February 27, 2009
GHI: Chateau Lagorse
Chateau Lagorse is an estate in Bordeaux, France with a rich history dating back to the 15th century and including a dramatic occupation by the Germans during the second world war. Purely as a bonus, GHI's host Edward spoke with a clean British accent which saved the post-production team the trouble of putting in subtitles and saved the GHI investigators the effort of learning French.
…although to be fair, Barry displayed some knowledge of the French language and did conduct portions of his EVP sessions in French, which I thought was very professional and a credit to the investigation. I mention this up front because it's the last nice thing I'm going to say about GHI"s visit to Bordeaux.
According to their host, who reports having experienced many of the strange goings-on personally, one of the most active locations on the property is room #9. For this reason Robb & Joe decide to start off the investigation there, and they weren't disappointed. Some odd things did seem to occur in quick succession: The clock on the mantle was making noises but didn't appear to be wound up and/or ticking, Robb's walkie seemed to squawk twice for no reason, and Joe's Flashlight began to fail. When Robb placed his camera down using the timer function, it seemed to count-down properly but then never took a photograph when the timer ended.
I grant that all of these can seem odd, especially when grouped together, but it should also be apparent that none of them require anything remotely approaching an extraordinary explanation: Maybe another team member leaned against a wall and accidentally activated their walkie without realizing it. Maybe Robb didn't set his camera up properly to take photos on the timer. Maybe the clock was wound, but simply broken so the hands weren't moving despite the inner clockworks still spinning. Maybe Joe just needs to put new batteries in his flashlight. Any of these things might be worth exploring, but GHI seemed to skip that step and immediately attribute them all to supernatural causes.
When reviewing the recordings from room #9, they found what they believed to be an EVP. When Barry listened to it he said there was no mistaking what was being said. When the client heard it, he said he thought it might be saying, "This is mine" and Robb seemed to agree. Sorry guys, I just don't hear it at all. To me, not only did it not sound like "This is mine" but it didn't sound like words — it didn't even sound like a voice. This has got to be one of the worst EVP's GHI has ever run with; but wait! There's more!
At various points we saw Barry & Angela confused over a FLIR battery that they both remembered Barry changing just before the investigation (okay, but let's consider the possibility maybe the "fresh" battery hadn't been charged properly) and Dustin thought he heard the muted sound of a woman's scream abruptly cut off (but during the evidence review no one reports finding this sound on any of the audio recordings), but these things are to be expected and part of the normal course of an investigation. Far more interesting is what happened in Barry's room very early the next morning before anyone else was awake.
Barry reported waking to see a strange light, so he tried to take some pictures with the full-spectrum camera but said he could only get off a single shot before the camera stopped working. He woke Robb up but the two of them didn't find anything, then they both went back to bed. Before climbing back into bed Barry apparently set up the full-spectrum to take a series of shots. What they showed was the room growing progressively dimmer (by a quite a bit) and then a white mist seemed to briefly appear near the outline of (what we must assume is) Barry on the bed, only two vanish after two shots.
This was certainly intriguing, although I haven't read any of the comments yet and I'm not an experienced photographer so I don't know if there might be an obvious explanation. What I do know, however, is that there's nothing about the photos that strike me as particularly supernatural (no human-shaped figures, etc) and we know all sorts of weird things can happen with photos (the first one Barry took in his room had 3 bright orbs in it, but they're obviously just lens flare, so GHI didn't declare them paranormal) so I'm not inclined to jump straight to the "haunted" explanation, as GHI did.
Of course, they based their eventual "Haunted" declaration on some additional evidence we haven't discussed yet, specifically three more EVP's. With so many EVP's I might be inclined to cut them a little slack, except every single one of the EVP's was utter garbage. In one, they asked the spirit his name and the EVP is alleged to answer "Pierre", but I didn't hear anything approaching any of the sounds required to form that word. The final two EVP's came from Brandy & Angela's investigation of an underground structure built into some caves on the property and possibly used to hide people during WWII. One of the recordings is said to be a "growl" but again, to me it sounds like white noise. It could easily be someone's sneaker scraping against stones on the concrete floor, I would say. The other supposedly says "get out" but either I've gone deaf or GHI has lost every quality control standard they ever had for EVP's.
As a final note, during the night Angela reported waking up to feel someome holding her down "pinning her to the bed". I'll restrain myself from any innuendo and skip straight to the part where Robb insists that Angela knows all about sleep paralysis and it definitely wasn't that. I'm sorry Robb, I don't believe you. Feeling a pressure on your chest like someone is holding you down is classic sleep paralysis and your credibility is no longer in the toilet because someone's flushed and it's now in an overflowing cesspool of over-statements and exaggerated facts from various investigations over the past two years. Want specifics? Feel free to browse. After the two investigations from last week I would go so far as to say they've managed to take a show that was hurting for credibility, start to change people's minds just a little bit, and then hammer a nail into the coffin to convince people that their initial opinion was the correct one all along.
Admin: Spelling of the venue's name changed by request.
Filed under Ghost Hunters International, Posts by Logisti
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Comments on GHI: Chateau Lagorse »
Nosfer @ 5:20 pm
Robb's classic line (paraphrased?): "Oh? You have caves here?" Methinks Brandy must not have been totally inclusive in all her advance research.
Leslie @ 6:20 pm
Oops! I just noticed this here, and I just posted my comments in the GHI forums. Sorry Logisti.
Hal @ 6:30 pm
First location: Tra, la, la, la, and que, sera, sera!!
Barry finally comes through after quite awhile with some smart things to say in French! As far as the evidence they collected is concerned, I think Rob was a little too premature to so excitedly declare this place haunted. All the EVPs they recorded just sounded like the same old indistinguishable sounds we've heard before. And that really scary growl from the cave? Sheesh! I've produced flatulence that sounded more threatening than that!
Strange again, also, that each location's host, such as was the case last week in Spain, sounded British. I wonder if the locals in each country could care less about spooks and didn't want to be bothered by these "uncredentialed" scientists!
Second location: Brandy, thanks for showing your best cleavage yet during the analysis, but what the hell is a "white" shadow?
CrowTRobot @ 9:25 pm
My favorite part:
Angela says she felt something holding her down that night. (My wife and I joked that it was just Barry. I know, we're a couple of cards; we should be dealt with.) At the reveal, Robb says that something was pressing down on Angela's chest………
We looked at each other, "WAIT A MINUTE! How would Robb know that?"
Hal @ 11:12 am
An additional comment on equipment malfunction: I forget which location it was, but Joe's flashlight went out and Rob's radio acted up. So, like we've heard before, Rob explains how batteries in equipment will drain quickly when a nearby spook is trying to manifest itself. HOWEVER, as someone in this forum once pointed out, why does that problem never affect the Pilgrim Films camera crew's equipment? As a spook I, at least, would go for the main "buffet of entrees" in the nearby batteries (Pilgrim's) first and then eat up the rest for dessert or as needed. If anyone on these investigations has the biggest and baddest battery packs for their equipment it's the Pilgrim crew! Or . . . do they expect us to stupidly believe they're operating with 1,000 yards of extension cords?!!
blinddog50 @ 11:54 am
Hal,
Spooks won't mess with the crews' batteries. They're union.
Nosfer @ 2:52 pm
Maybe they should set out some batteries as bait with recording voltmeters on them. Just another in the long list of ideas that will never see use on the show. They are still content to wander aimlessly through halls with no real established methodology. They are good at teasing static and background noise into "impressive" EVPs but when the chips were down they'd have trouble finding the ghost in a bowl of Booberry Crunch.
Nosfer @ 3:01 pm
If, as Barry "theorizes", ghosts are most visible in the UV, then don't you think maybe they should ditch the IRs or at least supplement them with UV cameras? Or is it so Barry can have his moment setting up his apparatus and then cutting to a studio shot where he sits and talks about it.
Revenant @ 7:47 pm
I have been forunate enough to visit the Bordeaux region of France several times. As Nosfer pointed out in his first post, the fact that Robb was surprised by the presence of caves is absurd. Many not only provided protection for the people there during war, but they also lead to the sources of water for the wine and cognac there. It's a small point, yet, it bothered me.
As for Edward, the host for the tour, stating that they really don't like telling "ghost stories" to the guests. Well, maybe they are the only one then. I've been to maybe 20 Chateaux in the region, probably more. Ask about their ghosts, they pull out a case of wine and you're spending the next hour or three making a new best friend. So I wasn't sure if Edward was just playing up the "spooky" aspect or not. Again, a small point, but I found it somewhat odd.
Lastly, the EVP's. One night while staying at a Chateau, an older couple came downstairs quite upset. The lady was complaining of hearing voices. We thought "Cool, here's our chance to get on the GH team…"
So we went upstairs and examined the room. We did hear something. The glass in the window pane wasn't sealed properly (no clue what the French would use to seal a window in a 15th century Chateau.). So when the wind blew, it would make a faint noise. Since the ceilings are so high in the room, when you're laying in the bed, it would kind of sound like voices. Throughout the night, all of us heard strange noises. The reason? It was windy that night and you're dealing with a very old building that has many different pieces from the last 5 centuries…or more. A good example were the glass windows in the couples' room. It was from the 1700's.
The only reason I bring that story up is because I was quite disheartened at them taking these EVP's at face value instead of going back and looking at the particular location at which they occurred. Sure, maybe what they did pick up was paranormal. I have no way to disprove that. I'm just saying that first hand knowledge of staying at places like these tells me that there can also be very real and quite normal possibilities for the sounds.
Revenant @ 8:06 pm
Slight correction- The window frame was from the 1700's. The glass itself, the owner thought maybe late 1800's.
The Doctor @ 11:37 am
Logisti – any thoughts on the full spectrum cam's images being reshuffled, along with the timeline ?
Nosfer @ 11:41 am
Don't suppose they hired the Mason film-editor did they?
Chuck Neumann @ 12:43 pm
The funniest part was Dustin warning Edward to be prepared for a shock with the next EVP. I kept waiting and heard nothing like a growl and cerainly nothing to prepare myself for. I miss Andy, I can only believe he would not have been so impressed with these "EVP's". As far as a ghost touching Angela's chest, they are in France afterall.
The Doctor @ 2:20 pm
Nosfer @ 11:41 am
"Don't suppose they hired the Mason film-editor did they?"
Ya'know, at first I suspected that Pilgrim might have played with the images, putting the really dark one in sequence to play out the effect.
The problem with blaming them is that Barry's original self-filmed explanation of what was happening dosen't correspond with the final report of the event that Robb gives to the client.
The shoeless photo simply cannot be in the middle of the sequence, and there is no mention of a second "darkening" of the camera.
As Learjet puts it on the other thread -
"There be monkey business afoot!"
Nosfer @ 3:02 pm
"The problem with blaming them is that Barry's original self-filmed explanation of what was happening dosen't correspond with the final report of the event that Robb gives to the client."
Exactly like Fort Mifflin where Steve's sequence as described in the Findings does not match Grant's explanation to the Client. In that case I was able to show that Grant's version of the events was correct (which has since been taken down from the TAPS board LOL), but why Steve gave the incorrect version, and wasn't corrected, I do not know. So, this wouldn't be the first time that internal discrepancies have arisen.
Nosfer @ 3:09 pm
"The funniest part was Dustin warning Edward to be prepared for a shock with the next EVP. I kept waiting and heard nothing like a growl and cerainly nothing to prepare myself for. "
I chalked that up to Pilgrim's normal tendency to sensationalize every sound, light, and arthropod. Pretty soon they are going to hype themselves to the point where they can't really come up with anything "more super" to wow us…At that point Angela….
Liz M @ 11:02 am
I was curious about Barry's explanation of his experience. I thought I heard him say he awoke around 7am. If that was the case, why was it so dark? Even at it's darkest, 7am should see a little sunlight trying to peek over the horizon. Or did I hear him wrong?
And the walkie bleep… Robb said that no one was on that channel. How did he know? I have little walkies like that and if you are on a different channel than the other walkies there is no communication going on. So how did he get on that channel? Why wasn't that the mystery? Also, I don't know why the camera not taking a picture was such a big deal. That seems to happen all the time – timers don't always work, it's a joke I have seen several times in sitcoms. And I've experienced it in my personal life. uh-oh, am I being haunted?
And if the woman yelling down the hallway was yelling in French, why didn't Barry try to ask her IN FRENCH why she was yelling? This time they definitely know the language the ghost prefers, why not do some research – get one of those travel translators or something? But that's just beating the poor dead horse.
Liz M @ 11:23 am
One more thing – the girls have to be congratulated for admiring the clusters of bats and not freaking out! I wonder if our TAPS friends could have done the same thing (especially the one bat that had some glowing spots on it).
Oubliette @ 2:35 pm
Again I must say that Robb has changed a LOT from the first season of GHI. He's gotten so much more of the GH/TAPS mentality. Just can't put my finger on it exactly. IMO he started out on a good note, esp. paired with Andy. Now he's coming out with stupid statements ala Jason and Grant. Little to no research, no proof of claims made and pseudo-scientific babble has come to be the staple of both these shows. And I haven't yet remarked on Dustin's ridiculous "international consciousness" excuse why ghosts in foreign countries can produce EVPs in perfect English.
Liz-good point on the girls and the bats. Can you imagine that wimpy Steve in the same situation? My mind still is baffled why anyone who is afraid of most creepy crawlies that one would expect to encounter in a lot of old, supposedly haunted places still holds a major place on any investigative team. My 4 year old niece is braver than he is.
Taylor!! @ 5:53 pm
i totally agree with u. im a real paranormal freak and i love learning about the supernatural but i do think that the investigation was a load of bull poop. pardon my french, hehe. but i am a big fan of ghost hunters inernational and i will keep watching it because it is one of my favoriate shows, even if i dont believe half the stuff that goes on there. i enjoy watching the crew spaz over something that could have been someone sneezing for Gods sake! haha love u guys! -TAYLOR MARIE