Ghosts in the Kinect
Billy Tolley swings a Microsoft Kinect around an abandoned room in sudden, jittery movements. âWhoa!â he says. âDude, it was so creepy.â On the display, we see an anomaly of arrows, spheres, and red lines that disappears almost as soon as it arrives. For Tolley and Zak Bagans, two members of the Ghost Adventures YouTube channel, this is enough to suggest they should leave the building. Because for this team and other similar enthusiasts, that seemingly innocuous blotter of white arrows means something more terrifying: a glimpse at specters and phantoms invisible to the human eye.Â
Fifteen years after its release, just about the only people still buying the Microsoft Kinect are ghost hunters like Tolley and Bagans. Though the body-tracking camera, which was discontinued in 2017, started as a gaming peripheral, it also enjoyed a spirited afterlife outside of video games. But in 2025, its most notable application is helping paranormal investigators, like the Ghost Adventures team, in their attempts at documenting the afterlife.
The Kinectâs ability to convert the data from its body-tracking sensors into an on-screen skeletal dummy delights these investigators, who allege …