Ghost Adventures Series 10 Episode 11 "Texas Horror Hotel" - Review & Recap

Synopsis:
The GAC investigate the Magnolia Hotel in Seguin, Texas. Plagued with a history of murder and suicide, the guys try a new magnetic microphone; and see a handprint mysteriously appear.

Original US Air date: March 7, 2015

Review and Recap by Jon Donnis
Well I thought I would give Ghost Adventures another shot, my previous review and recap got me a lot of criticism, mainly from the fanboys/fangirls of the show, some of the criticism I can accept since I had never watched the show before. I was told I should see this episode or that episode, that it isn't always that boring. Every excuse under the sun. But I don't want to watch older episodes, as I never like to go backwards, I prefer to give them a clean slate, forget about the past and judge them only on the latest thing they have done. So with that here is my look at what I believe is the last episode of Season 10 which aired a few days ago in the US.

One thing that is notable about the start of this show is it's similarities to Most Haunted and their recreations, and history lessons at the start of each show. But the GA production value is clearly much higher and much better produced as a whole.

We start off with the usual fancy edits, and Zak asks someone from the hotel if it is haunted, a rather dumb question to ask since she obviously invited them to investigate, you should always doubt any claim by an establishment like a hotel or pub, for the simple fact they will use such claims for promotion and for business.

We get to hear a lot of history about the Hotel, and as a viewer we are clearly being primed with information about what has supposedly happened there, what can happen and so on.

If this was a legit investigation, this kind of information can only influence any investigator, and would make more sense if this was told at the end of the investigation and to see if it could match anything that the investigators could find out. But of course that wouldn't make for very entertaining TV especially if nothing happened during the episode. Bit like saying "well we found nothing, but apparently stuff happens, but not for us, oh well, is there a Burger King nearby?"

Again the biggest mistake of this show and the crew is the start point of believing, it shows a true ignorance of what they are doing as well as a lack of any kind of scientific methodology, but then what's to be expected of a "for entertainment only" Reality TV series.

While interviewing the owner of the hotel, she gives off so many facial clues that give away she is perhaps lying or embellishing stories, the lack of eye contact, slight smiles, looking down and so on. Also can I just mention how god awful the recreations are, like a poorly made "The Grudge" rip off. And yes I know that Most Haunted did the same kind of silly thing, but at least they had the gorgeous Mel Crump as the eye candy. Now if Ghost Adventures hired her, then I would be an instant fan.

Hang on a second, they are now at the famous The San Antonio Ghost Track, if you are unfamiliar with this, basically there is an optical illusion which makes it feel like your car is moving up hill and being pushed towards some railway tracks, this was debunked years and years ago and many times too.

The story goes that there are ghost children pushing your car, people put talc powder on your car and then look for finger prints after.

I really hope the GA crew aren't gonna "Do a Palin" and fall for a simple trick.

Here is a video explaining it.


Ok so to their credit, they easily debunk the finger prints and hand prints on peoples cars, and then they bring along a surveyor who debunks the level of the road, much like the video above.

So I have to give them credit for doing that, but the fact is it has been debunked many times before so I am not really sure why they needed to spend 10 minutes debunking something that no sane person would believe in anyway. It does go to show that you cant believe what your own eyes tell you and optical illusions do fool you. I guess for the newbie fan, or uneducated fan, such "debunktions" are a good thing and hopefully will help educate people.

We are now back at the hotel and they are investigating, and they hear a noise, and its not followed up, oh well. Now they have some fancy looking device which picks up electromagnetic fields, pure nonsense of course, but it looks nice and makes them look like they have a clue what they are doing. Let me be clear, just because someone says that a device can detect ghosts, doesn't mean it can any more than if I put a toaster on a table. Remember these people are NOT scientists, and this whole scene is rather laughable.

Back to the investigation and we are getting more bangs from off camera, of course we have no idea how many people are in the hotel, one of the woman claims she has been pushed in the back by a ghost, and since that claim, it is repeated as if it is a fact.

We then have an interesting moment whereby a digital thermometer shows 66.6 degrees just after one of the crew claims to feel a cold breeze, we are then told that "it is said that spirits can manipulate temperature, is this more than just coincidence?" Firstly I don't see anything that is coincidental in nature. Unless they are talking about The Number of the beast! But that is actually 616 as any true experienced historian would know, and that 666 only came about as an anology, and as for his claim that he felt an ice cold breeze, well for all us Brits, 66.6 fahrenheit is a very warm 19.2 celsius. So this was just the GA team desperately reaching to find something out of nothing, and getting it wrong along the way. Oh well.

Out come the digital recorders to get EVPs! What always amuses me on such shows is they have digital recorders, yet EVERY SINGLE video camera they have can pick up sound and at a much higher quality than the digital recorders, yet they never seem to pick up the nonsense that digital recorders do! That should be a big big clue as to how such things work! Think of a SLR camera taking a 50 megapixel photograph, and your phones front 1.2 megapixel front camera taking a picture of the same thing, and then wondering why your 1.2mp camera is picking up "artifacts" and "anomolies".

Great moment whereby they hear a noise, open a door and see 2 eyes staring at them, and it is a raccoon! And now we know they were never alone in the hotel! You know it really is quite embarrassing the sheer amount of useless "spirit finding" equipment they have. They might as well be waving a banana about in the dark for the actual science data it would provide.

Instead of saying "one of the unexplained spirits we have been hearing and feeling", can they just say "one of the raccoons we have been hearing and feeling". For the amount of money they have spent, the lack of any real evidence is telling, the only "unexplained" things are noises off camera.

There is a funny moment when a crew member walks into a chair, and their own equipment shows a hand print. They then try to claim that a spirit was holding it in place so it wouldn't move when walked into. I genuinely laughed out loud at this whole scene. At least it wasn't the raccoon!

And just when I thought the episode was over, one of the crew ended up having a cellar door fall on him and nearly break his hand, at least they never claimed it was the ghosties!

With just minutes before the end of the episode they decide to have a seance, and then my worse fear happened, something I had truly dreaded might happen, they start talking about ORBS! Sweet baby Jesus, even Most Haunted stopped trying to use orbs as proof over 5 years ago, any tiny amount of credibility these guys may have had is instantly destroyed by a single 3 second shot, with the following description. And just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, they have a SB11 Spirit Box! And yes it is as ridiculous as it sounds, its basically a radio constantly tuning to different frequencies over and over again, it makes a hell of a racket, it has been completely debunked, and is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard of. Steven Novella wrote a great piece about it a few years ago which you can read at...

http://www.skepticblog.org/2012/05/14/ghost-box/

How can fans of Ghost Adventures expect me to take this show seriously when they have such an incredible lack of knowledge of anything they are using!

I have to admit the previous episode I watched was just boring as nothing happened, this episode however although markedly more entertaining, has just gone to reinforce any pre-conceived ideas I had about the show and the "malarkey" that they get up to.

I know there will be people out there who watched this episode behind a cushion, got themselves all excited and scared, and those same people will be attacking and abusing me after reading this, of course none of those people will be scientists, engineers, or anyone with any true knowledge of how the various "ghost hunting" equipment really works, or the explanations of what they pick up.

If you haven't already go read that link I posted just up the page. EDUCATE YOURSELF.

Will I watch more Ghost Adventures after this one? Perhaps, but only to make fun of what are clearly uneducated fools who have no idea what they are doing. I accept the show can be entertaining, but a serious investigation into the paranormal? Not a chance in hell (the hell with 616)

That's me signing off for now.

Jon Donnis
Follow me on Twitter @JonDonnis 

Fake Psychics Gina & Steven Marks Charged With Scamming Woman Out Of Thousands

FORT COLLINS, Colo. (CBS4) – A pair of self-proclaimed psychics were arrested at their home in Fort Collins on Monday, apparently just the tip of the iceberg for an entire family.

Gina Marks and her husband Steven had been renting a business called Psychic Gina. Authorities said that instead of revealing fortunes, they were stealing them.

When Fort Collins Police searched the Marks’ home last month, they allegedly found stolen credit cards and merchandise, fake IDs, and even a fraudulent sheriff’s badge.

Now the two are facing charges for bilking a woman out of tens of thousands of dollars.

A private investigator hired by the victim said the duo conned her into believing that a curse had been placed on her family. He said they persuaded her to participate in elaborate rituals at their previous home, and to give them cash and gift cards worth $36,000.

The investigator said they left the victim emotionally abused and financially devastated.

The Marks’ are part of a notorious family of self-proclaimed Larimer psychics. Steven Marks’ father is John Marks who was convicted of killing his wife, psychic Kay. His aunt, Nancy Marks, is serving time for fraud, and his brother Adam has been charged with theft and fraud.

Now the family’s latest alleged victim is left to rebuild her life after she lost everything.
The Marks are charged with class four felony theft. Gina Marks is also facing additional charges including identity theft.

Source: cbslocal.com

Fake psychic Timothy Abbott jailed for £170,000 Fraud!

You may recall that back in June 2014 I covered the story of Timothy Abbott and his wife Janette who claimed thousands of pounds in disability, council tax and housing benefit payments, saying they could hardly walk.

Read my original story By Clicking Here

Well they got caught out by those lovely people Department of Work and Pensions investigators, as you can see from the video below!

Well his 16 year fraud has cost him his freedom as on the 5th of March 2015 he was jailed for 8 Months, while his wife Janette was handed an eight-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months.

A proceeds of crime hearing on June 30 will determine how much the couple must pay back as well as their jail sentences.

So justice has been done, sadly their fraudulent mediumship was not what they got caught on, but it is interesting to note that the SNU of the Midlands were still booking them for Church gigs and so on.

Yep thats the Spiritualist National Union booking FRAUDS for gigs knowing full well what they had been up to.

And lets not forget before all of this came out, they were two of the SNU's top Tutors at the Arthur Findlay college

The SNU employed them, yet not a single psychic/medium at the SNU could see they were frauds!
What does that tell you not only about the SNU, but about psychics in general.

Firstly no one saw this coming, and if they did, that means they condoned fraud!

Right now the SNU are doing their best to hush this all up, much like their arrests in the first place, but this is BadPsychics, and we tell the truth.

The funny thing is The SNU, used to have meetings about me, and work out how they could stop me, and close down this site, yet it seems their own Psychics are doing the job for me!

Lets hope that Timothy Abbott ends up in a nice rough Prison, and learns his lesson, because if he starts to "demonstrate" his fake mediumship when he gets out, we will make sure everyone knows he is a convicted fraud, and a criminal.

Enjoy porridge!

Ghost Adventures Series 10 Episode 10 Review & Recap

For a while now, people have been telling me I should watch Ghost Adventures, a show that follows self proclaimed ghost hunters Zak Bagans, Nick Groff, and Aaron Goodwin as they investigate locations that are reported to be haunted.

Ghost Adventures or GA for short started on October 17, 2008 on the Travel Channel in the States as a TV show, the same channel that at the time aired Most Haunted. So it is safe to say this show will be of the same style.

Ghost Adventures actually started out in 2004 as a "documentary type film".

GA has already had around 140 episodes, compared to 188 of Most Haunted. But GA is widely regarded to be a much bigger show, and has had more viewers worldwide, even the recent reboot of Most Haunted struggled in the ratings against GA on UK TV channel REALLY.

Much like MH, GA has had its fair share of controversies, one of the most widely reported is the Cowboy Bob incident, basically during a Live special Robert Bess the inventor of the "Parabot Containment Chamber" claimed that an EMF Meter was knocked violently out of his hand by ghosties! But because this was a LIVE show, everyone saw what really happened, and the hosts were forced to "debunk" it.

Much like MH, most of the times a show gets exposed as faked is during Live shows when obviously there is no time to edit and cover things up. GA got caught out, but at least they addressed it in a respectable manner.

Here is a video of their response to this incident.



Although I give them credit for addressing this, they really didn't have much choice, and i thought their fancy analysis and slow motion was a bit over the top.

Anyway there is a bit of history about the show to catch people up on what the show is about, and one of the main incidents.

I have never watched GA before, I do not know the characters, their motivations or beliefs, so as far as I am concerned I will give them a totally fresh slate and judge them as such.

Ghost Adventures Series 10 Episode 10
Official Synopsis:
The Ghost Adventures Crew, along with Darkness Radio host Dave Schrader and Bill Chappell, travels to a quiet suburb just outside of Seattle to investigate the residence of a local Bothell man who claims that a demonic entity is wreaking havoc in his home by burning bibles, throwing furniture, and burning demonic symbols in his walls.

Review and Recap by Jon Donnis
The first thing I notice while watching GA compared to MH is the much higher production values, this show is clearly quite slickly produced and directed.

They begin by talking to a man who claims his house is haunted and that Bibles have been set on fire, things thrown etc. Zak Bagans asks the man a really good question, why stay in the house? The man comes out with some bull, about being grounded at the house, having a job and so on. We get to see some home video footage, which looks blatantly faked to me. Its noted that he rents the house, so no problem to leave, yet he chooses to stay despite all of his claims. Hmmmm....

The first problem I see is that the GA crew are starting off from a position of belief, instead of skepticism. The home video footage is very very dodgy that the man has given. If any of what he had claimed was really true, there is no way you would stay in the house.

Within the first 10 minutes, I have decided that this looks like a scam by the man and woman who live in this house, attention seeking. This is just my opinion. The thing is, I know that ghosts do not exist, so that means someone in the house has to be behind it. They haven't shown any children yet, who are usually behind these kinds of things, so it has to be the adults.

They then trot out a "Paranormal Investigator" a strange looking woman called Jennifer Madsen, who instantly annoys me, a quick google of her and I cant find anything of interest on her.

She claims to do a lot of Native American Cleansing, so instantly you can understand she is a bit of a loony. Unless of course she means literally she likes to wash and clean Native Americans!

The man of the house seems to believe that it is an evil Native American spirit that is behind the haunting.

So the format of this show seems to be the first 15 minutes are history lessons, interviews with relevant parties and then the show moves on to the investigation.

One of the first things I have noticed is the lack of women on the crew at all. No screaming idiots, no sexy make up girl.

Anyway the investigators start off by reviewing Keith's (man of the house) videos, much like me they seem suspicious, so that is a good start. Although we are now nearly 20 minutes into the show, and nothing has really been done, or explained. Just a lot of talking and explaining.

Still my main issue with this show is the starting point of belief, it instantly means everything they say and do lacks all credibility, even if they are suspicious and bring up some good points. Another problem is the huge amount of people involved, so many camera guys, people watching monitors, the investigators and so on, it really adds nothing to the show, other than giving more people the chance to fake stuff.

They start off the investigation by getting Keith and his girlfriend to wonder about the house and see if they can encourage the ghosties to do something on camera. Keith seems suspiciously well rehearsed for what he is saying. As they walk about and talk to the ghosts, nothing happens, and they even act surprised that nothing is happening.

Also another thing to note is they are doing everything in the dark, yet Keiths own dodgy footage showed things happening in the day or with the lights on! Of course night vision makes everything look more spooky! You can blame the Blair Witch Project for that!

25 minutes in, and I have to say I am getting a tad bored. Although as I say that an Infra Red light belonging to the crew has gone out, as usual the claims of it being on a full battery are trotted out.

So far the only thing that has happened is that an IR light has gone out. Zak tries to claim that Tina the women who lives in the house is giving off negative energy, and that he feels nothing from the house.

Eventually Keith and Tina are told to leave and they go off to a hotel. Leaving Zak and the crew on their own in the house to see what they can find. They get to play with some fancy equipment, which in all honestly is completely useless, but they got to spend the budget on something I guess.

Thermo cams, SLS cameras, EMF meters and so on.
You could wave a banana around for all the good it would do when it comes to detecting ghosts.

What I would do right now for a Stuart Toreville to appear and suddenly throw some stones!

The GA investigators are talking out loud to the ghosts (which do not exist). Just think about this for a moment, I am sat here watching grown men, pretend to talk to ghosts while stood in the dark in some strangers house. Who is the crazier person here? Them or me? That is something I need to get my head around.

30 Minutes in and a camera has gone down! Yay! Come on you ghosties, you have to build up towards the end scenes, that's TV Paranormal Investigations 101!

The camera that has gone down is in Keith's office and the so called hub of all things that go bump in the night. After investigating it, its just a dead battery. Why don't these idiots ever plug these things directly into the mains!

The investigators are starting to get bored, and realise that nothing is happening, I think they have realised that the problem is Keith and his Girlfriend, and I am sure they are either gonna claim that the woman herself is haunted, or that Keith is faking things.

They now proudly state they are going to take this investigation to a "Maximum Scientific Level", with Electrical Engineer Bill Chappel conducts an experiment with a brand new device he invented which is basically a projector (that he did not invent) projecting some read outs onto the wall. Lots of crap like Humidity, Barometric pressure, temperature and so on.

It also has a built in EVP recording feature and a female computer voice that asks questions.

All seems like a huge waste of money to me, especially as we know that EVPs are evidentially worthless. But then again it makes idiotic believers go "wow" and "they are so professional and scientific".

Remember just cause you use fancy equipment, doesn't make you a scientist.

Either way they waste some time, and get nothing of interest happen from the machine.

Less than 5 minutes left and they have no evidence whatsoever of a haunting.

Zak desperate to try and save the show, decides to do one final walk around of the house on his own. Nothing happens, so he pulls out an digital recorder to try and get something.

Zak suddenly gets shocked, and its a bug on his face. Lol, That made me smile.

And there investigation is basically over, and nothing has happened.

Ok so what can I take from this episode, Zak comes across as a nice enough genuine man, I cant really say anything bad about him from watching this one episode. The show didn't fake anything.

I would've preferred them to take a more skeptical approach and call out Keith and his Girlfriend, since obviously they are behind the so called haunting.

Will I watch again? Not sure, probably not. You see when you have a show that doesn't fake things it is incredibly boring.
I can understand why some uneducated believers might like the show, afterall there is that old claim of "things don't always happen, so we have to show that too"

Its almost like the lack of proof is used to prove the ghosts. Its an excuse I don't buy personally.

Zak seems likeable and honest, the show has really good production values, but the rest of the crew have little to no personality, so to watch for them is pointless.

They have an over reliance on useless equipment that they really don't understand, and a starting point of belief which leaves them lacking credibility.

Watch it, don't watch it, I don't care, but can I personally as the UKs most knowledgeable and experienced skeptic, can I recommend it? NO.

Sorry guys.

Russian Ghost Car DEBUNK

Captain Disillusion deconstructs the viral dashboard camera video showing a "ghost car" appear on the streets of Russia.