Ghost Hunting for Beginners: Quick and Dirty Guide

The most basic equipment for a technical ghost hunter is as follows:

1. Digital or film camera or both. In digital cameras, the higher the resolution, the better.

2. Video camcorder with night vision feature.

3. Voice recorder, digital or analog for recording notes and looking for EVP (electronic voice phenomena).

4. Flashlights

5. Plenty of replacement batteries

6. Pen and paper to take notes

You can go crazy with equipment, anything from electromagnetic field readers to expensive digital video recorders and more. But the above list should do the beginning ghost hunter just fine.

Most established ghost hunting teams seek a balance among their membership. When they strike the perfect balance with people who get along, complement each other's education and experience and have their own equipment, it is difficult for a newbie to break in.

Some ghost hunting teams have an apprentice-type program where a beginner can go along on investigations for a trial period. Others may demand that a beginner go through a long educational period, including taking tests before admitting a new investigator. Still others will take anyone who wants to join. None of these teams can guarantee that you will get to go on an investigation right away.

The other option is to start your own team, but that can be difficult too. Are you serious about your investigating? If so you had better be prepared to prove it if you want quality people on your team. No one wants thrill seekers investigating their homes or other buildings. Working with a client is very serious and the worst thing you can do to ruin your ghost-hunting reputation is to surround yourself with a bunch of wannabes.

So how do you attract quality people? It helps to be a quality person yourself so get out there and educate yourself. You may not be able to rack up experience right away but no one can stop you from learning and the library is a great place to start.

Finding quality people can be as close as an internet forum, social networking site or meetup group. Find a few good internet forums related to ghost hunting where the signal-to-noise ratio is low. That is, they stay on topic and there's not a lot of flaming or off-topic chitchat. Participate, make yourself known but above all be courteous and thoughtful. No one knows everything, especially not about ghosts.

Skip over those who claim to be experts--they are probably just experts at talking about themselves. Nothing can hurt a team more than a maverick self-proclaimed expert trying to undo your good work to aggrandize themselves. Believe me this field is overpopulated with those people.

Paranormal-related social networking sites are cropping up all over now. Those might be a good place to connect with people in your area who might be able to help you form your team as well. A few of the fun ones are at http://www.iamhaunted.com, http://www.mypara.net and http://www.supernaturalconnections.com.

Look for thoughtful people who demonstrate a particular knowledge that would benefit your team--psychology, sociology, pharmacology, theology, occultism, audio/video, witchcraft and so forth. My team has an experienced library researcher (me), a ghost investigator with decades of experience and a background in human development and education, a broadcast engineer, a pharmacy technician, an alcohol/drug abuse counselor, a registered nurse, a broadcast equipment technician and more.

So when you've assembled your team, what now? First of all, take some time to get to know each other. Meet for lunch, dinner, or have an actual team launch meeting in a conference room somewhere. This is more important than it may seem. People who seem reasonable and composed when you encounter them on the internet may in actuality but just the opposite in person. You want to winnow out wannabes, nuts and those who will be more of a hindrance than a help. Also, people who will always need transportation from someone else should be steered clear of--they will always want to leave too early and fidget when they are kept late. Everyone should have their own transportation and if they share a ride, agree ahead of time that they will stay to the end of the investigation.

Get information on everyone--name, address, phone number, email address. Background checks can be conducted online--look for criminal records or Google them to see if they are involved in other activities that could interfere with your team. Be aware that they may Google YOU too!

Okay, now you have your team and you all like and trust each other. What next? Probably setting up some team protocols--methods of operation that everyone will abide by. These can include investigative procedures, types of equipment, who does interviewing, who does debunking and so forth. You may find that some team members are more qualified as debunkers or interviewers or even researchers. You can also set dress codes, whether scents can be worn or not (I advise against it) and even whether you can have a tattoo or piercings showing. I also advise against wearing noisy jewelry because it can lead to false evidence.

For example, in my team, we don't have a specific dress code, but ask that team members NOT wear clothing or jewelry that attracts attention. This goes the same for makeup and hairstyle. We do not want to call attention to ourselves when working at an investigation site. The client may not wish everyone in the neighborhood to know that they have called in an investigation team. Remember, the client is your most important team member!

How do you line up investigations? This is the big question but here are a few things that have worked for us.

A team website helps a lot. Have a good basic website with your contact info, the region you investigate in and how far you are willing to travel. Ghost hunting groups who charge fees don't last long so state clearly that no fees are involved. It is not necessary to list all your equipment but giving a good professional-sounding description of your team is a must. Typos must be carefully avoided or you could be pegged as a "wannabe".

Start talking about your team and your odd hobby. It may sound crazy but it works--every ghost hunter will hear stories from friends, acquaintances but take it a step further--do they want an investigation? They might.

Go to the "free areas" such as cemeteries, public parks and so forth to practice your investigative skills. You can also use your own homes if you aren't afraid of "finding something".

Halloween can be ghosthunting "golden time". This is where you can get your name out there as a serious ghost investigation team but there are things to beware of. Newspapers will often call ghost hunting teams and want to be taken on a "ghosthunt". This is fine if you have a client willing to have their home and ghost problems splattered all over the newspaper but most likely, you will not be able to accommodate them. Suggest to them that the ghost hunt be in their own home (chances are they will not want that) or if there is a local public area reputed to be haunted, take them there. Be careful of your quotes--they often will edit out the words that make you sound like you know what you are doing and just leave the "chaff". I once was quoted "oh there's an orb" and that was it after I had photographed a dust orb. What they didn't include was my follow up that most orbs can be attributed to dust, moisture or insects! That's a big omission!

TV reporters will get things confused too--we had one say on the air that we were "hired" by a local tavern to investigate their ghost. This wasn't true--we never charge a fee. Also, the same reporter WHOM I TALKED TO DIRECTLY called me a "he". If you take a look, I am most definitely NOT a "he". So the so-called observational powers of broadcast and news journalists might be a little suspect. But if you get through all of this without being misquoted, misassigned gender and not made to look like an idiot, you can reap some good investigations from it.

Once you have gotten an investigation lined up, it is important that the client be able to trust you so we have some forms that most clients complete, clarifying what we may say or not say publicly about the investigation, and what evidence we can release, if any. This will help you gain the trust of your client and most importantly, enable you to possibly schedule followup investigations at the same site. We have a few clients for whom we periodically investigate to see "what's new".

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