Here's food for thought.

I was reading Jason and Grant's book "Ghost Hunting" about this incident and Jason was talking about how everyone, including the crew, play practical jokes on each other. He said that Frank had tripped one of the cameramen, in the dark, prior to the incident. My first thought was how stupid that was, tripping the cameraman who's carrying that valuable equipment. My next thought was that the cameraman got a little payback by pulling, from behind, on Frank's equipment bag. Possible? I haven't seen the footage in so long and can't remember if anyone was behind Frank. But if you were the person who pulled this kind of trick, would you own up to it, after seeing the results?

I'm not much on practical jokes to begin with, but I would think the absolute last place for such silliness would be on a ghost hunt…..assuming someone wanted to be taken seriously, like, oh, I don't know……TAPS!

People are walking around in the dark, presumably in a building they're unfamiliar with, and some, d**k (as Logisti accurately put it) starts goofing around. Taint funny, Magee. Aside from all the normal dangers, how can any 'evidence' collected be trusted? I'm still surprised at some of the foolishness GH pulls, and Pilgrims keeps in, for broadcast.

Recently, Steve knocked on, or threw something, and Krysten asked if it was him; he said no and laughed. I guess we veiwers are suppose to think, "HAHAHA that Steve, contaminating an investigation with fake evidence. What a card."

Now that I think about it, I wonder how much of their evidence can be explained away by practical jokes?  Certainly the FLIR crap that shows people running across a hallway, or doing the 'goofy walk' is even more suspicious.

I think this episode is one of the most interresting ones, certainly one that made me look at GH in a more creditable light.

BUT…

Things on here have confirmed some of my curiousities and suspisions over the years, now I have to look at the show, and regaurdless of any natural or alternative explanation, I have to ask

"…can they fake this?"

If there is a way to, then I think the evidence looses about 51% of its credibility then, and the only real way I could believe in the show again is to actually have the oportunity to debunk the debunkers.

For this episode the answer to the question is "Yes" that could have been faked.  I'm not going to make any assumtions on character of people involved, the only people on GH that I think are credible are the ones who are no longer on it.

Basically, they could have rigged up some type of line to the camera bag, yanked it up, then Frank takes a fall and acts all distraught.

We don't know anything about Frank before or after this episode, accept for when J talks to him and reviews what happened.  Although I will say he "seems" authentic in his reaction, you can tell when someone is acting, like Grant sometimes reacting to something like the jaket tug.

The one creditable thing in this instance I think is the camera Brian is holding is not fixed on Frank or is moving in a way that seems really intent on catching this evidence when it happens, like the camera work with Grants jaket tug where the camera is right on him the whole time, for some reason.

Revenant,

While I don't necessarily disagree with you, I do think a couple of your issues were addressed.

Points 4, 5: One of the clients/officers was, if not a doctor, at least (I think) trained in medicine and he seemed pretty convinced that Frank's inflammation was real.

Point 6: True, we know nothing of Frank; but to me, and apparently the officer that looked at him, Frank was truly shaken.

Points 1, 2: I think we debated that here, and it seemed that most agreed that a cameraman would not risk expensive equipment to fake an incident. So while it is certainly possible that Frank's bag was stuffed with a pillow, I think most agreed that something legit happened to Frank based on his reaction.

But most doubt it was paranormal.

blinddog50 said:

Maybe, someone just stepped on the boom mic cord. Dunno.

That actually makes a lot of sense, and is what I think probably happened.  In at least one of the videos you can see what appears to be the cord flying up and back as if it became snagged or stepped on, and was forcibly disconnected at a splice.  If the boom was hooked on his strap, or if he had it run through so that the weight of the bag would help position it more securely on his shoulder, when the slack was taken up the bag would fly upward as a matter of consequence.  There's only one catch.  Would there even be a cord for someone to step on?  I'd assume the cables would go to the equipment in his bag, and would be more or less self-contained.  Although it's possible he just had more slack hanging out than he though and someone caught it with their foot.