Real Ghost Hunting vs. TV Ghost Hunting

I am not a real ghost hunter, but I know that quite a few visit this site. I previously authored The "Investigation Shows are FAKE" Debate topic, and ever since then I have been interested in hearing more from experienced ghost hunters on their opinions on and comparisons of these programs and their own investigations.

Here are some specific questions I have:

• The TV shows seem to record footsteps often, What is the most common type of activity you have experienced?
  
• I realize you may not be going to mental institutions, hospitals, prisons or other places that these investigators frequent, (where one might think ghost activity is more common)...but do you believe it likely that Ghost Adventures, Ghost Hunters, etc. are able to genuinely capture paranormal evidence in all of their investigations?
  
• Are ghost hunting tools like the Ovilus, K-II meters, Spirit Box, etc., reliable tools in investigations?
  
• Do most hauntings appear to be intelligent or residual?
  
• Have you investigated a place that was featured on TV? If so, how did your experiences compare to what you saw on TV?
  

I look forward to reading the responses. I too am curious to know these things. Thank you for posting this.

I'll be watching this thread to see the replies. Good for someone to bring this up I am interested in it too.

reply to post by MrAndy


I can only speak from my own personal experience, which is:

One time, in a friends basement, we were playing with the Ouija Board, It was an old fashion board that I had received for my birthday from Ireland. We decided to set a recorder up (an old cellphone with a recording program). Nothing weird had happened we were all joking and it was obvious that one of the younger kids were pushing the cursor. So we started playing back with them and saying weird stuff. We got a recording that we distinctively heard the words “Don’t do that” and “That’s a bad idea”… that all we got out of the recording.
There was another time where we left the cellphone down there and let it record, I thought I heard “heu the reapers here” on the recording, my friend heard otherwise.

What I don’t understand about the TV show’s are, if Ghosts come through because of the EME’s why isn’t it seen or heard on the original footage shot by the camera men. Its always caught on other equipment.

Originally posted by Britx
reply to post by MrAndy

 

What I don’t understand about the TV show’s are, if Ghosts come through because of the EME’s why isn’t it seen or heard on the original footage shot by the camera men. Its always caught on other equipment.

Excellent point! I have wondered that same thing. One would think their microphones would pick it up.

reply to post by MrAndy

I have only done a few "ghost hunts", but I will try and answer as best I can.

Originally posted by MrAndy
The TV shows seem to record footsteps often, What is the most common type of activity you have experienced?

Doors rattling & random bangs. I have also experienced more vocalizations then footsteps.

Originally posted by MrAndy
I realize you may not be going to mental institutions, hospitals, prisons or other places that these investigators frequent, (where one might think ghost activity is more common)...but do you believe it likely that Ghost Adventures, Ghost Hunters, etc. are able to genuinely capture paranormal evidence in all of their investigations?

It is my understanding that the show Ghost Hunters investigate more locations then that are aired. The producers decide which locations make the show. With that said, no I do not think it is possible to capture "evidence" on every investigation.

Originally posted by MrAndyAre ghost hunting tools like the Ovilus, K-II meters, Spirit Box, etc., reliable tools in investigations?

I have used a K-II & Sprit Box. The K-II seems to be hit and miss. Sometimes it gets good results, other times nothing. As for the spirit box, I am still skeptical on if it is of any use. Our group has had good results using the "flashlight technique". On Sunday night we had two about 20-30' apart. It was like something was playing tag with the lights. One would flash on, then the other, then back again.

Originally posted by MrAndyDo most hauntings appear to be intelligent or residual?

From what I have experienced I would say intelligent.

Have you investigated a place that was featured on TV? If so, how did your experiences compare to what you saw on TV?

Yes, two places. One has been on My Ghost Story, Ghost Lab & Paranormal Challenge. The other has been on Paranormal Adventures. For the first one, I have experienced much there, but nothing that has been featured on the shows. You have to consider those interviews on activity are directed and edited for entertainment. As for the second location, eh... It was a cool place to visit, but I (personally) did not experience anything I could not explain.

--Well there are my answers for what they are worth..... which when it comes to the paranormal, not much! I seriously do not believe the paranormal will ever be proven (scientifically), but to me that is ok. I have nothing to prove to anyone but myself.

Thanks for the thread MrAndy!
OiO

I've had ghost encounters, but only one of them was on purpose.

My first encounter was when I was attending the Job Corps in Yakima, WA. a few years out of high school. The facility is built on old indian battlegrounds during the civil war era? I believe. Anyway, I was coming back from an early lunch and was the first person back to the dorm rooms. The dorms were set up in a longhouse style fashion where there were two main entrance doors (one on each end) to which you could see all the way down the hall to the other side of the building. Rooms were lined up on each side of the hallway, with three rooms per side on each end of the main building and a small lounging area in the center near the office.

My room was located at the very end of the dorm about five feet from the main entrance door. The entrance door had an old air cylinder that wouldn't let the door close for about ten to fifteen seconds after you opened it.

I entered the door, went into my room and shut (and latched the door behind me). I took about five steps into the room when the door unlatched and swung open gently until it was halfway open. Thinking that maybe I didn't latch it I shut it again and out loud but to myself said "now stay shut" in a joking manner. I took another few steps and this time the door swung open with some force and hit the bump stop on the back wall behind it. (the door swings 180 degrees to stop)

I walked outside the room, looked down the hall and no one was there, all was quiet, the main door was closed and latched, no one had come in through there. Thinking my buddies in the adjacent room were screwing with me I opened their door and called out, but no one was there.

In the 3-5 seconds it took me to turn around and walk out in the hallway no one could have run the distance of half the building and round the corner to the lounge area without me hearing loud running footsteps through the open door or seeing them round the corner. Rumor on campus was that previous residents reported a woman/man depending on the story walking from one side of my room to the other during the middle of the night with no indication of anything around him/her.

My second encounter was on purpose and was my only foray into investigation of paranormal phenomenon and I can tell you that to me it is real.

I was living in a house here in town not two miles from where I live currently that is said to be inhabited by the spirit of a young boy and maybe a woman, I can't remember if she was seen or not. One night I decided to test the rumors so I was laying in my bed at around 2am or so and out loud asked if there were any good spirits that would/could communicate with me in some form. I asked it to make some kind of noise or sign that it was there, and on my second repetition of that question out loud I had two loud knocks coming from the inside of my closet. (my closet was open because my dresser was inside it for lack of space in the room) The stairs leading up the the top floor split the two adjacent rooms in the upper floor of the house, so the knocks were coming either from inside the closet or from the hallway banging on the wall. Being a little freaked out I asked if it was a spirit to knock again, and this time it knocked twice again but much much louder, almost as if it could have knocked a picture off of the wall.

I was freaked out enough at that point to leave it alone and go to sleep, but given my past experiences and my own small investigation of intelligent paranormal response, I believe in ghosts completely and regardless if most of these shows are fake, ghosts are real and there are people to testify to that fact.

I don't watch anything but ghost adventures because they seem the most credible. I haven't found any reason up to this point not to believe any of the episodes because I've seen some very compelling video footage by them, so until they come out and say "ha ha, fooled you", I'm going to keep watching because it's entertaining none the less.

I would love to do some EVP work of my own, does it work with digital cameras or just audio recorders? Do you have to use special software to access the higher frequencies of the audio?

King

I am not a paranormal investigator, nor do I fancy myself an expert on the subject of ghosts. Having said that, I don't feel that any of the equipment that paranormal investigators use are the best tools for the job. Having a k2 meter blink it's lights isn't "evidence" in my opinion, neither are cold spots, emf fields or many of the ways that the TV people use to detect ghosts.

If emf readings or K2 meter readings were real "evidence" then there wouldn't be a debate if ghosts were even real or not. Since we have very limited if any real ways of detecting ghosts, spirits, sprites what ever you want to call them; I wouldn't say that a gurble of sound on a tape recorder turned up really loud is any evidence that my dead grandmother is trying to contact me.

I could be wrong and they are on the right track, but I personally don't believe any of the tools or evidence they present are "solid".

I do look forward to people proving me wrong though, I always love to learn.

I've gone out and tried Ghost hunting with my friends. The biggest things that happen to us are mainly extremely cold patches of where we think things are haunted. We went to a buddies house and decided to hold our own ivestigation. We go throughout every room in the house with a recorder and a camera...nothing happened until we went upstairs to his "attic" if you want to call it. First thing that happened is the crawl space door up there is latched shut and ALWAYS latched shut...it opened slowly when we opened the door...which I understand is a total possibility that it wasn't latched and the force from the door opening would cause that...but the force from the door opening would actually cause it to slam shut if that was the case...due to the air current...it's the same way with the doors at my job.

Anyways, We go up there and go into the little room...next thing we know, it's a perfect temperature except for in the corner. In the corner, it's freezing cold and all we hear is the sound of wind blowing in the sound of a sigh...right when we hear that, the door closes slowly on us...ever since then, we refuse to go back there lol.

I don't understand the whole thing behind Ghost tv shows to be honest...I like to watch them but they don't match any kind of paranormal experiences my friends or I have had ever..I don't know what to think about them.

I think TV ghost hunting is garbage nowadays. TAPS used to have some plausible investigations, but now when I flip through new ghost hunting shows I see nothing but crap. There's one where, instead of actually investigating for ghosts, the production teams makes fake scenes to replicate what others have seen AND they bring in some 'professional' to debunk the claims.

Another show features two steroid-jockey hosts who roll around in some ghost detection van and they spend the whole show trying to threaten and aggravate ghosts with mean words. The only episode that I bothered to watch had them hire some clowns and party equipment so they could instigate the times of when the ghost originally died. What a farce.

Then there's this stupid paranormal show on SPACE channel where some urban team of pink-shirt wearing losers try to replicate paranormal claims with rational tests. They lost all credibility to me when they "confirmed" that infrared video of a TR3B was actually a hang-glider with lights. Yeah, sure, that hang-glider must be all over the world where its been sighted, eh? (including war-zones and remote locations in the bush as people I personally know have claimed) Not to mention that you couldn't see the object without infra-red equipment, which completely shoots down their conclusion that the hang-glider has the lights for safety reasons

Seriously, what a bunch of crap. I grew up watching real investigative shows like Unsolved Mysteries. Even that Ghost Hunters show on YTV where teenagers compete to find evidence of the paranormal was more credible than modern adult-themed paranormal shows.

An experience I have had.
I moved to a country town, was able to rent a house very easily.
Found out later a person had suicided in the lounge room only a year before. No wonder easy to rent.
His family lived just up the street, so I really couldn't tell anyone in the town about what was happening.

Some of the strange events.
Was at home on Saturday when I heard a huge thump at the side of the house and the tv lost reception.
The place had large front windows, looked out, no one was near the house. Quickly went outside, no one there, but the coaxial cable for the aerial had been ripped apart. I tried to do it with a piece of it after repairing it with new coax, couldn't. Tied it to the fence and tried snapping it. Nup.

I had moved my desk/office into one of the bedrooms. All the clocks in the house continually changed time - not flashing like a power cut, but different times - microwave, tv, clock radio, computer clock, video recorder. When I moved my desk out of the room, it stopped. Found out that was his bedroom.
Had a friend stay for a few weeks - in that bedroom. Every night the house was full of thumping noises until he left.
Another time a friend was sleeping in the lounge room.
Now it was an old house and to get the gas heater on, you needed pliers to turn the knob on top, hold it down until the gas lit, then had to jam a wooden peg into the gap near the button's edge to keep the button held down so the gas stayed on.
About 2 AM my mate came flying into my room and jumped into bed scared stiff. The heater had come on by itself during the night. He'd seen how hard it was to get going. Never stayed again.

I had some budgies and used the leave the radio on during the day to keep them entertained. I worked locally and came home one lunch time to grab some work. I heard a clunk and the radio went off. Went into the kitchen and the plug had been pulled out of the socket. Was an old cord and the pins were bent, so when you plugged it in, it couldn't come out accidentally.
The place had a strange feel to it, hard to describe, but sometimes it made you feel really uncomfortable being there.
When I decided to move out - after the radio event - I had to go back one night to get a few last things.
Going back into the house after the power had been turned off was damn scary - I had this awful feeling like someone or something didn't want me there.
Both friends who had the experiences were total skeptics before they stayed - I had said something weird was going on, but now when I mention the place they both agree that something strange was going on there.

Ghost? Don't know. But I have no explanation for any of these events and others were witnesses to some of the things that happened.

Originally posted by MrAndy
I am not a real ghost hunter, but I know that quite a few visit this site. I previously authored The "Investigation Shows are FAKE" Debate topic, and ever since then I have been interested in hearing more from experienced ghost hunters on their opinions on and comparisons of these programs and their own investigations.

Here are some specific questions I have:

• The TV shows seem to record footsteps often, What is the most common type of activity you have experienced?
  
• I realize you may not be going to mental institutions, hospitals, prisons or other places that these investigators frequent, (where one might think ghost activity is more common)...but do you believe it likely that Ghost Adventures, Ghost Hunters, etc. are able to genuinely capture paranormal evidence in all of their investigations?
  
• Are ghost hunting tools like the Ovilus, K-II meters, Spirit Box, etc., reliable tools in investigations?
  
• Do most hauntings appear to be intelligent or residual?
  
• Have you investigated a place that was featured on TV? If so, how did your experiences compare to what you saw on TV?
  

Great Topic.

Before I started investigating I used to watch all the shows and accepted that the chances are allot of it is fake. Now having had a few years’ experience I can certainly tell which shows are more reputable.

We have a show here in the UK called Most Haunted, it came before Ghost Hunters, Paranormal State, GHI and all the American shows. Whilst I full believe they started off with the best intentions over the years it aired it became more and more farcical and now is a bit of a laughing stock among the UK based teams. I have actually seen this show filmed live and I have no doubt some of it was set up.

We get most of the American shows here and the ones I have seen seem to be more reputable than the UK effort that came before them.

I would watch things like Ghost Hunters and think 'wow I wonder if that EVP was the real deal' Well now I work with a UK based team. We are also TAPS Family Members but we are not on the TV. I am the Tech Trainer, Tech Team Member and I also do all the audio and EVP work. (I did come from a tech based background before investigating I wasn’t just thrown into the job with no experience)

EVP is real I have no doubt, we have caught some freaky stuff that still gives me the chills.

Foot Steps - Yep caught them on tape and heard them

Seen A Ghost - Well in the last 2 years I have seen one shadow figure, seen by me and three others so it was a certified personal experience.

Investigated A Place That’s Been On TV - Yes a few times and doing another next week, actually caught more than the show did but as the show was Most Haunted it was not hard

In my opinion I think most hauntings are residual but we do get intelligent interaction on occasions.

All thats said the only evidence I trust 100% is that caught by either me or the team I work with.

To see some of the EVP and evidence we have caught look at the signiture part of my post below and there is a little link to our youtube videos.

reply to post by Rivetlikewhoa


What is the basis of your opinion ? Do you have any experience with any of these instruments ?


Well, I do.
The K2 meters are used to locate energized as in powered wiring within walls.
When I first purchased my home, we had a new breaker box installed. But we didn't know which breakers controlled which circuits within the house.
I had to go room to room with one circuit breaker enabled to verify the extent of the wiring per breaker.
Of course the normal receptacles and/or light fixtures can be diagnosed with light bulb and a volt meter as to if they are energized or not.
But sometimes junction boxes are used to tie into a circuit when additions are added.

This is where the K2 meter comes in ....before touching a fixture, you can run you K2 meter in front and around it and verify as to whether it is energized or not and the different colors of LED's indicate the strength of said EMF field.

This is due to the radiating electromagnetic field caused by the current traveling within the wires.

Now as to why and how this device could be used to indicate something of a paranormal nature. It is quite simplistic in that if you are not within the vicinity of any energized wiring and/or fixtures.
And/or in a structure that doesn't even have power supplied to it any longer....like an abandoned building.

And standing stationary in the middle of the room your K2 meter goes off, it indicates that an electro-magnetic field has encroached upon the antenna/receiver of the meter itself .

This is out of the ordinary in that no manmade sources are within the vicinity of the detector and hence the term Paranormal.

PEACE

reply to post by Rivetlikewhoa


Very good point you raise and despite seeing some half decent results with the K2 Meter I have had my mind changed from being very skeptical about its use to 'ok there could be something in this'

My opinion is ...

When we investigate a venue, we will go around the room taking baseline readings for anything natural that can set a K2, Gauss, MEL, Ghost Meter or whatever EMF device you are using off. If we find a natural area of EMF say near a junction box or fire escape sign we measure how far away we need to be in order to not pick it up. We then set this kit up well away from that area.

Now the best results I have seen to say this kit works was last October during an investigation. One of my Tech Team mates was getting a full lights reading on the stairs in this 15th Century House we were at. He asked if the suspected spirit could walk down the stairs with him. As he went step to step the reading remained with him.

To corroborate his readings I took a second K2 and joined him. We both had identical readings and went down around 10 steps with constant full light readings. (to have a reading this strong naturally you need to leave the meter on a big junction box or on a microwave thats on) we were in the middle of a large grand 500 year old stair way!!

We lost the readings and went back to the top of the landing (there had been reports of a ghost seen on these stairs on many occasions)

We asked it to walk with us again and hey presto we had full light readings again. This time I went to the bottom of the stairs and the other guys stayed at the top. I said 'can you leave my friend and walk to me please' as his lights went out ..... mine came on !!

Now i'm not saying this was a ghost, all i am saying is it was some pretty good results to direct questioning.

Another area to look at is EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) It is believed that EVP is picked up on a Hz level the human ear can’t hear - hence why its only found in playback, however as it’s an electromagnetic sound wave a mic does hear it and it gets converted on to the recording as a voice. Once again a link with electromagnetics and the paranormal. EVP is open for debate as with all areas of this field but its by far the most common form of evidence we get and some results are amazing.

So with EVPs being recorded all the time and it being linked to electromagnetics it’s not too much of a stretch to theorise that in general if ghosts / spirits to exist that they cause disruptions to the EMF field.

Here are a few of our EVP Voices .. This is 100% genuine and 100% freaky


www.youtube.com...

these so call ghost hunting expert on TV sometime make me question why they do what they do.

Now i'm not an ghost hunting expert but i have read penty of real ghost haunting story

1. first of all ghost hunter TV folks, before they go look for ghosts, They always turn off light. WHY?
If you ever read ghost haunting story 75% of the time ghost haunt people during DAY LIGHT HOUR and 10% of the time when people are sleeping.

if you pay attention to the withness on ghost hunting show 99% of their ghost encounter happened during day light hour too. So why turn off the light and make the surounded area more dangerous for the crew?

if the house is hanuted, it does not matter if the light is on or off.

2. why dont they used the quiji board? they believe in ghost but not the quji board? those 2 subject are in the same catorgory lol

3. from the penty of ghost haunting story i have read, it seem like ghost only haunt when you not expect it and the only time when ghost show themself is when people do rituals to get them out like indian ritual or getting a preach/monk to bless the house. They DO NOT show themself simply by yelling at the wall and cussing them out like these so-called ghost hunting expert on TV be doing lol

4. when they do find it haunted they don't do nothing about it. Kinda like "hey we prove that your house is haunted. so good bye", I thought real ghost hunter are supose to be like ghost buster come get rid of eviil spirit and help good spirits go throught the light.

Originally posted by PoorGrammar
4. when they do find it haunted they don't do nothing about it. Kinda like "hey we prove that your house is haunted. so good bye", I thought real ghost hunter are supose to be like ghost buster come get rid of eviil spirit and help good spirits go throught the light.

I've seen a few so-called exorcisms on ghost hunting shows... Though I seriously doubt the legitimacy of any spiritual ritual featured in a 30-60minute reality TV show.

The reason why they don't use the ouji board is because they require real psychic ability to do it. By psychic, I mean being in tune with your surrounding environment and its energy, something which is achievable to anyone with a conscience. It's much harder to do if you're surrounded by cameras because in your mind you have to furfill expectations to the audience.

Plus, how credible is watching someone use a ouiji board on TV? Not as credible as seeing it in real life (which I haven't yet but I've heard promising things).

Hello OP,

Ive never been ghost hunting myself, but i do watch a lot of the shows. in my opinion most of what is seen on tv is all fake. for instance i watched a haunted where a family were being "victimized" you know the usual stuff. anyhow they called in a paranormal team, they picked up evp's and such....then left saying pretty much yep your haunted, we can't do anything for you... then they come back to do a blessing..people get scratched blah blah..then one of the family members gets possessed...They all talk about how she acted, her voice... which none of this they shown us..now my questions are..

If your a paranormal team so you do not record EVERYTHING?? if someone is "possessed" do you not catch this on camera?? this is the first thing i would film.

Also why do these people have their camera on themselves?? I don't want to see their faces or how scared they look jeez... i want to see what they are seeing..instead of them turning it round when they see something and saying whoops sorry just seen something whilst i had the camera on me.

And why do the film crew NEVER pick anything up either??

I CALL SHENANIGANS!!!!

Anyone have experience with Ghost boxes? my husband is thinking of making one..anyone had any success with them?

I have had more than a few paranormal events happen to me. The TV shows are just that TV shows. And why only at night in the dark. Maybe even ghost need to sleep so why not do the hunting in the day time. And what is up with this infrared crap. And as for EVP only being picked up by the hand held recorder and not the camera crew gear, sorry I am not buying that. TV ghost hunting shows used to be fun to watch but I do not watch any of them any more. And FACT OR FAKE, that shows sounded like it was going to be good when it first came on but theyt see everything as fake and I have even thought that they maybe trying to cover up something on a few of thier shows. I no longer watch that show either. And do not get me started on the Myth Buster show, I will save that for a later date.

Originally posted by kalowe73
Anyone have experience with Ghost boxes? my husband is thinking of making one..anyone had any success with them?

From the many times I have used a ghost box (in my case a "hack shack") I've only had one thing happen that could be "confirmed". While having a session we got the name "Gwen". A few days after we left the location we were told that another group got the same name via EVP in the same room.

Also that trip, our group had some good interaction with a PX. During a daytime session with a storm rolling in the PX started stating words like "thunder, disaster, storm, run".

Both of those happened in the same room, now that I think about it. Which is said to be one of the least "active" rooms at the location.

OiO

I'm a paranormal investigator as well (hobby), and 9 out of 10 investigations I get nothing. Once in a while I'll get an EVP or video or pic, and these aree places with established alleged hauntings. These are places that I've gone to with my group a number of times with nothing.
The shows on tv you that they strike gold EVERY investigation, this is FALSE.