Sci Fi Tracker: Debunking Ghost Hunters’ Debunkers

By Julia Diddy
Fancast.com

Ghost Hunters – and T.A.P.S. (The Atlantic Paranormal Society), whose filmed investigations provide content for the show in question - can’t help but spark debate with that whole, “Do ghosts exist? Discuss!” premise. The inherent loopholes of metaphysical musings are large enough that a fully-grown human with a sheet draped over his head could, in theory, meander through those loopholes quite comfortably on his way to stomp around in the attic and groan eerily for the benefit of a TV camera crew.

Yes, the show proves an easy target for the pragmatic when it comes to dissecting evidence. Orbs captured on film? Just a wayward mote of dust doing the Texas two-step with some refracted light. Apparitions captured by thermal imaging equipment? Who’s to say that’s not the reflection of the sound guy in a nearby mirror? There’s a whole lotta Ghost Hunters debunking and debating going on across the web, not surprisingly. Case in point - meet SAPS (short for “Skeptical Analysis of the Paranormal Society”) – an organization with a wealth of debunking experiments, statistics, and studies to show you. Elsewhere, within a lively discussion on the JREF forum, a poster named Glenn ponders how ghost meters are calibrated, since, “Unless you have a captured ghost to use as a traceable standard, any meter is useless.”

On the other hand, why not watch the show for the purpose of catching some modern-day, real-life superheroes in action? Whatever your thoughts on the existence (or lack thereof) of supernatural forces, at the very least, these guys have found a way to step outside the confines of a mundane day job and define themselves on their own terms. Within the pages of comic books, this has elevated legions of average Joes and Janes to a scintillating secret life perpetuated by their far bolder alter ego. Peter Parker/Spiderman. Clark Kent/Superman. Diana/Wonder Woman. And……..plumbers by day, ghost hunters by night? I’ll tell you what - while they’re poking around the basement of some supposedly haunted mansion, that’s less time spent poking around the basement of a pissed-off yuppie suburbanite who wants that burst pipe tended to, like, yesterday, before the guests arrive for a wine and cheese party that’s been in the works for weeks already. Frankly, I miss the early episodes of this franchise, when there was more focus on how our determined ghost grabbers attempted to balance the demands of their day jobs, and families, with their high-profile extracurricular pursuits.

How many disgruntled day jobbers do you know whose greatest fear is being labeled as “just” a waiter, or window cleaner, or cube-dwelling corporate drone? This is why I will always cheer on Jason, Grant and the rest of the Ghost Hunters crew – they’ve broken the mold, rather than having resigned themselves to a life dealing with the kind growing under a damp and problematically piped sink.

More power to ‘em.