Ghost Hunters 4.13: "Fort Delaware"

Wednesday, 18 June 2008

By John Keegan Visit Critical Myth for an archive of John's TV Review archives, with more than 1100 entries.   As always seems to be the case with any finale (be it mid-season or not), the investigations with the most intriguing footage are kept on the shelf to ensure the series can hit hiatus on a high note. This has been the design since the first half of the second season (the hotly debated Crescent Hotel episode), and the trend continues to this day. (Though, to be fair, the episode is a last-minute substitution; so much so that the official SFC website gives the completely wrong description of the episode under the “Fort Delaware” title!) I don’t recall seeing any indication of when the investigation was filmed, but the inclusion of the winner of the “Hunt for the Hunter” contest from the third season was a nice touch. There has been some criticism against TAPS for supposedly shoving that contest and its winner under the rug; apparently, it never occurred to those critics that the investigation might have been filmed and shuffled in the run order, despite the common knowledge that footage is often held for months at a time. Not that it matters overly much, because the guest investigator might as well have stayed home. He brought very little to the table. If anything, it was surprising to see Kristyn, the investigator who treated him so badly in the live Halloween special, more or less ignore him. Instead, the usual “update on the group dynamic” moment was reserved for Kris and her “promotion”. (Shall we take bets on whether she’ll be called a trainee for the next two years, ala Dave Tango?) Fort Delaware was an imposing challenge, and as usual, I’m not sure how the team could have reasonably controlled the entire premises. They only had monitors on five locations and a handful of roving teams. Contrary to their comments throughout the episode, I think it’s absolutely reasonable to consider that someone could have escaped their notice. Trying to cover a location of that size with such limited resources is a recipe for “contamination”, no matter how experienced TAPS might be. I have also come to the conclusion, over the past couple of seasons, that TAPS might have the best of intentions, but that is not remotely true for Pilgrim Films. Much of the questionable evidence can be categorized as probable misinterpretation of footage; TAPS has experience, but they lack technical expertise. On the other hand, several of the most egregious moments scream of outside interference and outright manipulation, and in many cases, the most likely suspect is the production crew itself. In my opinion, we see examples in this episode that point to each “source”. In some cases, we see some logical debunking at work. The goal of debunking is not necessarily to “prove” that reported activity was the result of natural causes. The goal is to demonstrate that it is possible to replicate the reports by natural causes. By showing that another explanation exists, it provides reasonable doubt that the incident was paranormal in nature. One cannot prove a negative, but one can prove the viability of an alternative explanation. (I find criticism of this principle puzzling.) Less impressive was the time spent by the team on the flickering of the K-II Meter. This continues to be a sticking point for me. I understand the argument that the team seldom points to the meter’s activity as evidence, but given how easily the meters responds to outside interference, the time spent by TAPS on the devices (when they know the devices are ill suited to the intended use) is ludicrous. In the case of the K-II Meter, keeping an open mind is to reject simple physics, and that continues to underscore TAPS’ lack of technical understanding. The EVPs, on the other hand, have less to do with poor technical understand and more to do with reaching for a result. The activity of the K-II Meter gives evidence that stray RF signals could still be present, which means the unusual voices could have been from other electronic sources (or even natural ones). More important, none of the EVPs were clear, and even after TAPS gave their interpretation, it was hard to hear the same words. The loud bang (later described as similar to “cannon fire”, which strikes me as a stretch) was interesting, but something that audible had to have come from a physical source. I accept that they couldn’t identify the source to their satisfaction, but one must wonder if someone caused the sound in the first place. The same applies to the thermal figure. Since it’s established that the FLIR camera registers surface temperatures, there had to be a form with sufficient physicality to appear on the thermal footage. The “signature” was also remarkably similar to that of an actual human being, right down to the expected temperature levels. So the footage is exactly what one would get if someone had hidden in the area to trick TAPS. In fact, the second clip looks like someone checking to make sure the coast was clear! And because, as has been seen, Jason and Grant don’t fully understand the FLIR technology, it’s so surprise how they interpreted the results. Jason and Grant both stated their belief that no one was in that part of the building. That said, I can’t help but point out that those best able to plan and execute an attempt to trick the cameras, without their knowledge, would be the production staff. And the production staff works for Pilgrim Films, the company with the most interest in making such a thing happen. Is it possible that the figure was not a person, and was actually the form of some unseen entity? Perhaps. After all, the team members and visitors have all come out and mentioned that the layout would make it very difficult or impossible for someone to hide. But it’s far more likely that it was an actual person, just as TAPS felt that it was far more likely that the “flying lamp” was caused by natural causes. In this case, if the footage was genuine (by which I mean, no outside interference), then the size of the location worked against them, because the best way to prove it would have been to show specific surveillance of the area before and after the thermal footage was recorded. Of course, a smaller location would have also allowed for much tighter control overall. Unfortunately, the editing process makes it very difficult to know what was done night by night to tackle such a large complex. Did they confine activities to a specific area on a given night, or did they remain spread out for the duration? I’ve often wondered if a quick computer-generated diagram would be a useful addition to the walkthrough segments, to give the audience a better sense of scale and tactics. As it stands, we really have no sense of what the cameras do or do not cover. At any rate, this is par for the course for the series, and especially for a mid-season finale: huge location, special guests, unexpectedly good footage, and a variety of “evidence”. While I might have my doubts about some of the “evidence”, I certainly can’t say it wasn’t entertaining.

 

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