I thought the thermal hit in the window of the barn was a cat, maybe sitting on the ledge. Would a coat of fur block a cat's body heat so it would read cold on the FLIR?

Anything alive would have registered as a heat source (red to white). Even reflections are in the lighter range (see the debunking of thermal figure outlines). Fur would not block the heat signature, just as clothes do not.

First impression was that it was something in the window, but after reviewing it, here's a possible explanation.
Jay is bouncing around the imager like mad, so that what we're seeing may not be the "thing" moving, but a stationary thing from different perspectives. When we get the closest view, we can see that the window looks into the barn and we can see the clear outline of another window in the background. If that window is covered in glass (or wood) except for a large, jagged gap in its lower right corner, we'd expect to see the cold outside air showing up as it did against the (relative) warmth reflected into the room by the covered window.
This of course would be easy to debunk, but unfortunately, the TAPS team didn't seem to address this possibility (at least on the portion of the investigation aired) …

OMG! I was thinking the exact same thing! It looks exactly like the shape of a cat.

I thought it was an animal at first as well. But, after seeing it a couple of times you can actually see it change shape and then disapear. To me this is the best evidence TAPS has shown this season.

The object in the barn window does seem to be one of the better pieces of evidence so far this season. Still, like others, I thought it was a cat. (Does it seem like there's a lot of cats involved lately?) The changing shape could just be it turning around and jumping down. Unfortunately, TAPS just don't seem to spend as much time trying to find alternative answers as they used to. I understand it was cold, but this is why they're out there.

btw, I thought, just before they got to the cat shape, there was another shape that looked to be a person standing up looking out the window. I caught it while they were waving the thermal around. I missed it the first time, I caught it on the second showing.

Oh, and note to TAPS: The next time you want the spirit of a child to kick a ball - hide your camera but keep it running; then tell the child you're leaving and he'd better NOT touch that ball while you're gone.

You're right Crow, I thought I saw something looking out as well. Good Idea about the ball, I know with my kids if you tell them not to do something they will more than likely do it as soon as you leave.

Maybe TAPS has a pet cat that they bring along with them.

If it was a cat, it was a frozen cat. People seem to be forgetting that the image in the window registered as colder than the surroundings — not warmer as you would get from a cat or any living creature, as Todd pointed out.

I agree Wes, just making a little fun of them. I was a little disapointed that they didn't spend much time in the barn because it was cold. To me they should have spent more time out there investigating.

It was pretty funny though that Steve thought there actually was an underground railroad.

I just watched it again and it's clear that as they approach the Barn from an acute angle to that window (where they would be able to see further inside to the right, where this object appears from) the object is not originally there.

A couple of seconds later after some more camera bouncing we see the hayloft window/door again and now the edge of the object is visible — but from this angle if it was a stationary object they should have been able to see it BETTER/LARGER during the approach to the building from the angle they were at.

Finally when they are almost directly parallel to the building the object appears very large and visible (but shorter). All of this would make sense as a stationary object if they had been moving right-to-left but since they were moving left-to-right I think it's a certainty that the object is moving.

The other problem is the temperature — it's so out of whack with anything in the surroundings that it has to either be producing it's own temperature variance or it has to be recently introduced into the environment.

Now, I believe (and I could be wrong) that any mammal would show up as white, centrally according to the scale. With the scale so cold I would expect it actually to show up as blinding white, radiating whiteness into its surroundings — either that or the camera would auto-adjust to a higher temperature scale, but that isn't what appears to happen.

The other thing that bothers me is the black would seem to be an object significantly *colder* than the average subzero temperatures outside. If that interpretation of the FLIR footage is correct, then what could *possibly* be colder? I mean, the average ambient temp seemed to be industrial-freezer cold, so how on earth could something get significantly colder than that — in an old barn, no less?

I have to agree with Yeti33, in the absence of a FLIR expert explaining how this is some trick of the camera or we're misinterpreting the scale, this definitely qualifies as some pretty impressive evidence. The more I review it and try to pull it apart, the more impressed I'm getting with how well it stands up.

About the cat hypothesis: The tall (human-like) figure that is apparently to the right of the window in the earliest shot of the anomaly clearly *cannot* be a cat, but to be duly skeptical since we don't have continuous, unbroken footage we can't *really* be entirely sure that object and the object we see a few seconds later are the same object.

In other words, we see the "cat" object "descend" from the window/door back into the barn but we don't see the "tall" object change into the cat object as the camera is pointing elsewhere between the two visuals.

That being said, I think the thermal evidence seems strongly *against* a cat because of the heat problem (not enough of it). Also, for anyone thinking of the winter-coat phenomenon we noticed (discussed in Podcast episode 3) I think we can rule that out because the winter coats should show up the same as ambient temperature, and that doesn't look like what we're seeing here either.

Hi Yeti, I wish Jay and Grant had sent Steve on a hunt for the tracks …

Without having the footage handy, I recall it seemed to be more shifting in shape rather than "moving." So a question: could a draft of cold air, perhaps coming through a crack in the floor of the barn, account for a shifting, super-cold anomaly like the one we're discussing?

Wes, in a word, No. The cold air would have to be affecting a solid object. Even a pane of glass could do — some glass almost completely blocks thermal light — but as mentioned earlier the other problem is that this object appears even colder than the ambient temperature.

I'm absolutely not suggesting this was hoaxed but just as a thought experiment, if you wanted to hoax this evidence how would you go about it? Forget about the shape itself and the movement — how would you get an object in that barn to be *that* much colder than the ambient sub-zero temperature?

I can't think of a way to do that.

I admit I don't know a lot about thermal images.

I guess I'm unclear about why the imagers *couldn't* show pockets of air in that way. I remember the episide where a sensitive was doing a reading on Jay and we saw a growing, moving heat signature behind him that was obviously not a solid object nor a reflection on a continuous object since it crossed a doorway without changing appearance.

To me, it looked like the same kind of phenomena except with a cold spot. Of course, I could be wrong …

Wes, yeah I know the footage you're talking about and to me that's another one of those pieces of footage that really shout "Hey! Something weird is going on here!" — something not normal, possibly paranormal.

So basically you're comparing one anomaly to another. I haven't seen a good explanation for either, and I've never seen either one compared to similar footage which *can* be explained.

Maybe this is way off but for the one investigation where he was getting a reading from that sensitive could it be possible that what we see is actually Jay's body heat? I recall Jay saying that he was trying to block the sensitive from getting information from him. I know sometimes when people are under stress or trying not to give information out there body temp rises. Could that be why we see the heat coming from Jay?

Does someone have a thermal imaging camera we can experiment on?

The footage in question is Carroll Heath reading Jay at Dr. Ellis' House. You can see it here, at about 5:27 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dem5q0Rj5-4

The anomaly occurs so rapidly, and is so huge in size, that I don't think there's any possibility it could be Jay's body heat, even if the camera could see body heat (which I would argue it cannot)

Maybe I'm way off here, but I got the impression that there was something on the lens.

Yeah, you're right Logisti, just a shot in the dark at a theory.

Definitely, keep taking shots. I like Ronin1220's "something on the lens" idea too, but I think we can rule it out from the way the object behaves (it clearly seems to be inside the building, as the window frame always seems to be blocking some portion of it.

Also, it was way too cold for an errant insect but that does bring up an interesting point for future footage. A gnat landing on that lens might possibly look like some sizable anomaly farther away. Definitely a possibility to keep in mind while reviewing future footage.

Is it not possible that the sub-freezing temps (I believe it was -4 to -10) could have affected the FLIR readings? I don't know, because it doesn't get anywhere near that cold around here, but it just seems those temperatures could mess with the equipment.

Regarding the 'cat' shape and the 'taller' shape, I was not implying that they were the same figure. I assumed they were two different things. I just don't recall TAPS mentioning the first 'taller' shape when they went back over it. (This is all from memory, so I could be wrong.)

Regardless, SOMETHING was up there. And it's this sort of 'evidence' that makes GH, as well as this website, fun.

You're right Crow, they didn't mention it on the show. I saw the first shape as well. The shapes could be the same, we didn't see the whole scenario take place. I think Jason moved the camera out of view and came back to it after a couple of seconds.

CrowT, you nailed it when you said "it's this sort of 'evidence' that makes GH, as well as this website, fun."

Amen to that.

I'm glad we have something to discuss this week that isn't directly related to Grant and his personal ethics.

It won't surprise you hear I can't add much to the discussion of the FLIR image, but I do have to tell you I got a good chuckle from the owner talking about TAPS using the "scientific method."

I agree. Finally we have something to discuss other that Grant.

Thanks Logisti. Regarding the Carroll Heath reading, I didn't think it was body heat, either. I always wondered if the furnace had just kicked in and we were seeing the heated air moving through the room?

So I re-reviewed yesterday's footage and agree it's probably something solid. I noticed, however, that the gradient temperature bar had dark bands in between the red, white, etc. Since the camera is limited in the number of colors it uses to show temperature differentials and the object was relatively very small in a large field of reds and whites, could it be the object WAS giving off a heat signature that showed up as purple, or some other color that's hard to differentiate on that scale from black?

If so, the whole cat theory we've smirked about might be on target. It sure would have been useful if J&G had used the thermal to scan the sill where they saw the whatever to see if there was any residual heat …

Alright Wes! Don't be smirking at my cat…..or its theory. Speaking of which, I have another one….theory, that is. I think the ghosts are all coming back as cats just to mess with TAPS. They're walking around in attics, crawl spaces, lying on cots in abandoned forts, hanging out in barns, creating shadows, etc.

My advice to you? Don't smirk.

EDIT (Thanks again, Logisti. I love the edit option.) I guess Steve is now going to start his on line of hat wear with his signature saying on it, "I sat in the engineer's seat on the Underground Railroad train"…….Ehhh, that's a bit wordy. It'll have to be a line of t-shirt wear, instead.

I admit I was smirking … and I take it back.

Coming to GH next year, a team member saying "one theory is that ghosts often manifest themselves as cats … "

That's great Wes… How about "One theory is ghosts manifest themselves every time Grant says what the fedge".

"One theory is ghosts manifest themselves when someone nearby pulls a string"

We can have a clip of Grant saying that followed by Steve explaining to Kris, "You see when I pull this string here… the ghost manifests over there on the table. You see that flower-pot move? Well supposedly that's the ghost manifesting."

Is that what "string theory" is???

*sorry, couldn't resist*

Now you guys have gone too far. I offer a perfectly plausible theory that cats are taking over the spirit world to attack TAPS and you just turn it into something silly….

btw Before this gets back on topic, did anyone else notice Jason started saying, "Grant and I…"?

Could it had been an barn owl? It looked like some type of bird had been roosting on the rafters in the barn. It looked like major bird poo covered them.

I was just over at IMDB and noticed that Salem (the black cat from that horrible sitcom Sabrina the Teenage Witch) is joining the cast of Ghost Hunters. I imagine a star this big will require a grand entrance for his debut on the show and perhaps that blip on the FLIR was a cat, all part of a calculated build up to his grand reveal (that was probably him in the crawl space or the Medeiro house as well) several weeks from now when he officially joins the team, replacing Steve as the teams snarky comic releif.

Or maybe it will lead to a spin-off with talking cats investigating haunted places. Now there's a show I could enjoy even if the felines fudged the actual science from time to time.

Yes, I noticed the switch to "Grant and I"–it used to get my grammatical dander up (oh don't I sound like your old high school English teacher?) to hear "Grant and me" used in the subject case. Someone had to have clued him in.

The FLIR that they're using, I think, is the ThermaCAM E65 model, but it's hard to tell, since they look so much alike. According to the product datasheet, its operational temperature range stops at -4 F, which matches what we see.

So the entire time we're operating beneath the ThermaCAM's stated operating temperatures. What we have here is a camera telling us about a cold spot when it's already freezing.

No explanation on the Cheshire Cat in the barn, but I did notice something. When the shadow "fades away", the barn itself changes color from red to green, even though the temperature range stays at -4 to -4. For some reason, the colors stretch downward. Not sure if that's the cause of the blob's disappearance, or caused BY it.

So, just to get the facts down, not too many of them useful:

1. The object shows up on FLIR as black with a thin green border. Since our range is -4 to -4, we have no idea what the temperature difference is.
2. Seems to start at timestamp 1/23/08 2:54:14. "Changes shape" at 2:54:19. Starts to fade away at 2:54:21. So basically it's visible for about 20 seconds.
3. There's another spot, similar, at ground level directly down from the anomaly. You can see it in the still shot.
4. The "camera froze" while the timestamp continued. Not sure what that's about.
5. There are panes in the window– I think. We never get a good, solid closeup of the window from the inside, but they pan past it a couple of times. Window appears intact. They get there at 3:02:42, six minutes later.

So what we have is evocative as hell, and mysterious, but paranormal? There's just too much ambiguity. TAPS has managed to show us thermal footage without us knowing what the temperature difference actually was.

Ok. Enough seriousness from me. It was the ghost of a dead Internet meme. Ghost LongCat is looooong.

Interesting location thats for sure. Note to Steve: I saw an episode earlier in the evening (in a library) where you stressed how much you hate to read. Dude…pick up a book. Underground railroad? [smacks own forehead]:) Ahh well I did get a laugh a few episodes ago when he was explaining to Kris what to look for when reviewing the footage and mentions "full-body apparitions". Gee.. ya think?! I'm sure she would have otherwise ignored any of those passing by the camera.

They unsuccessfully tried to get the "child" spirit to move the ball. But didn't the research later show that the named person was 21 when they died there? Thats the thing about some of the stories associated with places, they aren't always correct, some actually end up just being tall tales.

I found the FLIR interesting, too bad they couldn't spend more time in the barn. However -4 to -10, don't think I'd spend a lot of time outside either. Too bad they couldn't return in warmer temps and have a go at it.

Stephen:
May I cut and paste your info?
TIA

Yeti:
You know… Yep. Thought so.
Steve posted on several sites that Sassy Lashes was missing.
He thinks that Mark from the Halloween show stole her and she escaped. She tracked Steve down and was waiting for him in the barn.

A technical question:

I understand the spectrum was registering down to -4. Does the FLIR camera routinely echo the ambient temp? At the top of the spectrum on the camera it stated -4 and then repeated it at the bottom. Since technical scientific equipment is not my particular speciality, I'd love a little education on the matter.

D:
Go to the link below. Anything written by Dreamsinger is great information. His avatar is a muppet.

http://forums.scifi.com/index.php?act=SF&f=70&st=0&changefilters=1
Here is one of the threads about the thermal to get you started.
http://forums.scifi.com/index.php?showtopic=2304331&hl=

Hope to see you over there.

Hey thanks for the link! It's always nice to find out I'm not crazy. Others noticed that "-4" thing too.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the closest reason I seem to have found was that the camera wasn't intended to operate in that range, so there may be a malfunction.

Does anyone know the name of the manufacturer? I may drop them an e-mail or a phone call to see what they think…

FLIR actually is the name of the manufacturer. http://www.flir.com/US/