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

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.

100% of the equipment is just junk (you can find overpriced hunting tools on ebay and amazon) only idiots buy the so called "tools". all you need is a voice recorder and nothing else as you should be able look for ghosts any time of the day. witching hour, 3am etc all tosh.

yes it's all reality tv, that's the main reason it's so fake and stupid.

maybe they should do a show where it tries to disprove hauntings? by using skeptics and scientists. no mediums or any other bs investigators.
 
My wife and I enjoyed the old Ghost Hunters with Grant and Jason...but mostly we just liked them and their crew on screen. It was entertaining.
We also watch Paranormal Lockdown with Nick and Katrina W and we are currently watching the Jack Osboure /Katrina W show...Portals.
Ghost Adventures with Zak Baggins is ridiculous at times imho. And as others have mentioned the science behind the 'ghost equipment' they use is probably nil.
Personally I don't take much of it seriously..though now and then something odd does happen....but there is so much interpretation and plain exaggeration involved that it's hard to believe much of it.
 
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..

It's perfectly explainable Swifty.

From having owned literally scores of various rechargeable torches for cycling over the years I can say that the USB ones, (won't bore you with listing the battery types), are notoriously unreliable when it comes to self-discharge. In fact, one of mine the other night that I use on my city commute should by my estimation have lasted another 4 hours but died. I had to go and buy another torch just to legally/safely get home - and the one that failed was an expensive USB rechargeable, (they weigh so little - that's why they are popular), that I'd taken good care of.

You won't be able to replicate it from a scientific point of view. Recharging is also dependent, on the state of the battery, the temperature of the room you are charging it in, I suspect moisture and other factors play a part too. Things you can't easily replicate. Charging fully is often too much and I reckon it's a deliberate design to age batteries faster as manufacturers know people leave batteries on the charger for too long.

What gets me about equipment in modern ghost hunting and modern ghost hunters is they never try and reduce the variables. If I was going to go ghost hunting I'd bring 3 brand new identical torches with brand new, (decent brand), non-rechargeable batteries so they are much, much less fail. If one does and I'd be very surprised. You got the other two to test with.

They also don't know much about the equipment they are using.

So much ghost hunting media including good ones such as Astonishing legends all cite equipment battery failure as possibly paranormal activity.

It isn't it. It's that modern crappy rechargeable batteries which people have made faulty by over-charging them fail a lot.

Also on one of your Vids Swifty one of the team appeared to have a vape machine in his hand - that might have explained that mysterious mist you all spotted.
 
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.
That is so accurate and hilarious!
 
Who needs fancy equipment when you have Derek Achorah?The man has a hotline straight to the dead, sorry his spiritual guardian "Sam".It's always hilarious when D.A communes with spirits, becomes possessed and sees ghosts, but when he hears the slightest noise in the dark, he shits his{ most likely} leopard print pants. Carl is a bit shifty too, may I add.I would however, like to take part in an investigation.
 
Who needs fancy equipment when you have Derek Achorah?The man has a hotline straight to the dead, sorry his spiritual guardian "Sam".It's always hilarious when D.A communes with spirits, becomes possessed and sees ghosts, but when he hears the slightest noise in the dark, he shits his{ most likely} leopard print pants. Carl is a bit shifty too, may I add.I would however, like to take part in an investigation.
Derek Achorah was allegedly sacked from the Most Haunted team because they felt he was a fake medium, they created a fake name of a supposed spirit that was an anagram of 'Derek is a liar' (I can't remember what the fake created ghost's name was sorry) and he played along talking to that fake name .. so they sacked him.
 
Derek Achorah was allegedly sacked from the Most Haunted team because they felt he was a fake medium, they created a fake name of a supposed spirit that was an anagram of 'Derek is a liar' (I can't remember what the fake created ghost's name was sorry) and he played along talking to that fake name .. so they sacked him.
haha!He was never the slightest bit convincing. I used to cringe when spirits would "possess"him. No matter where in the country they were filmimg,the spirit possessing him would have a deep voice and a scouse accent!
 
Derek Achorah was allegedly sacked from the Most Haunted team because they felt he was a fake medium, they created a fake name of a supposed spirit that was an anagram of 'Derek is a liar' (I can't remember what the fake created ghost's name was sorry) and he played along talking to that fake name .. so they sacked him.
It was specifically Ciaran O’Keefe who set up the sting. He set up a fake web page and left his notes easily accessible. It was a jail they were going to and the jail or Ciaran had created was Kreed Kafer (Derek Faker). Ciaran thought Acorah might mention him but he went one further and actually became possessed by him...
 
It was specifically Ciaran O’Keefe who set up the sting. He set up a fake web page and left his notes easily accessible. It was a jail they were going to and the jail or Ciaran had created was Kreed Kafer (Derek Faker). Ciaran thought Acorah might mention him but he went one further and actually became possessed by him...
This is the moment in question, not sure about the legitimacy of the maths either to be honest!
 
This is the moment in question, not sure about the legitimacy of the maths either to be honest!
HAHA .. didn't realise he'd been caught out acting twice. Twat. This is the sort of thing we're up against as genuine investigators .. we don't get upset or feel compelled to 'sex up' our invests if we get nothing for popularity hits. We go home instead and don't make any kind of video although we are thinking about making some 'how do you do a sober sensible invest?' type videos in the future.
 
I think the Usbourne Unkown Supernatural books which I read when I was 7 gave a much more rigorous template on how to investigate a haunting/ufo sighting than any of the youtube bunch of ghost hunters could come up with these days.

I won't even go into the basics this book includes that the youtube ghost hunters miss - I suggest you ghost hunters track it down on ebay.



mysteries%2Bof%2Bthe%2Bunknown.jpg
 
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100% of the equipment is just junk (you can find overpriced hunting tools on ebay and amazon) only idiots buy the so called "tools". all you need is a voice recorder and nothing else as you should be able look for ghosts any time of the day. witching hour, 3am etc all tosh.

yes it's all reality tv, that's the main reason it's so fake and stupid.

maybe they should do a show where it tries to disprove hauntings? by using skeptics and scientists. no mediums or any other bs investigators.
This remind me I need to read a book I bought, Ghost Hunting: A Practical Guide, written by Andrew Green and "updated for the 21st century by Alan Murdie, Chairman of the Ghost Club," according to its back cover.

I hope it is not a shopping list for the overpriced junk you mentioned. Perhaps I should have bought the original edition.
 
Good point.

Producers are missing a prime chance for a hit with paranormal investigation comedy.
There's always Most Farted .. (watching another team investigate 30 East Drive in Pontefract online today, they were able to show that closing one door downstairs causes another one to open .. nothing paranormal, just some sort of vacuum effect .. love it .. although it might still be haunted anyway)

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...2407BCE91DAD921897BC2407BCE91DAD921&FORM=VIRE
 
Herp Albert and his Thiuanna brass (spelling?) eat your heart out!
Couldn't help but laugh, my friend is convinced though.. Sigh
 
Derek Achorah was allegedly sacked from the Most Haunted team because they felt he was a fake medium, they created a fake name of a supposed spirit that was an anagram of 'Derek is a liar' (I can't remember what the fake created ghost's name was sorry) and he played along talking to that fake name .. so they sacked him.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Acorah

...However, significant media attention was directed at the show in 2005, after Acorah claimed to channel spirits with names that had allegedly been suggested to him in advance, such as "Rik Eedles" and "Kreed Kafer", which are anagrams of "Derek Lies" and "Derek Faker" respectively.
 
closing one door downstairs causes another one to open

We had new internal doors put in years ago that did this, well, if you opened one another would slam. Drove the dogs MAD!
 
I've recently (and miles behind everyone else) discovered Ghost Adventures and I'm finding it enjoyable, probably for all the wrong reasons.

There's the inevitable session with the radio frequency scanning static speaker, which reminds me of the early days of DAB Radio wandering around at home trying to find a signal.
There will be the point where the nervy one of the group (Aaron?) will be sent in/shut in on his own somewhere supposedly haunted.
It's never almost never Zack who does this.
Something will be seen - but seldom on camera

I'm not saying that they've never found anything unexplained; they are spending time in haunted locations but over all it does seem to be a group of ageing dude bros wandering around unfamilar locations - in the dark yet - and getting spooked after having hyped each other up before hand with spooky stories.
 
I've recently (and miles behind everyone else) discovered Ghost Adventures and I'm finding it enjoyable, probably for all the wrong reasons.

There's the inevitable session with the radio frequency scanning static speaker, which reminds me of the early days of DAB Radio wandering around at home trying to find a signal.
There will be the point where the nervy one of the group (Aaron?) will be sent in/shut in on his own somewhere supposedly haunted.
It's never almost never Zack who does this.
Something will be seen - but seldom on camera

I'm not saying that they've never found anything unexplained; they are spending time in haunted locations but over all it does seem to be a group of ageing dude bros wandering around unfamilar locations - in the dark yet - and getting spooked after having hyped each other up before hand with spooky stories.

GA has a gimmick, as most of these shows now do. They appeal to the 20-something crowd more than Most Haunted or Ghost Hunters. It's not about tech and gadgets as much as it is about displays of "heroism" (in their view) in standing up to the ghost/demon. It is farcical. But there are many faithful fans who aren't serious about research as they are about sharing this heavily-edited experience with Zak and admiring his Axe/Lynx-and-hair gel-enhanced "masculinity". If you haven't seen his Demon House docu, it's more of the same but he speaks even MORE highly of himself. See my review in FT: 372 November 2018.
 
I actually read your review prior to catching up with the feature length documentary - and I have to agree with you on the content. Everywhere they go they seem to meet demons, portal and "dark entities". And of course they do go all 'macho' on it.
Personally, if ever in a position to encounter the unknown, I don't think I'll lead with "I dare you to do something, ya coward!!!!"
It's right up there with the "Get Her!" moment in Ghostbusters! :)
 
I actually read your review prior to catching up with the feature length documentary - and I have to agree with you on the content. Everywhere they go they seem to meet demons, portal and "dark entities". And of course they do go all 'macho' on it.
Personally, if ever in a position to encounter the unknown, I don't think I'll lead with "I dare you to do something, ya coward!!!!"
It's right up there with the "Get Her!" moment in Ghostbusters! :)

For a moment I was imagining a ghost hunter cooing "Ooh, get her! I'll slap your legs!"
 
For a moment I was imagining a ghost hunter cooing "Ooh, get her! I'll slap your legs!"
Nope, it's the classic scene in the library with the team's first attempt at 'catching' a ghost. :)
Pretty much how I imagine all of these paranormal/ghost hunters shows would react.
 
Nope, it's the classic scene in the library with the team's first attempt at 'catching' a ghost. :)
Pretty much how I imagine all of these paranormal/ghost hunters shows would react.

Yes, I remember! But camp ghost hunters, there's an idea - someone get me Hollywood on the line!
 
Yes, I remember! But camp ghost hunters, there's an idea - someone get me Hollywood on the line!
Ghost hunters: 'Ghost! We've come for you!'
Camp ghost: 'WooOOOhooOO OOooOOO!'
:litg:


^^ OK, just being silly, yeah... ^^
 
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