Ghosts of Halo

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This article is about the phenomenon in Halo multiplayer. For the vehicle, see Type-32 Rapid Assault Vehicle.

The Ghosts of Halo are a phenomenon where unidentified and glitched players spawn out of nowhere on multiplayer maps. There have been encounters in Halo 2 and Halo 3.

Overview

Common attributes

The ghost players tend to behave bizarrely and possess odd features, but the most common traits are their lack of gamertags, not showing up on the scoreboard, sometimes being invulnerable to damage and erratic movement.

While sightings of the "classic" Ghosts of Halo—visible but abnormal players—are rare and cannot be consistently reproduced, a unique form in Halo: Reach's Forge mode can be produced by severely overburdening the game engine in an already laggy environment.

History

In July of 2006, a video was posted on YouTube by a user named "AfRoSaUcE", who claimed that the video was over a year old and was made by Jump Tactic's Anti Noob. The video, taken during an Xbox LIVE multiplayer match in Halo 2's map Lockout, depicts a white Spartan player jumping around and behaving erratically, and scoring kills that were credited to The Guardians; for the sake of brevity, a full description can be found below.

The video quickly became popular, and speculations were raised that it was some form of mod. AfRoSaUcE denied the allegation, insisting that the phenomenon resulted from some kind of a network problem.

Since the video's first appearance, several new videos have surfaced, each depicting characters without gamertags or running animations, and each exhibiting several Ghost-like traits. However, a number of mods have also surfaced, each providing most, if not all, of these exact traits.

A later video shows a Ghost in Halo 3's map Blackout. The video is described further below.

"Supernatural" abilities

Ghosts of Halo often possess "supernatural" traits that the normal players don't have.

• They may not show up on the scoreboard.
• Their kills are often credited to The Guardians.
• They can perform tricks and super jumps with ease.
• They can teleport to any location on the map at any time.
• They can be docile or aggressive.
• They never miss when shooting.
• In some cases, they are invulnerable. There are videos that show them being killed.
• Medals are not awarded when Ghosts are killed. For example, meleeing a Ghost to death will not earn players the Beat Down medal.
• They have unlimited ammo and can switch weapons with extreme speed. However, they still have to reload.
• They may spawn with any weapons, regardless of the weapon sets on map.
• They can appear during Forge on Local Play, but have also been sighted on Xbox Live.
• They have no walking animation, turning, or falling animations, and appear to slide along the ground.
  • They do, however, have a jumping animation.
• They can play as a Spartan, an Elite, or a Monitor. Spartan "ghosts" are the most common.
• They can have their own armor color, even during team games.
• They are known to be transparent on some occasions.
• They can appear as allies or enemies on the motion tracker. They sometimes also appear as vehicles on the Tracker or they don't appear on the map at all.
• They can spawn Forge objects and equipment out of thin air.
• They always stay facing in the direction they were when they spawned. When they fire or melee at players, they "snap" to aim at the victim, rather than turning smoothly like normal players; they sometimes "snap" when throwing grenades.
  • They tend to only face the cardinal directions.
• They have omnidirectional vision, and do not need to look up or down.
• They can throw unlimited grenades at any angle—including backwards, allowing them to stick a player standing behind them.

Theories

This is a list of theories to explain the Ghosts of Halo.

• A hoax, created by the use of Mods and perpetuated by popularity.
• Extreme lag or some sort of network manipulation/failure, coupled with a player joining the game. That is, the ghost is actually a real player which simply appears glitchy to other players.
• Possible oversight in map coding, which could explain the spawning of passive ghosts. The Spartan in Autumn is an example of such a technical error, which has been verified by Bungie.
• Overloading the map can cause "strange" phenomena such as objects randomly disappearing and reappearing; Which players might mistakenly believe was caused by a ghost, particularly if the map was unintentionally overloaded.

Ghost Sightings

This is a list of the verifiable sightings of Ghosts of Halo.

Halo 2 Ghosts

Ghost of Lockout

A video, made by "Anti Noob", uploaded by "AfRoSaUcE", and described earlier in this article, was uploaded to YouTube on July 28, 2006. The video shows two players (Anti Noob and "The Underdogg") playing a custom game on Halo 2's map Lockout over Xbox Live.

In the first part of the video, The Underdogg went to go eat, leaving his controller unattended. Anti Noob decided to "jump around" while he waited. As The Underdogg left, Anti Noob crouched and walked into a wall. As soon as he turned around, he saw that The Underdogg had been stuck with a Plasma Grenade. After the resulting explosion, an unidentified white Spartan glided to the corpse and threw another grenade, seemingly without noticing Anti Noob.

The second, third, and fourth parts of the video all show the "ghost" sticking Anti Noob with grenades, with one part showing The Underdogg also being stuck again.

The final part of the video shows Anti Noob fleeing from the ghost. When Anti Noob was eventually cornered, he decided to hide behind a Fusion coil. The ghost glided past him. When Anti Noob shifted to the side to check whether the ghost was still there, he saw that the ghost was right behind the Core. Panicking, Anti Noob backed up behind the Core, accidentally knocking it over. Once again, the ghost stuck Anti Noob with a grenade.

In the video's description, AfRoSaUcE speculates that the "ghost" was a third player that had been affected by a network glitch. He states that such a network glitch would have prevented Anti Noob and The Underdogg from witnessing all of the hypothetical third player's actions; the third person would have seen himself walking, but the other two players saw him slide. The glitch also gave this hypothetical third player invincibility; some attribute the perfect grenade sticks to the glitch, but (assuming that the "network glitch" explanation is correct) the third player could have just been an expert with grenades.

Ghost of Turf

The Ghost of Turf was filmed by a clan known as "HollywoodHalo". This video is notable, as it shows two Ghosts, each firing at each other (and one of them dying). This contradicts other videos, which show invulnerable Ghosts.

Prior to the Ghosts' appearances, two players (white-armored Spartans) lost connection. The Ghosts seen in this video may have been the result of a network glitch—two ordinary players, glitched off of the scoreboard and probably unaware of their own ghostly appearances.

Halo 3 ghosts

Ghost of Blackout

On April 25, 2008, another YouTube video