Do Paranormal YouTubers Really Need Clickbait to Get Views?
A recent statement from paranormal investigation team Ghosts On Trent, responding to criticism of some of their YouTube titles and thumbnails, got me thinking about something that goes far beyond one channel.
Their statement inspired this article, but this isn’t intended as another piece about Ghosts On Trent. The bigger question is one that affects almost everyone making paranormal content today:
Do you actually need clickbait to succeed on YouTube?
Spend ten minutes scrolling through paranormal videos and you would be forgiven for thinking the answer is yes.
There are shocked faces everywhere. Red arrows pointing towards dark corners. Figures standing in doorways that somehow look much clearer in the thumbnail than they ever do in the actual footage. Words such as DEMON, ATTACKED, TERRIFYING and POSSESSED appear with remarkable regularity.
Then there are the titles.
“We Should Never Have Gone Inside.”
“This Was Our Most Terrifying Investigation Ever.”
“Something Followed Us Home.”
“We Were NOT Alone.”
You know the sort.
It has become part of paranormal YouTube culture, and there seems to be a growing belief among creators that this is simply what you have to do if you want people to watch.
I don’t think that’s true.
You need to give people a reason to click. Of course you do. YouTube is full of videos competing for somebody’s attention.
But clickable and clickbait are not the same thing.
And if your entire channel depends on viewers believing that your investigations are genuine, repeatedly overselling what happened could eventually cause more damage than a disappointing view count, this is way ghosts on trent may be facing the critisum which ia fair.
What Do We Actually Mean By Clickbait?
This is probably where some of the disagreement starts.
Not every catchy title is clickbait.
If you investigate an old Victorian property with decades of reported paranormal activity, there is absolutely nothing wrong with calling the video:
“We Spent the Night Investigating a Victorian House With 100 Years of Ghost Stories.”
That’s a decent title.
It tells me where you’re going, what you’re doing and why I might be interested.
Compare that with:
“Paranormal Investigation #38.”
Which one are you clicking? Making something sound interesting isn’t dishonest. You should make it sound interesting.
The problem begins when the title or thumbnail promises something the video doesn’t contain. If your thumbnail shows a black figure standing behind an investigator but that figure wasn’t actually there, that’s a problem.
If the title says:
“DEMON CAUGHT ON CAMERA”
and the big moment turns out to be a faint knock from another room, you’ve oversold it.
You may have got my click. You probably haven’t earned my trust. And that distinction matters enormously in paranormal content.
The Click Isn’t Everything
There seems to be a strange idea that YouTube only cares about getting somebody to click on a video. It obviously cares whether people click. Why wouldn’t it?
But think about this from YouTube’s point of view.
Suppose I see an incredible thumbnail and click immediately.
Within 45 seconds I realise the thumbnail was wildly exaggerated, nothing is happening and the video isn’t what I expected.
So I leave. Was that really a successful recommendation? Probably not.
Now imagine another video with a less ridiculous thumbnail. I click it, become interested in the investigation and watch for 25 minutes. Which viewer behaviour would you rather have?
This is why chasing clicks at any cost is short-sighted. A title and thumbnail have one job: get the right person into the video.
Then the video has to do the rest.
Paranormal Channels Have an Extra Problem: Trust
This is where paranormal creators are different from many other YouTubers.
If you review phones, your audience doesn’t particularly need to believe that strange unexplained events happened to you last night. A paranormal investigator does.
You’re asking viewers to examine noises, movements, possible voices and strange pieces of footage where the explanation isn’t always obvious. Trust is everything.
If I already think you’re exaggerating what happened in the thumbnail, why shouldn’t I wonder whether you’re exaggerating what happened during the investigation?
That doesn’t mean somebody using a dramatic thumbnail is faking evidence. Those are two very different accusations.
But audiences make associations.
If every video is apparently the most terrifying investigation you’ve ever conducted, eventually “most terrifying” doesn’t mean very much. If every building contains a demon, sooner or later I am going to start wondering why demons seem to keep such a reliable filming schedule.
There has to be room for an investigation where very little happens. In fact, I would argue that those investigations are important.
What If Nothing Happens?
This is probably the hardest problem for genuine paranormal investigators on YouTube.
You’ve booked the location. You’ve travelled there. You’ve filmed for eight hours. You’ve paid for accommodation, fuel and equipment.
And then…
Nothing. No footsteps. No apparitions. No mysterious voices. No doors slamming. Nobody gets touched. Nobody screams. Nothing follows you home.
Now what?
Do you upload a video where nothing happened? I think you should.
The mistake is believing that the paranormal activity has to be the story. It doesn’t. The investigation can be the story.
Give Me a Question to Follow
Rather than starting with:
“Tonight we’re at another haunted location to see what happens…”
give me something specific. For example:
“Staff working here have reported footsteps crossing this upstairs corridor for more than 20 years. Tonight the building is empty apart from us, and we’re going to see whether we can work out what’s causing them.”
I’m interested already. Not because you’ve promised me a ghost. Because you’ve given me a mystery. That mystery now has an ending whether anything paranormal happens or not.
Maybe you hear the footsteps. = Maybe you don’t. Maybe you discover a heating pipe knocking inside the wall. Maybe traffic outside sounds completely different at night. Maybe you can’t explain it.
All of those are valid endings.
This is where paranormal investigation can learn a lot from documentaries.
A documentary doesn’t need the answer to be supernatural.
It just needs a good question.
A Quiet Night Doesn’t Have to Make a Boring Video
There is a difference between an uneventful investigation and an uneventful video.
If absolutely nothing happens during a 30-minute vigil, I don’t need to watch all 30 minutes.
Tell me:
“We stayed in this room for approximately half an hour. Nothing unusual happened, so we moved upstairs.”
That’s enough. Editing does not automatically make paranormal footage dishonest.
Cutting dead time isn’t faking evidence. What matters is that, when something significant does happen, you give viewers enough context to judge it properly.
Show the original moment. Let us hear the audio. Explain where everyone was.
Try to reproduce it. Look for ordinary explanations. Then move on.
I’d much rather watch a tightly edited 35-minute investigation where the team genuinely found very little than a two-hour upload containing endless silent vigils simply because somebody believes uncut automatically means authentic.
History Can Carry a Paranormal Video
If the ghosts aren’t performing, tell me about the building.
One of the strangest things about some paranormal videos is that teams gain access to genuinely fascinating historic locations and then barely tell us anything about them.
Who lived there? What happened there? Where did the ghost stories actually come from?
When was the first reported sighting? Have different witnesses described the same thing?
Changes to the building that might explain why certain noises occur?
That is interesting.
And it makes the paranormal side stronger because now we understand what is supposedly being investigated.
Some locations have far better real histories than ghost stories.
Use them.
One Good Claim Is Better Than Twenty Random Experiments
Another thing that can make paranormal videos drag is the lack of any clear purpose.
“We’re going to use every piece of equipment we’ve brought and see what happens” isn’t much of a story.
Take one claim and investigate it properly.
Perhaps people repeatedly report a woman humming on a staircase.
Great. Put recorders on different floors. Work out whether voices carry from outside.
Check whether nearby rooms produce similar acoustics. Speak to witnesses. Try to reproduce the sound.
Now there is something for the audience to follow. Or perhaps staff say a particular door opens by itself.
Monitor the door. Check airflow. Check the hinges. Check whether changes in pressure affect it.
Film it continuously.
If it moves, investigate why. If it doesn’t, that’s still useful information. You don’t need twenty gadgets flashing in the dark when one properly thought-out experiment can carry the episode.
You Don’t Need a Fake Ghost in the Thumbnail
There’s also an assumption that a paranormal thumbnail has to look like a horror film poster.
It doesn’t.
A genuinely creepy building can make a fantastic thumbnail on its own. An empty corridor can be interesting if that corridor is central to the story.
An investigator standing at the bottom of a staircase can work. An actual frame from the investigation can work. A historic photograph can sometimes work. You could even use something very simple.
A photograph of the location with the words:
“HAUNTED?”
There’s a question immediately.
What matters is that the thumbnail represents the video you’re actually about to show me.
And there may even be an advantage to being restrained. When every other paranormal thumbnail contains glowing eyes, a screaming face and three red arrows, a simple atmospheric photograph can actually stand out.
Don’t Confuse Honest With Boring
This is important. I’m not suggesting paranormal creators deliberately make terrible titles. You shouldn’t upload:
“We Went Somewhere and Not Much Happened.”
That’s honest, but it’s also terrible marketing. You have to find the interesting part of the truth.
Instead of:
“Nothing Happened at This Haunted House.”
you could use:
“We Spent Eight Hours in This Famous Haunted House — Here’s What We Actually Found.”
Instead of:
“Quiet Investigation at Old Hotel.”
try:
“Is Room 6 Really Haunted? We Spent the Night Finding Out.”
Neither promises paranormal evidence. Both create curiosity.
That’s the sweet spot.
Stop Giving Away the Answer
Another mistake paranormal creators make is telling us exactly what we’re supposed to believe before we’ve even watched the evidence.
“Ghost voice says my name!” Well, now you’ve already told me what I’m meant to hear.
Instead, let me listen first. Play the recording without subtitles.
Ask viewers what they hear. Then explain what the investigators thought it sounded like.
The same goes for visual evidence. Show the clip.
Replay it.
Show the normal-speed version before the zoomed and slowed-down version. Let the audience investigate with you.
That involvement can be far more engaging than simply announcing:
“That’s definitely paranormal.”
If Nothing Happens, Make That the Story
Imagine going to a location advertised as extremely haunted and recording absolutely nothing unusual.
Don’t hide it. Lean into it.
“Everyone told us this was one of the most active locations in the area. We spent the entire night here and found almost nothing. So we decided to look more closely at where the stories came from.”
That’s interesting. Now investigate the reputation itself. How old are the haunting claims?
Are they all coming from one source?Did the ghost stories appear after the building became a paranormal venue? Do historical records match the stories told on ghost hunts?
Have independent witnesses genuinely reported similar things?
Suddenly your failed ghost hunt has turned into a completely different investigation.And possibly a better one.
A Normal Explanation Can Be a Great Ending
Paranormal investigators shouldn’t be disappointed when they debunk something. That’s investigating.
Suppose you’re called to a property because the owner hears a mysterious knocking every night.
You spend hours investigating and eventually discover that changing temperature causes an old pipe behind the wall to move.
No ghost.But that is still a successful investigation. You had a mystery.You tested it. You found an explanation.
That is satisfying television.
And if your audience knows you genuinely try to find normal explanations, they’ll pay far more attention when you eventually encounter something you can’t explain.
Build Trust Before You Need It
This may be the biggest argument against constantly exaggerating paranormal videos.
Trust builds slowly.
If I watch ten investigations from your channel and you’ve been prepared to say:
“Nothing happened.” “We debunked this.” “We think that was probably somebody outside.” “This recording isn’t clear enough to call evidence.” “We simply don’t know.”
Then on investigation number eleven you say:
“We have tried everything we can think of and we still cannot explain this.”
I’m going to pay attention. You’ve earned that moment. Compare that with a channel where every thumbnail has contained a demon for the previous six months. Which unexplained clip carries more weight?
So, Do You Need Clickbait to Win?
No..
Most importantly, you need to find the most interesting truthful thing about the investigation and build the video around it.
Don’t ask:
“How can we make this look terrifying?”
Ask:
“What was actually interesting about tonight?”
Maybe you captured something strange. Maybe you disproved one of the location’s best-known ghost stories. That’s interesting too. Maybe you uncovered fascinating history.
Use it. Maybe you tested six claims and every one of them failed. Tell us.
Maybe the building everybody calls haunted wasn’t particularly spooky at all. That’s still a story.
And maybe, after reviewing everything, the only responsible conclusion is:
Nothing happened.
That’s fine. Paranormal investigation isn’t supposed to guarantee ghosts.
It is supposed to investigate claims of the paranormal. If you go into every location already knowing the video needs a ghost before you’ve even started filming, are you really investigating?
Or are you producing a show that requires a particular ending? There is nothing wrong with paranormal entertainment. There is an audience for it and always will be.
But if your channel presents itself as genuine paranormal investigation, there should always be the possibility that you walk away with nothing. And strangely enough, being willing to show those nights might be one of the best ways to convince an audience that, when something genuinely strange does happen, it’s worth watching.
You don’t need to fake the scare. You don’t need to fake the thumbnail. And you don’t need to promise a demon every week.
Tell people an interesting story, investigate it properly and be prepared for the answer to be “nothing paranormal happened.”
That may not sound as dramatic.
But in the long run, it could be far more valuable.
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Wentworth’s Shadow Figures — Has Lee Steer Found a Possible Explanation?
For years, people visiting Wentworth have reported seeing dark figures moving around the graveyard. Some describe them as black shapes darting between the graves, appearing for a second and then disappearing.
Lee Steer (I) recently posted a Facebook reel showing something that could help explain at least some of those sightings.
At the bottom of the graveyard is a road with a very steep incline. At the lower part of the road there is also a junction, where vehicles can turn left or right, while the road ahead continues uphill on a gentler slope.
That might not sound very paranormal, but at night it could be important.
Could Car Headlights Create the Shadows?
If a car approaches from below the graveyard, its headlights will shine upwards across the surrounding area.
The graveyard is full of objects that can block that light — gravestones, trees, walls, railings and vegetation. As the car moves, the angle of the headlights changes.
If the vehicle then turns left or right at the junction, those lights sweep across the area. Anything blocking them can cast a moving shadow. And those shadows can move much faster than the object creating them.
Anyone who has shone a torch across a wall has seen the same effect. Move the torch slightly and a shadow can shoot several feet across the surface. Now imagine that happening in a dark graveyard.
A shadow suddenly appears beside one gravestone, races across several others and disappears. From the right position, that could easily look like a dark figure running through the cemetery.
The Steep Road Makes It More Interesting
The incline Lee showed could make the effect even stronger. As a vehicle climbs, its headlights are changing height and angle in relation to the graveyard. A shadow could grow, shrink or change shape as the car moves.
Then, when the vehicle reaches the junction and turns, the shadow could suddenly move sideways.
That might also explain why some witnesses describe figures that seem unusually tall, distorted or almost as though they are changing shape. The object casting the shadow might never move at all, It is the light source that is moving.
Does This Mean Wentworth Is Debunked?
Not necessarily. Finding a possible explanation isn’t the same as proving every reported sighting has been caused by headlights.
But the observation gives investigators something that can actually be tested. The best thing to do would be to place cameras in the graveyard and another camera overlooking the road.
Then compare what happens when vehicles approach, climb the hill and turn at the junction. Do shadows appear in the areas where people have reported seeing figures?
Do they move in the same direction? Do they disappear in the same places? If the same type of black figure can be recreated repeatedly when cars use that road, it would be strong evidence that at least some of the Wentworth sightings have a perfectly natural explanation. And if investigators cannot recreate them, then the mystery remains.
This Is What Debunking Should Be
There is sometimes a strange attitude in the paranormal community that finding a normal explanation somehow ruins a location.
It doesn’t. Good investigating should be about trying to work out what really happened. If headlights are creating the Wentworth shadow figures, that is worth knowing.
If they explain some sightings but not others, that is worth knowing too. And if investigators recreate the exact conditions and still cannot explain certain reports, those cases become more interesting.
my Facebook post may have highlighted something people have overlooked because everyone was concentrating on what was happening inside the graveyard.
Sometimes the explanation for a paranormal experience isn’t where the witness is looking.
At Wentworth, it might be coming from the road below.
Why Beardo Gets Scared Accepting GTI’s Invitation Could Matter to the Paranormal Community
The online arguments have happened. The evidence has been questioned. Now Beardo Gets Scared has accepted Ghost Trip Investigation’s invitation to investigate alongside them. If handled properly, what happens next could be far more important than another YouTube disagreement.
There are plenty of arguments in the paranormal world.
One investigator captures something they cannot explain. A sceptic examines the footage and offers another explanation. Viewers choose sides, comment sections explode, response videos appear and, before long, the original question — what actually happened? — can become buried beneath personalities, loyalties and algorithms.
The developing situation between Beardo Gets Scared and Ghost Trip Investigation (GTI) has the potential to be different.
GTI, the UK paranormal team led by Dan Spragg and Adam Oakley, publicly invited Beardo to accompany them on an investigation, describing it as a genuine opportunity to investigate together in a transparent, open and honest way. Beardo subsequently publicly accepted the invitation.
That acceptance matters.
Because instead of continuing the discussion exclusively through edited videos, livestreams and social-media posts, two very different approaches to paranormal content now have an opportunity to meet in the place where these questions should ultimately be tested:
inside an investigation.
Why Beardo Saying “Yes” Is Important
Beardo Gets Scared has built his platform around examining paranormal evidence critically.
His own website describes an approach based around investigating claims, analysing footage using his knowledge of video editing, challenging weak evidence and attempting to separate genuine mysteries from misidentification or fakery. Importantly, his stated position is not simply that everything paranormal must be false, but that the evidence should be followed wherever it leads.
That distinction is important.
A useful sceptic should not enter a paranormal investigation determined to prove that nothing can happen.
Equally, a paranormal investigator should not enter determined that every unexplained noise, light or equipment response must be supernatural.
The interesting territory exists somewhere between those positions.
GTI describes its own philosophy as being centred around live exploration, audience involvement and allowing viewers to witness investigations and decide for themselves what they believe happened.
Putting those philosophies together could create something genuinely useful.
Beardo gets the opportunity to see GTI’s investigation process from beginning to end rather than analysing selected footage after publication.
GTI gets the opportunity to demonstrate its methods directly in front of someone who has been critical of paranormal evidence.
And the audience gets something even more valuable:
context.
This Should Not Be Beardo Versus GTI
The biggest mistake everyone involved could make would be treating this investigation as a boxing match.
It should not be about Beardo trying to catch GTI doing something wrong.
It should not be about GTI trying to manufacture an experience dramatic enough to convert him to their way of thinking.
And it certainly should not become several hours of people attempting to win an internet argument.
The paranormal community has enough tribalism already.
This investigation has the chance to demonstrate something considerably healthier: that people can fundamentally disagree about evidence while still being willing to stand in the same building, use the same equipment, watch the same rooms and examine the same incidents together.
Being challenged should not automatically be considered an attack.
Neither should scepticism.
If somebody claims that an event is paranormal, questions should be expected. If somebody offers a normal explanation, that explanation should also be questioned.
That is how investigations become stronger.
So What Should Actually Happen on the Investigation?
If this collaboration is going to mean something, transparency cannot simply be a slogan attached to the promotional material. It needs to be built into the investigation itself.
Before anything begins, GTI should explain exactly how they normally investigate. Beardo should explain what controls or additional observations he believes are necessary.
Then everybody should agree on the conditions.
There should be continuous cameras covering important areas wherever practically possible. Equipment should be inspected and demonstrated before use. Environmental factors should be noted. People entering and leaving investigation areas should be accounted for.
Most importantly, everybody should be allowed to observe.
If something strange happens, the first reaction should not immediately be:
“Ghost.”
It should be:
“What just happened?”
Then investigate it. That process does not destroy paranormal investigation. It improves it.
Because if ordinary explanations are properly tested and eliminated and something still cannot be explained, the remaining evidence becomes considerably more interesting.
Let Beardo Be Beardo — And Let GTI Be GTI
Another mistake would be forcing either side to abandon its identity.
GTI should conduct the investigation in the manner its audience recognises.
Beardo should be allowed to question what he sees.
If he believes an equipment response has a conventional explanation, he should say so.
If GTI disagrees, they should explain why.
And if Beardo witnesses something he genuinely cannot account for?
He should say that too.
There is an enormous difference between saying “I cannot explain that” and saying “therefore it was paranormal.”
That small distinction is one the wider paranormal community could benefit from hearing more often.
Unexplained should be allowed to remain unexplained.
Sometimes that is the most interesting answer available.
The Raw Footage Could Be More Important Than the Investigation
What happens after the lights come back on may ultimately determine whether this experiment succeeds.
Both sides will presumably produce content about the experience. That is perfectly reasonable.
But edited videos should not become the only record of what happened.
Where practical, the original footage surrounding significant incidents should be preserved and made available for examination. If an event becomes controversial, viewers should be able to see what occurred immediately before and immediately afterwards rather than only a dramatic ten-second clip.
Beardo should also be willing to show moments that challenge his expectations.
GTI should be willing to show moments where apparently paranormal activity turns out to have an ordinary explanation.
That symmetry matters. Transparency cannot mean releasing everything that supports your position while quietly forgetting everything that does not.
Bigger Than One YouTube Collaboration
GTI has grown a substantial online paranormal community, while Beardo Gets Scared has built an audience around questioning paranormal footage and claims.
That is exactly why this meeting has significance.
Paranormal entertainment increasingly exists in an environment where dramatic claims generate attention, sceptical response videos generate attention, and arguments between communities can generate even more.
But underneath all of that remains the question that brought most people into the paranormal world in the first place:
Is something genuinely unexplained happening?
The best way of exploring that question is not by surrounding ourselves exclusively with people who already agree with us.
Believers need sceptics. Sceptics need investigators willing to open their doors.
Investigators need people who will challenge methodology. And debunkers occasionally need to leave the editing desk, enter the allegedly haunted building and experience the unpredictable reality of field investigation for themselves.
That is why Beardo accepting GTI’s invitation is potentially important. Not because somebody is going to be proven right. Not because somebody is going to be proven wrong.
But because two sides of a frequently divided paranormal community have an opportunity to investigate the same place, at the same time, under the same conditions.
Now the challenge is to make the investigation worthy of the conversation surrounding it. Keep it civil.
Keep the cameras rolling. Keep questioning everything.
And afterwards, show us what happened — including the parts that do not fit anybody’s preferred conclusion.
Because if the paranormal community genuinely wants to understand the unexplained, that is what transparency should look like.
Paranormal magazine will be watching with interest.
From Grainy Orbs to Cinematic Hauntings: How YouTube Reinvented the Ghost Investigation
In YouTube’s earliest years, paranormal videos were brief, blurry and supposedly accidental. Two decades later, ghost hunting has become a sophisticated entertainment industry built around feature-length investigations, specialist equipment, global fandoms and million-pound creator businesses. But has the evidence improved along with the production values?
When YouTube’s first 19-second video, Me at the Zoo, appeared in April 2005, it demonstrated the platform’s original appeal: ordinary people could record something, upload it and potentially show it to the world.
That same promise was irresistible to paranormal enthusiasts. A strange shape on a security camera, an unexplained voice on a recording or a shadow moving through an empty hallway no longer had to remain a local story. It could be uploaded, replayed, slowed down, brightened, debated and shared internationally.
YouTube did not invent the filmed ghost investigation. It inherited many of its conventions from television programmes such as Most Haunted, Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures: night-vision cameras, whispered commentary, electronic meters, dramatic histories and investigators challenging unseen entities to reveal themselves. What YouTube changed was who could participate.
A television network was no longer required. A haunted location, a camera and a willingness to enter a dark building could be enough.
Twenty-one years after YouTube’s launch, the platform’s paranormal genre is almost unrecognisable. Grainy clips have become feature-length documentaries. Amateur teams have become media companies. Comment sections have become mass evidence-review sessions. Ghost hunts have even moved into cinemas, merchandise businesses, subscription clubs and visitor attractions.
The evolution has been creatively impressive. Whether it has produced stronger evidence for ghosts is a more complicated question.
The first era: “Ghost caught on camera”
Early paranormal YouTube was dominated by the isolated evidence clip.
Titles usually promised something extraordinary: REAL GHOST CAUGHT ON CCTV, DEMON IN ABANDONED HOSPITAL or GHOST GIRL APPEARS BEHIND MAN. The videos were often short, context-free and heavily compressed. Many had passed through several websites or computers before reaching YouTube, making their original source difficult to establish.
This poor image quality was part of their power. Digital noise, reflections, compression artefacts and motion blur created ambiguous shapes that viewers could interpret in different ways. A few pixels might resemble a face. Dust illuminated close to a camera could become a glowing “orb”. A person in the distance could become transparent after being recorded through glass or processed repeatedly.
The audience was asked to perform a simple task: watch closely and decide whether the footage was real.
That made early ghost videos highly participatory. Viewers replayed individual frames, posted timestamps and argued over whether they had seen a spirit, an insect, a reflection or an actor. The comment section functioned as an informal public laboratory, although one without agreed procedures, access to original files or reliable information about how the footage had been produced.
The most compelling clips were often not those with the clearest evidence. They were those containing just enough ambiguity to sustain disagreement.
This remains one of the central rules of paranormal media: a completely clear image can be exposed as a person, prop or visual effect, while a vague image can remain mysterious indefinitely.
Monetisation changed the hunt
A major change arrived when uploading videos became a possible career.
YouTube introduced its Partner Program in 2007, allowing selected creators to receive a share of advertising revenue. The programme rewarded those who uploaded original material consistently and developed significant audiences.
That did not automatically make paranormal creators dishonest. Producing regular investigations involves genuine costs: transport, accommodation, insurance, location fees, cameras, batteries, sound equipment and editing time. Monetisation allowed committed teams to travel farther, purchase better equipment and produce more ambitious work.
It also created an unavoidable conflict.
A scientifically useful investigation may produce nothing. A commercially successful ghost-hunting channel must regularly produce videos that people consider worth clicking and watching.
The creator therefore enters a difficult position. A quiet night with no unusual events may be the most honest result, but “We Investigated a Building and Nothing Happened” is unlikely to perform as strongly as “The Demon Followed Us Home”.
This does not prove that evidence is fabricated. It means that the economic structure rewards dramatic interpretation. Ordinary noises become possible footsteps. Equipment malfunctions become “intelligent responses”. A frightened reaction becomes a thumbnail. Uncertainty may survive inside the episode, but certainty tends to dominate the title.
The pressure is not necessarily a deliberate command from YouTube. The platform says its recommendation system considers a mixture of signals, including watch time, satisfaction surveys, sharing, likes and dislikes, while demoting content classified as harmful or misleading in sensitive information categories.
Paranormal entertainment, however, occupies an awkward middle ground. A dramatic claim about a ghost is generally not treated in the same way as dangerous medical misinformation. Creators therefore compete largely through storytelling, personality, suspense and audience retention.
From the viral clip to the paranormal episode
In 2011, YouTube began integrating live-streaming capabilities directly into the platform. In 2012, it placed greater emphasis on watch time and longer viewing sessions rather than rewarding clicks alone.
These developments helped transform ghost content.
Instead of uploading one unexplained moment, investigators could construct a complete narrative:
- Introduce the location and its history.
- Interview witnesses.
- Explore the building in daylight.
- Establish alleged paranormal “hotspots”.
- Begin the night investigation.
- Escalate from quiet observation to equipment sessions.
- End with the strongest apparent evidence.
This was much closer to television, but YouTube allowed episodes to be longer, looser and more personal. Creators could spend 40 minutes, an hour or sometimes several hours inside one location. They could also upload deleted scenes, evidence reviews and behind-the-scenes footage.
The investigator’s personality became as important as the haunting. Audiences were no longer simply watching a building. They were spending time with a familiar group of people.
That relationship became the genre’s greatest asset. A viewer might doubt a particular recording while still trusting the creators’ sincerity. Fear, friendship, humour and vulnerability created emotional credibility even when the physical evidence remained inconclusive.
The ghost-hunting technology arms race
As paranormal channels grew, their equipment bags expanded.
Early investigations often relied on digital cameras, audio recorders and basic electromagnetic-field meters. Modern episodes may include thermal cameras, motion sensors, REM pods, laser grids, vibration detectors, radio-sweep “spirit boxes”, environmental data loggers and devices that convert sensor readings into words.
The equipment creates an appearance of scientific procedure. Screens display numbers. Lights respond. Graphs change. Devices produce voices. Investigators conduct what they call experiments.
The difficulty is that an instrument can be scientific without its paranormal interpretation being scientifically justified.
EMF meters
An electromagnetic-field meter measures electromagnetic fields. These may be produced by wiring, electrical appliances, radio transmitters, mobile phones and other ordinary sources.
Ghost hunters frequently interpret an unexplained rise as evidence that a spirit is present or drawing energy from the environment. However, no accepted mechanism has established that a deceased human consciousness should create an electromagnetic field, or that a particular reading distinguishes a ghost from conventional interference.
A spike is evidence that the meter detected something within its operating range. Determining the source requires controlled testing, not merely asking the spike whether it is a ghost.
Electronic voice phenomena
Electronic voice phenomena, or EVP, are apparent voices discovered in recordings made during investigations. Some are clear enough to attract attention without prompting. Many are extremely faint and are presented with subtitles telling the audience what to hear.
This is important because human perception is strongly influenced by expectation.
Research into auditory pareidolia shows how people can perceive meaningful words in ambiguous or random sound. In one study discussed in PLOS One, participants exposed to paranormal suggestions were more likely to report voices in unclear audio. Previous experiments cited by the researchers found that 36 per cent of participants reported hearing voices in random noise after first watching information about EVP. The same paper found remarkably little agreement between listeners and the words paranormal investigators had assigned to EVP clips.
This does not establish that every EVP has an ordinary explanation. It does demonstrate why subtitles, repeated listening, noise reduction and leading questions can unintentionally create apparent messages.
A stronger test would allow multiple independent listeners to describe the recording without being shown subtitles, questions or location history. Their answers could then be compared. If one listener hears “leave this house”, another hears “Steven’s out” and a third hears only static, the evidential value is weak.
Spirit boxes and the Estes Method
A spirit box rapidly scans radio frequencies, producing static and fragments of broadcasts. Investigators believe spirits may select or manipulate these fragments to answer questions.
The Estes Method attempts to reduce some forms of cueing. One participant listens through headphones, sometimes while blindfolded, and repeats words heard from the scanning radio. Another participant asks questions that the listener supposedly cannot hear.
It is a more interesting procedure than an ordinary group spirit-box session because it separates the questioner from the listener. It does not, however, remove the central problem: the device deliberately generates fragments of human speech.
Given enough questions, words and time, occasional matches are likely. Investigators may also remember impressive responses while forgetting the many irrelevant ones. This is a form of selection bias. A genuine test would record every question, every spoken fragment, the timing between them and predefined rules for deciding what counts as a match.
SLS and Kinect figures
Structured-light or SLS cameras are used to map human-shaped figures into an environment. Paranormal investigators sometimes interpret a stick figure appearing in an empty room as an invisible entity.
Many of these systems originated from Microsoft’s Kinect technology, which was designed to identify human bodies for gaming. The software actively attempts to construct a skeleton from depth information. Furniture, railings, shadows and irregular surfaces can therefore be misidentified as body parts.
In other words, the device may display a human-like figure because it is designed to search for one, not because it has detected a spirit. Experts examining the technology have described its false skeletal figures as a predictable consequence of the system’s body-recognition process.
The more visually impressive the stick figure appears, the easier it is to forget that viewers are watching a software interpretation rather than a photograph of an entity.
The BuzzFeed Unsolved turning point
One of the most significant changes in paranormal YouTube arrived with BuzzFeed Unsolved: Supernatural.
Launched in 2016, the series paired Ryan Bergara, an enthusiastic believer, with Shane Madej, an openly sceptical co-host. Rather than hiding disagreement, the programme made disagreement its central format.
Ryan interpreted locations through folklore, witness testimony and personal experience. Shane challenged assumptions, mocked demons and regularly remained unimpressed by supposed evidence. Their chemistry allowed viewers to occupy either position without being excluded.
By 2019, BuzzFeed reported that the wider Unsolved franchise had accumulated hundreds of millions of views and billions of minutes of watch time. The programme ended its original run in 2021 after almost six years, with each final investigation accompanied by a question-and-answer “postmortem”.
Its influence was deeper than its viewing figures.
Unsolved demonstrated that scepticism did not have to destroy paranormal entertainment. It could improve it. Shane’s refusal to accept every noise as evidence gave the series tension and credibility. Ryan’s willingness to enter frightening situations prevented the scepticism from becoming distant or sneering.
The viewer was not told what to believe. The viewer was invited into an ongoing argument.
That believer–sceptic structure remains one of the healthiest models available to paranormal media. It respects extraordinary experiences without automatically treating every interpretation as factual.
Ryan and Shane later continued their paranormal work independently through Watcher’s Ghost Files, illustrating another major development: creators were no longer dependent on large digital publishers. Successful personalities could establish their own production companies, retain their audiences and build television-scale programmes directly on YouTube.
The influencer investigation
While BuzzFeed Unsolved refined the believer–sceptic documentary, other creators fused ghost hunting with exploration, challenges and influencer culture.
Sam Golbach and Colby Brock are among the clearest examples. Their work evolved from stunts and abandoned-building exploration into large-scale paranormal investigations. Academic analysis has placed channels like theirs within a form of “virtual dark tourism”, allowing viewers to experience prisons, hospitals, historic houses and sites associated with death or tragedy from home.
Their investigations increasingly resemble event films. Episodes use cinematic drone footage, elaborate sound design, multiple cameras, invited mediums, celebrity guests and recurring Halloween seasons. Locations become franchises, with investigations spread across several videos or an entire week.
The business surrounding the videos has also expanded. Sam and Colby have developed clothing, memberships, live experiences and theatrical releases. Reporting on their company showed how paranormal content can support a diversified creator business stretching far beyond advertising revenue.
This represents an extraordinary change from the anonymous ghost clip.
The modern paranormal creator may be presenter, investigator, filmmaker, brand owner, tourism operator and executive producer at the same time.
It also intensifies the problem of evidence.
When an investigation employs guests, dramatic music, fast editing and a major production crew, the audience cannot easily determine what happened continuously, what occurred off camera or how much material was discarded. Even completely sincere creators are producing an edited story rather than a controlled scientific record.
The question is no longer simply, “Could this clip be fake?”
It is also, “Can a commercial entertainment production ever provide enough information to test its own conclusion?”
The audience becomes part of the investigation
YouTube’s greatest innovation may not be its cameras or equipment. It is the audience.
Viewers freeze frames, isolate sounds and identify background movements missed by the production team. They submit personal stories, recommend locations, fund investigations and sometimes travel to places featured in videos.
Some series invite audience members to submit their own alleged evidence before an investigation. Livestream viewers can report noises or shapes in real time. After release, sceptical channels produce detailed breakdowns, recreating effects and testing equipment.
This participation can improve accountability. A misleading edit may be noticed. A hidden crew member may be spotted in a reflection. A supposedly mysterious sound may be identified as plumbing, wildlife or radio interference.
Participation can also amplify weak evidence. Once one viewer circles a dark patch and labels it a face, thousands of others may begin to see the same face. Repetition transforms a suggestion into a community belief.
Research published in 2024 examined 50 highly viewed YouTube videos about hauntings and UFOs. Most presented paranormal claims, while scientific sources appeared in almost none of the haunting videos. A survey conducted as part of the study found an association between YouTube use and belief in hauntings, even after accounting for several other variables. The research does not prove that YouTube directly causes belief, but it suggests the platform can help reinforce paranormal interpretations.
The genre therefore does more than entertain existing believers. It helps establish what paranormal investigation looks like, what counts as evidence and which explanations viewers consider plausible.
The pandemic, gaming and the paranormal revival
Interest in ghost content grew again during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Periods of isolation, uncertainty, bereavement and heightened awareness of mortality created fertile ground for supernatural storytelling. People spent more time at home, consumed more online entertainment and sometimes became newly attentive to unfamiliar noises in their surroundings.
The multiplayer game Phasmophobia, released in 2020, introduced a younger audience to a gamified version of paranormal investigation. Players use recognisable ghost-hunting equipment, collect evidence and identify different entities. Streamers and YouTubers helped turn the game into a cultural phenomenon, while some players moved from virtual investigations towards real-world paranormal groups.
British ghost-hunting communities have reported a broader rise in “have-a-go” investigators, commercial ghost nights and paranormal tourism, supported by YouTube and TikTok exposure.
The exchange now works in both directions. Television inspired early YouTube ghost hunters. YouTube inspired games and independent creators. Games introduced new investigators to YouTube. Successful YouTubers then moved into television-scale productions and cinemas.
Ghost hunting has become a connected entertainment ecosystem.
The Shorts era: fear in under a minute
The arrival of YouTube Shorts added another layer.
YouTube began testing Shorts creation tools in 2020. The format was designed for rapid, mobile viewing and easy discovery.
For paranormal creators, Shorts function as trailers, highlights and evidence clips. A two-hour investigation can be condensed into 30 seconds containing a scream, a moving object and a device apparently saying somebody’s name.
This is effective promotion, but it removes context.
Viewers may not see the ten minutes of silence before the event, the investigators walking near the equipment or the later attempt to recreate the sound. The most dramatic interpretation reaches millions of viewers without the qualifications contained in the full episode.
Short-form paranormal media risks returning the genre to its earliest form: an isolated, unexplained clip detached from the conditions under which it was recorded.
Only now the image is sharper, the editing faster and the distribution algorithm far more powerful.
Has the evidence actually improved?
Technically, yes.
Modern creators have access to better low-light cameras, clearer audio, multiple viewpoints, precise timestamps and enormous storage capacity. Raw footage can be preserved. Environmental conditions can be measured. Investigations can be livestreamed. Independent analysts can examine material immediately.
In principle, this should make paranormal claims easier to test.
Yet improved technology does not automatically produce improved methodology.
A 2020 review of environmental research into allegedly haunted locations found a relatively small and methodologically inconsistent body of literature. Studies examining factors such as lighting, temperature, air quality, infrasound and electromagnetic fields produced outcomes that were mostly null, weak or inconsistent. The authors called for more precise measurement, proper control conditions and cooperation between researchers with differing beliefs.
Those recommendations highlight the gap between an investigation and an experiment.
An investigation asks, “What happened here tonight?”
An experiment asks, “Under clearly defined conditions, does this effect occur more frequently than chance, error or ordinary environmental activity would predict?”
Most YouTube ghost hunts are excellent at the first question. Very few are designed to answer the second.
What a genuinely rigorous YouTube ghost investigation would involve
A more credible investigation would not need to abandon atmosphere, storytelling or curiosity. It would need stronger controls.
Investigators could begin by recording environmental baselines before discussing the building’s ghost stories. Electrical sources, radio signals, airflow, loose windows, plumbing, wildlife and building movement could be documented in daylight.
Equipment should be tested openly. Viewers should be shown what causes a K2 meter, motion sensor or REM pod to activate under normal conditions. Devices should be kept away from phones, radios and camera transmitters unless interference is part of the test.
Audio should be reviewed by independent listeners who do not know the questions being asked. EVP subtitles should appear only after viewers have first heard the untreated recording. Original audio files should be provided when privacy and location agreements allow.
Every response from a spirit-box session should be logged, including irrelevant words and failed answers. Criteria for a successful response should be established before the session rather than invented afterwards.
Multiple fixed cameras should cover investigators and equipment simultaneously. Continuous timestamps would make it harder for editing to create a misleading sequence.
Negative results should be included. If a device remains silent for three hours, that information is essential for assessing the significance of its one activation.
Most importantly, an apparently successful result should be repeated. A response that occurs once may be interesting. A response that occurs reliably under controlled conditions would be far more important.
These practices would not prove that ghosts do not exist. They would help distinguish genuinely unexplained events from the enormous number of ways people, buildings and electronic devices can produce strange results.
The coming problem: AI ghosts
The next stage of paranormal YouTube will face a challenge greater than fishing line, hidden speakers or selective editing.
Realistic synthetic video and audio can now create people, voices and events that never existed. A convincing apparition no longer requires advanced visual-effects training. An alleged EVP can be generated with a cloned voice. Security-camera footage can be altered while retaining the imperfect appearance audiences associate with authenticity.
YouTube introduced disclosure requirements for realistic altered or synthetic content in 2024, including footage that could mislead viewers about real people, places or events.
Policies alone will not solve the problem. Paranormal creators who care about credibility may need to preserve original files, publish metadata, document chains of custody and use cameras capable of generating verifiable authenticity information.
Ironically, the future of ghost hunting may depend less on obtaining more mysterious footage and more on proving that the footage has not been manipulated.
Scepticism is not the enemy of wonder
Paranormal YouTube is sometimes judged by two equally unhelpful extremes.
One side assumes that every unexplained event is supernatural. The other assumes that every investigator is fraudulent and every witness foolish.
Neither approach reflects reality.
People can sincerely misinterpret ordinary events. Equipment can behave unpredictably. Memories can change. Fear can influence perception. Editors can unintentionally exaggerate a sequence. Investigators can become emotionally invested in a theory without consciously deceiving anyone.
There are also deliberate hoaxes. The history of paranormal media contains actors, props, manipulated photographs and staged events. But exposing individual hoaxes does not explain every unusual experience, just as failing to explain an experience does not establish that a ghost caused it.
Healthy scepticism means withholding a conclusion until the evidence supports it. It asks whether a normal explanation has been properly tested. It distinguishes “unexplained” from “supernatural”. It remains willing to change position when better information appears.
Most importantly, scepticism need not strip ghost hunting of its value.
Paranormal investigations preserve local folklore, introduce audiences to neglected historic buildings and create communities around mystery, mortality and storytelling. They can be funny, frightening and emotionally meaningful even when they fail to demonstrate an afterlife.
The strongest creators understand that uncertainty is not a weakness. It is the reason viewers continue watching.
From “broadcast yourself” to building haunted worlds
YouTube began as a place for brief, personal uploads. Its paranormal genre followed the same journey as the platform itself.
It moved from isolated clips to regular channels, from amateur recordings to professional productions, from advertising revenue to complete creator businesses. Ghost hunters became hosts, filmmakers and entrepreneurs. Viewers became fans, investigators, critics and customers.
The production quality has improved beyond anything early uploaders could have imagined. The central question, however, remains unchanged:
What exactly are we looking at?
After two decades, YouTube has not settled the existence of ghosts. What it has done is transform the search for them into one of the internet’s most adaptable forms of storytelling.
The future of the genre will depend on whether creators continue escalating the spectacle or recognise that the greatest unexplained event would not need dramatic music, a shocked thumbnail or a glowing gadget.
It would need evidence strong enough to survive believers, sceptics and the pause button.
Paranormal Magazine UK 