Ghostbusters: 7 Scientific Facts To Make You Hate It Less

3. Psycho Kinetic Energy

In Ghostbusters, a PKE (Psycho Kinetic Energy) metre is used to detect any ghosties in the vicinity, presumably detecting some kind of energy being given off by the spectres. For real ghost hunters (and we use the term "real", quit wrongly there), the weapon of choice is some description of EMF (Electromagnetic Field) detector.

Ghost hunters take these metres into haunted buildings and keep an eye out for spikes in the readings. A spike indicates a sharp increase in electrical activity in the immediate area - which is why EMF readers are so good at their day jobs of checking for live wires - and this is supposedly a rock solid indicator of a ghostly presence.

Quite why ghosts should give off electromagnetic fields remains unclear. It possibly has something to do with the fact that living creatures give of electromagnetic fields and that this somehow hangs around long after the physical body is not only absent and dead, but probably long decayed.

It has also been proposed that the presence of electromagnetic fields doesn't so much indicate the presence of ghosts (no sh*t), but actually cause people to see ghosts in the first place, which brings us onto our next point...