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Paranormal State – Ghosts of the Forgotten – S05E08

For this episode, Elfie wants to investigate the Lake County Poor House which house immigrants, the mentally ill and criminals. There are several claims of activity including one woman who says her chair was pulled out from underneath her by the spirits. There is even a claim that a hanging too place up in the attic.

Why Elfie wants to investigate the place is a bit of a mystery since she acts like she doesn’t want to be there. She doesn’t seem too interested in participating and certainly doesn’t want to be alone in the place. When she goes off to investigate the attic she can’t get out of there fast enough. We do learn however that Elfie has been absent from the show due to several tragic events in her own life. Both her father and brother have recently passed away. I’m surprised she came back at all even is she is more just hanging out on the sidelines, but Ryan’s condescending attitude toward her is just more than I can stand. He acts like she a holier than thou ass to her. He’s treating her like a little kid. I’m surprised she put up with it.

But the part of the show that really drove me nuts, was the Ganzfeld experiment. It’s time to tape some golf balls over our eyes and strap ourselves to a chair and call it science. This is just the dumbest experiment I’ve seen. When you give yourself sensory deprivation what do you think is going to happen? You will think all sorts of things are going on that aren’t real. Let’s hallucinate and call it the paranormal. This is a BS experiment. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!

The only interesting part was Serge debunking a picture of a ghostly figure caught in the window. He believes it to be a trick of light (even though the guy who took the picture argues vehemently that it isn’t and even becomes defensive about it) and ends taking a similar photo using his flash.

However, that is about the only thing that happens on this investigation. They don’t seem to capture anything and Ryan spends all his time belittling Elfie. This was a real stinker of an episode and gives more support that Ryan can be a real asshole sometimes.

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Paranormal State – Paranormal Detour – S05E07

While apparently on break between cases, Ryan and team try an experiment to see if they can drive into some random town and find paranormal activity. An interesting idea, but not really all that remarkable. I think it would be hard to find a town that didn’t have some house or building or track of land that all the residents thought was haunted. Isn’t there always some creepy place everyone is afraid to go or they talk about in whispers?

Anyway, through crazy, random happenstance they end up at the Klondike Restaurant which has claims of the paranormal. The owners claim they hear their names being called, they see shadows, they hear whispering, glasses get broken, there are cold spots and someone in the laundry room keeps asking if they can help with the laundry. The owner and several of the employees have no doubt the place is haunted since the activity has been going on for years.

I’m not sure why, but Ryan brings in Lorraine Warren who immediately says the place has all manner of dark energy and feels confident a murder took place there. After only mere moments of being there she is convinced the place is off the charts bad. Right after that declaration Ryan begins to have a conniption about being touched all over his body. Even Lorraine thinks he’s acting crazy. There is nothing to substantiate all this touching and none of the people interviewed mentioned anything about it.

They have now turned things into a full fledged investigation and the team is going to work a shift at the restaurant and see what kind of experiences they can have. Katrina ends up feeling some odd things while doing laundry down in the basement and claims to hear someone sneeze even though she is down there alone. She also claims to hear footsteps when no one is around. Seems like she is the only one getting any activity. It should be noted that the washer and dryer are giving off huge amounts of electrical energy which could explain the odd feelings people have down there. And if the wiring is that bad down in the basement it’s probably pretty crappy throughout the rest of the building. Who knows what people are feeling with that kind of energy coursing through the place.

But in usual fashion Ryan starts running around yelling, “in the name of Jesus Christ…” which is not only annoying, but it doesn’t accomplish anything. It seems to be his fallback plan when nothing is going on. It builds dramatic tension.

I don’t believe they got any tangible evidence to support a single claim that the place is haunted. And they really don’t do anything while they’re there so why should the activity decrease? (as listed in the episode summary text) Further, it doesn’t seem like the owner is really bothered with the idea of the place being haunted. If anything, seems like that would be a good thing for business.

This episode was kind of flaky. It was an interesting idea but I’m not sure what the takeaway should be.

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Ghost Adventures – Fort Chaffee – S04E10

For this investigation, the team heads down to the sweltering heat of Arkansas to investigate Fort Chaffee which has been used to house Cuban and Vietnamese refugees and it has been the scene of quite a few riots and several deaths. With so many people streaming into it, living conditions were poor and many people treated it like a prison. Fights were frequent and as we gather from Lynn, a former guard, plenty of stabbings took place and more than one body was buried out in the back woods.

Lynn also goes on to describe that voodoo was being practiced and an exorcism was performed.

Strangely enough Fort Chaffee is where Elvis came through when he was drafted and they even claim sightings of Bigfoot or some similar creature. There is quite a bit of history to the place, but as Zak and team go on the tour, I have to say the evidence of supernatural goings on are actually pretty slim.

Other investigators claim to hear voices of "help me" and several of the women say they had an arm come out and touch them. They also claim to feel cold spots and a voice has said they need to "Get Out" while investigating. While these are interesting, they don’t really seem to be a big deal. I have come to ignore so many of these claimed voices people keep hearing; and for a place like this especially. It’s still an active military base. Plus there are animals all over the place making who knows what manner of noise. It doesn’t discount any accounts of the paranormal, but any time you have that sort of thing going on it makes me question your findings.

But moving on, the trio heads into the Fort and claim they hear old music and singing. They put a stationary camera in this same spot and get banging noises. Not to throw a wet blanket on the event, but the active military base is a mere stone’s throw away. Who knows what kind of noises you’re getting. That banging could be from a truck driving around.

The guys claim to get EVPs of people saying "Come and get me" and "Get on the bed". One EVP that did amuse me was when Zak was going to pretend there was a fire and everyone needed to get out. He claims to get a voice saying "No one is gonna believe that shit". If that were true, it proves their goofing around and staging scenes doesn’t do anything. No one is falling for it, so stop having people take their shirts off!

Seriously , what is the deal with these shows now taking their tops off? You have to go topless to get ratings these days?

Anyway, the guys bring in Lynn, who worked as a prison guard, to tour several other parts. They head down to where Richard, an "inmate", hung himself in his cell. Strangely they don’t get much at this site. You would think all sorts of stuff would happen, but it doesn’t. Well, they do claim a voice says it’s hot and that someone wants to have sex with Zak. Besides the potty humor aspect of that, it’s pretty damn dodgy at best.

When all is said and done I have to say I didn’t really see/feel much in the way of paranormal activity coming from this place. Quite frankly, I’m not even sure why the guys decided to investigate it since only one other group has been there before and their evidence seemed pretty lean as well. Nothing like staking your own claim on new territory, but this location didn’t really seem to have much going on. There is no doubt it has a pretty bad past and I doubt any of the previous residence were happy to be there, however it seems to be an abandoned camp and a pretty quiet one at that.

I still like episodes like this however, they still show interesting places and bring to life places we might not otherwise get to see. In it’s own little way Ghost Adventures is an interesting history lesson. And if nothing else, they didn’t try to talk Lynn out of his shirt.

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Ghost Adventures – La Palazza Mansion – S04E09

This episode proves once again that if a real estate deal is too good to be true you probably need to check the basement for a burial ground!

For this episode, the guys don’t have far to go as they investigate a home in Sin City itself. For this investigation they check out a home that has the owners downright terrified. There is little doubt that as they talk about their experiences during the interviews they want to get as far away from this house as possible.

They don’t have a shortage of experiences either. They both talk about a wine glass that came flying off the rack and smashed on the floor. That unto itself really isn’t that big a deal, it’s the part where Chris (the homeowner) gets choked after calling out the would be spirit that’s wild. Apparently, his girlfriend and two guests saw him get choked and had to jump in and help him.

Heather tells that on multiple occasions she would hear voices talking about her while she was in the shower. From her description, the talk was quite sexual in nature. They also claim to hear multiple conversations coming from the attic as well as banging on the walls. They even go so far as to say that Chris’ personality changed while he lived in the house. Apparently he would become extremely violent, and from the way he describes it, he may have been heading towards some murderous deeds. These two have no doubts that the place is full of evil energy.

And they may have cause for concern since Chris says he found a secret room in the house during renovations. It was a white tiled room with an industrial sink that had plumbing caked with blood. That right there sounds like something out of Dexter. He also found a stash if guns. Small caliber .22 handguns, which sound like they could be mob related.

The guys get things underway and immediately run into technical difficulties. The batteries for the cameras and the monitors all go dead. Not surprisingly, Zak feels this is the entities charging themselves for a battle during the lockdown.

As they explore the house they claim to get an EVP of the word attic. This is supposed to be in reference to the voices Heather keeps claiming to hear up there. They continue to walk around with intentions of heading to the secret room when Nick begins to claim that Zak’s face is all distorted. He’s making all sorts of claims that his eyes are in the wrong place. This part actually seems a little phony to me. Maybe he is seeing something, but this could be nothing more than a trick of the light, or lack thereof. Just seems like they’re trying to build some dramatic tension.

When they get to the secret kill room, Zak scratches himself on a nail. First off, it’s not a stab wound but a long scratch. I’m sure it hurt like hell, but it really doesn’t look that bad. Regardless, it doesn’t come across as the life threatening wound they make it out to be. During this incident they claim to get an EVP of a voice claiming they’re breaking into the house. There are also a lot of bangs and someone singing.

Another EVP they claim to get is someone mimicking Zak’s voice. I’m not hearing that at all. That comment actually seems a little bizarre. Again, it seems like they’re trying to build things up.

Next up is perhaps the worst part of this investigation, they bring in a young girl to pretend she’s Heather to try and get the dirty responses she got when taking a shower. This is just silly as can be. Who’s going to believe this? There is no plumbing in the house! Are the spirits really that dumb? They are smart enough to injure people and possibly set fires, but can’t tell the difference between two different people and a house that has no walls? I think we need to ditch these kinds of experiments.

Zak claims to hear snarls and banging while all this is going on. He also claims to hear a female voice during all these shenanigans. Haley seems to be reacting to something in the dark, but that could just be to Zak banging around. Who wouldn’t be freaked out with all this silliness going on?

For the big finale, Zak tries to provoke the spirit that broke the wine glass and choked Chris. He sets up some glasses and starts swinging a knife around. For extra dramatic effect he even goes so far as to stick it in the wall. Throwing knives around in the dark, good call!

Considering the claims that the spirits were drawing all the battery power for some big showdown, I think the evidence was woefully underwhelming. They got the usual fuzzy EVPs, but didn’t capture much else. Zak getting hurt was his own damn fault and considering the sheer terror of the owners I don’t think they really got anything to support these fears. I was expecting boards to fly, punches to be thrown, and lots of scratches and shoving. Based on what happened I really don’t think the owners have too much to be worried about. I’m not saying the place doesn’t have a pretty sketchy past, but right now it seems pretty docile

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