Watched Ghost Hunters for the First Time in a Couple Years Last Night

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Unfortunately, I didn’t see anything that made me regret not watching the show. I think my biggest complaint about this series as it enters its final season (at least on SyFy) is there seems to be a focus on tourist trap locations. The earlier seasons had the TAPS team investigating private homes. This was better, I think, both because there was always some doubt about whether or not the people actually had a ghost or just overactive imaginations. And, while I’m sure there were some who were just looking for 15 minutes of fame, it’s not like there was a financial incentive for them to find a ghost. A haunted house isn't exactly worth more on the market. A museum, hotel, etc., in comparison, has every incentive in the world because, if they find evidence of ghosts, it just opens up a whole new marketing effort for them. As a result, I think the investigations are a little more pressured to find something. On that same note, when did TAPS standards get lowered? When this show first came on the air, they were very cautious about declaring a site haunted and needed overwhelming evidence. Now, their evidence consists of a few noises. As I pointed out to my wife last night, they also no longer apparently have a rule about telling a client what they think the “voices” are saying, something they used to avoid because they didn’t want to plant an idea in the client’s head. There also isn’t much of an effort to debunk any more. This investigation, which was a at a train yard, had the potential for plenty of outside noise, especially since they were walking around in old train cars (not exactly the most sound proof). The noises heard in the B & O Roundhouse, for example, could have just as easily been birds, mice or even bats. Ironically, the one serious debunking effort that was made was the one they actually dropped the ball on. Jason Hawes set out to prove the report of windows slamming shut was simply the result of the windows being old and worn. Fair enough. But, causing the window to “close on its own” by banging against it for a couple minutes really isn’t the same thing. If you assume the client isn’t lying about their experience, then all that proves is something had to hit all the windows at the exact same time, which really doesn’t debunk anything. Let’s put it this way, I made an effort to record this episode last night. I’m probably not going to make an effort to record any more.