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Ghost Hunters 4.7: Ghostly Conversation |
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Wednesday, 16 April 2008 |
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By John Keegan
Visit Critical Myth for an archive of John's TV Review archives, with more than 1100 entries.
| Coming into this season, Jason and Grant talked up the evidence in the first case substantially in the press and on their radio show. It was some of the best audio evidence they had ever collected, and the circumstances were supposed to be equally impressive. In fact, Mt. Washington Resort is now becoming one of the “hot spots” for paranormal events. Darkness Radio is holding an event this year, and a local organization offered an additional opportunity this summer.
Usually that means that the location will be given the full-hour treatment, so even after the previous episode focusing on Wright-Patterson AFB, I was a bit surprised to discover that it was only the headliner, not the full focus of the episode. It seems like an odd thing to focus on, but once that was revealed in the teaser, I was constantly wondering how they were going to cover a location of that size (and relatively sudden notoriety) in less than an hour.
Case #1: Mt. Washington Resort
Most of the investigation was more of the usual for this season: personal experiences and the sound of knocks and footsteps. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve heard much the same thing from time to time, so I can’t completely discount it, but it’s not the most compelling “evidence”. That is reserved, in this case, for the EVPs.
Jason and Grant interpret the EVPs as evidence of an intelligent haunting. There’s room for other explanations, however, and I’m not sure “intelligent haunting” is the most applicable or inventive. Predicting the skeptical explanation is far from difficult: it will either be deemed a complete fabrication or an extended misinterpretation of a cell phone signal interception. Nothing in the footage can dispute those opinions.
However, to indulge in some rare speculation, if Jason and Grant interpreted the EVPs correctly, there could be another, more interesting way to explain it. What if this was some kind of odd time-slip phenomenon? After all, it sounded like “the Princess” was responding to some kind of unseen voice. What if she was hearing TAPS as disembodied voices, wondering where they were coming from, just as TAPS was recording her as an EVP? The “evidence” could fit into that kind of concept.
The idea certainly doesn’t pass any kind of Occam’s Razor or critical thinking standard, but it does demonstrate how even the best “evidence” can be used to support all kinds of “theories”. Jason and Grant are looking for evidence of spirit activity, so the “evidence” supports that conclusion for them. The trick, beyond verifying “evidence” as authentic, is finding a way to make it specific enough to support the desired paranormal conclusion.
Oddly, despite the comments within the episode that the EVPs were the best they’d ever gotten, supported by all the pre-airing hype, the editing seemed to downplay their enthusiasm. I expected them to dig into the interpretations a lot more.
Case #2: Ruffstone Tavern
I’ve always enjoyed the debunking-heavy investigations more than the rest, because that’s what a lot more groups should be doing. It’s what attracted me to the concept of the show in the first place. They cover the entire investigation in the space of about ten minutes, which makes it feel like a way to fill out the episode after the resort investigation came out short after edit, but it was a nice little coda. Considering how often the editing seems to leave out even the most basic debunking in other episodes (generously speaking), it’s good to see one investigation where there was no “evidence” and plenty of real-world explanation.
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