Recently, fog machines have come to the fore on ghost hunts. But using them comes with a lot of caveats, and they could discredit your investigation. Get the scoop after the jump.

Fog Machine Ghost Hunting Experiment

Ghost Nation, the paranormal reality TV show, used fog machines a few times in its first season. In the second season, they’ve ramped up the fog quite a bit. Just watch the 2 episodes (Prison Poltergeist & Afterlife Sentence) at the former Mid-Orange Correctional Facility in Warwick, NY.

To detect spirits, the Ghost Nation team flooded a floor and the main entrance with fog. They speculated a phantom would displace the fog and illustrate ghostly activity.

Explaining The Fog Machine Experiment

On paper, it sounds like a good test. Minute particles with a smoky blanket could help your eyes and cameras detect the ever-so-slight manifestation. It could be the fog moving like someone walked through the area. You could also see a shadowy figure form. There’s even the chance the spirit would use the particles to form a full-bodied apparition.

For TV viewers, it looks really cool under nightvision.

But it also comes with so many caveats, you’d probably throw out any evidence you collected.

Throwing Out The Foggy Evidence

It’s tough to get this setup right. For one, you’d have to have an absolutely controlled environment. The fog will swirl with any drafts. If someone opened a door or window, even far away, it could lead to a false positive from the naturally-occurring draft.

That’s especially true in a building like the prison Ghost Nation investigated. If you opened a door with an open window, the pressure change, however slight, would cause air displacement.

Next, you could matrix the swirling fog. If you’re looking for a ghost, any whips and twirls in the fog could make your mind ‘see’ what it wants to see. I think this is the biggest drawback. Now, the guys did wait for the fog to settle for some tests, but any kind of movement on the floor could cause swirling action.

Then, they pumped out a bunch of fog at the entrance. Outdoors. With only a remote camera on it. At night. On a cold night which could cloud it. This kind of test is just a bust from the get go.

Lastly, if you record in the dark with nightvision cameras and flashlights, you get blurry video with all that fog floating around. It’s hard to focus the camera under these conditions. This is definitely one time to leave the lights on and place a REM pod or something at the end of the hall. I mean, when you watch the episode, they had something like 3 or 4 REM pods in the control room. We never saw the team use them on the ghost hunt.

Fog Machine Experiment Conclusion

While it looks good on TV, the fog machine test has too many faults to be taken seriously. It’s not something that will lend credibility to any evidence you might present. Skip it on your next ghost hunt.