On the National Geographic channel .They had two episodes , one on bigfoot and one with different people on Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary . The Eastern State one was pretty interesting , they went in with real scientific equipment to show how the place can make people think they are seeing and hearing ghosts . They are going to rerun it on 1/31 .

I liked the Eastern State Pen episode and didn't like the bigfoot episode.  A mixed review. 

At Eastern State Pen I wasn't so much interested in the science tech - I mean we already know from watching a ton of these shows that you can catch some interesting effects, often easily debunked if you're willing.  That's the whole problem with using technology for ghost hunting that has, well, no proven efficacy for finding ghosts.  Sadly - there is no ghost detector.  The clarification on EM was excellent. 

What I really like was the experiment performed by the psychologist.  I was practically jumping up and down on my couch while watching this thing last night!!  Sure enough, if you are a person that believes in ghosts and if you're told you're in a haunted location - you're going to have an experience.  It's practically a 1:1 correlation.  Of course, you'd need to repeat that experiment on a lot of ghost tours at a lot of locations - but damn, that was interesting.  It might seem like common sense to a skeptic, but I'm fascinated by what the mind can do to you - as the show said "sometimes perception is reality." 

But bigfoot, uh.  All the experts on that show are bigfoot believers.  Even that technique for digital reconstruction has been shown before by Bill Munns on "Is It Real."  I suspect that digitization footage was staged, because both that video and the suppostion that Patterson was shooting with a 15mm lens instead of the 24mm has been featured before and Munns has been shopping around his analysis on the web for a while. 

I've been watching that film for years and I have two problems with Munn's analysis: 1) We know Patterson rented the camera with the 24mm lens.  He would need that to shoot a documentary on 16mm film to be run in movie houses and on TV.  That's what he was collecting film for.  When you analyze the footage with the suppostion that Patterson had the 24mm lens on the camera "Bigfoot" turns out to be about 4' 8" to 5' tall.  Perfectly congruent with a woman (the thing has breasts) wearing a creature suit and walking hunched over.  When you watch the stabilized film - I'm sorry, but that thing looks short.  The fallen trees in the foreground come up to the legs!  So for Munn's analysis to hold, he has to fudge and just assume that Patterson was using the 15mm lens - that makes "Bigfoot" taller. 

2) Munns argues that no human could have the proportions to wear that suit.  Sorry.  I'm living proof.  I stand 6'4" in my stockings and only have a 29" inseam.  I have ridiculously short legs and incredibly long arms.  The tops of my hands hang below the bottom of my buttocks.  I have a large head that fits my frame and a strong back, due to a low center of gravity, and I tend to walk hunched forward "into the wind" to hold my torso up.  This is a common trait in my mother's family.  Heck, she would be a perfect cadidate to wear the Patterson suit for that film!  The notion these proportions only exist in 1% of the population is bunk - in the 19th century people called this "being tall in the saddle" - that is a tall rider whose legs don't hang below a horse's belly.  I'm really tempted to dig into this deeper.  I'm certain Patterson - who remember, now, was filming a documentary meant for Hollywood distribution - could have found someone to wear that suit.  I've never even seen a picture of Patterson's partner Gimmlin or of Patterson's wife, Patricia.  I had my missus stomping around the basement pulling a bigfoot last night and after about five minutes, she looked pretty good!

So, wildly inconsistent this program.  Great ghost expisode!  But the bigfoot thing was a rehash of recent MonsterQuest and Is It Real? episodes, with less attention paid to real skeptics.   

Bob Heironimus, he has said for many years he was inside the suit.
Paterson hired him but he never received payment. Paterson was a con-man. Just days before he filmed the famous footage he contacted a costume maker and asked about renting a suit. He never purchased it, instead he rented a camera for a week and was very lucky to film the footage. Here is a double exposure of Bob H. and Bigfoot.  
http://www.rense.com/1phts/BobH1.gif

I actually miss thos JREF bigfoot postings.  That thing was amazing and there was a lot to learn in there about how to think like a skeptic.  Every assumption got challenged. 

AND THANK YOU SO MUCH!  I'm so glad you posted that gif - I was digging around for it and couldn't find it.  The evidence presented in that gif is as good as anything that Munns has presented.  As an archivist and document "expert" (I would never use that phrase professionally - document analysis can be SO subjective, but the courts use it) I've set in on testimony in court in which both sides use essentially the same digital reconstruction to argue opposite sides of a case.  So digital evidence - eh.   

A costume designer named Philip Morris claims he made the suit and his wife corroborates the story.  He even claims that he told Patterson to use football gear to bulk up the suit - what looks like "muscles" moving under the skin.  Bob H. remembered football gear being used as a part of the suit.  Patterson wrote a book on bigfoot and his sketches of BF look just like the one he eventually filmed - including the breasts.  Plus this thing has serious brow-bossing - a factor typically limited to this degree in male apes. 

Not to overly disparage Jeff Meldrum and his credentials, but the one true expert to look at this film was John Napier.  He was a bigfoot believer, but he was one of the most prominent anatomists and primatologists of the 20th century and after careful research he proclaimed the thing a fake.  Even a man who wanted to believe, couldn't believe. 

To me, this episode of AP was a study in confirmation bias.  The P-G film is perfect, because it is so funky! The same goes for the inconclusive DNA.  We dismiss "mystery hair" when we find out what it is, but keep the inconclusive DNA in the "Bigfoot corner" because it keeps the case open - instead of dismissing it as well. 

Here's what I'm gonna do - if I'm ever walking through the woods and I see bigfoot I'm gonna jump on that SOB and bring him down with my own two hands, throw him in the back seat of the Camry, and drive the whole thing right up the National Mall and up the steps of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History with the police and security chasing after me, honking the horn and yelling at the top of my lungs.  And then collect my Nobel prize.   

Learjet said:

…snip…

Even on the TAPS forums we have discussed infra-sound. While I can see how certain appliances do generate high amounts of infra-sound at certain frequencies, I'm not totally sold on their "rain generates infra-sound" to the degree needed to induce the negative effects that their19 Hertz amplifier did.  I think on any other night it more likely the general feelings of unease in that place are purely psychological.

…snip…

Another thing is the one night stand. How often do we rip apart GH for spending too little time in any one place to pick up a sporadic event? 

It seems I'm a bit of a skeptic of the skeptics in this show!

Yes, I'm totally with you on both points.  I actually decided to jump in with both feet and volunteered to review this show for this site.  My reviews will be up this weekend, and I'm going to try to tackle all this stuff.  American Paranormal is going into it with the attitude of "we're real scientists!  Hiyo!"  But I want to find that out for sure.  This could be a clever argument via appeal to authority - I certainly feel that way about the big foot episode.

The 19hz thing is cool.  I'm an audiophile and have a kickin' stereo in my basement with strong loudspeakers that will generate a 19hz infratone as seen in the show.  When I first learned about this, I downloaded a freeware tone generator that works with my PC soundcard, which is hooked to my stereo and TV in the basement.  Indeed the 19hz sound is quite compelling.  We experimented with it via double-blind.  I sat in the room with it going and with it off, without being able to visibly see if it were on and had my wife either play the tone or randomally leave it off each time.  We also removed our cats who reacted to it strongly.  And, yeah, 100% of the time I knew it was playing.  It felt heavy, my pulse was up, and my eyes seemed to act strangely in attempting to focus on things. 

Is that what's happening at ES Pen?  I doubt it.  The original discoverer determined that the affect was caused by sustained exposure, as from a fan or a nearby powerline, not random reverb.  That being said, if I ran a fun house or did a haunted house tour, it'd be worth the investment to stick a little loudspeaker in the ceiling, facedown on the floor up there, and let that thing jack vibes throughout the building. 

For me, still, the most powerful aspect of both episodes was the psychologist - it can't be said enough.  People who believe in ghosts, have ghostly experiences.  I believe in money, why don't I have monetary experiences? 

Did you happen to try various infrasound frequencies other than 19 Hertz? Keeping within the spec range of your subwoofer, I think it would be an interesting experiment to see which frequency range had the least/most effect. Just out of curiosity…

YES!  In fact we had quite a lot of fun with that.  17-19 hz was the range in which the wife and I "felt weird."  Anything below that or over that really seemed to do nothing - and, in fact, we didn't really even notice.  But I would say 19hz really is the sweet spot.  I can't quite describe the feeling, other than after about 5 minutes you just sort of feel crappy, maybe like the flu is coming on.  I don't know if you could get the affect with a smaller set of speakers or somesuch.

Learjet said:

That's very interesting, thanks. I'll keep those frequencies in mind.

Watch out for this one when you experiment - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_note

Learjet said:

It seems I'm a bit of a skeptic of the skeptics in this show!

I know how you feel, they spent a lot of effort to map the cell block - not really sure how the map allowing them to pinpoint any location of sight and sound would allow them to " see if they scared up any ghosts".

One of them explains how anything that blocks the IR radiation will show up as a cold spot on the FLIR, but then makes the leap to say "an appirition, a ghost if you will would cause a similar effect"  …. ??? where does this statement come from ?? Does he have some knowledge fo the physical characteristics of ghosts ?

I got a kick when the guy looks at the display and says " Here's a big hump that sounds like it might be rain "  … " is there any evidence that you guys might have seen ?…"

Well, one clue might be this puddle over here under the broken skylight ….  

The bigger question is … How long before the Paranormal community decides that the presence of infrasound ATTRACTS  Casper … or feeds Casper … or Casper creates it ? 

The Doctor said:

The bigger question is … How long before the Paranormal community decides that the presence of infrasound ATTRACTS  Casper … or feeds Casper … or Casper creates it ? 

Oh gawd, please don't give them any ideas lol. "There's this theory that infrasound………"

cheeky skeptess said:

 I REALLY liked that they just set it up and let it run overnight with nobody in the building.  At least any visual or sound anamolies that might have been captured wouldn't be caused (even accidentally) by the investigators.  Makes much more sense to me. 

---

Welcome,

You've brought up a very good point, as any "residual" activity or anything such as door openings should happen regardless of the presence of the living and the least possible contamination the better.

I'd like to see a combination - an overnight hunt, then leave the equipment running the following day and night. No doubt software is available or could be devised to perform an on-the-fly analysis of the unmanned segments, and any interesting bits could be flagged for human eyes or ears.  

( whatever happened to the concept of having someone at "command central" actually watching the static cams during a hunt ? )