SPECTRALWhat is a spirit box?
A spirit box, or ghost box, is a radio that sweeps through stations without stopping, several times a second. Investigators ask a question out loud and listen for words that seem to form in the choppy static. The idea is usually traced to Frank Sumption's “Frank's Box” in 2002, and handheld sweep radios have been a fixture of ghost-hunting TV ever since.
How to use it
- Press Start. The box sweeps through static, jumping frequency several times a second. Slow, Medium and Fast change how often it jumps.
- Turn on Respond to my voice if you want the box to wait for you. It uses the microphone only to hear when you stop talking; nothing is recorded or sent anywhere.
- Ask short, simple questions — “Is anyone here?”, “What is your name?” — and leave a few seconds of silence after each one.
- When a word comes through, it appears on the display, is spoken aloud and goes into the session log. Press Share to send it to a friend.
What this version is, and isn't
This spirit box is a game. The static is generated in your browser, and the words come from SPECTRAL's word lists — the same ones the app uses — not from a radio or from spirits. Real sweep radios produce “words” the way people see faces in clouds: the brain hunts for patterns in noise, an effect called auditory pareidolia. It still makes for a good night in a dark, quiet room.
Five more channels in the app
The SPECTRAL app adds Demon, Child Spirit, Soldier's Echo, Séance and Ancient, each with its own voice and vocabulary, plus audio effects, an EVP recorder, an EMF radar driven by your phone's magnetometer and an SLS camera.
