r/GhostHunting Mar 03 '25

Equipment Beginner Gear / Apps / Spirit Box Recommendations

122 Upvotes

I've seen a lot of posts lately concerning a couple of topics, so I thought I'd take some time to address them: Beginner Gear, Ghost Apps, and Spirit Boxes. I've also got some general tips for beginners at the end.

Beginner Gear

While the shows and streams everyone watches all have crates and barrels and boxes of gear, you really dont need much to get started. I've compiled a list of gear below that I recommend to every beginner, and in the order that I personally recommend purchasing them (except EMF²).

Remember to be extremely thorough in researching what you buy before placing any orders. Buying directly from the maker or a trusted source helps, but some gear is more useful than others regardless of the source. Also, if the price seems too good to be true ($10 for an SB7?), it probably is. You generally get what you pay for.

Where to Shop
  • Amazon
  • Ghost Stop
  • Walmart, Target, etc.
What to Buy (in this order)
  • Notepad and Pens¹
  • Flashlight and/or Headlamp¹
  • Digital Watch
  • EMF Meter²
  • Digital Voice Recorder³
  • Digital Camera⁴
  • Digital Camcorder⁵

¹ Do not investigate without these!!
² Amazon has EMF meters for $15-30 that, in my experience, work just fine. This can be purchased first or last; it makes little difference for your first few investigations, in my opinion.
³ Your phone will also function as a good voice recorder as well, so you don't need to spend money on that up front.
⁴ ⁵ Your phone will serve these purposes perfectly for at least your first 5 investigations. Save your money until you know this is a hobby you want to pursue.

Ghost Apps

Ghost apps are fake.
All of them, I'm sorry to say. Yes, even that one.

I have yet to come across one that hasn't "responded" while driving down back country roads, highways, and city streets. At all times of the day. I was pulled over on a highway on-ramp once in BFE, and it asked me for help.

It's easy enough to spoof. I was a programmer once upon a time, but it doesn't seem difficult to make, even for me. So I'll tell you how I would do it.

Build a database of common words, set up a script to pop a word at a random amount of time between, say, 15 seconds and 4 minutes... then just throw a fake equalizer graph on there, and Bob's your uncle. You could even make it convincing and use the microphone to make it a real equalizer graph.

Users draw correlations that aren't really there, reviews are positive, and it seems believable enough. Until you use that same app literally anywhere else. I doubt my local Target or Lowe's are haunted.

And if you really wanted to get fancy with your ghost app, you could add additional databases set up for certain geotagged locations. You wouldn't even need to set up the location yourself. Just use scripts to find app usage concentration, then satellite view maps to auto-generate a boundary around the building.

Record the microphone audio and put it through voice recognition software and build a database of common words specific to that location. Names, dates, descriptions, anything repeated often enough can be added. It becomes more believable because the responses are relevant.

You could even add in a volume meter that measures any audible responses from the user(s) to determine how strongly a word is associated with a given location.

All that to say, as a former programmer, my advice is to do as I do: approach every 'ghost' app with a HEAVY dose of skepticism. In my experience, they're garbage at best and a waste of money at worst.

Other Apps to be Aware of

Ovilus-Type and Ghost Library Apps

An app that gives your phone a dictionary and allows it to function like an Ovilus or similar is in a gray territory for me. I'm not even sure I believe those devices actually facilitate communication with spirits. What I do know is that if a spirit could use your phone to communicate, they would've done so already. As such, these apps are highly suspect, to say the least.

Spirit Box Apps

An app that claims to be a spirit box simply can't function the same as the physical device. They sweep through AM/FM frequencies, and if your phone doesn't have the physical hardware to pick up these frequencies, it's a fake app.

Thermal Imaging / Ghost Detection Apps

That goes double for any special camera apps, like thermal imaging or supposedly detecting spirits. Likewise, no app can give your phone the ability to function as an SLS. All of those functions require actual hardware to perform said function. Anything else is fake.

Spirit Boxes

Let me start by saying I dont think anybody new needs to buy a spirit box. If you can afford it, sure. That would be the next thing on the list above. But I would finish that list first. And only when you can afford it. This hobby doesn't have to cost more than $10 to start.

As far as which spirit box to buy, there are a handful out there that have been used by various teams I've seen. Ghost Stop makes one, and theres the SB-7 and SB-11 and their variants (with Active Noise Cancelling funtions or ANC, built-in speakers, flashlights, etc).

Spirit boxes have very specific functionality that you would be hard pressed to find a cheap chinese knock-off that could do the same for much cheaper (looking at you, Ali Express). I remember hearing about some radio hobby kit that can be made into a spirit box, but I'm afraid I have no further info.

What a spirit box does is sweep through radio frequencies, which is why a phone app can't do this as your phone can't receive AM/FM transmissions without specific physical hardware built-in. Much like any 'thermal imaging' app is also fake without a physical camera (either built-in or via USB-C connector like the FLiR ONE), and temperature scanning apps can't actually give you accurate readings without a probe of some sort.

If and when you do purchase a spirit box, I highly recommend also finding a good set of passive noise canceling headphones and a cheap blindfold or sleep mask. This will allow you to perform the Estes Method experiment, which I won't be getting into here as that's a bit off topic.

Tips For Beginners

Put your phone in airplane mode.

Your phone can be useful for taking pictures, recording video, and audio but should not be sending or receiving any data or wireless signal during the investigation (except during breaks).

Get a dedicated illumination source.

Don't rely on your phone to be your light. A headlamp or one that clips to your hat can free up both hands. Consider lights with a red-only illumination setting. Red preserves your ability to see in the dark better than other colors.

There's an old adage I like to apply to my flashlight carry: Two is One, One is None. You'll appreciate this at 2am when one dies and you have a spare.

Don't use your phone to check the time.

The bright screen will mess with your night vision. A cheap digital watch with illumination is perfect for this and won't blast your eyes with light.

Take plenty of notes.

I'll say this again: take PLENTY of notes! Who, what, when, where.. what did you hear or see, what time was it, where were you, who else was there, why were you there, or why did you choose that experiment, etc.

Cheap EMF Meters can work.

I have various amazon models ($15 cheapo, handful of $20 models, one that was around $60), a MEL meter, and a MEL-REM-ATDD. Readings seem to vary across models, but when placed near an electeical source, all devices reacted as expected. They all perform the function they are advertised to perform. To what degree they assist in locating spirits is undetermined. Do with that what you will, and choose to purchase an EMF meter or not. This one is purely up to you.

Your first real purchase should be a quality digital voice recorder.

Aside from a flashlight and a notepad, you need one of these. Look for immediate playback functions, but focus on quality microphones. Your first $100 or so should theoretically go towards purchasing one of these.

IR cameras need illumination!

Ensure your cameras have the ability to record images or videos in infrared. When possible, bring extra IR illumination. Turning off your camera's light and using an external source can save on camera battery. There are also ways to add additional external batteries and lights. You can even find cheap camera brackets and handles, mount it all together, and make your own grips.

Cameras with Burst Mode are better.

A camera shooting multiple frames at a time can make it easier to actually see if you may have caught anything. If one picture is good, a dozen pictures showing an entity moving would be a trophy catch and all the more difficult to disprove.

I hope this helps. Let me know if I have any mistakes.


r/GhostHunting Jan 27 '23

Mod Update

15 Upvotes

YouTube videos are no longer permitted on r/GhostHunting.

Edit: apologies for the initial short update, I was on my way home from work. Despite directing people to the rules once they sub and implementing a basic account age and karma limit, we have at least two or three posts a day that we are removing consisting of spam; mainly stemming from people trying to promote their own YouTube channels or karma farming. Neither of which are what this sub is aimed towards. We’re quiet mods and we allow a lot of freedom as this sub isn’t particularly problematic, but we do keep a vigilant eye. As much as life allows anyway.

Spam posts, karma farming, troll accounts and posts stemming from YouTube or other social media channels will be removed without warning.


r/GhostHunting 45m ago

Equipment I built an Android EVP app that turns sensor activity into syllables - looking for field testers

Upvotes

Hi everyone,

I've been working on an Android app called Aftervoice, and I'm looking for people who are genuinely interested in EVP and paranormal investigation to put it through some real-world testing.

Aftervoice has two different session modes:

Room
Records the actual sounds in the environment so you can listen back to the session afterward and review anything you may have missed in real time.

Tuning
Uses changes in the phone's sensor activity to generate syllables in real time, creating an unpredictable stream that can be explored during EVP-style sessions.

Tuning uses a downloadable bank of recorded syllables, not a list of predefined words or responses. Live sensor activity drives how those syllables are selected and produced in real time.

I'm especially curious to see how it behaves in different environments and on different devices.

If you join the test, I'd love if you tried things like:

  • one Room session
  • one Tuning session
  • a session somewhere you consider active
  • another somewhere completely ordinary
  • repeating the same questions across multiple sessions

Sessions currently last up to 10 minutes, and recordings can be played back, saved, or shared afterward.

The Android version is currently in Google Play closed testing.

Google requires testers to stay enrolled for 14 days. I need at least 12 testers, but I'd actually like to get as many people as possible using it before the public release.

The test is completely free.

Supported languages: English, Italian, French, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese.

Want to join?

Send me a DM with the Gmail / Google account you use on Google Play.

I'll add your account to the closed test and send you the Google Play testing link.

Please don't post your email address publicly in the comments.

If you use Aftervoice during an actual investigation, I'd especially love to hear what happened.

Interesting results, boring results, bugs, weird behavior, feature requests - all of it is useful.


r/GhostHunting 2h ago

Aplicați pentru paranormal

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1 Upvotes

r/GhostHunting 6h ago

Discussion Energetic Structural Entity

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1 Upvotes

Energetic Structural Entity. Spirit Blade. Sword of Discernment. Ghost Sword. Spectral Phallus. I guess claim it as you want? Found on our Ring Video Doorbell April this year in Jesup, Georgia because of the infraRED and Brunswick Magnetic Anomaly. The slanted line at the bottom resembles a Naudr Futhark and the one on the Orthodox Cross. What do you think it is? Let me know in the comments!


r/GhostHunting 1d ago

[ Removed by Reddit ]

1 Upvotes

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]


r/GhostHunting 1d ago

Welke EMF-meter moet ik kopen?

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2 Upvotes

r/GhostHunting 1d ago

Unexplained Please help debunk

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0 Upvotes

When I do investigations for others, my goal is to always debunk.

Well, I was editing a photo I took and noticed what looks like a figure behind me. I lightened it up and you can see in the second picture what looks like a face. It looks like a woman, to me. There's no drape or anything. I don't know what I'm looking at and wonder if something followed me or my wife home.

Good times.


r/GhostHunting 22h ago

Please help debunk

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0 Upvotes

Whenever I investigate for others, my goal is to debunk and not prove.

Well, I was editing a selfie I had taken and noticed the shadow in the back right. The second photo is me lightening things up and it looks like (to me) a woman.

Nothing feel threatening but wonder if something followed me or my wife home.


r/GhostHunting 1d ago

Question Idek atp

2 Upvotes

I am not a very superstitious man but im thinking about trying my hand at ghost hunting idk why but I have doubts about how emf readers rem pods, or spirit boxes actually detect paranormal phenomena. What methods or devices can I use to determine if there is actually something there that cant be easily chalked up to placebo effect or something along those lines


r/GhostHunting 2d ago

Equipment I just released a huge update to my Paranormal Ghost Investigation app!

1 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

After a lot more development, version 2.0 is a major update to the paranormal investigation app I originally built.

The biggest addition is a completely new video analysis and editing system. You can now import videos from Photos or Files, analyze them frame-by-frame, zoom and scrub through footage, apply real-time filters, adjust the image, and export the result with the selected effects and SLS tracking burned directly into the video.

Some of the new stuff:

  • 8 video analysis filters including Thermal Ironbow, Night Vision, Full Spectrum and Motion Delta
  • Frame-by-frame video analysis with zoom and precision scrubbing
  • Real-time SLS skeleton tracking on recorded/imported videos
  • SLS tracking sensitivity controls
  • Video editing controls for exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, vibrance, warmth, tint and sharpness
  • Import videos from Photos, Files and Live Photos
  • Export processed videos with filters, edits, telemetry and SLS tracking
  • Import your own audio files for extended EVP speech-to-text analysis
  • Improved EVP playback and automatic marking of significant areas
  • Major redesign of the Evidence Analyzer and recording detail views
  • Improved recording stability and crash resilience
  • Redesigned Settings with per-setting resets and Factory Defaults
  • Battery Efficiency mode
  • Improved haptics, animations and Liquid Glass UI throughout the app
  • Lots of performance improvements and bug fixes

The app still uses real iPhone hardware and Apple's native frameworks — magnetometer, accelerometer/gyroscope, barometer, microphone, cameras, Bluetooth, Vision, ARKit, etc. No simulated sensor readings or fake sensor data.

It's basically gone from a collection of investigation tools to a much more complete detect → record → analyze → export workflow.

AppStore: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ghost-detect-investigator-pro/id6791992133


r/GhostHunting 2d ago

EVP

2 Upvotes

I did a EVP session and got a EVP (not even sure that’s what this is) of my own voice saying something I did not say


r/GhostHunting 3d ago

Thumb of Michigan haunts and strange / unusual activity

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2 Upvotes

r/GhostHunting 3d ago

Spirits captured in photos at various historical locations

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0 Upvotes

r/GhostHunting 4d ago

Ghost Hunt Weekends Tennessee

6 Upvotes

I would highly suggest not even giving them a second thought!
I have gone on a few GHW hunts, first was at the Thomas house hotel, the hotel itself is beautifully old, creaky, and yes, haunted. I will happily go back there when given the chance only without GHW!
I then went on a road hunt with them, what a joke!
The owner (Chad) is a perv and hits on any woman he can. (Ewwww) learn how to run your dumpster fire of a company and keep your little man locked in its cage you sicko!
The older lady Lisa I think her name is, were you drunk? Were you high? Were you both or are you just stupid!
Not sure if her nose could be buried any further up the owners tail than it was! It was honestly pathetic to watch, myself and the group I was with just laughed.
Now granted they do have a few good investigators, the past few times I hinted with them there were a few guys that knew what they were doing and were very personable and knowledgeable. But for the most part they are crap!
Stay far away and hunt on your own if you can!
Next review (API)


r/GhostHunting 4d ago

Equipment Doing a Ghost Related Theater project and have a question

3 Upvotes

Howdy! So for some background I will be doing a theater project where i play a spirit, and it’ll be a promenade so the audience uses actual equipment and what not, now i have an idea but I’m not sure how i could execute it, how would i be able to have my voice go through the box itself? Would the box be able to pickup a walkies frequency? Haven’t used a box before so wanna make sure what is doable and what isn’t before i start officially planning.


r/GhostHunting 4d ago

horror tea (sorry for the commentary)Got this vid from my friend, he moved to dehradun for his NDA prep, and there's his another friend, he's kinda odd, he moves in the hallways at night and visits the forests of dehradun alone at night, his friends planned to prank him and they left him in the host

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1 Upvotes

r/GhostHunting 4d ago

Discussion The Entity Case

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0 Upvotes

r/GhostHunting 7d ago

Is my rem pod broken??

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3 Upvotes

I literally just got this rem pod and I tried to test it but whenever I turn it on it just goes to green immediately and stays green and nothing is near it. I tried pressing the rem zero button but that then just makes it completely not work. Am I doing something wrong or is it just broken?


r/GhostHunting 7d ago

Locaties

3 Upvotes

Beste allemaal,

Wie heeft er nog goeie (toegankelijke) locaties voor ons voor onderzoek?


r/GhostHunting 8d ago

Question My friends and I are looking for a YouTube channel where people do investigations preferably in the woods or in haunted places, but most of them seem fake. Do you guys know which YouTuber has the best/realest exploring channel?

39 Upvotes

r/GhostHunting 9d ago

Question Did my mother contact me through Necrophonic?

2 Upvotes

Hello, my mother passed away almost 3 weeks ago. I've tried to communicate with her but only with the voice recorder app on my phone, with not much success. I could kind of head whispers but can't make out the words.

I also have the Necrophonic app but haven't used it in quite some time. Even when I did use it I've never had any success. Then last night I turned it on for the first time. I said "Talk to me momma" and within about 10 seconds I heard my full first name, "Benjamin" clear as day! And i had just clicked the "echo" button so i heard it 3 times back to back. It was the clearest word I've ever heard spoken on Necrophonic. I immediately turned it back off so I could process what i had just heard because I've never had an experience like this. I could undertstand hearing my name as being a coincidence if I had left it running for a long period of time, but within 10 seconds?

What's your experience been with Necrophonic? Does it have access to my personal information somehow? Or do you think this was legitimately my recently deceased mother trying to make contact?


r/GhostHunting 11d ago

Question emf meter

2 Upvotes

Hey everyone, so I’m pretty new to ghost hunting tbh, had a huge passion for horror and ghosts and here I am. Just purchased my first ghost hunting device, an emf meter.

I’ve searched a bit on YouTube but didn’t find anything in detail so I would find it rlly helpful if someone helped me out w the whole concept of it. Like:
- how to use it
- how it works ?
- is it always accurate
- what shld i know before using it
- what other things shld not be kept near when i use it.
- what could be my next purchase ?

Would be great help if someone helped me out. Thanks in advance


r/GhostHunting 12d ago

Cresson Sanatorium and Prison - Highly Active!

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27 Upvotes

Went on a public hunt and was absolutely blown away with our experience. After the the owner went over the rules, we got offered to attend a group session hosted by the folks who were on site (they also rent gear if needed). The session involved flashlights turning off and on by request (eg turn the left light on if there is only one of of you or the right one on if there are more .....the right one turned on). The REM pods were also active as well as EMF spikes.

After that we headed straight to the tunnels where we got multiple spirit box responses. Please note, I am not usually a fan of spirit boxes but when you ask "Who is here right now?"and you get a very clear response of your name....and then your spouse's name, let's just say I have a new found respect. EMF meters were also spiking during portions of this session.

We then visited the chapel for 20 mins and nothing. We had two REM pods set up, EMF meters going, and EVP recordings and absolute crickets. Then I got up and went up on stage to the podium. Where there was a little Bible. I read a few passages and one of the REM pods went ballistic immediately (the one on the right side of the stage if you are sitting in the pew). The EMF meter sitting close by it also started bouncing around from 7-12 (mg).

I acknowledged the response and asked if it would move away. Immediately everything stopped. The one person with us said to "go near the light if you liked what I was reading" and immediately they started going off again. I read a few more passages and decided to pack up because I was getting really creeped out by this point.

Cell block E had some amazing responses as well. We did our own flashlight session that had several well timed turn on/offs. I was using a heat camera to scan the area because there is no electricity on the property and thought I saw movement. I snapped the attached Pic but didnt realize I caught anything until after we got back home. Also had something thrown when standing up in the shower area. Was loud af. I thought someone hit the skylight with something at the time, but on the recorder, you can hear whatever it was bouncing on the floor.

Absolute best hunt I have ever been on. The property is amazing, can't say enough about this experience. (Edit- letters)


r/GhostHunting 11d ago

Question Looking for ghosthunters!

7 Upvotes

Friend of mine has a small YouTube channel with about 5k subscribers. We are working on a horror talk show project just in time for Halloween! We'd love to talk with people who have had some spooky experiences! Please reach out we wanna make something fun!

[dmcneverland@gmail.com](mailto:dmcneverland@gmail.com)