Ghost Hunter's Arsenal: The EMF Detector

Familiar with rainbows? Remember learning about "ROY G BIV" in science class? When light is separated into all its colors, it looks like a rainbow. The colors of the rainbow make up what's called the visible light spectrum, and those colors are abbreviated ROY G BIV -- Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.

The visible light spectrum -- light -- is really just part of the electromagnetic spectrum. This is the classical way of thinking about it.

Or to put it another way, a quantum perspective says that the electromagnetic spectrum is just a fuller picture of all the layers of light energy, from low-energy radio waves to high-energy gamma rays.

Here's where it gets interesting. Light is energy. At low energies, we can't see it. An example of low-energy light is infrared light. There's also a point beyond which we can't see higher energies of light. An example of such high-energy light is ultraviolet light. So there's a whole range of energy, some of which we can see and some of which we can't.

So, from this perspective, EMFs are fields of light. To take this in a paranormal context, this means the possibility of something appearing if the EMF is strong enough to reach into the visible light portion of the electromagnetic spectrum.

See? It's a bit technical, but it's starting to come together. Let's continue...

What's more, light is *electromagnetic* energy. Any form of electromagnetic energy can be understood as light at a certain energy level. There are low energies such as radio waves, microwave energy and infrared, then visible light, ultraviolet light and x-ray and gamma energy. This is all the same energy. These are all various forms of light. And we have special equipment that lets us see some of these different energies of light, such as infrared and ultraviolet light.

So why are EMF detectors handy-dandy little devices? As you can see from the photo, Visible Light only makes up a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. An EMF detector helps identify the presence of light energy outside the range of perception granted by our physical eyes.

Remember, also, that electromagnetic fields (EMFs) are the result of changing electric and magnetic fields -- so there's change happening as well. That means the energy is either growing or declining, but there's definitely some form of energetic activity operating there.

So with EMF detectors, you're not just registering the presence of certain energies, but also activity in those energies.

When you're detecting EMFs, you're detecting activity expressed as an electromagnetic field.

With an EMF detector you can trace the field to its source of greatest strength to find out whether the source is naturally physically occuring or more subtle.

If its source cannot be directly identified by physical means, then something out of the normal may be occuring, something paranormal. An EMF detector will not tell you what is causing the field, only that there is measurable activity that could, if strong enough, lead to phenomena that may be observed as visible light.

At its simplest level, if you have any infrared recording devices, such as an infrared camera, it helps you find out where you need to point the camera.