Circuitry Ideas (Help me scare the crap out of "ghost hunters")

Ok..

First, thank you for even reading this post, as I know I am not a regular (infact I don't recall posting here ever before, though I might have). That being said.. onto the details.

A local message forum of car ethusiasts were chatting about local "ghost/haunted sightings"... and long story short, have decided to visit a particular "haunted" place at a particular time on a particular day to "hunt some ghosts.."

I'm looking for relatively inexpensive ways to achieve operation, "make ghost hunters crap themselves..." Who's with me?

I was thinking simple things such as yellow LED's (not the superbright clear type) glowing when fishing line is "tripped" (removing a piece of plastic between two metal poles, thus completing the circuit type of thing) to give the appearance of eyes (but would be nice to throw on a sound circuitry as well which would give a "shhhhhhewwww" type of sound or something else half believable)... but staying on continuously is definitely NOT a good thing.. so a timed circuit in which the "shhhheww" sound (or whatever) would play, end and the eyes would be lit for a total of maybe 10 seconds...

I'm no electrical engineer at all.. however, I have made my own PCB's and following circuits from Electronics Handbook (when it was around and if it still is then no one carries it around here) and I solder/desolder quite often. In other words, I'm not intimidated at all by following a schematic and building the circuit.

I have three wireless 9v driven camera's (spy cams) already, which I plan to utilize as well in hopes to get videos of these "ghost hunters" hopefully getting the crap scared out of them... which of course would expeditiously made into a MPG or AVI for all of you to view.. :) My way of saying, "thank you for your help"...

Also, any ideas are welcome as well... I would LOVE for this to be a "success" (for US that is..)

TIA!!!

Jayson jayson_hansen at hotmail dot com

Sorry. I should have been more precise, I wrote this in a very fast manner anxious to start receiving replies. :)

The cameras are just 2GHz cameras that run off of a 9v battery (I will probably run them from 4 D cell batteries to ensure it has plenty of power to last the entire evening). The receivers also run off of 9v and have only a video composite output (no audio feed of any kind on these). The "place" mentioned is in the middle of a forest more less.. so only a laptop can be used.. I'm not sure how I will go about collecting the video feeds, but, I'm working on that as they aren't wifi (the 2ghz is a proprietary signal frequency, no 802 standards here) and they don't have Bluetooth either.

As for the "metal poles" I suppose I meant metal leaf's basically a piece of plastic wedged between two metal contacts, the plastic piece attached to a fishing line with its other end tied to a tree, so when tripped, removes the plastic thus completing the circuit as a result of the two metal contacts then coming into contact with one another. I have Pascal, C and ASM programming knowledge.. I stopped actively programming when I was 17..

These are some good ideas, however, this will actually be taking place outside. More insight on the actual place (as I just found out roughly 5 minutes ago). It's an old southern cemetary in the middle of the woods/forest.

So everything would have to be outside related. I have a friend who has agreed to video tape this (he is in the Navy and has some "nifty" equipment). So right now all I need I suppose are some ideas (keep in mind this will be outside, thus, pretty much everything will have to be battery operated) for circuits, etc.

Terry Pinnel, thank you, looks good.. Fred Bloggs, I actually wont have to worry about the video portion of this now. :)

clear

plastic

give

as

half

thing..

play,

Terry,

Thank you, looks good. Could you give me more insight on the sound circuit however. I would greatly appreciate it.

clear

give

as

half

thing..

play,

Fred,

Luckily, I've escaped the responsibilities of worry about the video recording of this grand event.. hehe :)

plan to

This should get you started:

Look forward to seeing your video; I expect to be in the closing credits .

(Also posted under same heading in a.b.s.e)

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Terry Pinnell
Hobbyist, West Sussex, UK

This will not be cheap :

which handles real time processing at $86, or for a directory of suppliers see . Of course, your cameras must be night vision type, or you have to illuminate the scene, but even then probably low light level performance would be required.

On Mon, 10 Oct 2005 00:41:28 -0500, Jayson wrote: ...

...

Ah, heck. I first thought you were talking about spoofing their electrometers and stuff. What you're asking for sounds suspiciously like a simple Halloween gag. Just geet a PIR yard light and scrounge a solenoid from an old washing machine, and use the soleniod to trigger a jack-in-the-box. Especially if you're only trying to scare kids, it should be almost trivial. >:->

Good Luck! Rich

On Mon, 10 Oct 2005 07:39:50 -0500, Jayson top-posted:

Yeah, I'll expand on my earlier answer of a few minutes ago - you don't need any electronics for this at all, assuming you have the invisible fishline on hand for the tripwire. Just hide a big jack-in-the-box behind one of the tombstones, and arrange it so that when they trip the tripwire, it sproings the jack-in-the-box.

But you'll need some showmanship to set up your victims so that the sproing startles the hoopajoo out of them, like be telling the story about the hook on the car door handle...

Happy Hunting! Rich

The PIR is the sensor to use. What to set off is more interesting - it indeed should diseaappear or be undetectable.

The sense of smell is very powerful to use - it has a rather strong and subliminal effect on the mind.

I'd be careful with the use of sound. But something collapsing might be scary... even it is is small, as long as it is noticed.

Perhaps a pile of some sticks collapsing and a lighted lantern remaining next to the sticks, like someone hid, knocked over the pile, dropped the lantern and disappeared? Perhaps generate some smoke - but teh remaining of teh lantern shoudl do the trick. Perhaps the lantern can be modified some way - egg while on the outside would be okay, I suppose.

Thomas

Social Engineering Rules!!

Join the crowd and prepare them with some "research" on gruesome happenings and sights experienced by others (i.e. "friend-of-friend stories").

It is important to appear scared yourself. "See" movements and "Hear" sounds. Pretty soon other people will be creating their own images and sounds and the consensus will be that something *really is* going on. ;-)

A good stench might liven up proceedings; Vampires are supposed to smell rotten (like H2S, stink bomb) or maybe some plain sulfur burned discretely one of the little candle things people buy for graves could perhaps be loaded with sulfur. A little dry ice in water can create an omnious mist - or two pieces of cloth prepped with ammonia and hydrocloric acid, but it is important that it "burns out" before anyone investigates.

PS:

Beware, though:

My sister and friends played with a glass and an Ouija board. "The board" started spelling out really evil stuff like "you will rot from cancer" etc., they panicked threw the glass at the wall. The tiled wall broke, not the glass, and for weeks they dared not stay in the room after dark because of a funny smell and an opressive atmosfere.

1) So, this stuff might actually work on yourself also

2) This is the kind of story you need about the graveyard.

3) Maybe the friend driving the glass is not entirely a person you want to be around ....

[..] [...]

I think you probably want something more subtle at first. The atmosphere needs to be right for this to be scary. You don't want your mates in a skeptical mind.

To steal some ideas from a book ("The Mad Scientist Club"), how about attaching some pictures to the walls via an electromagnet? Rig something up so the pictures drop off the way when your targets are nearby. Make something to burn a little sulphur to give a rotten smell.

Another idea: cover some parts of the walls/floor with a fluorescent paint, in the shape of blood splatters. Hide a 'black light' nearby. Have something that briefly turns the light on, to make the paint appear to softly glow for a few seconds. All this builds atmosphere until the final event - something dramatic, like your glowing ghost eyes. Just don't give your victims time to investigate each trick.

Are these the kinds of ideas you are looking for?

cheers,

Al

Passing a high current (easy with a battery) through steel wall causes it to burn quite nicely.

In article , Jayson wrote: [...]

Some ideas:

If people are spread out a bit as they walk through, a speaker that says "hey look" in your voice can have a creepy effect if only one hears it. It makes the person question whether they really heard it.

A pair of orange LEDs too far apart to be real eyes will appear the right distance if they are in fact far away. You want to blur the light out over a area that looks sort of snake eye shaped.

• * * * * * * * * * * *

If it is totally dry that day, a very small amount of water dropped from high up will make noises if it hits leaves etc.

Add an extra grave stone that has been warmed up with a blow torch or by being in an oven. It will be warm to the touch. The stone will hold heat for a while. It is best if someone else noticed that one stone is warm so you can just ask "why could that be".

A line of speakers can create the impression of a moving sound source. Don't use a "scary" sound that people will identify.

If you act just a little scared, the others will tend to be slightly on edge unless you are a bad actor or over do it.

If you suddenly turn and run away, the others will tend to follow if they have been primed well enough. The sound of something chasing you is quite scary in the dark even if you brought a dog with you.

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