Ghost radio

I got an email yesterday with two links and a message.  The message said:

Wondering what you think of this.  I'm not convinced but I think it's interesting.  This guy says he's made a device that can allow two-way communication with the dead.  The messages he picks up do seem to be answering specific questions and comments he's making.  Not just random words or phrases. 

Watch the guy's video and see what you think.  I'm keeping an open mind about it, but I'm curious what you think. 

Sincerely,

T. K.

The links he provided were to YouTube videos made by a guy named Steve Huff, selling software that is called "The Impossible Box."  He claims that this software is manipulable by the disembodied spirits of the dead, who apparently surround us.  The first link plays audio recordings of messages that Huff has received using the software; in the second, he explains to us how he thinks it works.

Here are a few of the messages he received:

• I am the portal
• Let there be light
• The light will surround you, Mr. Huff
• Blessed art thou
• Olee's at your side
• The devil's gonna profit from you

And so forth and so on.  The software is available for download for $49.95 (and can be purchased here).

So I watched both videos.  Predictably, like the person who sent me the links, I'm unconvinced.

The way it works, which he does get to on the second video (about halfway through), is that the software scans internet radio, and pulls out words and phrases that it then plays for you.  Allegedly, this software only turns on when the ghosts have something to say.  "There is no continuous scan of audio," Huff tells us.  "The scan only starts when the spirits want to speak."

When it comes to explaining how the programmer created code that can specifically be manipulated by the dead, he's a little cagier.  The Impossible Box contains "software with all kinds of tech," he says, giving no other real details presumably to protect his proprietary interest, but also preventing any kind of critical analysis of what's really going on in there.

The real problem here, though, is the same one that plagues attempts to demonstrate that rock musicians have engaged in backmasking -- hiding demonic messages in songs, so that when you play them backwards you hear voices saying things like "Here's to my sweet Satan."  (That one is from one of the most famous claims of backmasking -- in Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven.")  As Michael Shermer points out in his TED talk "Why People Believe Weird Things," the message only becomes clear when someone tells you what the demons are saying via a caption -- just as Huff does in his video.  Before we're primed by being told what the message is, it more or less sounds like gibberish.  "You can't miss it," Shermer says, "when I tell you what's there."

The other thing that is troubling is the question of why ghosts have to have source audio in order to speak.  If they can manipulate software, you'd think they'd be able to do the same thing without having to rely on picking out words from internet radio.  He tried making a "spirit box" that used white noise instead of scanning radio, Huff says, and it didn't work.  "Spirits have a hard time forming words out of white noise as a source audio," he tells us.  "They need audio with human words to really be able to leave you sentences "

Which I find awfully convenient.  We're given garbled phrases, made up from words pulled from internet radio, and we get to decide what it is we're hearing, and then assign meaning to it.  While it's possible that we're talking with ghosts, what's more likely is that we're seeing some kind of audio version of the ideomotor effect, where our own subconscious decisions and expectations of meaning are creating a message where there really is none.

Now, let me conclude with saying something I've said before; I'm not saying that the afterlife is impossible, nor that spirits (should such exist) might not try to communicate with the living.  All I'm saying is that the evidence I've thus far seen is unconvincing, and I find the perfectly natural explanations for what is going on in The Impossible Box (and other spirit communication devices) sufficient to account for any ghostly messages Huff and others have received.  If anyone does decide to shell out the fifty bucks for the software, however, I'd be really interested to hear what your experience is with it -- and especially, if you got information from Great-Aunt Marjorie that you couldn't have otherwise got, and not just vague messages like "The light will surround you."

Until then, however, I'm afraid that I'm still in the "dubious" camp.

****************************************

Unreal estate

Following hard on the heels of yesterday's post about belief in the occult causing you to receive visits from the Shadow World, today we have: a real estate company who will provide a paranormal investigation of any home you're considering buying, to make sure that it doesn't come with spirits pre-installed, as it were.

Bungalo, a company with offices in Dallas, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Tampa, is offering a special during the spooky month of October, providing a "Paranormal Inspection Report" of properties for sale.  Their site says:

To perform the Paranormal Inspections on our homes, we brought in known experts in the paranormal sciences.  Utilizing their keen insight into the paranormal world and the latest realm-to-realm communication technology, these paranormal pros have examined our homes from top to bottom for anything out of the ordinary. 

The inspectors then disclose their findings to you, the home buyer, through an official Paranormal Inspection Report, which you can find on any listing’s document vault on our website.  If an inspector does encounter any unwanted paranormal activity in a home, the space in question will be properly cleansed for the buyer’s peace of mind.

One of their inspectors is paranormal researcher Becky Moyer, who wanders around with a device called a "Spirit Box" that detects the EMF fluctuations many believe are associated with the presence of supernatural entities.

[Image licensed under the Creative Commons LuckyLouie, Nightshot2, CC BY-SA 3.0]

So I looked into that a little, and man, there are a lot of models of "Spirit Box."  One of them, the "Ghost Meter EMF Sensor," is only $34.95 (plus shipping and handling), and I thought it might be instructive to take a look at some of the (804) ratings customers had given it.  Many of them were laudatory, claiming that the thing had found ghosts pretty much all over the place, but a few of them were less positive:

• I get no response with this even in circumstance where I know there should definitely be a reading of some type.
• Doesn't work.  A waste of money.  I should have got a different version of it, this thing beeps at unnecessary stuff, the fridge, the cereal, the car, the dog, the window.  This is such a gimmick.
• Goes off on most things like couch, plastic stuff, and clothes. I guess most things I own are haunted.
• Only beeps when close to rocks.  Otherwise it stays idle nonstop.  Won’t blink or beep.  Spent 2 hours in a cemetery without a single light blip until I got to the entrance where the rocks were.  As soon as I walk away from the rocks it stopped.

And then there's this one, that should win an award in the Run-On Sentence Competition 2019:

• Do not buy I want [sic] all around my house and there was only one place in my house I thought would [sic] haunted because every time I was there in my shower I felt like somebody was behind me so I go all around my house nothing beats [sic] go figure when I go into the bathroom it goes crazy I wanted to determine if something was making [sic] sure enough it was the vent making it go off when I turn them then [sic] off it wouldn't do it the second I turn them back on it went crazy so it detected a vent not a ghost

So I guess it's useful if you're not sure where your vents are.  Or, considering some of the other reviews, your couch, fridge, cereal, car, dog, window, rocks, or clothes.

In any case, it's to be expected anything you use will get mixed results, because if there was unequivocal evidence of ghostly presences, that would pretty much settle the debate over whether the paranormal world exists.  I actually have an EMF Ghost Detector app on my phone, and periodically I'll wander around my house to see what the Spiritual Plane is up to.  Not much, most days, although it does kind of go crazy when I get near my computer, which could either be because (1) it's a piece of electronic equipment and thus emits an EMF signal by default, or else (2) it's possessed.

The latter is as good an explanation for some of its behavior as any.

In any case, back to the real estate company's offer.  What I'm most curious about is the last bit, which is how you "cleanse" a place of paranormal entities.  I'm guessing bringing in a Catholic priest to do an exorcism is a bit extreme, so what are our other options?  Burning some incense?  That wouldn't work if it was, say, the spirit of a dead hippie.  Telling the spirit, politely but firmly, to get lost?  Can't imagine it'd be that easy.

But the agency's website didn't elaborate on that part, so I guess we'll just have to assume that they have their methods.

I kind of wish there'd been this option when I bought my house.  Our younger son said he always felt like there was "something there" when he was alone downstairs working in the workshop (which is where he spent a great many of his waking hours).  He said he didn't think it was hostile, but did catch movement out of the corner of his eye more than once when everyone, including the dogs, were upstairs.  And considering how weird this house is in other respects -- the previous owner was notorious for ill-conceived and (often) partly-completed home improvement ideas, what my dad called "Do It To Yourself Projects" -- it wouldn't surprise me if there were strange forces at work here.

But nothing was mentioned in the Disclosure Form, and in any case we've been here for seventeen years, so I guess we're stuck with it either way.

*****************************

This week's Skeptophilia book-of-the-week is from an author who has been a polarizing figure for quite some time; the British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.  Dawkins has long been an unapologetic critic of religion, and in fact some years ago wrote a book called The God Delusion that caused thermonuclear-level rage amongst the Religious Right.

But the fact remains that he is a passionate, lucid, and articulate exponent of the theory of evolution, independent of any of his other views.  This week's book recommendation is his wonderful The Greatest Show on Earth, which lays out the evidence for biological evolution in a methodical fashion, in terminology accessible to a layperson, in such a way that I can't conceive how you'd argue against it.  Wherever you fall on the spectrum of attitudes toward evolution (and whatever else you might think of Dawkins), you should read this book.  It's brilliant -- and there's something eye-opening on every page.

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

Ghost radio

I got an email yesterday with two links and a message.  The message said:

Wondering what you think of this.  I'm not convinced but I think it's interesting.  This guy says he's made a device that can allow two-way communication with the dead.  The messages he picks up do seem to be answering specific questions and comments he's making.  Not just random words or phrases. 

Watch the guy's video and see what you think.  I'm keeping an open mind about it, but I'm curious what you think. 

Sincerely, 

T. K.

The links he provided were to YouTube videos made by a guy named Steve Huff, selling software that is called "The Impossible Box."  He claims that this software is manipulable by the disembodied spirits of the dead, who apparently surround us.  The first link plays audio recordings of messages that Huff has received using the software; in the second, he explains to us how he thinks it works.

Here are a few of the messages he received:

• I am the portal
• Let there be light
• The light will surround you, Mr. Huff
• Blessed art thou
• Olee's at your side
• The devil's gonna profit from you

And so forth and so on.  The software is available for download for $49.95 (and can be purchased here).

So I watched both videos, and predictably, I'm unconvinced.

The way it works, which he does get to on the second video (about halfway through), is that the software scans internet radio, and pulls out words and phrases that it then plays for you.  Allegedly, this software only turns on when the ghosts have something to say.  "There is no continuous scan of audio," Huff tells us.  "The scan only starts when the spirits want to speak." 

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

When it comes to explaining how the programmer created code that can specifically be manipulated by the dead, he's a little cagier.  The Impossible Box contains "software with all kinds of tech," he says, giving no other real details presumably to protect his proprietary interest, but also preventing any kind of critical analysis of what's really going on in there. 

The real problem here, though, is the same one that plagues attempts to demonstrate that rock musicians have engaged in backmasking -- hiding demonic messages in songs, so that when you play them backwards you hear voices saying things like "Here's to my sweet Satan."  (That one is from one of the most famous claims of backmasking -- in Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven.")  As Michael Shermer points out in his wonderful TED talk "Why People Believe Weird Things," the message only becomes clear when someone tells you what the demons are saying via a caption -- just as Huff does in his video.  Before we're primed by being told what the message is, it more or less sounds like gibberish.  "You can't miss it," Shermer says, "when I tell you what's there."

The other thing that is troubling is the question of why ghosts have to have source audio in order to speak.  If they can manipulate software, you'd think they'd be able to do the same thing without having to rely on picking out words from internet radio.  He tried making a "spirit box" that used white noise instead of scanning radio, Huff says, and it didn't work.  "Spirits have a hard time forming words out of white noise as a source audio," he tells us.  "They need audio with human words to really be able to leave you sentences "

Which I find awfully convenient.  We're given garbled phrases, made up from words pulled from internet radio, and we get to decide what it is we're hearing, and then assign meaning to it.  While it's possible that we're talking with ghosts, what's more likely is that we're seeing some kind of audio version of the ideomotor effect, where our own subconscious decisions and expectations of meaning are creating a message where there really is none.

Now, let me conclude with saying something I've said before; I'm not saying that the afterlife is impossible, nor that spirits (should such exist) might not try to communicate with the living.  All I'm saying is that the evidence I've thus far seen is unconvincing, and I find the perfectly natural explanations for what is going on in The Impossible Box (and other spirit communication devices) sufficient to account for any ghostly messages Huff and others have received.  If anyone does decide to shell out the fifty bucks for the software, however, I'd be really interested to hear what your experience is with it -- and especially, if you got information from Great-Aunt Marjorie that you couldn't have otherwise got, and not just vague messages like "The light will surround you."

Until then, however, I'm afraid that I'm still in the "dubious" camp.