My Ghost Radar Freaked Me Out Last Night!!

Just now, we were sitting out on our deck with the G.R. on...with thunder and lightning just beginning. 'Blips' appearred when a large clap of lightning went off nearby...and my wife got scared and went inside with the G.R. to watch the weather channel.
As soon as she sat down to see that a major thunderstorm was coming in towards us from the west, the G.R. spoke "Nervous", "West" and "Serious".

reply to post by IAMTAT


Better batten down the hatches then lol

Very cool!

reply to post by IAMTAT


Tornado warnings to the west of me...switching my G.R. on, too!

reply to post by Darkblade71

We've got a covered deck...and there is definitely a connection between nearby lightning strikes and 'blips' on the screen. When the storm was directly overhead and lightning was at it's peak, the 'blips' were all over the scope; there must be an electrical relationship to this app.

ALSO, I noticed that the blips were moving in erratic leaps across the scope during the storm.

reply to post by kgirl2002


PS, I'm a certified Skywarn Spotter. Wouldn't it be fun if I could use my ghost-hunting equipment to chase storms? I don't see it happening tho. (I do use some of my spotter equipment on investigations, however. Barometer, etc.)

reply to post by Darkblade71

Be careful out there. We've got tornado warnings here in southern Ohio.

reply to post by IAMTAT


Yeah we are supposed to get severe waether tonight to in northern MN. I'm hoping!

I love a really good thunderstorm!

Sounds like the app is reacting to energy at least. That is a good sign.
It means it is sensitive!

Originally posted by Darkblade71
reply to post by IAMTAT

 

Sounds like the app is reacting to energy at least. That is a good sign.
It means it is sensitive!

At this point, I'm quite certain it is.

Sent to the developer (Spud) @ 18:14 5/1/2012. I tried to word the query in as general a fashion as I could to try and at least get an answer to a couple of the questions posed throughout the thread thus far. I may not have covered everyone's questions, but hopefully Spud will be able to expand on our current knowledge of how this App operates regarding the VOX feature.



I will post any reply I receive in this thread.

reply to post by UberL33t

Thank you again, UberL...This is great! I'm hoping he'll have some answers for us.

reply to post by IAMTAT


My pleasure...happy to do it. I am just as curious, i have been playing with this App for days and have had quite a few of those "coincidental" responses.

Have any of y'all actually checked the permissions on these apps?

There is no reason why a ghost detecting app should need to create fake GPS locations for where you are, or for destinations.

There is no reason they should need to know who you are calling and for how long.

Take pictures with your camera and record audio even when the app isn't running.

Not all of the paranormal apps have those permissions, but 3/4 of the apps I checked out a few days ago had those permission settings and more.


I really suggest you check the permissions on these apps, and uninstall any that ask for permission to do beyond what is necessary.

Hi guys! I've lurked on ATS for a long time with few posts, but this thread prompted me to come forward.

I too have owned Ghost Radar for quite some time, a couple of years. Mostly I get gibberish which makes no discernible sense. But twice it has rocked my world...

First time: Shortly after I purchased it, I was showing it to my 27 year old daughter (my paranormal enthusiast buddy) and it spurted out "Steven"..."burn"...."ladder"..."careful" in rapid fire fashion. Her fiancé (now husband), Steven, was a fireman on duty at the time. She freaked. She called him up and told him. He, being a staunch antiparanormalist, laughed at her. Later on his shift, his unit responded to a garage fire and he was assigned to go up on the roof to ventilate the building by cutting a hole in the roof. Just as he topped the ladder, the roof "ventilated itself" by blowing out a skylight, with flames shooting out of the hole near his face. Now it was his turn to freak!

Second time: I was exploring my dad's old homeplace, deep in the woods, abandoned now for 20 years, only accessible by a hike through the woods. I was using my iPad for GPS guidance to the old house. On a lark, I turned on GR while walking around the old yard and house and it began to blurt out peoples' names. When I got back home, I called my uncle (78 yrs old, last surviving sibling) and told him about it, mentioning the names. Of the 6 names I mentioned, 4 turned out to be distant relatives' names with whom I was not familiar, grandma's cousins, etc. from the 1920's and 30's.

It is said that a blind squirrel will find an acorn every once in a while, but I am convinced there is something more to GR than meets the eye. I really hope the developer will enlighten us a bit on its inner workings.

Originally posted by Pigraphia
Have any of y'all actually checked the permissions on these apps?

There is no reason why a ghost detecting app should need to create fake GPS locations for where you are, or for destinations.

There is no reason they should need to know who you are calling and for how long.

Take pictures with your camera and record audio even when the app isn't running.

Not all of the paranormal apps have those permissions, but 3/4 of the apps I checked out a few days ago had those permission settings and more.


I really suggest you check the permissions on these apps, and uninstall any that ask for permission to do beyond what is necessary.

Hi Pigraphia,
I have the 'purchased' SPUD-PICKLES App on iPad...and can't find these 'permissions'.
Is this one you have checked out...and does it even apply to an iPad?

-TAT

reply to post by Rad22


Hi Rad,

Your G.R. experiences were great ones...and reading them brought back the chills I felt when I had my own experience.

I'm hoping, like yourself, more people will come forward and share their experiences here with us...as I've learned a great deal already and find myself only more and more intrigued with this thing.

reply to post by IAMTAT


I had their free version to check it out, and dropped it because of the permissions.

I don't know about the paid version, but they should be similar permissions.
The i-pad should be similar as well, just (-) the phone ones.

Here are the permissions for the free app from Spud Pickles.
1. Full Internet access
Create network sockets, that means it can open a connection from your phone to their servers so they can exchange info their program acquires. It is necessary though for some programs such as a large encyclopedia or Digital book reader to send info back and forth from a large database. It can also scan and send your history and browser settings.
2. Phone calls
Can determine the phone number and serial of the phone this program is installed on, if a call is active, and the number the call is connected to, duration of the call and other call related information.
3. System tools
Prevent system from sleeping
4. Your location
Access to coarse location, such as which network tower you are near, determine approximate location
Fine GPS location access to the GPS of your phone to determine exactly where you are.

You have to ask yourself why an app would need this info.

The following isn't part of the Spud Pickles, but I've seen it on others.
Others have even worse permissions such as the ability to turn on your camera and mic at any time to record and transmit data to the company. Any time without leaving info on your device.
That one is normally paired with the access to storage so they can go in and delete their digital tracks as it were so you would never know it happened unless you are a programmer.


Some of these permissions might not apply to the iPad, I can't say I don't have one.
They could at least have similar permissions.

I just, I don't trust a company who wants access to so much.


I suggest saving up and buying real ghost devices, they will be higher quality and more fun.
That or get the programs with fewer permissions, they are out there you just need to search for them.
I'm actually looking to buy some myself and see if my friends want to Ghost Hunt.

reply to post by Pigraphia

This is all I found for spudpickles G.R., by way of permissions:
play.google.com...

"Permissions
This application has access to the following:
System tools
modify global system settings
Allows the app to modify the system's settings data. Malicious apps may corrupt your system's configuration."

reply to post by IAMTAT


I guess the paid app has less permissions, at least for this app.
Just be careful out there when it comes to apps and clicking "I agree".


Great thread BTW, it's reminded me to look into getting some real ghost hunting tools.
It slipped to the back burner when the semester started.

Keep up the good threads, and I hope you post some pics or audio from your ghost hunting.

reply to post by Pigraphia


Pigraphia, your post regarding permissions is very interesting. It brings to mind an experience I had with the G.R. when I first downloaded it. I went with some friends to a rural cemetery where lots of my relatives are buried, along with an old friend who committed suicide. I jokingly mentioned as I pulled into the cemetery that, if this G.R. thing really works, I would like to hear from him (his name was Greg). As I approached the cemetery gates, it said "graves." As I started walking to Greg's grave, it said "Gregg" (misspelled his name, but oh well!).

Now, with all of the access you say the program has to our phones, this is easily explained. The GPS knows I was at a cemetery, so it says "graves." The microphone on the phone heard me saying "Greg" and the program repeated it. So it's pretty easily debunked if all that is true.

My question, then, is why doesn't the program just blurt out everything the microphone has picked up? Why isn't it basically repeating verbatim every conversation you've had while running the program? I had it on while storm chasing last night, so it should have been filled with weather terms (along with other phrases such as "hit the gas!!" which I said quite a lot, as it was fairly hairy out there). I was at the airport the other day and had it running while I waited for a flight. Surely it knew, via my GPS, that I was at an airport. Why no words like flight, plane, etc.?

What I have noticed is that what seem to be actual "hits", with a specific meaning to me, are so few and far between that they really stand out. One day when I was meditating I was feeling particularly open psychically, so I asked if I could have a visitation from a particular ancestor, my ggg-grandmother Jane. I said, out loud, Jane, I would really like to see you in my bedroom, right now. Of course, she didn't show up and I felt a bit stupid. Then I checked my G.R., which promptly said "Wilson." Which is Jane's last name. So now, I'm trying to figure out where the G.R. could have obtained that information. I had not said the name Wilson aloud, but I had said "Jane." At that time I didn't have my family tree uploaded to Ancestry.com, it was only on my laptop and not synched to the Internet. However, I did have Jane's picture on Facebook, labeled with her name. Theoretically, since G.R. has all these permissions, I suppose it could have gone into my FB account, which is synched with my Blackberry, and picked out the Wilson from that.

Just thinking out loud here, really, and trying to explain the results I've gotten with G.R. None of this explains the "I were kind grandmother" response that I got a few nights ago when researching another ancestor (which I mentioned in a previous post). I was not speaking out loud, I was not online, I was simply reading a photocopy of her nearly 100-year-old case file, asked her if she had anything to say to me, and got "I were kind grandmother." In this case, maybe the simplest explanation is the thing was reading my mind, which is another conversation entirely!

Thoughts?

reply to post by kgirl2002


For the GPS that makes sense as it could cross reference with cemeteries, and knows haunted places and become more active.
An Airport might not be on it's list, or it depends on where in the cycle the program can be.

It's my opinion based on observation of these programs, similar ones and talking to some friends of mine that develop apps that this is how it works.

GPS+Data mining(audio, video, profile etc...)+ heuristic algorithms on the data mined and location+ throw in a bit of random generation(random to get lucky, and random to avoid patters caused by heuristics).
Bam you have a ghost app.

I just don't think that our phones can pull off what these apps say they can without seriously tweaking the phone and that could mess with the phone itself.
So instead they wrote a program that uses many source gathering info to make it seem real.
I don't think the program checks ancestry.com as that would be hard to code, but if your phone has FB checking pics and names tagged wouldn't be hard.

As far as the phone being able to do this stuff or not I went over that in my first post, I'll link to it.
First post

Me personally I love the paranormal, and I think there are some great tools out there like real "ghost boxes".
I think these apps though are cleverly written programs, that honestly do more harm than good as they muddy the waters.

If you want contact with the spirit world, I'd invest in some divination equipment and some ghost hunting tools.
As well as a tripod for the digital video camera we all have laying around.
That way you can record your experience without camera shake.

My thoughts, there are tools out there that can aid in paranormal research.
Tools that don't actually require computer programming, word banks, location tracking.
I just don't think our phones can do what these apps say they can, they just weren't built with these things in mind.
I think they are cleverly written programs, that play to the audience and muddy the waters of legit paranormal investigation.

I would love to see someone post audio, video, or even first hand accounts with real ghost hunting tools.
I know as soon as I get some spare cash and buy some I'll be posting my experiences.