• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

'Ghost Hunting' Shows Are Getting So Bad That It's Beyond Amusing

tagemoss

Junior Acolyte
Joined
Jun 4, 2019
Messages
60
ok i'll admit i watched every episode of ghost hunters and it's spin offs and also ghost adventures but not most haunted as it was painful to watch with that idiot "medium".

i take them all with a pinch of salt and never once saw anything convincing.

i would like to believe in ghosts / spirits etc but need some decent evidence, all the tv investigators have been stupid and overly dramatic.

worst show is ghost adventures which is overdue for cancellation, every haunting is a demon / bad spirit....what happened to the classic poltergeist or just a grey lady lol?

and wtf is with them using the xbox kinect thing to capture on camera stick figures? that's got to be the stupidest thing i've seen them do.

thoughts on tv ghost hunting?
 
I Want To Believe!

However, I now find them unwatchable unless I'm interested in the area or place that they are looking at.

In particular I find their apparent result dispiriting (!). Ghost hunting reduced to screeching eejits, laughable statements and therefore that anyone interested must also be...... :(
 
The shows are quite predictable. There is always someone who suddenly jumps and with big eyes says "Did you feel that? Something just scratched/brushed/pushed me"...in every episode. The use of different machines that go 'ping' also annoys me. Why would anyone, ghost or other, come towards a group of strangers making that racket? Half the time, I can't even follow who's said what.

None of the gadgetry has ever been shown as to how it would prove anything other than random electrical impulses emitting from things such as faulty wiring, or possible electrical transformers nearby.

I thought that when one show had started out, though I can't remember which, the members did dutifully try to look for common explanations and then check out if this was the case. For example, they would look at the location and, say if it was on a busy street, would explain that the voices might be carried from there.

That's what I like to see. Someone trying to really find out how something may be happening by exploring different theories and trying them out.
 
None of the gadgetry has ever been shown as to how it would prove anything other than random electrical impulses emitting from things such as faulty wiring, or possible electrical transformers nearby.
It certainly comes across as patchy evidence of anything anomalous. However, my understanding is that the combination of tools is prepared so as to capture an anomalous situation simultaneously across multiple devices. So the EM jumps, and the infrared captures an image and the audio a voice and the thermometer a temp drop etc, all at precisely the same time. This at least provides evidence that something happened. Doesn't explain what, but yeah. There has to be some valid data to support the teams' claims of having experienced something weird.
 
ok i'll admit i watched every episode of ghost hunters and it's spin offs and also ghost adventures but not most haunted as it was painful to watch with that idiot "medium".

i take them all with a pinch of salt and never once saw anything convincing.

i would like to believe in ghosts / spirits etc but need some decent evidence, all the tv investigators have been stupid and overly dramatic.

worst show is ghost adventures which is overdue for cancellation, every haunting is a demon / bad spirit....what happened to the classic poltergeist or just a grey lady lol?

and wtf is with them using the xbox kinect thing to capture on camera stick figures? that's got to be the stupidest thing i've seen them do.

thoughts on tv ghost hunting?
I met up with Luke Tabram from Shadow Paranormal a while back, we went on an uneventful ghost invest and I asked him about the Kinect equipment/technique. He's experimented with it in the past, he told me the machine is biased and will try to find anything it can to form it into a stick figure so should be ruled out in credible paranormal research.
 
It certainly comes across as patchy evidence of anything anomalous. However, my understanding is that the combination of tools is prepared so as to capture an anomalous situation simultaneously across multiple devices. So the EM jumps, and the infrared captures an image and the audio a voice and the thermometer a temp drop etc, all at precisely the same time. This at least provides evidence that something happened. Doesn't explain what, but yeah. There has to be some valid data to support the teams' claims of having experienced something weird.
Exactly this Skinny .. and we debunk stuff that happens on our missions both during the missions: "Tummy" for when your tummy rumbles, "That was me sorry" for when anyone has bumped into anything causing everyone else to become alert and so on.

I write a 'live' hand written diary and as you've said, we try to match that up the next day or so later with whatever we might have picked up with our equipment.

It occurred to me the other day that paranormal investigations if you are someone who goes out and does them is a lot like going fishing .. boring, boring, boring, etc etc .. and then the float bobs under the water .. but it might just be a bit of weed etc .. or it could have been a fish having a nibble? ..

The main difference of course is that fish are proven to be real.

Then you've got the fisherman who comes home exaggerating about 'the one that got away' .. and you also get people just looking to up their youtube hit rates with their ghost invest videos so they can get paid so they can fund more ghost invests. Sordid stuff.
 
Last edited:
exactly the kinect sensor has never been that good, even when used with the console, they can still detect objects as people or not detect movement properly, no wonder it never really took off...because it was crap.

there's another thing that pisses me off about the tv investigations, when then bring out the device that sounds like a radio that isn't tuned and they claim to pick up "voices" of the "dead.

surely that is just partially turned to some station or inbetween two and is just picking up random sounds and the investigators just think what they want to hear due to the matrixing?

then there's the torch thing which was debunked as the weak connection of it being partially unscrewed and the slighest vibration completes the circuit....or something like that
 
I saw the opening few minutes of one those American shows a year or two ago on TV, I can't remember the name of show or anything about it but the presenter was returning to somewhere he'd been before - a town or small city, I think on the coast. Apparently it was "one of the most haunted places he'd ever been" and he thought that there was some kind of "vortex" or "portal" that was focusing all the paranormal activity in the area or some such bollocks. Sorry to be vague, you can see why I turned off and paid little attention. Are they all that sensationalist now?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ger
It certainly comes across as patchy evidence of anything anomalous. However, my understanding is that the combination of tools is prepared so as to capture an anomalous situation simultaneously across multiple devices. So the EM jumps, and the infrared captures an image and the audio a voice and the thermometer a temp drop etc, all at precisely the same time. This at least provides evidence that something happened. Doesn't explain what, but yeah. There has to be some valid data to support the teams' claims of having experienced something weird.
"Weird" maybe, but in the shows the people don't even seem to look for why a temp drop - is there a poorly insulated window nearby or a cracked foundation? They just seem to reply "ooh, did you feel that?" and go no further.

I would like to see an actual investigation. And some validation to their data would be that maybe there was a window open to create a drop in temp, but the investigators seem to stop with their comments of what the device is doing, not why it is doing it.
 
Exactly this Skinny .. and we debunk stuff that happens on our missions both during the missions: "Tummy" for when your tummy rumbles, "That was me sorry" for when anyone has bumped into anything causing everyone else to become alert and so on.

I write a 'live' hand written diary and as you've said, we try to match that up the next day or so later with whatever we might have picked up with our equipment.
Quite right, Swifty. I've viewed a couple of your ghost hunting vids and I can see the people trying to find the "why" rather than just reading in what you want the outcome to be.
 
I met up with Luke Tabram from Shadow Paranormal a while back, we went on an uneventful ghost invest and I asked him about the Kinect equipment/technique. He's experimented with it in the past, he told me the machine is biased and will try to find anything it can to form it into a stick figure so should be ruled out in credible paranormal research.
He's right about the Kinect detector.
Company I worked for some years back did some development with it and found it to be very sensitive. It didn't always detect what it should and sometimes detected stuff that wasn't a human (inanimate objects, even). They dropped development for their app.
 
He's right about the Kinect detector.
Company I worked for some years back did some development with it and found it to be very sensitive. It didn't always detect what it should and sometimes detected stuff that wasn't a human (inanimate objects, even). They dropped development for their app.
I'm I correct in thinking it's initial application was for one of those dancing games?
 
I'm I correct in thinking it's initial application was for one of those dancing games?
Yeah, it was optimised for that kind of app but wasn't much use for anything else.
Shame really.
 
Quite right, Swifty. I've viewed a couple of your ghost hunting vids and I can see the people trying to find the "why" rather than just reading in what you want the outcome to be.
Our next invest is going to be at 30 East Drive in Pontefract which has a reputation for extreme poltergeist activity, I've learned today that Eddie Mallet (the big bearded bloke with the Ferrari jacket you saw in our last vid) as well as Luke Tabram will be joining us for this one .. they're both extremely sober and experienced investigators IMO so our next invest should be interesting. Even if nothing paranormal happens, me and the team can at least grow stronger with our methodology.

One experiment I did try for All Saints Church in Santon was to take one of those badminton racket sized double AA battery powered fly 'zappers' along with us, mainly in an attempt to discount orbs. My theory was/is that if it's an insect we're watching through a view finder and I 'twat it one', we'll see (and the cameras will pick up) a small spark of light as I electrocute the f****r ... if, instead, when we get back home and watch the footage back the 'orb' travelling though the field/racket, that's going to be harder to explain if the light reflecting off whatever it is larger than a bit of dust reflecting light back .. I haven't fine tuned this approach yet, it's experimentation in progress ..

I told Luke Tabram about it and he just said "genius" .
 
Last edited:
exactly the kinect sensor has never been that good, even when used with the console, they can still detect objects as people or not detect movement properly, no wonder it never really took off...because it was crap.

there's another thing that pisses me off about the tv investigations, when then bring out the device that sounds like a radio that isn't tuned and they claim to pick up "voices" of the "dead.

surely that is just partially turned to some station or inbetween two and is just picking up random sounds and the investigators just think what they want to hear due to the matrixing?

then there's the torch thing which was debunked as the weak connection of it being partially unscrewed and the slighest vibration completes the circuit....or something like that
The radio thing is a 'voice box' .. that's what paranormal teams call them anyway .. I'm also not convinced that they're not just picking up random radio stations because they function like old fashioned scanners.

My torch failed on our last invest early into it, it's actually a mountain bike torch .. I'd charged it up fully via a USB port before we set out, the same way I did for the previous invest when it didn't fail. Notes we made that correlated afterwards were that it failed around the same time we were hearing and feeling unexplained stuff happening so that gets bumped up to 'so far unexplained' until we can explain it later on by re testing the torch itself, watching back vids, listening to our digital voice recorders and trying to synchronise the timings of all of those inputs.

If all paranormal teams did what we did and also put online 10 hour behind the scenes videos of this approach, I expect most people would fall asleep watching them but maybe one day someone will do a vid like that? .
 
Back in the day we used to watch 'Most Haunted' but quickly realised how over the top it was. Wouldn't watch it now.

Mr Zebra and I stumbled across something called "Buzz Feed Unsolved" a few weeks back while searching YouTube (honestly, we watch more youtube documentaries than telly nowadays) anyway... we were hooked. It's brilliant. They do some 'True Crime' stuff (they covered DB Cooper among others) and they do some 'Paranormal' stuff, wherein they visit supposedly haunted locations.

The cool thing about it is, the two chaps are complete polar opposites - one, believes anything paranormal and is also absolutely terrified of anything and everything, whereas the other is cool as a cucumber and doesn't believe in any of it and never gets scared even in dark deserted buildings. He would happily believe in ghosts, if only they ever got credible evidence, which as far as he's concerned, they never do.

The dynamic is just brilliant and that's why it's the only 'ghost hunting' show (if you want to call it that) that we'll happily watch. It wouldn't work if both of them were skeptics or both were believers, it's a good balance. And their approach is very entertaining, whether it's the True Crime or the Paranormal.

The other thing is; they never 'play up' anything that happens. They always keep an open mind about it and will readily admit if something that a viewer points out that "might be a ghost" turns out to be their cameraman, or whatever. I admire the honesty.
 
What gets me about those shows is that they always find some “evidence” of a haunting within minutes of starting off. We never seem to see them sitting around night after night saying “Nope, nothing happening here.”

It's not just ghost shows, cryptozoology has Mountain Monsters where a group of fat, hairy, hillbilly types hunt down various cryptids.
It usually begins with the group in a pick-up truck discussing how their latest quarry (it usually has some name like The Howlin’ Hairy Hoghumper of Poontang County) is the most dangerous beast they’ve ever hunted.

Then they’ll meet a witness for a chat and off they go for their first night’s hunting. These expert trappers then make so much noise yelling at each other that any animal within twenty miles could hear them. But within minutes, they’ll hear a branch rustling or twigs snapping. That will cause more shouting, waving guns and at least one of them will fall over. They will all get a clear view of the beast – apart from the viewer because it never occurs to the camera team to get exclusive footage of the elusive beast, they’d rather film hairy rednecks shouting and falling over.

Next day, they will meet with more witnesses who will usually have photographic evidence. At the sight of a blurred image, the team will gasp in amazement and claim it’s the best evidence they have ever seen.

That’s a signal for two other members of the team to appear – Bill the trap builder and Wild Bill who seems to talk in his own language, a sort of hillbilly gibberish with occasional words that can be recognised – usually referring to him being an ex-marine.

Anyway, Bill sets to work on a trap to catch the beast – Bill is a man who makes Wile E Coyote look like an amateur. Along with Wild Bill, he’ll build some massive and elaborate trap in the middle of nowhere and then the final night of the hunt begins.

Having interviewed two witnesses, the team conclude that the beast must be located between where the witnesses saw it and split into two. One group will then be hunted by the beast, the other team will rush to the rescue and then the beast will head off towards the trap.

When they reach the trap, they’ll be just too late and it will have been destroyed by the creature but that will be all the proof they need – no attempt to look for hair samples or anything like that. And off they go after the next beast.
 
Mr Zebra and I stumbled across something called "Buzz Feed Unsolved" a few weeks back while searching YouTube (honestly, we watch more youtube documentaries than telly nowadays) anyway... we were hooked. It's brilliant.

This is really popular with the kids these days, which is rather encouraging!
 
Paranormal investigation shows are good case studies in pop culture from various angles. There are a few books that discuss this. For the UK audience, check out Haunted Heritage by Michele Hanks (not the other one!) and Paranormal Media by Annette Hill (no relation). In the U.S., I reference television considerably in my book, Scientifical Americans. It covers ghost hunters, ufologists and cryptozoologists. They have their similarities and differences.

There are several academic articles that examined Most Haunted that are super interesting- like how it was concocted to appeal to a female audience who were interested in psychic phenomena. It succeeded wildly and spawned a new way of examining the past. The American versions were mostly male-oriented with gadgetry and thus the Frank's Box and the many meters and apps. There were several niche shows that appealed to college-aged kids or more psychically oriented, etc. Then came the demons.

I kept a list of all the English language shows up until a few years ago. I was shocked that they never just died out. They are still going with new ones being made. But, it finally is shifting. I think this post shows why - it's just boring and pretty much comedy at this point. They never find anything. (Monster shows are ramping up, UFO stuff is also hot but from a conspiracy angle.)

I've talked to several TV producers along the way because they want to cast a female "skeptic" for their shows that basically never materialize. They want to "pick my brain" about ideas for a show - and then never get in touch again after they steal all the ideas they need for a pitch. When I tell them I won't do TV because it is guaranteed to be stupid, they agree! They admit the networks don't want a real investigation because it's hard, long, ambiguous, and not entertaining. So, they resort to gimmicks, horrid editing, and faking evidence. People who watched these shows thought they were real. They aren't, which several people quickly discovered when they got off their couch and thought, hell, I can do THAT. TV and the associated internet features, like forums and YouTube, totally fueled the rise in amateur paranormal groups.

My latest inquiry from a month ago was a guy who wanted to do a show related to geology and the paranormal. I told him flat out 'no' unless he wants to pay me by the hour for consulting. He laughed and said thanks, but no thanks.

BTW, Mountain Monsters is undeclared fake but totally fake for comedic effect. It may be the stupidest show ever made.
 
BTW, Mountain Monsters is undeclared fake but totally fake for comedic effect. It may be the stupidest show ever made.
Surely not :)
I've a horrible feeling that such is the dumbing down of television, there will be something in the pipeline that will probably make Mountain Monsters look like a model of scientific excellence.
 
If you're interested in ghost hunting, I reckon you're best off saving up a few quid and joining an investigation yourself rather than watching any of those shows.

They're essentially a form of Reality TV. And it's an open industry secret that Reality TV shows are highly scripted and edited to make them as dramatic as possible.

As for the 'scientific equipment' I'm not seeing much scientific validity to it

How about "Ghost Hunting with Brian Cox and Neil DeGrasse Tyson?" I'd happily watch that.
 
Must admit that I did watch Most Haunted sporadically - notably when they featured locations I was familiar with (Chislehurst caves and Shakespeare's house etc.), but I didn't believe a word of it.

Although he's knocking on a bit now, I would love to see an arch sceptic like James Randi investigating alleged hauntings. Failing him, the Mythbusters team would be a good choice.
 
Back
Top