Nice find, Learjet.  I felt like I was reading a condensed version of many of the discussions here on SV!  I particularly like following statement which has been oft-mentioned here:

Using a calculator doesn’t make you a mathematician, and using a scientific instrument doesn’t make you a scientist.

Just finished it.  Again, great find, Learjet, I'm pinning this.

Well, like in any other field, one does have to start somewhere.  And also like in other fields, it is the pioneers in that field who come up with the hypotheses and test them.  As in other fields, again, there are those who go about this in good and in bad ways (witness the NASA press release of December as just one example) which is why it is necessary for solid peer review, sharing of data (evidence), and repeated tests to make any headway.

Well, the sun DOES affect wind though other factors are involved  

I'd agree with you above in that you speak of the average ghost hunter and looking at his article, that seems to be who he's targeted or referring to.  And the average ghost hunter WOULD make those jumps (he's seen it on TV afterall)  But then that sort of person is not a pioneer in the field and is simply following those that he thinks are.  Again it all comes down to how the equipment is used (or mis-used) and the expectations of it.

Much as I'd hate to, Zak and I could go into a place, each with a handheld spot-reading EMF detector.  When we came out the conclusions reached by the two of us (even though our meters each might have reacted the same way) would be totally different.  Zak would be convinced that some dead banker was trying to kill him and I'd be much more conservative in my pronouncement.  I say 'much as I'd hate to' not only because Zak would be with me, but also because I recognize the futility of just wandering aimlessly about with the meter.

It's kind of a Catch-22.  One cannot absolutely prove that an EMF detector is ineffective without, at the same time, proving that a place has paranormal activity in the first place.

By the way, Radford is the same Radford who (rightly) just said that the magnetic boy in Serbia is just sticky lol

http://www.livescience.com/129…..ogdan.html

Orion said:

Oh yeah, temperature, there's something Ben didn't mention, though maybe he does elsewhere in the full book.  I thought ghosts were always supposed to make the temp drop, and the classic idea is that they are cold as death itself; in that case, why would a FLIR show them as a hot spot? Seems to be another big mistake.

We've whacked this one around quite a bit.  First, the FLIR they are using cannot read air temperature so there is a big problem right there.  Some experiments I've done, though, suggest that if the particulate count of the "vaporous anomaly" were high enough, it MIGHT pick it up. 

Now, as far as the cold vs hot spot.  Assuming that the FLIR could read it, the spirit is drawing energy out of the air to "manifest" (whatever that really means)  This means that the energy is going into the spirit so it should become warm.  The surrounding air is being depleted of it's energy and according to physics, remove the energy and the temperature drops.  So the cold spot that you feel would be the SHELL of the entity which would be a warm spot.  IF the FLIR can't detect the air temperature (which has gotten colder) but CAN detect the "vaporous anomaly" that is the "manifested entity" then it would show up as a warm spot.

In theory.

And that's probably more thought than any of these groups has put into the problem

Post edited 3:11 pm – August 19, 2011 by Nosfer

That's one of the problems with this "field"  To many contradictions and too many unsupported "theories" (ie, WAGs) thrown around.

Cold has been long associated with the afterlife, death, etc…consider the phrase "icy hand of death"  A variant of this is mentioned by James Shirley in the early-to mid 1600s in Death's Final Conquest:

The glories of our birth and state

Are shadows, not substantial things;

There is no armour against fate:

Death lays his icy hands on kings:

Scepter and crown

Must tumble down,

And in the dust be equal made

With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

Or in Old Fortunatus (even earlier in 1599): I faint, Death's frozen hand Congeales life's little river in my breast.

So, I would say that cold related to death (and thus ghosts) is a notion that long predates Hollywood.  It seems to run counter to the current thoughts espoused by these shows, though (the gathering of energy to manifest)  Do I trust Dekker over Jason when it comes to a theory? 

Recall, also, though, that Grant describes the flashlight that the ghost was playing with by saying that it is "wicked cold"  This would seem to follow the coldspot theory, assuming that you take at face value anything these people say.  Why, then, are the FLIR images hot?  Well, for one thing, we sure as 'eck don't know that they are images of a ghost, do we lol  The only one really of much interest to me is the moving spot at Fort Mifflin (not the infamous white hot figure next to the stove [described here] but rather the amorphous movement captured by the entrance to one of the other areas)

Post edited 9:45 am – August 20, 2011 by Nosfer

I'm going to go ahead and say there is a high probability that that video is real.  I don't see anything in it that would make me jump up and down and point and say "FAKE"  It's footage from a GF-Series FLIR which can do exactly what is shown there if the image polarity is set appropriately.

Current versions can detect about twenty different types of VOCs.

Edited: Here's a similar video showing gas fumes while refueling http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…..8Hoj-_v0W4