Has anyone heard if the chef from the place ever mentioned anywhere his version of what happened?

I think there's enough blame to go around. Not sure who suggested the place, but TAPS should have at least found out if there was current activity. It appears that the only recent events were a couple of psychics showing up and communicating with the "ghost". From what I've heard from a manager at MBD several years ago there hasn't been any real activity since the early 90's.

It's also apparent to me that during the walk-thru that the Chef was talking in present tense about the haunting in ladies restroom and the lamps being moved. Since we only see 15 minutes of the entire investigation, I'm not sure what questions or clarifications were asked up front.

Anyway, I think this was a communication breakdown on all parts and I'm sure adjustments were made afterwards to avoid this type of thing in the future. It's too bad that MBD's reputation was hit, because they have a great view and good food.

Outside of the psychics, has anyone heard of any other phenomena captured there recently?

No, Jack. What I find odd is that you continue to insist that I am saying things which I clearly never said.

1) Pin some kind of shenanigans on TAPS/GH/Pilgrim: No, no shenanigans pinned there.

2) TAPS/GH/Pilgrim knew or should have known: No, I said they *could* have known, and even Jay acknowledged as much. That in no way implies they *should* have known

However on a completely separate issue I did point out how nonsensical their policy of "not researching before" since they've already "contaminated" themselves by asking the person giving the tour what happens and where it happens so they know what to look for. And then, there is this quote:

"Before we arrive, T.A.P.S. researches every place we investigate,"
(Hawes and Wilson, Ghost Hunting, p. 100).

As I said, I'm not saying the MBD situation was TAPS' fault for not researching, I would agree it was primarily the restaurant's responsibility to disclose the effects, but speaking beyond the bounds of this one event it doesn't speak well of TAPS in general that they acknowledge that this information *would* have probably turned up in their research, but suddenly they claim not to do research until *after* the investigation (which is B.S. on multiple counts) and then justify the B.S. with explanations (avoiding contamination) that are equally B.S.

So, in conclusion to this point #2: MBD was primarily responsible to make sure TAPS was aware of the effects, even if they expected everything to be off and not be a problem, just for due diligence — but while TAPS wasn't at fault, they showed quite clearly that the quality of their research is inconsistent at best (which brings other cases into question) and they're awful quick to come up with B.S. excuses to try and cover that fact up.

3) The episode is edited to make TAPS look good (and therefore unfairly villainizes the restaurant): Yeah, not only do I think that's a perfectly reasonable and fair statement, I think that's Pilgrim's *JOB*. Regardless of this being "Reality" television, Pilgrim needs a narrative and "this is a complete mess that makes everyone look bad" doesn't make for an interesting storyline.

4) I'm taking everything MBD says at face value: I'm taking everything TAPS and Pilgrim say at face value too, with the exception of the "We don't research until after an investigation" thing, and in that case only because it makes no sense and on top of that it's clearly not true and contradicts what they themselves previously said.

But other than that, I have no evidence that any of the people involved are being dishonest, so I take what ALL of them say at face value.

5) MBD reps showing up to defend themselves before the episode even aired: No "MBD Reps" showed up to defend themselves. drmichaelrhodes showed up, and if you've been on the Sci Fi message boards he's been on there for years and he's been a GH fan since the show first aired. He happens to know some of the people involved with MBD and he had been communicating with me over email since practically right after GH wrapped up filming because there were concerns that GH was going to spin this into a Hero vs. Evil story instead of the stupid mess that is really was. As it got close to the air date they confirmed this was likely to be the case (and it was).

Ultimately, as I said before, I believe MBD very probably should have brought this up directly with TAPS during the walkthrough even if they thought it had already gone through other channels. That is what ultimately caused the confusion and there may have been other contributing factors, like: Was Spencer a last-minute fill-in for the owner, and maybe he wasn't really sure what he was supposed to be doing? We don't know, but it's fair to say the restaurant dropped the ball and that ball got rolling to cause a lot of confusion.

That is a long, long way from deliberately trying to trick TAPS though, and while TAPS may not have done anything wrong DURING this investigation, AFTER the investigation they had the poor form to be professional to the client's face and then unprofessionally accuse them of deliberate deception in front of a national audience without giving them a chance to answer the accusations.

1) drmichaelrhodes has contact with some of the principles involved and asked permission to repost a few things that were said either elsewhere or over email. He has also been talking to members of TAPS over email regarding this, so I guess that means he's "closely affiliated" with TAPS too and anything he says will automatically be slanted in their favor, right?

2) I got the MBD side of the story and reserved judgement until seeing the TAPS side. Even given only TAPS version (the episode itself) and ignoring claims made by anyone else, the "evidence" is confusing at best and subject to wide interpretation. The simple explanation is to take everyone at their word. Your explanation is to make a series of assumptions that simply can't be proven one way or another.

You tout Occam's Razor, but your theory requires a very specific and highly unlikely series of events… more like Occam's Spoon:

a) MBD makes the decision to trick TAPS, even though the effects aren't secret (I even found an amateur restaurant review from 2 years ago talking about them) and even though Loyd Auerbach already publicly repudiated claims that the effects were being passed off to paranormal researchers as real phenomena.

b) MBD either forgets to turn all the effects on or they are completely unaware that TAPS likes to play with breaker boxes.

c) Spencer is a phenomenal actor, and that's why when Grant does his 4-step lead into finding the speaker in the bathroom he shows absolutely no change in his demeanor whatsoever.

d) When Spencer's demeanor *did* change (when Grant said he felt "disheartened") and he apologized that the effects caught them by surprise it wasn't because he honestly didn't realize they were upset, it was because he wanted us to THINK he honestly didn't realize they were upset, because he's a phenomenal actor and an expert liar.

Yes, it occurs to me that maybe MBD didn't deliberately tell them. It also occurs to me that maybe Spencer specifically alluded to the effects several times during the walkthough but TAPS didn't "get" what he was referring to and Pilgrim edited it out, resulting in a choppily edited walkthrough tour. Both scenarios are possible but neither has any real supporting evidence so they aren't worth much.

If by "people you know" you mean "people who know someone who knows someone who I talk to occasionally" then yes, I have absolute confidence that MBD set up effects to simulate hauntings. In fact, MBD has openly acknowledged this for over a decade.

On the other hand, if your question is did I ever consider that they were trying to use those effects to "dupe" TAPS then, Yes again! I considered it and decided that the circumstantial evidence was not nearly strong enough to start leveling accusations at people.

Well Jason seems to have continued his trend of deleting blog entries where he discusses controversial topics, although I didn't think this particular blog entry had been itself very controversial… still, I no longer see his extended response to Auerbach on his blog.

Since Jay has done this many times before (like when he said anyone suggesting the Manson episode FLIR footage had been altered was an "idiot") I'll cut him no slack and post his words here, to hold him accountable to them.

Response to Loyd Auerbach’s statements on Moss Beach!

I
figured I would respond to most of Loyd Auerbachs letter on our investigation at Moss Beach seeing he posted his feelings on their web site.
Loyd claims he spoke with a producer at Pilgrim, I have checked this and can not find any person who spoke with him. I am in no way calling Loyd a liar, but I am not even sure this person who he states he talked to works or even worked for Pilgrim.
Even if someone was spoken to, it was never passed down the line about the place being rigged. 
It is not Pilgrims responsibility to inform us on that even if they were told, it is theirs "Moss Beach"!
He states a visit does not an investigation make, well that visit made the investigation. 
They did not inform us of the fakery going on and after that how can you truly trust anything you catch. 
Even if you caught a spirit on film, how do you know it is not some projector hidden somewhere else?
Nothing against Loyd, I like the guy. 
I would not be assisting places in faking paranormal activity though, like his statement says.
As for the place having so called paranormal activity since the 1930's, well at this point I wonder if any of the claims were even true, or was it just things that have been said to get people through the door?
As for us not doing enough research before the case, like we have always said, we wait till after the case so we do not contaminate ourselves with the claims, history or anything else of the case. 
Why read up on a place prior and find out so and so died in the back room and then go there and focus mostly on the back room?
Give the whole place a clean slate when you walk in!!
Go in uncontaminated!!
As for Loyd's statement about Grant getting hurt and it automatically making him not friendly to the place. 
We found the evidence before he got hurt so we already were not that friendly to the place! 
Not going to deny that!!
Nothing personal but Loyd seemed to be doing nothing but pushing his books with these statements. To each their own but I saw 3 to 4 things about his books in this letter.

Like I said, I like Loyd, we have talked as two people in the same field. We have debated as two people with two different styles of investigating and he has my respect.

That being said, I stand by my statement that Moss Beach had more then enough chances to tell us about the stuff they had rigged and chose not to! 

Who should have told us? Moss Beach should have told us!
As for stating "It's a show!
Yes it is Loyd, but it is a show about what we do and what we have been doing since around 1990. Just because it is on TV does not take away the truth of the investigation it just makes it appear a hell of a lot shorter then it really is!
We have investigated some places for 5 days straight just to see production turn it into a one night investigation for the TV show.
I honestly feel that Moss Beach barely deserved the time it took me to walk through the door after finding what we found.
We do tons of personal cases where people need our help Loyd, it is up to Scifi and Pilgrim to air them. That part is out of our hands.
You
also state that we make more in one episode then you have made on your books,lol, you seem to have no idea what your talking about on that and I hope your books are a bit more accurate!

There is no leading authority in the field of the paranormal though many out there want to think they are.
That their words are the words that all other investigators should follow and live by.
Each person needs to be their own person.
Find what way works best for you when investigating and stick with it.
We all need to work together in this field. It is truly the only way it will get ahead.

I have nothing to hide so I am posting Loyd's statement here under my answers. 
I wish him the best!

What triggered me to go back (and find out it had been deleted) was this terrific quote:

As for stating "It's a show!
Yes it is Loyd, but it is a show about what we do and what we have been doing since around 1990. Just because it is on TV does not take away
the truth of the investigation it just makes it appear a hell of a lot shorter then it really is!

With questions about how much of the show can be taken at face value and even if it's unfair for viewers to expect too much actual "Reality" (because after all, they do need to make it entertaining) I think Jason coming out and saying he stands by the veracity of the show tells us it's not unfair to expect the show to be honest in portraying the true events that occurred.

…and if they aren't we can bring it to Jason's attention and see if he feels strongly enough about truth to correct the matter.

1) Yes, the difference is that Loyd gave him permission to re-post Loyd's private communications and the TAPS member in question did not. That says something in itself, along with Jason's recently deleted blog response to Loyd. Apparently TAPS has an aversion to being "on the record". If you're drawing conclusions beyond that, I don't know what to tell you.

2) This is an entirely false (and academic) conflict. Auerbach does not own the restaurant and informing TAPS of the effects, in Jason's estimation, was not Pilgrim's responsibility anyway. Ultimately the argument is about whether or not MBD directly communicated with TAPS about the effects (and it looks like the answer is no) and if not, why not.

3) You claim there was "no logical reason" not to mention the effects. We've discussed a perfectly logical reason: They were not expected to be an issue because they would be off. It's not a great reason, but it's perfectly reasonable that someone might make that assumption. Especially if they already were assuming TAPS knew about the effects.

…and let's draw a clear line between "The effects wouldn't be an issue since they would be turned off" and "Someone honestly (and mistakenly) BELIEVED the effects wouldn't be an issue since they would be turned off".

Also there is the possible added complication of believing TAPS already knew about the effects in the first place. Either because Auerbach told the owner that he talked to Pilgrim or because Spencer misunderstood something the owner said in a last-minute phone call, or just a flat-out assumption for any Stupid old reason.

I want to drive this home, because it's an incredibly important point: You say Waverly announced up-front that they were prepping for Halloween and that the responsible thing would be for MBD to have made a similar disclosures up-front. I agree. You say there is "no good reason" for them not to. I agree. However, "no good reason" is entirely different from "no plausible reason", and I think there is a very plausible reason: Either miscommunication, naivety or some combination thereof.

4) Why allude, why not just say? First off, let's be clear that this scenario is just as speculative as your own assertions regarding MBD's motives, however if we're going to delve into it: In this scenario Spencer assumes Jay & Grant already know about the effects and says things like, "The Blue Lady's kind of mischievious, she's been known to play with the art deco chandeliers in this room. These ones here sometimes swing late at night for no apparent reason. The ones towards the end of the bar are the ones we have set up for the guests."

If he assumed they knew, then it would be completely natural for him to say something like that, and at the same time Jay & Grant clearly wouldn't have known what the heck he was talking about, but it's the sort of thing that might not seem worth asking him to clarify. Then, when Pilgrim heard what happened and reviewed the footage afterwards, they could chop up the walkthrough to make sure they removed all the dialog that might wind up contradicting Jay & Grant's reasons for being angry at the end of the episode.

As I said, speculative, but it easily could have happened that way, there's no evidence suggesting it didn't — still, I'm not saying it did either. Just food for thought, and one more reason I don't think it's fair to jump onto the "condemn MBD as deceitful hoaxers" bandwagon.

jack said:

I guess we disagree on 'plausibility'.

Clearly.

jack said:

Had Spencer actually said something like '…The ones towards the end of the bar are the ones we have set up for the guests.' this would be moot–because that's not an allusion, that the very thing I'd have liked Spencer to have done in the first place … no way they could have missed it.

I disagree, I think it's exactly the sort of thing that might easily be misunderstood and forgotten as the tour moves from subject to subject and room to room, but we've already established you and I disagree on what is plausible so consider it duly noted that you disagree with me on this point as well.

jack said:

Here's the core of my reasoning behind a belief that MBD was being decptive in some fashion– No matter who knew what, the MBD, in order to appear legit, should have made damned sure that everyone knew that those effects were ther–particularly the investigators and the audience.

I agree, but that omission does not necessarily signify malintent, it could just as easily signify miscommunication, poor judgement, or even just basic stupidity.

jack said:

Now, regarding Jason taking that down, that's worrisome. It could mean…

I won't speculate as to the specific reason in this case but Jay has a bad habit of responding to major events with blog posts that he removes after a few days. It happens so frequently that either he doesn't learn from his mistakes or he has some sort of strategy that assumes he can say what he wants, then delete the message and not be held accountable to his own words.

Usually when this has happened in the past his temper is involved, like when he called people asking about the FLIR "Idiots" or when he went nuts about something involving Donna leaving (and Brian Harnois too, unless I'm mistaken). In this case I thought he restrained his temper very well (either that or he wasn't actually angry to begin with) so it probably does have something to do with the factual nature of the post.

This much I will say: You claim Jay & Grant would never let Pilgrim leave footage on the cutting room floor if it turned out that Spencer *had* said a couple of things (referring to the effects) they misunderstood and missed at the time, but in the past even when fans noticed discrepencies within the footage of episodes (like the FLIR in the Manson Murders episode) what Jay & Grant have consistently done (once they stopped to actually listen) is repeat versions of "We're looking into it" until people stop asking.

With the FLIR in particular I talked directly to Jason on the Sci-Fi message boards and explained why it had been provably tampered with before making it into the episode. He actually said that now he finally understood properly what everyone was upset about and that he was requesting the original footage be returned to him so he could examine it.

Within a week the entire thread had been deleted by a Sci-Fi forums admin with no explanation and Jay never mentioned the footage again. The only lasting effect: the next time Sci-Fi re-ran the Manson Murders episode it had been re-cut and the FLIR footage in question had been removed from the episode without comment or explanation.

None of this really weighs in on my decision to give MBD the benefit of the doubt, but it weighs heavily on how much of that same benefit I extend to TAPS and Pilgrim. As I said, I'm not accusing them of ditching footage to make MBD look bad — but I wouldn't put it past them either.

I have to say that I thought that whole 'Manson' thing was a cock-up. Didn't like it one bit. The whole thing seemed faked. If it wasn't faked, it was the kind of thing to take the Amazing Randi to so you could collect that million. Extremely interactive responsive ghost…..

And I believe I did suggest stupidity or insanity on behalf of MBD before–reading some of the things Auerbach has said about that ghost just leave you shaking your head and wondering how long it's gonna be before the boys in the nice white coats come knocking…but that's neither here nor there.

What IS here or there is that you agree that MBD had an obligation to make sure that the existence of those effects was made known.

Jack, well yeah, but I agreed to that point a week ago. From the beginning I said if the restaurant was responsible and did their due diligence then Spencer should have mentioned it directly to Jay & Grant, and after Jason's (no-longer existant) post where he said it was not the producer's responsibility to inform him I ceded to his perspective and agreed primary responsibility must then lay with the restaurant.

That being said, it's now starting to come out that the owner of the restaurant (someone we have not yet discussed, I don't even know the guy's name) has claimed to have discussed the effects with the production crew during setup discussions. I think it's looking more and more like there was poor communication on Pilgrim's side and poor judgment (in not following up directly with Jay & Grant) on MBD's side.

…and having said that there is of course the possibility that the owner is lying and/or covering his ass, but there's also the possibility that people at Pilgrim are lying and covering their asses. We don't know and I won't speculate, but it all goes towards my original conclusion that mistakes were likely made on all sides and there was probably no intent to deceive.

There are even more interesting stories beginning to solidify that, if true, would blow this story open in the opposite direction — leaving some hard questions for TAPS to answer — but the specifics are lacking and unconfirmed so for now my opinion stays here: Miscommunication, confusion, possible poor judgement, no ill intent.

Pure speculation, June, but you got me thinking.

What motive could MBD have?

Logisti, don't kill me for this–it's a series of really big 'ifs'

If MBD thought the effects would be on(possible evidence for this is Spencer pointiing out the effects)

And if they were functioning properly(the bathroom effect was clearly damaged–which could account for it's obvious cheesiness)

And if TAPS didn't catch them

Then MBD could

a) act as of the hauntings were genuine and certified by TAPS

or

b) come clean at the end with the notation that their simulated haunts were 'good enough to fool a professional–even TAPS

Both of those things would generate great publicity.

And 'b' would be something that didn't require any malicious intent on anyone's part. Sure, it would've been a publicity stunt, but it would have been a good one.

Even Spencers reaction at the reveal kinda backs this supposition up.

The only problem is that 'b' would have put a big question mark by TAPS skills. The current situation puts question marks by everyone's honesty–but TAPS skills are intact.

So is that what we have? A publicity stunt that went horribly awry?

That would explain a lot.