January 15, 2009
GHI: Grande Hotel
The Ghost Hunters International team seems to have made their way from Peru to Brazil without losing any more investigators (some may not, but I miss Andy Andrews, Master Debunker) and in fact they seemed to have temporarily picked one up in the form of Robert Hernandez, whom Robb assigned to "assist" Barry in Tech. I put "assist" in quotes because Barry clearly has a handle on things by himself and needs no assistance, this is just another example of discrimination against geeks. Put them all in a room together and forget about them. I will look the other way, however, because putting geeks together in the same room offers us (yes, I said "us") the rare opportunity to "geek out" without recrimination.
Robb was very excited because the team had the whole hotel to themselves, no other guests. This of course is fantastic — some of you may recall a Ghost Hunters episode where TAPS was investigating a room in a hall while apparently there was a wedding going on downstairs from them and a sweet-sixteen just across the hall; not very conducive to proper ghost hunting. I did think it was funny though, that Robb claimed the hotel staff was "so concerned" about the spirit activity there that they "cleared the entire hotel for GHI". I have no evidence to contradict this statement but I find it extraordinarily unlikely. Places of business need to do business to stay in business. Maybe they were shut down for renovations or something, but closing down for GHI seems far fetched if for no other reason than there wasn't even any reported activity to be "concerned" about; no people being shoved down stairs, etc. Whatever — I could be wrong but Robb's claim just made me roll my eyes and immediately feel like watching something else… but I perservered.
…and it was worth it.
The hotel itself truly is "grande" with over 200 rooms. The only guest room that seemed to have activity reported though, was room 204, and that activity was reported by the hotel manager. His experience was basically waking up in the middle of the night and hearing loud banging coming from the room overhead, he made a mental note to complain to the occupants, and fell back asleep. The next morning when he woke he realized he was actually alone in the hotel and there was no one in that room. Ooooo! Spooky!
There are several things that pop out at me about this story. First and foremost, he woke in the middle of the night to hear a noise — maybe someone left a window open and a gust of wind knocked something over, or slammed a door against a wall. Maybe it was hypnagogic or just a vivid dream. No offense to the owners, but as supposedly haunted hotel rooms go, one report of a loud noise in the middle of the night (coming from the floor above) seems a little weak.
Secondly, I note that it was the hotel manager who reported this, and he said the hotel was empty at the time. Did this like… just happen the night before they got there or something? Honestly, either the hotel has been sitting vacant for some time (meaning Robb's claim they shut down for GHI is either a conscious lie or unbelievably naive) or else the hotel manager must have been thinking, "Hey something slightly out of the ordinary happened to me, and the Ghost Hunting team is coming today so maybe it was a ghost! I'll tell them all about it when they get here."
I said "several" things popped out at me about that story and that would usually entail three things, so here is the third — it's actually not directly related to the story itself, but is immediatley relevant: As they began the investigation Robb headed straight for room 204 and told the team there have been "a lot of reports of noise" from that room. Excuse me? Have we fallen victim to a poor editing job by Pilgrim? Because the only report of any kind the home audience heard about (unless I missed something) was the one from the hotel manager which I just mentioned. Assuming no other reports were left on the cutting room floor, this is yet another example of exaggeration during a ghost hunt, which is pretty much the worst time to exaggerate if they actually do want people to take them seriously. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but one of my pet peeves about the walkthrough process is that it's like a game of telephone. Their host brings one report to their attention, and that gets turned into "there have been reports" (plural) when it's relayed to the rest of the team, and occasionally re-relayed as "there have been a lot of reports" — or in this case we skipped a step and just went straight from a single report to an epidemic.
During the investigation itself there were a few noteworthy moments. Robb and Dustin asked for a spirit to knock and they got a knock, so they asked for it to knock twice and they seemed — after a little waiting — to get a knock, followed by their pronouncement that they had heard a second, softer knock (which I'm not sure was audible to those of us playing the home version of the game). To their credit, there was a loud bang which they quickly ran to find the source of and it turned out it was just Robert Hernandez unpacking some equipment. Good debunk… I guess. Robert, unpack the equipment before the investigation starts next time, geez.
Segue to Barry and Robert playing with tech toys in the dining room area (I think). Barry had the full spectrum camera out, but disappointingly he didn't seem to be using a standard camera side-by-side with it. This wouldn't have been so terrible if he'd caught nothing, but since the point of him using the camera in the first place is to catch something I'm surprised the problem didn't occur to him. Or maybe he just got a little lazy and didn't feel like setting it up. Whatever the reason, the team ends up with a full-spectrum photo of a human-shaped shadow in one of the windows. They seemed to be unable to re-produce the shadow, but by golly if that doesn't look exactly like one of their shadows I don't know what would. It was much larger than a person, and so just what you would expect to see if someone was standing much closer to the light source than they were to the window.
Although there was no standard still camera to compare the shot with (and verify that the shadow was in the visible spectrum, and probably just a regular shadow) there was a video camera in the hallway, and interestingly it seemed to capture some sort of "form" or mist. The two problems I have with this are that the mist itself is difficult to see to the point where I would suggest it might simply be an artifact created by the camera in low-light, and also that Robert had gone into that hallway when Barry and he were trying to reproduce the shadow and it seemed to be they proved to themselves that the shadow couldn't possibly have been generated by someone standing in that hallway, so I'm not entirely sure how suddenly this mist in the hallway is believed to be the source of the shadow.
Just as I was feeling a bit down there was a pick-me-up — Robb and Angela were in the laundry when they were seeing what they believed were shadows between them and the door, blocking out the light from outside. In a very good debunk, they determined that the shadows were actually being caused by the trees swaying in the wind, and the leaves/branches would cast shadows that moved past the doorway like someone walking past. I was impressed enough that I almost didn't consider skewering Angela for what happened just a few moments before: Robb wondered aloud what reason a spirit might have to haunt this area and Angela said, "Yeah, it doesn't make any sense". You… have hunted ghosts before, right Angela? Why would a ghost push old ladies down stairs, scratch little children while they sleep, or play hide and seek in a lighthouse? None of it makes any sense, but such are the reports. To be fair, she was probably just making conversation, and they did have a good debunk there so I'll just give her a pass and not mention it. Well, I'll give her a pass at least.
Not to be entirely forgotten, Brandy had some experiences during the evening as well. She was with Barry in the chapel when they heard loud, intermittent noises coming from the theater, and vice-versa. She felt like someone was playing a game with her, making her chase it. This sort of activity is very interesting in the sense that it's clearly audible and seems plentiful, but the unfortunate thing is that there's no way to be sure the noises weren't just random noises (the heating system turning on, for instance). I'd like to be impressed by something like this, but I'm afraid the noises would have to be something clearly identifiable as not-coming-from-the-building; like a voice, I guess. Not that the team has any control over what they experience, but I'm just talking from an evaluative perspective we can't read too much into experiences like this one.
Later in the evening Robert was teamed up with Angela, and I got to thinking how much better GHI is than Ghost Hunters in terms of splitting up teams, rotating, etc. If Steve didn't always investigate with Tango and Jay didn't always investigate only with Grant maybe… I dunno but I know it's a bad thing that they do that and here is one of several places they actually should take a cue from GHI.
…but I digress. Robert was with Angela when he noticed some door handles were glowing on the thermal imaging camera. My first thought was thermal reflection, and that was basically confirmed for me when Angela held onto one of the handles for a few seconds (after they looked again and the handles were cold) and it didn't really create any heat signature on the camera whatsoever. Neither Robert nor Angela seemed to connect the dots however, but Barry did later during the evidence review. Kudos to him for catching that, and shame on whomever keeps handing out the thermal camera to people without a few brief explanations about how it works and what they might expect; although to be fair, even Jay & Grant seem to conveniently forget thermal imaging basics when it's convenient, so I guess the operators knowing how the camera works is still no assurance the audience will get a fair evaluation of the evidence.
Earlier I had said sticking out this episode was "worth it" and I haven't yet given a compelling reason for that so here it is: Two amazing photographs Barry took in the kitchen. Really, it is the only compelling evidence of the entire investigation, and it seems pretty darned compelling. In the kitchen area there had been reports of a woman seen walking from left to right in a specific area, and in that area Barry captured two images of a "mist", roughly human size and shape, which seems to be moving in this same area in the same direction. This mist is much more unmistakable than the mist from the hallway camera, and in one case you can see it through what seems to be transparent colored glass or plastic tiles in the wall, before it crosses into plain view. This is where it becomes a real shame that Barry didn't have both cameras going, because there is no chance this mist was a bug on the lens and I'm at a real loss to explain what it could be. In a single photo one might speculate some sort of standard camera artifact, but there are two photos with the mist in different positions relative to its surroundings and it appears to exist in 3-dimensional space, being partially hidden behind objects in the foreground.
I am certain many on this site have some very good theories about what might explain these photographs without the need for paranormal intervention, so I look forward to reading what you all think. Personally, this is possibly the most flabbergasting evidence I've yet seen from any of our favorite ghost hunting shows thus far. Leave it to GHI, the believed-to-be mentally challenged younger brother, to outclass and outshine any evidence TAPS has ever collected.
Filed under Ghost Hunters International, Posts by Logisti
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Comments on GHI: Grande Hotel »
Logisti @ 1:02 pm
P.S. if anyone has screencaps of the photos please post or link them if you can. I'd really like to have them here for folks to see as they read the post.
Dave @ 2:32 pm
After looking at the kitchen photos, I suspect we are seeing nothing more than someone moving very rapidly through the field. The dining room shadow is still a mystery so some vidcaps would help.
Wes @ 3:31 pm
The "shadow" was interesting because I thought I noticed something while watching it "live" – and sure enough, replay confirmed an observation: a light source is illuminating the far wall in question (duh); but what's interesting is that if you look closely, you can definitely see that the light reflects off the tops of chairs and tables and seems to be coming at an angle from somewhere to the left of the wall and back to where the camera was. When the "shadow" blots out the light on the wall, the light on the chairs/tables is also out. In other words, either the light source (flashlight, camera flash, video camera light?) is turned off or moved or someone or something moves in front of said light, which appears to be coming, not from some hallway, but from where Barry and crew were standing. Nothing definitive, but without accounting for every person and light source, I wouldn't qualify this as evidence of anything paranormal.
The "mist" looked like nothing more to me than "drop out" from a low-res camera shooting a dark environment.
As for the blur in the kitchen … I believe I have an explanation, but I want to review the footage one more time …
Leslie @ 4:01 pm
I agree with Wes on the shadow. I also noticed the light reflection on the chairs and tables, and when the shadow shows up the light is no longer relecting off of the chairs and tables. Because of this I believe that the shadow is just the result of one of the crew or cast members.
As for the photos in the kitchen- if it was someone moving quickly through the shot (which is what I thought at first because I have created images similar to this myself) the exposure has to be relatively long, and even longer to capture the image behind the glass(?) wall. With this in mind, it is something that cannot be quickly done, and would most likely require more than one person AND more than one shot to get right. I don't know how far apart these photos were taken. Was the camera set to take them consecutively, or was the shutter pressed independently for each photo? Thinking about it, the 'entity' was moving, so the pics had to be taken rather quickly, right?
bullerspoke @ 4:09 pm
As Wes has pointed out you can clearly see how the shadow in the dining also is cast on chairs and tables closer to the camera meaning it probably was a solid person standing closer to the light source and therefor casting the big shadow into the room and on the wall. Although the shadow did not hold a camera or soundgear so it was not a cameraman or soundman accidently stepping in the light, that leaves Barry, Robert or a third person doing it. It does not have to be intentional since you really can't see the light with naked eye, or even the lighsource in the dark. But it was unquestionably a living, breathing person standing in the light casting a shadow.
The second set of photos (in the kitchen) was definitely more intriguing and I am really still puzzled by it. It will be interesting to hear possible explanations.
The mist? Yawn…
As for the hotel manager, talk about being desperate to have ghosts in his hotel or to believe he has. Business a bit slow lately? HIs exclamation: "Now I believe everything everyone has said is true" really sums it up as far as his credibility goes.
Nosfer @ 4:48 pm
I can't find a Devil Dog discussion so I'll just add to Logisti's peeve about the telephone game here. In the walk through, it was a little girl running up and down the steps. Robb, during the investigation says it was a little boy…
Okay, now on to this episode. Most cameras have a wonderful feature called a TIMESTAMP. Why the @%$@#$^@% don't they use it? Let's sync up the hallway anomaly with the shadow that appears in the "full spectrum" and see how the times match. You can definitely see when the shadow appears that it also casts darkness onto parts of the foreground (as has already been pointed out and which was the first thing I noticed when it appeared) so it is coming from the hallway and not right up by the wall.
Wes @ 7:15 pm
OK, had a chance to review .. first thing I noticed was the manager who heard the noise above him is listed as the "restoration manager", so the speculation about how the hotel is empty for reasons other than the GHI team's arrival is, I'm guessing, correct.
On to the photos in the kitchen .. when Barry is trying to recreate the dining room shadow, we get a brief glimpse of an image on the camera's review screen showing that the ISO (film speed) he's shooting at is 400 .. very slow when shooting in the dark and why the cameras are mounted on a tripod (the camera has to be very steady at that speed or everything will be a blurry mess). We don't know, of course, any of the settings Barry used to shoot the images in the kitchen, but whether or not he was shooting those at 400, we know there's a relatively long exposure needed to shoot "full spectrum" photos. Any movement of the camera will cause a blur, as would anything moving in the frame. My first guess was that, because the blur/shape/whatever was the exact same purple color as everything else in the foreground, we were seeing nothing more than blur from the camera moving, even slightly, during the long exposure.
Generally, however, such a blur would be across the entire frame (there can be exceptions – especially since most "full spectrum" cameras are nothing more than digital cameras with some filters removed – an operation that can play havoc on the camera's optics). But after reviewing the images again, I think there's a very mundane explanation: it's a reflection of someone (or, to be fair, something) walking behind the camera and being reflected in the glass wall and its frame. In the first picture, the area around the wall where the blur is appears well lit; in the second photo, that area is now dark and the far end and the edge of the wall is brighter and encompasses the blur – it's kind of difficult to describe, but just imagine seeing a reflection of youself as you walk by a store window at night – now have someone take a picture of it with a long-exposure full-spectrum camera and that's roughly what the photos would look like.
Lar @ 11:50 pm
Barry's camera doesn't prove anything. His captures are fastly becoming a visual version of their often awful evps.
Look at the pattern. Nether GH or GHI ever catch anything on video. I mean anything clear, clean, legit. So they fall back on forging evidence, short, fuzzy videos, or using Christmas twinkling lights (K 2), claim distortion are evps, & now a blur is a entity using Barry's full spectrum camera aka the fudge a frame.
The Doctor @ 8:44 pm
posted a few caps here – http://profile.imageshack.us/user/SV_The_Doctor
I've included the one of them in the same area to use for height/size estimates.
Let me know of any requests and I'll try to put them up.
The Doctor @ 12:54 am
Sorry for the multiple posts -
This is the second hunt in a row that Barry has had a camera pointed at the right spot and has been looking at the viewfinder at the exact time the event occurs – ( if we believe "Pilgrim Time" the camera in Peru was in place for 7 hours before he fortuitously noticed the 2 second duration event )
How is it said ?
Once is luck, twice is coincidence, the third time is enemy action.
Hal @ 10:47 am
I'd like to add my own "ho-hum" to the very boring episode of the Wednsday past. Although I praise the attempts by Angela (heart image here)
and Barry for each trying to talk to the spooks in Portuguese, what few phrases they mumbled out just ain't enough. Once again, the majority of their babbling (Duh, can you bang on the wall for us? Can you close that door over there? Can you manifest yourself? [Just once I'd love someone to shout out loud, "SPEAK NOW AND SHOW YOUR FACE!!" Then say nothing more and walk away after a reasonable amount of time waiting for a reply.]) is done in ENGLISH!! Why?!! If the morons at Pilgrim Films feel it necessary to have English subtitles when the team is speaking with their host, which is only really needed on occasion (Reminder: we didn't need it in New Zealand!) then hire someone locally, at minimum wages, to accompany them through each overseas investigation in order to indulge in "spookspeak" with the native language! C'mon GHI, you asked way too many questions in English during this last visit and several of them were way more complicated than "where is the bus stop?"
I have some more "retiree-with-all-the-time-in-the-world" lofty thoughts to share on this forum, but I'll think of those later!
Hal @ 1:25 pm
Alright, later has arrived. Jumping right into my favorite gripe against GH & GHI (their mule-headed, juvenile, continuing refusal to use headcams), I recall a comment made in this forum not too long ago that the reason they won't use them should be obvious . . . there is nothing to show. That's starting to make more sense in my mind. It's also unfortunate, if true, because it would blatantly expose that any investigator claiming to actually see an apparition not caught on video tape, expecting instead for viewers to take their word for it, is lying, period! Citing any technical reasons why headcams would not be good for their investigations would not make sense at all in today's world. I was recently made aware of that while watching a program wherein some idiot with a death wish was attempting to jump a ramp on his bicycle and land atop a three-story building with a flat roof. He was assisted in the stunt by a van which pulled him along on a tow rope in order to get up to the right speed for launching off the ramp and unto the building. His stunt failed and he hit the edge of the roof, fell to the ground and suffered multiple injuries. But, he survived to make an ass of himself on some future date. The only valuable part of this escapade was the fact that he wore a helmet-cam which clearly showed what he saw with his own eyes during the attempt. In spite of the expected and unavoidable "shaking image" from the helmet-cam perspective, it was still very easy to recognize what he saw during the entire run! (Read that again, TAPS!)
That show also made me stop and remember all the times I've seen helmet-cam video clips as used in other venues. Sky divers, for example. Stunt motorcycle riders! For years the helmet-cam has proved its worth in videography! Nuff said!
One parting thought for this comment session: J&G often explain what an "intelligent" haunting is. Well, since I've rarely supported anything they've said or done in recent months, I'll give them credit for believing that one. I want the rest of you to stop and consider all the TV shows for about the last 20 years that have dealt with the paranormal. Examples would be "Unsolved Mysteries," "A Haunting" (Discovery Channel), etc. One thing all these shows have in common is the re-enactment of stories told by very credible witnesses or "victims." These re-enactments, more often than not, display a level of visual and audible spectacle that TAPS could only dream of ever capturing!
So the point here is: yeah, J&G, these ghosts ARE intelligent (if they really exist) and are smart enough to know when you nosey bums come around to seek them out and, if they don't want to be bothered, they simply keep a lower profile during your investigations! Hence, the reasons why we viewers are lied to and subjected to occasional fakery! Even if cameras are left unattended, on automatic and running continuously for, say, a week or so, an investigator has no way of knowing that their actions are being observed by some disembodied spirit peeking around the nearest corner at them. "Casper" will wait till the equipment is removed then start haunting again! Maybe TAPS and other self-proclaimed scientists should devise a way to outsmart the spooks and plant equipment in a covert manner that even the Invisible Man would not notice. Call the CIA and ask around there!
Hal @ 9:41 am
Speaking of the Invisible Man; one day Superman was flying along when he noticed Wonder Woman on the beach . . . oops! Never mind!
The Doctor @ 12:32 am
Curious -
The most interesting pictures are the misty looking form in the kitchen area, they really don't seem to be any kind of movement blur that I can make out, and the lighting on the near side of the partition changes – yet…
Barry is shown describing a "shadow on the wall" when the pictures clearly don't show anything that could be called that.
He says " that was in here, that was in the kitchen" — then he says " for that to happen, it had to be in there" pointing into the dining room. ??
He says " I'm hoping that at least one piece of the equipment has caught at least some type of shadow" … but this time we didn't see him immediately checking his full-spectrum cam or attempting to recreate it.
These full-spectrum images are never made note of even during the analysis.
The ONLY time we see these are during the reveal –
Since these are 'way up there on the WTFIT meter, and are less explainable then the dining room shadow, why were they hidden until the end ?
luciana @ 9:37 am
I've loved this site! Congratulations!!! The way of write about the episodes is very interesting and funny.