In the lineup for this episode, we have credible witnesses (I haven't seen any other sort on this program) as a result of people reporting having seen strange lights on the horizon in Paulding, Michigan.  While this may sound like a "solid" UFO case, explanations and legend have a more earthly background such as the light carried by a brakeman.  Another explanation stems from the story of a mailman and his sled dogs that were slain "about a hundred years ago"

Here is a link to a video of one occurrence, if you look on the right side, you will see links to many more videos.  If you can determine ANYTHING from this vdeo, I'm impressed.  It could be Mars for all we see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOtq7kQPfMw

A few of the other videos probably do not have an astro-possibility, although I wonder where the train tracks are (train headlight) given that one of the stories contains a train brakeman.

The test is going to be the second one, though.  In this, the team will investigate a haunted railroad crossing in San Antonio, Texas, where the ghosts of school children killed in a horrific bus/train accident are said to linger around the crossing waiting to push stalled (or even just parked) vehicles over the track to safety.

Why is this going to be a test?  Well, this one has been debunked already…another case of FoF and their illustrious research skills.  I understand Kris is consulting for them.  The elements surrounding this story are that local streets are named after the children, cry and screams can be heard at night, cars will roll uphill across the tracks on their own, and previously wiped backs of cars will mysteriously have fingerprints show up on them.

The street names actually derive from the names of the grandchildren(?) of the developer, the screams and crys are from a local peacock farm, the cars don't roll uphill since a survey of the road showed that it is actually a downgrade, and a fingerprint expert indicated that you REALLY have to wipe an area to get rid of prints. Oh, and the San Antonio connection? Well, the crash actually happened in Utah and was a STORY in a San Antonio newspaper.

This should be a gimmee for the FoFF (Fact or Faked Folks), and after last week, they really need one in order to redeem themselves.  Of course, one could ask if they are really redeeming themselves when someone has already given them the answers to the test?

HollyDolly…not sure what your last two paragraphs have to do with this case?

The bus crash story became tied to San Antonio because it showed up in a San Antonio paper (the article still mentioned that it was in another place) but because the story was under a San Antonio banner, it was "transferred" to a local area.

HollyDolly said:

Meanwhile, no one remembers the original accident in utah.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705338209/Bus-crash-in-1938-led-to-train-laws.html

Or, check down in the second paragraph under "Twentieth Century" here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Jordan,_Utah

Argh, these both were painful. I was expecting an EVP session at the railroad crossing. Enough for me tonight. I'll put together reviews for both of them tomorrow.

The original Time Magazine story about the crash from 12 December 1938:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,760486,00.html

Explained in 2003 by North Texas Skeptics:

http://www.ntskeptics.org/2003/2003november/november2003.htm#ghost

Yes, 2003!

I understand that Agent Ben is closing in on Dillinger and will have him apprehended any day now with the aid of Jael whom he's convinced to wear red.

The problem I have with them debunking something that has already been debunked is that it makes it seem like they have done absolutely no research whatsoever. I found the 2003 article in less than 5 minutes of searching. By Ben declaring "Solved" at the end of this one they try to give the impression that this thing was totally mysterious and unknown until last night. Until they came along and saved the day.

Either 1) They independently solved it…which speaks very poorly of their research skills and puts forth the idea that rather than spend 5 minutes in front of a search engine that they would rather waste who knows how many dollars on plane tickets etc to investigate this case. Or 2) They knew what the situation was all along and faked the episode so that it appeared that they were putting their investigative skills to work solving this mystery and then giving no credit to those who solved it earlier.

Chi-Lan talks about the original Utah crash as an afterthought. How did she find out about that? From the locals or did she type in a quick google search? Whether it's 1) or 2) above, it does not speak favorably of the team. Much like the UFO case where they do all these tests and then call up a park ranger who tells them, oh, yeah, there were a bunch of people here who launched a big UFO. That episode should have consisted simply of a minute and thirty-eight second phone call.

And the San Antonio portion of this episode should have been nothing more than a 5-minute google search. That way maybe they could have devoted the remaining time to doing some actual investigative work up in Michigan rather that what they foisted on us. I had hopes for this series. They are dwindling.