via press release:
THE #1 PARANORMAL FRANCHISE ON TELEVISION,
HAS JUST GOTTEN BIGGER
‘Ghost Hunters Academy’ Premieres Wednesday, November 11, at 10PM (ET/PT), Joining Popular Series ‘Ghost Hunters’ and ‘Ghost Hunters International’
New York, NY – October 12, 2009 – The #1 paranormal franchise on television has just gotten bigger. Building upon the enormous success of Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters International that has made it the top cable network on Wednesdays at 9PM among Adults 18-49 and Adults 25-54,Syfy is launching Ghost Hunters Academy, premiering Wednesday, November 11 @ 10PM (ET/PT).
Kicking off with an investigation at Fort Mifflin, Pennsylvania, Ghost Hunters Academy features a group of aspiring Ghost Hunters exploring some of the most haunted locations in the country and around the world. Led by veteran Ghost Hunters Steve Gonsalves and Dave Tango, the students train, hands on, in the paranormal arts.
The new recruits venture outside conventional classroom walls tackling new paranormal hotspots as well as favorite old haunts from Ghost Huntersincluding Fort Mifflin (Pennsylvania), Eastern State Penitentiary (Pennsylvania), and St. Augustine Lighthouse (Florida). By passing the course, students can graduate into investigating on Ghost Hunters or Ghost Hunters International.
In October 2004, Syfy introduced Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson – plumbers by day, Ghost Hunters by night! In its fifth season to-date, Ghost Hunters’ popularity has climbed to series highs with nearly 3 million (2.94 million) total viewers, a 2.0 HH rating, 1.8 million Adults 18-49 and 1.9 million Adults 25-54.
Ghost Hunters International premiered in 2008. In its recently concluded second season, GHI averaged more than two million total viewers.
Ghost Hunters, Ghost Hunters International and Ghost Hunters Academy are produced in association with Craig Piligian’s Pilgrim Films and Television (Dirty Jobs, The Ultimate Fighter, My Fair Wedding). Piligian and Thomas Thayer, along with Rob Katz and Alan David, serve as executive producers.
Syfy is a media destination for imagination-based entertainment. With year round acclaimed original series, events, blockbuster movies, classic science fiction and fantasy programming, a dynamic Web site (www.Syfy.com), and a portfolio of adjacent business (Syfy Ventures), Syfy is a passport to limitless possibilities. Originally launched in 1992 as SCI FI Channel, and currently in 95 million homes, Syfy is a network of NBC Universal, one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies. (Syfy. Imagine greater.)
this makes me sad. America, please! South Park was right about this show, it’s awful.
What was that! did you hear that, oh my god what was that! Im so scared!
…ugh…
yeah this show reminds me how many stupid people there are… how any of these people could still watch after seeing the lead investigator on halloween pull a string and make his hood move to replicate a ghost… is beyond me
I really want to see a show with a different take on things. This would be a group of ghost hunters by night… um… wrestlers by day (makes as much sense as plumbers). After the investigation, during the review of the evidence, one of the investigators would jump out of his chair, get one inch from the face of one of the homeowners, and say “Dude, that creaking noise was just your freakin’ water heater, you moron! How the heck could you be so stupid as to jump to the conclusion it was disembodied spirits without even contemplating any other possibilities first? How the HECK is that the most likely option? What kind of a parent are you to have scared your kids by filling their heads with that s$%t? And how do you feel about embarassing your family on television? Huh? How DO YOU FEEL?!?”
Or maybe a gameshow where if a team of real scientists verifies the existence of ghosts in someone’s house, James Randi gives them $400,000, but if scientists prove a conventional explanation for whatever’s happening (or shows the contestants were mistaken or lying), they have to lose their home. Now THAT would be fun.
Tom, IMHO even better than the string was the guest saying that he heard the same “EVP” voice the Ghost Hunters picked up coming over his microphone, and you hear the voice of the director whisper “shut up”.
These guys were SO not prepared for live television….
A: There is no proof that Grant pulled a string to make his hood move, that’s what you thought you saw. Truthfully it doesn’t even look like that.
B: These guys, being terrible actors, are clearly not hoaxers.
C: If you’ve ever bothered to watch with any regularity you would realize that they have captured evidence which is impossible to recreate physically. Maybe they employ CG engineers on Ghost Hunters, which is of course entirely possible.
D: They disprove, they debunk, they are not looking for ghosts, they are looking for reasons why people think they are being haunted. Sometimes they find things they can’t explain.
E: You know nothing. If this were 1000 AD you would think that the earth is the center of the universe, that leeches will cure hemorrhoids, that there is a point on earth where the ground stops and you’d just fall off into space. The point is that we as humans have not yet solved every mystery of the cosmos. Ghosts and hauntings are not disproven phenomena, there is actually more compelling evidence to suggest that ghosts exist than not. Do I believe? Not 100%, but I don’t blindly discount. If you want obvious hoaxers, check out “Ghost Adventures” or “Most Haunted” on the shameless Travel Channel.
F: Tom, it’s not nice to call people stupid. Your eloquent post doesn’t exactly scream “genius”.
>A: There is no proof that Grant pulled a string to make his hood
>move, that’s what you thought you saw. Truthfully it doesn’t even
>look like that.
Actually, there exist video analyses of the footage in question in which you see the event happen in tandem with Grant’s hand movements. The face that his right hand never moves at all the entire time is another dead giveaway.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlM-Uy8ODYQ
And this is freakin’ brilliant, science at it best:
http://www.youtube.com/user/FORMERGHFAN#p/u/7/1n_HwoTKafY
>B: These guys, being terrible actors, are clearly not hoaxers.
They are hoaxers – but being terrible actors, their hoaxes are clearly seen.
We have the coat tug incident, the EVP over the microphone on the live show incident, the lamp that moves across the table in Louisiana incident (complete with string), and there’s also an incident with Grant and a chair that’s been pretty clearly shown to be a hoax. In fact, Grant seems to be the common denominator in almost all the cases and is apparently the lead hoaxer.
There’s another clip in which a “dark shape” runs across a corridor… but thanks to poor editing we catch a glimpse that shows that this black entity is WEARING WHITE SNEAKERS. During a ghost convention this year, a former employee of the show showed up and stated that that was him in the clip with a black sheet or something over him. After he stated to his superiors that he didn’t feel it was right to be doing stuff like this and he didn’t want to participate in these hoaxes anymore, he was fired. So now we even have a confession from the crew.
>C: If you’ve ever bothered to watch with any regularity you would
>realize that they have captured evidence which is impossible to
>recreate physically.
Argument from ignorance: just because you can’t do it, doesn’t mean it can’t be done. There are other clips where an entity on the thermal cam turns out to be a reflection of Jason in a mirror, thanks to some spiffy 3D analysis. Jason himself admitted the analysis was correct after seeing this analysis. There was another clip with the other two on the show where a shape on the camera turned out to be a statue on a table that appeared blurred thanks to a quick camera motion. This was also agreed with by the Ghost Hunters once they were shown viewers’ analysis after the show aired. So there’s lots of stuff we’re shown where Tango and whatnot declare it to be paranormal that turns out to have a conventional explanation once less credulous people examine it.
>Maybe they employ CG engineers on Ghost Hunters, which is of course
>entirely possible.
They don’t have that kind of budget, or need. Simple strings, throwing things from off-camera, and other little tricks suffice.
>D: They disprove, they debunk, they are not looking for ghosts, they
>are looking for reasons why people think they are being haunted.
Sigh… they’re looking for RATINGS and MONEY (neither of which I fault them for). They’ve got a magazine, affiliates, a radio program (?), and now they’ve bought a hotel with lots of land that many people feel is going to become a site for future paranormal/TAPS conventions, which hasn’t been explicitly denied. They’ve also got a lot of competition now, and that creates pressure to one-up other shows, and that’s why they (or just Grant?) has turned to tricks to keep the fame and money flowing into what has become a big business for them.
There’s another clip available in which the show starts with Jason and Grant examining a toilet; a viewer shows another clip from years ago that proves that this bathroom is actually the bathroom at TAPS HQ, so the whole plumbing scene was fake. The lesson here is that you can bet it’s been a long time since these two have had to unclog a toilet, and you can be sure they’ll do whatever they can to keep from having to go back to that line of work.
>Sometimes they find things they can’t explain.
See above. And they don’t exactly put a lot of effort into trying.
>E: You know nothing. If this were 1000 AD you would think that the
>earth is the center of the universe, that leeches will cure
>hemorrhoids, that there is a point on earth where the ground stops
>and you’d just fall off into space.
But it’s not 1000 AD it’s 2009. We had this fantastic thing called the scientific revolution, religion and state were separated in most countries, monarchies were overthrown, the printing press was invented, and people could learn and think for themselves. We don’t know “nothing” anymore, and when science is working properly, what we believe at the time is the best possible belief based on the facts at hand.
> The point is that we as humans have not yet solved every mystery of
>the cosmos. Ghosts and hauntings are not disproven phenomena,
Ghosts and hauntings are not even established phenomena. It’s not the role of science to disprove conjectures; it’s the role of advocates to prove them.
> there is actually more compelling evidence to suggest that ghosts
>exist than not.
And this evidence has been presented before major scientific bodies, used to claim Randi’s million dollars, etc.? Of course not. There’s a saying “the plural of anecdote is not evidence”. You’re mislabeling things as evidence. If it can’t be tested by other people, then it’s not scientific evidence.
I used to believe in things like ghosts (and souls), but with the impending death of my father I decided to seriously examine such beliefs and ultimately found them all wanting in the evidence department, despite what I used to casually tell myself (about “all the evidence”) for them. If by ghost you mean “soul of the dead”, what do we mean by that? Our personality? They can give pills now and perform procedures that can alter one’s personality. Memory? Experimental drugs that may someday be used for people with post-traumatic stress can prevent short-term memories from becoming long-term memories. If all of these things are inextricably tied to the functioning of the brain, then what would survive without the brain? Even free will appears to be an illusion. Scientists can ask people to make descisions about things while monitoring their brains and know about 12 seconds *before* the person does, that they’ve made a decision. Apparently a part of our brain decides things then this information is put into consciousness many seconds later as “our” idea. So where’s the “ghost in the machine” then? Sorry, the more I learned about this stuff, the more I found evidence that no priest or new-ager could answer. There’s some speculation about the brain operating on a quantum level (from physicist Roger Penrose), but still no reason to believe that if there is a ghost in the machine, that it can survive without the machine (the brain).
>Do I believe? Not 100%, but I don’t blindly discount. If you want
>obvious hoaxers, check out “Ghost Adventures” or “Most Haunted” on
>the shameless Travel Channel.
Never seen those, but if you want deluded young people living in their own fantasy world, check out Paranormal State.
>F: Tom, it’s not nice to call people stupid. Your eloquent post
>doesn’t exactly scream “genius”.
What word should he use to label people who continue to believe even after something’s been exposed (repeatedly) as a hoax?
- I have watched (yet again) the video analyses of the jacket incident and conclude (yet again) that the only thing they prove is that Grant’s right hand was fidgeting in or near his pocket during the incident. While this may cast doubt on the “evidence” it certainly proves nothing. Much like Jason & Grant’s “evidence” itself proves nothing. In the end nothing was proven, one way or the other, and a lot of debate was had by all. If you can point me to a video where a hoax is indisputable, such as this lamp with a string you speak of (which could also have been rigged by the owners of the property come to think, so it would still not prove the GH team frauds), I would gladly watch.
- I have not heard of this incident with a former employee claiming he was dressed up as that figure. First of all many of the “apparitions” they have captured and those that countless regular people claim to have seen have been wearing some type of clothing, so this (dis)proves nothing. Second of all a disgruntled former employee’s testimony would not hold up in court and neither does it hold up here.
- There have been full-bodied, transparent apparitions captured on video on the show, and very rarely at that. This cannot be achieved by, as you put it, “simple strings” and “throwing things from off-camera”. Their investigation of the Union County Courthouse springs to mind – it’s still up on Hulu. In fact the only way to achieve the appearance of these apparitions would be to doctor the video. All of this is moot however, because like I said previously, the show could employ graphical engineers.
-Just because Jason Hawes mistook a heat reflection for an apparition doesn’t make him a hoaxer. And that goes for any other piece of evidence they let slide through. They don’t strike me as brilliant. Jason says “supposebly”.
-Of course they’re looking for money. Aren’t you? Maybe they’ve resorted to trickery to keep the show interesting, or maybe they’ve been hucksters (and good ones) all along, or maybe not. Who knows? Supposedly they were at it long before SciFi or SyFy or whatever came along, but I can’t substantiate that so I won’t.
-Are the Ghost Hunters still plumbers? Who the hell knows? Probably the Department of Labor in Rhode Island does, feel free to go searching there. They purport to be plumbers, they purport to enjoy it, and if something makes me money and I enjoy it I’m not going to stop either. The scenes in which they are plumbing and get a call from their case manager are obvious recreations (if they ever even happened), evidenced by their terrible acting abilities which I referenced before. So they film in the TAPS bathroom, and? Say for a moment they actually are still plumbers. Do you think they would lug around a camera crew on every job hoping to get a call from TAPS HQ that day? No, they would save money and just recreate it. However poorly.
-Please with the scientific revolution crap. I do know what that is by the way, in case you were confused. It is not a thing we went through already, we are in the midst of it still. There is a reason man is launching craft into space and constructing giant particle colliders. It’s because we don’t actually know everything. Which brings me to my sole apology, I realize now I should have been clearer. I wrote “You know nothing” but meant “You don’t know everything”. Which we don’t, by a long shot, no matter how space-aged we are. How much more will we know 1000, even 100, years from now? Until something has been disproved, such as the obvious example of the world’s flatness, than its converse hasn’t been proved, has it? It’s arrogant to believe we’ve got it all sewn up just because we invented the microchip, or the jet engine, or the satellite, or the Tevo.
-As far as the discussion of brain chemistry vs. soul, that’s quite a can of worms. A personality can alter but I hope we can agree that it never moves too far from the original mark. After all the trauma I’ve been through and drugs I may have taken or been fed, I still feel relatively similar to who I was when I was five. Beyond this I could argue about the soul’s existence for pages, hypothesizing about subatomic building blocks of matter and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox, but the fact remains that there’s still no proof for it, or against it. I don’t believe that the field of physics has advanced enough to give us a definitive on that one.
-Paranormal State sucks too
-I have seen no evidence (yet) of hoaxing and have certainly not been convinced that the incident “Tom” speaks of was a hoax, though it certainly could have been. The hand in the pocket is compelling but not definitive. I’m not an idiot and I continue to watch as a skeptic. I know other smart people who watch as well. Tom’s comment pissed me off because it reeks of arrogance, and he just indirectly called me, my girlfriend and some good friends stupid. Which makes him a douche in my book. And you seem like an intelligent person so I’m all the more sorry that you agree with him. In fact I find him a bit stupid for seeing the hoax evidence as definitive, but I didn’t want to be all negative and whatnot. Guess that’s out the window.
-I do not know if TAPS are on the level. I never said they definitively are. I just have seen some stuff that’s hard, but not impossible, to fake, and some amateur TAPS-debunking videos on Youtube that are about as conclusive, if not less so, than the show itself.
Interesting discussion.
An earlier statement by Dave was “If you’ve ever bothered to watch with any regularity you would realize that they have captured evidence which is impossible to recreate physically.”
But this is then recounted later: “I do not know if TAPS are on the level. I never said they definitively are. I just have seen some stuff that’s hard, but not impossible, to fake,”
I’m a little confused…some of their best findings are impossible to recreate or not? From experience, kind of defending Dave’s point, even the recreation of evidence (e.g. Uri Geller’s spoon-bending) does not say definitively that’s how it was originally done. But the fact it has been recreated means there is significant doubt about the evidence being paranormal – that is science. Leave aside the fact that GH is now a huge money-making franchise and just focus on the evidence, none of it is definitive. Also look at percentages – look at the percentage of cases where they completely debunk the haunting or do NOT find something they insinuate is paranormal and you’ll find it is the majority of cases…surprising considering their purported “debunking” approach…but then that’s simple rhetoric to make the alleged paranormal activity more convincing (my opinion).
Sorry…in re-reading I realised I made a glaring error:
I said: “Also look at percentages – look at the percentage of cases where they completely debunk the haunting or do NOT find something they insinuate is paranormal and you’ll find it is the majority of cases…surprising considering their purported “debunking” approach…”
I meant to say: “you’ll find it is the MINORITY of cases”.
Interesting indeed.
I have not seen recreations of any of their “evidence” that actually looked anything remotely close to what they caught. That does not mean that it wasn’t some sort of forgery on their part.
Also, what I said was they have captured evidence which is impossible to recreate physically. This is true, but digitally it would be possible to fake. So I don’t believe the statements contradict each other.
As far as the percentage question goes, I would say that the producers want at least one haunting per episode. Quite often the first location has activity and the second doesn’t. Sometimes it’s just one location for the whole show, unfailingly with activity. Sometimes it’s two “haunted” locations in a row. I would agree that it’s about a 75/25 percentage split between locations that have purported activity and those that don’t. But this can be explained by the producers choosing not to air too many cases which their viewers might find uninteresting. People are tuning in to see ghosts and complain on message boards and such when they are showing too many debunked cases. It makes sense that they’re choosing the best cases they can to air and padding out the rest of the show with debunking filler.
Wow! For a group of people who seem to really dislike this show, you much spend a lot of time watching it to know so much about it. I find that interesting.
Ghost Hunters rocks. Everybody knows it.
fakes !
I have to say I wish it didn’t take me as long as it did to fing Ghost Hunters. I have alway’s loved the paranormal or unexplained and now I’m hooked. Seems they all like eachother (wish Steve would loosen up a bit with Tango) but they all seem to have a good chemistry. Jason and Grant make the show and just absolutely would never miss this show now (DVR is programmed).