George Allen Miller One Geek's take on all things SciFi

Its been a while since I wrote about that funny little program on the SyFy (I’ve given up the battle of syfy (seefee) being stupid, i guess it’s hear to stay), so here is what may be my last post on this topic. I’ve wondered for some time if the Ghost Hunters show is fake. From everything I’ve seen on the net, all the opinions and commentary, I have to conclude its at least very suspicious. The incident in the lighthouse with the chair that moved, Grant was the last to leave and the chair moved shortly thereafter. Some have speculated there was a string tied to the chair. The famous Halloween episode where  Grant’s jacket is pulled has many many people thinking it was a total scam. There is a Youtube video out there showing Grant playing with the collar just before the incident occurs. When his jacket is first tugged his right hand is behind his back, NOT in his pocket. There’s another video showing the collar move while everyone was looking at it and yet he felt nothing. The movement of it at all was a bit mechanical looking in nature anyway. These videos I am referring to are just examinations of the live broadcast by very bored Internet people. The two other pieces of very interesting evidence were the prison figure that moved, but the video was clearly sped up and the recreation attempt was hardly comparable, and the voice in the attic of a house that said something like “get out” in a very clear and audible tone. That voice was spooky and the recreation to it by everyone seemed very genuine. Still, with so much pointing to the possible fraud one has to be suspicious of everything.

And that brings us to the spin off show Ghost Hunters Academy. Ahem. You may vomit now. Please, producers, directors, people that make these shows, do not ever use the word “scientific” in the same sentence with “medium” or “empath” because we’ll think you’re a loon. The academy provided us with a a team of twenty somethings, with two psychics undercover, investigating old places that the TAPS team have already looked at. They are training them to walk through dark places and shout “what the fuck was that!” at a VCR and then pee all over the floor (see southpark episode). Two of the trainees eventually reveal they are psychics of some kind and proceed to show us how silly and naive twenty something people can be.

The entire season was Steve and Tango, whose interaction is actually quite funny and fun to watch, yelling at the twenty somethings and telling them how they were not looking for ghosts the correct way. In the end, two of them got shipped off overseas to Ghost Hunters International, with the most intense Scottish ghost hunter in the world with a nifty multispectrum (technobabble) camera, to work them and hunt ghosts overseas. If I had known I would get a free trip around the world I’d say I was a medium too. All you had to do was setup some cameras and shout “What the fuck was that!” at a shadow and get a free world tour. Sign me up for that!

At the end of the day the credibility of the TAPS team is highly suspected. Their evidence looks suspicious in several cases, they don’t outright say “psychics are themselves an unproven theory and therefore shouldn’t be used to try to explain another unproven theory”. But, with three spinoffs and countless clones out there, the ghost hunting world is very much entrenched in reality TV and the homes of countless people thinking its real, or people who think its fun to watch, cause i’m not in the first group. Nope, no way. Yes, that’s why I watch these. The story I am stickin too.