The ARGNY Blog

Ghost Hunters: Back to the Future

The thing that made you love Ghost Hunters in the first couple of seasons was that these were down-to-earth, honest guys, trying to help people. Their mission was to debunk places that were supposedly haunted and were soo not haunted and to only declare a place haunted if it was REALLY haunted. I remember lamenting one time on the TAPS message boards a bunch of years ago that the only way Jason would admit a place was haunted was if a ghost suddenly materialized right in front of his face, whacked him in the head with a sack full of nickels and then helped him up so they could pose for multiple photos and video spots. Well, those days are long gone.

But, last week's Season 5 premiere showed us a somewhat humbled Ghost Hunters team. No more were the crystal clear Class A EVPs, the incredible evidence and the locations jam-packed with activity. This was much more the kind of Ghost Hunters you remember from the early days, when there were some places that just didn't have anything going on. When debunking was still job one.

Jason and Grant obviously heard the complaints of their viewers and even the shock horror of their diehard fans when evidence was cropping up around the web that the team, themselves was faking some of the activity they were reporting. So, they've gone back to basics. It's not as flashy and certainly not as shocking, but it's real and that's what we love about those guys.

Are You Talkin' To Me?

There is what seems to be a pretty interesting device produced by Digital Dowsing, LLC, called the Ovilus. It allows ghosts to "speak" through the device by providing an electronic database of words for the ghost to use to vocalize responses to questions, the environment or whatever may be on its mind. The results I have seen are pretty interesting, especially the instances where the ghost is providing direct answers to questions asked, as seen in this video, taken by the paranormal investigation group, U.N.S.E.E.N. Paranormal Research.

As the creator of the device, Bill Chappelle will openly confess, he has no idea how the thing works as a communicator for ghosts. Nonetheless, the results are sometimes pretty impressive.

Paranormal State Revisited

When Paranormal State debuted, I didn't like it. They seemed to jump to conclusions when faced with certain events and they seemed to have an unstated religious slant, that really put me off. I don't mind that you have a religious slant to your group, if that's what your group is about, but I think you owe it to your audience to state that outright instead of seemingly going out your way to hide the fact. I say this because of how the group seemed to be praying before an investigation, but that always happened with the camera at a distance and without sound. But, now they seem to be coming clean about who the group is and what they really think and do.

So, what makes the group interesting is that they specialize in demonology. That is, "non-human" negative entities. What demons actually are is anybody's guess, but they certainly aren't very nice. If you've seen the Exorcist you have a highly-exaggerated idea of the kinds of things demons get up to. Although the phenomena rarely manifests itself as a full-on possession of a living person.

So, the team of the Paranormal Research Society, who is the actual paranormal team that the show follows goes around to the houses of people who are not just experiencing weird things like sounds and things moving on their own. It's much more like people who are being smacked around by unseen bullies. PRS goes in, gathers evidence, makes contact and brings in a priest for some demonic ass-kicking.

I still think they could be a little more objective and not see little red beady eyes around EVERY corner, but they do a good professional job and it makes for some interesting TV viewing. Of course, a little more projectile vomiting of pea soup and then they would really be on to something.