The Hunt for Humor Never Ends...

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I miss Ghost Hunters, Inc. Say what you will, it was always entertaining to see the latest adventures of the gang--with plush Scooby Doo in tow--exploring the weird, forgotten, and mythical places around Pennsylvania and New York. Back when I first started out on AOL writing up local legends, browsing their site was a favorite pasttime. Even if they didn't find anything remotely paranormal, there was plenty to laugh about. Nick, Gow, Greg, and the rest of the gang were always entertaining. I'll admit I was jealous that my own paranormal group never came close to being that fun. Maybe that's why I let it die a slow, agonizing death.

There was, of course, their movie The Graveyard Shift before things sort of fell apart. Still, some of the people involved lingered on. Jason Gowin had Extreme Paranormal for a little while. Greg, Dana, Nick, and a few more people took a dive into the skeptical humorous side (more than was normal for GHI) and created Who Forted? to keep the funniness going. As glad as I am that some of the core people are still out there doing what they do best, I can't help but get a little nostalgic. Long before bland paranormal television, we had the most entertaining bunch in Ghost Hunters, Inc. And they really didn't even find ghosts. Ever. Well... there were those few questionable times...

When I had the chance to watch and review the new(ish) documentary film done by the old gang, I had to jump at it. The Bigfoot Hunter: Still Searching takes part of an unfinished older project from 2006 (GHI vs. Bigfoot) and expands upon it. It features bigfoot hunter (and all-around paranormal enthusiast) Tim Holmes from Elmira, New York, and his gal pal Becky Sawyer on two journeys into the remote wilderness in search of Sasquatch. The one-hour film, produced by Fight or Flight Productions, is planned to be unveiled at a theater in Toronto this fall. If you have the chance to be there for it, I highly recommend it.

I really don't want to give away too much, but here's the trailer to give you a taste:


Honestly, you can't go wrong with a "former Merchant Marine" going on and on about Bigfoot, "fake footage", and a never-ending stream of weirdness and random thoughts. I'm not sure what's scarier: being out in the woods in the middle of nowhere with Tim or Nick Foust being that heavily armed (and, apparently, very excited about it). You have to love GHI for their bravery; not many people would choose to venture out far from civilization with someone quite like Holmes. The action may be minimal, but the comedy lasts throughout. The "recreation" of a bigfoot encounter is priceless... as are the short clips of Nick and Gow dressed and ready for ladies night.

Overall, it was a very well-crafted documentary. For those snobbish people who dislike anything that isn't shot in high-quality, professional grade video, you'll be disappointed by this one. But if you're not hung up on petty things like that and love watching crazy people doing and saying crazy things while turning something as mundane as wandering the woods looking for a hairy inhuman beast into an amusing look at the people and experiences in question, this is right up your alley. As a fan of documentaries, I'd be glad to add this to my DVD collection. Let's hope they decide to release it at some point.

Paranormal Misdiscoveries...

There is a ton of absolutely mind-boggling ghost hunting out there. And even more, there is an unending wealth of erroneous history, bad investigating, and sheer stupidity. Most of the time, I just breeze by these things and roll my eyes. But yesterday, after watching a half hour video by Discovery Paranormal, I just couldn't bite my tongue any harder. It was begging me to pick it apart... and shed some truth on the reality behind the "Lehigh Valley Train Crash of 1911".

The video starts off with a walk down railroad tracks to the site of the accident, which occurred on August 25, 1911 on a trestle near Manchester, New York, spanning the Canandaigua Outlet. Three passenger cars plunged off the bridge when a faulty steel rail broke apart under the train (which was traveling at excessive speed). According to Michael Angley, the narrator for the show, they also investigated the nearby roundhouse which was "the last place the passengers were before the crash." We'll get back to that major mistake later, but first let's get to the bridge investigation.

It's obvious from the terrible audio that he's using the same full spectrum HD camcorder I have (and didn't feel the need to bother with an external microphone). Heading down the tracks, he says that the train "went down in the ravine," which is a partial truth. Three of the 14 excursion cars went down; that is all. The team's psychic Tammy sensed "it's like fear... it's like 'oh my god, we're going down' kind of feeling... people were scared; I hear children crying and... crash." Really. At a train crash site? But then, Michael goes on: "...back then, those trains they had no safety devices; you know, it was 1911. We're talking about... you're going down 40 feet in a wood and metal coffin; essentially, you're dead."

The first railroad safety improvements (beginning with air brakes) were made in the 1870s. He makes 1911 rail travel sound downright rustic. But if you look at photos of the crashed cars, you will see that they were a far cry from the old wooden cars heated by wood stoves used in the 19th Century. Very little has changed with passenger car design since that time. Today, if you plunge 40 feet off a bridge in an Amtrak car, the only safety feature you can brag about is emergency exit windows. That doesn't help when you're already dead. Michael went on, "...they used that shop back there as the temporary morgue." Actually, the makeshift morgue was in the basement of a country furniture store in nearby Shortsville, just south of the crash site. But I digress.

After many more obvious revelations from the "psychic", the team headed down the ravine to the bottom where the crash happened. And they brought their trusty dowsing rods. Thanks to the wonders of high definition filming, you can watch as the hands of the dowser rock back and forth ever so slightly, causing the rods to cross over and over. And they don't even wait for a question sometimes! While busy talking to a ghostly little girl, the group fails to address an important point: this train carried a number of Civil War veterans and their families returning from Rochester. The brooches worn by unidentified women from the wreck may have been mourning jewelry bearing the initials of dead soldiers. You would think the psychic would have at least picked up on that much, or that someone had bothered to actually read all the newspaper stories about the accident.

But the ghosts were far too busy trying to rush the intrepid ghost seekers to the more important destination: the roundhouse to the west. Ah yes, the roundhouse; that place where passengers wait to board trains. Oh, that's a station... nevermind. For those of you who don't know, a roundhouse is where locomotives are stored and repaired. There is absolutely no reason any passenger would be wandering a roundhouse unless he or she was an employee of the railroad. Still, the team decided this was the most likely spot to look for ghosts (instead of the makeshift morgue, that actually would make any sense whatsoever).

"...if a crash happened here, the victims--or the passengers--would go back to the place that they knew the most, which is the round house [sic]." Inside the old locomotive warehouse (I mean "passenger waiting area/place they turned around trains"), they bring out recorders to capture really vague nonsensical "voices" and sounds. Michael says, "the historian said that the train was still, uh... that the platform was probably still here." Once again, roundhouses did NOT have station platforms. Oops. Just then, the psychic says the first thing that actually makes sense: "...there's a man here... he's really, um, getting people to work..." Finally, something that talks about what the building was really used for--locomotive repair.

The dowsing rods come out yet again and questions fly while the rods swing back and forth a lot. You can really see the hand movements better here (around 15 minutes into the video) when he's asking how many ghosts are inside the building. And the questions keep getting better. "It was a grand building at one time, wasn't it? It was round all the way around?" Both get a 'yes' from the rods. (A roundhouse is commonly a half circle or smaller, otherwise there'd be no place for locomotives to enter. Only a few full circle roundhouses were ever constructed.) There's just one minor problem with this place. The round house was built in 1916, five years after the accident.

The psychic (and by now I use the term loosely) goes on to tell about sensing the passengers. "It's like they were anxious to see their relatives... and they were going on a trip and they couldn't wait to get there. They were almost there..." Thanks for that obvious report. "This is where they changed over, they got a little rest and something to eat..." (This town was NOT a stop for the speeding train in 1911.) Here they bring out "Pete's Ghost Box" to communicate with the spirits. Of course, when using a Ghost Box, you don't actually need to pay any attention to what words are coming out of it (as the team wisely shows us). Never mind that it sounds more like an Ovilus than a "Frank's Box" sweeping radio frequencies. In sure it's just coincidence and they really know what their equipment is called.

After reading off the list of the dead (and getting different answers from the dowsing rods; watch for the hand movements yet again), they announced they "found a bunch of spirits that have not moved on" at the roundhouse. Michael ends it with "Who knows when a train will ever come for them." If they're waiting in the roundhouse, my guess is probably never. And so ends a bafflingly unresearched investigation. Could it have been worse? Absolutely. But this is one video that makes me wonder why some people call themselves serious "paranormal investigators" who, as the website states, are "dedicated" to "collecting hard evidence of paranormal activity."

On Wings of Fear...

I'm officially another year older today. It's been quite a chaotic year so far; my free time for blogging has dwindled more than expected. It's not just coursework that takes a chunk of my time away. I've been doing a fair amount of side research for two books and helping with editing a local ghost book due out later this year. Still, I've managed to get out and poke around the Cuyahoga Valley a few times. With the weather improving, I hope to enjoy the fresh air more once the last few weeks of this semester have finished.

The one place I've visited most often lately is Indigo Lake. There is a good reason for that, recalling events which happened several years ago during a late-night investigation of the trail. It was here I had one of my most unexplainable moments. Standing at the top of the hill and peering down the trail into the woods, I saw a distant pair of eyes. They weren't quite normal eyes, more like two glowing embers from a campfire. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, these amber lights suddenly became the eyes of something human-like: a black shadow of a man walking toward me. As he strolled forward, he stretched out his arms horizontally on each side. Yet there was something odd about those arms. Feathers drooped down on both sides, as if he were wearing some sort of bird costume. While I didn't feel any fear, my friends who were there that night did, and they quickly fled down the hill. Not wanting to confront whatever it could be by myself, I turned and followed them. I still regret that in many ways.

Could it have been a Native American dressed as a Thunderbird? Or perhaps something else? I'll never know. But my sighting seems reminiscent of a few of the known reports from Ohio and West Virginia of that enigmatic creature dubbed the "Mothman." Believe it or not, there have been reported sightings as close as Stow, Ohio, in recent years. Does this mean I had an encounter with the creature? Well, probably not... but I can't rule out the possibility.

A few months back, I finally took the time to read the book that started winged-creature hysteria in the Ohio Valley. In The Mothman Prophecies, John Keel told of his personal experiences in and around Point Pleasant, West Virginia, including the collapse of the Silver Bridge in 1967. A fictionalized version of his book was adapted to film in 2002. While it touched on some key points, the book is entirely different. Keel came across as a very reasonable, rational man who, after encountering several unexplainable individuals and occurrences, formed several theories of what exactly might be happening. It's much more than glowing eyes and premonitions. He delved into his own conclusions concerning UFO phenomena, men in black, and unexplained circumstances, namely the existence of ultra-terrestrials. He didn't believe in alien visitations, government cover-ups, or spooky specters; he felt that some higher intelligence co-existed with us on this planet, unobservable save for the occasional glimpse.

What is most fascinating about the book is how so many "paranormal phenomena" could be accounted for by these beings. Poltergeist activity. Shadow apparitions. Premonitory dreams. Spook lights. These weren't ghosts, but effects produced by these ultra-terrestrials. Given Keel's explanation of how they attempted to make sane people appear crazy and lead people off course in finding the truth behind the phenomena, it could make a lot of sense that some ghosts are just a cover story. We may never know for sure, though. Keel passed away on July 3, 2009. In over 40 years of research, he never was able to find concrete, absolute answers; in fact, he felt those answers would never be found.

What was the Mothman? Who were the Men in Black? Many of us will never find adequate answers. It's a complex web of incidents and misinformation. So many people hold firm beliefs which explain these and other mysteries in their own mind, but they refuse to allow room for any alternative ideas. That's the greatest problem with the unexplained: not allowing for other possibilities. When people ask us to keep an open mind, too often they suffer from closed-minded viewpoints. As of this moment, no person alive has absolute indisputable proof that any theory of ghosts, monsters, UFOs, etc. is the correct answer for what is happening. Perhaps this is because we look for our own version of proof instead of answering the real question: what is it? We assume we know what these creatures/things/experiences are, then search for answers to coincide with these assumptions. When the results don't add up, we try again instead of re-analyzing the initial idea.

I recommend Keel's book to anyone curious about not only the Mothman, but paranormal activity in general. Just keep an open mind--a really opened mind--as you read it. It just might change how you see everything.

Paranormal Reading: A Buell Book Commentary

Again, I've let my blogging fall on the wayside. There has been so much going on—exams, university work, research for books—that I keep forgetting to set aside time to write. But it has been worth it. I have over 100% in my psychology course and very high marks in the other classes. I'm assisting in research for a book due out this fall and starting early research for a book I'll be co-authoring next year. Let's just say my days of dabbling in local ghosts are far from over...

I have taken the time to catch up on some reading over the past few months. I do plan to keep the trend going and talk briefly about them on this blog. After Ghost Hunters (which is currently being borrowed by my psychology professor... I knew I liked her for a reason), I finally sat down to read Ryan Buell's book Paranormal State: My Journey into the Unknown. In many ways, the book was a pleasant surprise... though at times it left me shaking my head.

Having read a few books written by people in the limelight, my hopes weren't too high for Paranormal State. If I were to judge purely by the television show, I would say that Ryan and I are polar opposites. After reading the book, however, that view has somewhat changed. In reality, from what Ryan says about his view on the paranormal, we think quite a lot alike. He's not the demon-obsessed religiously-superior fanatic. His approach toward the paranormal is rather neutral and unbiased (to some degree: we all have a certain level of bias) and he's a staunch skeptic with psychics and mediums (unless proven otherwise, as he says he was wth Chip Coffey, Michelle Belanger—who wrote an excellent foreword—a fellow Clevelander, and Lorraine Warren). The procedures for membership indoctrination into PRS is impressive. While his "brief histories" in the book were lacking many key figures (How could you leave out J. B. Rhine?), I like to believe that the in-depth classes required for all members covered them.

In these respects, Paranormal State brought me to admire Buell. Yet there were many instances where I was disappointed. The first was quite simple: for a Journalism Major, I expected the writing to be more of a journalistic caliber. At times, it read like typical, casual conversation trying to blend in with the in-crowd. Parts almost read like, ". . .and I was like, 'Fuck, dude, that's so lame!'" (paraphrasing, of course) It was hard to ignore a certain amount of egotism woven into the passages as well. While at times he was extremely unbiased in his observations, there were still hints of superiority. A few times I felt he crossed the line into blatant name-calling:

"I love ghost hunters, but sometimes they can be really thick and immature . . . The spirits do not need a bunch of overweight, fashionless ghost geeks walking in and asking for the spirit to do parlor tricks for their amusement." (p.142)

That's not to say I felt the whole book deserves to be written off based on a few momentary lapses in neutrality and humility. I could relate to his very brief mention of "coming out" to others in the field. Having walked that tightrope, I know how difficult it can be to address your sexuality with those you admire and work with. Buell is well-read (I was shocked at how many of his recommended books were on my list of best books), and his hard work and dedication shows. For those reasons, I can let the arrogance slide. If you want a fast interesting read, I do recommend it.

I'll be tackling more books, hopefully this week, including The Mothman Prophecies and a book by Michelle Belanger. I have a few more days before getting swamped with work again. As the weather improves, I hope to get out there and check out some places as well. But for now, back to the grindstone...