Lasers and their practical application in paranormal investigation; or, my triumphant return to blogging

Well, I moved my mouse back to my right hand this week, so I thought it was time I picked this thing back up. Thank you all for your patience while I let myself heal.

Now, on to business.

I have a tendency to ask for investigation tools for birthdays and other gift-giving occasions. For my birthday earlier this month, I received a shiny new instrument that many of us played with even as kids: a laser pointer.

This is no ordinary laser pointer, however. It's a little larger than an ink pen, and instead of the traditional red laser sports a green one. Oh, and one other thing -- instead of a single red dot, it lays out an entire grid of small pinpoints. The head of the pointer can be rotated to change the size of the points and the overall pattern of the grid. Here is a photo of one such pointer and resulting grids (I do not necessarily endorse this particular pointer or website).

This can be useful during an investigation in which there are reports of shadow people or just odd shadow movement in general. You would aim the grid at the area where the shadows are reported. If anything passes between the pointer and the wall where the grid is laid out, you should be able to tell if the object (or entity, or whatever) is three-dimensional and be able to see its shape because of the way the grid would fall across it. If it's a shadow on the wall caused by something from behind the pointer (say, a branch outside a widow on the opposite wall), you should be able to tell that, as well. With any luck, you would also have a video camera focused on the same area and perhaps capture some nice solid evidence.

And another thing!

My group and I will be teaching the Ghost Hunting 101 class at Southeast Missouri State University next month! Come check it out! It should be a good time. Hope to have more details on investigation locations soon.