“Ghost Hunters”

American Television Program

For someone who hates horror and scary things, I LOVE “Ghost Hunters.” And just like the paranormal, there’s no true explanation for it. Beginning as a Syfy (back then it was Sci Fi Channel) show in 2004, a reality camera crew follows paranormal investigators as they travel to investigate alleged haunted locations throughout America. Through night vision, voice recorders, energy detectors, and a bunch of tools that were probably stolen from electricians, the teams are able to either capture or not the existence of other worldly entities.

I think it is a combination of the history, the science, and the fact that the teams don’t just chase shadows in the night. They actually try to disprove claims. And the are rarely scared of anything. Except spiders. Now of course, no one wants to watch an hour-long show where grown adults talk to the air, so the producers make sure SOMETHING shows up on their evidence.

I need to give props to several people who work on this show. First, the cameramen. Any cameraman who follows someone around for 12 hours into dark, possibly dangerous, definitely disturbing areas deserves a Nobel Prize. As does anyone who has to edit dozens of hours of footage to make it interesting. And not just video, the audio too, since the paranormal teams use both audio and video recordings on their investigations.

Tonight was the show’s fall premiere. In it, the team goes to a family’s home in Arkansas. The Southern ones are always interesting. Well, actually so are the Northeast ones. And the Coastline ones. Okay, all Americans with haunted houses are interesting. The family (self-admitted skeptics turned freaked-out homeowners) bought an early 20th century mansion with the hopes of fixing it up and not at all raising depressed spirits. However, these things happen, and they call in the “Ghost Hunters” to prove they are not crazy.

Through some investigation, the owners and the investigators find out that a woman who lived in the house waited for decades on a married man who never kept his promise. She supposedly committed suicide after her beloved finally wrote her a letter that said, “Yeah, I’m done. Never leaving my wife. Sorry about stringing you along for so long!”

Sad story, but was it enough to make her spirit haunt this family who looks like perfectly nice Americans just trying to renovate a haunted house? The investigators were also told of reports of  “doppelgangers” which are look-a-like ghosts who I assume exist to freak you out, but also there to take over your body. Even the paranormal investigators said, that’s a little outside even our realm of possibility.

The team was able to capture some voices and shadows, but nothing as substantial as I’ve seen in the past on this show. One of my favorite things about the show is how hard they try to make a claim “debunkable.” I like it even more when they say “debunkable” because it’s a silly word.

As one of my guilty pleasures, I will continue to watch this show until there is no more haunted places to investigate. I just hope the show lasts long enough that the investigators encounter a ghost who was a fan of the show when they were alive. Circle of (after)life.