Ghost Hunters 2.20: "03 May 2006"

Case #1: St. Augustine Lighthouse


I had heard about this episode several weeks ago during an interview with Grant on the “Slice of SF” podcast. He made it very clear that this was his favorite episode among the spring batch (though thankfully, he said this wasn’t the only episode with activity). Just the fact that the episode was devoted to one particular location was an improvement over the overly brisk pacing of previous episodes.

But this is, in many respects, the best episode of the series to date. The first season had the apparent attack on Frank, one of the sound guys, and the second season hit the hiatus with what appeared to be a thermal image of an apparition. Those were good, but this was better, especially the video footage.

Now, before I get too far into it, I want to address the obvious. I’ve already read comments that the video footage was fake, and that the voices were added in post-production. It’s certainly possible for something like that to happen, and the SFC editors don’t help matters by adding stupid ”spooky” sound effects over the actual investigation footage. But I maintain that Jason and Grant have demonstrated their integrity, and manufactured video evidence is usually very easy to debunk (especially in this day and age of pervasive CGI).

I do find it very interesting that so much activity this season has been related to “shadow people”. It’s almost like there’s a theme going, though I think it makes sense. If there is something there with the intention to manifest, it would take a lot less energy to take on a form without discernable features. (In fact, I still think most “recognizable” apparitions have a psychic component; what you see is a combination of the physical form and some kind of mental connection.)

Whatever the case, here’s my rundown on the evidence:

First, the audio evidence. I love the fact that you could hear something before anyone reacted on screen, especially with Jason and Grant. The murmuring in particular was very obvious. I do think it’s a little odd that the wireless audio didn’t pick up those sounds independently, though that might have happened without on-screen verification. But that’s the sort of thing that would have really cemented the reality of it.

All the moments when the camera was just jumping around while everyone was pointing to stuff that couldn’t be seen in “real time” were an annoyance, but I realize now that they showed so much of that because they had plenty of actual video evidence waiting in the wings. Contrast this to “Most Haunted”, where it’s nothing but whipping around the camera while the “investigators” scream at every creak and bang.

The two highlighted clips were quite impressive. I’ve seen the “shadow people” phenomenon for myself and that is, in fact, what it looks like, taking graininess into account. I liked how they peeled back the layers of enhancement over the course of the episode, so the original footage was shown to give the audience a sense of what that kind of thing would look like in “real time”. The fact that reference points were available (the motion detector lights in particular) made it very easy to notice movement. But the clean-up versions were stunning.

This is the kind of thing that I’ve been waiting for, and it definitely lived up to the hype. I can’t imagine how the rest of the season is going to measure up!

Chill Factor: 10/10