October 19, 2008
GH: Tracy House
Most TAPS investigations can be reasonably pigeonholed into one of only four or five categories. Of those, the "child in need" episodes are perhaps the most frequent. The pigeonhole tells us that there is a young couple who is concerned about the safety of their son or daughter because of strange occurences that seem to have a threatening air about them. More recently the pigeonhole took on a new characteristic — the TAPS team seemed to have completely different standards when they investigated these homes, suddenly becoming ultra-skeptics and ignoring or rationalizing evidence they'd immediately label paranormal under any other circumstances.
The supposition behind this phenomena is that they want to reach a conclusion that will make the family feel more comfortable, and thus be better for them. The problem is that inconsistency is in many ways worse than consistently erring on the side of "ghost" and even worse than that is the notion that it's okay to deliberately alter conclusions to meet the desired outcome. At that point, all credibility is lost. Thankfully TAPS seems to be pulling back from that and in this episode they gave a solid investigation and came to conclusions that jived with their evidence.
In this case, the child in question was an infant whose behavior had caused the mother to believe there was something not only in that room, but in a particular corner of it that the child seemed to fixate on, and whose mother had also discovered scratches on the legs and back which she couldn't explain and was understandably concerned about. There were a number of other reports, from the grandmother seeing a dark figure and feeling like someone was following her to a bathroom door that was reported to close on its own, but all-in-all this was a very straightforward case with a few consistent central points.
One thing I noted which I wanted to shine a spotlight on was when they started doing EVP's, Jay told everyone not to "provoke" as they often do in an attempt to get an alleged spirit to react to them because he said that they could potentially be provoking a spirit that is then going to be left angry and still in the house for the family to deal with once TAPS leaves. Now, this shows Jay is truly concerned and puts some serious thought into these investigations, but it is also another great example of bad science. Working backwards, it seems like it makes perfect sense, but science works the other way, from the bottom-up. One level down we have to wonder, can spirits even get angry? If so, what does that mean and how will they react? Some paranormal researchers practice rituals to "cleanse" homes and this is said to anger spirits greatly — right before they leave. So why would some spirits get angry and leave while others get angry and stay? One could hypothesize that it's situational, or depends on the spirit, but really this is all just guesswork, and if we go another level down we have the basic question: is there a spirit in the house — or yet another level down: do spirits exist?
So, assuming spirits do exist and assuming one is in the house, we're also assuming we know it can get angry and how it will react. There's a lot of assuming going on in the field of paranormal research, and to be fair to TAPS we all know they are among the most scientific groups out there. It's just something to keep in mind, and it's one of the biggest reasons real scientists aren't interested in this field.
Another spotlight moment from this investigation was when Jay pulled out the FLIR thermal imaging camera, he noted he was getting a lot of thermal reflections — a common phenomena when using the FLIR camera in a house to look for potentially people-shaped heat signatures, and something Jay seemed to temporarily forget entirely during the recent Oak Alley Plantation investigation. I am glad to see he has fully recovered his ability to interpret thermal images.
Getting to the real substance of this investigation, Jay & Grant were in the kitchen when they (and we) began to hear what was apparently some of the kitchen cabinets opening slightly and rebounding closed. Jay & Grant definitely did not seem to be anywhere near the cabinets while this occurred, and it seemed to occur at several different cabinets and at least three times. During the Reveal the owner mentioned her friend has slept over once and mentioned hearing exactly the same thing. I thought this was intriguing, but at least one non-paranormal possibility occurred to me right away: rats.
Now, I hope they don't have rats and I know it may not be the likeliest explanation — let me know your own hypotheses — but they are investigating late at night with the lights off, so if there are rats in the house this is when (and where) you'd expect them to be. As for the "how", just picture a rat running along a long shelf behind a series of cupboard doors, it's tail occasionally hitting one of the cabinet doors from the inside just hard enough to push it slightly open and have it spring back closed again. Ahh, I'm not sure I buy it but it was the first thing that I thought of and I think it's definitely plausible but I'd want to see the inside of that cupboard to look for droppings, bags of food with the corners torn off, etc.
While investigating the bathroom door that reportedly closed on its own Grant said he saw something small run between Jay's legs into the bathroom and Jay said he felt something run by. I guess I can forgive the camera guy this time — who expected we'd want to see a shot of Jay's feet? Jay actually suggested he thought it was a cat but the owner hadn't mentioned owning a cat. I'm not sure if this was cleared up — he seemed sure that someone would have mentioned a cat to him — and knowing what the team does it certainly would be relevant, but it's also a natural thing for a homeowner to forget to mention so I wouldn't completely rule out a cat.
Still, whatever ran by Jay — if anything — seemed to coincide with some flashlight problems. Jay's flashlight went off in his hand while he was holding it still and his thumb was nowhere near the switch. We do hear a click but I watched this scene several times and I'm fairly convinced it was Grant turning his own flashlight off. I'm also fairly convinced that Jay didn't just forget to screw his flashlight together properly (they sometimes unscrew the battery case to make it "easier for spirits" to turn on and off, it essentially renders the flashlight very sensitive to movement) because we do see him move the light rather vigorously a moment later as he looks around on the inside of the bathroom and the light stays on nice and bright. That also seems to rule out a battery problem, so nothing conclusive here and perhaps all sorts of ordinary but those few seconds did have a weird vibe.
The final incident of the investigation impressed me not-at-all though. Jay & Grant were in the grandmother's room when Jay said he heard footsteps right behind him, loud. This apparently confirmed what the grandmother had told them earlier, but the problem is *I* didn't hear any footsteps, so I don't know how "loud" they could possibly have been. Normally they catch these sounds on tape so when they got to the tape and we heard some loud footsteps I was momentarily satisfied… until I realized that's all I heard. No voices, no Jay, no Grant. Later on it was mentioned that this particular recording came from the kitchen area, and not from the grandmother's room at all, but they still somehow suggested this evidence was related to hearing footsteps in the grandmother's room. I was a little confused how the two things were related, or why anyone was suggesting that they were related at all.
Ultimately though, the conclusion issued was that they don't really know what's going on, which I thought was the right call. By their standards, they had too much happen and no debunking to go to the family with and assure them there aren't any spirits in the house, but certainly not enough evidence to declare there are any spirits either. No conclusion was supported by the evidence and no conclusion was made, which I would say is commendable. It's human nature to want a yes or no answer and it takes a little extra effort to admit we just have no clue either way. Jay & Grant took it one step further even, they suggested the mother invest in a baby monitor and record her infant, that way if she found more scratches on him she could go back and review the tape. All in all, a completely unspectacular Ghost Hunters investigation but at the same time I would say one of the more solid investigations this season.
Filed under Ghost Hunters, Posts by Logisti
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Comments on GH: Tracy House »
Logisti @ 3:04 pm
I did forget to mention: there were several "EVPs" but nothing of any quality worth mentioning, which is why I forgot to
bullerspoke @ 3:18 pm
A theory: the first time the cabinet doors "knocked" coincided with a car/pickup passing by the kitcehn window, fairly close from what I could gather. However the subsequent knocks did not seem to coincide with further cars but seemed to come more random. So I'm on the fence here. But I do believe it is possible that vibrations from passing cars (especially the heavy cars you americans drive
) could make the cabinet shake and rattle the doors, which did not seem to have any latches. It is a stretch and from what it seems only one door at a time "knocked" but it is a hypothesis. With proven, sound variables (as in Logisti's rat theory).
I live close to a urban highway and a cargotrain-track that carries a lot of cargo to the port in my town so I'm no stranger to vibration and how it might makes things move. Sometimes it does make things move without no apparent reason (I had a small hell with my tv, since the reception kept going when the trains passed, about once every hour, yes, EVERY hour),
However, it is a stretch, I admit, but hey, so is the implication of ghosts rattling kitchen cabinet doors.
Stephen @ 6:37 pm
Re the cabinet doors: are we sure that that sound actually came from the cabinets at all?
Jay and Grant claim to have seen the cabinet doors move, but as far as I recall, we never actually see it. They're in a darkened room, so they're probably not seeing things clearly.
Why not set up a camera after the first incident to catch any doors opening?
Also, if someone called me saying that their child had unexplained scratches, I would have told them Jay and Grant's (admittedly good) advice about setting up a camera on the baby immediately, never mind investigating first. If any member of the Tracy family should happen to stop by here (hi!), I'd be curious to know if they actually tried this and what the results were.
Lar @ 11:04 pm
Click or search the link. Grant's walking towards the cabinets. Within the first 12 seconds of the video he takes a step & it is at that very moment the cabinet door knocks. It looks more like the door may have bounced or closed because of the vibration of his foot hitting the floor.
Did they check the cabinets BEFORE the investigation to make sure the doors were closed, or that they didn't vibrate?
Jay said his flashlight goes out just as Grant says the word PEAK (2:00). But it appears the flashlight is off at 1:57 or 3 seconds before, then comes on, only to go off as if on cue when Grant says, "PEAK," clicking off his own flashlight at the very moment Jay's goes out.
The distortion they claimed were evps was an all time low.
J&G should just fire the staff. Other members can be in a room for 7 hours but NOTHING happens. 20 seconds after J&G enter the same room, shadows are running a foot & the K2 is responding to the question, "Are you a man or a woman, or possibly a transvestite?"
Why is it they never ask if the person is black, white, asian, gay, tall, short, how they died, or if they preferred crunchy over smooth peanut butter.
ghost hunters tracy house – Google Video.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=ghost%20hunters%20tracy%20house&um=1&sa=N&tab=wv#
bullerspoke @ 4:03 am
Lar: Good catch, I did not notice that correlation. The theory that vibrations are in play seems more and more logical. The reason I went with cars rather than steps was the the homeowner claimed the knocking had been heard by other people in other circumstances, implying that the vibrations, if it indeed is caused by vibrations, must be something else than people walking in the kitchen, But I think we can agree that vibrations might be a causal factor here, no matter what makes them. Intently or not…
Stephen: In fact we don't know that as you point out. However when they recreate the knocking by rattling the door it does sound similar. However, the fact that we don't see it actually fits rather good with a theory that manmade vibrations rattles the doors of that cabinet. Since unlike J&G imply it is not necessariily so that the doors open much at all to make that rattling noise meaning the movement might be to subtle to see (especially on-camera unless it is pointed right at the doors in a good angle) unless you really keep a close eye on all the doors and strike somewhat lucky.
But it could indeed be something else making that noise.
Lar @ 2:22 pm
The cabinets do not have silent, or slow closing hinges as most mdoern cabinets do. When they close, they bounce slighlty, ever so slightly, off the wood frame.
We don't know if they checked to see if all the doors were closed, or if they did close tightly. It could very well be the doors do not. They may only rest on the outer frame. If so they would be subject to rattling/bouncing. They appeared tohave latches, but that too can be easily debunked if they do not work or are worn.
Why not turn the lights on & bounce on the floor. Why not? Because it's a much better story line to have a spirit rattling 'round the kitchen then to have cabinets that rattle.
On another note I can't wait to see if just one SIGNIFICANT experience happens to ANYONE else besides J&G on Halloween.
Shadows, cold spots, distorted evps, Flir images which are really a prankster, & voices ONLY they can hear, do not count. WOW! There goes the whole show.
Brandon @ 3:55 pm
Maybe it is just me, but if I were standing in a kitchen with a camera in hand and the cabinet doors suddenly opened on their own, the first thing I would do would be to point my camera at the doors, hoping to catch this movement on tape. When it happened again, just a few seconds later, if I hadn't previously recorded the doors, I would definitely do it at that point. After the third sound in a few minutes, I would have to be an idiot not to catch this on camera. I mean come on, how hard is it to figure out. Just point the camera at the doors. BTW, thanks Logisti for posting this review as I have been waiting to get that off my chest for a while now. I also don’t understand why both Jay and Grant don’t walk around with their own cameras. It seems like most if not all of the paranormal events have happened to them lately.
Does it bother anyone else when owners suddenly remember strange events after the evidence has been gathered? I am not sure if they are trying to make the TAPS team happy, or really just forgot, but it always leaves me wondering.
My final comment has to do with the show in general. Did any notice how angry Tango seemed on the show? I know that he attempted to provoke only to be told to stop by Steve, but he just seems to lack that carefree attitude he had a few years ago. I hope this returns on the Halloween episode. Perhaps this is a consequence of the show primarily being focused on Jay and Grant, when it once was focused on the entire team.
Just my thoughts.
Brenny @ 5:36 pm
totally off subject…but where is the live Halloween episode taking place this year?
Logisti @ 6:21 pm
Ghost Hunters Live Halloween 2008 = Fort Delaware
Dr. Peter Venkman @ 7:27 pm
The cabinet sound just after he slides the window down ( which appears to move itself back up ) seems to have at least 4 bounces.
It's hard to imagine the door opening enough to have that much force without being noticed.
In my own little experiments, a broom almost balenced upright takes little force to bring it out from the wall, and it will return with repeating bounces. These could explain the sounds appearing to come from doors we never see move.
Comparing the sounds, the trials by J&G seem to be consistantly "bassier", much deeper then the higher pitched unknown sounds.
This also explains the "different cabinet" moving the last time – since J was staring at the first ones, and the sound occured, It MUST have been a different one opening -
Odds are NONE of them ever opened.
BTW – this happens at 9:19 and they DON'T leave a camera on it ? It takes 3 hours until they send Kris and Tango to check on it ?
Logisti @ 8:48 am
I've used cabinets like that before and they do not have to be opened far in order to get that oscillating knock, similar to the broom experiment discussed. I don't doubt it was the cabinets, the question in my mind is what caused it. Vehicles on the street outside and minor pressure variations from doors opening or closing elsewhere in the house are both really good explanations.
If this wall of cabinets are all open on the inside (really long shelves) as I think they are then the pressure explanation works particularly well because only one would need to open in order to resolve the pressure differential — so the first one to open is the only one that vibrates.
Dr. Peter Venkman brings up two excellent points: is it really 3 hours between the time they give for their initial investigation in the kitchen and the time they give for Kris going in there? If so, that's seems a bit sloppy. Also, when you say a window appears to move itself back up do you mean they closed it but later we see it open again? If so, that raises further questions about the editing Pilgrim is doing and if they're portraying the investigation accurately. Putting scenes together out of sequence may improve drama, but IMO it's just plain wrong for any show that claims a documentary or reality aspect.
Dirk Blackpool @ 12:06 pm
Regarding the flashlight incident – It looks like Jay & Grant are using mini mag lights, which don't have a switch. You have to twist the top part of the light to turn it on & off. Looking at the way Jay is holding the light – it wouldn't take much effort to twist it in order to get it to shut off. I own one of these lights and it is very touchy – (especially after having the batteries leak inside at one point) – and the thing is constantly shutting off without warning, causing me to have to jiggle the top to get it back on. Anyway, just an observation.
Dr. Peter Venkman @ 12:40 pm
"Also, when you say a window appears to move itself back up do you mean they closed it but later we see it open again? "
No, It appears AS he pushes it down it comes back up slightly – G even seems a bit surprised by it not wanting to stay down.
As far as the 3 hour time problem – a closer check shows the clock in the kitchen showing 9:19 when they are first there – then Pilgrim time jumps to "4 hours into investigation"
12:2(?) when the cabinets are making the noise according to the clock.
It ALMOST looks like 12:24 at the second sequence of taps.
They conveniently cut off the FLIR timestamp.
THEN J&G go to the bathroom flashlight event that Pilgrim lists as 11:47
Next sequence T&K go into the Kitchen – Pilgrim Time (PT) now 12:23 … 3 minutes since the start of the tapping incident according to the kitchen clock.
T&K hear a sound and leave kitchen to head upstairs at "PT:8 hours into investigation" or somewhere about 4-5 AM after spending 4 hours sitting in the kitchen ?
J&G go into the grandmom's bedroom after getting reports of footsteps ( from T&K ? ) PT:2:41 afterwards they call it quits.
Basically, it seems like Pilgrim has re-arranged the sequence here and their timestamps don't really have to reflect reality.
I suppose the next thing the Ghost Hunters will do when they turn out the lights is pull the plugs on any digital clocks that might show up onscreen.
Logisti @ 1:23 pm
Dirk Blackpool, I believe the flashlights they are using have buttons on the end of the battery casing — not sure of the brand but I'm pretty sure of the buttons. Right before Jay's light turns off we hear a click-click that sounds exactly like this kind of switch, and a moment later we see Grant's thumb is over the end of his flashlight.
It is certainly true that unscrewing the battery casing while the switch is "on" can result in the flashlight going on and off (in fact, we discuss this extensively in regards to Jay's flashlight experiments in other investigations) but in this case I didn't think that was going on because a moment later when it goes back on we see Jay move his flashlight vigorously and it stays on without so much as a flicker.
I'm not prepared to say this is paranormal either, but I found it more puzzling than much of the other flashlight related "evidence" TAPS has put forth.
Leslie @ 3:40 pm
If you watch the footage from the grandmother's bedroom (this is after J&G have the flashlight incidence) when J is sitting in a chair and he hears a noise, he grabs his flashlight and twists the top to turn it on. This is not a push-button flashlight. This is the kind that needs to be turned at the top to turn it on, and if it is not turned all the way it can and will go off and on by itself.
Dr. Peter Venkman @ 3:49 pm
The flashlight business annoys me most – could you imagine the phone call …
Client – "What will you do when you get here?"
GH – " One thing we will do is unscrew our flashlight cap, and see if it turns on or off"
Client – "Will that show I have a ghost ?"
GH – " No, I'll just say I don't know what caused it, and that it dosen't prove anything, but it MIGHT be a ghost"
Client … "click"
Logisti @ 11:01 am
Leslie, very good catch. I just reviewed that part of the episode again and I see exactly what you're talking about. Grant seems to be using a flashlight with a push-button on the end, but as Dirk Blackpool noticed Jay *is* using a mini-maglite. I'm sorry I didn't catch this earlier — I had thought they both used the same kind of flashlight.
Jay's flashlight *is* a twist-on, twist-off so it's entirely possible he just didn't twist it enough when he went into the bathroom. Mystery (probably) solved.
lar @ 1:19 pm
Let me BOUNCE this off the kitchen cabinets. Why is TAPS going back to Fort Delware? The original investigation was AWFUL.
This is home to what I call the peek a boo! If you don't recall, watch the clip. At 6:44 you see yet ANOTHER FLIR image walking down the hall. Within 30 seconds the "spirit," is seen popping it's head out from behind a wall looking directly at the FLIR. It then pops it's head back in, aka the peek a boo:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=fort%20delaware&um=1&sa=N&tab=wv#
Lastly,doesn't TAPS wonder why, just why, in EVERY instance where the FLIR captures someone walking, the image is always…ALWAYS down the hall, walking away from the camera. Excluding the E.S.P. image, shot not with a FLIR but the DVR, where the "spirit," is obviously running with a black sheet over its body.
Very nicely debunked here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZsm49GGgQk&feature=related
Miki @ 7:45 pm
Just watched this episode and the ghost is a six/seven year old boy…very jealous of the baby…the male voices that were presumed to be heard was of a boy about 12/13…the two ghosts are not related, one is attached to the house the other is attached to one of the tenants…and just something I see with every episode I've wator ched…Grant has a ghost attached to him…so some of what is heard or seen is that ghost trying to help (or think he's helping) Grant…Grant's ghost is a young adult male, 17-early 20's, about 5'9"-5'10", lighter side of sandy brown hair, and he smiles everytime grant hears or sees something…totally funny
Axel Olrik @ 9:10 pm
Uh Oh….