Baby Monitor Hauntings

Baby monitors are often depicted as portals to the other worldly. In films such as Insidious, they pick up the voices of the ghosts haunting their house. In movies like Signs, they pick up Alien voices as the aliens plan an invasion. Baby monitors are natural receivers and many believe they pick up more than the sweet voices of the babies they are designed to monitor.

Last night I tucked my baby in early. I turned on the baby monitor and in my exhaustion, I fell asleep beside him. I didn't notice my husband come home late. He didn't notice the monitor was still on. He sat down in the den next to the other end of the monitor and began working on his dictations. Suddenly, the baby monitor exploded in a cacophony of noise and chaos. He turned it off, but it got me thinking about baby monitors.

A quick search of the Internet will reveal thousands of stories of hauntings and baby monitors. In one single forum, I found hundreds of stories of people who heard ghosts through a baby's monitor. Phantom voices drift over the monitors and video baby monitors expose strange black fogs wandering through nurseries. One woman described hearing her dead father-in-laws voice over the monitor. He was softly comforting her weeping baby. Many stories are like this. They hear the ghost comforting weeping babies or see the ghosts hovering over the baby's crib.

Most theorists believe that baby monitors act in the same way EVP recorders do. EVPs or electronic voice phenomena are voices picked up over recording devices. Phantom voices that aren't heard with the naked ear are recorded and heard on playback. Those who believe, think that baby monitors receive in the same way other EVPs are recorded. EVPs are heard on the receiving end of the baby monitor. The voices of ghosts can be heard the same way audio playback reveals EVPs.

Other theorists believe that children and animals are more open to the spirit world. Animals and young children can see and feel ghosts in the ways that adults can not. According to these theories, baby nurseries would draw ghosts who want to interact with the living. Most of the stories about nurseries and ghosts are pleasant. People hear the ghosts of loved ones whispering to the babies. It is away for the deceased to interact with their family when they are gone.

So it is possible that the baby monitor beside my son's bassinet picked up something unworldly. Maybe my mother-in-law came to sing to her grandson or my father-in-law came by to whisper to him in French. Perhaps when my son looks behind me and laughs at the darkness over my shoulder he is seeing the friendly face of someone who has gone before us. Of course, there is no way to be sure and much of this could just be attributed to electronic glitches that quickly resolve. Either way, I'm bringing my baby monitor with me on my next over night at a haunted hotel.