One small thing of interest is that after seeing the "apparition" in the chapel room, Grant open the side door where they later saw "it" again. He then comments on a cold draft coming from that room. Well, the "it" showed up inte the newly opened door and they gave chase, without haist as per usual. However, and this is where it gets interesting, J&G claimed it was a deadend room with boxes and stuff, so noone could have escaped them. Ok. Good.

But, when they some time later put Kris in the room (alone; but that's another story) she to commented on the cold draft, and subsequently went into the deadend room herself, ony to discover an OPEN window in that room. How's that for NO way to escape? No wonder it was cold btw, open windows tend to let the cool air in…

And the question apart from J&G:s faulty statement about the room becomes who opened that window, and when, and why? It would fit perfectly with the presence of a third party either hoaxing an unknowing TAPS or hoaxing us on TAPS (or Pilgrim's) orders. I'm just saying…

The question of course is, if it was a deliberate hoax by Pilgrim on TAPS or a "collaboration" by TAPS and Pilgrim why did they show the open window footage with Kris? It sure does open up for suspicions and why would they risk that. Was it a miss by the producers to eager to give Kris more time on-camera? Well, I'm at a loss explaining it, that's for sure.

Perhaps not a smoking gun, but pretty darn close…

Btw, I'm eagerly waiting for your theory on the "tinny" EVP:s of late in your coming podcast. Personally I just can't get with them and am looking forward to hear your thoughts on the matter.

This investigation goes to the top of my list as one of the more bizarre theories ever used on the show. Steve's statement why he and Dave did not hear the voice.(Quote)It was almost like a disembodied person was almost willing Jason & Grant to hear it.
Logisti, four and five letter words are permitted if you use them after saying, small pocket hidden recorder inserted in shirt.

Yes, it's pretty amazing, isn't it? There's a rash of tinny voices coming out of thin air. The voices all sound similar, and they only seem to happen wherever Jay and Grant were investigating.

OK, OK, I'll get back to work on the podcast.

Amazing -
" He emphasized that he almost didn't even mention it because he thought it was an actual person, just someone he didn't recognize."

Is he telling us here that it's normal for people to be wandering around when they are planning to have an EVP session ?

Could Steve's idea regarding spirits "willing" J&G to hear something lead to the use of more "sensitive" investigators next season ?

It sounds to me like it's saying "Doomsday at last"

I'm with you on one thing, Dr. V:

It's only a matter of time until they start using psychics. I think they were flirting with the idea with Donna.

If that happens, and the show continues long enough, it will be indistinguishable from Most Haunted.

Ask me then whether it's a good or bad thing.

re: whether we think Most Haunted is a good or bad thing, we have sub-forums for just about every current or recent paranormal show, including Paranormal State and UFO Hunters. I was about to create a sub-forum for Most Haunted too, but then I decided to keep my dignity instead.

re: tinny voices, it's suspicious enough that we're suddenly hearing voices out of thin air during (is it up to four now?) investigations this season — did Ghosts learn how to talk to living folks just, all of a sudden-like? It's worse that these voices only occur around Jason & Grant — just like J&G are suddenly blessed with incredibly successful K-II sessions while everyone else is still struggling to find any remote semblance of intelligence in the blinking lights during their own sessions.

The worst part isn't that all of the voices sound tinny, either. If the ghosts just learned to start talking in the last couple of months then how do we know they don't naturally sound tinny? Seriously though, the tinny quality is just incredibly suspicious. The worst part is something Stephen discovered and discusses with me during our podcast review of the Renaissance Vinoy investigation (which I believe will be episode 011). The worst part is that this new surge of "activity" coincides with the team switching to new Olympus digital recorders, and specifically the fact that these recorders have a very interesting feature.

Paul, you are absolutely right about Steve's comment. "It was almost like a disembodied person was almost willing Jason & Grant to hear it." Jay, Grant, and the millions of viewers that heard it on TV. If it is an EVP, then only the recorder would pick it up. If it were targeting them only, then only they would hear it. You can't have it both ways.

And who does EVPs with someone sitting in the room just a few feet away?

Finally, Jay is pointing the FLIR at the ground when someone walks by? At least that is what it looked like to me. If you saw someone walk by, wouldn't you run after them with the FLIR? Again, sorry for the logic. I might be asking to much of them, I know.

I didn't address Steve's comment because I was fuming over yet another tinny voice but yeah, it's pretty inane to suggest this was something "willed" into J&G's heads when you have two audio recorders that also picked the sound up.

IMO Steve is best when he follows rules set by others, and probably at his worst when he starts coming up with his own conclusions as to what's actually going on. I very much appreciate how he defers to Jay's judgment when it comes to whether or not a piece of evidence is worth scrutinizing, but it's very clear that if left to his own devices we'd be looking at video of dust particles week after week.

As a dj i have to let this be known to you guys. As far as "tinny" voices are concerned before assuming that Jay and Grant are somehow faking these evp's you may want to investigate a few things yourself. I have about 5 sound programs on my computer, all of which are pretty similar and do pretty much the same thing TAPS uses to playback the evp sessions they do. Now what alot of people are forgetting is that these evp's are not always "hey here i am can you hear me now" clear. TAPS has to on occasion run these evp's through filters to clean them up. Sometime these filters can distort a sound while making other more noticible. For instance, in any one of my programs I might have to turn down the bass levels and turn up treble levels. When this is done you will get a tinny effect. You can do this yourself easily by recording your voice and playing it back in windows media player while adjusting the equalizer that's built in.

I'm not saying this is what we are hearing but it's a little disturbing that for all the dubunking everone is doing here that noone has looked into this. It seems most people are more interested in proving Jay and Grant are somehow providing fake evidence than pointing out the obvious. Like i said as someone who works with sound on a daily basis this seems more obvious to me the reason than saying someone has a recorder in their pocket…

Pretty much my point is that maybe the voices seem tinny after TAPS runs them through a filter to clean them up. It seems more logical that TAPS might use a new sound program that produces sounds differently than thier previous programs. I've watched other programs and have seen their evp's come back as tinny also

robfrmpgh: The aspects you talk about, have been taken into consideration. The device you use for playback does affect the sound at times, yes, and you might need to "treat" the recording. However, the regularity and pattern behind these tinny recordings, circumstancial I admit, does raise suspicion. And yet another trouble is that treatment, (filtering and boosting) might introduce new patterns in noise so that appears to be a voice. This all leads to the actual problem, lack of peer-review, noone but TAPS and Pilgrim know what treatment the recordings have gone through, so it is really impossible to assess it. But we do the best we can.

Furthermore, for us viewers most EVP's are portrayed being played back as-is, without alteration. If the tinny sound was the effect of processing the audio they should inform the viewers and the client of that. Since they haven't done that when it comes to these EVP's, we have to assume the recordings are played back as-is.

I think G opened a can of worms when he goes " How could you guys not hear that ? "

Either -

1. T&S are lying about not hearing it, or

2. G is claiming something para-normal, since he seems to believe normal laws would dictate that they DID hear it. Steve simply puts that into words.

Since the recorders can run longer then their investigations, perhaps they should consider turning them ALL on at the start and all off at the end ?

It sure seems pretty amateurish when they go " Oh OH did you hear that, lets forget what we are trying to actually do and stop to play it back "

These guys have supposedly seen multiple full body apparations over 18 years and they get freaked like little schoolgirls over what they think is a voice ?

robfrmpgh, the problem here is that none of the "Tinny" sounds were EVPs. They weren't discovered later while someone was going over a tape and then amplified, they were all heard originally by Jason & Grant and very clearly on the production audio, so we hear all three voices and Jason & Grant's voices don't have that tinny quality.

Secondly, in this particular episode they actually play back the voice on one of their handheld recorders just moments after they hear it. It doesn't sound tinny at all on the handheld (or rather, everything sounds tinny, so it doesn't sound any different from anything else) but it is noticeably louder on the handheld than on the production audio.

Simply put, in each of these cases we know our audio quality is good in both tone and volume because we hear it on the same production audio and we hear Jay & Grant talking both immediately before and (did you hear that… etc) immediately after. Therefore the tone (tinny) and volume cannot be products of "enhancement".

Most damning, this has happened REPEATEDLY, with identical results: J&G's voices are normal in tone and volume, but in between we hear another voice (Slater Mill, Renaissance Vinoy, this investigation… am I missing one?) — repeatable results are scientific results. There is virtually no question that the voices are actually "tinny", the only question is WHY they are tinny.

Look i'm not trying to prove that anything going on during the show is real or faked. I think alot of people come up with a solution and decide that's the answer. I'm all about debunking everything but alot of people are making horrible theories and leaving it like that.

Look into this a little further. Do you think that after a show is filmed the production company just throws everything into an hour long show? No, they mix the audio and video also.

So Jay and Grant hear something that nothing picks up right away. The camera man hears it too, so does the sound man, but upon review of the footage it is deemed that the voice isn't loud enough to entertain the audience so the production company amplifies the sound to spark our interest. Who is to say that the voice we heard on the show was really that loud to begin with. Noone else but Jay and Grant heard it…

So my view is that when the voice was heard it was hardly as loud as it was on the show. The production company realizing this went through the footage and during editing amplified the sound so that the general audience could hear it more clearly… It's not that hard to picture and as said before makes more sense than someone carrying a recorder in their pocket and playing it…

I refuse to believe (without proof) that TAPS is hoaxing anything. Of course this is my opinion and everyone is entitled to their own but alot of people are not thinking of EVERY aspect of the show before making claims of a hoax…

robfrmpgh, first off it's important to separate two completely different conclusions:

1) Whether or not the voice was "Tinny"

2) Whether or not TAPS is "Hoaxing"

Proving (1) does not automatically prove (2) — I completely agree that we do not have enough evidence to conclusively prove (2), but I think we *can* conclusively prove (1).

We know these mystery voices were loud. We were told so when a voice was heard twice in Slater Mill. Jay was woken up by a loud voice at the Renaissance Vinoy. Grant said the voice at Marjim Manor was so loud that Steve & Tango should have heard it in the next room. They were all loud, therefore there was no need to "enhance" the production footage in order to hear them.

We've also never seen an instance of production audio being "enhanced" in the same way TAPS enhances their EVP audio, and if it was enhanced then we would expect to hear the background audio characteristics to change (more hiss, hum) when we hear the anomalous voices but we do not. We hear the anomalous voices right before/after we hear Jason and/or Grant in all three cases and there is no increased background hiss or hum during the mystery voice.

In fact, this comparison in audio characteristics between the segments of the recording containing J&G's voice and the segments with the mystery voices, which occur right next to each other on the recording with no change in background noise, not only proves that the anomaly wasn't amplified, it also proves it really did sound "tinny".

These are the facts. If they seem uncomfortably close to an accusation of fraud, it isn't because the facts are wrong. It's because there aren't a whole lot of good explanations why TAPS is suddenly hearing tinny voices.

robfrmpgh
It’s what is more plausible based on reasoning, which starts from a set of values and infers their most likely, or best, explanations. The possibility of a ghost being recorded is always there, but as long as alternate explanations are equally as likely, it breaks it down to faith and a belief exercise. Other explanations are an attempt to minimize the chance a person will incorrectly accept a claim that involves questionable evidence. Taps is responsible for ruling out all other explanations. To believe everything we see on TV is to suspend all common sense and logical thinking.

Logisti, as I said I work with sound everyday. Trust me when I say you can easily edit any sound and block out any background noise. I can easily take "hiss hiss HELP ME hiss hiss" and make the help me louder and completely get rid of any background hisses or noise. Audio is a lot easier to manipulate in terms of making what you want to hear more clear and dropping any reverb or background noise. I could clean the audio up and make the help me sound Chinese if you wanted…

With that said there are a lot of people who claim Grant, Jay, or somebody is carrying a recorder and playing these voices.

Now ghost hunters is a million dollar franchise. If I have access to these tools I guarantee they have access to more.
All we know is what we hear on the show. We have no way of knowing how loud – loud is. Just cause Grant says something is loud doesn't mean it is. Obviously Steve was sitting 10 feet away and didn't hear it so it wasn't that loud.

I believe that sounds are being captured and when we hear them they are tinny. I also believe though that the sounds are authentic and we are hearing audio that has been "tweaked" so that we can hear it better.

My opinion on this is as said before
1. The voice wasn't as loud as Jay and Grant let on.
2. The voice was amplified during editing to seem louder. This includes what Pilgrim captured as well as what we hear Grant playing back from his recorder. It's not hard to do.

Hasn't it been proven that Pilgrim has doctored things in the past? So that's why I believe what I do…

Now with that said the noise in the basement they chased sounded to me like what I hear when I drop my golf bag and a golf ball goes rolling across the floor.

Like I said I agree with everyone here that the voices sound "tinny". I just feel they're tinny for different reasons. But, there are people who have posted here and claim the sounds are a hoax. This is what I disagree with.

But I gotta go now the new show is on… =)

robfrmpgh,

I understand where you're coming from, but that's a pretty big pill to swallow. It requires we believe a whole bunch of things that don't seem very likely:

1) In one case a voice actually wakes Jay up in the middle of the night, in another case Jay & Grant both think it was so loud they might have heard it in the next room. You're asking me to believe that the sound was really very quiet and needed to be amplified — there isn't anything to support this idea, all the evidence points the other way.

2) In this particular investigation, they immediately play back the voice on one of their handheld recorders and it's *very* loud. This was seconds after they heard the sound, they didn't enhance the audio, they just hit play. Sure, they can turn the volume up but we can barely hear the background hiss so it couldn't be turned up very high. Again, not even a hint of a reason we should believe the audio was enhanced.

3) No one has *ever* noticed Pilgrim enhancing their production audio, and considering some of the people who watch this show are very sharp I find it difficult to believe everyone would miss that. Yes, someone modified the *video* of the Manson FLIR but that was immediately noted and jumped on by fans. I don't think Pilgrim is anxious to deal with a similar uproar.

But that being said, there is no *reason* for them to enhance the production audio. The TAPS team always goes back and enhances their own audio so we can hear it, so there's no need for Pilgrim to mess around on their end. Besides that, we've had many, many times during investigations where the TAPS team hears something, but it is barely audible or not audible at all on the production audio (i.e. not enhanced) but clearly audible afterward when we hear TAPS "enhanced" version.

So to ask us to believe Pilgrim digitally enhanced a portion of their audio, causing these voices to sound tinny, is to ask us to ignore all of the things that we *know* and just start speculating wildly. In that case, what if Jay wasn't really at the investigation and they digitally edited him in afterward? What if Grant's voice in real life is really squeaky and every time he talks on the program they run it through a filter to make him sound normal?

There are no reason to believe these things, but yet I can't disprove them. All I can do is go with the simplest theory that lines up neatly with all the known facts. The simplest theory is that they didn't edit the audio. The known facts suggest they've never "enhanced" production audio in the past and in this particular case everyone seems to be agreeing these voices are quite loud, so there would be no reason to "enhance" the audio even if they wanted to.

Conversely, your theory doesn't just add a layer of complexity (editing production audio masterfully enough to make certain sounds louder without any change in the background hiss, but poorly enough to make the audio sound tinny) but we have to believe everyone who says the voices were loud are wrong and we have to believe that Pilgrim suddenly started enhancing their production audio when we know from past investigations they have no problem leaving such sounds barely audible or inaudible.

The scene where four investigators crowd around a handheld recorder and remark on how loud the voice is brings all of these things together. We're supposed to believe it's only loud (without background hiss) because the studio enhanced it (that would be some trick, modifying a recording of a recording), and that the four investigators listening to the handheld recorder are bizarrely incorrect in their belief that the voice was loud.

In short, your theory can't be disproven but not only is there no evidence to support it, but it goes against all of the evidence we actually have.

Logisti,

As for your #2 yes the playback sounded loud. My suggestion is that during editing it was made louder. We didn't see the show live so we don't know if it was enhanced or not. As i said we don't know how loud – loud is. Was it jet engine loud or was it just louder than what we're used to hearing. Usually the voices and EVP's captured are soft as a whisper so I am safe to assume, that to TAPS anything louder than the normal whisper catured could be deemed loud.

I'm not asking anyone to believe anything, I'm simply stating my opinion and offering another explination. I've seen some wild theories on this site and to me mine is a little more believable than most.

We must all admit that we have no clue how Pilgrim conducts business. We have no idea how this show is produced and what may or may not be done prior to our viewing. With that said none of us are investigators and can believe any explanation we want. I'm just putting mine out there the same as you do, the same as all of here do.

Now "to me" my theory makes more sense. To you yours does and that's fine. But, to me until Pilgrim or TAPS can come out and say that some sounds are or are not enhanced for us to hear this will be my theory on why some voices may sound tinny.

We are asked to believe in TAPS honesty which I fully do until given a reason not to. Therefore I believe the sounds were authentic and not from a recording as some want me to believe.

You said "But that being said, there is no *reason* for them to enhance the production audio. The TAPS team always goes back and enhances their own audio so we can hear it, so there's no need for Pilgrim to mess around on their end."

I could not dissagree more. For 1 Pilgrims camera and sound guy "might" not have captured the intitial voice (we were not there or watching it live so we dont know). So there is 1 reason for them to enhance a sound/ voice. For 2 Pilgrim and Sci Fi are marketing a product. Therefore they have every reason to enhance anything they want… I do believe there is nothing wrong with enhancing anything as long as it's staying true to what happend. For example making a voice/ sound louder for us to hear is acceptable but making the voice say "hi grant" when it really said "help me" would be wrong.

Now as I said it's not that I don't agree somewhat with your theories, I just have some of my own. I'm not trying to impose my will or make you believe anything. When it comes to this field of study we can all try to explain away every detail and piece of evidence. That is what makes it fun and interesting I'm sure we can agree. But to me this is as plausible as a rat tail causing a cupboard door to open then slam shut. Like in the lighthouse, yes, the window sounded just like the bucket, but does that prove that it was definetly the window and not the bucket? No…

As I said none of us know for sure what goes on behind the scenes of the show. Do i think the sounds are fake? No, just "possibly" enhanced so we can better get a feel for what is going on. Now with that said had I been there I could disprove my theory all together which is fine with me. But, by just watching a show my mind is free to make any assumption. And to me this is "plausible". Is it likely? who knows probably not. But, is it plausible? Yes

robfrmpgh,

Your theory is not plausible. There are number of reasons for this, which I have outlined already but I'll focus in on the main problems:

1) You suggest Pilgrim may have enhanced their audio because maybe they didn't capture the sound or capture it well. I already addressed this: How many times have J&G heard something that we didn't hear at home when it happened? About a million? Suddenly Pilgrim is going to start amplifying sounds when they've been been leaving these segments inaudible or barely audible in every other investigation for four years? I see no reason to even suspect that might be true.

2) You suggest the sounds could be amplified, which is why they sound "tinny", but when confronted with the lack of background hiss you assert that a master audio surgeon could amplify the sound without changing the background noise (hiss) characteristics. Okay, maybe so but someone so talented could also amplify sounds without making them "tinny" so even *if* the audio has been "enhanced", we can still conclude that the original sound was "tinny".

If you had a plausible theory then I'd absolutely embrace it as a possibility, but what you are suggesting just isn't plausible. I can't prove it's impossible, but that's not a good enough reason to put it on the list of possibilities worth considering.

robfrmpgh: I am with you as far as questioning if the sound we hear is actually the unaltered original audio, and the possibility it has been enhanced and in the production or editing process, thereby adding a tinny characteristic to it, is valid. I too have worked with sound (broadcasting) and do understand your objections. But I assure you these variables have been taken into consideration, and although it is commendable you raise them in open forum, discussion makes for better scrutiny, I personally left them out since I did not deem them plausible.

So in short, it is true that enhancing can make audio sound tinny, but that does not mean all tinny audio is the result of audio enhancing. In this case, as Logisti has argued, enhanced audio as a variable is not relevant for the reason he has stated.

As for hoaxing, I do not believe TAPS or Pilgrim to be hoaxers (yet). I do understand the process of making TV and the compromise with reality that is. But I do entertain the possibility and when circumstances and facts point to that I have to be intellectually honest and admit it. To do otherwise is to be naive and gullible, and unscientific. Thus far, the case for hoaxing is circumstantial, but it does keep getting stronger and we are reaching a critical point where the scale might tip over. As always we must assess the facts and circumstances and be open for all possibilities the facts and circumstances point to. Regardless of whether we like or dislike J&G. We as well as believers must be cautious of confirmation bias and prejudice when assessing the TAPS "case".