The opening investigation of this week's Ghost Hunters International episode took us on a tour of Dragsholm Castle in Denmark, a 900 year old fortress complete with dungeon — currently converted into a hotel, of course. Per what seems to be the norm, GHI had the location to themselves. Thankfully, this time Robb restrained himself from claiming they cleared out all the guests just so GHI could investigate — or if he did, the production team had the good sense to edit it out. Joe Chin was still with the team, which puts him at 3 investigations in a row — more than he ever got with TAPS, if I remember correctly. I'd say it looks like he's a full-fledged GHI team member but then again GHI has gone through more full-fledged cast members in 3 seasons than Survivor.

Joe also was a focal point for activity during the investigation itself. Towards the beginning of the night he was in the basement with Brandy when he reported hearing what he thought was a voice saying "Go" or something similar. Shortly afterwards he noticed a sensation on his forearm and was surprised to see what seemed to be a bite-mark. The size and shape of the red, irritated area certainly seemed consistent with a human bite-mark to my eye, but we didn't get much of a closeup so we can't really look for indentations from individual teeth to really be sure. Also, we have to consider that Joe might have been blasted out of his mind having insane-crazy-kinky relations with a fellow cast member or some local girl (or guy) because that's just how he rolls. Of course, that's just plain speculation on my part but the entire situation seemed a bit odd.

Robb had the real investigative zinger though, when he asked: "Did anything bite you?"  Oh ya, now come to think something did jump out of a corner and bite me right after we went downstairs — thanks for asking or I never would have put 2 + 2 together. By the way, is that a full moon outside? My back itches and I have a strange desire to howl. Seriously Robb, "Did anything bite you?" ?!?!  Since Joe's the one who is telling you he thinks the injury looks like teeth marks, don't you think he probably would have front-loaded the answer to that if the answer was "yes" ?

Later on in the evening Robb was trying to get some reaction from spirits that may or may not be in the room — in this case the spirit of a woman that is believed to act as a "Guardian Angel" — Robb heard a knocking sound in what he believed to be a response to a remark he made about not wanting anything bad to happen to himself or Angela. For follow-up, he asked a question specifically about himself and got no response, then asked if the spirit expected something bad might happen to Angela and both of them reported hearing another knock. When this segment was played for their host, a man who seemed very interested in the paranormal and eager to find evidence that would prove beyond a doubt that his hotel was haunted, he suggested to Robb that maybe the knocks were noises from elsewhere in the building or outside and unrelated to his questions.

Occasionally, hosts do this sort of thing and it makes me very uncomfortable because Robb turns uber-defensive and firms up his opinion, in some cases flat-out telling the client that they don't know what they're talking about and he's been doing this for years and he's an expert. I remember one time in particular during the first season I wanted to climb underneath a sofa cushion, I was cringing so much — but in this case Robb just told the client that it happened multiple times and they were sure it was a response to their questions. If it happened more than twice, Pilgrim chose not to air it. I'd carve another notch in my belt full of reasons to distrust Robb's conclusions but this notch has already been carved.

Another fun thing Robb tried for the first time (that we've seen) was to tell the spirit that if it was in the room, it should make the room darker. He then got freaked out and announced that the room got almost pitch black. First of all, for a guy that is all about minimizing the "personal experiences" and maximizing the documentation (he was all over making sure Joe's arm got photographed) how exactly would you expect to independently verify if the room got darker or not? We can't tell with the cameras — they're using active-IR lighting. Asking for knocking is fine — at least you can record knocking. Asking for the room to get dark is silly — expecially since your brain could easily trick you into thinking it got darker when it really didn't. In this case, Robb looked out the window and saw clouds passing in front of the moon, so he debunked his personal experience, but still — sloppy investigating in this writer's opinion.

Barry & Dustin were in a chapel area when Barry began to ask if any spirits were upset he'd taken down and was toying around with a crucifix that had been on the wall, he reported the chair next to him began to vibrate. When he began to ask again he said the same thing happened. Interestingly though, when he did it a third time, nothing happened. Now, maybe the other end of that conversation is a ghost saying to itself "he's not going to listen to me, why should I bother?" but I'm going to go with the more likely explanation being that there is no one on the other end of that conversation and the first two times were just a coincidence. One of the most interesting things I've noticed from watching these shows is how often a piece of evidence seems compelling, right up until it you realize it's really not. A lot of things can seem like they can't be coincidental but turn out that they very likely were precisely that.

Just after this happened, Dustin (and we) heard a "clink" sound which he believed came from a bowl for Holy Water that was just behind him. What could have come in contact with the ceramic bowl to make that sound is unknown, but Dustin clearly thought it was noteworthy. Looking at the big picture, I'm inclined to believe it probably wasn't.

One thing I thought was particularly interesting — and usually is — was a good debunk that happened just before they wrapped for the night. Dustin and Barry heard a rasping sound coming from downstairs. They went to investigate and Dustin noticed that a door up ahead of them seemed to swing open and closed again. Going through that door they saw… an open window and heard the wind whistling briskly outside, creating a forceful draft in the room. Again, something that seemed textbook spooky, but turned out to be easily explained.

Perhaps the two most compelling pieces of evidence the team collected that night — aside from Joe's "bite-mark" and Dustin's clinking bowl, were a microphone tapping noise that reportedly came from a handheld recorder that was sitting in the middle of a table with no one near it. This might have happened if Barry accidentally knocked his knee against the bottom of the table, or possibly for some other entirely explainable reason. Also, they could be mistaken and maybe the sound occurred at the exact moment Dustin was putting it on the table, or perhaps picking it up. Also, there seemed to be a whisper on the audio track of a camera Dustin had left in the chapel area after he and Barry had left. It was barely audible and the host said he was unable to make out any Danish or Latin words. It did sound like a whisper to me, but really — it might have been something else.

In other words, nothing really compelling at all to speak of. This didn't stop Robb from stating he believed there was definitely some weird stuff going on in the castle, but he did stop short of using the "H" word. All in all, mildly interesting. C+