I've just recently found your site and must say that I'm thoroughly impressed with the blog, podcast, and most of all the community you have here. I would love to see a representative from TAPS come here and open a dialog about what's really going on from their perspective. Would that be categorized as "far fetched wishful thinking"?

Great podcast,except that I started choking on my cheetos because I was laughing so hard at the Seven Sisters song.
A "mountain of salt" says it all!!

Is everyone in on it?
You can ignore a lot of sh*t when your paycheck depends on it.

Stephen, JB is going to sue you.
Hell, I may sue for the psychological damage you did to my dog.

Just kiddin'
Loved it

Regarding the recorders –

From the closeups we get, comparing the position of the controls and screen size etc, the Olympus model ( white ) seems to be the WS 110's – the operating manual does not mention these having an alarm function.

( The tape over the name shows they are not getting enough payoff for product placement )

The black Sony units look like ICDP320's or 520's – The 520 DOES have an alarm function, but it gives you the choice of a 10 second alarm sound then playback, or the alarm sound only, so that dosen't fit the requirements.

Obviously someone could have a different model and could have secreted it somewhere. But the suspect would need to be J himself … who else could take the chance he would not find the recorder and be sure it could be retrieved ?

'Way too chancey if he were not in on the scam.

Dr. V–

Thanks for the research. We'll have to keep a close eye on what kinds of recorders we see, especially if anyone has a personal recorder.

The last bit– recorder retrieval– is what really bugs me. If the Single Hoaxer Theory (or SHT for short) is true, then our Single Hoaxer is getting much less cautious. I don't think that that shoots the theory out of the water, though. If someone were to succeed with a couple of initial hoaxes, he'd probably get much less cautious. Still no smoking gun.

There was an odd pattern that I noticed that's almost certainly coincidental, but I was wondering. In the episodes where we've heard audible tinny voices, Grant has been wearing a leather cuff or bracelet on his right wrist. Can someone tell me what that is? I can't think of how it might be related, but I'm curious.

Some members had suggested that Grant might have a watch that plays MP3s. I've been looking at watch images, and the closest visual match that I've found to Grant's watch is a Suunto. I haven't found any Suuntos that play MP3s. Can anyone figure out what kind of watch Grant wears?

I've looked around for any watch that would play a recording through a speaker, but all the recorder watches seem to play through headphones.

It would not be that hard to rig up a headphone element on a watchband, but it does have some risk of discovery, and would have to be started – none seem to have an audio alarm function.

If I wanted to do something like that, I would set the sounds as ringtones on my phone and have someone call me at the right time.
( there are services you can pay to do that ) Even if you were found out, you could dismiss it as just a gag ringtone your wife/kid/Steve loaded in there.

Or – make an MP3 on your phone with a half hour of silence, then whatever voice. Hit play, then rejoin your partners.

Ah, good thinking, Doctor.

A cellphone could indeed be utilised in the way you describe. Ringtones nowadays often are mp3s and regular playback (and recording) is not uncommon. And atleast in my phone you can have different ringtones for different contacts/numbers. It's a good theory indeed. And it really does not involve much, ghost voices are easily made by anyone with access to a computer and the most basic of computer skill. And TAPS members (say Grant, Steve…) are no strangers to sound editing software.

It does not solve the retrieval problem in the SHT (Single Hoaxer Theory), but it opens up possibilities, since we can be assured they do carry cellphones on their investigations.

However it would imply using a special cellphone rigged for that purpose, since using your normal one is risky if we are to hang on to the SHT. In fact it does seem to imply, considering the circumstances in which the voices were heard, that both Grant AND Jason was in on it.

I like this cellphone theory. Consider how often you hear a strange noise in public only to realize it's someone's homemade ringtone of say their child laughing or something, Now how would you react if someone played back a "spooky" voice when you expect to hear ghosts? I personally have pranked people by using screams as ringtones, leaving the phone somewhere in the room, leaving (bathroom) and the called my own phone via a phone in another room. Of course they realise the prank quite readily, but it can be a good scare if the timing is correct. And if the circumstances are correct, I'd bet it is virtually impossible to distinguish a cellphone voice and a "ghost" voice.

As for retrieval it would not be to hard for one person to retrieve such a rigged cellphone when they pack down their stuff again (like leaving it in the basement at Theodore's and Smith's and then picking it up when retrieving any equipment put there). However the Jason incident is trickier but it could be arranged, I mean who placed and retrieved the camera from Jason's room?

Again, good thinking, Doctor! Even if it is speculation and purely circumstantial at this point, it warrants further investigation.

Very entertaining, guys! Some great critical analysis and once again, possible evidence that Grant MAY have been involved (again).

Absolutely loved the song. Please, we want more; it was just too hilarious. Maybe you can put together enough for an album. I know I'd buy it!

In reference to Stephen's earlier post about the "Single Hoaxer Theory" or "SHT" for short, I personally wish we could spend more time examining the evidence for *ghosts* but this other stuff just keeps cropping up and cries out to be examined.

After the Renaissance Vinoy and especially after the Marjim Manor incident I have to admit I started thinking wholly SHT related thoughts about the show, and this podcast is full of SHT but I'm really hoping they finish out the season with some investigations that hearken back to old-school TAPS because I could really use a SHT break.

Was that childish enough for you, Stephen? *WAS IT*?

Does anyone know the make or model of the stationary IR cameras they are using ? I have a few thoughts and would like to check out the specs.

( not looking forward to pouring over the setups and teardowns to try and catch a name off one )

Totally with you there, Logisti– I'd love to get away from all this SHT. But, as we all know, SHT happens.

To everyone that enjoyed the "Seven Sisters" song, I'm glad. To blinddog50, I'll wait to hear from your dog's lawyers.

Dr. V: I don't know, and I'm still recovering from trying to figure out Grant's watch.

I didn't get a chance to finish listening to the podcast, but does the SHT assume that it is someone on the inside? Jay or Grant? Here's my problem. GH began as "debunkers", and I believe that they were truthful in their stated purpose in disproving most haunts. It's not that they aren't "believers", but my initial reaction to the show was that they truly wanted definitive evidence. They would rule out every possible explanation and only when something was completely unexplainable would they label it as paranormal. At the beginning.

Contrast that with say, MUFON. They are "believers" in every sense of the word and go into a case believing there was a UFO and only if they find uncontrovertable evidence to the contrary will they believe otherwise (despite their claim that they disprove 85% of the cases they investigate). If you watched the show on Discovery last night called "UFO's over Earth: Fayettville", you'll see what I mean. The witness clearly failed the polygraph and yet they still believe. They dismiss or gloss over the personality traits he exhibits that would indicate he might fabricate a story for attention, and let's face it, the other witnesses weren't exactly solid. They dismiss the fact that the "missing time" could easily be explained by the main witness hiding from the others when they were looking for him, and then lying about it.

Anyway, I'm getting off base. My point is that it is much easier for outside hoaxers to hoax believers than non-believers. If, in GH's case, the hoaxer was anyone other than Jay or Grant, then there will always be the possibility that they will eventually come out and ruin the gravy train. If it is an outside hoaxer, I would expect Jay and Grant to have caught it by now, or at least suspect it. But yet they have fallen for all of these instances that look like hoaxes. So what does that mean? Well, who are the only two people Jay and Grant can truly trust to keep their mouths shut?

I can't believe, if hoaxing is happening, that only one of those two is doing it. The risk of the other discovering it and taking offense to being on record as to being fooled by this is too great. Even with the money involved.

This has turned into a bit of a ramble. I hope you can see where I am going with this.

Patrick, in a nutshell I discuss in the podcast how all of the suspicious events link straight back to Grant, and usually no one *but* Grant.

Even going back to the doctored FLIR footage, when the footage was first called into question, before it was very publicly (and repeatedly) proven to have been doctored and well before it was removed from the re-broadcasts of the episode, viewers approached Jay & Grant in good faith to point out the discrepancies.

Jay famously posted on his blog that anyone who questioned the footage was an "idiot", then deleted the post and eventually came to the Sci-Fi forums asking for details, said he was going to get the original footage from Pilgrim, review it and get back to us. He never did, but as I said the footage was removed from rebroadcasts of the episode.

On the other hand, while Grant ended up leaving fans hanging in much the same way (I'll look into it and get back to you) at the very beginning he had a much different reaction than Jay. As you might expect, he was very nice and didn't seem mad at all — that's who he is, it's his personality. He's a very likable guy for good reason. The thing is, *specifically* what he said to fans when the matter first came up was that he was the one holding the FLIR and he could personally vouch that he saw the temperature drop just the way they showed us in the original broadcast of the episode.

Weeks later, everyone was waiting for J&G to "get back to us" and by the time it became apparent they were not going to, the episode re-aired without the offending footage, but if I were willing to just drop the matter and put the whole thing off to an overzealous Pilgrim employee trying to innocently add a little pizazz to the episode, the one thing that stops me is remembering how Grant vouched for the temperature on that screen.

And subsequently as a consequence you will rarely, if ever see FLIR footage on Ghost Hunters with the timestamp and temperature intact.

So once again, all of the evidence suggests something shady, and suggests Grant was complicit, but once again nothing can be proven for certain. To your final point, it's reasonable to suggest if Grant really is hoaxing that other team members know about it, but I don't think that it is requisite. What I suspect is that some of the other team members either know or suspect, but turn a blind eye and don't participate.

The timestamp removal is the biggest indication of a compromised investigative body.

Believer or skeptic, noone interested in an honest and full inquiry can deny that thay are a very important tool to have, and to have them and not use them must be considered suspect.

The most innocent reason for TAPS to order them turned off is a request from the production company –
" C'mon guys … we're doing a show here and to make it interesting and flow right we need to be able to rearrange stuff … we're not really CHANGING it, just presenting it differently "

By turning them off, TAPS has established what they ARE … now they are simply haggling over the price of their integrity.

"Taking TAPS with several shakers of salt"…………..CLASSIC

A ton of salt will be needed for the live Halloween show!

After all is said and done, all we have is an ironing board that fell against a door, which then opened without human assistance. Looking at it that way, there's really not much to this at all. Leave it to Jay and Grant to make such a big deal out of it. But when you have so little else, making a mountain out of a mole hill might be the only way to go.

I used to like Jimmy Buffett……Never again.

Loved the podcast and song. Great fun.