The one ghost hunting show that isn't fake...

Now I think there is a lot of entertainment value in the paranormal investigative shows. They just don't have credibility because they've all been caught faking evidence. All of them except one. Let's run them down.

Ghosthunters- Initially had tons of credibility. Debunked almost everything. Rarely caught anything interesting. Needed a ratings boost. So they began accepting weaker evidence. THen there was jason getting taped knocking on a wall and asking "what was that?"?

Ghost Hunters International-Damn, everything is haunted. THey believe everywhere is just overpowered with spirits. Waaaay too much credibility is placed on personal experiences. Rob lying about sounds bothered me too.

Paranormal State-Shame. So many hoaxes so little time. They have probably been caught with their hand in the cookie jar more than any other show. Way to much editing. Watch their close during dead times. You'll see different outfits, then the same outfit, then an outfit from the day before. THat's editing, but their hoaxes are easily found.

Most Haunted-Not worth talking about

Ghost Adventures- Ugh fun to watch, terrible science, faked part of the live episode last year.


The only show with any scientific credibility is American Paranormal on the National Geographic Channel. They make an effort to debunk things and take a scientiffic approach to it as opposed to pseudoscience. CHeck it out on the National Geographic Channel.

Check out this Eastern State Penitentiary investigation. Every paranormal show has done this place. Check out the difference.

channel.nationalgeographic.com...

I agree with all the shows but Ghost Adventures, I sat through the 7 hour live event and I myself picked up on the "supposed" incident of the remote being knocked out of the guests hand, but at the end of the event, the minute the Ghost Adventures Team left the building they walked straight up and confronted him on the legitimacy of this incident.

One week later during the recap of the live event, they straight out said that it was not a paranormal event in the slightest, and had been faked by their guest investigator. Not alot of other television "paranormal investigative teams" would do the same.

Another show worth a mention is Ghost Lab, after watching the entire first season, they never uncover more than a few sketchy EVP's, but because they only uncover a few dodgy EVP's, I think adds to there credibility. In the land of television they can fake and produce whatever evidence they wish, but I found that out of all the rubbish paranormal investigative series on TV Ghost Adventures and Ghost Lab are the only ones bearing any truth and honestly relaying their findings to the public...

reply to post by DrJay1975


Hm, interesting!

Ghosts are a very strange thing to me, so I'll enjoy watching the videos in the link provided. I do not believe in Ghosts at the moment, but my opinion can be changed, so I'll check them out!

It's also really a shame that ratings for tv shows comes before honesty with evidence!

Kind regards

Originally posted by Hitotsumami
reply to post by DrJay1975

 

It's also really a shame that ratings for tv shows comes before honesty with evidence!

I used to feel the same, watching the original series of Most Haunted many years ago, but as any rational mind concludes "i'll believe it when i see it"

12 years ago I pulled out my old tape recorder (old school recorder using full size cassette tapes) and left it running in my spare room for 4 hrs.

Reviewing the tape it was mostly static until i heard some unmistakable voices talking in German.

The tape is now long gone after many nights after of attempting EVP over and over on the same tape, but that clinched it for me.

I'm sure there are a thousand people who can rattle on about debunking it, but if you are in doubt of ghosts, just give EVP a try, nothing to lose, set up a recorder and have a crack at it, worst case scenario, you reaffirm a belief that ghosts are nothing but balderdash and chicanery, best case scenario, you open your eyes to a whole new world

reply to post by Mathyn Rain


Thanks for your response!

Hmm, so you set up a recorder and let it run and managed to get EVPs? It's really too bad you weren't able to save the files and let us hear them today. I think I might try it to tonight, just to see if anything odd happens!

Kind regards

reply to post by DrJay1975


I found this interesting.... how can you measure the ether with
non-ether instruments?

Thats why you need a medium, and if they really know what they
are doing... they are asking for psychic attacks, astral parasites,
and... possession.

Hope they get the last... but the set will be in the sanatory, and
thats not good for the ratings.

RP

Originally posted by Hitotsumami
reply to post by Mathyn Rain

 

I think I might try it to tonight, just to see if anything odd happens!

Yes has been a long time since then, but this thread has inspired me to have another go, a little tip, If you do have a go at it... a free program on the net called Audacity, it can show you the whole time line of a recording and singles out all the spikes you get, showing possible EVP or spikes in audio

Let us know the results of your experiment tonight

I'm inclined to view them for entertainment value only. All of the above mentioned shows have their high points. Most haunted is about the most annoying. They curse and scream too much and the viewer misses the supposed knocks and bangs becuase they are screaming and or cursing.

I liken it all to Entertainment.
Some evidence is interesting, some of it not.

If you have ever encountered spiritual activity, it's very random at best.

I live in New Hampshire, not far from a river where back in the day a lot of Indian wars took place. I am fairly confident that there are spirits on my land, if not in my house.
My Dogs watch them all of the time which is how I know that they are nearby.

I once had installed new high power headlights in my Jeep and was taking before and after pictures at night only to find, misty fog like forms in all of my photos.

I was going to bed recently and at the top of my stairway saw a glowing golfball sized orb (not dust) darting by. Its unexplained phenomena. I haven't any proof as to if it having occurred or not.

These don't occur every day and are sporadic at best.
Thats why I believe that not every show can or will find evidence.

That is also why I generally record these shows on my DVR and watch them later on.

A few interesting programs that I recall:

On Ghost Hunters - the IR camera capture of the the guy in the basement wearing the Union soldier hat was pretty interesting, as well as being fairly difficult to fake.

Whereas many of the EVPs are interesting as well.


Ghost Adventures did capture a form walking from left to right in one of their episodes out west which was pretty cool.
You could distinctly see the misty outline of the individual.
That was pretty good evidence.

Most Haunted :
Does have the annoying shrieking women who are scared of their own shadows but they also have the skeptic Doctor investigator who critiques the evidence discovered during the episode at the end of the program which I feel is honest and exemplary in weeding out the theatrics.

All in all , I am a believer in the paranormal.

But in all consideration of probability and statistics, as well as my own experiences, They are not necessarily going to show up on Que for every TV program.

Your mileage may vary.

Ghost adventures doesn't seem to fake, not sure about the flying brick though.

But the guys on ghost lab? Their claim to fame is a sketchy video of supposed ghosts at Gettysburg battlefield. It is clearly a fake. Like a MAJOR fake. And people have the audacity to call it "the best evidence of ghosts ever". No thanks.

The only one I watch is Destination Truth and only because it is funny and they go to some cool places.

They also seem to be even handed and most of their evidence is found to be explainable. Sometimes they bring on the guys from TAPS as 'experts' and I grab the salt pot.

What about Destination Truth? They caught one of the scariest things I have ever seen on film when they were in Romania.

reply to post by Lebowski achiever




The spookiest part of that video is the way the translator sounds her accent is perfect. Taken right out of an old Hollywood movie.

Thanks for starting this thread. I too have been along time watcher of most ALL of the shows you mentioned.

In my opinion, I enjoy Ghost Adventures far more than all of the others combined. At first I thought it was a joke...the main investigator "Zach" was so over the top and such a typical "alpha male" that it made it hard for me to take him seriously. After a while I started to see that the thing that made him more realistic in my mind and less of a showman was that he and the rest of his crew DONT take themselves too seriously.

Of course they've made some mistakes and probably claimed far too many of their EVP's are actually ghosts but they have also shown what I believe to be more authentic EVPs than any of the other shows. They've had a bunch of questionable "apparitions" and what not but overall they strike me as more genuine and less of a "television production". My vote goes to them all the way.

As for the rest of the shows you mentioned Ive enjoyed all of them at various times for a number of reasons. The only one that strikes me as complete and utter bullsh*t is Paranormal State. This show is to me an example of what happens when you want to believe something so badly you'll go any lengths to make others believe it too. We all know they've hoaxed their supposed ghosts and the behavior of the host and all the supposed investigators is beyond ridiculous. My understanding is that one of their highest rated episodes was revealed to be a hoax perpetrated by them. I cant remember which one though so don't quote me on that. Overall they seem to be presented as the more youthful, "Twilight" oriented alternative to some of the other shows. Maybe Im way off the mark but thats my opinion and we all now how much thats worth.

The Natl Geographic show has been pretty good so far although I only caught about half of one episode. Ghost Hunters is passable but it seems like they too often grasp at nothingness and try to create EVPs out of utter static noise.

I guess overall they all have their weak points...some much more so than others. Still my vote goes to Ghost Adventures. Even though the personalities on that show are borderline parodies of themselves I enjoy their lack of polished hollywood productionism. I look forward to their next season.

Just for reference I don't doubt the existence of ghosts. Thisthread had nothing to do with the existence of spirits. It was the credibility of shows.

If you don't know what a ghost is composed of, then how can measure it's existence or presence? You can't. You don't know what it is so you don't know how it will effect equipment. Pseudscience. The NG show put the science back into it and showed how full of beans these guys are. They may capture legitimate evidence sometimes, but there is a lot of garbage there.



Ghost adventures is entertaining but they put too much stock in orbs. And the crap ghost boxes. The ghost hand grabbing his arm was actually edited as evidenced by the time stamp on the video footage. The shadow hand was his hand and a big flew into his arm after his shadow passed over his arm. He removed the lag time between the shadow hand and his reaction to the bug hitting his arm making his reaction appear to be to the hand. Fake.

EVP. Dear lord. I started a thread on the lack of credibility of EVP's. While it is impossible to prove that all EVPs are due to natural phenomena, skeptics maintain that they are probably due to such things as interference from a nearby CB operator, cross modulation, or ionospheric ducting. Given all the voices being transmitted these days by cell phones, AM and FM radios, TVs, baby monitors, walkie talkies, shortwave transmitters, etc., it isn't strange that unexpected voices should be heard now and then on our electronic equipment.

Cut off your stereo. Unplug it. Have a freind who has a CB with a 500 watt amp, which many many truckers have, speak through the CB while parked in your yard or driving by your house. His voice will come out of the speaker!

For example one website says to set the "sensitivity level" of the microphone to the highest possible setting as ghosts are apparently afflicted with laryngitis. Doing this raises what's called the "noise floor" - the electrical noise created by all electrical devices - creating white noise. If I were to filter white noise (the audible equivalent of watching the snow on a detuned TV) I could make it say just about anything. This is really no different than using a wah pedal on a guitar. It's a very focused sweep filter moving about the spectrum creating open vowel sounds. Was Peter Frampton channeling? I hardly think so, however his use of the "talkbox" effect on his guitar sounds exactly like some of these recordings. When you factor in other aspects of physics, such as cross modulation of radio stations or faulty ground loops in equipment, you have a lot of people thinking they are listening to ghosts when in fact it is nothing more than a controlled misuse of electronics.

Disembodied voices in a controlled investigation offer far more credibility than an EVP. I can let you take whatever equipment you want in a house and allow you to record EVP's, and I'll create them and you'd never realize it. If I lock you in a room that is sealed and inspected, double video recorded while you quest for EVP's and we get a voice that you hear and is present on the tape and video, then you have something.

But with so many broadcasts in the world your bound to pick something up when looking for EVP's.

reply to post by SLAYER69


I thought that was creepy as hell. It is probably totally fake but it gave me the chills. Result, in my book.

Edited to add: did you see the part where they rent a plane to take them there? LMAO. Funniest bit of TV ever.

[edit on 29/6/10 by Lebowski achiever]

I have seen things in Ghost Adventure. No... Not ghost. Best show IMO. The exorcist one I like and I hope it is real. that is my 2.cents

All of the mentioned shows probably started out with the right intentions, but i do think the need for entertainment value has gotten the better of them all.

Ghost Adventures was a refreshing change, for a while, then things started to get a bit unbelievable. If you watch these shows you'll notice a pattern starts to emerge, you start to get the 'noises', then the shows hosts will start to get 'touched' or even scratched or pushed they'll even get things thrown at them (apparently). Stuart from 'Most Haunted' must be the most spiritually beat up man your ever likely to meet, yet, with all of this supposedly happening nothing substantial has ever been caught by the professional camera crew that accompany them.

Ive had my own paranormal experiences which swayed me to be a believer in ghosts or 'something', but these shows put a massive skeptical pressure on the subject and i really dont think they've helped the subject in any way.

Regards, CaF

I watch all of them; don't believe any of them.

However, I do believe that "Josh" on Destination Truth is a dreamboat heart-throb.

But I absolutely know from personal experiences that spirits are out there.
Illusive little things, though. Come and go as they please, and not a darn thing you can do about it.

And that "provoking" thing. Ouch. Why would anybody want to be rude to a ghost? This "provoking" I do not like. And promises they are there "to help". Please.

They might get more "customers" with honesty and kindness.

Never trust a ghost. good lesson from me