I flip over to the SCIFI channel now and then-and frequently, the “TAPS” guys are on. They travel to remote places, checking out houses, abandoned hospitals, etc. for “psychic activity”. They set up video cameras, EMF detectors, etc.-but they never seem to get anything! Or have i missed an episode?
Anybody know iof these guys plan to give up soon? Another ghost question; years ago, a read about a case in England, where a plumber working in a basement saw a troop of ghost Roman soldiers march in-and out the opposite wall 9the house was built over an old Roman road)-anybody know about this?
Of course they don’t find anything. They’re using psuedoscientific methods that they made up, have no standards, don’t try to eliminate false positives, and don’t really know what they’re looking for. They just wave their instruments around and any little thing that happens suddenly becomes paranormal. Ask em what reading on whatever electrical field detector they’re using they would expect to be caused by a ghost and not something else, and then why.
Obviously you’ve never actually watched the show, hotflungwok. The TAPS guys are always trying to debunk stuff. If they have a high EMF reading, they try to find where it’s coming from. Many times they point out things that are giving off high EMF readings so the homeowners can get rid of them. They’re also plumbers and will happily point out when that banging sound a homeowner is hearing is from an improperly secured pipe. If they catch something on a thermal camera, they try to recreate it to make sure it wasn’t a reflection. There are many more examples, of course. Though I’m sure you don’t want to hear any of this. I honestly don’t know why I’m even bothering to defend anything paranormal-related here (the SDMB). I’d be just as well off starting an “I Love George W. Bush” thread and getting the shit beat out of me.
Nope, you’re right, I was thinking of another group, and didn’t pay enough attention to the OP. Haven’t seen these guys.
Yes the TAPS guys have caught some pretty strange stuff. They call them ghosts, I’m just like, ‘that was really freaky’.
But,
on their thermal camera, they have caught images that look like a person, and there was not a person there nor was it a reflection.
On their digital EVP recorders, they have caught ‘voices’.
They just did a house that was next door to the no non-exisitent house where the Manson Murders took place. They got a lot of weird shit. Enough that I wouldn’t live in that house.
But they are not afraid to say, “We didnt’ get anything” to the person that called them in to investigate. Once they had dramatic footage of a bed unmaking itself but they, through their diligence, discoverd that someone tampered with the camera and that it was fake.
It’s an interesting show for open minded people.
They find my heart racing everytime Grant Wilson is on screen, for sure. 
But really, only rarely will something creepy and inexplicable happen to them. They’re generally able to debunk most of what their hosts have experienced and unable to confirm the rest.
The only thing they seem to take at face value is EVP, and I have no idea why. “Is that a woman’s voice?!” No… it sounds like the washing machine, sir.
(Steve Gonsalves isn’t half bad either.)
Thank you for acknowledging that. I hope I didn’t come off too harsh, and apologize if I did. I do agree that in a lot of other so-called ghost-hunting shows, they do exactly what you say. I can’t stand those shows but I love Ghost Hunters. I felt the need to defend the TAPS guys because they aren’t quick to jump to conclusions and say something is 100% haunted. They are self-proclaimed skeptics who set out to debunk a haunting, not try to prove it.
I remember that episode with the bed, Zebra. The guys were pretty pissed when they realized that their equipment had been tampered with and that someone had tried to trick them. The episode this week with the Manson murders was creepy. Not sure what I think of that K2 meter they were using.
Oh, and malkavia, you can have Grant. I’ll take Steve.
I won’t even get into a paranormal debate, but you’d probably get a lot less flack if you didn’t try to imply the skeptical side wasn’t “open minded.”
It’s analogous to one side of the abortion debate labeling themselves “pro life”, as if the other side, by virtue of not being “pro life” were “pro-death” or “anti-life”.
The funniest part of the show (IMHO) is when one of them pipes up “Is anyone here that wishes to talk to us”? “Give us an indication that somebody is here”-(dead silence)-I guess the ghosts DON’T want to be bothered!
Yes, dead people don’t talk much, do they? Odd that.
Of course they aren’t going to find anything, because there is no such thing as a ghost.
Well, that took a surprisingly long time.
These guys do find some things they can’t explain. And absence of proof isn’t proof of absence.
I personally don’t think there’s anything after death, but I’m not as sure as you are. I’m definitely not as rude.
Don’t sell yourself short.
The creepiest thing I remember from the show occurred at a lighthouse. They had left a camera running in a vacant room, and suddenly a chair lurched about three feet sideways. Absolutely no way to explain it. So yeah, they sometimes do find stuff. They really don’t try to describe it in specific terms, though.
I always wanted to have a ghosthunter show that took the cast of the other shows and shook things up one group at a time.
They would be told to pack clothing and equipment for x number of days in y season/environment [so they dont wear burmuda shorts in alaska in november…]
They would be taken onto an airplane with the windows blocked. They would know the absolute basics - say southern US. They would not knwo that it was Podunk Ga, as they would go from the small plane inside a hanger into a van with no way to see out. They would be driven to somewhere and offloaded at the first of 3 locations at night. They would know only that 1 of the 3 locations is the target. Nothing about who where what or anything would be told to them. They have to do an absolutely cold reading on all 3 locations. At the end they would get told which of the 3 locations was the real target.
Then we would see their ‘investigations’ 
Have they ever thought about what they would do if they actually saw one? Or would they just huddle close together, sneak up to it and shout, “Get her!!”
Well, we are supposed to be dedicated to fighting ignorance, after all. :rolleyes:
You may find me rude as well.
A cumulative absence of evidence is indeed evidence of absence, in cases where, if something exists in reality, there should be evidence beyond unsubstantiated anecdotes.