by Stephen

Due to popular demand, I'm going to be posting reviews of Ghost Adventures episodes here on the blog. (There will usually be a reaction/discussion thread on the Ghost Adventures forum section, so check there as well. I'll be posting links to those as well, like this one.)

The Ghost Adventures crew visits the Remington Arms factory in Bridgeport, Connecticut. "Where violence was manufactured, violence was sown, and violence was reaped." In the intro, they pull no punches– not only is the place haunted by the ghosts of factory employees that died there, but possibly by the thousands of people killed by Remington bullets. Neat trick. Will they visit a haunted automobile assembly line next? Zak speculates that "this place is also CURSED!"

They'll be providing compelling evidence for all of that, right? Sure.

I was hoping to find GA's lack of pretended skepticism refreshing. After all, Ghost Adventures is remarkably free of skepticism of any kind, so all that's left is the thrill ride. Instead, the whole thing was so over-the-top that I'm left with one burning question that will never be answered to my satisfaction: "Are these guys remotely serious? I mean, even a little?" After all, this is a series that began with a flying brick that, at least in the clips I've seen, looked remarkably fake to me. The real answer comes from watching the opener clip, with the U2 poses and wild screams. Whether they take themselves seriously or not, I am incapable of watching that intro with a straight face. I always mishear Zak's reading the word "Raw" as him attempting a tiger roar and crack up.

Their pre-investigation walk-through delivered the usual thrills. Zak announces, "You can hear, like, hammering," and we get a clip of him theatrically holding a finger to his lips and the "hammering" in the background. It's a rhythmic sound, spoiled only by the sounds of birds tweeting at the end of the clip. I wonder if there's a woodpecker around? Next, the camera light mysteriously fails, which left me confused briefly since as far as I knew Grant was nowhere nearby. We get a clip of Zak and Nick showing off their gooseflesh– they hear a banging noise, then feel as if something passed "right through us!" They appear to actually have goosebumps, which makes me wonder if they're serious after all. Then I swing back and watch that intro again.

They do some background with Jim Myers, whose byline is listed only as "Police Officer", but is wearing a T-shirt that reads "East Coast Paranormal Police", of which he is apparently president. They also interview Bob Curwen, the property manager, and establish that the bullets here killed thousands– no, tens of thousands– no, millions of people. (Do I hear billions? trillions?) Zak's narration then intones, "We then uncovered a bombshell." Given that this was a munitions factory, I took him literally for a second there. Instead, he meant that he learned that in 1942 there was an explosion in the munitions factory that killed seven people and injured over eighty. Apparently these deaths happened on a platform which Zak calls "Death's dance floor." Seriously. Did he just make that up? I could see Death cutting a groove there, though. In another interview segment, an author named Donald Carter says that there had been "a tip to New York PD" two years earlier that there would be sabotage. Somehow, I found myself wishing that Zak would say, just once, "I say sabot-AAge, you say sabot-OHge," but my Trekkie dreams were crushed. Zak signs that off with such a stagey "The plot THICKENS!" that I'm again convinced that there's no way that these guys are taking this seriously

Then we get to the smelting pots, source of so much drama during the show. They are huge holes in the floor dropping down to twisted metal. OK, if it were my investigation team, I would immediately try to cordon the area off somehow, but where would be the fun in that? Zak immediately trots out the theory that if you died very quickly and "graphically", you may not notice your own death. Hmm… I can be pretty deep in my work, but I like to think I'd notice burning to death in molten metal. But that's just me.

Will this walk-through never end? We then get to a big labor riot in the 1950s in which guards apparently beat someone to death. This triggers one of Zak's apparent fascinations, and he mugs for the camera, "Guards! Wherever we go, we're always getting problems with the damned guards!" Yet he seems to enjoy role-playing as a guard in all the episodes I've seen. Hmm. The bit ends with Zak making an important scientific discovery: "So we've got some bashing-head energy in here." Yes, bashing-head energy, mediated by the bashingheadtron particle.

We then learn of a graveyard next door, a medieval torture chamber, and a tunnel directly to hell. OK, just the graveyard, but come on! All that's missing is a sanatorium. Apparently shadow people pass by the windows of one of the buildings. Then the Ghost Adventures Crew takes a trip up to the top of the shot tower, where we learn that Zak might compete with Steve Gonsalves in a phobia-off. Heights? Check. Snakes? Check. Crazy-looking dolls? I think that was Harnois.

After touring the underground tunnels, we get a cut of the team visiting John Zaffis, "the godfather of the paranormal," simply because he's nearby. We are treated to his paranormal archive, largely of creepy dolls. The team is carrying some explosives, so I am briefly intrigued, but apparently they are to be used as trigger objects. We have a bit of confusion in terms; on GH, a trigger object is just a small object that they put out in hopes that something spooky will move it. Here, it's an artifact with some historical significance that might make the ghosts more active.

Finally, seventeen minutes into a forty-three minute show, we get to the lockdown. Zak theatrically refuses to wear a protective mask or to let his crew wear them, shouting, "They get in the way!" He then gives a long speech, punctuated with stock footage, about how this place "created and manufactured products to KILL people." During this speech, he punctuates every sentence with a wild hand gesture. "What does that contribute to? DARK MYSTERIOUS ENERGY." Be careful, Zak. If dark mysterious energy ever were to interact with bashing-head energy, it would be bad.

In the shot tower, they start by hearing a strange sound that they identify as disembodied screaming. Zak asks, "Is somebody working here?" Important question, because most people scream while working. Then Zak appears to be about to walk into one of the open smelting pits, because since they showed them earlier it was dramatically necessary. Zak's reaction to Nick apparently saving his life is a muted "Thanks, dude."

Heading up to the next level to investigate the mysterious screaming, Zak pulls out a digital recorder that, as he narrates, "has a higher sensitivity." The problem is that what he has there looks like a Sony IC-style recorder. It's not more sensitive than most people's ears, although far more likely to turn non-voice sounds into voice-like ones. Zak explains, in overdub, that they hope to use this device to pick up "electronic voice phenomenas." Uh, Zak? One phenomenon. Two phenomena. There's no such word as "phenomenas." You might as well say "mooses." Oh well. Twenty minutes to go.

12:23. They set up their static night vision cameras, and put their shotgun shells and fuse down next to an "electromagnetic pump", which is supposed to give ghosts the mysterious paranormal energy they need to perform their ghostly deeds. But is it dark, mysterious energy, bashing-head energy, or (horrors) BOTH? Their static cameras then pick up what they describe as "the sound of equipment being moved," although they don't explain why these would be followed by a double-beep sound.

They also pick up the sound of a gunshot, and what sounds like someone screaming. Of course, they did mention earlier that this is in a bad part of town, so it would seem to me to be reasonable to suspect that this might be contamination from the outside. Zak helpfully explains later that no gunshots were reported that evening, so it has to be paranormal! Or a car backfiring. They also, later, explain that it is deeply mysterious that only the camera on the fourth floor picked up the audio, since both cameras could hear a car horn blaring shortly beforehand. I applaud that they tried to rule out sounds from the outside, but microphone directionality, camera orientation, and obstacles on the ground could have kept the first floor camera from hearing the blast sound while letting it get picked up on the fourth level. On the forums, some people have pointed out that the honking sounds more like a train than a car horn. From looking at the Google Earth maps, the Remington Arms Factory is right next to the train tracks; you can even see some shots of it in the closing credits. But getting technical on Ghost Adventures seems almost unfair.

The night drags on. Aaron hears a mysterious growling. (Was he hungry?) Something touches Zak and Nick, and again they hold their arms together to show off the goose pimples. Horripilation Twin Powers, Activate! Same arms, too. Aaron then gets nauseous, and there's an unexplained bang. Feeling like they're surrounded by ghosts, they're going to be silent and listen for EVPs. Then we get the requisite freak-out moment– Aaron starts screaming, "Oh my god! Oh my god!" He claims that something went through his body. This is accompanied by the only remotely voice-like EVP of the evening, a creepy voice saying "There's something."

The EVP questions then become hilarious. Zak starts role-playing as a striking Portuguese worker, trying to get a ghostly guard to hit him. Aaron starts asking repeatedly, "Were you a spy who died in the explosion, because you created the explosion?" They all scream for any Nazi spies to please make some noise. It's a remarkable method of counter-espionage. Would ghost spies still be undercover? I think I just blew a brain circuit.

After they leave the room, the static camera they left behind records an unexplained voice and a strange flash. Of course, it doesn't sound remotely like a voice. It sounds like a drip, and the flash looks like it could be the reflection of a droplet splash. Did I mention that the floor in this room is wet? (37:05) I was briefly hopeful when the next voiceover segment began, "We debunked this…" but was disappointed when Zak continued "…as being any lens flare or reflection," since it wasn't any of the reflective objects they could see in the shot.

With three minutes left to go in the episode, they place a static camera in the room where Officer Myers spotted a mysterious shadow. Shortly after they leave it, there's a mysterious "white mist" that moves in front of the camera and some rhythmic sounds they later interpret as footsteps. It's too blurry to make out, but Zak excitedly voice-overs that this "appears to be a leg and a foot!" Or a bug zipping by the lens. The Ghost Adventures Crew is then let out and drives away into the dawn light, Zak unable to resist leaning into the camera to say, "That was an EXPLOSIVE lockdown!"

For their post-game analysis, they went to San Pedro, CA, to get a reaction from Vickie Kinner of Harbor Area Paranormal, who debunks all of their claims. I kid; of course not. The chorus of agreement is deafening. They all agree that the mysterious mist looks like a foot, and validate this claim by the advanced technology of walking away from the screen to see it farther away.

So concludes my first foray into Ghost Adventures reviewing. None of their evidence exactly knocked me over. Their EVPs sound like background noise. Their apparitions look like water drops. Their investigation looks like three guys locked in a dark building trying to scare each other. On the other hand, I didn't see anything that looked like hoaxing in this episode.

I still can't decide if they're serious.