Battery Drain, Is It Caused By A Ghost? Why Does It Happen?
Ghost/Paranormal
Sunday 30th, April 2023
We've all either experienced it or heard stories where a paranormal investigator is at a location, usually late in the evening or late at night.
The individual is walking around with a battery operated device, usually a camera, torch or audio recording device with freshly charged batteries or new batteries bought on the way to the location.
And then all of a sudden as if almost out of nowhere the batteries start to loose power and eventually die, this can be gradual or it can appear almost instant.
In a lot of cases this battery drain is put down to a paranormal or ghostly cause, and though in most cases if not all there is a completely scientific cause to it.
We need to understand how a battery works in general terms first to understand why batteries tend to drain at 'haunted' locations.
An electric current generated by a battery is produced when a connection is made by the positive and negative terminals on the battery.
When this connection is made a chemical reaction occurs that generates electrons to supply the current of the battery.
Lowering the temperature that the battery is operating is causes the chemical reaction of the battery to proceed more slowly and in turn will produce less of a current then compared to a battery operating in a warmer environment.
This means that batteries operating in a cold environment run down much quicker than they would in a warmer environment, for example at home where the equipment is tested before an investigation and the battery lasted much longer.
In many cases if the battery is warmed up again it will operate normally.
Some Device Batteries Drain But Others Don't
It might be experienced that some device's batteries drain quicker than others at a location and it can be down to a very simple cause, is the device being held or is the device placed on a surface or tripod.
If a device is being held the battery can appear to last longer than other non-held devices and it would be two things, battery placement in the device and the warmth of the users hands.
So a device on a tripod is more likely to run down it's battery quicker than a device held in a persons hand or a device, say an audio recorder that is placed in an individuals pocket while not being used due to closer contact to a source of warmth.
There are so many ways that one battery appears to drain quicker than another device's and as covered above. Battery capacity is another thing that will affect how quickly a battery might appear to drain compared to another device.
Most batteries lose approximately 20% of their normal capacity at around 0 degrees Celsius and when you go below that temperature it only gets worse.
Some manufacturers have started putting 'battery lock' or 'battery guard' on devices to stop batteries draining when not in use.
One of the most common methods used to stop battery drain of devices during transport was to remove the batteries or to insert a piece of plastic between the batteries and the connecting circuit of the device (disclaimer, we don't recommend putting anything into a device that the manufacturer doesn't state themselves).
There is still no clear cut/hard evidence to suggest that a paranormal cause might be at play in some battery drain cases which means it can't be ruled out completely, more research needs to be done to understand what a ghost is and isn't and how these reported paranormal specters interact with the world as we know it.
The individual is walking around with a battery operated device, usually a camera, torch or audio recording device with freshly charged batteries or new batteries bought on the way to the location.
And then all of a sudden as if almost out of nowhere the batteries start to loose power and eventually die, this can be gradual or it can appear almost instant.
In a lot of cases this battery drain is put down to a paranormal or ghostly cause, and though in most cases if not all there is a completely scientific cause to it.
We need to understand how a battery works in general terms first to understand why batteries tend to drain at 'haunted' locations.
An electric current generated by a battery is produced when a connection is made by the positive and negative terminals on the battery.
When this connection is made a chemical reaction occurs that generates electrons to supply the current of the battery.
Lowering the temperature that the battery is operating is causes the chemical reaction of the battery to proceed more slowly and in turn will produce less of a current then compared to a battery operating in a warmer environment.
This means that batteries operating in a cold environment run down much quicker than they would in a warmer environment, for example at home where the equipment is tested before an investigation and the battery lasted much longer.
In many cases if the battery is warmed up again it will operate normally.
Some Device Batteries Drain But Others Don't
It might be experienced that some device's batteries drain quicker than others at a location and it can be down to a very simple cause, is the device being held or is the device placed on a surface or tripod.
If a device is being held the battery can appear to last longer than other non-held devices and it would be two things, battery placement in the device and the warmth of the users hands.
So a device on a tripod is more likely to run down it's battery quicker than a device held in a persons hand or a device, say an audio recorder that is placed in an individuals pocket while not being used due to closer contact to a source of warmth.
There are so many ways that one battery appears to drain quicker than another device's and as covered above. Battery capacity is another thing that will affect how quickly a battery might appear to drain compared to another device.
Most batteries lose approximately 20% of their normal capacity at around 0 degrees Celsius and when you go below that temperature it only gets worse.
Some manufacturers have started putting 'battery lock' or 'battery guard' on devices to stop batteries draining when not in use.
One of the most common methods used to stop battery drain of devices during transport was to remove the batteries or to insert a piece of plastic between the batteries and the connecting circuit of the device (disclaimer, we don't recommend putting anything into a device that the manufacturer doesn't state themselves).
There is still no clear cut/hard evidence to suggest that a paranormal cause might be at play in some battery drain cases which means it can't be ruled out completely, more research needs to be done to understand what a ghost is and isn't and how these reported paranormal specters interact with the world as we know it.
