In late September 2008, MediaBlvd was lucky enough to be invited along to visit the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park Colorado, one of the most haunted places in North America, for the 2^nd Annual SCI FI Digital Media Event.  The Ghost Hunters from SCI FI Network, as well as Amanda Tapping from Sanctuary, Josh Gates from Destination Truth, and others attended the SCI FI Channel Event and answered questions about their series and their work.

What follows is a partial transcript from Jason and Grant’s Ghost Hunters panel.  Don’t miss the Ghost Hunters live Halloween event tonight which will be hosted by Josh, and in which Amanda Tapping will be participating as an investigator.

What makes Ghost Hunters stand out among all the paranormal investigation shows out there?

Jason> There’s other shows out there, that the production company analyzes their evidence, and what they caught.  That’s never been what we’ve been about.  We’ve been doing this since 1990.  We’re not a group of people put together for a show.  We’re a group of people that ended up doing a show.  I think that really shows when it comes to watching Ghost Hunters, that we’re a big family.  Steve’s over at my house playing with my kids.  My wife and Grant’s wife hang out and are friends; Grant and I have hung out for years and are friends.  Our families look at each other as family.  Even Kris Williams has been a close friend of ours for nine or ten years.  It’s things like that.  I really think that’s what sets our show apart from any other show out there.  It’s real and the way we deal with each other and our interaction is true. 

Are you guys still plumbers, and how do you feel about being SCI FI Channel’s sex symbols?

Jason> Yeah, we’re still plumbers for Roto-Rooter.  Are we still doing it 50 hours a week like we used to? Absolutely not, because we’re on the road.  When the show is on hiatus we’ll go back to our normal lives.  It’s nice.  Even now, right before the show I did a big commercial jobs going into hotels and working behind the scenes, and called Grant in to help me.  We’re still able to do that.  Of course we’re not still going to people’s homes, because that would be tough.  We’re still plumbers.  It’s a recession free industry; we’ll never go back to the outhouse. 

Grant> As far as if it’s a sexy thing, as long as my wife thinks I’m sexy, that’s all that matters to me. 

Jason>I have to agree with that, as long as his wife thinks I’m sexy….(laughs) We don’t look at it like that really.

You must get fan mail though right?

Jason> Yeah, we get a lot of it.  When they find our email we get some interesting pictures.

Without getting too personal, if you have religious beliefs, have they been strengthened or weakened by what you’ve seen in this process. 

Jason>As for the religious thing, I was born Catholic.  I’ve never really been pushed into going to church and stuff.  There’s different factors when it comes to dealing with the churches.  There are parts of the church who fully believe in this and they send you out to investigate, and there are other parts that totally deny it.  I believe that there’s something out there.  They talk about Heaven and Hell when you go to church, but they never really talk about in-between, until you start dealing with the private sanctions of the church and they’re sending you on these cases. 

Grant>Even though the show is called Ghost Hunters, we consider ourselves paranormal investigators because there’s way more investigation going on than there is the hunting of ghosts.  A lot of teams will have a religious kind of standpoint.  We step away from that because all we’re looking for is the truth.  You don’t really have to have a common religious standpoint to do that. 

Jason> We try to avoid that.  You don’t bring a Catholic person to do a blessing at a Jewish man’s home.  We try to stay away from pushing the religion aspect.

Grant>As for me personally, I have some strong religious beliefs and it’s something that honestly you have take what you get.  Whatever comes at you is what it is.  No matter what your religious  beliefs are, you either make it fit or you change your religious beliefs. 

Jason> I’ve been on numerous exorcism cases that were sanctioned by the church.  I’ve seen everyone from born-again Christians, Catholics, Mormons, Pagans- numerous religions do their beliefs or rituals, and I’ve seen each case that I truly believed that was a possession, which is very rare among the cases we’ve been on, seems to have cleared up.  I don’t think it’s the religion that has it right, I think if the people truly believe what they are preaching, that’s all that matters. 

Do you believe in possession?

Jason> I do believe in possession.  I’ve seen some strange things.  Then again, I can honestly say that we’ve been called out to investigate two or three hundred possession cases, and out of those maybe three or four seemed like something was going on.  There are just some things that happen that are far outside the norm of what we’re used to.

Grant>Yeah, if you have a 9 year old girl that is throwing furniture around, or moving it around, something that’s hard for an adult to do, there’s something going on. 

Can you expand on the difference between paranormal and a haunting? And can you talk about how being the face of SCI FI reality TV has changed things for you if at all?

Jason> A haunting falls under the paranormal aspect.  But paranormal activity can be going on without a haunting.  We try to look at it in two different ways.  If I see an object move on it’s own, it’s paranormal.  It’s above the normal of what we’re used to. If I see a spirit move that object, now I can call it a haunting. 

 Grant>A haunting entails a spirit there that’s causing that activity to happen. 

Jason> But there’s been case studies of extremely high electro magnetic fields that are strong enough to move soda cans across the table, or things of that nature.  That doesn’t mean that there’s a ghost there.  That’s how we try to separate it.  I try to never say that a place has spirit activity or is haunted unless I catch solid evidence.  As for being the face of SCI FI’s reality, we still go and investigate the same way we always have.  The camera guys that we have are incridlbe.  They stay out of our way and let us do what we are doing.  It’s really nice, because a lot of the evidence we have caught has been on their cameras on their sound systems, while ours may never have picked it up.  I’ll get calls from our executive producer saying we caught this piece of audio, and I’m going to send it over to you and I want you to check it out.  It’s great, it’s great to have more cameras rolling at once.