Review: Ghost Hunters Episode 807: Frighternity

Since the channel where Haunted Highway airs up here in Canada, Space, isn’t re-airing the Haunted Highway show, I thought I’d branch out and try and review a few episodes of the infamous and long running Ghost Hunters show. However, a quick search of wikipedia tells me that this episode, Frighternity, originally aired back in April of this year, even if it’s only airing as “new” here in Canada yesterday night. Not surprising, but still somewhat disappointing.

Like Haunted Highway and Fact or Faked, Ghost Hunters features two separate investigations; on tonight’s episode, the first, as it’s name suggests, is fraternity house at the University of Rhode Island, Kingston RI, which is maintained by the Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity. The second case involves an investigation into the supposed hauntings of USCDC Taney, a cutter in the United States Coast Guard, and notably the only still floating (if decommissioned) ship from the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Haunted Fraternity

The segment starts off with Grant Wilson mentioning that he was intending to leave the TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society) team for personal reasons, followed by comments from the rest of the team about this change in pace. Thankfully, they don’t spent too much time on this, although I’m sure a more regular fan of the show might be more interested in this, especially if one is a fan of Grant Wilson.

The case begins with the team, in their three (!) vehicles headed persumably to the Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity house, Amy Bruni is asked to give out some of the background information, such as when the house was build, when it was bought by the fraternity (1936), etc. The paranormal aspect comes in with the fraternity members reporting paranormal activity in the form of a little girl who supposedly fell to her death and now haunts the place. The girl’s name is reportedly Abigail, and reports include doors being held shut, bedsheets being pulled off, footsteps/movement in the attic, etc.

One thing I find particularly interesting about reported hauntings is that, unusually, the ghosts appear to have names, and, unusually, the names tend to be somewhat similar. For example, In the “Asylum Apparition” segment of episode 210, in which the spirit’s name is Timmy. Similarly, Abigail appears to be a name that comes up a lot.

But onward with the case. The first task, like with HH and FoF, is to interview someone. In this case it’s one Shane Dugan, the representative of the chapter house, who gives some of the history of the home. During the 1800s, the house was owned by the Governor, and the Fraternity bought it off of his daughter, who’s own daughter apparently fell to her death on a set of stairs. After speaking with Dugan, he takes them on a short tour of the house, starting with where it is believed that the little girl died, the “secret stairwell” (it appears to be a set of back stairs) that most of the members feel uncomfortable, being watched or as if they don’t belong. He also mentions that at he bottom of the stairwell there was a message of “help me” that continued to reappear even after he painted over it. He finally plastered over the words, and so far they haven’t reappeared. I’m glad to see that both Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson appear to be a little be skeptical about the paranormal nature of the words on the wall– as well as the legend. As Dugan points out, the Abigail stories is something of a fraternity folklore, and it’s pointed out that they’ll have their investigators looking into the background of the home.

To me, it seems that the whole “Help me” sign is most likely a prank being pulled, rather than anything paranormal. After all, it is a fraternity.

The tour continues with Dugan telling of how, in room 7, a brother saw a woman and Dugan mentions his old room, 16, in which he once experienced his door slamming and his bedsheets being pulled off. Next is a tale of a brother who, while showering alone in the 2nd floor bathroom, he emerged to discover the words “Welcome back” written on one of the mirrors of the room. The then head to  the attic, where they once had a pool table. At times one might hear sticks hitting the ground or a ball rolling across the floor, but of course the room was empty. This area appear to be mostly sounds, although one brother claims to have seen something. Finally, as Amy mentioned, the doors in the basement sometimes appear to feel as if they’re being held shut.

With their equipment set up, they start to investigate by turning off all the lights (for some reason), and Jason and Grant head up to the attic to begin their investigation. They set up a device designed to measure electromagnetic fields and temperature, with alarms included when those begin to change. They place it on a table, they begin asking questions to the spirit, and soon they hear “voices”, then their device starts to go off. the pick up the device and start sweeping it around until they find a spot. The two men claim they hear a voice or a groan, but I can’t hear it.

Meanwhile the Amy and Adam Berry are in the basement and star hearing a popping noise of some sort but the two feel that it came from two different directions.

Next we jump to Steve Gonsalves and Dave Tango who are investigating the bedrooms. At room 16 they discover the door (which Dugan says slammed on him after he felt his bedsheets getting tugged) closes by itself, due to a spring. The Spring is powerful enough that doorstop that is poorly placed, would not be able to stop it. As they note, it seems to disprove any sort of paranormal activity with his door. After they stand at the doorways and see if they can make the ghost appear by talking to it. Nothing happens.

Grant and Jason move on to the second story bathroom where the writing appears. Grant writes the word TAPS on one of the mirror and they turn on the showers. sure enough as the glass steams up, the words appear. This is for the same reason as fingerprinting works. The human skin produces a lot of oil, and although invisible most of the time, it doesn’t mean it’s not there. So long as the mirrors weren’t cleaned, the words (or handprints, or whatever) will show up. So, solidly debunked.

We return to Amy and Adam, who are now in the attic and doing their own investigation. I like that multiple groups of people are making multiple sweeps of the same areas, but I’m less than pleased to see that the individual pairs communicated their findings to one another. Ideally keeping the others in the dark provide, at least a little bit, of insulation from one set of events influencing another. Keep in mind that by telling this group about their own “strange experiences” they’re priming them to misunderstand noises they might otherwise dismiss as paranormal. Anyway, after a few moments in the attic, they hear a noise from down stairs and go to investigate, but find nothing. they report it as a door slamming and the sound of someone running, but if that was the case it wasn’t picked up very well by the camera’ mic. The man on base camp reports no one entered or exited the area on the cameras, and the other team was in the basement at the time.

Grant and Jason move on to investigate the stairwell where the death supposedly occurred, and there’s a sense of unease, not to mention the writing of “Help me” on the wall. Using a K2 meter, they examine the wall and find there’s a strong magnetic field there. A K2 meter is a brand name of a type of EMF (electromagnetic field) measurement device. The reading goes up to 8.0 on the meters they used. Jason then suggests that this magnetic field maybe responsible for the uneasy feeling people receive while in that part of the house. In medical science, there has been research done into Transcranial magnetic stimulation, which is the stimulation of the brain using magnetic fields. The problem is, these fields are extremely strong, and very unlikely to form naturally or by accident due to a electrical problem. While there is some discussion of a similar effect being generated with much weaker fields, like the so-called “God Helmet”, this too seems to be an unlikely case. With the God helmet in particular, there has been a difficulty in replicating the results.

Moving on, Steve and Tango go up to the attic this time, and they start talking out to Abigail. As they’re harassing the poor ghost-girl, they hear a noise from one of the corners. And after they ask about whether she was made if the house was now a fraternity they hear two of something. To me, and at least one of the pair, it sounded like wood being scraped, but it was also thought they were some sort of breathing noise.

Either way, it’s time to wrap the investigation up. They return to their office and talk over the evidence they gathered, including a knocking sound they recorded while talking about a red light that doesn’t admit any heat. Yeah, I don’t know what they were talking about at the time either. With the evidence reviewed, they meet with their client Shane Dugan. They present the evidence, but then they drop a bombshell in the form of background research; they couldn’t find any record of anyone dying on the property, especially not anyone named Abigail. This isn’t particularly surprising to me, there’s many cases of old buildings where no one has died in them.

Comments

I feel as if this whole case could be explained away by a couple of brothers trying to screw with the minds of the other members of the house, as well as the age and general state of the house, which appeared to be fairly messy. Old houses settle and make noise while doing so, and more importantly it wouldn’t surprise me if there was some sort of rat infestation in the house as well, or squirrels. One thing that’s always struck me as odd about ghost hunting shows is the strange obsession with turning out all the lights. Most of the reported paranormal activity, most of the time, doesn’t appear to happen while the lights are out, and more to the point turning and lights on would likely reduce the possibility to rodents wandering around in the walls or similar.

With the Case closed, they move onto the next one:

USCDC Taney

Like before, they start off in their vehicle convoy by asking Amy to tell them some of the ship’s history, followed by details on what has been experience on the ship, such a male figures in uniform, lights going on and off, and voices on board the ship.

With that in mind, they meet with Patrick Aquia, the Logistics Coordinator for the ship, and he details a bit more of the history of the vessel, Once that’s done, they start on the standard tour of the area’s hot spots, beginning with the bridge of the cutter, where Aquia tells the story of a Kamikaze pilot who survived his attack and was pulled out of the water only to die a bit later from his injuries. He mentions that sometimes a voice speaking japanese is heard, as well as the equipment sounding like it’s running when it’s not. They ask if there’s any names associated with the ship, and Aquia brings up one “Captain Coffin” (Oh my!). I feel like this ought to be looked into more. While it’s true he was a fist captain, it’s not clear if he died on the ship or what. Anyway, after the bridge it’s on to the Captains quarters. Here people report feeling like they’re not supposed to be there, as wll as footsteps on the deck outside and figures walking past the portholes. Next it’s a boiler room, with “mechanical noises”. They end in the Berthing area, where bunk-trunks are sometimes heard opening and shadow figures are seen.

They start off in the Captains quarters, and Grant and Jason start by asking out loud questions to the captain, and hear a “bosun whistle” although it’s not audible on the camera’s mics, and coming from above them. They head up to the bridge and whip out their EMF reader with alarms, and it starts going off. As it does, the reading disappears, only to reappear elsewhere on the bridge. They follow it around for a while and it appears to head back down to the captain’s quarters, along with footsteps.

The two discuss things for a moment, and as Jason makes a comment about “a lot of frustrated” and bangs his fist on… something, not sure what it is, they both hear something. They say it sounded like laughter, but to me it sounded much more like an argument or similar being carried out. I’ve never been to Baltimore, but given they were on the waterfront, it doesn’t strike me as impossible that they might be hearing people outside just having a good time. As they continue to look over the bridge, the door suddenly bangs, as if someone was trying to open the door. To me, this feels very much ike a gust of wind pulling on the door and making it move in it’s frame. I doubt it’s a perfect seal, so there’s likely some wiggle room.

Scott and Tango are now in the captain quarters, and suddenly they start to hear what sounds like switches being thrown. This continues for a while and call the other members of the team and discuss the noises, which are occurring all over, at least in the operating room. The topic of heat moving through the pipes is brought up, and to me this seems to be a likely explanation. Keep in mind that despite what they’ve been told, the ship isn’t, in all likelihood, completely non functional. The lights, for example still work, which suggests things like the heater might as well.

They move on to the berthing area, where they start to hear metal on metal sounds. Naturally they head inward to investigate. The sounds sound like scratching noise, so much so they can isolate it to one bunk but can’t find anything, they then experience a rolling sound of some sort and wonder if there’s any voices recorded on the tape. We then move on the Brent and Adam, who are in the boiler room. Adam feels he he saw a shadow moving in front of them, which has been reported. They continue on and notice on of the chains appears to be moving independently, despite neither of them touching it. Of course, it’s possible they or the cameraman hit it by accident and just didn’t notice. While looking at the chain they hear a noise from behind them.

Excited by this, Grant and Jason head down to the boiler room. as Grant’s about to enter the room he thought he saw a light block out at the end of the hallway. Suddenly they hear a male voice, clearly audible on the tape, then they hear something moving above them. They head upward but find nothing.

With that spookiness concluded, it’s time to head home and review the evidence before meeting with their client. He doesn’t offer much, but he does mention that the voice they heard in the boiler room sounded like it was coming from the PA system.

Comments

I think the most interesting aspects of this case was the wandering EM field on the bridge, and the voice in the Boiler room. Aquia points out that the PA system in the boiler room doesn’t work, but I find myself wondering what exactly is meant by that. In my experience with speakers, it’s possible for some sort sort of noise to be generated, typically a buzzing noise of some sort, so long as there’s power to the device. similarly it is sometimes possible for such a speaker to pick up things like radio waves and produce something that sounds intelligible. Without knowing how exactly the PA system has been made to “not work” it’s impossible to say.

Overall: 3.5/5
Fraternity: 3/5
Ship: 4/5

Review: Fact or Faked: Paranormal files: Episode 302 (26): Bay Area Hysteria/Jersey Shore Haunting

As usual, the team starts by reviewing the videos that they found on the internet, starting with a video of a bright light out over the Bodega bay in California, supposedly of a UFO. Cole suggests it might be the moon, but Hansen informs her that he checked the lunar phase that night, and it was only in a crescent phase, showing some 22% of the moon’s surface. Bill than provides some more background information noting that the area has had it’s ‘share of UFO encounters’ and notes some UFO researchers suggest that UFOs are attracted to these locations because they need to ‘recharge’ or take in energy from the environment. And Austin brings up some believe the place is an “energy vortx”

I want to pause here and comment about something that comes up a lot in passing, and something that’s always bugged me about these sorts of shows, naming the so-called “energy vortex” notion. There’s a serious problem with paranormal and UFOlogists confusing evidence with theories, or evidence gathering with theories. A good example of this is bring along psychics or mediums when doing a ghost hunt. Mediumship isn’t something that has any proof of existing, and looking for, or trying to prove the existence of something using something else that’s factually suspect is almost always a bad idea. Unless it can be shown that energy vortexes exist, whatever they’re suppose to be, it’s better just to stick to the evidence you have and can verify, like videos or EMF readings or photographs or whatever else.

Besides, this seems to be ignoring the rather glaring obvious fact that if UFOs are using some sort of Fusion reaction, they’re probably just sucking up the water for it’s hydrogen content.

Anyway, rant over, on to the next possible investigation they review, this one is from Bill. It’s a video by two fishermen who capture a video of what seems to be a “Dark hooded figure of demonic origin that stalks people in their sleep,” Or so Bill tells us. I find myself wondering what exactly such an entity would be doing in the daylight, on a lake, but I suppose even otherworldly evils like to go water skiing or so. The team dismisses the video on two grounds- first, the lack of paranormality about it. It strongly appears to just be a guy in a cloak running along the shore. And, as Jael points out, in one frame it’s pretty clear there’s a white, humanoid leg coming out of the cloak. Sorry demon dream man, no investigation for you!

This clip is followed by one from Lanisha, filmed in the old Paramount theatre by the Garden State Ghost hunting society. The footage is of the backstage corridor of the theatre, and, while they saw nothing paranormal with their eyes, when they looked at their FLIR, they found a cold spot, in a humanoid shape at the end of the hallway. The team’s impressed and they ask for the details of the paranormal history. The Theatre served as a makeshift morgue at one point for the victims of the SS Morro Castle which sank September 8, 1934. In addition, there was also a fire that killed several of the performers, leading to reports of strange noises and similar things.

The final possible investigation is of a series of photographs from a high school auditorium, which apparently depicts a ghost sitting in one of the seats. Cole points out that this could be a double exposure, or if indeed the photographs are even supposedly polaroids as claimed. Needless to say, they dismiss it, and as you may have guessed, they lock in the Bay Area UFO and the JerseyShore haunting.

<strong>Bay Area Hysteria</Strong>

They meet with the witness and interview him, he shows them where he spotted the ball of light, and where he filmed it from. They ask what caught his eye about the object, what made him think it was unusual, and he says that it seemed unusually bright, unlike fishing lights he had seen in the past on boats coming in and out of the bay. They then find out that it eventually faded out into the fog. Finally Jael borrows the camera he used.

The first possibility they test is helicopter’s search light, they wait until night falls and get to work with Austin in the helicopter. They turn the light on and create a video that doesn’t really look much like the light they had originally, Firstly, the light isn’t as defuse as it should be, and secondly they can hear the helicopter motor even from the great distance it’s away. So they move on to something else.

Plan B involves them going to a small spit of land out on the bay and setting up an illuminated balloon, using a Hydraryrum medium-Arc idodie Lamp. The idea is to float the balloon high up into the air and light up the night. It takes a while to get the balloon ready, but once it is at the correct height, the problem becomes apparent. This sort of balloon technology is intended to provide illumination in an area, and because of brightness of the balloon, the ground equipment becomes lit up.

One thing I should point out, and I have pointed out in one of my previous reviews is that, one of the problems with replicating some of these videos is always going to be the weather. In this case, the video was shot on a foggy night, but the team is trying to recreate it on a clear night. A dense fog might defuse the light from the balloon in such away that the ground becomes impossible to see.

Anyway, after the You Decide, they’re back in the situation room discussing the evidence, and eventually they show a third experiment they conducted off screen with a sodium spotlight on a fishing boat, and surprise, surprise it’s the closest they got to the original video, despite what the witness claimed.

On to the Paramount Theatre!

<strong>Jersey Shore Haunting</strong>

They meet with Bonny and Dave, members of the Garden State Ghost Hunters society, and those on the team that was leading the investigation into the theatre that night when the thermal images were captured. They tell a number of stories and experiences such as shadow people on the stage and activity like objects being tossed around or earrings being ripped out of ears, and like. The FoF team is then shown to the hallway where the video was originally filmed, and Dave mentioned that the recording system attached to the FLIR wasn’t functioning at the time of the recording, so Dave’s over-shoulder video of the FLIR’s view screen is the only record of it. I think this is an important fact, and one to keep in mind. Anyway, as noted in the situation room, nothing could be seen with the naked eye, and as they approached the apparition, it disappeared. This is important too.

After borrowing their equipment, they set up their first experiment; a cold pocket of the air. As they note, there’s a number of pipes throughout the hallway, including AC ones with holes in them. So they decide to test this using compressed CO2, and set it up at the end of the hallway and start to release the cold air. I liked this experiment, but it didn’t replicate the video.

They think on it, and decide to try and hoax it with a person in a cooling blanket and draped over a person. This strikes me as a long shot, but what I can say, they have to test something. Despite my misgivings, it turns out it replicates the original video pretty good, but as they note it doesn’t the appendage and the it’s not wholly humanoid.

And that’s when Cole drops a bombshell, and a very beautiful one at that. She points out that they’ve been focusing a lot on the physical environment, and not enough on the FLIR itself. As I mentioned before, the recording device wasn’t functioning at the time, this means they either had broken equipment, or they didn’t know how to use the equipment they had. The model of FLIR the Garden State Ghost Hunters society team was using that night has a short focal range.

Think of the camera sort of like someone who suffers from myopia. The camera can focus and read the temperature of objects within  certain range, after that the computer, which does the post processing of the sensor data coming in on it’s IR sensors, struggles to make head or tails of the information it’s receiving, but it tries it’s best.

The model of FLIR has a range of 15 to 20 feet, but the hallway itself is some 130 feet long. In other words, it’s probable the cold spot is nothing but an artefact. To be sure, the team tests this idea out. Not surprisingly it’s an exact match. Moral of this story? Know. Your. Equipment. If you don’t know what your tech is capable of, you’re going to get false positives like this all the time.

I personally really liked this segment of the show, and it’s part of the reason I was inspired to try and do reviews of these shows to begin with, both because it’s such a complete replication, and because it goes to show why you need to know your equipment to do ghost hunting.

Since the mystery’s solved, they decide to spend the rest of the night doing a night investigation. They have the usual spread of IR cameras, one in the projection room, one in the audience seating, one in the room where the dancers died in the fire, and one, along with a FLIR camera, set up in the hallway. This camera is also accompanied by a “High power laser detection grid”, the intend is to try and see if anything is moving through the hallway. I like this, I wonder why they don’t use it more often.

Devin’s on monitor duty, and Bill heads up to the dressing room, and he sets up an EVP session in the room. Cole to the projection room and does a sweep with the FLIR camera. She notices a hot spot of some sort. After a closer look, however, it turned out to be nothing more than a mouse. Suddenly the whole team starts hearing sounds, which can’t be identified, apparently coming from the ceiling. Meanwhile the laser grid seems to be going off, with lights blinking on and off.

It’s back to the situation room for the wrap, and Bill presents his EVP session, which doesn’t show anything special beyond the knocking noises they could hear with their own ears. They also talk a bit about the laser grid, which was set up with a single laser and a beam splitter.

<strong>Comments</strong>

I liked this segment a lot, both because of how they showed how the “ghost” came into being, and because they featured some interesting technology. Now, I find the idea of using a laser grid to help detect something passing through an area an interesting one, but I can’t help but wonder if the reason certain lasers were being blotted out had to do with falling dust or other similar accidental things getting in the way. I think the ideal way of using a laser grid, if one intends to use it, it to have the grid itself much, much tighter so one can have a better idea of what’s breaking the beam.

<strong>Rating: Overall: 4/5

Bay Area Hysteria: 4/5

JerseyShore haunting: 4/5</strong>

 

 

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Review of Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files 210 (22): “Asylum Apparition/Mystery Over Mexico”

I want to preface this review by commenting that I’m aware that I’ve sort of fell behind, there’s many more episode than there are of me and my DVR is filling up faster than I can write the reviews.

But moving on: tonight, on FoFPF, one spooky mystery and… a rather silly Mexican UFO sighting. As I said in my past review of the prior episode “Sinister Spirals/Flying Saucers” the UFO segments tend to be the weakest of the investigations these guys conduct, if only because they’re almost always incredibly uninteresting cases.

In the situation room, a bunch of videos are presented as normal: first a “fleet” of UFOs over Guadalajara, Mexico. This is followed by a film, reportedly made around the time of the supposed rosewell crash that depicts an Alien “Skinny Bob”… I’m not really sure what it’s suppose to be doing, hanging out I guess. It gets rejected because as Cole points out, given that the film looks as if it was shot with 8mm film– something that ought to make the alien’s movements choppy, rather than the fluid movements that they are in the film. The next clip is of Bigfoot shot on a mobile camera in the Cascade mountains of DC by hikers. This is ultimately rejected because the eyewitnesses didn’t see anything until they reviewed the footage and on how easy it would be to replicate. Frankly, given the number of times they’ve gone after ghost cases where the witness only found out about the paranormal activity after developing the case, it’s a bit of a silly reason. But I do think it would be too easy to recreate. The final (two) videos are from the Waverly hills Sanatorium, a sort of specialized hospital for TB patients before they had any idea how to treat TB. Naturally, a lot of them died. The first video is an awful thermal camera image of… something sort of bubbling into existence and than walking into a room. The second is of a ball moving on it’s own. Since this is suppose to be one of the most haunted places in the world (Strange how it would be in America) it’s obvious that it’s getting locked in.

With their choices picked, it’s off they go!

Asylum Apparition

The first thing the team does upon arriving is speak with the manager of the facility, Tina Mattingly. Now, before I go on,I wish to raise something important. While a harder skeptic might argue that most of these mysteries can be explained away as hoaxes or similar, I tend to fall more on the side that these people are just honest individuals who’ve seen something strange. While I don’t wish to accuse Mattingly of lying or similar, I feel it’s important to point out that since the Sanstorium is, in essence, a tourist attraction, it seems that any paranormal investigator needs to be causous and consider the possibility that what they see or hear might be the result of deliberate rigging or hoaxing to make the investigation show up positive results. Unlikely, perhaps, but something that should be kept in mind when visiting locations and doing investigations where commercial interests are at stake.

Moving on: she starts off with a tour of the place, starting with the “body chute” a chute/hallway used for extract the bodies from the fallacy so the other patients didn’t see the dead bodies. Next is the children’s ward, and they discuss briefly “Timmy” the ghost of a boy who interacts with people by moving balls or flashlights that on command will be turned on and off, as well as full bodied apparitions, etc. Mattingly moves on to discuss a nurse who apparently killed herself by hanging.

They get started right away on the ball experiment by shutting windows– not a bad idea, but they seem to be forgetting that the windows might not be perfectly sealed, and thus drafts might be oozing through the room. Anyway they drop the ball and right away it starts moving. As pointed out, the floor isn’t even, but doesn’t reproduce the movement that they see in the video. Next they try a wind test– the ball moves, but along grooves in the floor. They give up and decide to go off to try and replicate the other video– and in doing so they reveal something important and troubling; a fan. As you can see in the poor quality picture, there’s a fan in the corner of the room– the opposite corner from where the ball moved from the “wind”. While I realize that it may have been a windless night where they were, a fan probably isn’t going to replicate the effects of wind on the ball. Frankly, I feel like they just wanted to get to the night investigation.

Now, with the second video (or rather the first they’re doing them out of order) they have two heat signatures, which the witness says he shot with an old “vintage black and white thermal camera”, to which Cole says they have a “similar” camera in their armory. Now, here’s a problem. Given the way the witness described his camera, if feels that it’s likely old, and old technology. certainly the picture quality in in the tank, and it makes me wonder what the physical limitations of the camera is– or if what they’re seeing is simply a head-signature artefact generated by a breakdown of the camera and the length of the hallway. In another episode they found that a cold spot was generated in a very similar manner, due to the length of the hallway and the camera’s range limit.

The first test involves the two guys walking in and out of a room. Surprisingly, they get something that looks sort of similar an mysterious. It’s not an exact replication but as I noted, it’s not the same camera. The eyewitness also admits that he was with a group of people that night– so it’s not out of the realm of possibility. There’s something else I’m noticing as they do the side-by-side comparison– it seems that there was light or something coming in through the windows as the original footage was filmed– remember, whenever possible, try to control for as many things as possible when redoing an experiment!

Next they use space heaters, they set them up but, with them in the hallway they can see them, so they move them inside the doorway. they turn them on and to their surprise they actually manage to see some heat being forced into the hallway on their camera. An interesting result but not one that replicates the film. Lazily, they decide they can’t replicate it at all so it’s time for a night time investigation.

They decide to split up with and divide their equipment, one taking a FLIR the other a EMf reader and so forth, and head to differently locations, along with their usual IR cameras- one outside, one in the children’s room, one in the hallway where the footage was found, one in the body chute, etc.

Cole goes to talk with Timmy, including a ball, Ben Hensen heads to the death chute and sets up an EVP secession while Austin watches them both. Cole sets up the ball and asks Timmy to move the ball. It moves! Hensen meanwhile does the same thing, but with a “sensitive flashlight” Like the ball, it appears to respond (turn on) in response to questions. I’ve owned similar flashlights before, and they tend to be very sensitive indeed; so much so that they sometimes turn themselves on; but it’s not particularly paranormal. The gap between the two parts of the circuit are likely close enough that they can ionize the space between them and spark, completing the circuit temporarily. The fact that it appears to respond to the question is likely just a coincidence.

With the ball, I really wish the team had brought something to check if the building was settling. It’s certainly old enough, and given the temperature changes between night and day it seems possible. Whether that would account for the ball movement is another thing all together.

Anyway, Cole leaves the ball in the corner and starts snapping photographs.

Meanwhile Austin starts hearing noises– and so does Hensen. Cole picks up a EMF reading where the nurse hung herself, without any “electrical devices” near by” (but she’s holding a walkie talkie) and all of a sudden, the ball in the children’s room starts to roll on it’s own and out the door! Shocking!

A good way of retesting this would be to get the ball, but plaster it with, I don’t know, simple pressure sensors. That way if Timmy if in fact moving the ball, the pressure he exerts on the ball ought to show up, where as something like the building shifting wouldn’t.

Anyway, after that, Hensen gets an EMF spike on his meter, and starts to hear pipes clanging up at near the entrance of the hallway. he runs t investigate but there’s nothing there.

Returning to the situation room, the team presents their evidence as before, with Cole showing her EVP session she conducted while with the ball, which turned up a “Sigh” or “gasp” rather unconvincing, if you ask me. They review the ball video again and Cole points out a second ball next to the first that didn’t move at all. Curious, for sure. Not surprisingly, the team concludes that the place is haunted.

I maybe feel like the investigations they conducted were sloppy, and should have been better done. For the night investigation, I’d still would have liked them to have tried to eliminate things like the wind movement or settling of the building.

Either way, on to Mexico!

Mystery Over Mexico

Much like the Sinister spirals segment of the past episode, this seems much like a non-mystery. While the team goes through the motions, first testing the idea that it might have been birds, or whether it was a hoax involving pingpong balls in a pool, they finally hit on what it was– a collection of wedding balloons released into the sky, something that’s local custom.

The problem is, the more you look at the video, the more and more obvious it becomes that it is in fact a bunch of balloons. All the objects appear to be the same general size, all are scattered fairly randomly– not like what one would expect from some sort of organized intelligent fleet of ships, and all of them appear to be moving in the same direction with the wind.

Part of me suspects this episode suffered significantly from editors. It feels like they didn’t do the tests properly in the “Asylum Apparition” segment, because they were hoping to get more out of a night investigation, and while they got some stuff to show, I suspect it wasn’t nearly as much as they wanted, which is why the Mexican UFO case, which while well done in it’s testing was boring and a bit silly, got so much screen time.

Rating: Overall 2.5/5
Asylum Apparition: 2/5
Mystery Over Mexico: 3/5

Review: Haunted Highway Episode 106 (6) “Silver City Ghost Town/Shunka Warakin”

Hello again, on tonight’s episode of Haunted Highway…

Episode six is, sadly, the season last episode of HH’s first season, and like last week Jack Osbourne and Dana Workman aren’t on the show for the same reason as the last episode, Jack has been diagnosed with MS and had to take time off for treatment. Best of luck Jack! Anyway, we get treated to two segments done by Devin and Jael, so fun times all around. Assuming they don’t get eaten by a ghost or something.

First up: “Silver City Ghost Town”:

Silver City turns out to be an old mining town, sort of abandoned, with only Four people live there at all. As the Devin and Jael explain as they head into town, much of the of the activity is supposedly because of murdered individuals in the hotels. Naturally, they decide to set up interviews with the locals, starting with one Roger Nelson who owns the hotel, and shows them the hotspots. In the halls, the Former owner is seen roaming about and as Nelson says he’s not a “happy ghost.” They’re then shown one hallway/wing of the hotel that appears to have completely fallen apart. Finally Nelson shows them a room in which a civil war surgeon died in his sleep. The tour concludes with the room where the former owner committed suicide.

They meet another resident, one Vern Tunnell who owns a Mason’s lodge/ceremonal hall in the town. (and he has a “for sale sign” up lol). Tunnell tells them that when he first bought the hall there was no activity, but he brought in two pillars which new members are supposed to walk through to become members, the activity started. I guess even the dead want to be Stone Masons. He then shows them a small room off of the upper foyer that he refers to as some sort of isolation chamber. Creepy. Naturally they ask if they can spend the night investigating, he agrees even though he’s leaving town.

So they start their night investigation with setting up their IR cameras, some in the hotel, some in the lodge and some on the street. Jael mentions that they have more cameras than they have monitors, and Devin says because the building’s electricity is not on any equipment readings won’t be from that. While this maybe true, they themselves are using a great number of devices that all use electricity and give of EM fields. While it’s possible they devices are set to ignore readings generated by themselves, it’s fairly unlikely that there’s no interference at all.

They start by sweeping the hotel’s 1898 west wing. They go into a few of the rooms and don’t see anything particular, although they find a basement that Nelson didn’t tell them about. After entering the basement, they hear what sounds like foot steps above them and going up the steps. Devin moves to investigate. Nothing on the stairs and the sounds stop as Devin sees the steps. Continuing on, Jael hears noises coming from the other side of a door and when they open it they find a mine shaft (Why a hotel needs a mine shaft I’ll never know), but naturally they go into it. Devin gets a massive EM spike of 1.9. As I mentioned earlier, while there’s no electricity in the building itself, they’re carrying a great deal of EM transmitting equipment with them. It seems possible to me that the dense rock walls of the mine focused this radiation and made the spike appear. Finally they hear something from deeper into the shaft, although I maybe didn’t hear anything; Jael says it sounded like a man laughing. Then they get attacked by a bat!!

Realizing it’s dumb to be in an old mine shaft, they back out and go back to the hotel and out of the basement. Before long they’ve gone into the room where the owner killed himself. Jael notes that it’s cold in the room and Devin sets up a rocking chair in the middle of the room (because he thinks the locals liked to sit in them,) and starts an EVP session. Suddenly the chair starts to rock– then it stops. While they discuss whether the chair was set off because of their movements in the room or if the chair was just settling due to a uneven board, they conclude nothing and move on.

They split up, with Jael going to the lodge, while Devin continues in the hotel. As Devin explores the main hallway, suddenly one of the doors open on it’s own. As he investigates he points out that the latch works on the door and it shouldn’t have opened without someone turning the knob. But it might not have been firmly closed to begin with, so he shuts the door firmly and moves on. But as he walks away, the door opens again.

Jael investigates the hall, and she notices the dinner triangle is moving bck and forth. Probably caused by a breeze.

Devin continues on, and investigates the room where the civil war surgeon died in bed, and one of the lamps in the hallway (I think) moves outward, before slowly swinging back to close-in position against the wall with a clunk. Devin doesn’t see this, but he hears the noise, and he goes to review the IR camera.

Jael investigates the mason isolation room, and does an EVP. Devin watches the wall lamp, then he himself starts an EVP session while laying on a bed in the CWS’s room. They ask their standard battery of tests, and while Jael asks if she should leave/is unwanted, the flap in the isolation room slams down and seals her in the isolation room. She calls for help and Devin comes running. After struggling with the door he finally gets it open. They call it a night.

Conclusions

Jael admits that she’s never been as frightened as she had been when the door slam shut on her and trapped her in the isolation chamber. Sadly, because of the position of the IR camera the actual latch is missing from the frame so we can’t tell what position it was in or if it moved. They review the EVP she recorded. Like the last episode, they appear to hear something on the tap but I myself can’t hear anything. I’m not sure if this is because it’s unenhanced or what. Devin thinks the voice says “never leave” (in response to the question, “do you want met leave?”) and Jael agrees that it might be it when she listens to it again.

They conclude that while it maybe a ghost town, it seems pretty paranormally active.

For me, the most interesting evidence was the door and lamp movement, but I find myself wondering how warped and screwed up the building is, and how this may have effected their results. Keep in mind at least part of the hotel’s interior has been exposed to the elements for a fairly long time.

Next up:

Shunka Warakin

They head to Ennis, Montana to investigate the Shunka Warakin, a “werewolf-like” creature that attacks livestock. It leaves it’s prey horribly mutilated. I’m not sure why they call it a werewolf-like creature, since it doesn’t appear to have any werewolf like features. It’s described as massive and canine with a hunchback like a hyena, it’s named by native americans who reportly first discovered it after it started carrying off their dogs. Which, according to Jael, is more or less what the name translates to. As usual, they meet with an eyewitness, Carmel Woods, for an interview. She witnessed it while working on her garden with her mother, and described it as a massive beast, had a sort of pig face, was running after a herd of elk. When they ask for a location she tells them to go to Beaverhead National Forest.

Devin wants to bait it, so Jael rents/borrows a goat for bait o.o. They put the goat in a wiremesh cage to protect it and they set up. They have IR cameras pointed in various directions with about a ‘square mile coverage’ although I doubt they have that sort of range, They also have two FLIRs, one pointed at their goat and one pointed at the tree line.

After setting up, they split up with Devin doing a valley sweep, and Jael on base camp. Devin sees something up ahead, but Jael doesn’t see anything. Suddenly Devin hears a scream or something (of pain?) and dashes off to where he thought it came from, calling for Jael to come join him. She doesn, and manages to scare the crap out of Devin. Now the two of them are out sweeping the creek. They find some hand-sized tracks, then a bush covered in very warm urine, and Devin says they’re right on it’s trail. Suddenly Devin finds spots of blood on the rocks and some sort of dead animal or animal part.

The goat starts bahing, and they run back. The goat’s okay but they review the FLIR footage To their surprise, they find another heat signature behind the goat, which runs off after a moment. Devin goes to investigate with the FLIR and spots an animal walking about. They go after it, trying to corner it in a pine tree, which doesn’t work out; it’s not behind the tree, but Jael finds a trail leading to what seems to be a den.

They set up an RC car with a camera on it, and send it into the bushes after the creature, after a couple of harrowing moments of grass, they find their quarry; a wild dog.

Conclusions:

There’s no real mystery here, it’s pretty obvious what they spent the night chasing were feral dogs, and I’d go so far as to say they it’s very likely wild dogs are what had been killing the livestock in the area as well. While the whole ‘shredded and uneaten; corpses might seem to suggest something strange, it’s important to keep in mind that despite what many people think about the wild world, animals can be just as viscous as humans, and just as wasteful. Anyone who owns an outdoor cat can comment that Mittens sometimes brings home dead animals, but what you might not know, but recent research as exposed, is that not only are these cats out there killing, nearly 50% of the time they don’t do anything beyond kill the animal. There’s no reason to think that, when the prey is plentiful, that more wilder animals, whether they’re feral dogs or coyotes or wolves, would act the same when there’s more than enough food to go around.

I think it’s fairly easy to conclude that in this case this “Shunka Warakin” is likely nothing but mistaken identity.

Overall: 4/5
Silver City: 5/5
Shunka Warakin: 3/5

Since this is Haunted Highway’s last episode this season, i’ll be reviewing reruns, if I can find them.

Review: Haunted Highway Episode 105 (5) “Louisiana Swamp Woman/Pioneer Cemetery”

Haunted Highway is another fun show, with cast members from Fact or Faked: Paranormal files, Jael de Pardo, and Devin Marble, and joining these two are Jack Osbourne and Dana Workman. Unlike FoFPF, where the premise is the teams are investigating so-called found footage from the internet and testing to see if it’s faked or not, the premise of Haunted Highway, confusingly enough, is that they’re doing the investigations without the usual unsung heroes of reality television; the Camera crews or back up. Interesting premise, but It does seem to have a real chance of going wrong.

On tonight’s episode, Jack Osbourne and Dana Workman won’t be in it, due to Jack being diagnosed with MS.

We start off with a “Swamp Woman” in Louisiana, rumored to be from a Tribe of native Americans, who were killed by French Settlers. The swamp woman reportedly lures people into the swamp by yelling or screaming, drawing on lookers into the deadly swamp.

I find myself wondering who, of the people living there and having grown up with this legend, would be stupid enough to go into the area and follow the sound of someone screaming. But I digress.

Almost right away, they start getting hits from the small island they’re occupying in the middle of the lake. Devin pulls out a parabolic mic, and starts listening in to the noises as they split up– Jael going one way with a FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) Camera. Devin crawls out into the lake/swamp on a log, and, not surprisingly, falls in when a scream yells at him seemingly close by. Poor guy.

On the camera watching him, they appear to pick up some sort of shadow, but I couldn’t see it.

Freaked out, they move to the second sweep location, this time with Jael on the Parabolic and Devin on the FLIR. almost right away Devin picks up what appears to be a cold spot, which then disappears. Following it, or such, they come to the edge of the lake, and looking out over it they find, to their surprise, another cold spot, roughly humanoid shaped, on the other side of the lake. They decide to take the boat across (despite having to row).

Halfway across the lake, the spot disappears, and suddenly the boat rocks as they hit something. They can’t see anything in the water, so they decide to conduct an EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon). They ask a few questions, and suddenly the spot’s back, so off they go. They reach the spot, and yet, it’s disappeared.

Conclusions:
Devin isn’t convinced the swamp woman pushed him into the swamp, and I’m not either; I can’t see no shadow on the film, so meh. THe most important part of the night’s investigation, they conclude, was the sounds, which don’t sound like animals, and were heard multiple times all over the swamp, as well as a cold spot on the FLIR. The EVP session was… inconclusive. Upon reviewing the tape, they Jael and Devin seem to believe they heard something after Jael asked “Do you want us to leave” yet I was unable to hear it.

My thoughts:

Something I’m noticing here is, surely it would make more sense to have a set up of three different mics, and use them to triangulate the location the sounds were coming from that way, rather than running around with their mic. And secondly, I feel that they should show the audio to a wildlife expert to eliminate misidentified animal sounds. I know they say they didn’t sound like animals, but most people don’t really know what animals can or will sound like.

Secondly, on their FLIR camera, how do they know this cold spot wasn’t an arefact caused by the limitations of range and resolution on their camera? I remember an episode of FoFPF where they showed a supposedly ghostly image at the end of a hallway was in fact nothing more than the camera’s limited range creating an artefact.

Next up: Coloma, CA; 250 year old Graveyard.

Reports include “voice, children’s laughter at night, and ghostly figures at the cemetery’s highest point.”

They speak with a local investigator who shows them an EVP recording of a little boy apparently telling them where his headstone is. It seems a bit too clear to me, given the nature of other EVP, if it’s indicative it’ll be an interesting segment, but it seems probably that it’s fraudulent.

Jael sets up a meeting with Nancy Bradley, historian/paranormal author of “gold rush ghosts”, and they ask her to tell them more about the “Lady in burgundy.” According to her, the ghost is of a woman who’s family is buried in the graveyard, but she herself wasn’t due to a family dispute.

The arrive after dark and set up their IR cameras. Then they start a EVP session with intentions of recording it all night long. While walking, Devin finds the tombstone as described by Nancy, and as she noted, one side of the four sided monument is blank. Devin sets up an IR and a FLIR camera both focused on the same thing, at the same angle, with hopes of capturing either a cold, hot, or shadows. They then do an EVP. (technically they’re still recording, but meh).

Devin says he feels like they’re being watched from behind the tree, and goes to investigate; as he does, his walkie talkie squeals, giving them both a good fright, but it seems there’s no reason for it to go off. Then the EMF meter started spiking. They decide to do some stuff; firstly, Jael goes to get a ball to see if she can interact with the child’s spirit, and Devin goes to get a noose to see if he can attract the spirits of the two men who were hanged in the Graveyard.

Jael sets up the ball experiment, trying to see if it’ll move, as well as a hanging wind ornament to show if their’s any ‘wind’ blowing that could account for the movement of the ball. Meanwhile Devin flips the hanged horse thieves off, and sticks his head in the noose. Right away I noticed that the wind ornament moved significantly, which suggests even with the little amount of breeze going on, it’s not going to be a particularly good control.

Jael hears a noise and goes behind the tree to investigate, and while she’s behind it, the ball suddenly rolls forward and runs into the camera. Devin, meanwhile, is still taunting the ghost while his neck is in the noose, and gets a response. noose is slight warm, they hear a noise and go off to investigate with their a camera, but find no one, until thier walkie goes off again. They go to review the footage and find a spot showing up on the FLIR but not the IR, which disappears after a moment.

Conclusions:
The review of their footage is a bit light, but going through the EVP, they do find a child giggling on it.

My thoughts
Not a bad segment, but I feel like there was too much going on and not enough time spent on any individual aspect of the haunting. It would have been nice if they had investigated and tried to locate where the lady in Burgundy is actually buried, and visited that graveyard as well.

I do wish they’d use the two-camera set up more often on these sorts of investigations, it’s this sort of redundancy that is useful and produces interesting results.

Rating: Overall 3/5
Swamp Woman: 3/5
Graveyard: 3/5

Review of: Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files/Episode 208 (20) “Cajun Apparition/Area 51”

I thought I’d start this blog off by reviewing Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files, a Syfy original series. I’m doing so for two reasons. First, While FoFPF may not be the best show, it’s one of the few shows in the paranormal genre of television in which the investigators consider seriously, and try to find reasonable explanations for the the phenomena they’re looking into. So let’s begin:

FoFPF/ Cajun Apparition and Area 51:

As usual, the gang starts the show off in their “Situation Room” with a series of videos or photos or similar gathered from around ‘net, supposedly showing possible paranormal (or alien activities). In this episode, the videos are of A) a halo around the sun, B) a cloudy shapeshifting mist that ‘chases’ the photographer on the Myrtles Plantation in Louisiana, C) a supposed video of the South American “Chupacabra”, and finally D), a video of a UFO supposedly taken from within Area 51 by a civilian contractor.

As the title of the episode suggest, they ultimately go with B and C, with Devin pointing out that the so-called UFO is actually something called a Sun Dog, A natural explanation for something that, admittedly, looks very strange. I find it strange that those who are interested in UFOs don’t invest the time to learn about things like Sun dogs so they can eliminate them as false positives.

C, as it’s pointed out, is very similar to an investigation that they did in the same season, episode 205 (17), “Dashcam Chupacabra/Nightly News Alien”. And really, let’s face it, the creature captured on camera is pretty obviously a mangy dog. Mange, if you’re wondering, is a ski disease effecting animals, causing their fur to fall out. (Also Bill, you can’t say the creature is hairless then ask if they found any hair at the scene)

Let’s focus on the two cases that they do pick; Cajun Apparition and the Area 51 UFO: 

Cajun Apparition

My first impression of the video is that the story of the eyewitness doesn’t line up with what we’re seeing in the view. The eyewitness, one of two, clams that the mist was chasing her, yet the video doesn’t show any signs of movement, nor does it appear that the entity is moving, or at least not very fast. Of course, it might be the case that the two women were filming it, than stopped and ran away with the mist chasing them, but it strikes me as unlikely. So already there seems to be a problem. 

Naturally, the team speaks to the historian, Hester, who (works? runs? it’s not clear) helpfully explains some of the historical background of the house, as well as the paranormal ‘hot spots’ of the house, such as the “doll room”, where children are suppose to give visitors hugs, the Bridgeway, of which there are footsteps and ‘cries’. Bill brings up the spirits that are supposedly trapped in the mirrors. 

Now, let me stop right here and point something out; Hester points to the edge of the mirror where there seems to be some sort of discoloration or loss of silver. Mirrors change over time, and tend to do so from the outward in, which strikes me as consistent with what we’re seeing here, although Hester describes them as ‘handprints’ She also mentions that sometimes in photographs, that area looks red. Like redeye effect, I imagine this might be a similar effect, but I’m not sure– one thing’s for sure, it doesn’t show red while the camera-man is pointing his camcorder at it– despite camcorders taking literally dozens of pictures every second. Stupid Lazy Ghosts!

Next they interview the eyewitness. My impression of her is, this is someone who believes in ghosts, and frankly, that can be a problem. Biases color your world, and it’s almost always the case that in doing so, how you perceive evidence is going to change. Skeptics, they say to her, claim all she saw was fog, but she feels the mist was ‘energy forming into an apparition’. It’s statements like this that make me want to shake my head. Here’s the thing, at no time during the video does it appear that the mist is forming anything at all, it changes shape, certainly, but it doesn’t seem to be getting any denser, for example, nor does it appear to move intelligently. I’m not saying she saw nothing, but it’s fairly obvious she’s projecting onto the anomaly what she wants to see.

Thankfully, this doesn’t stop the team from trying to assess the video for possible miss-identification; first up, fog! Bill points out that the area has high humidity, and Lanisha Cole suggests that, if the camera had been in a cold environment, we maybe seeing some sort of condensation on the lens as it’s brought out into the warm, humid air. As someone who wears glasses, I can attest to the fact that every shower is haunted time! So they try it out, by hoping in their fan and abusing the AC system. 

This is what I like about this show– it’s a simple possibility that might be true. Now, as it turns out, the resulting image is fogged out, unlike the video, where the trees and surrounding stuff is unaffected. So they move on. But part of me thinks that they moved on too quickly; it seems to me they may have gotten more accurate replication of the results if they had waited for it to start to defog– something that’s rarely universal in my experience. 

Next up; fog, plus a ‘wind vortex’. Constructed out of a fogging machine and a series of fans arranged in a circle, designed to create a whirlwind, the idea is fog, but localized. This strikes me as a really silly experiment, and no surprisingly it turns out not match the original video at all.

Next up is fog, plus an external lightsource such as a flashlight, or similar. At first the results weren’t particular good, but as Cole suggests using the Camera’s IR source, and surprise surprise, it looks fairly similar to the original video. Mystery solved– or is it? The plantation has a haunted history, so naturally, time for a “Night time investigation.”

The set up involves 4 IR cameras, one on the stairs, one focused on the bridgeway, one focused on the ‘dollroom’ and finally one where the original video was shot. Bill sets an ‘accelerometer’, a device that measures acceleration, although Bill seems to think that it’ll detect any sort of motion. Part of me wonders if he’s naming the device correctly, but let’s move on; Lanisha will be running around with a thermal camera, looking for temperature changes. And they “go green.”

The first thing that comes up is the ‘face in the mirror’ as I pointed out earlier, the mirror has obviously aged, and when Bill shines his flashlight on the mirror, a ‘face’ gets projected onto the far wall. Frankly, it seems unconvincing. Bill moves on and goes to conduct an EVP. During which, the accelerometer went off, despite nothing being there! Bill stops recording and goes to investigate, but finds nothing. Secondly, I find myself wondering what the point of this device is suppose to be; yeah, it goes off, but this tells you next to nothing. Spikes aren’t even interesting, an array of these devices, spread out over an area, might show if something is actually moving, and intensity is more important than merely showing up. 

I also question whether the alarm that the device is suppose to set off is picked up by the accerlerometer, in much the same way some motion sensing technology generates drifts.

EVPs, I think, are something of a pet peeve for me, because 90% of the time, while there’s anomalous sound on the tracks, it’s almost always hard to make out, and part of me wonders how much, again, is being projected onto the white noise of the recording to generate a result. In this session, Bill manages to capture something that sounds like children laughing. It’s interesting, for sure, but if they’re going to do EVPs, I wish they’d have an audio expert help them analysis the sounds they capture, rather than playing it by ear. Such an analysis would be very helpful, What would also be helpful would be to use multiple recorders, preferably one in some sort of Faraday cage, to filter out EM interference, for example. 

 

Area 51

 

Next up, Area 51; For this, I’m going to skip the their attempt to recreate the video and skip right to their night time investigation. I’m doing this mostly because A) the video was such crap it could be anything, and B) let’s be honest, they’re only there because of the purported origin (and one has to wonder why the a  base in the United States, which the government is trying to keep secret, would hire civilian contractors to do work for them)

The Night time investigation was mostly boring, and the most excitement they found was when the government was watching them, and that one of their team members was out of range of their walkie talkies– apparently they can spring for a fog machine, but not cell phones so they can stay in touch.

The most interesting evidence was that the Base’s lights turned on, and they captured some sort of streak of light in the sky, before they shut off again. Interesting and cool, but I can’t help but wonder why a UFO would need a landing strip, if it was a UFO, nor does there appear to be any evidence that anything landed or took off, as they imply. My instincts tell me that they likely captured a meteor that was made to look more impressive due to camera settings than anything else.—

After I get into the swing of this, I think I’ll add a rating system, but in general I liked the Cajun Apparition section more than I liked the Area 51 video– I generally find FoFPF’s UFO investigations to be rather dull anyway.