The Estes Method is the latest trend sweeping through Ghost Hunting circles. It claims to be a more accurate spirit communication method. So, what’s the deal?
According to the Week in Weird website, the idea was conceived by ghost tour operators hosting public ghost events at the Stanley Hotel. Greg Newkirk writes that the trio were wondering what would happen ‘if they isolated the noise from an SB7 Spirit Box … and fed it into a person, making them the Receiver’.
Now, the Spirit Box (for anyone unfamiliar with ghost hunting tech) is a device which sweeps through radio signals. This results in a jumbled mix of audio snippets from different frequencies with some white noise throughout. The hypothesis from ghost enthusiasts is that ghosts (or entities) can manipulate this audio to deliver messages. The Estes Method essentially builds on this idea. The Method adds the use of noise-isolating headphones to the mix. As well as requiring the person using the headphones to be blindfolded (so that they can’t read lips). They become the “Receiver” who listens for messages from ghosts through the Spirit Box in answer to questions asked by the “Operator” – another member of the group.
An Illusion of Control
The introduction of noise-isolating headphones and the blindfold seem to be an attempt to introduce some scientific controls into the Spirit Box session. Trying to add controls is something to be applauded because that’s how good, useful data can be obtained. One of the main criticisms of normal Spirit Box communication is that the “messages” being picked out of the audio are open to interpretation because everybody present knows what question is being asked. This prior knowledge causes them to interpret the audio snippets to fit as answers to the questions.
By relaying the audio from the Spirit Box through headphones so that only one person can hear it, is an attempt to overcome this barrier because the Receiver doesn’t hear the questions. However, these controls are not as useful in this manner as they may at first appear. In fact, I would question if these measures could be considered controls at all. This is because the audio coming through the headphones from the Spirit Box is still open to interpretation by the Receiver. They know about the alleged haunting or mystery being investigated and this is likely to influence the way in which he or she interprets the audio snippets.
Not only this, but the “Operator” who is asking questions also has prior knowledge of the haunting being investigated too, which will also influence the questions they ask and the way they interpret the answers they receive. The Operator is also supposed to not cater their questions based on what answers they are getting, but inevitably they will. We see this happening in the Hellier documentary and on US ghost hunting TV shows where The Estes Method has been popularised.
There will also be instances where a question is asked and an “answer” is given that makes no sense, or where the Receiver will say something they’ve heard via the device which wasn’t in response to a question. Let’s call these Extraneous Statements. Two things are likely to happen to these extraneous statements – either they will be ignored and only the hits (positive responses) will be shared as evidence. This is an unscientific, biased reporting approach known as cherry-picking. Or, the extraneous statements will be shoehorned into the haunting narrative somehow, or will be picked up again at a later time or date when it’s decided that they make sense.
Furthermore, in his Week in Weird article, Newkirk recommends a particular model of noise-isolating headphones which are used by studio drummers. Newkirk writes that they ‘block external noise up to 25 decibels, ruling out unintentionally hearing the Operator’s questions or outright fraud’. Considering the fact that the sound of human conversation sits at around 60 decibels, I can’t help but question how effective such headphones really are as a control here. There would certainly be opportunity for unintentional external influence.
As you can see, there are several ways for biases to effect the outcome of The Estes Method, and therefor it isn’t the controlled parapsychological experiment ghost enthusiasts would like to believe. The way that it is presented does make it seem scientific but ultimately it doesn’t do enough to control external influences and biases.
The Ganzfeld Experiments
There have been comparisons made between The Estes Method and the Ganzfeld experiements by many commentators and advocates. However, the only similarity between the two are that external stimuli are purposefully limited for the Receiver. Participants in Ganzfeld experiments listened to pink noise through headphones, were bathed in red light, and had half a ping-pong ball over each eye. This was done to test whether cutting off external stimuli would help the Receiver focus on internal stimuli – namely, telepathic communication. An Operator in a different room would focus on one of four images and attempt to send this image to the Receiver telepathically. The Receiver would then be asked to select which of the four images that they had “seen”.
In his book, Extra Sensory: The Science and Psuedoscience of Telepathy and Other Powers of the Mind, Brian Clegg points out that having just four images to choose from is a relatively low number. There were various other design flaws in the Ganzfeld experiments too. For example, data analysis was sometimes carried out to make the data look better and on occasion only certain data would be included. There were also a low numbers of trials due to time each Ganzfeld experiment took, compared to other experiments into telepathy.
Humans are Pattern Seekers
Ultimately, the very act of trying to communicate with certain entities, or any entities within a certain context will bias the research from the start. There is also no demonstrable evidence of how a paranormal entity would use a Spirit Box to communicate in the first place. Observers are essentially told to just accept at face value that this is possible.
This is why, when it comes to data collection, those who scientifically study paranormal experiences, Parapsychology, and Anomalistic Psychology attempt to put proper controls in place. We humans are so good at pattern seeking, as well as picking up subtle hints without meaning to. Humans find connections where none exist, and meaning in randomness. For many, coincidences must have a higher purpose because they feel too uncanny to be random, and ghosts appear in the pixels of photographs. The basic example of this in action is seeing faces or animals in clouds, but for ghost hunters, it’s often ghost messages in mixed-up radio frequencies.
It’s a British ghost hunter looking for the spirit messages of murderer Ian Brady hearing a voice say “Brady heard that” in this (noisy!) audio snippet from her spirit box…
…when in reality it’s the Radio X sting for the Radio X station, cut off prematurely by the skipping method of the Spirit Box being used…
Working against your human nature is almost impossible. As I’ve written before, you can be fully aware of how the human brain and mind makes shortcuts that trick you in this way, and still not be immune to the effect. (Unweaving the Rainbow: On Coincidence and the Cult of Death – Hayley is a Ghost, 5 Aug 2018)
This is why it’s admirable when ghost hunters attempt to introduce controls into their methods. Yet, for reasons I’ve outlined above, The Estes Method falls short on this front. Any data collected as a result of it cannot be assumed the result of scientifically controlled conditions or research.
A Word of Caution…
In his article,Greg Newkirk states that ‘Headphones should be plugged into the “spout” jack … the spout is much louder and helps rule out fraud … the SB7 should be set to scan, at the loudest possible volume’. It should be noted that listening to loud noise via headphones for extended periods of time can cause permanent hearing damage.
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