Ghost hunting outdoors is similar to hunting in abandoned buildings, but your chances for success are much lower. You also have an increased chance of gathering false evidence. You have to scrutinize your EVP data even more and your visual evidence needs additional scrutiny, too.

In most cases, your shadow evidence can be debunked easily. There will be greater chances that animals and plant life will cast the shadow in question. You’ll have to doubt most orbs and mists as dust or other natural phenomena. I don’t want to be a Doubting Thomas, but this is the reality of an outdoor ghost hunt.

If you’re going outside, look for hotspots in the following areas:

• Battlefields
• Cliffs
• Caves
• Water (ponds, lakes, rivers)
• Abandoned towns and villages
• Worn roadways
• Bridges
• Woods and forests with a history

This is the important part: The area should have a history of tragic events. For example, we have a hunt coming up in April at Starved Rock National Park in LaSalle County, Illinois. In the late 1700s, an Indian tribe was trapped on a plateau in the park by another rival tribe. They slowly starved to death or jumped from the plateau to their deaths over a period of months. The plateau’s rocks stored the negative energy and the spirits haunt the park to this day.

Try to do some interviews with locals and research the news archives before you go. This will help you find the hotspots. When you conduct the investigation, only stay in area for about 30 minutes or so. You’ll have a lot of area to cover and you can’t stay in one spot too long. You may miss something. In this case, you want a larger group, so you can run the investigation in all ghostly activity hotspots. This is the time to have walkie talkies to stay in contact and to make sure no one gets lost. In most cases, outdoor hauntings are residual in nature.

Remember, you have have a greater chance of running into scared animals and bad weather. Be prepared.