I’ve caught the first two episodes of this show and it’s a rehash of a format that’s been done many times over.  Slipshod investigation staged for the effect of appearing to be doing an actual investigation. In other words, a heavily edited show with bits of conversation presented to give the impression the editors want the viewer to see, not necessarily what was true. This appears to be more of the same reality TV format that we’ve seen for years in other shows that have nothing to do with the paranormal.

But the lack of originality doesn’t stop there. The show, which is suppose to examine paranormal claims from videos and see if they’re Fact or Faked, doesn’t even use the most recent videos. In episode three they actually brought up a recent video, but thought looked faked from the get go so they passed on it….. you know, I kind of thought that’s what they were suppose to do; determine whether or not some WAS faked, not whether or not it looked fake. But again, this show isn’t about truth, it’s about ratings.

So, if you haven’t anything better to do and you want to kill an hour with some humorous attempts at investigating then tune in. You can see things like the team investigating a Loch Ness type monster by going on a hunt for it at night… yep, at night. Why I’m not sure, but night vision does tend to make things look creepier… and you can watch as they attempt to debunk things that have already been debunked.

One thing that has amused me with Ghost Adventures is their leap to conclusions.  Take for instance the ‘female voice’ and a few other EVPs they captured.  Most of them don’t sound like anything more than random noises.  Personally none of the EVPs on this episode sounded like a voice with a message, but hey, it was entertaining to see what they would make of them and for many viewers it would surely provide them with ‘proof’ of the paranormal

To see either the leap to conclusion, or the forced perspective of what they wanted to deliver was the ‘green light’ that Zak says moved off to the left and disappeared.  Well, it didn’t move to the left and if you watch that portion of video you can see that what happened was that the light, which was outside, was obscured by the wall as Zak stepped to the left.  But again, to those wanting to believe these shows provided ‘proof’ it will certainly sell the idea that they capture evidence of the paranormal.  To me, it’s entertaining to see what they’ll pass off as ‘proof’, as well as how far they’ll take it.

One thing I’ve noticed is that Aaron seems to always be hearing footsteps when nothing is picked up on any of the recorders.  This leads me to the conclusion that he’s either susceptible to the simple idea that a place is haunted and his imagination is getting the better of him, or that he’s putting on a good show and trying to spice up an otherwise bland moment.  Of course it does provide some excitement for the viewers and helps with the creepiness of the show, but to me it seems that if it’s used to much it will become a matter of the boy who cried wolf, and the viewers will begin to notice it and it will lose its luster.

The light that turned on and off really showed the lack of investigation that these guys do.  Instead of investigating all the possibilities as to why the light turned on and off, they simply write it off as a ghost and re-enforce it with the less than enthusiastic response from one of the grounds people.  Why didn’t they gain access? If they would have gone in and checked the light switch they could have done two things: 1) If the switch was in the on position and remained in the one position then there’s a good chance the light could have been being controlled by a main breaker or such. 2) If the light switch was indeed being manipulated by a ghost they could have caught it on camera and really impressed the audience.  But they did neither.  They simply sold it as a ghost and to re-enforce it they had a shot where Zak asked for the spirits to turn off the light in response to their presence.  Impressive to a lot of viewers but what they should be taking note of is the regular cycling of the light.  Once again I didn’t record the show, but it did appear that the cycling of the light was on a regular interval and if so then it would be easy to time things so that the light coming on or going off could appear to be in response to a question.  It did add for some excitement to the show and was good entertainment.

I found the whole Voodoo thing to be most interesting and amusing.  Then ‘face’ in the smoke is nothing more than pattern recognition, or pareidolia; ‘matrixing’ for those who want to use the paranormal communities terminology, but no matter how it’s sliced it’s simply the result of the smoke that was all around them, created by the fires and torches.  I find it interesting that after all the years that Voodoo has been examined and tested that people are still willing to put faith in it since the statistics bare out that it is about as likely as random chance.  But, one thing it does is add to the mystery aspect of the show and help reaffirm the creepiness of the paranormal.

All in all, I found the show entertaining, and as with most Ghost Adventure episodes it conveyed a sense of excitement and creepiness that is a must for any show dealing with the paranormal.  Hopefully the guys can continue to keep the show fresh, which is always a challenge with paranormal shows because they tend to run out of material and fail to remain fresh, but I think if they can stat away from the repetition of the dogma, keep the show exciting and the viewer engaged, and keep the evidence from blending together with all the other evidence they’ve presented then they’ll be able to make a go of it for years to come.

The site was another pretty good one and has an interesting history with lots of cruelty inflicted upon others, and a Native American background that always adds to any ghost story.  Sorry that I can give a complete description or review since I did remember to record the show and was pre-occupied much of the time with other things, but I will give you the highlights I caught.

Every time I see something like the bed cover incident I always have to shake my head and think about the thousands of reports where something similar happens and nobody has a camera setup then, either.  It’s like there’s a mass conspiracy arranged by ghosts worldwide where the ghosts are only allowed to mess up a bed when there’s no camera, but the moment there’s a camera recording it, it immediately becomes taboo and untouchable.  It will definitely get the fans excited, and it does add to the show.  It’s definitely better than doing something cheezy with a bit of fishing line.

One of my favorite chuckle moments was when they took the audio to be analyzed.  Do they take it to an audio specialist?  No  They take it to a psychic researcher: WTF?  That one had me laughing and wondering how many people bought that this person’s testimony was worth something.  Another hilarious moment was when he made mention of the EVP being “underwater.”  Ummm…. McFly, that’s because of the audio compression, and if they would have taken it to an audio specialist instead of a “Psychic Researcher,” they may have found out that about that and that their recorders are crap.  But entertainment is what we’re after here, and as far as entertainment went I was truly amused with the parts of the show I caught.  Hopefully next weeks is just as entertaining and I am not as pre-occupied with other duties.

I must say that I was not disappointed with the premiere episode of season 2 (at least I think that’s where we’re at).  The boys were as excitable as ever, and the energy they brought to the show was very entertaining and had me laughing at several points in the show.  The location was an excellent choice and had a sinister history, along with a creepy look.  Both are important for creating the right atmosphere so as to put the viewer in that state of mind where things seem worse than they actually are.

As for the actual investigation it was what one would expect from a paranormal TV show.  Pseudoscience piled on top of “What was that?!”, piled again on pseudoscience.  One thing we did see was the inclusion of a new gadget, which they didn’t really explain other than to say it was and infra-red camera hooked to a text to speech converter that was trigger by “energy”.  Of course the tech hungry people will love it and think it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread when in fact there is absolutely nothing new about the device and it’s simply an IR camera in conjunction with something along the lines of Olivus.  Oh, I almost forgot: it was designed by a scientist!  That should hook a lot of people and convince them it something when it’s not.  I find it amazing that people don’t ever question, “Which scientist? What type of energy do it look for? How do you know that’s the right word for it to say?”, with the last one really making me wonder since the word camera came out of the device.  Why would a spirit from several hundred years ago worry about a camera?

The evidence in this episode was what I would expect and was vague to say the least.  Zak, being the excitable person he is, was sure at one point he was being grabbed by a spirit, which coincided with some obscure sound that they claim was a growl.  Well, to me it didn’t sound like a growl from any animal or ‘demon’, it sound just like what one poster pointed out on the Sci-Fi Ghost Hunters forum, a stomach growl.  Seeing how these guys hold their recorders I wouldn’t be surprised to find that possibility to be true.  But, it does make for some excitement on the show and adds to the fun.

Another piece of evidence that I find highly questionable and the conclusion they reached as unfounded was the “lantern light” on the cannon deck.  I’ve seen flint strikes and they sure don’t look like that.  Flint strikes flicker wildly because they are actually composed of multiple flashes.  The light in the video does not appear to vary that much in intensity.  To me it looks like a small flashlight.  Aside from what it may look like the fact remains that there is no way to tell what it is because all that is visible is the light, which makes me question who chose camera angle?  If the crew were sincerely interested in catching the paranormal then they would have placed at least one other camera, and they would have placed one closer to the location and should have place one so it faced down the reported path from the reports.  But it worked for the show and it added a little more excitement and chuckles.

Another incident from the cannon deck was the mysterious flashes of lights that were see on the side of the gun port.  I really would like to thank Zak for his conclusion on that one as it had me laughing for sometime after.  To think it was caused by the muzzle flash of cannons pushed the boundary of absurd paranormal to a level I haven’t seen since others claims of catching cold spots with thermal imaging cameras.  One, it was clear that the flash was coming from a distant source since more than on cannon port was illuminated at exactly the same time.  Even if we believe that theory is possible the odds of firing two cannons with such precision are very high, but two fire two cannons perfectly in sync and then have two crews reload and fire again with such precision is astronomical.  A rookie mistake, but a good example of how bias can steer a conclusion since clearly the “cannon flashes” are from a distant light behind and to the right of the camera.  Another entertaining scene, none-the-less.

One thing that amazed me and probably went over a number of viewers heads was all the psychological manipulation that was used in the first part of the show.  One scene in particular was when the gentleman from the town was explaining how the place was haunted and that the rangers weren’t allowed to say because it would mean that the government would be admitting that ghosts exist, but we town folk know differnt.  Then, in the next scene they show Zak questioning if two of the rangers with them responding that they have never had anything unusual happening.  Talk about psychological manipulation and steering the viewers conclusion.  By making it seem that the park rangers had to say they didn’t experience and then showing them saying that response to that very question, the viewers perception is steered into believing what the gentleman from the town stated was true because there the rangers are and they’re doing just as the gentleman said they would do and they are denying having any experiences.  The viewer sees all these other people testifying about their experiences and then sees the park rangers who work there and must have had an experience if all these other people who don’t work there have had one.  Surely they must have seen something so they must be lying when they say they haven’t, and that gentleman from the town is credible.  An excellent case of manipulating the audience.  i for one have heard park rangers say they seen unusual things.  They never claim the place is haunted but they do have stories to share.  But, perception steering, the guys at Ghost Adventures definitely have their psychology down to an art.  

All in all a very entertaining show and one of the better from these guys.  The entertainment value was there, and for many viewers they’ll enjoy the bits of evidence and take away the blissful feeling of joy as once again they’ve had their beliefs validated.

This is something that has been going on for a long time, and really has to make me wonder about several things, especially those who use such censorship to cover up little inconvenient questions.  Now with the TV shows I understand that it’s a business and they’re trying to keep their “image”.  But even so, there are still investigators involved and even they are squashing inconvenient facts or “rallying the troops” so they can all gang up and abuse posters who question what these investigators say, do, or the evidence they present.

If the Para Celebs are really who they claim to be then why do they allow it?  After all, they claim to be open minded and open to discussion, but the moment their ideas or evidence are challenged the moderators, admins, or the rah-rah squad begin to immediately delete posts, attack people, ban them, or any combination of these.  The rah-rah squads get me the most and also are the most hypocrytical.  They claim to be open minded and call skeptics close minded, yet they are the ones who will not engage in civil conversation.  Instead, they resort to abusive posts and will usually gang up on the “discentor”, which is a violation of the board Rules and TOS.  But instead of moderators and admins going after those in the rah-rah squad, they instead punish the person who is not in violation of the Rules or TOS.  It seems to me that these board need to post “Viewpoints which don’t agree with the views of the investigators will not be tolerated and will be deleted.  Members who post such topics may be banned.  Also, members may attack people who make such posts without recourse.”

Now to me this seems to suggest several things.  The first of these is intolerance, which, when concerning evidence, begins to show that these investigators are not open minded at all, and in the case of Para Celebs, suggests the evidence has been staged or at least confirms the posters questions or ideas about the evidence.  The second is the abuse that is allowed by the investigators on these forums, which to me shows those investigators have no class and are not the nice people they’ve fooled so many into thinking.  The last is one concerns honesty.  If these investigators are truly honest then why not engage these people and have a civil discussion with them?  It seems that even in their blogs they use ad hominem attacks, as well as aggressive defenses and never answer any questions.

Now this could all be wrong, and if it wasn’t so blatent I might go with that conclusion.  But since it’s been going on for years now the prospect that it might be nothing more than a mistake has long since passed.

Our analysis of Race Rock has been cleaned up a bit and re-posted.

Episode 104 – Race Rock Lighthouse

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