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Ecto Goggles
10 min read
The Ecto Goggles are night-vision headgear modified to help a Ghostbuster see otherwise invisible ghosts and track P.K.E. valences. The device has gone by several names across the films, scripts, and tie-ins, including Ecto-Goggles, Ecto-Visors, Infra Visor, Infra-Goggles, and Paragoggles.1234 In the original film the props were modified versions of the U.S. Army's AN/PVS-5a night-vision goggles, a unit introduced in 1972 that was still in widespread use when the movie was made.5
Most often the goggles are seen clipped to Ray Stantz's belt. They pair with the P.K.E. Meter to render psychokinetic energy and ectoplasmic phenomena visible to the wearer. A camera function was added in later years that prints a Polaroid-style photograph, and the Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire era introduced a variant wired to operate the Drone Trap.
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The Ecto Goggles were first used by Ray Stantz at the Sedgewick Hotel on the team's first case, and he wore them most often during the Gozer incident. After Ray sighted Slimer circling a chandelier, the goggles pinged, the readout on the left side went green, and a number, "01333.5," was displayed. Egon Spengler and Peter Venkman also wore them briefly on later cases: Egon at the 126 Mulberry Street bust and Peter at Rockefeller Plaza.
The base of the props consists of olive drab AN/PVS-5a Night Vision Goggles frames modified with two different microscope adapter lenses. The right lens was taken from a Mirax-Laborec Photo-Micrographic Camera, a piece extremely difficult to find due to the scarcity of the camera. There are a couple of variations of the microscopic adapter, though only one is correct. The left lens remains unidentified. After the goggles were damaged during the New York shooting sequences, warning labels were applied to the lenses for aesthetic purposes.
Ghostbusters Novelization
In the American novelization of the film by Richard Mueller, Ray refers to the goggles as his "trinocular visor." (pg. 94)
Ghostbusters II
Ray wears the goggles a handful of times in the sequel. He uses them on the stakeout with Peter to catch the Jogger Ghost in Central Park. He also hangs the goggles, alongside a Trap, on the right side of his Pistol Belt while the team films its new commercial, investigates the Manhattan Museum of Art, and arrives at the museum on New Year's Eve. In the November 27, 1988 draft of the script the device is called "infra-goggles," and Ray uses them to analyze the slime shell covering the museum.3
The goggles worn in Ghostbusters II are painted olive drab with unidentified lenses. The front faceplate greeblies are from the same kit used for several pieces on the slime blower: the TAMIYA 1/35th Kampfpanzer Leopard Medium Tank Kit, specifically pieces #2 and #19.
Before Ghostbusters: Afterlife
Sometime after the Vigo incident, a camera function was fitted to the Ecto Goggles. Pressing a button on the right side prints a Polaroid photograph.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife
In June 2021, Phoebe discovered the Ecto Goggles in a locker of uniforms in the laboratory beneath the farmhouse. She and her friend Podcast took the gear to the Summerville foundry to test the Proton Pack she had finished. Podcast wore the goggles, watched Phoebe destroy a row of bottles, declared it the best thing he had ever seen, then snapped a photograph that emerged from the left side of the device.
During the hunt for Muncher around Summerville, Podcast tried to position himself in Ecto-1 for a photo of the ghost but stepped on a lever that triggered the gunner seat, sending it and Phoebe outside. The goggles were later among the equipment confiscated by Sheriff Domingo and stored in a jail cell secured with an electromagnetic deadbolt. The next day Phoebe, Podcast, Trevor, and Lucky slipped into the sheriff's department to recover the gear and Ecto-1 while the deputies were out answering ghost calls. Podcast freed Muncher, who ate through enough of the cell bars to let them retrieve everything. Podcast wore the Ecto Goggles for the rest of the Summerville battle and ended up coated, like the goggles, in residue after the surviving Mini-Pufts blew up once Gozer was trapped.
Ghostbusters: Back in Town
In the Dark Horse Comics series, set in June 2022, Phoebe used a pair of Ecto Goggles to inspect the firehouse basement the morning after a green slime ghost attacked. She found and sampled green ectoplasm in the wall the containment unit protruded from. That afternoon, Gary used the goggles in Central Park to locate a giant bird ghost.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
In the summer of 2024, Callie Spengler used a pair of Ecto Goggles modified to operate the Drone Trap and used it to trap the Sewer Dragon. Podcast snapped a photo of Phoebe with the goggles' camera before the group left for the Melody Diner. Lucky wore a pair while watching the firehouse roof for Garraka's approach, and Podcast wore the modified goggles when he tried to use the Drone Trap against Garraka.
The Real Ghostbusters
In the animated series, the Ecto Goggles (also called Ecto-Scopes and Ecto-Visors6) serve roughly the same function as in the films, acting as a visual P.K.E. Meter. The cartoon also features two related devices that behave much like the goggles, the Ecto-Visors and the Helmet Ecto Goggles.
A frequency adjustment was needed to see certain normally invisible entities, such as the Imps trapped in Gaylord's Joke Shop. Around the time the Ghostbusters were hired to deal with Black Bart in Spittoon, Texas, the goggles were upgraded with new fiber optic force field lenses, which let the team pinpoint the spectral well beneath the town.
Extreme Ghostbusters
Like much of the gear carried over into Extreme Ghostbusters, the Ecto Goggles appear to have been upgraded shortly before the new team formed in 1997. The redesign has three straps instead of two, a small scope beside the left lens stalk, a much shorter right lens stalk, and reworked bases on both sides. Egon used a pair to examine Mesopotamian inscriptions on a tablet about Achira. Roland Jackson briefly scanned the area near a diner where an employee named Jimmy had been kidnapped, but picked up no readings.
IDW Comics
Ray and the Rookie are most often the ones wearing the Ecto Goggles, though Winston used a pair during the Marie Laveau case. The comics expand the device's feature set: Ray tried out a new thermal imaging mode to check the far side of the Emmanuel Baptist Church before the team blew a hole in it, and a night-vision-equipped variant appeared on Poveglia. Goggles were handed out to the 101 Cadets so they could see Manhattan's ley lines, which appeared as a white glow, while the team trapped the Bronx Spook. During the Fort Washington Park case, one of the goggles' settings cut through the fog generated by the Doom Ghost.7
The comics also state outright that the goggles track a specific entity by the psychokinetic energy it emits, and that they provide night vision and let the wearer see a ghost that has rendered itself invisible.8 In the animated-continuity IDW story, Egon used a pair in an alternate dimension to locate and confirm an Imbunche in a cave on Chiloe Island.
Ghostbusters: The Video Game
During the Shandor incident over the Thanksgiving weekend, the Ecto Goggles took on a larger role in tracking and capturing ghosts. Every member of the team, including Winston Zeddemore, wore them at some point. The P.K.E. Meter and the goggles worked together to display P.K. energy and ectoplasmic phenomena in a form easy for even the Rookie to read. The handheld version of the game, Ghostbusters: The Video Game, treats the goggles as a researchable, buildable visor for viewing paranormal activity.
Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime
Ray wore a pair of Ecto Goggles in Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime while the team trapped ghosts stirred up by the Relic of Nilhe.
Merchandise
Kenner Real Ghostbusters Toyline
Kenner produced Ecto Goggles for the Real Ghostbusters action figure toyline. These goggles came packaged with a squeezable gun that fired foam darts. The Fright Features Ray figure was released wearing the Ecto Goggles, and the Slimed Heroes Ray figure came with a removable pair of goggles.
Matty Collector Ecto Goggles
A premium replica was released by Matty Collector in the summer of 2013 and retailed for $110. These goggles interact with the Matty Collector PKE Meter and feature ghost projections displayed in the lenses along with sound effects.
Function
The Ecto Goggles let the wearer see invisible ghosts and visually track P.K.E. valences. A later-added camera takes ordinary photographs as well as images tied to ectoplasmic activity. The right side carries a set of buttons, including a red one and a black one, that operate the camera: the flash unit pops up, the photo is taken, and the print emerges from the left side. The Frozen Empire variant tied to the Drone Trap connects to its controller with a serial cable and adds a black antenna on the left side of the goggles.
The West End Games tabletop roleplaying game describes the goggles as having infrared night-vision capability. The IDW comics likewise credit them with tracking an entity by its psychokinetic signature, night vision, and the ability to reveal a ghost that has made itself invisible.8
Behind the scenes
An early concept imagined the device as an eyepatch-style monocle worn over one eye.9 That idea later resurfaced in the IDW comics as the Ecto Monocle.
For Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the prop was built by Studio Art & Technology, which added the built-in thermal Polaroid camera.10 The working camera was a Fujifilm Instax Mini 9: its internals were stripped out and fitted into the goggles prop, with the pop-up flash frame custom built.11Logan Kim, who played Podcast, has said he could barely see while wearing them on set, describing tunnel vision and accidentally hitting Mckenna Grace in the face during one turn. During another take he slipped and fell hard enough that the goggles came off and slid across the floor, and by his own account they fell off his head more than ten times during filming. Applying the marshmallow residue took about an hour, using a cornstarch-based substance that hardened like gelatin; a separate goggles prop coated in the goop was used for those shots.
In the Marvel Comics U.K. The Real Ghostbusters Annual 1989, the device is listed as a "Spectro-Visor."12
Aykroyd, Dan & Ramis, Harold (1983). Ghostbusters (Final Shooting Script, October 7, 1983), script p. 39. Line reads: "They also wear brushed-metal, flip-down ecto-visors worn on the head like a welder's mask." ↩
Aykroyd, Dan & Ramis, Harold (1983). Ghostbusters (Final Shooting Script, October 7, 1983), script p. 52. Line reads: "Stantz removes his infra visor and wipes some slime off his face." ↩
Aykroyd, Dan & Ramis, Harold (1988). Ghostbusters II (Script Revision, November 27, 1988), script p. 110. Line reads: "Stantz inspects the walls of slime with his infra-goggles and finds that they only managed to open a hole the size of a dime." ↩↩2
Ghostbusters: The Video Game (Realistic Version), Welcome to the Hotel Sedgewick level (2009) (PC/PS3/Xbox 360). Atari. In-game line: "The Paragoggles are linked directly to your active PKE Meter. This lets you see otherwise undetectable phenomena, while you track it." ↩
Wallace, Daniel (2015). Ghostbusters: The Ultimate Visual History, p. 58. Insight Editions, San Rafael, CA, ISBN 9781608875108. Line reads: "The ecto-goggles in the film were modified versions of the U.S. Army's AN/PVS-5a night-vision goggles, which were introduced in 1972 and still in widespread use at the time the movie was made." ↩
Capizzi, Duane (1997). Extreme Ghostbusters, "Deadliners" (Final Draft, December 1996), script p. 13. Line reads: "REVEAL ROLAND - Scanning from the cafe door, wearing a pair of ECTO-VISORS." ↩
Ghostbusters: Crossing Over #3 (2018), IDW Publishing, comic p. 8. In-comic line: "The Ecto-Goggles have a setting that'll help cut through some of this, especially if it's, um, ghost-based." ↩
Ghostbusters 101 #4 (2017), IDW Publishing, comic p. 24. Class-notes text: "They also allow for night vision, and to allow sight of a ghost that has rendered itself invisible to the naked eye." ↩↩2
Wallace, Daniel (2015). Ghostbusters: The Ultimate Visual History, p. 59. Insight Editions, San Rafael, CA, ISBN 9781608875108. Line reads: "An early ecto-goggle concept imagines the device could be worn as an eyepatch-like monocle." ↩
Inguanzo, Ozzy (2021). Ghostbusters: Afterlife, The Art and Making of the Movie, p. 116. Titan Books, London, ISBN 1789096529. Line reads: "The infrared ghost peepers got a retro-upgrade by Studio Art & Technology in Los Angeles with a new built-in component, a thermal Polaroid camera." ↩
Ben Eadie, interview on the Afterlife goggles camera. The internals of a Fujifilm Instax Mini 9 were stripped out and placed into the goggles; the flash module was used but the pop-up frame holding it was a custom build. ↩
Marvel Comics U.K., The Real Ghostbusters Annual 1989, comic p. 55. Line reads: "Spectro-Visor - using the Spectro-visor, a Ghostbuster can see invisible ghosts and auras through the image-intensifying mechanism which operates on infra-red and ectoplasmic sensitive wavelengths." ↩
