Just a small, somewhat giggle-worthy observation made during Kris/Amy's little jaunt into the St. Andrew's "catacombs"- on 2nd viewing there seemed to be an old portrait of a Victorian era woman in a wire basket on the floor next to Kris while she was expounding on something or other. The face was post-prod. fuzzed out. Privacy issues? Didn't get the old gal's sig on a release form? Not quite. The portrait was fuzzed because it's one of those Halloween lenticular pictures called a "Gortrait":

http://www.allholidaytreasures.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=HTTA329&Category_Code=10gortraits

Between the Gortrait & the newish-looking "toe pincher" wooden coffin leaning against the back wall in many shots, one might think that St. Andrew stores some Halloween Haunt props down in their catacombs. Ah, Halloween haunts- always a great fundraiser & kid pleaser for any parish to put on around this time of year.

a three foot ten year old? what?

It is very telling that when Jason supposedly sees the mass he says "did you see that" and Grant answers "what was that". He doesn't mention what he saw until after Jason has told him or should I say clued him. This has become an investigation staple and is usually at the first commercial.

I may have my espisode wrong but it's the same in every one.

Oh ugh! That was in the Benton House one but you are so right Stan! That stuck out like a sore thumb. He totally missed the production meeting on that one!

Producer: "So Jason, you say you saw a black shadowy figure and Grant, you agree. Got it?"

Jason: Got it.

Grant: Wha…? Uh, yeah, got it!

I thought both investigations were pretty lackluster. There seemed to be no enthusiam, at times it appeared that Kris and Amy were doing evp sessions sans digital voice recorder.
Both episodes neglected to show the boring evaluation of footage scene (yay!) as well as I don't remember seeing the moon through the clouds in time lapse!

I was kind of wondering if the pastor/priest forgot to take his pills that morning, he sure was hyper! But another episode where Jay and Grant see something, but no one else does, the shadow in the church, and the 3 1/2 foot tall 10 year old…poor kid. Plus they break out the laptop for the reveal in both, so we the viewers in anticipation of seeing some other evidence they may have found, get kicked in the pants.

Again, I think they just threw a "sighting" in each one to at least get us to stay until the reveals.

A quick note on a very old episode…Brian and Steve are examining evidence, it's Steve's idea to fast forward through stuff, messing around, burping and blowing it in Brian's face…but Brian gets the heat. Makes me think that Brian had a good reason to leave, it was probably one of those "I quit!" "No, you're fired!" situations..who knows. Sad when the rerun was more interesting than the new episode though. Like listening to a joke who's punchline you already know, but you giggle anyway.

I was just plain unimpressed and disappointed, no FLIR, limited EMF detection, lackluster evp work, even depressing when Kris was "provoking" the British Soldiers, not provoking, downright taunting, I expected her to stick her tongue out and go "Nyah, Nyah, Nyah!"

@M. Roget –

Great catch on the gortrait – That kind of explains the cat skeleton that freaks out Amy also … just another prop that suckers an experienced ghost hunter.

At about that same time, Kris says something like " alright chimes .." and we hear some chimes sounding.
If she is mentioning them to flag them on the audio tape as non-evp, which would mean they are a regular occurance, why is that never explained ?

ARE there regular chimes that go off in that church ?

On another forum it was questioned that the wind would nver be able to sound the chimes up in the church as they are very heavy – well, just how DO they sound then ?

Perhaps some automatic timer that could get messed up and ring them wrong until it gets reset ?

Speaking of that upright coffin, does anyone here remember the old Svengoolie show out of various Chicago TV stations? This 'ghoul' hosted late night horror movies. He would stand in a coffin just like that, and throw rubber chickens. I kept waiting for those rubber chickens to start flying around Kris and Amy's heads.

BERWYN!?!?!?

For those of you that have never seen The Sven, here is a YouTube video of a Svengoolie skit. I hope the link works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AchkTcnE5Jw

It is becoming painfully clear that TAPS doesn't really care anymore. It is almost uncomfortable to watch them go through the motions. The unenthusiastic way they deal with clients now reminds me that scene in "Galaxy Quest" where the cast went to the opening of the appliance store and just said their lines to get paid.

Also, if I have to hear Jason say "Is that it?" when taking a tour, I may just put the show on mute. I loved seasons 1 & 2, but sure not what it used to be…

Some churches do have chimes or bells that go off usually on the hour.
I don't know if churches use an actual person to ring the bells anymore,but they do have some sort of computer program i think now a days where they can go and set the chimes to go off at certain times. This maybe a feature of the church.It is also possible that the mechanism that makes the chimes go off has some sort of short maybe.
They should have looked into that so it could be debunked. I mention that in case that's one of the claims that they go off at odd hours, especially late at night when no one is in the church,like at 1:00AM.

I don't care for the provoking part.Too bad one of those British Soldiers didn't knock her on her butt.Now that would have been great tv. By the way,where is this church?
Funny about the Halloween stuff in the church.Around here several of the churches like the Baptist do something around Halloween,but THEY call it a Harvest festival,yeah right. If they were so concerned about the spooky aspects of the holiday and satan and all, then don't even have any festival around Halloween.

Maybe they should just tell the priest to RTFM

There was one "debunk" that bothered me on this investigation. When Steve and Tango are in the storage room where people have seen shadows moving past the windows, Steve gets the bright idea to go outside and look at Dave walking around to see if he can see him walking past. Well, of course, he can and he does. DEBUNKED! Really? Okay…but do we know for a fact that EVERY SINGLE TIME someone has seen a shadowy figure walk past the windows, someone was in the church? I mean, is someone present in the church 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? Yes, it IS probably people walking around up there MOST of the time people see shadows. But I don't think you can say "We debunked the shadows moving in front of the windows because Steve could see Dave Tango walking by up there when he was outside." Well NO DOUBT!!

I don't know, that one just bothered me.

A Church with ghost tours. Why I never…..

(Richmond is a section of Staten Island IIRC)

http://www.silive.com/entertainment/recreation/index.ssf/2007/10/the_awe_halloween_guide.html

"Fright Night," tomorrow, Saturday, 7 to 10 p.m. Church of St. Andrew's, 40 Mill Rd., Richmond. Admission: $5. 718-351-0900.

It's time for a different kind of spiritual awakening at the Church of St. Andrew's "Fright Night." Explore the "haunted" catacombs, bone yard, library, jail and country inn. Storytelling, cookies and coffee await at the end. Recommended for brave souls 10 or older.

Angelayo1970-
"Okay…but do we know for a fact that EVERY SINGLE TIME someone has seen a shadowy figure walk past the windows, someone was in the church? "

Not sure what you are going for here –

If the claim is that Casper closes a door, and investigators find a window that if open will allow enough wind to blow the door shut, it does not make sense to persue the investigation of that incident much further.

It appears that with your EVERY SINGLE TIME condition you are expecting extraordinary proof of what seems to be a very ordinary occurance.

No Doc, not expecting it. I understand the concept of debunking something based on "this is most likely what is happening". It just bothers me to a degree that it's stated in an almost mocking way "how could anyone think it could possibly be anything else?" I mean, if it's happening a lot when the church is empty, there has to be another explanation than someone walking past the windows.

I guess what I was trying to say that didn't come across is…is this claim happening most often when the church is empty? Because if it is, you can't claim to have debunked it using the methodology they used.

"I guess what I was trying to say that didn't come across is…is this claim happening most often when the church is empty?"

Well, our investigators never ask that question and the priest dosen't address it, so we might assume that no one ever followed up on it – In itself that's strange since the priest says that HE saw some darkening, yet dosen't mention that he was concerned enough to check out if someone was in his church.

It appears that groups are allowed to hunt in the church -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzT15TteoJc

I wonder why the good father never mentioned this video ?

I was left wondering why the 'footsteps' in the chapel (heard by Kris and Amy) were so quickly dismissed. In other 'investigations' the sounds have not been nearly as clear to the viewer at home, yet those noises were declared as ghost footsteps. (Do we remember the infamous "let's toss flour on the floor and see if the ghost leaves a Nike footprint?" episode?) What is considered 'ghostly' as opposed to 'not-ghostly' leaves me confused. Why did we not hear those noises amplified during the reveal, and at least tell the viewer what is was, if not a ghost?

On further reviewing freeze frames of the debunked still photo in St. Andrew's basement showing possible noose- just freeze it & have a close look on the right hand side of the pic. I've decorated enough Halloween charity haunts for my former parish in Pasadena to know fake, white clumpy cobwebs hanging down when I see them. The cheap ones clump/thread all over the place, so that loopy little noose image can be solved then & there. At least GH did debunk this, & it could hardly have been difficult for them if they looked at the pic for more than 2 seconds.

Someone standing behind the fake cobwebbing on the right of the pic is wearing black makeup around mouth & eyes. Does St. Andrew's Halloween fundraiser include a spooky walkthrough of their under-church catacombs? That would be a wee bit strange, imo. Not too many Halloween haunts, hayrides, etc that I'm aware of take place in real churches, graveyards, mortuaries, etc. Father Mike would have a good time explaining his authorizing the actual church/graveyard usage to most of the Anglican priests I've known.

While we've not used the actual church for a haunting, we have created haunted houses at our local church, in the youth building. When we are not using our scary supplies, we store them in the church attic. So, it is not too unusual to see those supplies in a church basement.

I think the "noose" was probably a thread; I have the same problem with my phone camera. Threads often hang in front of the lense and would impact the photo if I let them.

I hear you, Brenda. Holliston Avenue Church, my old parish, used to put on a wonderful Halloween haunt fundraiser every year. It was held in the parish school & its yard located behind the main church building. The reason I thought perhaps St. Andrew was using the basement to stage part of their haunt was a) the faux cobwebs draped near the right side of the debunked photo b) hammer1's comment upstairs in this thread that basically says they did just that back in 2007. Here's the link hammer1 dug up on this (and btw, great leg work finding it, h1!):

http://www.silive.com/entertainment/recreation/index.ssf/2007/10/the_awe_halloween_guide.html

Have to love the way the announcement says you'll be touring the catacombs AND the "bone yard." I sure hope they meant a Halloween version of one they set up for the kiddies & not the actual cemetery grounds we saw so much of in this GH ep.