Post by Tomspy77 on Jan 25, 2016 22:45:01 GMT -6
Paranormal investigator from Leicester's new life in the States
Buried a mile below the South Dakota desert is the Large Underground Xenon experiment – a multimillion dollar facility tasked with finding evidence of the existence of dark matter.
For three years, this state-of-the-art contraption, known as Lux, has been searching for the mysterious and elusive substance which binds the universe together.
The problem is, it hasn't found anything. Nothing.
What has this to do with ghosts?
Well, if the Lux – the most sophisticated detector of its kind – is searching for properties which differ even minutely from those of dark matter, it will fail.
With that in mind, when paranormal investigator Richard Estep tells me no one really knows what ghosts are, it begs the question, how do you know what you're looking for?
"There's an old joke in this field that the least effective way to encounter a ghost is to actually try to see one," says Richard, a former Syston man, who now lives and hunts for spooks in the USA.
"My team targets locations within supposedly haunted buildings known as 'hot spots', where the bulk of paranormal phenomena are reported.
"We attempt to measure as many aspects of the environment as possible: electromagnetic field levels, temperature, airflow, ionisation, even background radiation levels, and look for anything out of normal ranges.
"We spend time conducting experiments such as attempting to record EVPs (electronic voice phenomena), which is the appearance of disembodied voices in the background of digital sound files.
"Witnesses are interviewed and their testimony carefully cross-checked against each other and historical records. It's a fairly lengthy and exacting process when it's done right."
Read more: www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Ghost-hunting-USA-Paranormal-investigator/story-28598481-detail/story.html#ixzz3yK3gtX00
Follow us: @leicester_Merc on Twitter | leicestermercury on Facebook
For three years, this state-of-the-art contraption, known as Lux, has been searching for the mysterious and elusive substance which binds the universe together.
The problem is, it hasn't found anything. Nothing.
What has this to do with ghosts?
Well, if the Lux – the most sophisticated detector of its kind – is searching for properties which differ even minutely from those of dark matter, it will fail.
With that in mind, when paranormal investigator Richard Estep tells me no one really knows what ghosts are, it begs the question, how do you know what you're looking for?
"There's an old joke in this field that the least effective way to encounter a ghost is to actually try to see one," says Richard, a former Syston man, who now lives and hunts for spooks in the USA.
"My team targets locations within supposedly haunted buildings known as 'hot spots', where the bulk of paranormal phenomena are reported.
"We attempt to measure as many aspects of the environment as possible: electromagnetic field levels, temperature, airflow, ionisation, even background radiation levels, and look for anything out of normal ranges.
"We spend time conducting experiments such as attempting to record EVPs (electronic voice phenomena), which is the appearance of disembodied voices in the background of digital sound files.
"Witnesses are interviewed and their testimony carefully cross-checked against each other and historical records. It's a fairly lengthy and exacting process when it's done right."
Read more: www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Ghost-hunting-USA-Paranormal-investigator/story-28598481-detail/story.html#ixzz3yK3gtX00
Follow us: @leicester_Merc on Twitter | leicestermercury on Facebook
