Get Your Freak-Out On

One of my TV addictions (and I have so many!) is Sci-Fi's Ghosthunters show. It doesn't run often, but when it does, it's usually pretty good, so I'm recommending this show to anybody who likes the supernatural (even if it doesn't come with Jensen Ackles) or wants to debunk it.

It's run by two guys, Jason and Grant, who work for Roto-Rooter in Rhode Island somewhere (I think that's where they are). They have a fluctuating staff, and they drive around the country investigating sightings. They use electronic equipment to look into reported hauntings, and sometimes they find something and sometimes they don't. Sometimes they figure out that the reason the person feels uneasy in his house is because (like in one case) his electrical box is 'leaking' and that apparently can cause headaches. This same guy had his basement set up so that the shelf containing all his chemicals and paints was unfortunately right below the air vent, and it was blowing toxins all throughout the house. So they debunked that haunting right there, but I think the guy was pretty relieved.

But sometimes they come up with the freakiest sh*t. The episode called "haunted lighthouse" features the team 'chasing' someone up and down the stairs of the lighthouse - someone who doesn't set off the motion detector lights at the top. Last week's episode featured some amazing EVPs (electronic voice phenomenon, which is sound captured on audio tape but not heard at the time) of a little girl asking "Who is Jason?" and singing to herself. Another episode featured a guy who lived in the house his grandparents used to live in, and the team captured some EVPs that led them to think the grandparents were still hanging around but not in any malicious sense. That guy seemed happy to have them still there.

Yeah, this stuff can be faked. OF COURSE it can. But I like to think that since these guys make a point of debunking stuff, that the stuff they can't debunk can possibly be the real thing. Or we just don't know how to debunk it yet. Anyway, it's just entertainment, and sometimes when they take a freaky picture or capture something odd on the thermal camera (that's my favorite), it just makes the hair on my neck stand on end. (See the Civil War soldier episode. If that doesn't freak you out, not much will.)

PS - Another good show, by the way, is Mythbusters on Discovery. A show where sh*t blows up. (You should have seen them decimate a concrete truck with explosives. There was nothing left.) More maniacal laughter please!