Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, your ghost host Jonathan Strickland, an executive producer at iHeart Podcasts, And how the tech are you? And as we creep ever closer to that creepiest of days, Halloween, it's time for another spooky episode of tech Stuff. Now. On Monday's episode, I talked about how photography gave certain Charlatans a tool to purposefully fool the grief stricken and the gullible into believing they were sitting for photos with ghostly companions, when in fact, those grieving people were really just victims of photographic tricks like double exposures and superimposed negatives. Today, I want to talk about a device that has no purpose other than to supposedly detect the presence of ghosts. These are called RM pods. Now. I made this joke on Monday, but I'm gonna go ahead and make it again because I was very sad to hear that RM pods are not, in fact little relaxation capsules that you can just crawl into and then listen to the band Ram sing about shiny happy people and Andy Kaufman and such. Instead, rim pods are devices that are meant to detect electromagnetic fluctuations, which many in the paranormal biz believe indicates the presence of other worldly spirits. Now I mentioned this in Monday's episode as well, but once again, for the folks in the back, that's not how science works. You don't go hunting for effects and then invent causes for those effects. That's the stuff of myth. It's like thinking back to prehistoric days when humans wondered what the heck was causing thunder, and the best they could come up with is that some extremely powerful gods we're having a hissy fit of one sort or another. It's akin to writing here, there be dragons on a map, because you don't actually know what is beyond a certain part of the map, and so just to be on the safe side, you imagine something really awful and maybe that way you don't actually have to go out there and find out for sure. Now, the proper way to go about this whole thing would be to first find evidence of the existence of ghosts, like something that shows that ghosts do in fact exist. Then you observe these ghosts to figure out what the heck they do, what are they capable of doing? You don't look for weird phenomena and then say, well, I don't know what caused this, so it must be ghosts. I suppose paranormal investigators would argue that there's a long history of associating ghosts with EMF fluctuations, But since ghosts have never been proven to exist, let alone that they can affect or manipulate electromagnetic fields, that doesn't really work for me. You know, some people say, well, the living can affect electromagnetic fields, so it stands to reason that the spirits can as well, but that doesn't really track. It doesn't matter how long we've associated ghosts with EMF fluctuations, it's never actually been proven to be a thing. So if I just associate I don't know, the sensation of an upset stomach with the color blue, it doesn't mean the color blue is causing my upset stomach, even if I've associated it, like, until we've proven that the color blue is doing it to me, it's just coincidence, And in this case, it's coincidence between something that's real, that is the fluctuations of electromagnetic fields, and something that has not been established to be real, that is ghosts. But now that we've got all that out of the way, let's talk about ariods. And there hesitate to use this word inventor Gary Galka. Now, first, Galka was highly motivated to make devices that could potentially detect ghosts for a real and tragic reason. And I don't want to downplay this. This is horrible. Galka tragically lost his daughter, Melissa in a car accident in September two thousand and four. She was just seventeen years old, and I cannot even begin to imagine the emotional and psychological impact that had both on him and the rest of his family. He has a wife and two other daughters, and that's just heartbreaking. Just a reminder, like the guiding principles for tech stuff I've always said are critical thinking and compassion. I do suggest we use critical thinking when we examine the work and claims of Galka, but we also show compassion because that's a horrible loss. But according to Galka, he and his family were experiencing unusual phenomena over the days, weeks, and months following Melissa's death. Now, Galka owns a business called DAS Distribution, which designs high tech measurement systems such as non contact measurement devices, and Galka builds sensors and instruments that could be incorporated into other technologies for a wide array of industries. So think about devices that are meant to detect stuff like humidity within a controlled environment, like if you've ever been in a museum where they've had humidity sensors that kind of thing, or devices that are designed to detect defects or malfunctions and equipment and processes or devices that aid in the precise measurement when working in fields that have no wiggle room for ambiguity, where you absolutely have to get measurements down to the most precise unit you can. That's the kind of thing that Galica worked in and Galka turned this ingenuity toward developing different gadgets in tended to aid the average ghost hunter. These include things like spirit boxes, which I've talked about before. Your typical spirit box is essentially a radio. It's a receiver and it's cycling through radio frequencies typically pretty quickly. They can go slower, but the more modern ones that get a little bit more traction these days go fast, and the belief is that ghosts, through some means of manipulating radio frequencies, can communicate through these kinds of devices. But a gadget that has a lot of ghost hunting types gravitating towards it over the last couple of decades has been the mel meter, which is named after Galca's daughter Melissa, and rim pods. So rim pods are kind of a stripped down version of the mel meter, or the mail meter is like an EMF meter that has an rim pod built into it, at least the more advanced mailmeters are. I'll talk about them later in the episode, but let's start with the rm pods first and then we'll get into what makes melmeter slightly different. So the basic idea behind the rim pod is that it detects disruptions in an electromagnetic field, which the pod itself generates. So the pod creates an electromagnetic field and then essentially keeps a weather eye on if anything interferes with that electromagnetic field, which sounds pretty high tech, but it turns out the basic electronics inside rim pods, at least inside the original version anyway, is a hobbykit variation of what you would find inside of theremin Now we know that because in twenty nineteen, a skeptic and science enthusiast named Kinney Biddle, who has written articles for The Skeptical Inquirer over several years, he bought an RM pod and he took it apart to see what makes it tick, and you can read his full explanation at Skeptical Inquirer dot org. His piece is titled ghost Hunting Gadgets the rim Pod. But at the heart of the operation was a little circuit called a junior Thereman. We'll talk about that in just a moment. Now. I did an episode about Thereman's way back in twenty eleven. Could Lord have been doing this for a long time anyway? The Thereman is an interesting musical instrument. It was invented in nineteen twenty eight by a guy named Lev Turman, who had been changed his name to Leon Thereman, and the device thus bears his name. Interestingly, he didn't set out to make a musical instrument to begin with. His actual goal was to build a censor capable of detecting objects, kind of in a way similar to how sonar works underwater. His methodology didn't quite work out. It never could extend to a point where it would be useful, Like if you did detect an object with electromagnetic fluctuations, it would be when the the object was close enough for you to kind of see it and potentially touch it, so the meter would not be of much use. However, he did figure out a way to leverage this and create a musical instrument that would require no contact. He thought of it kind of like you would play this musical instrument as if you were a conductor of an orchestra. Your hands would never have to make contact with the instrument at all. They would move around it and manipulate an electromagnetic field, and then you would generate a sound through this instrument that way. And it's not lost on me that nearly a century later, Galica would essentially reverse this process of turning a device meant to detect objects into a musical instrument, and Galka would take a circuit meant to emulate a musical instrument and turn it into a device that detects something, not objects, but gigigos. Now, even if you've never seen a thereman before, you've likely heard the noise it makes this weird, warbly sound. You sometimes hear an old sign fiction or horror films that whoaoo kind of stuff, very warbly and unearthly. And your basic theramen is a box that has two antenna extending from it. Typically one goes vertical and one goes horizontal. And by positioning your hands near the two antennas, you can cause the theramen to create an electronic sound, and you can manipulate that electronic sound. If you move your hand closer to or further from the vertical antenna, you affect the pitch. If you move your hand closer to or further from the horizontal antenna, you affect the volume. To get more technical, a theremin has a pair of oscillators connected to a circuit to affect the pitch, so the vertical antenna. Here, one oscillator is variable and the other is set to a fixed value. The fixed value oscillator produces radio waves at a stable static frequency. The variable oscillator can, as the name suggests, generate a variable radio frequency, and the two signals mix in a process that's called heterodyning, in which one frequency's value is subtracted from the other. Now, the volume antenna is simpler. It uses a single oscillator to generate a frequency that you disrupt by moving your hand closer to or further from the connected antenna, and that signal then goes to an amplifier and ultimately to speakers to create the warbly effect that we hear. And Leon Therreman first noticed that the human body could disrupt electromagnetic fields while he was working with an oscillating circuit that was just generating a radio frequency, and he saw that when he moved into the electromagnetic field, the frequency that was produced by this circuit changed. And as Kenny Biddle found, that was the basic concept of the arium pod as well, except that instead of a device designed to make music, it's meant to indicate if some sort of ghost is nearby, or at least if something is interfering with the antenna's electromagnetic field, which is more accurate. So let's describe the device as Biddle in countered it. When he took it apart. His RM pod had an exterior made of PVC coupling, so the kind of stuff that you can buy at your average hardware store. It was cylindrical in shape with an extendable antenna in the top of it, and it also had four translucent rods extending from the top. These he believed were made out of hot glue stick, and filling the PVC coupling was resin with more hot glue stick, apparently mixed in potentially to help cut down on the amount of resin needed to fill the whole thing, and the four ends of the glue stick stuck up out of the resin, and at the base of those glue sticks were LED lights, so the lights would shine up through the length of the hot glue stick so that you could see the light at the top of the RM pod right, so kind of an inexpensive way of making sure the LEDs would show through. There was also a small speaker at the center of the top of the RAM pod that would emit an electronic noise if the electromagnetic field were disturbed. The antenna, speaker, and the lights under the glu sticks all connected to a junior thereman circuit, and this in turn connected to a battery, a nine volt battery in this case, and the circuit basically recreates the function of a theremin. According to Biddle, the whole thing or the circuit at least the junior Thereman circuit cost around twenty dollars. So the original rim pod was essentially a junior Thereman with some LED lights added to it. And if you get close to the junior Thereman's antenna, which is Biddle described as just a piece of wire, you interrupt the electromagnetic field that it generates and you cause it to go woo woo ooo or whatever. You would need to be about six inches or closer in order to set it off. Now, presumably the wire from the junior Thereman's circuit connected to the extendable antenna that protruded from the top of the rim pod, and of course the lights would light up as well in case you didn't pick up on the electronic squeal. Okay, more about the rim pods in just a second, but first let's listen to some spook key advertisements. We're back. So Kinnny Bindle, he takes this rim pod and he takes it apart, and he looks at what makes it tick. And one of the things that he kind of bulked at was that if you took all these components separately, they'd probably cost you, I'm going to say less than thirty dollars. I mean the junior thereman's circuit was twenty bucks. I'm guessing that that was probably the most expensive component in that device, So you're talking around. Let's be generous, let's say forty dollars or less, but I think it's probably less than thirty. Galka's company sold them at a substantially higher price. So the current model, which is not exactly the same thing that Biddle disassembled in twenty nineteen, goes for about a one hundred and seventy dollars. Now I should add that the current rim pod also includes a temperature sensor in it, which was not in the one that Biddle disassembled in twenty nineteen, and this temperature sensor will alert you if the temperature around the pod changes by plus or minus five degrees. But as I said, the original rim pod didn't have a censor in it. It was essentially a junior therem And kit with some LED lights. So it was a novelty. In other words, it was a novelty that had been repackaged and marketed as a ghost hunting tool and then sold for a heft markup. At least that's what Biddle found a piece in NBC News back in twenty twelve mentioned that Galka's gadgets, including but not limited to rim pods, had a range of prices that went from seventy nine dollars on the low end to a whopping three hundred and fifty bucks on the high end. So this makes me very uncomfortable because again, he didn't invent something new. He took existing devices and combined them in a way that really, in my opinion, was not transformative. Like you could have just used the junior therem in circuit as is. You didn't need the LED lights necessarily. I mean, you could connect those two a circuit as well and power it and get the same sort of result. But you could just use the junior therem and circuit and listen for anything that sets it off because it interferes with the field that it generates, because that's essentially what the ram pod is doing. That you could do that for like twenty bucks plus whatever it costs you to buy a battery for the darn thing, and then to have to pay upwards of one hundred and seventy dollars for that kind of thing seems a bit excessive in my opinion. Biddle describes the way ghost hunters use this gadget. I'm actually going to quote him directly here. Quote. When it comes to ghost hunting, enthusiasts typically use the rim pod as a spirit communication device. The device is placed in an allegedly haunted location, room, hallway, staircase, et cetera, and ghost hunters begin asking various questions. The ghosts are directed to touch the device or make it light up. A positive response occurs when the device lights up and makes noise, and the spirits are thanked for their participation. End quote. A little bit later on that same article, Biddle also writes quote. In the event the ghost hunters receive no response, the questions are often repeated multiple times, or the ghost hunters move onto different questions until the device eventually lights up. This is a similar method that to that used during EVP Electronic voice phenomenon sessions, where ghost hunters are waiting for a vocal response rather than hearing a tone played along with some lights. If no response comes at all, I often hear excuses such as the spirits don't want to talk tonight, or it doesn't always work, but it worked great last time. Quote. As Biddle points out, the problem here is that there are plenty of opportunities for worldly, mundane stuff to set off a device like an rim pod. Not only has no one yet established the existence of ghosts, let alone that they're capable of interacting with or manipulate electromagnetic fields. We know for a fact there are plenty of things that do interact with electromagnetic fields that are not ghosts, you know, like cell phones or walkie talkies, or even natural sources of radio waves. Biddle describes tests in which he found rim pods to react to two way radios from as far away as forty feet if you were inside like indoors, or as far away as twenty feet if you were outdoors. He even observed an rim pod reacting when walkie talkies were used on the floor above or below where the pod was. So if someone's upstairs and they're using the walkie talkie to chat with someone, the rim pod could potentially pick that up and go off, and you might not hear the person upstairs talking, but you'll see the rim pod go off, and you'll think, ah, ghosts. Often ghost hunting crews use two way radios in order to stay in communication with each other, or you know, someone could have a cell phone on them and if they're sitting close enough to the pod while the cell phone is connecting to the closest tower to get updates, it could set off an rim pod. So it's easy for an rim pod to be set off either on purpose. Let's say that there's someone who has an incentive to have the pod go off. Maybe they're the host of a ghost hunting show and they want the camera crew to capture some activity on this rim pod. You know, maybe having a crew member nearby just you know, casually have to use the two way radio for something and whoa, hey, by coincidence, the rim pod has gone off that looks good on camera. Or it could just be done by accident, right. It could be that you're sincerely looking for ghosts. You are not trying to fool anyone. You're really just being as straightforward as you can be. But because you're using two way radios, you might accidentally set off the rim pod and you have what you believe is a positive response, when in turn, it really is a false positive. Biddle laments the fact that ghost hunters rarely introduce controls to eliminate outside interference with their equipment. This is I've found to be true pretty much across the board, like some ghost hunter types actually do try to use controls and they get very lackluster response, like lackluster results, because as it turns out, when you start to control for potential interference that the existence of ghosts seems to just disappear. So again, ghost hunters, I think are incentivized to not use controls because if they do, then they don't get results. So Biddle says, well, one way you could control for this kind of thing is you could use a Farred cage in order to isolate an rim pod from environmental interference, and thus the POD's own electromagnetic field will remain untouched by anything outside like two way radio traffic or cell phones or whatever, and only something inside the cage would affect the rim pod. So I figured, that's a great excuse to talk about what a Faraday cage is and how it works. And just as a side note, this was kind of fun while I was researching Faraday cages because you know, I know general how they work, but I wanted to get a refresher. I found an article on how stuff works, which is my old employer, and I was delighted to see that my old co host and editor had a byline on that article. That's Chris Pollette, by the way, my original co host for tech Stuff, And so that was just nice because I miss Chris. He's great. I loved working with him, both as a writer and as a podcaster. Anyway, the Faraday cage is named after a guy named Michael Faraday Cage. Wait, no, I'm sorry, just Michael Faraday. But the earliest experiments were performed by one, let's see, Benjamin Franklin. So old Benji was experimenting with electricity. You might recall that he did that a bit. So he took a can that was made of silver, and he electrified the can, and he experimented with lowering a piece of uncharged cork that was on a non conductive thread and lowered it into the can and had it touched the bottom of the can. And what he found to be strange is that if he were to bring the cork near the outside of the can, like if you were to dangle the cork so that was next to the exterior surface of the can, the cork would get attracted to the can. It would become charged. It would pick up an electrostatic charge and it would be attracted to the can surface. But when he was doing this on the inside of the can, that didn't happen. The cork did not appeared to become electrostatically charged, and Franklin couldn't figure out why. He was stumped. He actually wrote to a friend of his that maybe someone else would figure it out, because he could not understand why it would work on the outside but not the inside. Well decades later, Michael Faraday's experiments led him to observe that if one created a metallic cage or a container of some sort, like if you made a mesh of metallic material and you electrified the mesh, it actually would electrify the exterior surface. The charge would only be on the outer surface of the cage, not the inside of the cage. So essentially you had created a hollow conductor. All the conductivity happened on the outside, but not the inside. And he even created a very large experiment in which he lined in entire room's walls with metallic foil. He electrified the foil, and he used a very sensitive instrument designed to detect electrical charges on the side of the room and found no electrical charge on the inside, just on the exterior surface of this foil. Now beyond that, his later observation showed that within a Faraday cage, electromagnetic radiation also doesn't penetrate. So if you were to put your cell phone inside of Faraday cage, your cell phone would not receive any notifications or get any updates. The cell phone would just be isolated from the outside world, at least in terms of electromagnetic radiation. And so if you place an rim pod inside of Faraday cage, that would ensure it would not be affected by stuff like two way radio communication or other external sources of electromagnetic radiation. So presumably a ghost would be able to get its spectral hands on an rim pod by passing through the cage, like we assume that ghosts are able to pass through materials. And yet the one time Biddle talked about observing a team using a Faraday cage as a means of a control the rim pod, it didn't go off at all. So that seems to indicate that the Faraday cage, once it eliminated the sources of external interference, it also eliminated the possibility that there was a ghost there. Now, I suppose you could argue that ghosts, due to their as yet unestablished relationship with electromagnetic radiation, are somehow bound to the physical laws that all other stuff obeys. But since we haven't proven ghosts even exist, it seems silly to make that argument, just as it seems silly to argue that they could manipulate electromagnetic radiation in the first place, Like by what logic if you say, well, well, of course the ghosts didn't affect the rim pod. It was shielded by a Faraday cage, and the ghosts can't pass through. Why in fact, while we get to it, why could it affect the EMF the electromagnetic field in the first place? Anyway, While Galka created the first ram pod, I refused to use the word invented because, as bid Old demonstrated, it was really a theremin's with some lights added to it. Well. Others have since created variations on the rim pod. They still call them rim pods in most cases, but they're not all made by Galka's company. Some are made by other companies. One that I found personally really upsetting was from a company called spirit Shack. It's a UK company. They market a Teddy Bear with rim pods built in so the bear's pause illuminate when it detects a fluctuation in the electromagnetic field. And it's meant to be a device used to communicate with the ghosts of children, which absolutely turns my stomach because I feel this is device that exploits the profound grief of a family in a way that's really disturbing, and it's hard to reconcile the fact that a company makes money off of this thing, right, it's not just that, Like I understand the need or the desire to be able to reconnect with a lost child, like that is understandable. You know, that is a profound grief. What I don't understand is a company that makes a gadget that has no proven utility for this specific purpose and they're selling it to people for the Or you're a ghost hunter who's exploiting a family that is going through this kind of grief. Maybe you sincerely believe you're actually trying to help reach closure or get a reconnection or whatever, but to me, it just comes across as opportunistic. In the worst of circumstances, anyway, we're going to take another quick break. When we come back, I'm going to talk about the mel meter, which, at least in some versions of the mal meter, is like an arim pod on steroids. We'll chat more about that after we take this quick break. Hey, we're back to talk about the mel meter, named after Melissa Galka, the daughter who tragically passed away in two thousand and four in a car accident. And the mail meter incorporates some of the same tech as rim pods, at least in some versions of the malmeter. There are you know, different levels of malmeter. The malmeter typically has more metaphorical bells and whistles than the rim pod does. The very basic malmeter sells for ninety nine dollars, so it's actually less expensive than the rim pod and it quote measures EMF and ambient temperatures end quote. So it's you know, similar to modern rim pods in that it does deal with electromagnetic fields, but in this case it's a meter, not just a detector. The rim pod just makes a noise and generates lights when something interferes with its electromagnetic field. The mal meter measure electromagnetic fields. Oh, it's also got a high intensity red flashlight built into it, as well as the thermo couple or sensor that detects temperature changes. So the coupler actually plugs into the top of the device. You can unplug it if you want to. That's particularly important if you want to preserve battery life because the sensor does put an extra strain on the battery, as does the backlight for the display of the EMF meter, So if you're in a brightly lit area, you probably would want to turn the back light off or else you just be chewing through batteries faster than you need to be. The advanced melmeters also have an rim pod built into them, so they'll have an antenna that extends from the melmeter. Not all melmeters do. Some of them just have the little thermo couple sensor, which looks like an antenna, it's not. It's a temperature sensor. And then the more advanced ones have an extendable antenna because they have an rim pod, so they generate their own electromagnetic field and they will light up and make noise if something comes close to it, just like just like a junior thereman circuit wood that's connected to LED lights anyway, So the one I looked at that was the Top of the Line even had a laser projector, so it projects laser dots so you can keep an eye out for anything that moves between the mailmeter and whatever surface you're pointing it at. Apparently, the top of the line model also has an expansion slot so that you can potentially boost your mailmeters capabilities with whatever it is the company comes up with next, presuming that whatever it comes up with next is actually compatible with the rest of the circuitry in the mail meter that you're using now. In my opinion, the mail meter is another example of a gadget that just repackages already existing technologies such as EMF meters. So EMF meters can be used by folks like electricians and stuff if they're looking for faulty wiring in a house or whatever. Most electricians are using things like voltme and stuff are multimeters that plug into outlets. There are some no contact meters that electricians will use. Typically they're using those in environments where it would be dangerous to make contact. So you're like, like high voltage situations, that kind of thing, danger danger high voltage. That's for my friend Shay the EMF meters that you typically see in ghost hunting. I don't know how how widespread they are for electricians, but I do know that they're not nearly as expensive as the ones that are marketed for ghost hunting. Again, ghost hunters are highly motivated because they're seeking out stuff that is unsupported, and that I think adds to the motivation to actually go out there and find something right, and so they will spend more money on devices that aren't necessarily worth the cost. So the EMF meters and mail meters, I can't speak to the quality. They might be very good. I don't know, but a basic digital EMF meter costs between thirty and forty dollars. That's a basic one. They do go up from there. You can also get analog ones, but those are less expensive. The Mel eight seven zero four R seven to one premiere model of Mel meter is priced at three hundred and twenty nine dollars that you can pick it up on sale for just two hundred and seventy five bucks as of the time I'm recording this two hundred and seventy five dollars. Keep in mind, the basic EMF meters are thirty to forty dollars. Now, to be fair, the top of the line mailmeter also has that laser projector and the ram pod capabilities built into it, so it's more than just an EMF meter, But I don't think it's a multi axis EMF meter. It might be, but I don't think it is. In a separate article, Biddle wrote about a ghost hunting team using a basic mail meter that was a single act says EMF meter. So what do I mean by that? Well, electromagnetic fields are three dimensional things, right, they exist within three dimensions. But EMF sensors often only measure along one axis one direction, so in order to get a full reading, you would actually need to change the orientation of the meter in order to measure along three separate axes to get an accurate reading. So think of it like you have the meter set horizontally to measure along one axis, you turn it ninety degrees so that you measure along a second axis, and then you turn it vertical to measure along a third axis. There are EMF meters out there that can measure along all three axes simultaneously, and they are the more expensive ones. So if the malmeter in fact is a multi axis EMF meter that would explain at least in part the price. But Biddle seems to suggest at least the malmeter that he observed was a single access meter. I don't know if the more advanced ones are as well, but you know, if they are single access, then that that markup is even more impressive. I'll say the ghost hunting trend, I'm guessing has boosted sales of various radio frequency and EMF detectors more than any of the mundane use cases for those technologies. So I guess that's good news for the electronics companies out there that make these things. But I still maintain that it's largely it's a waste of time. It's a misuse of technology. The only way to get results is to either use the technology in ways that are improper or with improper controls to eliminate other explanations besides the supernatural. And what it largely does is that it contributes to ignorance, specifically ignorance as with regards to what technology does and what it can do. And I think that's what I object to second most most, the thing I object to most is the manipulation of people's emotions. You know, people who are experiencing loss, And I do think it's valuable for people to find sources of comfort and to find ways to process grief so that they can continue on with their lives while still honoring those who were part of their lives before. I think that's really important. I do not believe that most of the ghost hunting stuff that goes on provides that level of comfort. I worry that it exacerbates a problem and makes it worse. Those are the two prongs I mean again, critical thinking and compassion. Those are the two guiding principles for this show. If we use critical thinking, we have to say if ghosts exist, we haven't proven it. And the processes that people are using in order to hunt for ghosts are unproven to even be connected to ghosts in the first place. So it's putting the cart before the horse. And if we're doing this and it's all folly and in the process we're hurting people emotionally and psychologically who are trying to deal with grief, then we would actively be making the world worse, and in my opinion, the world we don't need to help with that. We can do better than that. We can take actions that make the world a better place now. Maybe someday in the future someone will establish the existence of ghosts in a way that is undeniable, and if that does happen, I will certainly change my tune. I have always maintained I'm not a denier. I'm a skeptic, but I'm a skeptic who has a very very high bar when it comes to proving that something supernatural exists, and so far no one has met it. But it's not possible to meet it, just hasn't happened. In the meantime, I do hope all of you out there who are looking forward to Halloween have a wonderful time. I hope all the trick or trading goes great, the parties are fun, that you're safe and happy, and have all the appropriate level of scares that aren't related to like anything truly scary. I hope that all comes true for y'all. I certainly love Halloween. I love ghost stories. I love movies about ghosts. I just think of them kind of similar to the way I think about fairy tales. I really enjoy them, but I don't believe them anyway. Take care, happy Halloween, and I'll talk to you again. Really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts you listen to your favorite shows

Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, your ghost host Jonathan Strickland, an executive producer at iHeart Podcasts, And how the tech are you? And as we creep ever closer to that creepiest of days, Halloween, it's time for another spooky episode of tech Stuff. Now. On Monday's episode, I talked about how photography gave certain Charlatans a tool to purposefully fool the grief stricken and the gullible into believing they were sitting for photos with ghostly companions, when in fact, those grieving people were really just victims of photographic tricks like double exposures and superimposed negatives. Today, I want to talk about a device that has no purpose other than to supposedly detect the presence of ghosts. These are called RM pods. Now. I made this joke on Monday, but I'm gonna go ahead and make it again because I was very sad to hear that RM pods are not, in fact little relaxation capsules that you can just crawl into and then listen to the band Ram sing about shiny happy people and Andy Kaufman and such. Instead, rim pods are devices that are meant to detect electromagnetic fluctuations, which many in the paranormal biz believe indicates the presence of other worldly spirits. Now I mentioned this in Monday's episode as well, but once again, for the folks in the back, that's not how science works. You don't go hunting for effects and then invent causes for those effects. That's the stuff of myth. It's like thinking back to prehistoric days when humans wondered what the heck was causing thunder, and the best they could come up with is that some extremely powerful gods we're having a hissy fit of one sort or another. It's akin to writing here, there be dragons on a map, because you don't actually know what is beyond a certain part of the map, and so just to be on the safe side, you imagine something really awful and maybe that way you don't actually have to go out there and find out for sure. Now, the proper way to go about this whole thing would be to first find evidence of the existence of ghosts, like something that shows that ghosts do in fact exist. Then you observe these ghosts to figure out what the heck they do, what are they capable of doing? You don't look for weird phenomena and then say, well, I don't know what caused this, so it must be ghosts. I suppose paranormal investigators would argue that there's a long history of associating ghosts with EMF fluctuations, But since ghosts have never been proven to exist, let alone that they can affect or manipulate electromagnetic fields, that doesn't really work for me. You know, some people say, well, the living can affect electromagnetic fields, so it stands to reason that the spirits can as well, but that doesn't really track. It doesn't matter how long we've associated ghosts with EMF fluctuations, it's never actually been proven to be a thing. So if I just associate I don't know, the sensation of an upset stomach with the color blue, it doesn't mean the color blue is causing my upset stomach, even if I've associated it, like, until we've proven that the color blue is doing it to me, it's just coincidence, And in this case, it's coincidence between something that's real, that is the fluctuations of electromagnetic fields, and something that has not been established to be real, that is ghosts. But now that we've got all that out of the way, let's talk about ariods. And there hesitate to use this word inventor Gary Galka. Now, first, Galka was highly motivated to make devices that could potentially detect ghosts for a real and tragic reason. And I don't want to downplay this. This is horrible. Galka tragically lost his daughter, Melissa in a car accident in September two thousand and four. She was just seventeen years old, and I cannot even begin to imagine the emotional and psychological impact that had both on him and the rest of his family. He has a wife and two other daughters, and that's just heartbreaking. Just a reminder, like the guiding principles for tech stuff I've always said are critical thinking and compassion. I do suggest we use critical thinking when we examine the work and claims of Galka, but we also show compassion because that's a horrible loss. But according to Galka, he and his family were experiencing unusual phenomena over the days, weeks, and months following Melissa's death. Now, Galka owns a business called DAS Distribution, which designs high tech measurement systems such as non contact measurement devices, and Galka builds sensors and instruments that could be incorporated into other technologies for a wide array of industries. So think about devices that are meant to detect stuff like humidity within a controlled environment, like if you've ever been in a museum where they've had humidity sensors that kind of thing, or devices that are designed to detect defects or malfunctions and equipment and processes or devices that aid in the precise measurement when working in fields that have no wiggle room for ambiguity, where you absolutely have to get measurements down to the most precise unit you can. That's the kind of thing that Galica worked in and Galka turned this ingenuity toward developing different gadgets in tended to aid the average ghost hunter. These include things like spirit boxes, which I've talked about before. Your typical spirit box is essentially a radio. It's a receiver and it's cycling through radio frequencies typically pretty quickly. They can go slower, but the more modern ones that get a little bit more traction these days go fast, and the belief is that ghosts, through some means of manipulating radio frequencies, can communicate through these kinds of devices. But a gadget that has a lot of ghost hunting types gravitating towards it over the last couple of decades has been the mel meter, which is named after Galca's daughter Melissa, and rim pods. So rim pods are kind of a stripped down version of the mel meter, or the mail meter is like an EMF meter that has an rim pod built into it, at least the more advanced mailmeters are. I'll talk about them later in the episode, but let's start with the rm pods first and then we'll get into what makes melmeter slightly different. So the basic idea behind the rim pod is that it detects disruptions in an electromagnetic field, which the pod itself generates. So the pod creates an electromagnetic field and then essentially keeps a weather eye on if anything interferes with that electromagnetic field, which sounds pretty high tech, but it turns out the basic electronics inside rim pods, at least inside the original version anyway, is a hobbykit variation of what you would find inside of theremin Now we know that because in twenty nineteen, a skeptic and science enthusiast named Kinney Biddle, who has written articles for The Skeptical Inquirer over several years, he bought an RM pod and he took it apart to see what makes it tick, and you can read his full explanation at Skeptical Inquirer dot org. His piece is titled ghost Hunting Gadgets the rim Pod. But at the heart of the operation was a little circuit called a junior Thereman. We'll talk about that in just a moment. Now. I did an episode about Thereman's way back in twenty eleven. Could Lord have been doing this for a long time anyway? The Thereman is an interesting musical instrument. It was invented in nineteen twenty eight by a guy named Lev Turman, who had been changed his name to Leon Thereman, and the device thus bears his name. Interestingly, he didn't set out to make a musical instrument to begin with. His actual goal was to build a censor capable of detecting objects, kind of in a way similar to how sonar works underwater. His methodology didn't quite work out. It never could extend to a point where it would be useful, Like if you did detect an object with electromagnetic fluctuations, it would be when the the object was close enough for you to kind of see it and potentially touch it, so the meter would not be of much use. However, he did figure out a way to leverage this and create a musical instrument that would require no contact. He thought of it kind of like you would play this musical instrument as if you were a conductor of an orchestra. Your hands would never have to make contact with the instrument at all. They would move around it and manipulate an electromagnetic field, and then you would generate a sound through this instrument that way. And it's not lost on me that nearly a century later, Galica would essentially reverse this process of turning a device meant to detect objects into a musical instrument, and Galka would take a circuit meant to emulate a musical instrument and turn it into a device that detects something, not objects, but gigigos. Now, even if you've never seen a thereman before, you've likely heard the noise it makes this weird, warbly sound. You sometimes hear an old sign fiction or horror films that whoaoo kind of stuff, very warbly and unearthly. And your basic theramen is a box that has two antenna extending from it. Typically one goes vertical and one goes horizontal. And by positioning your hands near the two antennas, you can cause the theramen to create an electronic sound, and you can manipulate that electronic sound. If you move your hand closer to or further from the vertical antenna, you affect the pitch. If you move your hand closer to or further from the horizontal antenna, you affect the volume. To get more technical, a theremin has a pair of oscillators connected to a circuit to affect the pitch, so the vertical antenna. Here, one oscillator is variable and the other is set to a fixed value. The fixed value oscillator produces radio waves at a stable static frequency. The variable oscillator can, as the name suggests, generate a variable radio frequency, and the two signals mix in a process that's called heterodyning, in which one frequency's value is subtracted from the other. Now, the volume antenna is simpler. It uses a single oscillator to generate a frequency that you disrupt by moving your hand closer to or further from the connected antenna, and that signal then goes to an amplifier and ultimately to speakers to create the warbly effect that we hear. And Leon Therreman first noticed that the human body could disrupt electromagnetic fields while he was working with an oscillating circuit that was just generating a radio frequency, and he saw that when he moved into the electromagnetic field, the frequency that was produced by this circuit changed. And as Kenny Biddle found, that was the basic concept of the arium pod as well, except that instead of a device designed to make music, it's meant to indicate if some sort of ghost is nearby, or at least if something is interfering with the antenna's electromagnetic field, which is more accurate. So let's describe the device as Biddle in countered it. When he took it apart. His RM pod had an exterior made of PVC coupling, so the kind of stuff that you can buy at your average hardware store. It was cylindrical in shape with an extendable antenna in the top of it, and it also had four translucent rods extending from the top. These he believed were made out of hot glue stick, and filling the PVC coupling was resin with more hot glue stick, apparently mixed in potentially to help cut down on the amount of resin needed to fill the whole thing, and the four ends of the glue stick stuck up out of the resin, and at the base of those glue sticks were LED lights, so the lights would shine up through the length of the hot glue stick so that you could see the light at the top of the RM pod right, so kind of an inexpensive way of making sure the LEDs would show through. There was also a small speaker at the center of the top of the RAM pod that would emit an electronic noise if the electromagnetic field were disturbed. The antenna, speaker, and the lights under the glu sticks all connected to a junior thereman circuit, and this in turn connected to a battery, a nine volt battery in this case, and the circuit basically recreates the function of a theremin. According to Biddle, the whole thing or the circuit at least the junior Thereman circuit cost around twenty dollars. So the original rim pod was essentially a junior Thereman with some LED lights added to it. And if you get close to the junior Thereman's antenna, which is Biddle described as just a piece of wire, you interrupt the electromagnetic field that it generates and you cause it to go woo woo ooo or whatever. You would need to be about six inches or closer in order to set it off. Now, presumably the wire from the junior Thereman's circuit connected to the extendable antenna that protruded from the top of the rim pod, and of course the lights would light up as well in case you didn't pick up on the electronic squeal. Okay, more about the rim pods in just a second, but first let's listen to some spook key advertisements. We're back. So Kinnny Bindle, he takes this rim pod and he takes it apart, and he looks at what makes it tick. And one of the things that he kind of bulked at was that if you took all these components separately, they'd probably cost you, I'm going to say less than thirty dollars. I mean the junior thereman's circuit was twenty bucks. I'm guessing that that was probably the most expensive component in that device, So you're talking around. Let's be generous, let's say forty dollars or less, but I think it's probably less than thirty. Galka's company sold them at a substantially higher price. So the current model, which is not exactly the same thing that Biddle disassembled in twenty nineteen, goes for about a one hundred and seventy dollars. Now I should add that the current rim pod also includes a temperature sensor in it, which was not in the one that Biddle disassembled in twenty nineteen, and this temperature sensor will alert you if the temperature around the pod changes by plus or minus five degrees. But as I said, the original rim pod didn't have a censor in it. It was essentially a junior therem And kit with some LED lights. So it was a novelty. In other words, it was a novelty that had been repackaged and marketed as a ghost hunting tool and then sold for a heft markup. At least that's what Biddle found a piece in NBC News back in twenty twelve mentioned that Galka's gadgets, including but not limited to rim pods, had a range of prices that went from seventy nine dollars on the low end to a whopping three hundred and fifty bucks on the high end. So this makes me very uncomfortable because again, he didn't invent something new. He took existing devices and combined them in a way that really, in my opinion, was not transformative. Like you could have just used the junior therem in circuit as is. You didn't need the LED lights necessarily. I mean, you could connect those two a circuit as well and power it and get the same sort of result. But you could just use the junior therem and circuit and listen for anything that sets it off because it interferes with the field that it generates, because that's essentially what the ram pod is doing. That you could do that for like twenty bucks plus whatever it costs you to buy a battery for the darn thing, and then to have to pay upwards of one hundred and seventy dollars for that kind of thing seems a bit excessive in my opinion. Biddle describes the way ghost hunters use this gadget. I'm actually going to quote him directly here. Quote. When it comes to ghost hunting, enthusiasts typically use the rim pod as a spirit communication device. The device is placed in an allegedly haunted location, room, hallway, staircase, et cetera, and ghost hunters begin asking various questions. The ghosts are directed to touch the device or make it light up. A positive response occurs when the device lights up and makes noise, and the spirits are thanked for their participation. End quote. A little bit later on that same article, Biddle also writes quote. In the event the ghost hunters receive no response, the questions are often repeated multiple times, or the ghost hunters move onto different questions until the device eventually lights up. This is a similar method that to that used during EVP Electronic voice phenomenon sessions, where ghost hunters are waiting for a vocal response rather than hearing a tone played along with some lights. If no response comes at all, I often hear excuses such as the spirits don't want to talk tonight, or it doesn't always work, but it worked great last time. Quote. As Biddle points out, the problem here is that there are plenty of opportunities for worldly, mundane stuff to set off a device like an rim pod. Not only has no one yet established the existence of ghosts, let alone that they're capable of interacting with or manipulate electromagnetic fields. We know for a fact there are plenty of things that do interact with electromagnetic fields that are not ghosts, you know, like cell phones or walkie talkies, or even natural sources of radio waves. Biddle describes tests in which he found rim pods to react to two way radios from as far away as forty feet if you were inside like indoors, or as far away as twenty feet if you were outdoors. He even observed an rim pod reacting when walkie talkies were used on the floor above or below where the pod was. So if someone's upstairs and they're using the walkie talkie to chat with someone, the rim pod could potentially pick that up and go off, and you might not hear the person upstairs talking, but you'll see the rim pod go off, and you'll think, ah, ghosts. Often ghost hunting crews use two way radios in order to stay in communication with each other, or you know, someone could have a cell phone on them and if they're sitting close enough to the pod while the cell phone is connecting to the closest tower to get updates, it could set off an rim pod. So it's easy for an rim pod to be set off either on purpose. Let's say that there's someone who has an incentive to have the pod go off. Maybe they're the host of a ghost hunting show and they want the camera crew to capture some activity on this rim pod. You know, maybe having a crew member nearby just you know, casually have to use the two way radio for something and whoa, hey, by coincidence, the rim pod has gone off that looks good on camera. Or it could just be done by accident, right. It could be that you're sincerely looking for ghosts. You are not trying to fool anyone. You're really just being as straightforward as you can be. But because you're using two way radios, you might accidentally set off the rim pod and you have what you believe is a positive response, when in turn, it really is a false positive. Biddle laments the fact that ghost hunters rarely introduce controls to eliminate outside interference with their equipment. This is I've found to be true pretty much across the board, like some ghost hunter types actually do try to use controls and they get very lackluster response, like lackluster results, because as it turns out, when you start to control for potential interference that the existence of ghosts seems to just disappear. So again, ghost hunters, I think are incentivized to not use controls because if they do, then they don't get results. So Biddle says, well, one way you could control for this kind of thing is you could use a Farred cage in order to isolate an rim pod from environmental interference, and thus the POD's own electromagnetic field will remain untouched by anything outside like two way radio traffic or cell phones or whatever, and only something inside the cage would affect the rim pod. So I figured, that's a great excuse to talk about what a Faraday cage is and how it works. And just as a side note, this was kind of fun while I was researching Faraday cages because you know, I know general how they work, but I wanted to get a refresher. I found an article on how stuff works, which is my old employer, and I was delighted to see that my old co host and editor had a byline on that article. That's Chris Pollette, by the way, my original co host for tech Stuff, And so that was just nice because I miss Chris. He's great. I loved working with him, both as a writer and as a podcaster. Anyway, the Faraday cage is named after a guy named Michael Faraday Cage. Wait, no, I'm sorry, just Michael Faraday. But the earliest experiments were performed by one, let's see, Benjamin Franklin. So old Benji was experimenting with electricity. You might recall that he did that a bit. So he took a can that was made of silver, and he electrified the can, and he experimented with lowering a piece of uncharged cork that was on a non conductive thread and lowered it into the can and had it touched the bottom of the can. And what he found to be strange is that if he were to bring the cork near the outside of the can, like if you were to dangle the cork so that was next to the exterior surface of the can, the cork would get attracted to the can. It would become charged. It would pick up an electrostatic charge and it would be attracted to the can surface. But when he was doing this on the inside of the can, that didn't happen. The cork did not appeared to become electrostatically charged, and Franklin couldn't figure out why. He was stumped. He actually wrote to a friend of his that maybe someone else would figure it out, because he could not understand why it would work on the outside but not the inside. Well decades later, Michael Faraday's experiments led him to observe that if one created a metallic cage or a container of some sort, like if you made a mesh of metallic material and you electrified the mesh, it actually would electrify the exterior surface. The charge would only be on the outer surface of the cage, not the inside of the cage. So essentially you had created a hollow conductor. All the conductivity happened on the outside, but not the inside. And he even created a very large experiment in which he lined in entire room's walls with metallic foil. He electrified the foil, and he used a very sensitive instrument designed to detect electrical charges on the side of the room and found no electrical charge on the inside, just on the exterior surface of this foil. Now beyond that, his later observation showed that within a Faraday cage, electromagnetic radiation also doesn't penetrate. So if you were to put your cell phone inside of Faraday cage, your cell phone would not receive any notifications or get any updates. The cell phone would just be isolated from the outside world, at least in terms of electromagnetic radiation. And so if you place an rim pod inside of Faraday cage, that would ensure it would not be affected by stuff like two way radio communication or other external sources of electromagnetic radiation. So presumably a ghost would be able to get its spectral hands on an rim pod by passing through the cage, like we assume that ghosts are able to pass through materials. And yet the one time Biddle talked about observing a team using a Faraday cage as a means of a control the rim pod, it didn't go off at all. So that seems to indicate that the Faraday cage, once it eliminated the sources of external interference, it also eliminated the possibility that there was a ghost there. Now, I suppose you could argue that ghosts, due to their as yet unestablished relationship with electromagnetic radiation, are somehow bound to the physical laws that all other stuff obeys. But since we haven't proven ghosts even exist, it seems silly to make that argument, just as it seems silly to argue that they could manipulate electromagnetic radiation in the first place, Like by what logic if you say, well, well, of course the ghosts didn't affect the rim pod. It was shielded by a Faraday cage, and the ghosts can't pass through. Why in fact, while we get to it, why could it affect the EMF the electromagnetic field in the first place? Anyway, While Galka created the first ram pod, I refused to use the word invented because, as bid Old demonstrated, it was really a theremin's with some lights added to it. Well. Others have since created variations on the rim pod. They still call them rim pods in most cases, but they're not all made by Galka's company. Some are made by other companies. One that I found personally really upsetting was from a company called spirit Shack. It's a UK company. They market a Teddy Bear with rim pods built in so the bear's pause illuminate when it detects a fluctuation in the electromagnetic field. And it's meant to be a device used to communicate with the ghosts of children, which absolutely turns my stomach because I feel this is device that exploits the profound grief of a family in a way that's really disturbing, and it's hard to reconcile the fact that a company makes money off of this thing, right, it's not just that, Like I understand the need or the desire to be able to reconnect with a lost child, like that is understandable. You know, that is a profound grief. What I don't understand is a company that makes a gadget that has no proven utility for this specific purpose and they're selling it to people for the Or you're a ghost hunter who's exploiting a family that is going through this kind of grief. Maybe you sincerely believe you're actually trying to help reach closure or get a reconnection or whatever, but to me, it just comes across as opportunistic. In the worst of circumstances, anyway, we're going to take another quick break. When we come back, I'm going to talk about the mel meter, which, at least in some versions of the mal meter, is like an arim pod on steroids. We'll chat more about that after we take this quick break. Hey, we're back to talk about the mel meter, named after Melissa Galka, the daughter who tragically passed away in two thousand and four in a car accident. And the mail meter incorporates some of the same tech as rim pods, at least in some versions of the malmeter. There are you know, different levels of malmeter. The malmeter typically has more metaphorical bells and whistles than the rim pod does. The very basic malmeter sells for ninety nine dollars, so it's actually less expensive than the rim pod and it quote measures EMF and ambient temperatures end quote. So it's you know, similar to modern rim pods in that it does deal with electromagnetic fields, but in this case it's a meter, not just a detector. The rim pod just makes a noise and generates lights when something interferes with its electromagnetic field. The mal meter measure electromagnetic fields. Oh, it's also got a high intensity red flashlight built into it, as well as the thermo couple or sensor that detects temperature changes. So the coupler actually plugs into the top of the device. You can unplug it if you want to. That's particularly important if you want to preserve battery life because the sensor does put an extra strain on the battery, as does the backlight for the display of the EMF meter, So if you're in a brightly lit area, you probably would want to turn the back light off or else you just be chewing through batteries faster than you need to be. The advanced melmeters also have an rim pod built into them, so they'll have an antenna that extends from the melmeter. Not all melmeters do. Some of them just have the little thermo couple sensor, which looks like an antenna, it's not. It's a temperature sensor. And then the more advanced ones have an extendable antenna because they have an rim pod, so they generate their own electromagnetic field and they will light up and make noise if something comes close to it, just like just like a junior thereman circuit wood that's connected to LED lights anyway, So the one I looked at that was the Top of the Line even had a laser projector, so it projects laser dots so you can keep an eye out for anything that moves between the mailmeter and whatever surface you're pointing it at. Apparently, the top of the line model also has an expansion slot so that you can potentially boost your mailmeters capabilities with whatever it is the company comes up with next, presuming that whatever it comes up with next is actually compatible with the rest of the circuitry in the mail meter that you're using now. In my opinion, the mail meter is another example of a gadget that just repackages already existing technologies such as EMF meters. So EMF meters can be used by folks like electricians and stuff if they're looking for faulty wiring in a house or whatever. Most electricians are using things like voltme and stuff are multimeters that plug into outlets. There are some no contact meters that electricians will use. Typically they're using those in environments where it would be dangerous to make contact. So you're like, like high voltage situations, that kind of thing, danger danger high voltage. That's for my friend Shay the EMF meters that you typically see in ghost hunting. I don't know how how widespread they are for electricians, but I do know that they're not nearly as expensive as the ones that are marketed for ghost hunting. Again, ghost hunters are highly motivated because they're seeking out stuff that is unsupported, and that I think adds to the motivation to actually go out there and find something right, and so they will spend more money on devices that aren't necessarily worth the cost. So the EMF meters and mail meters, I can't speak to the quality. They might be very good. I don't know, but a basic digital EMF meter costs between thirty and forty dollars. That's a basic one. They do go up from there. You can also get analog ones, but those are less expensive. The Mel eight seven zero four R seven to one premiere model of Mel meter is priced at three hundred and twenty nine dollars that you can pick it up on sale for just two hundred and seventy five bucks as of the time I'm recording this two hundred and seventy five dollars. Keep in mind, the basic EMF meters are thirty to forty dollars. Now, to be fair, the top of the line mailmeter also has that laser projector and the ram pod capabilities built into it, so it's more than just an EMF meter, But I don't think it's a multi axis EMF meter. It might be, but I don't think it is. In a separate article, Biddle wrote about a ghost hunting team using a basic mail meter that was a single act says EMF meter. So what do I mean by that? Well, electromagnetic fields are three dimensional things, right, they exist within three dimensions. But EMF sensors often only measure along one axis one direction, so in order to get a full reading, you would actually need to change the orientation of the meter in order to measure along three separate axes to get an accurate reading. So think of it like you have the meter set horizontally to measure along one axis, you turn it ninety degrees so that you measure along a second axis, and then you turn it vertical to measure along a third axis. There are EMF meters out there that can measure along all three axes simultaneously, and they are the more expensive ones. So if the malmeter in fact is a multi axis EMF meter that would explain at least in part the price. But Biddle seems to suggest at least the malmeter that he observed was a single access meter. I don't know if the more advanced ones are as well, but you know, if they are single access, then that that markup is even more impressive. I'll say the ghost hunting trend, I'm guessing has boosted sales of various radio frequency and EMF detectors more than any of the mundane use cases for those technologies. So I guess that's good news for the electronics companies out there that make these things. But I still maintain that it's largely it's a waste of time. It's a misuse of technology. The only way to get results is to either use the technology in ways that are improper or with improper controls to eliminate other explanations besides the supernatural. And what it largely does is that it contributes to ignorance, specifically ignorance as with regards to what technology does and what it can do. And I think that's what I object to second most most, the thing I object to most is the manipulation of people's emotions. You know, people who are experiencing loss, And I do think it's valuable for people to find sources of comfort and to find ways to process grief so that they can continue on with their lives while still honoring those who were part of their lives before. I think that's really important. I do not believe that most of the ghost hunting stuff that goes on provides that level of comfort. I worry that it exacerbates a problem and makes it worse. Those are the two prongs I mean again, critical thinking and compassion. Those are the two guiding principles for this show. If we use critical thinking, we have to say if ghosts exist, we haven't proven it. And the processes that people are using in order to hunt for ghosts are unproven to even be connected to ghosts in the first place. So it's putting the cart before the horse. And if we're doing this and it's all folly and in the process we're hurting people emotionally and psychologically who are trying to deal with grief, then we would actively be making the world worse, and in my opinion, the world we don't need to help with that. We can do better than that. We can take actions that make the world a better place now. Maybe someday in the future someone will establish the existence of ghosts in a way that is undeniable, and if that does happen, I will certainly change my tune. I have always maintained I'm not a denier. I'm a skeptic, but I'm a skeptic who has a very very high bar when it comes to proving that something supernatural exists, and so far no one has met it. But it's not possible to meet it, just hasn't happened. In the meantime, I do hope all of you out there who are looking forward to Halloween have a wonderful time. I hope all the trick or trading goes great, the parties are fun, that you're safe and happy, and have all the appropriate level of scares that aren't related to like anything truly scary. I hope that all comes true for y'all. I certainly love Halloween. I love ghost stories. I love movies about ghosts. I just think of them kind of similar to the way I think about fairy tales. I really enjoy them, but I don't believe them anyway. Take care, happy Halloween, and I'll talk to you again. Really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts you listen to your favorite shows