Why Do Ghost Hunters Use Flashlights To Communicate With Spirits?

A few weeks ago I witnessed my first ever flashlight experiment during a ghost hunt, I'd never seen the technique before and then our paranormal guide first laid the torches out on the floor at our haunted location, I thought it was just for atmospheric effect. In fact, when one of the torches when out I told her assuming that she wanted them on.

It then became apparent that the flashlights, that looked just like Maglites, were actually going to be used to communicate with any spirits that might be present at this location. 

We were using three flashlights, each with a different coloured filter, red, green and blue. Our guide started us off by calling out to the spirits saying things like "if someone is here can you turn on/off all of the lights?" Or, "can you make the green light flash" and "can you turn the red light on."

Once the lights were flashing on and off it evolved into questions like "if you died here, turn on the red light," "flash the red light if you're female or the blue light if you're male."

When I got home I hit Google to find out where I could buy some of these and found out that, although this experiment was new to me, it's actually pretty common and was made popular by the US paranormal show, 'Ghost Hunters'.

I assumed that the flashlight would be some "special" paranormal flashlight but actually they were just ordinary two-cell Mini Maglites which take two AA batteries. Judging by the warmth of the light, they were the old xenon incandescent type rather than the newer LED models.

The reason ghost hunters use this particular model is because the head twists to turn the torch on, this means that it can be twisted until it's on the verge of being switched on and flicks between the on and off state, just a light tap change make the light flash, turn on or turn off.

Ghost hunters believe that spirits are able to manipulate the torch, make and break the connection, and make the torch flash, making it the ideal way to communicate with spirits as tapping or flashing the torch requires less energy than knocking or more traditional forms of spiritual forms of communication.

However, many skeptics have a different explanation including the German YouTubers, Burkhard Reike who made a video to explain the phenomenon. Skeptics believe that the light actually flashes due to a heating and cooling inside the torch.

As the flashlights are fitted with an incandescent lightbulb it warms up when it is switched on, this cause the mechanism in the head of the light to expand and push it down, in the same way that twisting the head of the torch does, and switches it off.

The mechanism then cools and retracts causing the bulb to light up again, until its hot and the cycle continues. This could be another reason why this type of torch, with a bulb that gets hot and a twisting head, is used for flashlight sessions.

However, I must say that when I saw this experiment conducted the flashlights weren't given any time to warm up first, they were taken out of a bag in a cold environment, twisted to the magic point between on and off, and left to flash away.

Although the torches did flash a lot during our session, there was nothing really conclusive. Sometimes the lights turned on or off under the instruction of the group leader, but other times it did the exact opposite, she explained this by saying "ha, they always do the opposite of what I ask."