When is Taps going to Hoia Baciu Haunted Forest ?

Posting verbatim/cut'n'paste from my comment on Oubliette's review for the episode….apologies for being a prima donna like that, but I'm just so happy to have finally debunked this one–it's been bothering me for months:

I have the culprit behind Evan's attack, I'm very sure…

This one bothered me for months; it's been one a small handful of paranormal show cases I could not debunk. Until today!

Let's start with the fact that Evan was _not_ flung.  If you watch the footage frame by frame, he is clearly blindsided, and jumps up and back in an effort to fend off _something_, staggers back in a fit of pure, terrified panic, and falls on his ass.   There's nothing to suggest his feet ever leave the ground.

With this in mind, and noting the claw marks left by the attack, I immediately assumed a large animal of some kind, and looked up what kind of big, terrestrial predators they have in Romania:

The Carpathian Brown Bear.  The Grey Wolf. And the Lynx.

The lynx is unlikely because of its small size and lack of territoriality with humans, Wolves don't leave "claw marks", even on the rare occasions when they attack people, and a bear would have messed him up a LOT more.

And so I was stuck.  Until I realized my mistake.  _Terrestrial_ predators.

Meet the Eurasian Eagle Owl:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Eagle-owl

Three feet in standing height,  a near seven foot wingspan, and the largest owl on Earth.  Territorial, and relatively unafraid of humans.  And, like all owls,completely silent in flight.  Seriously, look up videos of owl flight, they float like ghosts in the air.  Completely capable of knocking a grown man flat on his ass, as well as taking foxes and lambs as prey items.

Evan describes his assailant thus: "Like a wind just blew at me. It came down from the sky and just shot at me."   Matches owl.   As do the claw mark patterns.

Furthermore, this might explain the lights they were chasing earlier in the episode.  As we all know, the eyes of nocturnal animals, even when small, are exceptional light reflectors…and you don't get a nocturnal animal eye much bigger than the world's largest owl.  Note that all of those lights "flew" and were all observed to be at treeline level or so.

Finally, the second of the two sounds they got…the one that sounds like demonic female laughter? 
Here's a pissed off female Eagle Owl:

http://www.owlpages.com/sounds/Bubo-bubo-3.mp3

The only aspect I can't yet explain is the first, more moany sound they got, but I think it's enough to put this one to bed.  : )

It would be better if everyone could conduct their own experiments on the forest, wouldn't it? They could either validate or disprove DT's evidence. There is a chance that they're faking everything to get ratings. However, there are things out there that people cannot explain or fathom. That's what makes GH and DT so attractive to people. They either really want to believe that there are paranormal things out there or they already do due to personal experiences. Don't you think? Now, I am neither validating GH and DT nor am I disproving them and their research. I'm just saying that there is an attraction for believers and those who want to believe.

JM,

Thank you for your very well though-out and researched post. Like many of you on this thread, I find this episode particularly troubling. In part it's because I still want to believe….that Destination Truth has an element of authenticity that Ghost Hunters, Ghost Lab,  Ghost Adventures, etc. do not. I enjoy that 95 percent of the time they find nothing, and that the other 4 percent of the time, they find things like noises, etc. that I would expect anyone running around in unfamiliar woods and graveyards at night might find perplexing.

The Haunted Forest episode, however, is a different category, I think. This isn't the usual faked footprint they photograph, the underwater eel they can't recognize from above water, or coyote that is unfamiliar sounding to them. Collectively, the remarkable (if not entirely clear) footage, the investigator's personal account, and the physical evidence of the event remind me of Grant's collar in Ghost Hunters — evidence so extra-ordinary so as to force the skeptical viewer to review it with a find toothed comb. Indeed, when Josh Gates asked to have questions sent to him via Twitter a few months ago, the one question I asked was "What do YOU really think happened at Baciu Haunted Forest?" Of course, he didn't respond to my question, but he did take the time to explain that he prefers brunettes rather than blondes.

As you said, you begin your anaylysis with some assumption of the sincerity-of-the-event on their part; if we don't, then "all bets are off," so to speak. The Eurasian Eagle Owl is, I think, a very plausible explanation. Although I am unfamiliar with this bird, it is known to attack humans in the same way as shown on the footage. It is also consistent with the physical evidence, and with the personal account given by the investigator. I am an avid bird watcher, and can tell you that I would not be surprised at all to have a bird misidentified (or better, non-identified) by an impressionable amateur "investigator" who is sitting in the darkness in the middle of an unfamiliar place that goes by the name "haunted forest."

What bothers me in part is this: Presumably, if paranormal this is is remarkable evidence to me; you could easily do an entire 1/2 hour of analysis, discussion, show any competing camera angles, etc. Even Ghost Hunters knows to stretch the segment into an entire hour if they have something interesting. Instead, they treat it as they do all other evidence, like the faked footprints, etc. One quick segment, and on to the end of the show. I've already begun to question DT's sincerity. In particular I find it hard to believe that they'll fly to Egypt, find nothing, then go back to L.A., only to go back to some nearby place again the next episode, and repeat. At best this is poor editing; at worst, it's misleading and deceptive. This leads me to believe that there is probably a more "owly" explanation for what happened that night. Occam should be proud, I think you've added another blade to his Razor on this one. (The first being they could've faked the whole thing.)

Elias

For JM,

To say science needs your mind would be an understatement. What do you do for a living? Keep posting your answers to these forums, it keeps the fantasy-prone (like myself, I admit) grounded to reality.