Ghost Hunting Experience: Pseudoscience at its peak

It’s a dark and stormy night. A group of unsuspecting youths break into a mysterious (insert generic location) with nothing more than a few torches, a video camera and a plucky attitude. But they get more than they bargained for; they are hunted and killed by (insert antagonist here). This over-simplified plot is the basis for more than a few horrors movies. That’s not a complaint though; I’m a big horror movie fan.
This Halloween, rather than stay in and watch another horror film, a friend bought four tickets to a “ghost hunting experience.” Together, my friend, his partner, my wife and I would spend 5 hours wandering around an old manor house searching for ghosts. These Ghost hunting events occur regularly around the country. At first I thought it would be cheesy and more of a Halloween gimmick, until a week before the event we got an email highlighting that the experience is a “serious” ghost hunt and we’d be using “professional” ghost hunting equipment. As you can hopefully guess by my overuse of quotation marks I don’t believe in ghosts and the thought that we’d be attending this event with “professionals” made me chuckle.
I am an inherently sceptical person and after 4 years doing a PhD, being taught to question everything, I am prone to question, well…everything. As a scientist it was my job to doubt and gather evidence to either support or disprove a hypothesis. As far as I am concerned there is no evidence supporting the existence of ghosts. Going to this event I was happy to be proven wrong; maybe I would experience some paranormal phenomenon that would convince me that ghosts were real. Unsurprisingly, as you’ll read, that isn’t what happened.

Arrival and setup
This particular Haunted House experience was taking place at a 180-year-old Victorian Era stately home, Beaumanor Hall, which recently became a conference centre (terrifying, I know). We’d been told to arrive just before the event started at 22:00. As we parked I had to admit that in the dark night of early winter the building did have an air of mystery and I couldn’t help but think that it would be the perfect setting for a horror movie.

Beaumanor Hall; image by Christine Matthews, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Once we had been welcomed by the staff we were taken to a mundane conference room which included spooky (and uncomfortable) plastic chairs, horrifying beige carpet and a terrifying selection of non-branded biscuits. At this point we were given a brief on the types of spiritual activity that can occur. I’ll be honest I can’t actually remember much of what was said; I was trying to hold back a combination of laughter and scepticism. The staff then explained some of the equipment we’d be using, such as the electromagnetic force (EMF) reader – which has featured in TV shows such as Ghost Hunters. We were then asked to turn our phones off because it can interfere with the equipment. Once we’d finished with the introduction we were divided into 4 groups. Each group would be shown a different area of the building, then we’d swap areas over the course of the next 5 hours. And so we set off on our ghost hunting adventure.

22:20 - 12:20
During the introduction we learned that two members of our group were professional ghost hunters (keeping a straight face at this point was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life). When we went to our first location, a set of conference rooms, this couple immediately set up a range of “gadgets.” This was the actual word they used to describe their equipment, which included an infrared camera, some plastic cat toys that lit up when moved, and an antenna attached to a light bulb that changed from green to red if something went near the antenna. Once our ghost hunting equipment was set up we were told to speak out and call to the spirits and ask them to activate the gadgets in the room. This initial experience was, as you can imagine, incredibly awkward. We were stood in an empty room yelling “Spirits! Please turn on our gadgets!” Shockingly, none of the gadgets activated. After an uncomfortable length of time we moved to another room where the “energy” might be better. The second conference room we visited had about as much success as the first. We weren’t off to the best start.
After another 45 minutes stood in the dark our host decided to move us to the bar, a room she informed us was incredibly active the last time she had visited this location. As soon as we entered the bar our EMF reader activated and flashed orange, indicating paranormal activity. Again we placed our gadgets around the room. This time however our host brought out a teddy bear with a speaker built in. The teddy had sensors which would trigger certain phrases depending on what it detected, if the temperature dropped it would say “brrr I’m cold” or if it was touched it would say “hehe I’m ticklish.” Now I was genuinely scared, mainly because I was sure this teddy bear was going to animate and murder us all. Thankfully that didn’t happen. Instead almost nothing happened. As I mentioned our EMF readers were permanently on orange, and occasionally one of the cat balls we’d put on the bar would turn blue. After spending 20 minutes talking to what was obviously an empty bar we gave up and moved on. As we left the bar my friend pointed out that, so far, the bar was the only place that contained any electronic devices; it had fridges, a cash register, and a coffee machine. It’s as if the only room that was active was also the only room with devices that could interfere with the EMF reader. Oh well, best not to ask too many questions.
From the bar we headed upstairs to the attic, surely this would be brimming with ghostly activity? My attic at home gives me the creeps. I could only imagine what the attic of a Victorian era home would be like. As it turns out, it was less spooky than my attic at home. It had obviously been left untouched for years, there was plaster flaking off the walls, loose floor boards rattling underfoot and old fireplaces full of ash. As we explored the handful of rooms our guide exclaimed that she couldn’t enter one of the rooms because it hurt her, it gave her a severe headache. My wife and I decided to be brave and venture in. As we entered we were asked how it made us feel. I replied that I maybe had a headache. The room was no bigger than a cupboard, it was overly warm and had exposed insulation above us (that I’m hoping wasn’t asbestos), so I’m not attributing my headache to anything paranormal. Beyond that the scariest element of the attic was a room full of old technology, used as an educational experience for kids. It mainly contained vacuum cleaners from the 1940 and 50’s, and it was truly terrifying to see how hard it used to be to clean carpets.
When we were finished in the attic we were taken back to the welcome room and given refreshments; presumably to calm our fraught nerves.

12:40-3:00
After our brief 20 minute break we were taken back to the attic, this time visiting a second section. Maybe this time we’d have more success. This area was significantly larger than the first and we were given the freedom to wander between almost a dozen rooms. Unfortunately, much like our first visit to the attic there was no spiritual activity; the most terrifying thing we found was an old wasps nest surrounded by what appeared to be a wasp graveyard. Once again I was asked how I felt, and I told the truth - a bit lightheaded. Our host said this was the spirits trying to use my energy to communicate. I thought it was because it was 2:00 am so I hadn’t slept in 20 hours and had been on my feet for the majority of the last 4 hours. But who am I to question how the spirits communicate?
When we finally finished in the attic we descended to the cellar which, unlike the attic, did fill me with mild anxiety. There were only a few lights down here, whole rooms were entirely dark - the only light coming from our torches. Some of the rooms were cavernous, probably used as cold storage rooms when the house was originally built. It was a rabbit warren of twists and turns, which only added to the sense of claustrophobia. In this eerie atmosphere our host offered to setup a Oujia board. Our first attempt involved only me, my wife and our friends. This was our first time using a Ouija board, and it proved to be a perfect representation of the night so far. We hunched over the board, asked the spirits to give us a message and were greeted by only an awkward silence. After 10 minutes, just long enough to give me back ache, we gave up.
Our host insisted we would have more success if we moved rooms and added more people to the Séance. For our second attempt we added another couple from our group, in the hope it would give the spirits more “energy” to move the Planchette (a small plastic disc) and spell out a message. This time we had the most success we had had all evening. When we asked the spirit to give us a name we received the letter “E.” Our host proceeded to list out every possible name beginning with E - it took awhile. Eventually we figured out the name was Ethel., and that Ethel was apparently 4-years-old. Once we had that information Ethelabruptly ended the conversation by sending us the message “goodbye.” Personally I thought Ethel was a bit rude but that’s ghost children for you, I guess.
Thus ended our adventure into the spirit world. As we were leaving the cellar my friend pointed out what a coincidence that when it was just the four of us using the Ouija Board there was no activity, but when we added more people (a couple who openly acknowledged they were “believers”) we received a response. Mhhh yes, what a coincidence!

Conclusion (and a sad realisation)
After the cellar we ascended back to the conference room for a debrief. We were told that the staff like to hear about everyone’s experience and compare who encountered what, and where. When asked our group, with the exception of our “professional” ghost hunters, remained silent. Our processional friends claimed they had seen a lot of orbs on their infrared camera. They also said the attic and cellar had been very active for them – clearly they were in a different attic and cellar than me. Others groups had more success, they said the Ouija Boards had been very busy, they then listed all the people they had met, this included; someone’s Dad, several old men and a 9-year-old boy. Apparently the house was teeming spirits, we’d obviously just missed them.  

As the other groups described all the activity they had encountered I had a realisation. These were all people who wanted to believe. They talked about spirits and ghosts as if they were a given thing. When we walked into the first conference room we were told to ask the spirits to “come forward and start giving us signs.” No one asked if there were any spirits there or if this room had any history of hauntings. They just assumed that ghosts were inevitable.
Don’t misunderstand the tone of this post – I really did enjoy the experience. It was great fun wandering around an old building in the dead of night, seeing parts of it I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. But the scientist in me keep questioning everything. The “equipment” we used to measure spiritual activity was nothing more than cat toys, a thermometer and a radio antenna. All of which went off when someone nearby breathed too heavily or someone else in the room moved an inch to the left. I enjoy a bit of fake entertainment as much as the next person, but the problem with this experience - they were selling this as 100% authentic. People left thinking they had performed scientific inquiry.
It's this kind of approach to science that helps the spread of misinformation. Just look at the anti-vax movement – they think their “science” is superior to decades of genuine research and development. For me this experience demonstrated that ghosts are just a story; I didn’t witness a single piece of evidence to the contrary. In contrast, my fellow ghost hunters walked away more convinced than ever that science is something that can done quickly and easily, and doesn’t have to be accurate. But that isn’t science - that’s pseudoscience.
The realisation that so few people actually care about logic and critical thinking breaks my heart. But at the same time it’s an inspiration. I recently started a job as a medical writer, that means it is literally my job to inform people about scientific and medical progress. It’s now my responsibility to combat the misinformation and faulty logic that seems to be sweeping the world. But it’s not just my responsibility, if you’re reading this it’s your reasonability too. This experience was enjoyable but it reminded me that we all have to work hard and work together if we want to prevent the spread of pseudoscience, lies and misinformation.