April 30, 2008
GH: Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum
With a name like the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum you can't go wrong. TAPS is invited to investigate this enormous building (more than one enormous building, actually) in West Virginia where Charles Manson was once briefly a guest and they brought along two fresh faces to help them cover more ground. Krystyn Gartland we've seen before. She is a full-fledged "Investigator" and we last saw her at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base investigation.
Also joining the rest of the Ghost Hunters was Joe Chin, an Investigator-in-Training who not only lent his eyes to the investigation, but during the arduous evidence analysis lent his ears to Steve & Tango so they could focus on reviewing the video while he checked all the audio.
Steve can't help but get excited about going to investigate another big, abandoned asylum and I wholeheartedly agree, it looks like a lot of fun but science-wise I worry. A building that size is not just prone to more potential trickery (because there are more ways in and out, more places to hide) but also it's more prone to the investigators making perceptual mistakes (because they are creeped out) not to mention the possibility of rats and other animals potentially creating sounds — investigating someone's living room may not be as interesting but there are far fewer problems that can plague such an investigation.
The owner of the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, Rebecca, gave the group a tour and the usual rundown of what's happened there and who experienced what. For the record, this place does give tours but Rebecca was very clear that they do not give any sort of paranormal tours (in fact, TAPS advised against it because they thought it would be unfair to regularly intrude on any spirits in such a way) so I just want to mention that to anyone shaking their head right about now.
One really impressive story seemed straight from a horror-flick. One of the tour guides was near a room (called the "Stretcher Room", I assume because of all the stretchers) was grabbed from behind, and apparently something attempted to drag her into the room. One of her friends jumped on her and pulled back and said it took all her strength just to hold the girl in place.
Another experience by a different tour guy involved her seeing a man leave the group and go wandering off by himself. When she asked the group to stay put while she went after him they assured her that no such man had ever been in the group and that no one was missing.
There were many other reports, including several revolving around hearing children running through the halls, laughing and playing. One retired psychiatric aide said she was walking down a hallway and heard someone following her so she kept turning around but there wasn't anyone behind her. She eventually stopped and called out to whoever was there to tell her what they wanted and in an apparent response a nearby door slammed shut.
Into the investigation: On the 4th floor Kris, Krystyn and Joe start off seeing what they believe are flashlights down at the ends of the hall. They actually don't all see them at the same end of the hall, but Joe sees it happen in the direction he is facing (holding a flashlight) and Kris sees it in the direction behind him. Personally, my suspicion is that there are windows at the ends of those hallways and maybe they just saw the reflections of their own flashlights. The team does start hearing sounds right after this though, including what they believed to be a woman's voice and footsteps.
A bit later Kris & Krystyn are in the oldest part of the complex, known as the Civil War Building, and Kris begins hearing sounds that seem to be water dripping but she doesn't see any leaks anywhere. Just a few moments later Krystyn freaks out and tells Kris to go into a room she is pointing at. Apparently she saw a black mass, or as she puts it, "a blob". Kris doesn't see anything, however, and is all the more frustrated for it because she feels like she's the only one not experiencing anything. She's right, but I digress.
Back on the 3rd floor towards the end of the night Joe & Krystyn ask for the spirits to make a noise and that seems to solicit a banging sound, however I should probably point out that (as you will see) whether the sound was actually a response is definitely in question because there were a lot of sounds going on during this investigation.
Just a bit later though, Krystyn reports feeling a chill go up the back of her neck, the back of her head went numb and she heard an "indescribable" sound right in her ear. As she's in high freak-out mode Jay & Grant happen across the two and decide to pop-out of nowhere to give them a little scare, which certainly does wonders to drive home that Krystyn is very prone to excessively freaking out. Perhaps she isn't the best fit for the Ghost Hunters team.
Steve & Dave Tango start the eventful part of their evening out in what was once an all-female ward. At one point they hear a woman laughing (and this was recorded, it isn't quite identifiable but it could be a woman laughing) and in an attempt to debunk it Tango heads outside. He thinks perhaps it was Kris or Krystyn laughing in the other building and maybe the sound just carried. While Tango is gone Steve can't hear his (slightly disturbing) fake laughter but he does hear movement and footsteps, which is all the more disturbing not just because there is no one else in the building but also there is NO ONE else since his partner was also gone. Just Steve and the ghoulies! But he's not afraid of ghosts, so no worries.
When Dave comes back they hear what seems to be a flurry of movements, a voice, footsteps and other sounds, some of which is audible on their recordings. They find some tunnels and Steve suspects maybe someone is playing a trick on them and using these tunnels to move back and forth without being seen — or at least maybe there are some animals using the tunnels and that's why they keep hearing things but not seeing them. With due diligence they go down into the tunnel but find it dead ends in some sort of utility area, with no access to the outside or escape to another portion of the building.
Jay & Grant started the night off with some EVP work. Grants line of the night was, "I heard you liked to beat up people, drag them around? If you would like to drag one of us around it would terrify us." — Probably his best (least cheesy) line in a while, actually. Shortly afterwards he sees a light at the end of the hallway, which reminded me that Joe & Kris had seen something similar, probably around the same time. They start hearing some weird sounds which Jay is certain are voices, although he can't make out what is being said. To me it sounded like someone talking through a metal tube or through an air duct or something, but pretty loud.
That sound happened twice, but what was really freaky was that at one point they both hear what sounds like a child laughing, and the sound seemed to come from the three feet of open space between them as they walked through a narrow hallway.
Later near the kitchen Jay saw a shadow and when they went to investigate a loud bang came from the back of the room. In the Civil War building they heard a cough and then footsteps. As they turned a corner they both saw a man in a long white garb (medical coat or hospital robe?) who immediately crouched down, covered himself by pulling his arms over his head and seemed to be "sucked back" out of the room. What can I say about such a fantastic encounter except ALL YOUR FANS HATE YOU RIGHT NOW FOR YET AGAIN NOT HAVING A CAMERA POINTING WHERE YOU WERE LOOKING.
There was no mention of "Residual Haunting" by Grant during this investigation (thankfully) and in fact because the activity seemed to pick up when they asked to be harassed he believes it is primarily an "Intelligent Haunting". During the evidence review there was nothing discovered on video but tons of audio. Many of the sounds heard by the Ghost Hunters investigating team made it onto recording, although none are really identifiable.
Of note: There was a camera in the "Stretcher Room" which showed nothing going on but the audio had a loud bang that seemed to come out of nowhere, with no footsteps preceding or after the sound and nothing moving or out of place in the video. The one that impressed me most was the laughter Jay & Grant heard between them, it really does sound like a little kid laughing, no question about it. Very odd. Apparently right after that happened they placed a recorder nearby to see if they picked anything else up. That recording had a single, really long and really freak breath recorded, again with no footsteps leading to or away from the time of the anomalous sound.
All in all, I'm not sure how I feel about this investigation — primarily because of the laughter recorded — but I think a lot of the other sounds, banging, footsteps, might easily have normal explanations. My biggest disappointment though was yet again another alleged sighting of phenomenal proportions that didn't make it onto video.
Filed under Ghost Hunters, Posts by Logisti
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Comments on GH: Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum »
Shannon @ 11:26 pm
OK-who else had in their mind "the lunatic is in the hall" when Tango was doing that laughing with the mask on? Personally, I think that was the scariest part of the show!
I was really irritated that Krystyn didn't yell at the guy holding the camera to look in the room where she saw the black mass rather than Kris Williams to hop off the ledge and run to see it!
The child laughing? I think it sounded like it could be Kris Williams. I don't know where she was during that time but in a place like that who knows how sound can bounce around and she does have a high voice.I suppose I was disappointed that they even included the bang that was picked up in the stretcher room-the place is huge and there are lots of people in there chances are someone hit something to cause it or am I totally wrong there?
Garflonk @ 3:05 am
Were you smoking pot trying to sych the Dark Side of The Moon to this episode of Ghost Hunters? There were quite a few F bombs dropped during this episodes, which leads me to believe their reactions were genuine. Honestly, most of the time they censor themselves, but at the asylum they let it slip. Honestly, if I were a cameraman on this show, in this location, I would be hesitant to chase after a ghost. That is not their job. Their job is to focus the cameras on the investigators to capture their reactions. I completely understand that production value. We would all like the Sci-Fi cameras to catch a ghost. But they never due. Get used to it. The cameras the investigators use are for analysis, not the production cameras. As for the audio evidence. It is all subjective. It can be amplified, compressed, EQed, etc. I don't always hear what they hear. Sometimes I don't hear anything at all. Tonight, I didn't quite hear one EVP, but the others were clear. I don't know how they synched up the audio with the stationary cameras. That I am skeptical of. But the other EVPs sounded weird and mumbly. It seems if they wanted to "create" an EVP they would have done a better job. I have to say the Ghost Hunters sold me on this episode overall, the past two episodes have been solid, with little questionable activity taking place. I strongly believe in personal experiences, and the fact that 99 percent of these experiences are not going to be recorded as evidence. The fact that the Ghost Hunters get what they do is amazing and I believe the actions of Grant and Jason when they actually do get some corroborative evidence. Last episode of the Spring Season. Hiatus!
P.S. Did they get a new headquarters?
Sully @ 12:25 pm
If you can put a camera in an NFL football player's helmet, and you can put a camera in a NASCAR stock car … oh, why bother?
GH, Sci-Fi, or Pilgrim must have a reason they're not taking this simple, simple step. The recent mania for "shadows" just makes the omission all the more glaring (and frustrating — I wanted to see that phantom lunatic!).
The audio evidence was more compelling this time for me, because it didn't depend so much on EVPs. But I have to agree, most of the sounds could have a rational explanation. A place that big has to have critters like racoons in residence, and there are plenty of places where wind could funnel.
However, I don't doubt that the GH crew was sincere. They seemed plenty creeped. Who wouldn't be, in a place like that? All the more reason to start investigating these places with the lights on. None of the experiences staff described happened at night, after all.
CrowTRobot @ 12:27 pm
OK. A couple of things. Once again we're told about full-body apparitions, people being grabbed, etc. Once again, we get nothing.
I know it's more fun to watch people hunt ghosts in the dark than in broad daylight. However. It seems that a lot of these things happen when staff is around; and I'm assuming that's during the day……..not at 1:00 in the morning. Do people just not ghost hunt during the day – even if that's when everything is reported to happen? And I will not even address the continuing "Did you see/hear that?" phenomenon.
However, one day we're going to hear Jason say, "Did you see that? It was our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!" and Grant's going to say, "Did you hear that? Jesus Christ just told us the secret to the universe……I hope we got that on tape." Then Jason's going to say, "Well, it's getting late. We got a lot of footage to review. Let's start breaking it down."
Oh. If I'm not mistaken, they flashed a 'viewer warning' about halfway through the episode. I believe that's the first time I've seen that.
Dirk Blackpool @ 12:27 pm
Guess they changed their mind about not giving ghost tours at the Asylum. A quick look at their web site shows that they'll be starting ghost tours in May, even offering a chance for people to spend the night in the asylum. http://trans-alleghenylunaticasylum.com/ Is it me, or does this season of ghost hunters seem to be serving as promotion for upcoming, pricey TAPS ghost tours?
Paul Anthony @ 12:46 pm
I have noticed a pattern being developed in the past several episodes. Whether it’s a coincidence or just bad luck, it does appear that shadow figures are being seen at the same moment when the camera is being directed or pointed at one of the Taps team members. This week’s episode presented the same situation. More descriptions of blobs or dark shadows and unfortunately the cameraman are again focusing on a team member.
Sully: You just gave a skeptical analysis.
Any time someone comes up with a valid reason why evidence is not convincing, they are automatically invoking an alternate explanation.
There is only a need of the possibility of alternate explanations. It is up to taps to rule out alternate explanations if they are to convince anyone their personal perception of events is being described and understood as real, and does not fall under the Category of personal deception and visual Illusions.
The Allegheny Lunatic Asylum Investigation produced no convincing evidence associated with any unusual phenomena. Personal experiences thumps and other noises caught on tape are all anecdotal evidence and logical fallacy.
Sully @ 12:55 pm
Whoa, that asylum's website is pretty blatant. They couldn't have used the GH logo without permission — that's an endorsement. I was willing to give GH the benefit of the doubt, on the assumption that Sci-Fi might think it helps ratings if the team explores some sites that the audience can actually visit themselves. Apparently GH is Jason and Grant's main source of income now, so I can't fault them for making a buck. But this sort of naked commercialism amounts to little more than product placement. Disappointing. (And check out the "tasteful" T-shirt in the asylum gift shop.)
June @ 12:58 pm
I, too, was frustrated that the people holding the cameras are never *there* when it seems they ought to be . . . and yet, it occurred to me–as Garflonk noted–that the cameras focus on the investigators as a first priority. If a camera"man" catches anything, it'll be pure luck–right place, right time.
This episode had more "personal experiences" than I've seen for quite awhile. I found it fascinating, but then, what's really left at the end that's solid? Jason and Grant spent a lot of time regaling Rebecca with their personal experience stories, most of which were, admittedly, compelling (the three of them shared a lot of excitement about it all). And *some* of the EVP evidence is weirdly compelling as well. I think, however, that the judgment that the place is "haunted," despite Grant's welcome use of "intelligent haunting" (at last!), seems more based upon the personal experiences of the investigators than upon any hard evidence.
I think that Jay and Grant needed to say that they were granting more allowance to personal experience than they usually do. Perhaps the problem is that there were so many experiences in this place. I don't doubt the team's sincerity–their reactions seemed real enough–but the personal experiences–whatever the source–seemed to carry more weight this time around than scientific evidence.
Am I the only one who thought that Tango's test of laughing in another building wasn't quite apropos, given that he was still wearing a mask? Would that mask have muffled sound at all?
And like Sully and CrowTRobot, I have wondered for months why everything is investigated at NIGHT!! I have some thoughts about it, but I'd like to hear others' comments . . .
Logisti @ 1:07 pm
Oh wow, Dirk! I didn't check their site, that's just despicable. "All our tours are historic" indeed. That's just about the bitterest taste I've had left in my mouth this entire season, and that's saying something.
June @ 1:18 pm
Just looked at the Lunatics' website–thanks Dirk. Oy vey. And ditto Logisti.
CrowTRobot @ 1:18 pm
http://trans-alleghenylunaticasylum.com/
"WATCH OUR TV DEBUT! APRIL 30!"
Unbelievable.
logan @ 1:55 pm
I live by the Asylum and I have went in to it at night. I got freaked out big timed there were voices and footsteps and laughter. I also saw the guy with the white robe and all i have to say is i ran out there as fast as i could
Wes @ 2:31 pm
The location was neat, but the results?? More "noises" in a huge, old building – who could've guessed? And more camera-shy apparitions, shadows and even a "blob."
As for the woman's laughter that Jay and Grant heard … we know females were in other parts of the building, so was there any attempt to synchronize footage to see if one of them was laughing at the time? (That's a rhetorical question).
As mentioned in my post regarding the Mount Washington Hotel, it would seem to be entirely unethical to make a pronouncement about a location's "haunted-ness" when there's a financial interest involved in finding evidence of the paranormal.
While I don't blame TAPS for investigating locations that market ghost tours and the like, it seems to me inappropriate to take part in those efforts if they want to claim to be "real" and above-board.
blinddog50 @ 2:38 pm
Why do I feel like GH has become a "paranormal" Gilligan's Island.
Jason as the Skipper.
Tango as Gilligan.
Steve as the Professor.
Kris as Ginger.
Grant as…nevermind.
I kinda scratched my head in the very beginning with all the Roto-Rooter plugs.
GH has become a business unto itself, it's not about paranormal investigations anymore, if it ever was, it's about selling GH as a product.
Lectures, tours, books, conventions, T-shirts and etc.
GH is Sci-Fi's highest rated show.
So to keep you watching there has to be shadows and dark blobs and EVPs that you can't understand, but to Jason and Grant it's the Gettysburg Address.
It may have started with good intentions, but it has just plain whored itself out.
Have you ever wondered how many takes the show's director needed to get the right look on Jason's face when he has "seen a shadow"?
Of course you can't see it, because it ain't there.
Maybe the next episode the TAPS van will pull in with logos all over it like NASCAR.
Oh, we'll still watch and we'll still bite.
EVP's, orbs, shadows, blobs and residual hauntings.
But I sometimes feel that Yvette Fielding may register better on the PK-2400 Honesty-O-Meter than Jason and Grant.
It's become all about the money and not about the ghosts.
Sad.
Sully @ 2:45 pm
Kris Williams is a Mary Ann. Definitely.
blinddog50 @ 2:52 pm
No way, Kris is a B-movie actress.
She's a Ginger.
Sully @ 2:53 pm
LOL! So who is Mr. Howell, and who is Lovey?
Dixie @ 2:55 pm
I was creeped out by the story of the tour guide being pulled down…I dont know what to think about a ghost in a white coat…was it a hoax..perhaps.
all I got from the show was this song stuck in my head..
You may be right
I may be crazy
But it just may be a lunatic your looking for
Turn out the light
Don,t try to save me
You may be wrong for all i know
But you may be right..
blinddog50 @ 3:13 pm
Sully,
Grant and Brian.
Wes @ 3:16 pm
Hmmm … Gilligan's Island and Ghost Hunters have this in common for viewers: When we watch GH, we wonder why we never get to see the full-body apparitions and moving shadows … when we watch Gilligan's Island, we wonder if the professor can make a shortwave radio out of a coconut, why can't he fix a dang hole in a boat??