Michael does a decent job of spelling out the skeptical position, but I think he misses (or at least insufficiently emphasizes) a critical point, and not surprisingly Peter completely misses this vital point. If I had to point to one aspect of so-called ghost hunting that marks it as pseudoscience it is this – they don’t carry out any actual hypothesis testing. Michael comes closest to this point with this statement:

Here is the problem with what they are doing: it’s not science. There’s not a single shred of evidence to suggest that ghosts exist, or that they can be identified by cold spots. Why are ghosts cold? Why do they never seem to show up in visible light, but infrared cameras always find them? Why can you never hear them speaking, but finding them in garbled audio (what they call electronic voice phenomenon or EVP) is absurdly common? The answer is that it’s easier to find whatever you’re looking for in distorted or unclear video and sound. This is a profession that thrives on false positives.

What Michael is describing here is the fact that ghost hunting, as practiced, is nothing more than anomaly hunting – searching for things that seem unusual or out-of-place and then declaring such anomalies evidence of the paranormal. But there is no reason, a-priori, to assume that a cold spot is evidence of anything paranormal or ghosts in particular. Michael does tend to mix two points here, which are worth clarifying (as Peter perpetuates the confusion in his response).

Ghost hunters can be criticized for at least two distinct methodological flaws. The first is that they are primarily engaged in anomaly hunting, not hypothesis testing. The second is that they are engaged is sloppy anomaly hunting. Michael mainly refers to the second criticism. The problem of not putting this clearly into context is it allows defenders of the paranormal essentially to argue that they are engaging in precise and rigorous anomaly hunting and therefore what they are doing is science. Peter does this, writing:

Furthermore, as a student who has done extensive reading on the differences between science and pseudoscience, I can say with absolute certainty that there is nothing that precludes the use of the scientific method in studying the paranormal. By definition, pseudoscience is said to be “easy to recognize because it violates the basic criteria of science … systematic empiricism, public verification, and solvability.” Is there a systematic way to observe supposed paranormal locations? Yes. Over time have there been theories developed in regards to the paranormal that can be tested, replicated and verified by others? Yes.

Peter confuses “systematic empiricism” with “systematic observation” – and that is the nub of the problem with ghost hunting as science. Making measurements, using fancy equipment, following a systematic protocol of observation – these are all nice, and may be necessary for certain kinds of scientific investigation, but they are not sufficient to qualify an activity as science. Even the best-case scenario of ghost hunters, those who follow rigorous methodology, are still just doing fancy anomaly hunting, not science.

Peter does not reference or mention one ghost-hunting study in which actual empiricism and hypothesis testing was employed. To my knowledge, such studies do not exist. He heads in that direction with his last sentence regarding proposing and testing theories, but then he sort of takes it back in the next paragraph:

Is it possible to prove the conclusions made regarding paranormal energies? No, but in fact one can never say anything is “proven” in science. What can be said, however, is that there is a growing accumulation of data to support them.

This is a confusing paragraph. No one is asking for metaphysical proof, just scientific evidence. Peter then demonstrates the “observation vs hypothesis testing” confusion, equating gathering data with science. What he essentially outlines, unwittingly, is the pseudoscientific process of ghost hunting (remember, pseudoscience superficially resembles science, but lacks key components). Ghost hunters put forward “theories” (really hypotheses) and make observations. That’s it. But they never close the circle – using observations or experiments in order to test those hypotheses, in a way that can potentially falsify them.

For example, they find a cold spot in an allegedly haunted house, and they prematurely declare the cold spot an anomaly. This is sloppy anomaly hunting. They generally don’t use their equipment properly, do not adequately gather baseline data, and they use no control for comparison. But even if they do precise anomaly hunting, and document an actual cold spot, all they do with that observation is spin what would be called a hand-waving ad hoc “just-so” story about what is causing the cold spot. (In other words, they just make shit up.) Weaving a paranormal “explanation” for the cold spot does not make it a scientific theory. Even calling it a theory indicates a lack of understanding of this point. At best such explanations are hypotheses. Now the hardest part of science comes into play – figure out a practical way to test that hypothesis. That is the most critical, and often the most difficult, step in the process – and it appears to be completely missing from the ghost hunters’ repertoire.

Peter goes on to write:

Electronic Voice Phenomena can be very clear; characterizing it as a “low” threshold is entirely dependent on the standards that are placed upon it. If a so-called ghost hunter labels an inaudible murmur as evidence of a paranormal energy, then most people would agree that is a very low standard, but when credible researchers record very clear audio of words being spoken when it is known for a fact that no human could have possibly produced it, that is fairly solid evidence.

Again he is making the argument that really good anomaly hunting is science.  He also uses the “credible” fallacy – credible researchers still make mistakes, calling them credible does not answer the criticism. Also, he assumes that “very clear audio” must mean “paranormal energy” or some such. But why? I think he is underestimating the effect of audio paradolia – the brain’s ability to match a speech pattern to random noise. But that aside, he is begging the question when he writes “known for a fact that no human could have possibly produced it.” How is that known, exactly? Have all other sources of the audio truly been ruled out? More importantly – how can we design an experiment to test whether or not a human produced the audio? How many other alternate hypotheses can we generate, and how can we test them?

Michael sounds like a good young skeptic, and I hope he continues to work on his craft. Fortunately for him and other young skeptics, there is now a vast online skeptical literature to help hone one’s critical thinking skills. Peter sounds like he is genuinely interested in the science of the paranormal, but remains confused on some critical points. Hopefully he will also see this as a learning opportunity as well.

That’s right sports fans, you heard it here first (unless you spend as much time as I do on all the Hollywood celebrity gossip web sites). Word is that Gaga is so worried about ghosts that she spent $60,000 on EMF meters to equip a small team of ghost hunters, evidently modeled after those whom we know and love so well from the telly. Whenever she stays at a hotel, her team first sweeps it with the EMF meters to be sure there are no spooks waiting for an autograph.

Presumably, she’s just a moron; but there may be more to it than that. Assuming she’s doing her level best to interpret the information fed her by pop culture and wants to protect her own safety, one could say that her course is not an unreasonable one. It does highlight how alarming it is that almost anyone can take ghost hunting television shows seriously enough to regard them as sound, science-based documentaries. That scares me a lot more than a ghost would.

I’m not what you’d call a huge music industry insider, but my suspicion is that the careers of moneymakers like Lady Gaga are managed by people with a little more than her 24 years of experience on this planet. People who have some vague clue about the world. So maybe they’re going for some kind of Michael Jackson style weird public image campaign, and if so, fine, I understand that. But I’d bet that this story is indeed exactly as reported. I have friends twice her age who uncritically accept ghost hunting TV shows as scientific fact.

So I’m not surprised that Lady Gaga’s handlers have not advised her that ghost attacks are probably not something she needs to worry herself too much about. If buying EMF meters is what keeps her happy, fine, I’m sure the tour can spare sixty grand.

But I really would like to know how they established that ghosts show up on EMF meters.

The Ghost of La Purisima

I’ve been corresponding with a gentleman, Kevin, who visits allegedly haunted sites in southern California. As evidence of his paranormal experiences, he sent me this photograph, taken inside the La Purisima mission in Lompoc, CA.

Mision La Purisima Concepcion de Maria Santisima is one of the famous network of Spanish Franciscan missions stretching the length of California, established in the 18th century. Today it’s something of a living history museum. Unlike many of the California missions, La Purisima is no longer used for actual regular worship services.

Like so many “ghost” photographs, Kevin’s is of astonishingly poor quality. It’s not even close to being in focus, for one thing, and clearly should have been taken with a flash. I always marvel at such pictures, because in reality, it’s not even possible to buy a camera that automatically takes such bad quality. The world’s worst camera phone would have done a better job. You have to deliberately jack the settings, or blur it out in Photoshop.

But, be that as it may, it’s still easy to identify what’s in the picture. He also included several completely black jpegs, which he said the camera also took in the mission. In response to Kevin asking me what I thought, I told him “Well, you’ve shown me a picture of two people and a black jpeg. I don’t think anyone would earn your respect if they considered either of those to be evidence of the supernatural.”

He replied:

Two people you say. I showed the picture to a National Geographic photographer and he said it was the background. He did something on photo shop and said whatever it is, it is not human.  I am the subject of the pic he said and the “person” is the background. Grey hair, skin, black clothes. It confuses me because he is a skeptic also.

This response is what I wanted to talk about today. Do you really have to be a National Geographic photographer to be qualified to tell whether a person in a picture is a person or a ghost? Does National Geographic offer some specific training in that area? And, especially, when the original photo is so far beyond the threshold of acceptable quality, is there even any point in trying to assert such a claim?

To my way of thinking, being a human being who lives and breathes is the only qualification one needs to know whether one is looking at a picture of a person or not. Having experience as a photographer (which I have as much as many people) does not confer one’s brain with any special human-identifying superpowers. If there were a skill that were helpful in such a case as this, I’d say Photoshop experience, not photography; but again, the picture’s so bad that any meaningful analysis is worthless.

Kevin was merely using the “argument from authority” to claim “my friend is right because he’s a National Geographic photographer” and because “he is a skeptic also.”  Even if we assume that to be true, it doesn’t make the friend right at all. Indeed, it suggests the friend is oddly predisposed to see ghosts in commonplace photos. This weakens his testimony, it does not strengthen it.

Bottom line, it’s a picture of two people, remarkable only for its poor quality. But it’s also so blurry that you could tell me the living history priest guy is a coat rack and I wouldn’t be surprised. Evidence of the supernatural? We need to do better than this.

______________________

Belief in the supernatural seems to be a nearly universal part of the human condition, but the details of specific paranormal belief systems depend on culture and location. In New England we have ghosts – or at least ghost hunters. So it is not surprising that in our younger days as activist skeptics, Perry DeAngelis, Evan Bernstein, my brother, Bob, and I (the investigative team of the New England Skeptical Society) cut our skeptical teeth investigating ghost hunters.

Taking on the New England ghost-busting industry led us inevitably to Ed and Lorraine Warren, the patriarch and matriarch of ghost hunting in New England. Ed and Lorraine hunted ghosts (Ed has since passed) – ghosts, apparitions, demons, possessed people, places and things. They did so for decades, and claim to have looked at nearly 4000 cases. They were made famous by books and movies, and as luck would have it lived only a couple towns over in Monroe Connecticut.

We sought to evaluate the phenomenon of ghosts (in the generic sense, referring to all manner of spiritual manifestations) and see if there was any evidence to support the hypothesis that the phenomenon exists. On the matter of hauntings, the Warrens were one of the preeminent experts, and they were local, so naturally we decided to look into their work. Also, they claim to have scientific evidence which does indeed prove the existence of ghosts, which sounds like a testable claim that we can sink our investigative teeth into.

What we found was a very nice couple, some genuinely sincere people, but absolutely no compelling evidence, or, more precisely, there was a ton of “evidence,” but none of it stands up to rigorous scientific testing, and most of it not even to cursory testing. None of it.

Like all pseudosciences, the field of ghost hunting makes bold pretense to being legitimate science. The Warrens called their organization the New England Society for Psychic Research (NESPR), but as we will see, they were a “research” organization in name only. They still have a presence on the web, and Lorraine still gives ghost lectures. Their original website proudly proclaimed that “Our mission is to move the area of psychic phenomena out of the dark ages into the mainstream of rigorous scientific thought and inquiry.” But upon inspection, their methods lack the components of genuine scientific inquiry or even the most fundamental attempt at scientific rigor. Rather than an earnest search for the truth, regardless of what that may be, their society seeks only to support their a priori assumption that the phenomenon is real.

Our investigation began with a tour through the Warren’s rather unique museum, housed in their basement, and alleged to be the most haunted place in Connecticut. From the moment we met Ed and Lorraine, two things became very clear to us. One, seem sincere – to honestly believe the things they say. And two, that they have precious little evidence to support their beliefs. What they do have in abundance are ghost stories and low-grade ambiguous evidence. During that first visit, and in the five hour interview that followed, we were treated to scores of Warren stories. However, despite their insistence to the contrary, stories are not evidence.

On the museum tour, Ed warned us not to touch anything in the main room, as we would open ourselves up to possible possession. If we did accidentally rub against something (which was nearly unavoidable in that crammed space), we were to report it, so that he could purify our auras before we left. The room was a clutter of collected stuff garnered over the Warren’s forty year career. This included paintings, masks, statuettes, and many books. One of these ghostly tomes was an “Unearthed Arcana,” a Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game book. I still have a copy collecting dust in my closet.

Ed claimed that the most dangerous item in the house, however, was a Raggedy-Ann doll that was said to still be possessed by a demonic entity. He keeps this enclosed in a glass case for safety, and chillingly relates the tale of the man who ignored his warnings and taunted the doll, only to die hours later in a tragic motorcycle accident.

Born in 1926, Ed Warren has been involved with the ghostly world since the age of five when he saw the apparition of a recently deceased landlady. Ed’s father was a Connecticut State Trooper who went to mass everyday. His grandfather was also very pious, and bequeathed the bulk of his estate to the Catholic church for the purchase of a stained glass window. It is not difficult to see the basis of Ed’s belief structure, being reared in such a devout environment. The Catholic church does hold that supernatural entities can and do interact with the physical world.

Ed also refers to NESPR as a “theological institute,” and states that his investigations are intimately associated with his religious convictions. In fact, one of his first questions to us, just as with other skeptics he has confronted in the past, is whether or not we believe in God, for without faith we could not understand his research.

Lorraine, born in 1927, is said to be a “sensitive,” or clairvoyant. This is a person that can feel things psychically. When the Warren’s go into an alleged haunted dwelling for the first time, three sensitives are utilized. If all three come up with positive “readings,” or feelings, it is said to be powerful evidence of a supernatural presence. Of course, using an unproven method to measure an unproven phenomenon is of little scientific value.

As our probing into the Warren’s evidence continued, proceeding next into a prolonged interview, we asked to examine their most impressive or most convincing evidence, a request that we would repeat many times. But first, we needed to learn at least some of the jargon that is associated with the ghost phenomenon. Ed was kind enough to give us a crash course.

The “psychic” hours, Ed told us, are from 9 PM to 6 AM and the most vicious hauntings occur around 3 AM. Why? Because that is an insult to the Holy Trinity. A “ghost” is a luminescence without definable form, but on the other hand, an “apparition” has form and features. The countless photos we have seen of balls of light, are known as “ghost globules,” and the elongated patches as “light rods.” There are human spirits, and then there are the real bad guys, inhuman spirits. These are, of course, the essences of things never alive, or demonic entities. Ed also gave us some tips: always keep a vial of blessed water on your person to compel entities; if a possessed person meets your gaze, never be the first to break it, as that demonstrates weakness. And on it went, rules and jargon of the trade.

The Photographic Evidence

The vast majority of the Warren’s physical evidence is photographs. They have hundreds of ghost shots, taken by them and those who work for them. The Carousel Restaurant, a frequent “haunt” of the Warrens and said to be haunted, have their own collection of such photographs. Other ghost hunting societies, such as the Cosmic Society, another local group comprised of defectors from NESPR, also have a collection of such photos as their primary claim to evidence. But quantity is not a substitute for quality.

The bulk of these photos are simply blobs of light on a piece of film. There are dozens of ways to get such light artifacts onto film, but most fit into one of three categories: flashback, light defraction, or camera cords. Rare double or multiple exposures create more interesting, but still artifactual, photographs. It is significant to note that in almost every occurrence of a ghost photograph, the ghost is not seen at the time the photo is taken. It is not until the picture is developed that the ghost or glob or rod is seen, a strong indication that the picture is a result of photographic artifact.

Flashback is simply light from the camera flash reflected back at the lens, causing a hazy overexposed region on the film. The result is often a whispy and blurry light image on the film. It is easy to tell when a flash was used, because of the sharp shadows that are created and because objects in the foreground are brightly lit. The Warren’s website even suggests that using a flash will help create ghost photographs, and “the brighter the flash the better.” It also recommends to include a foreground object – something to reflect the flash. Although they admit that this is paradoxical and was not expected at first, especially since they claim that such photographs are the result of psychically created images. However, there is no discussion or any recognition at all that the light images might be the result of photographic artifact created by the flash.

So-called “ghost globules” are spheres of light, rather than whispy forms. The images, however, are curiously reminiscent of light defracting around a point source. A small amount of condensation on the camera lens is enough to mass produce such ghost globules. Under the right conditions, any discrete source of light can produce this effect.

Paranormal investigator for CSICOP, Joe Nickell, made a valuable contribution to the field of photographic artifact when he discovered through experimentation and common sense the camera cord effect. The cord or strap of an instamatic camera can easily fall in front of the lens, and go unnoticed with cameras that do not view through the lens but through a separate aperture. Even black cords will look like white blobs or streaks of light when they reflect the light of a flash. We were able to reproduce this effect (see photograph on this page) on our first try, creating a “ghost” photograph as good as any we have seen.

The age of digital photography has also created some new sources of photographic artifact. We were asked to investigate a curious photo with several colored streaks across an otherwise still and focused picture. After some digging (the advantage of digital cameras is that the image files contain all sorts of technical information about the picture – exposure time, etc.) we figured out that the camera was accidentally set to “twilight mode.” This mode will use the flash, but then keep the shutter open for a second or two to expose a dim background.

Copious examples of all of the three above common artifacts can be seen on the websites of the Warrens, the Cosmic Society, and other similar sites. What is lacking in all of them, however, is any consideration of alternate explanations of the photographs other than genuine ghosts. There is no investigation into natural sources for the blobs of light, no discussion of alternatives, no discussion at all, in fact. There is only the simple and unquestioned pronouncement that such blobs of light are evidence of the paranormal.

Video Evidence

The other evidence that the Warrens possess is video. Their piece-de-resistance is Ed’s video of the famous White Lady of Union Cemetery, in Easton Connecticut. We have only been able to view this tape in the Warren’s home because Ed refused to give it to us for analysis, a common theme in our investigation. The tape shows an apparent white human figure moving behind some tomb stones. Like videos of UFO’s, Bigfoot, and the Loch Ness monster, however, the figure is at that perfect distance and resolution so that a provocative shape can be seen, but no details which would aid definitive identification. Ed Warren has not investigated the video with any scientific rigor, and refuses to allow others to do so. Despite Ed’s insistence that he was engaged in scientific research, he continued to jealously horde his alleged evidence, rather than allow it to be critically analyzed, as is necessary in genuine scientific endeavors.

The Warrens did, however, give us one of their other pieces of video evidence. This showed a man “dematerializing.” It was taken by a mounted camera in a dining room in the middle of the night during one of their investigations. On the tape, a young man walks into the room, scratches his head, and “Poof!” disappears. This extraordinary occurrence is quickly followed by a “ghost light” appearing momentarily on the window behind the scene.

We gladly accepted the tape and took it to the HB Group for detailed video analysis. An excerpt from that analysis is below:

“We are witnessing a wipe in this segment of videotape. Although there are several different ways in video editing to achieve a wiping effect, the most simple of ways has been employed here. Deliberately or accidentally, the camcorder stopped recording on the final frame of the person in the room and resumed recording just a few seconds after the person had moved outside of the view of the camera.
“On a related observation, the properties of light alone could dictate a hundred different explanations for the mysterious “dot” of light that appears a few seconds after the man “vanishes.” However, I believe that this dot of light was caused by the reflection through the dining room window of the headlights of a passing car. The passing headlights can be seen if you watch the right hand side of the screen just after the “dot” of light fades out.”

As you can see, the only piece of evidence that we were given turned out to be less than compelling. It was, in fact, a simple malfunction at best, and fraud at worst. Even cursory analysis of this piece of tape would have revealed what we found to the Warrens. Yet no one in the Warren’s investigatory network bothered to check it out. Rather then take this obvious first step, one of their investigators simply declared that the “ghost light” was “unexplainable.” This turned out to be the reflection of a car headlight. Further, none of the people in the tape were aware that anything had even occurred until the following day when the tape was viewed (again, the fingerprint of artifact), including the young man who allegedly dematerialized! Ed put his credibility in serious jeopardy when he looked at that tape, and without any verification, stated that experts, “… can only come to one conclusion, that kid disappeared.”

Despite numerous attempts to examine other physical evidence the Warrens claim to possess, we were given nothing else. Instead, we were given excuses such as “The film was erased,” “The people in the film want privacy,” “We had just turned off the recording equipment, when…” Forty years of “research” into a phenomenon and precious little to show for it.

Eyewitness Testimony

Vastly outnumbering the Warren’s low grade physical evidence, is their copious anecdotal evidence. They are great tellers of ghost stories, leading, in no small measure, to their popularity on the lecture circuit, which Lorraine continues now that Ed is gone. They did not seem to understand, however, that the case for the reality of ghosts will never be made by stories alone.

In this respect, however, the Warrens are typical of the majority of people, who are compelled by a gripping story and lack a deep understanding of how flimsy and unreliable human memory and perception really is. Good skeptics, like good scientists, strive to increase their awareness of such weaknesses, so that they can be controlled for in the quest for knowledge. Ed and his ilk, on the other hand, are continuously seeking the “reliable witness.” But even pilots, firefighters, police chiefs, and physicians are just people. Their gray matter is the same as everyone else’s.

In short, memory is fallible. This is due to the fact that all of our perceptions are filtered through our own unique polyglot of prejudices, preconceptions, misconceptions, insecurities and physical frailties. The mind can dilute, mix up, and even manufacture memories. And we have no way to determine which are which. Without external verification, there is no way to distinguish a delusion from a hallucination from a genuine experience.

Further, many sightings or interactions with an entity (whether ghost or alien) take place in the bedroom, late at night, or very early in the morning – times and places connected with sleep, or, more accurately, the near-sleep state. A classic example is Jack Smirle, investigated by the Warrens themselves, who related the tale of awakening in the early morning, being paralysed, sensing an entity in the room, being overcome with terror, then being raped by a ghost.

There is a well described neurological phenomenon known as hypnagogia. This occurs when we are between the waking and sleeping states, semi-conscious, but not fully aware. It is during these times that the majority of such experiences occur. Many believe that they are being abducted by aliens from their beds, others, such as the case above, and others investigated by the Warrens, that they are visited by ghosts. During a hypnagogic hallucination our brain shuts off the neurons that connect to our spinal column during REM sleep to keep us from acting out our dreams.

When we offered this to Ed as a possible alternate explanation, he seemed intrigued. “But,” he continued confidently, “What about the pressure on the victim’s chest when the entity is trying to get into them…?” Well, we were sorry to tell Ed that pressure on the chest and shortness of breath are also a well described aspect of hypnagogia.

“Oh,” said Ed.

Many investigations of haunted houses take place into the wee hours of the night. Investigators are often called upon to stay up all night, creating sleep deprivation. In the sleep deprived state our brains are highly susceptible to hallucinations, and here is yet another fertile source of ghostly experiences.

Another prolific source is the human imagination. Different people have different capacities for imagination and fantasy. At the far end of the spectrum are individuals who are particularly prone to fantasy. Coupled with a desire to believe and immersion into a belief system with group support, such fantasy prone people can generate a tremendous amount of alleged paranormal experiences.

There is good reason to believe that groups such as NESPR would attract such individuals. With their widespread exposure, there is ample opportunity to inadvertantly “screen” many individuals. Hundred or thousands will see one of their lectures in a year. Out of those, dozens will make the effort to go to one of their weekly classes. The ones that stay on for the long haul are invited on investigations. And among those, a few are deemed to be “sensitive,” which means that they can see things that other people cannot.

Now, we do not expect everybody to be versed in hypnagogia, the effects of sleep deprivation, and the vagaries of the human imagination, but we do expect it from someone who claims to be conducting scientific research in a field where such phenomena play an important role. Ed Warren, however, had clearly not heard of hypnagogia prior to his association with us. Although he claims that his critics are closed-minded, he himself dismissed out-of-hand any alternative explanation of his evidence to the paranormal hypothesis, without investigation designed to do so. What passes for research in NESPR, and the field of ghost hunting in general, is passive documentation of anecdote and summary paranormal interpretation.

Conclusion

In the final analysis, the field of research into spiritual and ghostly phenomena lacks any scientific rigor. The field is fully and unreservedly a pseudoscience. Although they claimed to be engaged in a scientific quest for the truth, the Warrens and their society were suspicious, overly sensitive to criticism and any attempt at seeking mundane alternative explanations for their experiences, completely lacking in knowledge of scientific method, and completely lacking in any compelling evidence to support their claims. They refused to allow us to observe one of their investigations, and they refused to allow scientific scrutiny of their alleged evidence. Although nothing can be learned about the reality of ghosts from their activities, a great deal can be learned about the human psyche.

In the years since we investigated the Warrens, the ghost-hunting industry they helped to create has flourished. The Warrens themselves spun off dozens of ghost hunting organizations in the New England area. With the rise of the internet and reality TV, ghost hunting shows have also taken off. They employ more sophisticated gadgets – which amount to nothing more than the trappings of pseudoscience – but their methodology is the same. What they are really hunting for are anomalies – anything even slightly strange. In the ghost-hunting world, anomaly = ghost. Scientific investigation does not enter into the equation.

Many have asked where can I see this show? Well, at the moment, we don’t have the show in active production. We have finished a pilot episode and demo, and that is being used right now to pitch to agents and TV networks. We are working with some very esteemed individuals and companies that are representing the show for us. We are all making great progress.

As we begin to get solid deals put together, we’ll be sure to let you all know. Don’t worry, when the show is picked up, the entire Skeptical Community and hopefully many other people will know that it’s coming! For our international viewers, we’re not certain who will carry it, but rest assured, we’re working hard to give the show the largest audience possible. If we don’t air it outside of US, you can bet we’ll be working on online and home video options as well.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to share our exploits into producing the pilot with the Dream Team of skeptics: The Skeptologists!

The Queen Mary. Haunted ship?

We last talked about the two topics that we’d present on the show, Ghost Hunting Tools and Wheatgrass Juice. This week it’s all about those spooky little monsters and their propensity to violating all kinds of physical laws!

Ghost Hunting, Tools of the Trade! Ripped directly from Brian’s Skeptoid episode of the same name, this topic was a great subject for many reasons: It’s current, it should be interesting to de-mystify, and it would require a great, spooky location that’ll be great on TV.

We wanted to create a pilot that would show the true direction of this series, we needed locations and production quality that looked like the million dollar per-episode budget that we wanted to produce the rest of the show. We didn’t have a million bucks so it was going to take some hard work.

We set out scouring Southern California’s haunted hot spots. There were several that quickly floated to the top; The Coronado Hotel, A few different private homes and of course The RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach.

In our research, it quickly became apparent that if you owned a house, hotel or rusty old ship that was nearing 100 years old or more, well, it’s haunted by default. Just come up with some great ghost stories, or talk about the untimely death of someone that used to live or work there and you are set! Instant haunted place! Better yet, instant tourist trap! I figure in 30 more years my house will suddenly become haunted and I’ll be able to sell tickets to walk around my house with flashlights and stud sensors. I’m gonna be rich!

The one location that I really liked, and thought would be perfect is the Queen Mary. It’s history and it’s popularity for being haunted is very well documented and it has been a favorite for many, many ghost hunters. It’s a big location, and by that I don’t just mean it’s size, but it’s also very grand on screen and that’s the type of production quality we needed.

We needed to check it out, first hand. Shawna, our producer and I had stayed there a few years back when we were shooting a video on an unrelated project and we remembered how cool and spooky it was. The history of that ship, spooky or not is something you can truly feel as you walk through the maze of corridors, and levels.

Upon further investigation, we found that the Queen Mary has regular haunted ship tours, and once a month, has a special ghost hunt. This rather expensive tour started at midnight on a Friday night and would go till 2AM or later. We were to bring our cameras and flashlights and “be prepared” to see ghosts and evidence of the paranormal. I’m not sure exactly how one prepares to see a ghost, but I had a tall white chocolate mocha from Starbucks and some Smarties candy if you must know.

Brian Dunning, David Vienna and Ryan Johnson, preparing to hunt for ghosts aboard the Queen Mary

At 12 midnight on February the 15th, I was joined by Brian Dunning, Shawna Young and David Vienna to take part in our first official Ghost Hunt. We brought two video cameras, a couple of still cameras and our flashlights. We were ready.

We and about 20 others all met in the lobby, and laughed and joked about what was going to happen while we waited for our “Ghost Hunters” to arrive. These were not Queen Mary employes, rather they were a team of self described “Professional Paranormal Investigators.” They took this ghost hunting business very seriously.

They finally arrived and quickly led us to a room towards the lower section of the ship. It was a moderately sized room with many poorly taken still photos with light streaks, overexposed people and just plain old dust, that were all supposedly paranormal activity. If I had to guess I would say this was the room they used daily for their tourist “Ghost Show” which was, admittedly, a fun tour around the ship with special effects to simulate the paranormal activity supposedly witnessed there in the years past. We weren’t there for some special effects show, nope, we were there for the real deal, baby!

Now, at this point, we were all pretty excited to be there, I don’t know what I was hoping for but I really wanted to have something happen that I couldn’t explain. I wanted something to make me think that, at the very least, someone was screwing with me.

Our Ghost Hunter

But first, we had to endure an hour of the lead investigator essentially yelling at us for being there. Really. He did his best: “I’m a skeptic folks! And there’s a lot of bad people in my industry trying to fool you! We’re doing this for real!” It was hilarious, he was trying to be this tough, abrasive, been-there, done-that, seen-it-all type. I got the feeling that he was making it all up as he went along. When pressed by us and others for details of hauntings that he had supposedly witnessed in his “investigations” he suddenly stumbled and then gave a weak answer and then turned to his partner for some sort of assurance. His partner, by the way, took most of the first hour to get suited up into some sort of military black nylon accessory vest. He worked hard at becoming a one-man Radio Shack. He proceeded to stuff every little battery operated handheld device that you’d ever seen onto his person. “Boy we’re in for a real adventure if the ghost hunter needs all that!” I whispered under my breath.

So after being verbally abused by the lead ghost hunter, we were carefully informed, that we probably weren’t going to see anything. (Keep those expectations really low. Got it.) He went over the ghost tools, and I was impressed that he did hit some of the more obvious misuses of the common ghost tools that are seen on TV. The idea was to prove that he was a “real” ghost hunter and those screw-ups on TV were just out to make a buck. Did I mention that we paid $75 a head for this tour, and we counted 25 or so people on this one tour alone. Hmm.

Ghost Hunting Tools, ready to go

After talking about the fact that most these tools don’t work great for ghost hunting, and that there were not too many tools that did, he offered them all up to the participants in preparation to go hunt for the ghosts! Oh. OK.

Finally, 1:15 am we were headed down to the dark bowels of the rusty old ship. Now, understand this is an amazing ship and a fantastic place to see, the tour was worth the price strictly for the fact that we got to go where most other visitors would never be able to go. And since these guys were basically making this all up as they went along, we sort of meandered through the most dark and creepy places to look listen and scan for anything unusual. And I do mean anything. Heck a mouse crawling across the floor would have been something.

We toured the famous First Class Pool, a cavernous indoor pool covered with marble tiles and ornate architecture. This must have been a real sight back in the day, oh, and with some lights. It was pretty dark. We could see all the electronic special effects equipment that was used during the day for their haunted ship tour. We got to crawl around a while, and we noted several people noticing discrepancies in their compass readings. There were a few minor anomalies that were witnessed, but all could be explained away by nearby electronics or the steel of the ship. The ghost hunter tour guide basically just walked around pointing his flashlight. I dare say, it got boring pretty quick. Once we determined that haunting wasn’t happening there, we moved on.

Did you hear that? -- Producer Shawna in the Engine Room

One location that is tied to much of the Queen Mary folklore was the engine room’s aptly named, Door 13. There once was a steam activated door to the engine room that was kept closed at all times during the ship’s voyages. It was a safety door that would keep water out in the event of problems on either side. Many of these doors separated sections of the ship in these lower levels. The door itself was no longer there, but according to many different sources, there was a worker who got smashed in the doorway and was killed. In a followup visit to the ship, I verified this information by one of the staff members who says that he had personally seen the accident report and that indeed, this was one of the many fatalities that had occurred on the ship. Though he said himself, “I’m not sure that his ghost was hanging around.” He didn’t believe, but it was clear that Queen Mary policy was to keep this story alive to promote the ghost tours.

The engine room was great, but noisy spot and we noted that for a location to possibly shoot. We were joined for a while by the Queen Mary’s own paranormal researcher who gave the daily tours. She was really into this stuff and told many many stories about noises and sightings. We turned one of our cameras on her and did an impromptu interview, which was quite hilarious. When asked direct questions, in each case, she gave a very squirmy answer. She didn’t like that much.

The Queen Mary Boiler Room

We then moved on to the boiler room. And I have to say, it’s one of the coolest rooms I’ve ever been in. This was one of four giant rooms that originally had enormous boilers in them that created the steam to drive the ship’s massive engines. The boilers were removed, and all that was left was decaying scaffolding and pipe work from the old system. This site has been used in many old Disney films and also as a radical backdrop for some TV shows and live dance events. We quickly decided that this would be a great place to shoot, as it offered the right look, and plenty of clear open space to work, and of course, plenty of stories about the hauntings that happened in here.

After traipsing around the guts of this old ship, we took a bit of a rest in one of the conference rooms, (it too was originally a boiler room, but had since been converted.) We listened to the ghost hunter tell his varied stories about things that went bump in the night and how he was fighting the good fight to rid his clients of their demonic dwellings.

Ryan Johnson, Videotapes old ship parts, but sadly, no ghosts.

The more comfortable he got with us, the more elaborate all the stories got. About half of the group made it through the full ghost hunt. Not because of being scared, but I imagine, more because they were bored. There was a few individuals that were on the tour that were part of a self-envisioned paranormal group. They took themselves very serious and even starting calling out to the spirits. That kind of freaked out a group of young attractive girls that were with us, and so they were among the first to leave. Damn.

Suffice it to say, we didn’t see any paranormal activity, there wasn’t anything even remotely like it. I wasn’t scared, I got a creepy vibe walking through the place, but that was probably more about worrying whether I was going to fall through the rusted hull into the water underneath, than being possessed by the spirit of an ancient ship passenger, or one of the unfortunate souls of a soldier who were carried during World War II.

Shawna, Brian and Ryan after the tour.

All in all it was a really interesting experience. I learned a lot about the history of the grand old ship, and got to see a lot of fantastic things. It’s something that many just don’t get to see these days.

I didn’t realize how much more familiar I would become with this special ship in the months ahead. The Queen Mary was slated to become the primary location for the production of The Skeptologists pilot episode!

Stay Tuned!

Pre-Production is where all the wheels are set in motion for a production project. By the name of it, I’m guessing you figured out that much, so far on your own.  The team and I had been discussing the finer points of the show, and finding our talent and coming up with great ideas. It was time to set a date, and like a wedding, once you set that date, it’s kinda like chasing a burning fuse. Things start to move very quickly.

We chose to shoot the first week of April, and true to skeptic form, we decided to have everyone assemble in L.A. for the first time on April first.  Boy, I could have played a really rotten April Fool’s joke that night, But I thought better of it. 

We had Skeptologists arriving from all over in a symphony of plane and car schedules. But before all of that could happen, a lot of work by a lot of fine folks had to take place.  We had to figure out just what we were going to shoot, where it would happen and how to get it all done in the precious four days that we had with the cast. Four days.

Rewind back to early January.  We had finalized our cast and had, as Brian said to me in one email “an embarrassment of riches!” We had an amazing think-tank of people on on board.  “Boy, I really need to pull this off now!”  I thought to myself.

I also thought to myself; “Why must smart people think in tanks?”

Brian and I had been discussing this show since July of ‘07 so we had some real solid ideas, though the title was always a big question mark.  As we worked through the ideas we came up with a format.  David Vienna our story editor, after several phone calls and meetings, came up with this written treatment on the idea:

We all would love to believe that aliens have visited us, that there was a second gunman on the grassy knoll, that certain gifted people can move objects with their mind. But belief is not enough.

Like any accepted science, these theories must stand up to experimentation. Belief alone is not proof and theories are not fact. That is where we come in. We are The Skeptologists.

We’re not willing to just accept stories of the paranormal or supernatural. We want proof.

Each week, we’ll take on a handful of wild claims — from the Bermuda Triangle to Bigfoot sightings to haunted houses — and apply accepted scientific practices and experiments to see if these theories hold up.

Whether in the field or at The Skeptolab, we’ll literally put these theories to the test in the hopes that one day we find real proof that something can’t be explained and there is more to life than we have experienced.

From this beginning, we set out to get it all together.  We have further refined the language of this description, and the show format.  Several of the details are still remaining protected during our “shopping” of the show. 

We crewed up quickly to get through pre-production. Milena Hernandez was a relative newcomer to our company, New Rule Productions but handled the massive task of communicating with our talent, crew and location managers expertly as we put things into high gear. She also helped with the many, many resume’s and demo reels that we received from prospective cast members as well as many folks who offered to help on the crew.

Shawna Young, our coordinating producer got busy making sure that all the elements were in place for the production. She also crammed all the skeptic knowledge she could into her brain in a very short time.  I think at one point she watched YouTube videos of our cast members for a whole day straight.

Brian and I setup the business of the Skeptologists, kept in contact with the cast as we honed the ideas about how to execute and the topics we’d cover and their merits.

The schedule was set, and we needed to get the production details ironed out, where would we shoot? What were the topics? And how do we want this to look?

I had decided very early on that this was to be a non-scripted show. You can say reality-show, but in the industry, this is anything but a reality show.  There’s really nothing real about reality shows, as most follow very planned and contrived scripts. Most, at the very least, receive constant direction from the producers, to get that “reality” just right.  

In the Skeptologists there was no script for the talent to rehearse, however, we did work on a detailed outline, It was a bit like writing the Cliff’s Notes on the show as if it was complete.  We went through the process of imagining how the show would end up, what would happen when, how it would happen, how we as a viewer were supposed to feel and who was doing or saying what at each moment. From that, we worked backwards, to try and build a foundation that could allow this story-line to happen.

I liken it to showing a kid a picture of a spaceship, dumping a 5 gallon pail of Lego bricks on the floor, taking away the picture then telling the kid, “now build that picture!” and just when he thinks that he’s headed off in the right direction, you yell, “No, do it another way.”

Geez, I’m mean.  

OK bad analogy.  The best way to build a show like this is to control for as many variables as possible.  Much like science, the more unknowns you can carefully control for, the better and more predictable your result will be.  We had to control a LOT of variables because we were about to embark on the daunting task of creating a full length TV pilot.  This wasn’t going to be the 5 minute teaser video, or even the 15 minute mini-episode.  No, we were going for the full enchilada, a full length 1 hour pilot, (which in TV world is really about 45 minutes.) It all had to be shot in four days.

In order to do that pilot we needed to come up with the two topics our Skeptologists would tackle. We reviewed many of Brian’s most popular Skeptoid podcasts and discussed them.  We came up with one almost right away: Ghost Hunting Tools of the Trade.  This topic was ripe for the picking because of the almost ridiculous popularity of ghost hunting shows currently on TV.  These shows do very week in the ratings and a lot of networks have their own take on the ghost show format.  Doing our own investigation into the tools would give us many things, but not the least of which were, the opportunity to do science to show how these tools are really not doing anything close to detecting ghosts, and also would give us the ability to go to a dramatic location and engage in some fun investigation and re-create that spooky, suspenseful atmosphere for the viewer that will keep them wanting more.  I should remind you that at this point, the viewer isn’t you, there watching at home; it’s the network exec that may or may not buy the show.  

Our show had to look like or better than other shows, at least in terms of production quality and execution, so it’s important to give them something easy to measure it against.  Ghost shows abound, and we knew that we could pull that off. Its’ ad to say, but if the show is too original, it doesn’t have a chance. Networks don’t want to take big risks on new formats, they want tried and true performers that their advertisers will support and viewers will understand. We need to carefully push the envelope.  We’ll push harder once we get picked up and prove that there’s a real, solid audience behind us.

The second topic was a bit trickier, but after one particular lunch meeting with Adam, a friend that works at a network, we decided on Wheatgrass Juice, his reasoning, which we concurred is that a LOT of Hollywood types like to drink that foul, green yard mulch and make all sorts of ridiculous claims while hoping to be trendy and chic.  We were going for a “personal touch”  chances are, our network execs came right in from their juice bar fix to sit down and review our show, boy were they gonna be surprised! It was a “shot” in the dark.

Another reason to tackle this weedy topic was to show the depth of the science that we could execute and how that would look. We purposely combined these two completely different subjects to demonstrate how wide we could go.  In actual show episodes, we’ll most likely take on two subjects that have something more in common.  For now, we wanted to give each Skeptologist a chance to shine and these seemed like great examples of a large main topic and smaller secondary topic.

So, topics in hand, off we went to search for locations to conduct our Scary Ghost Hunt… Hmmm, where does one find ghosts being actively hunted (and apparently to extinction) in Los Angeles?

Stay tuned, and next week you’ll find out!