Paranormal TV Update

In the Paranormal-O-Sphere of reality TV, new episodes of My Ghost Story are being aired on the Bio Channel these days on Saturday nights at 10 p.m. with re-runs of the past weeks' show at 9 p.m. These are usually pretty freaky stories, although my feeling is that some of them are exaggerated or fabricated. Last week featured a couple that bought a big old house that they wanted to turn into a haunted attraction. In spite of the fact that they had some really vicious experiences, they said they still wanted to open it to the public as an attraction. Are they not concerned about exposing the public to activity that seemed almost demonic? Or are they just trying to drum up business?

This week, two stories were related to St. Augustine, Florida, where the lighthouse is supposed to be the most haunted lighthouse in the country, there was also a woman featured who takes video of water that she lightly disturbs. On the video there are frames that show pictures of people and animals. While I have never seen that exact technique, I have heard of using water or a mirror as an oracle for connecting to the other side or the use of videotape and static images on a screen.

While watching My Ghost Story I noticed that they are encouraging viewers to tweet their own ghost story to the Twitter address. Viewers of paranormal reality shows seem really interested in telling their own stories -- often anonymously, but more and more they are willing to be public about it even to the point of getting their 15 minutes of fame in doing so.

Ghost Hunters is airing its last episode of this recent season. The new format includes more interesting graphic frames and the addition of Jason's dog, Mandy, being used on investigations -- I suggested that TAPS use animals on investigations in a prior post here, based on the popularity of Animal Planet's The Haunted and the apparently obvious sensitivity of animals to paranormal activity evident in those stories. I made the suggestion on a Facebook thread for Jason Hawes about a year ago. I think they actually do listen to viewer comments in the web discussions and social media chats and threads. In some of the web discussions I had seen the complaint that the background music was distracting when investigators claimed to have heard something, and it didn't allow viewers to hear the sounds, as well. Now the production people are shutting off all music just prior to any allegedly inexplicable sounds that the investigators are hearing. The background silence signals something is about to occur, and viewers can focus their ears accordingly. I also noticed that Jason is much more animated in these recent episodes, and whether it is because of his increased fitness level due to his stringent workouts or because people posting online about the show complained that J&G were no longer "in it to win it," he apparently is more hyped up when he is pursuing a possible entity.

Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files follows the Ghost Hunters slot, and it was announced last week that they had record-breaking audience levels for four weeks consecutively. Not sure exactly what the "record breaking" means, but they had 1.4 million viewers for this past week's show, which was 6% higher than the previous week's show. Fact or Faked features a team made up of a photographer, tech expert, journalist, scientist among others who review web video claiming to depict paranormal and inexplicable phenomena and they determine which cases might be possible to investigate as hoaxes or truth. There are a lot of UFO and alien videos examined as well as those with ghosts and other odd occurrences.

Syfy has a new show starting Wednesday, June 1 at 9 p.m. -- Haunted Collector, which depicts the investigation of haunted objects causing problems for owners. The show features John Zaffis, who has been a paranormal researcher and demonologist for the past 30 years. Haunted Collector will precede the Hollywood Treasures show, which airs at 10 p.m. on Wednesdays. This is normally the Ghost Hunters slot--and I believe GHI or Ghost Hunters Academy usually follows right on the heels of the last Ghost Hunters episode of the season. However, it looks like GHI will be back around July, but I don't know if GHA will be.

Animal Planet's The Haunted is airing new shows now on Friday nights at 10 p.m. Last night's show featured a house that was built over a graveyard. A young child and her mother were experiencing activity and, of course, family members thought she was crazy, especially her husband. When the woman's sister experienced things, herself, she wouldn't go back into the house. In spite of other people having personal experiences and being visibly shaken by what they experienced, the husband didn't believe any of it. It always amazes me when they say, "This was different. Now it wasn't just my wife telling me she saw something. I actually saw it MYSELF." What does that say about his opinion of his wife or their relationship? Even the woman's mother was laughing at her until she felt a burning sensation and found teeth marks on her body. Not laughing now. In my research I looked at what makes people believe something is true or realistic, and it often has a lot to do with the trustworthiness people feel is exhibited by the source providing the information. Testimony + trustworthiness + evidence affect belief. Obviously, for him, the evidence was missing, but there was testimony from someone one would assume is trustworthy to him.

I'm a big fan of I Survived...Beyond and Back, which airs on Sunday nights. It is in re-runs now but it has the least production effects (background music is minimal and there is no re-enactment, just graphic images to enhance the story). The story is told solely by the person who had the NDE and a person who was involved in the accident or death event or who was involved in the resuscitation. I think the minimal treatment these stories get (based on the same production techniques used in the I Survived program) are very effective to keeping the focus on the story and the person telling the story rather than being an enhanced interpretation of the story that is dotted with comments by the actual people involved.

The Haunted on Animal Planet

I think it's great that just about every cable station has one or more paranormal reality show on it. When I saw that Animal Planet had a show about hauntings (The Haunted) I laughed. What could the rationale possibly be for Animal Planet to be showing a ghost show? Duh! Animals are more aware and sensitive to paranormal activity. Of course!

Which begs the question then why, if animals can sense things that we cannot, are they not brought in for these threats more? They are used to find bombs, bed bugs and bodies and other things that have specific smells. Even with the terrorist threat, they bring in expensive technical equipment to look at us naked. Instead, have a team of dogs each with its own special scent tracking capability and have them walking around the security lines at airports. Then pick the people off the line and forget about questions of racial and ethnic profiling, the dog would give reason for checking them out.

By the same token, we have a whole show about how sensitive animals are to the paranormal and ghosts and demons and spirits, etc. Why then do we have a gazillion paranormal investigation shows -- plumbers, cops, Texans, college students, mediums, private eyes, etc.-- and not ONE of those groups uses dogs or other animals to detect the presence of spirits. (the canary in the coal mine, so to speak). They have EMF detectors that MAY or may not reveal paranormal activity. They have digital cameras, digital voice recorders, infrared, full spectrum cameras, thermal imaging cameras. All kinds of man-made devices -- they even have psychic mediums who, I guess, could be called the "dogs" of the human race -- who are more in tune with these non-physical presences than the rest of us. But you have to PAY psychic mediums for their time. You can just FEED a dog and throw them a biscuit. Give them a place to sleep at night.

Last night's The Haunted on Animal Planet featuring Carrie, her sister and mother moving into a haunted house prompted me to wonder why, if people realize something is wrong, do they choose to ignore it? Obviously the dogs were barking for a reason. They were acting strange as if there were an intruder. They were acting afraid. Why do people ignore that? (on a side note, I read an article by a man who said that the behavior of the dog during the Nicole Brown Simpson murder should have been part of the evidence because that specific breed behaves in a different way around its master than it does around a stranger, and that dog behaved in a way that indicated the master was present at the murder scene--in other words a stranger did not commit the murder, OJ did). But I digress.

The other thought I had was that people do not believe what is happening because society tells them that these things are not possible or people who believe in spirits, ghosts, demons, psychic phenomena are kookie. We have no place to get legitimate information (other than these paranormal shows--which is another risk of being considered kookie, if we believe what's shown on these programs), so there is no place to really get such information on demons, spirits, and what is known and what is normally done. This family knew something was not right but thought by ignoring what they saw going on that life would be normal for them. When their dogs are barking and trying to protect them in the middle of the night from things they did not see, they go under the covers. They have no knowledge of how to get psychic and spiritual protection. Even religious institutions do not give much credence (publicly) to these encounters or make known what they would recommend in the face of a demonic haunting or a negative entity attacking someone. Paranormal media actually is the only place where one finds out about burning sage, the St. Michael prayer, excorcism or house blessings, demonologists (like Lorraine Warren), rescue mediums, Native American beliefs about the dead. What we don't know can hurt us, and it is what these people don't know that leaves them vulnerable.

Another question I had was about real estate -- trying to sell a home that is known to be haunted or have demonic activity. I wonder if there is a haunted real estate site that let's people who are interested in being in such a place know where they can buy one. If you are afraid people won't buy it because it is haunted, then figure out a way to market to people who WANT to live in a haunted location. Perhaps paranormal investigative teams could buy such a place and use it to train new people -- like Ghost Hunters Academy did in specific haunted locations. Once on Ghost Hunters a southern paranormal investigative team brought in TAPS to allow them to train a new investigator in a house they knew to be haunted. Why not buy up these places as training grounds for teams. An offsite training weekend for the paranormal.

On another note, I am seeking people who watch paranormal television to tell me their stories about why they watch and whether the programs have changed their views on the paranormal, and if not paranormal, death and afterlife beliefs.

Paranormal Activity

I don't normally tend to watch fictional films or television shows about the paranormal (like X-Files, Medium, Ghost Whisperer or vampire shows) -- I am most interested in programming that purports to be real people doing real investigations or demonstrations of evidence of the existence of spirits and/or the afterlife.

However, a companion of mine asked if I wanted to see the new film Paranormal Activity and I decided to go because in a way it fits in with my research on how paranormal-based reality television shows are used by viewers, and one thing that tends to happen with popular culture is that mainstream media copies what is big in popular culture. (Remember when people started wearing jeans with holes all over them -- it wasn't long before you could buy jeans in the store with holes and tears in them for a lot of money because it was the popular style).

Paranormal Activity was also different in the way it was marketed. Genius! You could only see it in a couple of venues on specific dates, originally, but if there was enough demand by the public, local theaters would begin to show it. Here is an example of the press that was sent out to generate consumer demand for the film on dreadcentral.com.

Then the official movie site let everyone know that it was "because of your demand" that this movie was shown in more theaters. They took a film created in a format that mimicked the way people copy something from popular culture (e.g. investigating the paranormal) and they marketed it in a "grass roots" viral way -- the way elements of popular culture spread naturally, and they then rewarded the people who "demanded" to see the film not only by getting it out into local theaters, but by putting out press releases that said, "It was all YOUR DOING" that got the film out there. (Yeah right). The media had some things to say about that marketing technique in Entertainment Weekly, the Washington Post and in Newsday. As the articles describe, the film beat out major Hollywood films at the box office -- and obviously with a budget of about $15,000 raked in tons of money for the studio and, as MTV reports, didn't hurt the careers of those who made the film.

What worked for me was the realism of the couple -- obviously because they were improvising their lines. If this film had been scripted and produced by the big filmmakers in traditional Hollywood style, it would never have worked as a scary film. What I was wondering while watching it was are the people who are in theaters the same people who watch Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures and Ghost Lab on television? If so, were they actually scared by this film or disappointed (as I was)? For people in the audience who don't normally watch those shows, did they find the film scary?

The thing that was disappointing for me -- without giving away the actual ending -- was that I knew it was a story being acted out (improvisationally) by performers. The other thing that was a let down was how it ended, which I thought was a quick wrap-up after a long, drawn out lead up to a shocking end. For me, someone who watches shows about reportedly real incidents of the paranormal, this did not accurately fit the normal progression of changes and events that paranormal activity would, though the filmmakers seem to have attempted to build up to it, they should have done more research (or consulted someone who is more knowledgeable than they about such information)to get it right.

The characters were, for the most part, believable. However,as the activity was becoming more upsetting to them, their behavior became less believable -- especially the spirit investigator who was advising them. He just told them to wait for the one demonologist he recommended to return from being "out of the country" (why are academics always out of the country when you need them?). Why not point them in the direction of another expert or a PRIEST for that matter, if it was obvious to him that the entity was demonic? Even people who are remotely familiar with the paranormal know about the Warrens.

This film is being compared to The Blair Witch Project, in the way it was filmed and marketed, but initially that film was touted as being an actual documentary film that was found, which actually made it scary. Once it was revealed that it was a performance by actors, the scariness of it turned into more of a curiosity. The scariness of homemade video is its rawness and reality as much as what is shown on the video. I'm thinking that now a similar film that is fiction could not work as well, but the new film The Fourth Kind is saying that the film is documented by actual footage of people who actually experienced what is shown in the film. As that film is about alien abductions, I won't comment on it since that is not the topic of this blog, but I will say that alien abductions, if they are real, probably scare me more than spiritual phenomena.That's another conversation altogether. But if there is actual footage that the film is based on, that could be a way to make and market truly scary realistic films like this one. To be a re-enactment of a situation that has been documented on video. If it simply comes out of someone's imagination of what would be possible and paranormal, that does not interest me nor does it scare me.