Are Ghosts Energy? What Does That Actually Mean?

Spend enough time reading about ghosts and eventually someone will say it:

“Ghosts are energy.”

It sounds scientific. It is repeated constantly in paranormal investigations, books, documentaries and television programs. Strange electromagnetic readings appear, batteries unexpectedly die, a room becomes cold, and someone inevitably suggests that a spirit is drawing energy from its surroundings.

But there is a problem.

Energy isn’t a substance.

In physics, energy is a measurable property of a physical system. It can be transferred and transformed, and it appears in forms associated with motion, heat, electromagnetic radiation, chemical processes and other physical phenomena.

So saying that a ghost is “made of energy” doesn’t really explain anything.

What kind of energy?

Where does it come from?

How is it stored?

How does it interact with matter?

And, perhaps most importantly, can any of it actually be measured?

Those questions don’t disprove ghosts.

They simply reveal that one of the most popular explanations for them isn’t really an explanation at all.

What Is a Ghost Supposed to Be?

Before asking what ghosts are made of, there is an even more fundamental problem.

We don’t know what a ghost is.

Throughout history, people have offered radically different explanations for apparitions.

Spiritualists generally regarded ghosts as the surviving consciousness or spirit of deceased people. The nineteenth-century Spiritualist movement helped popularize the idea that communication between the living and dead might be possible.

The Society for Psychical Research was established in Britain in 1882 specifically to investigate controversial phenomena including apparitions, telepathy and Spiritualism.

Other researchers developed very different ideas.

Some believed places might somehow retain impressions of events.

Others proposed telepathy.

Still others suspected that at least some apparitions originated within the mind of the witness rather than in the external environment.

More than a century later, those possibilities remain unresolved.

The Residual Haunting

One of the most enduring paranormal ideas is the residual haunting.

Unlike an intelligent apparition, a residual ghost supposedly doesn’t know that anyone is watching.

A woman repeatedly walks down the same staircase.

Soldiers are heard marching across a battlefield.

A door opens at the same hour.

A figure appears in a particular window.

Nothing responds when spoken to.

The event simply happens.

Then it happens again.

Early psychical researchers proposed variations of the idea that experiences might somehow leave impressions upon their surroundings. Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick was among those associated with theories attempting to explain apparently repetitive apparitional experiences.

Modern paranormal enthusiasts sometimes call this the stone tape theory, suggesting that buildings or landscapes might somehow record emotionally intense events and replay them later.

It’s a marvelous idea.

There is also no established physical mechanism showing that stone, wood or other building materials can record human experiences in this fashion.

But the reports that inspired the idea remain interesting.

Why do some locations generate stories of essentially the same apparition performing the same action again and again?

The theory may be wrong.

The question that produced it remains.

Intelligent Hauntings Are a Different Problem

Then there are apparitions that supposedly interact with people.

They answer questions.

Move objects.

Call someone’s name.

Appear to react to the people around them.

If such reports represent genuine external phenomena, the residual-haunting explanation doesn’t work particularly well.

A recording doesn’t answer questions.

Something interactive would require a very different mechanism.

Early psychical researchers therefore proposed theories involving surviving consciousness, telepathy and forms of mental existence independent of the physical body.

None has been scientifically established.

But lumping every reported haunting together as the same phenomenon may itself be a mistake.

Perhaps the experiences we call ghosts aren’t all the same thing.

“Ghosts Are Electromagnetic Energy”

This is where modern ghost hunting enters the story.

The EMF meter has become nearly as recognizable as the flashlight.

These instruments measure electromagnetic fields.

They were not invented to detect ghosts.

They are useful for identifying electromagnetic fields produced by wiring, electrical appliances and numerous other ordinary sources.

When an investigator enters an allegedly haunted room and the meter suddenly changes, the instrument has demonstrated one thing:

The electromagnetic field changed.

It has not demonstrated why.

Electrical wiring can cause changes.

Appliances can cause them.

Phones and electronic equipment can interfere with measurements.

Power systems, transmitters and environmental conditions can all matter.

An unexplained EMF reading is therefore exactly that.

Unexplained.

Calling it a ghost adds an interpretation that the meter itself cannot provide.

But Electromagnetic Fields Are Still Interesting

This doesn’t mean EMF measurements are useless in paranormal research.

Quite the opposite.

They may be interesting for an entirely different reason.

Researcher Michael Persinger investigated whether weak, complex magnetic fields applied around portions of the brain could produce unusual subjective experiences, including the sensation that another being was nearby. In one experiment, nine of fifteen participants exposed under experimental or sham conditions reported a sensed presence.

Later experiments also investigated whether complex magnetic stimulation might facilitate the sensation of a nearby presence.

That raises a fascinating alternative.

Perhaps an unusual electromagnetic environment doesn’t indicate that a ghost is present.

Perhaps, under some circumstances, it helps create the experience of one.

There is an important catch, however.

The research surrounding this effect has been disputed, and attempts to establish environmental electromagnetic fields as a reliable cause of haunt experiences have produced mixed results. One major experimental project deliberately exposed participants to electromagnetic fields and infrasound in a specially constructed “haunted” room and found that unusual experiences were not reliably tied to the experimental conditions.

The subject remains far less settled than paranormal television sometimes suggests.

The Ghost in the Machine

An even more famous case involves engineer Vic Tandy.

Tandy was working alone in a laboratory when he began feeling increasingly uncomfortable.

He felt cold.

Depressed.

Watched.

Then he saw what appeared to be a gray figure in his peripheral vision.

When he turned toward it, nothing was there.

Later, while working with a fencing blade, Tandy noticed something peculiar.

The blade was vibrating.

His investigation eventually led him to an extractor fan producing very low-frequency sound. Tandy and Tony Lawrence proposed that infrasound near 19 Hz might have contributed to his strange experience.

Suddenly, a haunted laboratory had acquired a mechanical suspect.

Can Infrasound Create Ghosts?

Possibly some ghostlike sensations.

But this explanation shouldn’t be turned into another paranormal cliché.

Later researchers have criticized aspects of Tandy’s original work, including the measurements and the proposed physiological effects of relatively weak infrasound. Subsequent investigation of allegedly haunted environments has produced much more complicated results.

Still, the larger point is valuable.

Humans perceive far less of their physical surroundings than we sometimes assume.

Something can affect us without our consciously identifying its source.

Low-frequency vibration.

Air pressure.

Electrical conditions.

Temperature.

Carbon monoxide.

Mold.

Poor lighting.

Sleep deprivation.

Expectation.

Any serious investigation of a haunting should consider such possibilities before declaring the location supernatural.

Doing that doesn’t destroy the mystery.

It eliminates the easy answers.

What About Cold Spots?

Cold spots are another staple of ghost hunting.

A person suddenly feels an intense chill.

An investigator measures a temperature drop.

The explanation usually offered is that a spirit requires energy to manifest and therefore draws thermal energy from the surrounding air.

Again, it sounds plausible until we ask for the mechanism.

Why would a disembodied consciousness require heat?

How would it extract that energy?

How much would it require?

Where would the transferred energy go?

There are also plenty of ordinary reasons for localized temperature variations.

Air leaks.

Poor insulation.

Open chimneys.

Ventilation systems.

Convection currents.

Differences between interior and exterior walls.

If a genuine unexplained temperature anomaly repeatedly occurred at the same location under controlled conditions, that would be interesting.

But the temperature change itself would not identify the cause as a ghost.

The Mystery of Drained Batteries

Another familiar claim involves batteries.

Investigators enter a haunted location with freshly charged equipment.

The batteries rapidly lose power.

Someone announces that a spirit must be drawing energy from them.

That conclusion presents the same problem.

Electronic equipment behaves differently under different conditions.

Cold temperatures can reduce battery performance. Heavy camera use drains batteries quickly. Aging batteries lose capacity. Recording continuously for hours consumes far more power than casual use.

Modern paranormal investigations also involve an astonishing amount of electronics operating simultaneously.

Cameras.

Phones.

Audio recorders.

Flashlights.

Motion sensors.

EMF meters.

Infrared equipment.

A battery dying during several hours of intensive nighttime use isn’t particularly mysterious.

But suppose something stranger occurred.

Suppose several independently tested batteries repeatedly lost charge within seconds at one particular location, while identical control equipment outside the area did not.

That would deserve investigation.

Not because it proves a ghost is eating batteries.

Because something measurable happened.

That distinction is crucial.

Where Does Conservation of Energy Fit?

The phrase “ghosts are energy” is sometimes defended using the conservation of energy.

The argument usually goes something like this:

Energy cannot be destroyed.

Human beings contain energy.

Therefore, when the body dies, that energy must continue somewhere.

The first part is physics.

The conclusion is not.

When a person dies, the body’s stored chemical energy doesn’t mysteriously vanish. Biological processes cease, heat dissipates into the surroundings, and chemical energy is transformed through decomposition and other processes.

Conservation of energy does not require consciousness to survive death.

Physics does not currently contain a law stating that memories, personality or self-awareness must continue because energy is conserved.

That doesn’t prove consciousness cannot survive death.

It simply means conservation of energy cannot presently be used as evidence that it does.

The question of consciousness after death has to stand on other evidence.

Perhaps We Are Asking the Wrong Question

This is where the subject becomes much more interesting.

Instead of asking:

Are ghosts energy?

Perhaps we should ask:

If ghosts exist, what observable effect do they have upon the physical world?

That question can actually be investigated.

If an apparition emits light, perhaps something should be measurable.

If it changes temperature, the change should have magnitude and duration.

If it produces sound, there should be acoustic information.

If it moves an object, physical force has been exerted.

If it interferes with electronics, the interference should potentially be reproducible.

And if none of those things occurs, yet a person nevertheless sees or senses an apparition, then perhaps the phenomenon involves perception or consciousness instead.

That possibility is every bit as strange.

The Witness Is Part of the Mystery

Ghost stories contain an awkward variable that electronic equipment doesn’t:

the human being experiencing them.

Two people can enter the same room.

One sees something.

The other sees nothing.

One hears a voice.

The recorder captures silence.

Or occasionally the reverse occurs: nobody hears anything at the time, yet something resembling speech appears on the recording afterward.

Traditional paranormal explanations sometimes assume a spirit chooses who can perceive it.

Psychology suggests perception, expectation and individual neurological differences may account for some of these variations.

Neither explanation automatically covers every report.

But perhaps the assumption that an apparition must exist exactly like an ordinary physical object is limiting the question.

If there is anything genuinely anomalous behind some ghost experiences, consciousness itself might be involved in ways we don’t presently understand.

That remains speculation.

But so does saying ghosts are electromagnetic energy.

Not Everything Strange Is a Ghost

This is where paranormal investigation should be skeptical without becoming dismissive.

A strange EMF reading isn’t automatically a ghost.

Neither is a dead battery.

Neither is a cold breeze.

Neither is a blurry photograph.

Neither is an orb.

Neither is a noise in an empty building.

Most strange things have ordinary explanations.

Finding those explanations is part of investigating.

In fact, explaining ninety-nine unusual events naturally makes the hundredth considerably more interesting if it stubbornly refuses to cooperate.

The purpose shouldn’t be to prove that every creaking floorboard belongs to Aunt Martha.

It should be to determine what happened.

Then decide what remains unexplained.

And Not Everything Unexplained Is Explained Away

The opposite mistake is equally tempting.

Finding natural explanations for some ghost experiences does not automatically explain every ghost experience ever reported.

Infrasound may produce strange sensations.

That doesn’t mean every apparition is caused by infrasound.

Electromagnetic environments may affect perception.

That doesn’t mean every person who sees a deceased relative has encountered an electromagnetic anomaly.

Sleep paralysis explains many nighttime encounters remarkably well.

It doesn’t explain an apparition reportedly seen simultaneously by several awake witnesses at noon.

Different experiences deserve different explanations.

And occasionally the correct answer may simply be:

We don’t know.

There is nothing intellectually embarrassing about that.

Sometimes we don’t know is where investigation begins.

So, Are Ghosts Energy?

We cannot currently say.

There is no scientifically established form of “ghost energy,” and no instrument has been demonstrated to reliably distinguish the presence of a ghost from ordinary physical phenomena.

An EMF meter measures electromagnetic fields.

A thermometer measures temperature.

A microphone records sound.

A camera records light.

None contains a setting marked DEAD PERSON.

Perhaps ghosts, if they exist, involve some physical process that science hasn’t identified.

Perhaps some hauntings are environmental effects acting upon human perception.

Perhaps others are psychological experiences.

Perhaps residual and apparently intelligent hauntings represent entirely different phenomena that shouldn’t share the same name.

And perhaps consciousness is stranger than our present understanding allows.

Those possibilities don’t deserve equal confidence.

But they deserve different questions.

The Better Mystery

The original question may ultimately be impossible to answer until we understand what a ghost actually is.

If a person walks through a supposedly haunted house and suddenly sees a woman standing on the staircase, what exactly has occurred?

Did light enter his eyes from an external figure?

Did his brain generate the image?

Did some environmental condition trigger a perception?

Did memory somehow intrude upon consciousness?

Did another consciousness interact with his?

Or did something happen for which we don’t yet have a useful vocabulary?

Calling the woman energy doesn’t solve the mystery.

Calling her imaginary may not solve it either.

The interesting territory lies between those conclusions.

For centuries, people from remarkably different cultures have reported encounters with figures they believed were dead. Most can probably be understood through ordinary processes of perception, memory, environment and folklore.

But most is an interesting word.

It leaves a little room.

And somewhere inside that room remains the question that has followed ghost stories for centuries:

If even one apparition represents something genuinely external to the witness—

what, exactly, is standing there?