Mme. Blahblatsky and the Talking Mongoose discuss their views of the fourth episode of the first season of Ghost Hunters – Race Rock Lighthouse.
MB: Well?
TM: What?
MB: Aren’t you going to tell me that moving chair was faked?
TM: Nope. Not me. I’m sure it was real. It was fairly cool.
MB: I’m stunned. Where’s the faith coming from?
TM: God bless the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard let them do that ghost hunt. They shepherded them out there, babysat them all night, and shepherded them back. There’s no friggin’ frickin’ freakin’ way those dudes were going to fuck with the Coast Guard. No. That chair moved by itself. But why? That’s what I want to know. Why would a ghost, if that’s what it was, and I’m not sure about that, push a chair in an empty room? What’s the point? What does it achieve?
MB: Ah! I have a theory! Grant goes up there and sits around for a while, all meditative, and maybe that attracts the attention of whatever is plodding up and down the stairs in front of Andy and Brian…
TM: Hey, about that…
MB: Not yet. Or maybe it’s some other ghost. Or maybe the ghost doesn’t notice Grant at all, but when he leaves, it notices the chair. It’s like – say somebody leaves an unfamiliar thing in my front yard – a box maybe. I’ll probably go out and inspect it, and kick it around a little. Being territorial. Maybe the ghost even noticed the chair before Grant left the room, and was kicking at it but couldn’t move it because, you know, of Grant being in it. It may have been surprised the chair moved so easily, so it pushed it twice.
TM: That’s your theory? The ghost was being territorial?
MB: Isn’t that the essence of being a ghost?
TM: Maybe. I guess. I don’t know. Now you have to explain why you were having hysterics over those boobs pretending to discover the moving chair recording.
MB: It’s cute, like kids putting on a play for their parents. They were so obvious about it. What’s your problem?
TM: It’s dumb. Purely stupid. If they’re going to fake this, and we’ve already seen them fake that whole investigation in Altoona, how are we supposed to believe they won’t fake everything else?
MB: That’s a bit dire of you. How else would you present this bit? They’ve got to have some drama, and they can’t subject a film crew to the torture of hanging around all night watching the guys watch the tapes.
TM: You were the one bitching about the manufactured drama being given so much air time. It isn’t that they didn’t have enough material to fill an hour. They just made idiotic choices. You wait. If they keep doing it, you’re going to start hating it. They’ll get better at it, and you’ll start doubting everything.
MB: I don’t care. I still thought it was very entertaining. But I guess this means you’re not about to allow a Ouija Board Seal of Approval?
TM: I can’t say it was good television because I didn’t see good television. I saw a chair slide across the floor. After all the years we’ve been together, can you honestly look me in the eyes and tell me that was good television?
MB: I liked it! Maybe for the wrong reasons – but it was amusing! Okay, so who’s making the bad decisions here, Jason and Grant, or the producers?
TM: Doesn’t matter. They’re all nitwits. They’re doing a reality show about ghost hunting, for crissakes. Only they’re re-enacting it. And badly! How much dead air was in this one? Some producer may be making dumb decisions, but someone else is agreeing to do it. And that would be the ninnies who were complaining just last episode about frauds wasting their time. How many seconds was that chair in motion?
MB: Yeah, well, but we got to see it 13 times.
TM: Exactly. They must think we’re…
MB: Okay, GOD, never mind. Moving on. EMF readings on the staircase – what about that? Because I thought that was pretty impressive in a really depressing way.
TM: Leaving aside how easily they could fake that, which would be a small enough fakery that I think they wouldn’t consider it bad enough not to do to the Coast Guard, because it’s so nebulous an event, and the fact that variations in the electromagnetic field depend on a far more complex set of factors than they have chosen to share with us -
MB: Shut up and let me make my point. Andy Andrews at the lighthouse, and Grant with the Coast Guard, say that the EMF frequency is spiking repeatedly on the staircase, to the point where they can follow it up and down multiple times, and that whatever is producing it is going at a steady pace, so it seems to be moving on its own. This sounds like it would be a residual haunting, a repetitive action that is recorded in some god-only-knows-what way by the surroundings. I’d like to believe that it is, because if it isn’t, if it’s a ghost with even the dimmest awareness, that thing is in hell. Stumping up and down that stair case over and over again? Decade after decade? And then this made me think – what if the existence of ghosts doesn’t mean that there’s an afterlife at all, but we just fade out, leaving bits of ourselves, like dead skin.
TM: Gross. And cripes – bleak. So – let’s assume it’s residual.
MB: How can it be? It has a frequency. Recordings are just recordings. They don’t have an independent existence that can be measured.
TM: Well, first, we have no idea how residual recordings work, if there even are such things. And second, we can measure the light and sound recordings produce, in waves or whatever, so why not freaky paranormal recordings through the electromagnetic disruption? Ackh – I am not leaving bits of me behind. I’m going go hang out with the angels on a cloud and play my golden harp. And wear a halo.
MB: I hope you’re right. What are you going to leave behind now? I’m voting OUI, even if you’ve managed to rip away the JA.
TM: You’re hopeless. I’m voting NON. Re-enactments are the devil’s work.
Regardless – we have our favorite bits:
Mme. Blahblatsky
Line: “Then would you feel comfortable in deeming it – not calling it a ghost but just calling it paranormal? It’s not normal.” (Andy Andrews)
Moment: The moving chair, of course.
The Talking Mongoose
Line: “You know I don’t like orbs.” (Grant Wilson)
Moment: The Race – that was cool. So was the lighthouse. And the Coast Guard. And, okay, that moving chair.
Tags: afterlife, Coast Guard, electromagnetic fields, ghost hunting, ghosts, moving chair, Race Rock Lighthouse, reality re-enactment, TAPS
