Ghosts- for some, the word alone is enough
to send a shiver down their spine, and for others it's just silly superstition. The question of whether ghosts are real or
not is directly tied to our beliefs of what happens when we die- is the human body all
there is, or is there a more supernatural element to our ultimate fate? Interestingly all of the world's major religions
agree on the existence of ghosts, and they are mentioned numerous times across various
religious texts. While in Christianity the 'holy spirit' is
considered a vital part of the holy trinity and not an apparition in the common understanding
of the word, there are still numerous occasions where in the Bible, ghosts are mentioned. The disciples for example famously fear Jesus
when they encounter him walking towards them on water in the middle of a storm, asking
if he is a ghost. Whether you believe that the events of the
bible happened or not, what is clear is that the authors themselves believed in ghosts,
and in fact a belief in ghosts is found throughout every major culture, dating back to the dawn
of history itself. Today modern science has given us many explanations
for phenomenon we traditionally considered to be ghosts. Dancing lights which humans believed for millennia
where spirits or playful sprites have been shown to be a rare phenomenon known as ball
lightning. Mental illnesses and even mass psychological
delusions, along with our hardwired and extremely powerful pattern recognition talents have
explained away a great deal of ghostly sightings. Just recently, the discovery of the effects
of extremely low frequency sound waves on the human body helped explain a great deal
of ghostly phenomenon. These sound waves are too low for the human
ear to perceive, but some scientists believe that we have been evolutionary hardwired to
recognize their physiological effects on our bodies and associate these sound waves with
extreme danger. That's because many predators, such as roaring
tigers, can let loose with ultra-low frequency sound waves. Researching the idea that ELF waves were responsible
for much of our belief in ghosts, scientists discovered many pieces of modern equipment
causing ELF waves. Things such as air conditioning units and
industrial fans, when fitted improperly, could cause ELF waves, and it just so happened that
many of these units were discovered in traditionally 'haunted' locations. Yet there is some evidence that can be hard
to dispel, and with the propagation of video recording devices throughout society, the
massive piles of ghostly videos and photographs that turn up every year beg the question:
is every video and photograph a hoax or a misidentified phenomenon? Could there be any truth to the ghost question? Exhibit A: Haunted Hospital, 2016 In our search for evidence of the paranormal
we tried to stay away from footage captured by television shows or which were produced
by popular online outlets. Our theory is that these people have a great
deal to gain from fabricating ghostly evidence, and with TV, well if ratings are low why not
have a crew member kick a can across a dark room as proof of your ghost? With that in mind, we turn to a ghostly video
captured in Honduras in 2016. The background story is that hospital staff
had complained of a ghostly apparition at what is believed to be the School Hospital
Universitario. Because most ghosts have tragic origins, a
doctor was said to have committed suicide in the building years ago, and now his ghost
can be seen haunting the hallways. He is also said to cause lights to flicker
in rooms where patients are staying, and to move physical objects such as carts. The video appears to be shot through a window
looking into a hallway, and we can clearly hear the sound of a door opening, followed
by a short figure peeking out of the doorway before hesitantly stepping into the hallway. It appears as if the figure is translucent,
though the grainy nature of the video makes it hard to tell. We asked our in-house photography and film
production expert on his opinion on this video, and he said it was curious, but not very definitive. One point he makes though is that the ghost
does seem to be genuinely translucent, which can be achieved easily for a home video editor
with a double exposure shot. That technique relies on shooting the same
scene twice, once with your actor in it and once without, basically just an empty frame. Then in editing, you stack the two scenes
on top of each other and make the scene with your actor in it transparent- voila, you now
have a bonafide ghost. However in this video there is a great deal
of movement, which would require motion tracking to accomplish the technique and much more
technical knowledge on the editing side. Certainly not impossible, but time consuming. For our expert though the biggest tell for
him that this may be faked is the odd movements of the figure itself. The figure seems to duck out of the doorway
twice, and look directly at the camera, before finally stepping out in full and disappearing. This not only seems like intelligent behavior,
but for our expert it begs the question of why a ghost is acting in a manner we ourselves
find so creepy? Psychology is often a better tool for debunking
ghost videos than technical expertise, and for our expert this ghost seems to behave
too perfectly the way we expect ghosts to behave, in a spooky and inhuman manner. Exhibit B: Ghostly Soldiers Our next video is notorious for being considered
one of the greatest ghost videos ever captured. It's made the rounds both on tv and on the
internet for almost two decades now, and odds are you're probably familiar with it already. The video in question was shot by a family
visting the Gettysburg battlefield in 2001, when they were touring one of the bloodiest
sites of the entire battle. So, what does our expert think about this
one? Well, this one he says has him stumped. There was certainly video editing software
available to the public back in 2001 to create the various apparitions seen in this video,
but at the time it would have required a fairly powerful and purpose-built computer. This video begs the question of what are the
odds that this family had such a setup, and the technical expertise to pull off the edits
needed, and lastly, for what gain? Tom Underwood, who shot the video, has been
interviewed several times, and has no discernible technical background. For our expert the best proof comes once more
from the human element, rather than the technical element. In a hoaxed video the camera always seems
to know exactly where to be and when, so that later the digital effects can be put in the
right place, but also so that the scare is maximized. If a video seems like the camera perfectly
lands on the phenomenon it's recording, odds are that it's as staged as a hollywood production,
complete with a shot list for the best coverage. In this video though the camera is constantly
searching for the phenomenon, and multiple times manages to miss it by pulling away from
it, or pans in the direction of the phenomenon after it has already passed out of sight. There's a very real human element to this
that lends credibility to the video. The dialogue between the family is also a
big clue, as most people are terrible actors- but especially children. The child in this video sounds genuinely scared
and slightly in awe, as well as Tom himself who sounds just a little bit panicky. These are all very real emotions, and incredibly
difficult to fake without going over the top. At no point does this video give us a huge
reveal, or anything more than fleeting glances, and ironically that may be the best evidence
yet to its authenticity. Exhibit C – Happiest, Most Haunted Place
On Earth Our next video is also quite popular, and
made quite the splash when it was released in the early 2010s. The video shows a figure strolling through
various parts of Disneyland in the middle of the night, even walking straight through
a solid fence. The ghost is picked up by multiple cameras,
and was shot on a cell phone by a security guard recording the monitors themselves. Is Disneyland haunted? What does our expert think? Well, this video has already actually been
debunked, and has been proven to be an accidental ghost. The figure in the video was actually a leftover
artifact from the security tapes, which are re-used constantly to save money. Much like in the double exposure technique
we explained earlier, the figure was nothing more than the image of a previous employee,
likely a janitor, shot well before the new recording. Faulty and low quality tapes are to blame
for this ghost, not paranormal phenomenon. Our expert points out though that people should
really have been clued in to the inauthenticity of this video simply by the way the figure
moves. It's far too fluid and, well, normal, for
it to be a ghost, which would make it the first ghost ever recorded to so smoothly move
across hundreds of feet of winding pathway. Exhibit D – Screaming Hotel Ghost In 2012 a video popped up on the internet
purporting to be footage from a hotel security camera capturing a ghostly interaction between
a security guard and a ghost locked in one of the hotel's rooms. The story goes that guests had been complaining
of screams coming from an empty room, and so a security guard was soon dispatched. Throughout the video you can hear the man
who is supposedly head of security talking to a guard he's sent to check on the room,
as well as with his emergency dispatcher. The guard gets to the room and you can hear
the sound of ghostly screaming over the radio. The guard appears physically shaken, but then
proceeds to enter the room- only for a ghostly figure to leave the room after he enters. Inside he finds the furniture in the room
upside down, the shower running, and the carpet torn up. Spooky stuff, take a watch! So, did the dead check in and never check
out of this haunted hotel? What's our expert think? To him, this video immediately screams fake. The camera set ups are almost perfect, with
the main camera used in the video just so happening to be located directly outside the
door to the room in question. Our expert has worked security in Las Vegas
casinos before, when he worked video surveillance and escorted VIPs to and from events. As he puts it, the camera in question serves
no other purpose but to watch the hallway directly in front of the haunted room, this
is not how security cameras are placed. They are placed so they can cover large stretches
of hallway corridors at a time- functionally, this camera serves no security purpose...
unless you're faking a ghost video. The second biggest tell however is the fact
that the ghostly screams can be heard in the video. This means that the screams were either recorded
by the security camera, or transmitted over the guard's radio as he approached the room. Hallway security cameras in budget hotels
such as this one do not record audio, in fact you may find a camera that records audio only
outside of VIP rooms in the most expensive suites at a Las Vegas casino. This means then that we're supposed to believe
that the screams are being broadcast over the radio. That would require the guard to key his mike
the entire time though, and would make it impossible to communicate with him. Lastly, the biggest tell that this video is
fake is the fact that the guard then proceeds to enter the room by himself. It is routine security procedure for security
officers to enter a potentially dangerous room in pairs at a minimum, no officer ever-
unless it was clearly a medical emergency- enter a room with screaming coming from it
by himself. But what if he thought it was a medical emergency? Well, there's the fact that the room was empty,
with no guests on the register, at which point the guard should have simply checked the door
knob to make sure the room wasn't broken into. After that, the guard would simply wait for
law enforcement to arrive- this is standard procedure. For our expert, the video is a fake. But you don't have to take it from us- others
have investigated this video and discovered that the uploader is actually a filmmaker
with some low-budget horror movies under his belt. This in effect plays out like a horror short,
and again, is just too creepily perfect to be considered real. So do ghosts exist or not? Well, we showed four different videos in this
episode, with one being an obvious fake, one being an accidental fake, one possibly being
fake but possibly being real, and another that our own expert has confidence is more
real than fake. For him, he only believes what he can confirm
himself, but perhaps ghosts are really all around us and as our world is filled with
more and more cameras, evidence of their existence continues to grow. What do you think about ghosts, are they real
or not? Have you ever seen a ghost? Would you like to see us examine more ghostly
videos?! Let us know in the comments! And as always if you enjoyed this video then
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