Using a Software Defined Radio to Hunt Ghosts (+ video/audio proof it works)
Today I'm sharing the geekiest thing I've ever done, which I'm quite proud of that I was able to figure out on my own.
At the time I first did this (some time in 2015) I was, to my knowledge, the first person to use a software defined radio for the purpose of ghost hunting.
SDR
For those who don't know, a software-defined radio (SDR) per Wikipedia is:
a radio communication system (device) where components that have been typically implemented in hardware (e.g. mixers, filters, amplifiers, modulators/demodulators, detectors, etc.) are instead implemented by means of software on a personal computer or embedded system.
They come in many forms, but I'm only familiar with its simplest - a small little USB dongle you can get on eBay for ~$10, including shipping and handling. It's a really neat device with countless uses.
SDR Uses
The dongle comes with everything you need to use it as a TV tuner for your computer, but the majority of its users don't use it for that.
Here's just some of the things you can do with an SDR:
- Download satellite images directly from the International Space Station
- Listen to shortwave radio conversations
- Hear live police, fire and EMS transmissions
- even encrypted ones if you know what you're doing
- Listen to all the regular AM/FM stations where you live
- Locate and track aircraft in the sky
- Set up a fake cell phone tower and trap cell phone calls and SMS
- Hack different things in various ways
I'm using it for its radio function.
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Ghost Boxes
A Ghost box is a hacked or modified digital radio used by paranormal investigators and ghost hunters. It's believed by many to be a ways of communication with the spirits of the dead.
The Hack
In order to become a ghost box, a radio has to be modified in such a way that when you push the scan/seek button, it never stops on any one station - but rather it keeps scanning or "sweeping" thru stations continuously at a very fast rate, allowing just fragments of snippets to be heard from each station.
The modification also disables the mute circuit of the radio so that you can hear the static. Normally, when you scan, seek or skip stations on a regular, unmodified radio, the audio is temporarily muted in between stations. This eliminates the static noise.
With a hacked or modified radio (ghost box), this mute function is disabled and the static comes through. For reasons unknown, the static seems to help the voices come thru.
But, through the glory of the SDR, there's no need for a hack - it's just a matter of software configuration.
Intelligent Responses - Something is at Play
Though I've personally had success with various ghost box technology, I'm not convinced it's spirits causing the intelligent responses.
A person could just as easily choose to believe the responses are coming from aliens, demons, or being telepathically transmitted by the user themselves.
I, of course, remain open-minded and hope you do the same.
In my experience, there's two forms in which the intelligent responses come:
- Sentences strung together using whatever random things are being said (or sung) on each station
- More interesting are the unique, robotic-sounding voices that last the span of several stations
- Since it's scanning so rapidly, to hear the same voice for the span of seconds is quite noteworthy.
- Why these unique, long-span voices sound robotic (to me, anyway), is just another question in a greater mystery.
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It's easy to hear what you want to hear with a setup like this.
That's why, in an effort to be more scientific and reasonable about this, I use control words to establish a line of communication. Words that you wouldn't expect to hear coming through the radio.
Common ones I use are "NANTUCKET" and "kitty cat ".
PROOF
Here's a demonstration of me using an SDR as a ghost box. Call me crazy, but it sounds to me like it repeats my control phrases back to me:
The static, noisy and unpleasant as it is, truly seems to be some type of conduit for the responses to come through.
The noisiest, cheapest commercial Ghost Box that is mass manufactured is the P-SB7
)Noisy though it is, everyone has success with it and it's a great box for any beginner.
This post was more about showing the results of the experiment rather than explaining the process of how to do it. But if anybody is interested in a tutorial on how to set up an SDR to use as a ghost box, let me know in the comments and I'll make a tutorial.
Leave a comment on what you think of all this,
or, at the very least if you think the results in my video sounded like the control phrases I asked it to repeat or not.
Like I said, this is the geekiest thing I've ever done and I was able to prove to myself that if I want to do something badly enough, I will figure out how to do it.
First let me start by saying that using any type of technology and testing it out, and seeing if you can get results like this is a good idea. The SDR concept itself seems pretty interesting and something I would play around with. However...
There are major concerns I would have if I was leading an investigation and this was used as evidence.
Any "EVP's recorded on a ghost box are not technically evp's because the ghost box is just blurting out random radio signals that are words and such. So there is an explanation for the source of a noise and thus can be debunked as coincidental noise even if it sounds like your chosen key word.
Since you can't get an EVP certainly not a Class A EVP, you are left with more speculation than actual evidence from a ghost box. Also any room you are using that in, or any nearby room is contaminated from the noise of the ghost box for audio recording.
I still think it is FAR better to use other techniques to record paranormal phenomena such as digital audio recorders, cameras, thermal cams (very costly but produce the best results), and full spectrum cameras (also costly but very effective). Also MEL Meters and K2's are better devices in my opinion for interacting with paranormal activity.
I don't think Ghost boxes are useless, they just have no place in a proper investigation from my standpoint as someone who has lead investigations before. In example I was the lead investigator for the first and only ever investigation of High field Hall in Falmouth MA and many private residences as well.
Like let's say we captured exactly what you did for evidence in that video above, the "Kitty Cat" and "Nantucket" words, unfortunately that is not hard evidence of paranormal activity and therefore if that is all we found it would not be enough to say a place is haunted not even close. So, I think investigators would be better served to spend their money on digital recorders, cameras, and if they want to stir up activity the best way to do that is to build and EMF field generator which raises the available EMF for paranormal activity to draw from to perform activity.
Good post though, gave you my 100% upvote. Peace.
Maybe it isn't ghosts we're dealing with when it comes to the ghost box radios. EVPs I would believe by default to come from spirits. But since ghost boxes are technology, I don't know, I for some reason feel like the mind of the user can affect what comes out of the radio.
But it does work. Whatever it is. It's not about capturing EVPs, it's about giving the spirits (or whatever it is) a loud conduit to use as their voice. They have to tap into universal randomness in order to do it.
Hard to describe, but it's like retropsychokinesis (RPK), where you can affect the outcome of numbers coming out of a random number generator, retroactively. In effect slightly changing the past to produce desired results in the present. Randomness is the soup of the universe, and when you're skipping through a bunch of radio stations the audio (feedback) is truly random data from which "it" "they" or "us" can pluck responses, since it, they, or us has retroactively influenced which random data will be where and when.
I'm pretty sure you could have a ghost box repeat words at you all day long. This in itself is interesting phenomena that gardens further study, but indeed it might not be the right tool for ghost hunting, who knows.
Yeah, I hear what you are saying. It might be possible that it has something to do with human consciousness messing with the radio, it is notable that the human brain is a giant EMF device basically, so maybe it can affect electric devices external of the body via electro magnetics. You could be on to a whole new scientific study of how the mind can affect devices via the consciousness. Interesting stuff I need to smoke a blunt before having a thought experiment on.
Intelligent paranormal activity and demonic activity both which I can assure you from my personal experience are very real. Normally can communicate via EVP, and the best EVP's are when the researchers hear it and it shows up on the audio and requires no audio manipulation to understand the words. These are Class A evp's and those are the best evidence for the existence of ghosts being intelligent and dead human beings and or demonic entities because of the nature of the words being recorded.
Nice work .
I would really appreciate your feedback on my last post on the topic of freedom @marky
many years ago I just did ghost investigations and took a parapsychologist along with me. I have a similar machine just incase I miss anything.
I made the mistake of watching one of these videos before going to bed lol
21 views - 21 votes! That's awesome, thanks everybody :) I put this article (and comment) together while using an on-screen keyboard 😂 dropped my wireless one for the last time the other day, waiting on one in the mail.