January 29, 2009
GHI: House of Priests
Joe Chin has apparently joined the Ghost Hunters International team. I know this will disappoint some who aren't fans of his and I fully acknowledge that his voice and demeanor almost makes him completely wrong for entertainment television, however as I feel the entertainment from this program is supposed to come from the exploration & discovery (and not from the personalities and personal drama) I will continue to support Joe up until the point where we find out he believes crystals can be used to cure cancer and the world revolves around psychic vortexes. Should he promote such ideas I will withdraw my seal of approval, but for now I'm happy he's actually getting some airtime because he seems like someone genuinely more concerned with the process of investigating than with what in particular he might find.
The location for this investigation was called the "House of Priests" and is apparently just 50 miles or so south of the arctic circle. It used to be a vicarage, and was therefore home to many priests over the years, giving it a name that seems interesting up front but is apparently simply lacking in creativity — which is fine, I like vanilla facts.
Starting off the investigation we have Angela paired off with Dustin, and apparently Barry has shown Angela all the ins and outs of his full-spectrum camera because she's got it and she wasn't afraid to use it. I was disappointed when Barry started slacking off and stopped taking side-by-side photos with the full-spectrum and standard cameras but this is even more of a disappointment because it seems to me that what was once a good opportunity to responsibly collect some interesting evidence has now become a cavalier exercise in using a cool piece of technology in a way that doesn't really tell us anything very useful at all.
One thing worth noting: Dustin, for whatever reason, wasn't wearing his trademark upside-down-and-backwards visor. This will please some fans, but I must caution everyone that he is wearing it in exactly the same exasperating manner as usual in the second investigation of this episode, so don't get your hopes too high that maybe he's finally realized how foolish y'all think he looks.
While Dustin & Angela were investigating Dustin heard a sound and Angela insisted it was a woman's voice. Dustin didn't seem sure but a short while later he heard another sound and said that it was a woman's voice. Personally, I suspect it may have been a cat. We don't really get a thorough examination of any audio caught so there's really not much we can do in terms of drawing conclusions one way or another.
Barry, Joe & Brandy get together a bit later on and Barry comes up with perhaps a brilliant idea: dig up an alleged grave (just outside the house) in the hopes it will anger the spirits. He expressly tells anyone who might be listening that he'd be happy to stop just as soon as they make their existence plainly known. Now, I'm not sure how much I like traditional "provoking" techniques, but this seemed like it was worth a shot if anything was. It's been pointed (by Stephen, I believe) out that whenever you're bargaining with unseen spirits in this way, subconsciously you're assuming their existence and therefore that can color your perceptions; An excellent point but still the fact remains that should spirits exist this would seem like a good way to get them to react.
In this case, while outside Barry begins to hear what he describes as a thudding noise, and while Brandy & Joe wait inside they hear a noise they describe the same way, and believe it to be coming from outside near Barry. The source of this noise, unfortunately and as usual, wasn't verified in any way so it's impossible to rule out some unrelated and entirely normal possibility such as the heat coming on and steam knocking in the pipes.
Even more disappointing was an EVP/EMF session conducted by Dustin and Angela where their detector literally gave out a couple of faint clicks and the needle barely moved — ONCE — and somehow they're pursuing this with zeal because they're largely convinced it means something is trying to communicate with them. In the less crazy department, Angela says that she felt like the bed she was sitting on was vibrating and Dustin verified that it was, despite his initial suspicion that maybe she was just imagining it. Later on that same bed Barry reports feeling as if something has tugged at the sheets. Again, nothing substantially inexplicable, but at least there might be something worth looking into there. Too bad no one seemed to check around the area for any sort of explanation for a possible normal reason people might experience those things.
The only two pieces of evidence captured by the team were an odd mixture of disappointment and intrigue. On the one hand, there is an EVP that the host identifies as a female voice speaking in Swedish — but on the other hand I didn't hear any voice speaking in anything. It sounded like plain old static to me; maybe my hearing's gone. Similarly Barry took a number of full-spectrum photos in a corner of a room where he believed he'd seen something, and in one of those photos what appeared to be a crucifix seemed to be on the dresser, even though no such item actually existed there. During the reveal Dustin rightly pointed out that the doorknob nearby had a similar shape and what we were seeing might very well just be a shadow or double-imaging. I applaud this catch — and once again it shows how something that seems intriguing might really just be nothing at all — but in the end it sealed the deal on a lackluster investigation.
Filed under Ghost Hunters International, Posts by Logisti
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Comments on GHI: House of Priests »
The Doctor @ 9:13 pm
The only mystery here is how Barry was able to coax his expensive, custom modified camera to take such horrible images.
hammer1 @ 11:57 pm
A Joe Chin appearance, Barry trying to dig up frozen ground, some static passed off as an EVP and a return of the ridiculous backward upside down hat on Dustin (why couldn't the wind have taken that one?). What more do you want?
SJ @ 10:15 am
I just watched the evidence reveal and thought, "A cross? Really?"
I'm not fond of the "evidence" they find with the full-spectrum; it's almost always matrixing, as I think it was in this episode.
The Doctor @ 11:26 am
I find it interesting that Barry misleads his co-investigators during the analysis – alowing them to believe that Dustin was in the other room reciting the prayer at the time of the pictures.
Not only is Dustin NOT reciting any prayers at that time, but Pilgrim actually shows us Barry calling him from the other room, and telling him to bring the camera with him.
Once again Barry has his camera pointed the right way, and just happens to be watching the viewfinder at the exact time the single interesting capture occurs in a tiny portion of the screen.
Wes @ 11:53 am
Logisti, I don't envy you the task of writing this one up … the cross has a simple explanation. In the two before pics, you clearly see a shadow cast by the pitcher that somewhat resembles a cross — you can also see a reflection of the camera flash in the mirror above the table. In the "cross" picture, the flash is absent and the shadow is now more distinct because of the low light.
How tech manager/professional ghost photographer Barry missed something so obvious makes me feel he has to be guilty of deception by either silence or ignorance.
Handsty @ 3:36 pm
Hammer, I thought this week we were going to get by without the upside-down-backwards visor. But, noooooooooooooo!!!!! He just had to do it. I think he wears that to distract people from looking at his nose.
StanTheMan @ 4:48 pm
Here again they are in a non-English speaking country asking questions in English. Even worse Barry asks Dustin to recite the Lord's Prayer which he does again in English. The ghost are Swedish priest who may not have been able to speak English and from a time period when all prayer were said in Latin. What made Barry think a prayer recited in English would cause these ghost-priest or priest-ghosts to appear.
Hal @ 5:15 pm
Right on, StanTheMan, you beat me to the punch this week. Once again they use English instead of the native tongue. Even though modern-day Swedes tend to learn and master English very well as a second language, among us white folk the Scandanavian tongues are among the most complex languages of Europe and among the most difficult to learn. After more than 30 years I still can't pronounce the members' names in ABBA to save my life!
Then during the reveal Rob tells the lady host something that should warrant GHI to stand for Ghost Hunters Ignoramasses! He says that Barry saw an apparition quite clearly but, since it was a personal experience, they couldn't show her evidence. To which I and other brain-functioning viewers say, "NO, DUMBASS! YOU CAN'T SHOW EVIDENCE BECAUSE BARRY WASN'T WEARING A HEADCAM AT THE TIME THAT WOULD HAVE CAUGHT IT ON TAPE!!!!!!!! Son of a #$%%!!! When are these make-believe-scientists gonna stop this BS and get SERIOUS?!! Anyone on this forum have the address for Pilgrim Films? I'd like to send them several profane pieces of my mind, whether it would do any good or not.
Hal @ 5:18 pm
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 @ 5:22 pm
Speaking of the Invisible Man; one day Superman was flying along when he noticed Wonder Woman lying on the beach . . . oops! Never mind!
Learjet @ 4:47 am
Even pilgrim doesn't know what EMF stands for. "EMF – detects electro and magnetic fields. Ah well, at least they didn't say electromagnetic frequency like a certain Grant.
Considering how they use an EMF meter they may as well rename EMF to Essentially Meaningless Fallacy.
Learjet @ 4:50 am
I did have a vidcap but I don't think I put it inline properly.
bullerspoke @ 8:13 am
Stantheman wrote:
The ghost are Swedish priest who may not have been able to speak English and from a time period when all prayer were said in Latin.
—————–
Prayers haven't been said in latin in Sweden since the 16th century, after the reformation, when our then king Gustav Vasa made us a protestant country with one, and only one, lutheran state church. Catholicism where you recite prayers in latin have ever since then been a miniscule presence in Sweden and only recognized and really allowed by the late 19th century. So a priest living in Sweden in the late 19th century did not recite prayers in latin, but in swedish, such is the liturgy and has been since the reformation in the 16th century. However, it is likely that a a priest from the late 19th century or before that was reasonably good in latin, greek or hebrew and most likely knew atleast basic german. Such was their education.
As for for speaking in native tongue, the hilarious pronunciation Robb made of the name of the village shows it is not an easy task.
However, as I write, they could have tried german.
Besides that it was really a dull episode with really no evidence except vague noise. The cross was downright laughable. And again, they investigate a commercial location, an inn, who has a vested interest in them finding ghosts. The place is called Spökprästgården (Ghost Priest Farm), for god's sake…
Yes, I might add that the priest house really is a priest farm as all vicarages were until somewhere in the 20th century in order to provide for the priests and their families. It should be added that the house in the episode is rather recent, 1876 (the village is much older), in comparison with many other priest farms and was not the home of the vicar himself but to a "komminister", that is a lower grade priest.
dr_peter_venkman @ 6:39 pm
Doctor,
Barry's poor image quality could be caused by a number of things. It looked to me like the images were extremely noisy. In normal, visible spectrum photography this is usually caused by low light conditions. It is no different in multi-spectrum. The lack of UV, visible, or IR light means a lack of signal and higher noise. It can be compensated with a longer exposure but this leads to image blur for any subjects that are moving. It seems to me that Barry is usually shooting static objects and could handle longer exposure times.
Leslie @ 7:26 pm
One thing to remember with full spectrum, and specifically infrared (or near-infrared), is that the point of focus is different. Different colors have diff. focal points, and when shooting infrared the lens has to be refocused for the infrared. If not, you get whats known as chromatic aberration (SP?) where the lens fails to focus all of the colors to the same point. This results in color edge effects and blurry images. In other words, much like the stuff that Barry ends up with.
jay @ 6:42 pm
hey can i come on a trip with u
jay @ 6:42 pm
hell no
jay @ 6:43 pm
yes u can
HollyDolly @ 9:08 am
Well,I didn't get to see the show, since I don't get the SCI-Fi Channel.But like everyone here, I get tired of them seeing shadows, etc. and it not being caught on camera.Yeah, use some sort of head cams so we can see what you see.
Gets really annoying. Yes, they should try to speak to the spirits in their native language.Now if they don't know swedish, try german ,whether the two languages are related I don't know, but the spirits might understand it. Also another language they could try is french. Know it sounds silly, but many educated people knew how to speak french. As far as the priest goes, even if he is a Lutheran, in seminary school he may have studied latin and greek, though how much hebrew is taught today in catholic and protestant seminaries I don't know.
Now, maybe in a haunted location, one could set up equipment during the daytime, when there is little happening in the location.I say that if most of the reports of activity take place at night. Set it up and let the stuff just run.
In someways, I miss seeing the show, and in other ways no.
I think Joe Chin takes a different approach to the paranormal.He comes from an entirely different culture, I believe he is chinese or korean, and their belief system in ghosts is not the same as ours and in the way they approach it.
He might be dull to some people, but I think his heart is in the right place.
dr_peter_venkman @ 6:43 pm
I think the language issue is very pertinent. If their belief is that they are communicating with the spirits of departed persons from that area, the language they use to communicate is critical. How hard is it to learn a few critical phrases on the plane ride into the country?
On the other hand if the dialog is simply to put signal into the recording equipment to break up the white noise you mine for random English sounding bursts of static, then it really doesn't matter what you say or what language you speak.