Saturday, February 13, 2010

Ghost Hunters - Ridiculousness at its Finest


So i am sure you've all seen an episode or at least a commercial for the Sci-fi channels original series Ghost Hunters, you know the one that seems like its filmed entirely in night vision. Well if you ever had the blessing of watching this show you might be more than surprised at how amusing it is, well at least to someone like my self who enjoys watching grown men make fools of themselves on national TV.
The show in a nutshell, for those of you who haven't seen it, is about a group of "Paranormal Investigators" how travel to notoriously "haunted" spots around the world try to capture images or otherwise prove the existence of "ghosts". This in turn sounds genuine enough, but once you see there methods it becomes quite clear why i chose this as a posting.
From the episodes ive seen, the show quickly becomes entertaining after they reach there destinations. As expected they wait for nightfall to start using the plethora of paranormal detection devices and recording equipment, but that's the boring part, the fun stuff is when the lead investigators try to taunt the ghost into showing itself, and then by some miracle one of them will start feeling cold, or perhaps feel something brush by them.
As expected at the end of each show, nothing is resolved. Any blip on a photo is "suggested" to be of paranormal origin but never proven. Any strange sounds recorded are automatically assumed to be the voices of the dead, but not a shred of actual science is ever used to back this show up. Im guessing that they believe that infrared cameras are all the proof they need, which i guess is true judging by there fan base.
My point to this is that it seems no-one cares whether or not things are real, or work, or exist as long as they can stimulate the imagination. It just bothers me that these guys are making enormous amounts of money screaming in the dark and peddling none sense, and im going to be struggling in the real market trying to make ends meet. This guy wrote a great article about the show Brian Ettkin. It really goes to show how little talent is needed to make it big in this country.

5 comments:

  1. I have to admit that i do watch the show ghost hunters for two reasons. The first reason is because of the awesome locations they go to in order to locate these "ghosts" and the second reason is because i hope that one day ill actually be able to hear a ghost. everytime i watch the show one of the host guys says "did you hear that? the ghost said its name in this piece of audio!" Everytime i hear one of them say that i feel like i should go see a doctor about my hearing because i always seem to miss the message. I agree with you Dre Ferrer, just because a photo has a weird mark on it, doesnt mean there is a ghost. and little noises such as a drop of rain falling on the floor shouldnt be consider the ghost of Hilter. People do tend to believe what they want to believe even if there is no hard evidence to back it up. I hope one day a ghost actually says in a clear voice, "Hey yeah I'm a ghost now can you please leave?!?" Kudos on the blog, I was hoping someone would write about the ghost hunters!

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  2. It's all about entertainment. Viewers don't really care if it's true or not, even if they say they do. You just have to make it look good. These guys are pretty good actors though, sometimes it actually does seem pretty real, but for some odd reason they always see or hear something, and the camera either doesn't turn fast enough to see it or it doesn't pick up the sounds. Oh well, we'll just take your word that something was there.

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  3. I completely agree with you Dre. Why do we need to spend years in school when we can make a ton of money screaming at spirits? The episodes I have actually viewed (usually by accident) were complete nonsense. Although they were somewhat entertaining, as you stated- there is just no science to back up their ridiculous claims. If only we knew it was that easy to line our wallets 4 years ago..

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  4. I have only seen the show a few times, but like Kelly said "It's all about entertainment". It is kind of funny how hard the Ghost Hunters try and make the viewer believe that they saw or heard a ghost. Maybe one day the will get a ghost on film.

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  5. Ghost Hunters is a very interesting show, it has a great entertainment value, many people are worried about the unknown and they put things into a perspective that is easy to understand and is not frightening.Even though some of the methods that they employ are not the most scientifically proven, they say it themselves on their TV show that non of what they are doing is a proven science. That everything is in fact hypothetical. Another fun fact about this post is that the picture you have posted is actually from a TV show on the Travel Network called Ghost Adventures, not Ghost Hunters from the SyFy network.

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