The Giga Meter is a hand-held detection device built to measure psychomagnotheric energy. Where the P.K.E. Meter acts as a psychokinetic dowsing rod that locates a source, the Giga Meter is a measuring instrument: it reports the exact level of psychomagnotheric energy in Giga Electron Volts (GeVs), a standard unit used in high-energy physics. Egon Spengler and Ray Stantz developed it from their theory that human emotion has a measurable effect on the psychomagnotheric energy field.
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The device grew out of work Egon Spengler and Ray Stantz began after the Ghostbusters disbanded following the Gozer incident: the idea that the human emotional state has a measurable effect on the surrounding psychomagnotheric field. Egon kept gathering data on the theory while employed at the Institute for Advanced Theoretical Research, and that research produced the Giga Meter.
The name reflects its measurement scale: the prefix "Giga" (correctly pronounced "gi-gah," not "guy-gah") represents 1 billion, and the meter measures psychomagnotheric energy in Giga Electron Volts (GeVs), a unit of kinetic energy used in high-energy physics.
Early drafts of the Ghostbusters II screenplay spell out the underlying science in more detail than the finished film. In the August 5, 1988 draft, Egon describes discovering the anti-particle of psychokinetic energy, present everywhere he looked, whose purpose and origin he did not understand. He labelled these anti-particles the "psychomagnetic force" (PMF), and the Giga Meter was the instrument built to measure the energy detected from it in giga-electron volts.1234 The February 27, 1989 draft has Ray Stantz describe it more plainly as a gauge "to measure psychomagnotheric energy in GEVs, giga electron volts."5
The Giga Meter was used in late 1989 in response to the activity generated by the Psychomagnotheric Slime found beneath the streets of New York. While investigating Dana Barrett's apartment and First Avenue, Egon carried the Giga Meter alongside Ray and the original P.K.E. Meter: the P.K.E. Meter located the activity, and the Giga Meter recorded the exact levels of psychomagnotheric energy. Standing on First Avenue where Oscar's carriage had stopped, Egon read 2.5 Giga Electron Volts on the Giga Meter while the P.K.E. Meter measured 1118.
After Egon opened a large hole in First Avenue with a jackhammer one Friday evening, he used the Giga Meter again, remarked that the reading was very intense, and suggested they get a deeper reading. Ray agreed, then realized Peter and Egon had chosen him to go down.
The Giga Meter was among the equipment confiscated by the police and displayed as an exhibit during the Ghostbusters' trial. After the team went back into business, Egon brought it on later cases, including the work at Orrefors, checking Dana's bathroom, the investigation at the Manhattan Museum of Art, the search on foot for the New York Pneumatic Railroad and the River of Slime, and the return to the museum aboard the Statue of Liberty.
In the deleted scene "Driving Miss Liberty," as the Statue of Liberty walked up the Hudson River, Egon looked at the Giga Meter and reported it was now at full power.
In Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the Giga Meter appears only as a background prop: Egon left it on a table near the wall of degrees in the underground laboratory beneath his farmhouse. This is a cameo, not a new use of the device on screen.
The Giga Meter was not used during the Shandor incident in Ghostbusters: The Video Game. The primary substance encountered there, Black Slime, is supersaturated with negative energy rather than psychomagnotheric energy, so it was not similar enough to warrant the meter's use.
In the IDW comics the Giga Meter is a recurring field instrument. Egon used one to take an initial scan of Fantastic Land when the Ghostbusters arrived, and later ran a sweep of Herald Square after Death, Eugene Visitor, and the Megaspook vanished. Kylie Griffin used a Giga Meter to track Gareth Dibello across Central Park, pinpointing him 150 yards away at Bridge #24. Egon brought the meter along to investigate the gravitational anomalies at Columbus Circle.
During the Ghostbusters International storyline, Ray took the Giga Meter to Venice to establish a baseline of psychokinetic activity ahead of the team's case on Poveglia. He was surprised to bury the needle because of the abundance of benign ghosts in the area, then tuned the meter to compensate for and sift through the heavy local concentration of P.K.E. so he could track entities on the island. The adjustment helped the team detect the Plague Doctor Ghost, the largest individual reading on Poveglia. Inside the asylum, Ray picked up a double reading and traced the stronger source in a basement to the Poveglian Artifact; when the ghost reappeared behind him, the meter registered "88.0." After the entity was trapped he observed the local psychokinetic energy had dropped sharply but soon recovered at an exponential rate. The meter's sensor dome was later damaged beyond repair when Kaia May released the Unknown Soldier Ghosts in a Paris police station during the search for the artifact.
In other IDW stories, Egon used a Giga Meter in the sewers under Coney Island, where the team found a pool of Psychomagnotheric Slime that proved to be positively charged. Abby Yates used the meter when the Ghostbusters 101 pilot team were interviewed about the Interspatial Teleportation Unit, and Ray used one during the investigation of City Water Tunnel No. 3. A Ghostbusters 101 class-notes page lists giga meters among the tools used "to detect and measure psychoreactive substances, such as mood slime."6
In Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed the Giga Meter is referenced rather than used: after the Act 1 Scene 3 cutscene, Eddy Chan jokes that the more advanced giga meters are too expensive to build more of, citing "the never ending struggle between science and budget constraints."7 The prop later appears as a cameo on the work bench in the Firehouse sub-basement training area following a patch.
The Giga Meter is a hand-held black unit with a large sensor "dome" mounted to the front underside at a slight angle. Above the dome, two electronic probes sway back and forth, apparently to pick up or filter out energy. It was kept in a silvery carrying case.
Promotional materials are not always consistent with the screen prop. In some tie-in items, such as the Ghostbusters II Puzzle Book and Coloring Book, the Giga Meter is drawn as a box-like device instead.
The Giga Meter prop was built around an off-the-shelf hand-held cleaning device, the Redman Corporation Power Scrubber 'N' Buffer. A plastic dome equipped with spinning lights was added, along with a pair of motorized condenser microphones.8 Early sketches for the device were drawn by Stephen Dane.
The same prop has turned up well outside its home franchise. It appears in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles special "Operation Blue Line" as Gridlock's "Gloomsday Device." The meter also made a brief appearance in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), where it was used in a montage of Starfleet officers scanning uniforms for traces of Klingon blood. In that scene, the pivoting microphone "ears" were missing, but the digital display on top and the "scanning orb" on the bottom remained visible.
The Giga Meter design has recurred across IDW comic covers, including Ghostbusters 101 #2, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Ghostbusters crossover, and Ghostbusters Crossing Over #8.
Several script drafts handle the device differently from the finished film:
A nod to the device appears in the 2016 film: the back of the P.K.E. Meter prop from that movie carries a label referencing Ray and Egon's readings of 1118 on the P.K.E. Meter and 2.5 GeVs on the Giga Meter from Ghostbusters II.
Aykroyd, Dan & Ramis, Harold (1988). Ghostbusters II (August 5, 1988 Draft) (Script p. 18). Egon Spengler says: "Ray and I have been working on a radical new theory. We know that PKE, psychokinetic energy, is the unifying force on the so-called etheric plane." ↩
Aykroyd, Dan & Ramis, Harold (1988). Ghostbusters II (August 5, 1988 Draft) (Script p. 19). Egon Spengler says: "Even though we traditionally think of energy traveling in waves, we know from quantum mechanics that energy is actually composed of particles' and we also know that every particle has an antiparticle." ↩
Aykroyd, Dan & Ramis, Harold (1988). Ghostbusters II (August 5, 1988 Draft) (Script p. 19). Egon Spengler says: "We've discovered a new energy composed of PKE antiparticles. I call it the 'psychomagnetic force' and I've been able to detect it everywhere I've looked." ↩
Aykroyd, Dan & Ramis, Harold (1988). Ghostbusters II (August 5, 1988 Draft) (Script p. 26). Ray Stantz says: "Egon and I have been working on it. It measures psychomagnetic energy in GeVs, giga-electron-volts." ↩
Aykroyd, Dan & Ramis, Harold (1989). Ghostbusters II (February 27, 1989 Draft) (Script p. 23). Ray Stantz says: "Egon and I have been working on a gauge to measure psychomagnetheric energy in GEVs, giga electron volts." ↩
Ghostbusters 101 Class Notes (2017). IDW Comics, Ghostbusters 101 #4 (2017) (Comic p. 24). Ghostbusters 101 Class Notes reads: "Giga meters (to detect and measure psychoreactive substances, such as mood slime)." ↩
Eddy Chan; after Act 1 Scene 3 cutscene (2022). Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed, Firehouse (2022). Illfonic. Eddy Chan says: "I bet you're wondering why we're not using the more advanced giga-meters, huh? The never ending struggle between science and... budget constraints." ↩
Wallace, Daniel (2015). Ghostbusters: The Ultimate Visual History, p. 154. Insight Editions, San Rafael CA USA, ISBN 9781608875108. "The Giga Meter prop was built around an off-the-shelf hand-held cleaning device, the Redman Corporation Power Scrubber 'N' Buffer. The finished prop had a plastic dome equipped with spinning lights added, plus a pair of motorized condenser microphones." ↩
Aykroyd, Dan & Ramis, Harold (1988). Ghostbusters II (August 5, 1988 Draft) (Script p. 29). Paragraph reads: "They lower the gigameter into the hole on a very long line." ↩
Aykroyd, Dan & Ramis, Harold (1988). Ghostbusters II (August 5, 1988 Draft) (Script p. 29). Paragraph reads: "There is a bright flash deep down the hole. They quickly pull up the line and gape at the gigameter, which is half-melted and fried to a crisp." ↩
Aykroyd, Dan & Ramis, Harold (1988). Ghostbusters II (August 5, 1988 Draft) (Script p. 74). Egon Spengler says: "You're reading three at the moment. That's normal. The different between 3 and 130 in terms of potential volatility is like the difference between a firecracker and a stick of dynamite." ↩
