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http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=24650618
I got this in the email this week. If any of our readers win the auction I want to hear about it!
" I come to you with a question and a possible cry of help. My wife
and I a month back purchased an old radio at a thrift shop.
With the radio sitting on our kitchen table we enjoyed it for about a
week after the purchase.. listening to our favorite radio stations
during meals and cleaning up in the kitchen. That's when it all
began... Coming home late from work one night I turned the radio on
while making a late dinner for myself.. while rummaging through the
fridge looking for something to eat the once familiar radio station I
was listening to turned to static.. the most accurate way I could
describe the sound would be "white noise." Slightly startled I changed
the radio station.. only to have the same thing happen... startled
again I checked the radio making sure everything seemed to be in
working order... everything was fine and the antenna was fully
extended without any bends. That's when I heard the voice...
Without warning out of nowhere a voice came across the radio... it
sounded like a loud moan. I quickly jumped back in fright nearly
falling over my own two feet. Than the voice came across again.. it
was a very stern voice of a man saying... "Leave me be" Very scared
yet curious at the same time
I proceeded to ask the man who he was.... after hearing about EVP's on
the paranormal shows I decided to try it out for myself... he didn't
answer for about a minute and I thought alright it was just my head
playing tricks on me. Slightly relieved I went to turn off the radio
when I heard the voice again come over the radio saying, "it's none of
your business." Again frightened I thought to myself could this be
real? I've always been the very skeptical type and non-believing of
the paranormal. But however this event made me see things in a
different light. It doesn't seem that I could have pulled the plug on
the radio any faster that night... backing myself out of the kitchen I
quickly made my way into the bedroom trying to make myself fall
asleep. Telling my wife of what had just happened she simply thought I
was crazy and told me to go to bed.
Things turned quiet for a few days and I stayed away from the radio as
much as possible.. but unfortunately it wasn't the last of it. About a
week later from the first incident I was in the kitchen with my making
a pot of coffee when much to my surprise the white noise came back on
the radio.. quickly checking the radio I noticed the it was unplugged.
With a look of curiosity, my wife asked me what was up with the radio.
I told her this was the same thing that happened the other night.
Again the loud moaning came out of the radio the moment I turned to my
wife... scared my wife ran out of the kitchen. I asked, "What do you
want?" No answer... I asked, "Whoever you are was this your radio your
past life?" the voice answered with a stern answer, "Yes"...
immediately after the lights flickered in the entire house and the
white noise stopped. More events have occured with the radio... to
include the lights flickering on and off in the kitchen and more
noises from the mysterious man. I'm not sure why he's speaking
through this radio or causing so much occurences in our home.. but
it's turning into a bit too much for my wife and I.
I'm writing you in hopes that there will be some way you could help
me... we are currently dying to get rid of the radio but are too
afraid to throw it out or destroy it for fear that it will cause the
spirit to become violently angry and linger in our home haunting us
for the rest of our life... the only way we could think to get rid of
it was by placing it on ebay... we're not looking to make a lot of
money... we simply just want this burden out of our home... if there
is any advice you could give us on what to do in this situation or any
way you could help find us make our auction more known in hopes of
finding someone that would be interested in having this item in their
home it would be forever appreciated and we would be forever in your
debt... Thank you so much for your time and I hope to hear from you
very soon. Here's a link to our auction..."
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/
Managing Your Ghost Hunting Data Collection
Once Webcam Viewer collects a volume of streamed images to your hard drive, the final step is to search through those images for something that jumps out as unique or different than the rest. This would signify a potential anomaly that you may want to check out. The best method I've found to do that is to view the images in sequence using thumbnail view in Windows Explorer.
As you scroll through the frames, you may spot a shadow, mist or movement from one frame to the next. The next step is to conduct a more thorough analysis of the movement or change. To do this I use ImageDiff, a free image comparison application that allows you to conduct a complete pixel-by-pixel comparison between two images.
The settings I use are: use overlay, monochrome colors, and set the threshold over 90%. This will force the difference in pixels to be at least over 90%, and the differences will display on the bottom window as big red dotted areas.
It's never a good idea to trust only your eyes. Even though you may spot a difference in the video frames while you're scrolling through, this pixel comparison will scientifically verify that you aren't just seeing things. As you can see in the photos above, the only differences were the time stamp, and some very slight lighting or shadow differences. If someone (or something) were to walk across the hallway, the lower image would light up like a red Christmas Tree.
How Internet Technology Can Help Ghost Hunting
In time, ghost hunters around the world will recognize that they can't be everywhere at once. And while there's some chance of capturing something interesting on film by sitting for a few hours in a haunted location, those odds are multiplied exponentially when you set up a webcam to monitor many locations over hundreds of hours, around the clock. Let your computer do the watching, and you can capture that elusive ghost on camera at your leisure.
Setting Up Your Ghost Hunting Lab
The first step to beginning your virtual ghost hunting career is to configure Webcam Watcher to start logging the video streams from all of your favorite webcams.
First select the "Add" button to connect to a new webcam stream.
Just type the name of the webcam, the URL link, and how often you want to refresh the image. If you're not sure how often the stream was set up to update, go to the main page of the webcam and check the posted update time.
If the webcam doesn't update more often than every 30 seconds, it wouldn't make sense to update your image every 15 seconds. Keep the refresh rate at, or greater than, the webcam's actual update time. If you can't find the update time, 60 seconds is a good default refresh rate.
As you add each webcam, they will show up on the left menu bar. Double clicking each one will add them to the icon display box on the right, as shown here.
Clicking on any of the icons will display the actual webcam in the larger window to the right, with options to zoom, save the image, or make it a screensaver. However, the real purpose of using this software is to make it automatically collect updates for you. If you click the box next to "AutoSave New Pictures," the Webcam Watcher will start logging updates to the "cam" folder after each update.
http://twitter.com/
Of course you can also check out The Mansion of Terror Haunted House here:
http://twitter.com/mansionofterror
And follow me at @daveiam and Rob at @rsullivan25
Enjoy!
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