She stood alone in the semi-darkened room, silently sensing her surrounding environment. Her ears perked as her attention was drawn to a corner of the room. Was that the crack of a floorboard adjusting to the cooling temperatures of the night?

“This was the den,” she thought. “A study, a library, a place of retreat in this house of gloom.” Or was that too rational a thought, she challenged.

She hastily placed a small “X” on the corresponding spot of the diagram to the room where she stood, then shaking her head just as quickly erased it and replaced it with a big question mark.

The clipboard in her hand began shaking as she quivered in her cooled surroundings and she slowly moved to another area of the room. Her attention was captured by something she saw out of the corner of her eye. Was there someone standing there, watching her from the shadows? Her sense of logic denied this, but was she now aware of something else, beyond conventional logic?

Over the past ten years, as an instructor of parapsychology, I’ve seen such reactions in the novice sensitive as my students have participated in their first investigations. Often included as an extra-curricular laboratory experience, we have conducted various practical application exercises at such locations as the Oliver House in Bisbee, Arizona (online Ghost! Magazine, August 2004).

Our initial investigative efforts utilized the methodology of Gertrude Schmeidler and Michaleen Maher, as recorded in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research. Using floor plan models of the alleged haunted locations, both researchers developed a credible method of recording psychic impressions that would later be available for statistical analysis. A list of adjectives was also provided to describe the nature of the ghost as they traveled from room to room in their walk-through of the specified area.

Years later, my crew of sensitives were pleased to have a TriField meter available for the verification of their impressions in subsequent investigations throughout southern Arizona. But just what do these technological devices do and how did this gadget revolution begin?

While it’s generally admitted that no technological device can actually detect a ghost, educator and paranormal researcher Loyd Auerbach indicates that haunting phenomena are environmental by nature, and often occur in patterns uniquely associated with each of the significant manifestations.

For example, haunting cases (residual, imprinted "memories") tend to have a static field, which may vary in strength, based on when people report the phenomena. In other words, if the phenomena are perceived only around 2 PM, that's generally when the reading's the strongest. Of course, you must always consider the other sources of these fields, such as electrical wiring and power generating devices.

However, apparition cases tend to display high magnetic fields that are mobile; hence the apparition must be present and you need to know approximately where it is in order to have the meter in the right location. This is obviously where a psychic witness comes in handy in order to tell where one should point the meter and follow along, should the apparition start moving.

As indicated in his recent book, Ghost Hunting: How to Investigate the Paranormal, Auerbach notes that investigators using magnetometers have verified a strong correlation between unusual magnetic fields and the specific locations where people simultaneously experience haunting phenomena. Hence the common view amongst many parapsychologists that some form of magnetic-related field in the environment records events to which humans have sensory access.

For more of this article, read Spring 2006 Volume 6, Issue 1 of Ghost! Magazine.