Ghost Hunting ... With a Compass? by Jennifer Scelsi of CSI: Paranormal

Can a common, inexpensive hiking compass be a better ghost hunting tool than an EMF meter?

A series of tests with a sturdy $10 hiking compass surprised me. (Even $5 compasses can work well.)

Now, I often throw a hiking compass into my purse or backpack.  It’s always on hand, ready to use, and instead of an EMF meter when I’m ghost hunting.

Here’s how I discovered that compasses are great tools for ghost hunting:

I was a Girl Scout leader for years. I’m very familiar with compasses. They’re like gravity: Almost 100% reliable with no surprises, as long as you aren’t near something magnetic, a large electrical engine, or major power lines.

Late in 1999, I brought my compass to Gilson Road Cemetery in Nashua, NH, to make notes about which geographical corners had the most ghost activity. When our ghost hunting team arrived, I placed my compass on top of Hannah Robbins’ headstone at the northern end of the cemetery. Her stone aligned in a NNE direction.

This was what I expected to see, so I didn’t think about it again.

However, while I was comparing photos with grave locations, Alan — another Hollow Hill ghost hunter — checked other parts of the cemetery with that same compass.

After a few minutes, Alan started shouting.  He said, “Fiona!  North keeps moving!”

I watching him pacing back and forth, excitedly, staring at the compass.  Of course, I had to see what he was looking at.

In the southern half of the cemetery, the compass showed north in one direction. As Alan walked towards the northern half of the cemetery, the needle swung about 30 degrees and stayed there.

We tested this repeatedly, and the results were consistent.

At the time, Gilson Road Cemetery was a very rural location, before a housing development moved in across the street. In 1999, there were no nearby generators or significant power lines. EMF occurs naturally only in proximity to electrical activity and magnets.

Ghost hunters don’t know if ghosts cause unexplained EMF surges or if something else is causing it.  Frankly, we can’t explain it … yet.  But, where hauntings occur, we also find slightly higher EMF readings, and they’ll usually show up as compass anomalies, too.

Since then, day or night, I’ve had success with anomalous compass readings at Gilson Road Cemetery and most other “haunted” locations.

Now, I highly recommend a compass in your basic ghost hunting kit.

Guidelines for compass use in “haunted” locations, and during ghost hunts:

• Use only compasses with free-swinging needles. If the needle tends to get stuck pointing in one direction, it’s not helpful.
• Before you start walking, line up North so the red part (or point) of the needle is over the arrow painted on the compass.
• Learn to use the compass in a not haunted site, first. Your backyard is a good place, if there are no electrical wires nearby (underground and overhead, too).
• The first time you try this, walk in as straight a line as possible, directly towards North or towards South.
• Expect the needle to bob and bounce as you walk. This is normal. However, when you pause, it will always return to North.
• Keep the compass as flat as possible. If you hold it an angle, your reading may not be accurate and/or the needle may become stuck.
• If North seems to move, pause. Check how you’re holding the compass, in case that’s the reason it seemed to move. North NEVER changes direction!
• Eliminate interference from magnetic deposits (a metal detector can help) and from electrical sources, including power lines. They will “attract” the compass’ needle.
• Remember: North NEVER changes its location. Even a slight 10-degree shift can be an anomaly, if you’ve eliminated all other influences. Profoundly haunted sites have shown needle-swings of up to 90 degrees.
• If you think you have an anomaly, retrace your steps and see if it repeats. Usually, it will … but only for a while.
• Check again another day. Unfortunately for documentation purposes, a true haunting usually does not repeat the compass anomalies in the same places day after day. A repeating “anomaly” is usually the result of normal electrical or magnetic interference with the compass’ action.

TIPS

• Weirdly, I get the best results if I first place the compass on a headstone, and leave it there for a few minutes. The more haunted the stone — if it’s one where we consistently see photographic or EMF anomalies — the better the results if I use it to “rest” my compass before we start our research.  (I have no idea why this works, but we’ve seen it consistently at Gilson Road Cemetery, usually at Hannah Robbins’ headstone.)
• If you’re being interviewed by skeptical reporters, and you know you’re in a good location for this kind of experiment, just hand the reporter a compass and tell him or her to walk around the site for a while.  I’ve had great success with this, at Gilson Road Cemetery.  It’s one of the fastest ways to see a skeptic get confused, pause, and then either hit the panic button, or decide you’ve set him (or her) up.