. This artifacting can produce elements in photos that might look paranormal, but aren’t. (Even if they are paranormal, the blocky resolution makes them more difficult to confirm.)

Use cameras of at least 5 megapixels of resolution.

WHAT TO SHOOT

Fortunately, large-capacity memory cards for digital cameras have become quite affordable, allowing us to take lots and lots of photographs, even with high-resolution cameras, before they have to be emptied. So take lots and lots of photos, especially in the areas where ghost activity and apparitions have been reported.

HOW TO SHOOT

Set up your camcorder on a tripod and let them run unattended. You can also try this method with still cameras equipped with a function of snapping a picture on its own every few seconds. Make sure your fellow ghost hunters aren't creeping around this area very much.

WATCH WHAT YOU SHOOT

Avoid shooting into mirrors or other reflective surfaces, especially with a flash. Flash reflections can result in too many questionable images that can be caused by smudges and dust on the reflective surface.

Some researchers believe that ghost images are more readily caught in a reflective medium like a mirror. (In fact, the ghost research group I belong to got one of its best images this way.) But if you do want to shoot into a mirror, do not use a flash. If there's not enough light available, put the camera on a tripod or other stable surface to avoid blurring.

DAY OR NIGHT?

Here's something that occurred to me as I was considering this article. Should we use flashes at all? (It's the flash that produces those questionable orbs and ecto.)

Should we even be doing this research at night in the dark? This is when most ghost hunting groups conduct their research, but why? Watch any episode of Ghost Hunters and they not only conduct their research at night, but also switch off all the lights. Again, why? Because it's spookier? Is there any evidence or research to show that we are more likely to capture ghost photos, video or EVP in the dark than in the middle of the day?

In fact, the opposite might be true. Take a look through this site's gallery of The Best Ghost Photographs Ever Taken. What's one thing they most have in common? Most were taken during the day or in normal light conditions.

So, ghost hunters, why don't we try that as well?

BE LUCKY

The one other thing the photographs in that gallery have in common is this: they happened by chance (with only one or two exceptions, I think). The photographers were not out trying to photograph ghosts. They were just taking pictures for some other purpose, and the ghosts happened to show up in the photos. In fact, that's how most great ghost experiences occur – when we least expect them and on their terms.

Ghost phenomena are fleeting and mercurial. We cannot control when they will happen or how. By definition, we cannot control our luck in capturing a ghost on camera or video. The best we can do is go where the ghosts are, be patient and be persistent. We may never get a photo of an apparition, but if we do, the effort will have been worthwhile. (above taken from the Paranormal About.com website )

Thanks

We here at Prairie Specters just wanted to send out a big Thank-you to Jo-Anne Christensen for taking the time to speak with us this weekend. It was great to meet you and we are looking forward to reading your new Saskatchewan ghost book.

The Perfumes of the Dead

I’ve just finished reading Avery Gilbert’s What the Nose Knows, which reviews the six stages of postmortem decay: fresh/bloat/active decay/advanced decay/dry decay/remains. Everything’s quiet at first, but by the second day the gut bacteria send out a skunky sulphur dioxide, which shifts to a sickly sweet smell once the organs start liquefying. Then you get protein breakdown which produces nitrogenous compounds like putrescine and cadaverine with a characteristic nitrogen ammonia reek. In the phase of dry decay, the body smells like “wet fur and leather.” Just in case you wanted to know, and you’ll impress everyone if you stumble across a rotting body.

But I’m more interested in the spirits of the dead, not the dead meat part. What do ghosts smell like? On all the current crop of psychic or paranormal shows, the medium has a chat with a dead relative and maybe describes what they look like but rarely do they say what they smell like (the technical term for a psychic smelling ability is clairolfaction.) Occasionally you will hear of someone describing something banal like Uncle Bob’s pipe tobacco, but it is not a big feature of modern day channeling or mediumship.

In the19th century, during the heyday of Spiritualism, seance circles were full of mysterious raps and more flamboyant ghostly communications. Among the most spectacular phenomenon were phantoms that temporarily assumed a solid form, or “materializations.” William Moses was an Oxford educated minister, and one of the most scholarly and well-respected mediums of the 1870’s. During his seance circles, pearls and precious stones appeared from thin air, columns of light hovered over the sitters, and ethereal concerts played on invisible instruments. But a more unusual feature of his mediumistic sessions, was the spontaneous oozing of scented oil from his head, or the mists of perfume from the ceiling including beautiful rains of verbena, hay, musk, sandalwood and roses. He described some of these phenomenon in his notebooks:

“I find it difficult to convey any idea of the subtle odours that have been diffused through the room, or of the permanence of the scent. It is usually the first manifestation and the last. The perfume is sprinkled in showers from the ceiling, and borne in waves of cool air round the circle, especially when the atmosphere is close and the air oppressive. Its presence in a particlar place is shown to me by the luminous haze which accompanies it. I can trace its progress round the circle by the light... and can frequently say to a certain sitter: ‘You will smell the scent directly. I see the luminous form going to you.’ My vision has always been confirmed by the exclamations of delight which follow.”

“When we first observed this manifestation, it was attended by a great peculiarity. The odour was circumscribed in space, confined to a belt or a band, beyond which it did not penetrate. It surrounded the circle to a few feet, and outside of that belt was not perceptible; or it was drawn across the room as a cordon, so that it was posible to walk into it and out of it again - the presence and a sense of the odour and the
temperature of the air which acompanied it being most marked... Within it the temperature was cool and the scent strong, outside of it the air was decidedly warmer, and not a trace of the perfume was perceptible. It was no question of fancy. The scent was too strong for that.”

“I have known the same phenomenon to occur in the open air. I have been walking with a friend, for instance, and we have walked into air laden with scent, and through it again into the natural atmosphere.... I have even known cases where wet scent has been produced and showered down into the open air. On one special occasion, in the Isle of Wight, my attention was attracted by the patter of some fine spray on a lady’s silk dress, as we were walking along a road. One side of the dress was plentifully besprinkled with fine spray, which gave forth a delicious odour, very clearly perceptible for some distance round.”

“Great quantities of dry musk have been from time to time thrown about in the house where our circle meets. On a late occasion it fell in very considerable quantitites over a writing desk at which a lady was sitting in the act of writing letters. It was midday and no one was near at the time, yet the particles of musk were so numerous as to pervade the whole contents of the desk. They were placed, for no throwing would have produced such a result, at the very bottom of the desk , and between the papers which it contained. The odour was most prounounced, and the particles, when gathered together, made up a considerable packet.”

Other materializations were not always so lovely. For instance, a Polish medium named Franek Kluski, who was known for contacting animal spirits (often mediums were asked to produce the ghosts of departed pets, so they could be reunited with their owners) let things slip into high strangeness during one of his sessions in 1919. Apparently the forms of random stray dead animals and birds began to appear. In one case the spirit of a lion materialized and began to lick the sitters, “with a moist and prickly tongue, and gave forth the odour of a great feline, and even after the seance the sitters, and especially the medium, were impregnated with this acrid scent as if they had made a long stay in a menagerie among wild beasts.” It got even weirder at a later seance when an “apeman” appeared and began to carry sofas through the air, and press its shaggy head against people. One of the reporters said, “ A smell came from it like that of a deer or a wet dog. When one of the sitters put out his hand the pithecanthrope seized it and licked it slowly three times. Its tongue was large and soft. At other times we all felt out legs touched by what seemed to be frolicsome dogs.”

As you can see, our contemporary ghost-raising efforts seem very dull in comparison, and much less fragrant. (above taken from the Sniffapalooza Magazine website )

More Great News for Prairie Specters

We here at Prairie Specters have been asked to do an interview with Jo-Anne Christensen, author of Ghost Stories of Saskatchewan and More Ghost Stories of Saskatchewan as well as numerous other great ghost related books. I'm very excited to have this opportunity and will keep the site posted as I get more information.

Are Magnetic Changes Around the Globe Enhancing Paranormal Phenomena?

After modeling nine years of spot-on satellite data published in a recent edition of Nature Geoscience, geophysicists now say that frequent changes in the churning movements of Earth’s liquid outer core could be weakening our planet’s magnetic field. National Geographic reported earlier this week that Danish geophysicists who co-authored the study have commented on the strange, surprising way that changes appear to take place in Earth’s magnetosphere in various parts of the world. This has prompted some to ponder whether or not paranormal phenomenon might be triggered by such activity, and even if the Mayans might have been correct about their doomsday theories for the ever-steadily approaching 2012.

Earth’s interior is actually composed of three solid layers and a single outer liquid layer which is pure molten metal, believed to be nearly as hot as the surface of the sun (and to my friends at the Shavertron Discussion group, this doesn’t include the portions that are inhabited by evil Deros, of course). The innermost layer is a large, iron ball infused with sulfur and other minerals which, though surrounded by intense heat, is also compressed from every angle by such pressure that it remains solid. Liquid iron makes up the outer core, and movement of these liquid outer regions works to create an electrical current, and this in turn generates the magnetic field surrounding our planet, which is close to 1,500 miles thick.

However, such magnetic changes are nothing new, and if anything, in contrast to the short time humans have spent on Earth, such fluctuations might be considered commonplace. In the distant past, Earth’s magnetic field has actually reversed hundreds of times, though such a change might take up to thousands of years to take place in a single instance. So far as how strange phenomenon might relate, could it be that areas where such magnetic phenomena are more active are also host to more paranormal activity?(above taken from the Gralien Report website )

What are ghost boxes and how do they work?

The argument has been made that Thomas Edison was working on a ghost communication device – a ghost box of sorts, to contact the dead. However, there are many Edison experts that would argue that it was only legend, a myth that is untrue. They will point out that he neither believed in the afterlife, nor did he believe spirits and ghosts could be contacted through an electronic device. Whatever the truth behind Edison, one has to believe it makes a good story and backdrop to the ghost box. Even more intriguing, some today claim they are in contact with Thomas Edison via the ghost box, but many respected researchers of the latest ghost box technology have yet to make contact with the famous, dead inventor.

That brings us to the latest development of the ghost box. EVP or electronic voice phenomena was discovered in the late ‘50s, and has become well known today thanks to numerous TV shows featuring ghost investigators. Many are not aware of the two-way communication devices called ghost boxes. Following on the heels of the Spiricom, a ghost box of sorts that many believe to be the first two-way communication device between the earthly realm and the spiritual realm, Frank’s box truly was the first of its kind. Frank’s Box is a ghost box that produces random voltage to create raw audio from an AM tuner, where it is then amplified and then fed into an echo chamber and recorded. In short, ghost boxes such as Frank’s box create audio bits and white noise that ghosts and/or spirits can then manipulate into forming words – real time two-way communication. Frank Sumption was the original inventor of the ghost box, as he conceived of the idea by experimenting with Stefan Bion’s EVPMaker software to record EVP, and was also inspired by an October 1995 Popular Electronics Magazine article that asked, “Are the dead trying to communicate with us through electronic means? Try these experiments and see for yourself.”

Today Frank is experimenting on various improvements to his ghost box design. Most other ghost boxes are not random band sweeping, but linear sweeping of the AM or FM bands. That is not to say other bands, such as shortwave, weather, etc are not being experimented with by Frank and other Instrumental Transcommunication experimenters. Others since have developed their own ghost boxes, such as Paranormal System’s "MiniBox" and Joe Cioppi’s “Joe’s Box.”

The ghost box can be used for EVP, as it can be recorded, then analyzed for messages from spirits and ghosts. However, what makes the ghost box unique is that it can be heard audibly through either an external speaker or headset, where responses from the other side can be heard and responded to live – not unlike chatting with someone by walkie-talkie. It does require the user to train his or her ear to hear the messages that are brought forth, as the noise and audio bits can at times be somewhat distracting. But if one experiments long enough with a ghost box, it will become apparent that the audio sound bites and white noise will begin to be manipulated to form answers to questions, phrases and more. For this reason alone, we recommend recording all sessions and listening to them later. Upon playback, one might be amazed at what is captured in the audio.

The function of the ghost box and how it works seems to be affected by the strength of radio signals in an area. Poor signal quality reduces the ability for spirits and ghosts to make contact through the device. Perhaps there is not enough audio bits to be manipulated successfully for real-time communication. That would indicate that enhancing the antenna on these devices could improve results by the researcher, according to Bruce Halliday.

The biggest debate over the ghost box might be just who in the heck is coming through these devices? Are they spirits? Ghosts? Demons (the religious ask) Our own projected thoughts? The research continues in this area, but many believe both ghosts, spirits and beings from another realm are making contact through the ghost box. Experimenters have received positive, good messages, as well as negative and cursing messages. This would indicate that perhaps the range of messengers who are able to manipulate this device into audible words is broad.

Some believe that there are spirits from the light called “controls” or “operators” who work to establish contact and can bring other spirits and ghosts forward through the ghost box. Some of these same operators have been recorded coming through different ghost boxes by different people in different geographical locations. This would lead one to think that operators are involved from the other side in order to try and organize a grid of control and functionality. Whatever the case may hold to be true, it does appear that one’s connection with the other side seems to influence how good and what type of results will be experienced through the ghost box. It just may be that those who are recording the best results might be psychic in nature, truly connected with the spirit realm prior to the existence of any ghost box. ( above taken from the Angels & Ghosts website )