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Spirit Box

LiDAR ghost hunting app: what a depth scan can and can't show

On an iPhone or iPad with a LiDAR Scanner, Spirit Box's LiDAR Scan colours the room by distance from 0.5 to 5 metres and lists DETECTED ANOMALIES whenever the sampled depth changes between frames — someone walking through, the phone shifting in your hand. It does not, and cannot, detect figures or people.

3 min read · Updated 2026-09-16

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What LiDAR measures

LiDAR fires light pulses and times how long they take to come back, which builds a depth map of how far each part of the scene is from the phone. Because it does not need visible light to do that, it is genuinely good at spotting movement and objects in the dark. What it knows nothing about is what an object actually is. Distance, full stop, is the entire vocabulary.

The LiDAR Scan card only appears on devices that have a LiDAR Scanner. On other devices, use Camera ITC instead (see below).

What you see in LiDAR Scan

  • A coloured depth overlay on the camera image, with a scale from 0m to 5m and the note Range: 0.5m - 5.0m.
  • The distance at the centre of the screen and the nearest and farthest distance in view.
  • A small point cloud of sampled depth points.
  • A Color Scheme choice: Paranormal, Thermal, Night Vision, Ocean Depth or Plasma. These only change the colours.
  • DETECTED ANOMALIES: Depth Spike, Movement or Energy Field, when sampled depth changes between frames pass set thresholds; at most one every 4 seconds.

How to run a scan

  1. Open Protocols from the home menu and pick Visual Anomaly Sweep (5-8 min) for the checklist.
  2. Dim the lights. From the home screen open PRO Scanner Modes and tap LiDAR Scan.
  3. Wait for LiDAR Active, then pick a Color Scheme.
  4. Rest the phone on a table or tripod, pointed at a doorway, corridor or corner, and do not touch it.
  5. Watch the anomaly list. Note the time and what was happening when an alert appears.
  6. To keep a picture, take an iOS screenshot. The Capture button currently only gives haptic feedback and does not save an image.

Why the phone itself causes most anomalies

A common mistake on a first run: holding the phone and getting alert after alert, assuming something is happening, when it is really hand movement. The scan compares depth samples frame to frame, so a shift of a few centimetres changes every sample and triggers an alert almost automatically. A person, a pet, a curtain does the same thing. A steady phone on something that will not move beats any setting in the app.

Typical causes of LiDAR alerts
What happenedLikely alert
Phone moved in your handDepth Spike or Movement
Someone walked across the viewMovement
Door or curtain swungDepth Spike
Nothing changed, phone on a tripodNo alert expected

Camera ITC: the option for any device

Camera ITC, under PRO Scanner Modes, works on devices without LiDAR. It shows the live camera with a filter from Camera Mode (Normal, Night Vision, Thermal, Spirit, Static) and an Activity Level built from frame-to-frame motion, brightness changes and the microphone level, with Motion Detected and ANOMALY DETECTED alerts. Its record button makes a screen recording with the filter and saves it to Photos; recordings are listed under Gallery.

LiDAR Scan and Camera ITC are PRO. Camera ITC can also be tried once through Watch an ad to try a full PRO session. Neither is saved to Session History.

Questions and answers

Which iPhones have LiDAR?
Only models with a LiDAR Scanner, which includes some iPhone Pro and iPad Pro models. In Spirit Box, if your device has one, the LiDAR Scan card appears on the home screen; if not, it does not.
Can the LiDAR scan show a figure or a person's shape?
No. The app does no figure or skeleton detection. It colours distance and flags depth changes.
Does LiDAR Scan save pictures or video?
No. Use an iOS screenshot or screen recording. Camera ITC is the mode that records a video to Photos.
Does LiDAR work in the dark?
Yes, depth is measured with its own light pulses, so the overlay keeps working in a dim room within the 0.5 to 5 metre range.

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