Posts Tagged ‘Commentary’

Spooktalkular returns with a little edgier show than normal.  No, this isn’t going to be the norm, we just went where the material led us today.
Frank takes a rant out on Ghost Hunters Academy.  We discuss ‘The Haunted’, ‘Psychic Kids’, and a Jack the Ripper special on the Discovery Channel.  We also have a lengthy discussion on a recent ‘Paranormal State’ episode.  Our independent music break featured ‘Chaos Engine’ by TenPenny Joke
All in all, a great, fun show.  It’s good to be back!

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Another awesome love show! We had a blast chatting with the Spookchattie’s tonight. Another name has been proposed… The Spooky Groupies. I like em both.  We intro the Spooktalkular YouTube channel.  So far, only the Mothman Hayride video from us…  But look for more.  We also talk about our format change of moving towards more serious paranormal topics.

Where to start, it was a busy episode. We started out with a cool interview with Alex Price who played Gilbert on the hit BBC series ‘Being Human‘.

From there, we head into our television coverage with a surprising newcomer this week, ‘South Park’ and the episode ‘Dead Celebrities‘ where our paraplumbers Jay and Grant get parodied in awesome form. You really know you’ve arrived when you’re spoofed on ‘South Park’! From there, we hit into ‘Ghost Hunters’, ‘Destination Truth’ and ‘Mystery Quest’. We also discuss the new show ‘Ghost Lab’. So far, we agree that we really like the personalities of the brothers but it’s really nothing new as far as format. We’ll discuss it more in the coming weeks.

We also talk about the upcoming ‘Ghost Adventures’ Live event at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum where the ‘Ghost Adventures’ Crew will be spending the night on October 30 starting at 8:00PM ET. Looks awesome!

Our Independent Music Break featured the song ‘Now or Never’ from the band AG Silver!  Awesome sound and they seem like great people also.  Please support Independent Media of all forms!

We wrap up the show with a recap of ‘Harper’s Island’ episode 11, Splash.  The Cal/Chloe death scene is the best in the series!  The song used for that scene is ‘Letters From The Sky’ by Civil Twilight.  It’s availible for free for a limited time from iTunes.

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A fitting line I believe, courtesy of the great William Shakesphere.  We continue to get comments about the “Ghost Hunters” fraud accusation video done by MovieDan.  Most of the comments we get are far from supportive of our favorite ghost hunting duo.

One overall theme to the comments is the great lengths that Jason and Grant, along with their team, go to in an attempt to portray that they are “debunking” the evidence they find where ever possible.  This is what seems to set most people off.  If they are claiming that they have debunked the claims, then how could they have missed these obvious flaws?

Here at Spooktalkular, we continue not to pass judgement one way or another.  We thankfully just share this information and leave it to you, our faithful listener/reader to make up your own minds.  With that said, if you are not familiar with Occam’s Razor, and you enjoy the paranormal, then take a few minutes and read up on it.  The principle behind it states that the explanation of any phenomenon should make as few assumptions as possible.  In other words, all other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.

I’m not saying that we should view everything as a fake but if we find ourselves making multiple excuses to explain how something can’t be a fake, well, maybe it is just that, a fake.  That’s not just for television but, as paranormal investigators, or at the very least, hobbyists we should take that to heart as well.

As for Spooktalkular, we’ll be doing a show tomorrow evening and try to get it uploaded before Tuesday morning.

Last week, during Spooktalkular, we reviewed in detail, the recent video accusing "Ghost Hunters" of fraud by faking evidence.  In case you missed it, here’s the video “TAPS LIES – Ghost Hunters Live – 2008 – Fraud-O-Rama”;

As I mentioned during the show, I’m not passing judgement on the validity of the claims made in the video.  The producer of the video makes a fairly compelling case for his accusations of fraud.  I personally hope that the accusations are false because if they are, they call into question the validity of ALL evidence presented on "Ghost Hunters" and for that matter, all of the paranormal reality shows.

Wednesday’s "Ghost Hunters – All Access" episode is the first that I’ve watched since viewing the fraud accusations.  Going in, I wondered how I’d feel.  Since I’m a podcaster on the topic of "Paratainment", I try to keep an open mind when watching these shows because, not only are they entertainment, they are also prep work for discussion on Spooktalkular.  I found it incredibly hard to watch the show objectively.  Every time they would show an evidence clip, I found myself looking for the "man behind the curtain" and how it possibly could have been faked.  For almost every clip shown, I was able to determine a way it could have been faked.  Now this DOES NOT mean that it was faked or that I thought it was.

Why is this important?  In order to believe the validity of and evidence presented, one has to trust the source.  Simply put, if doubt is injected as to one piece of evidence, presented as factual, this calls into question all evidence.  When I was a child, I remember finding out that there was no Santa.  I was in third or forth grade so I was around 9 years old or so.  I found out because I noticed the shipping label on one of my Christmas gifts, a Weebles Treasure Island, was addressed to my Mom from JC Penney’s not Santa.  I asked my Mom about it and she came clean about the fact that Santa was indeed, not real.  From there, that called into question all of my beliefs about the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and so forth.  One by one, as I reexamined these, I realized that they also were not real.  All of this because of the doubt injected by Santa not being real.

That is why I feel it is very important for "Ghost Hunters" or Jason and Grant themselves to publish a rebuttal.  The video produced by Moviedan is very compelling so the response must be equally so.  Jason and Grant have both posted responses on their Myspace blogs but, they are not anywhere as stong of an argument as the one by Moviedan.  I really feel that "Ghost Hunters" should almost devote an episode to debunking this video.  Otherwise, a lot of people will start questioning the last several years of their work.

Now, for the other possibility, if it is fake, let us know.  I still watch magicians even though I know there isn’t anything mystical going on.  Wrestling still enjoys quite a following even after the acknowledgement that it is fake.  Based simply on the entertainment value alone, "Ghost Hunters" could enjoy the same.

Me, shoot, I’m still out on what I think.  I’m still trying to gather evidence and watch what happens.  I still enjoy "Ghost Hunters" even though I watch it even more skeptically than before.  I would, however, like to see a real response from GH or Jason and Grant one way or another.

What do you think?