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When will Ghost Hunters return?

Season 8 will have 20 all-new episodes and premieres on Wednesday, January 11 at 9 PM et.

When does Ghost Adventures return?

Travel Channel has renewed Ghost Adventures for a 6th season to premiere March 9, 2012.

There will be 2 “Special” Clip Shows airing in February before the Season 6 Spring Premiere.

Did they renew Finding Bigfoot?

Finding Bigfoot returns for a brand-new season on Sunday, January 1, 2012, at 10 PM (ET/PT) for further expeditions to investigate reports of the mysterious bigfoot.

When is the new season of Ghost Hunters International?

Ghost Hunters International Season 2.5 – Premieres Wednesday, February 22 at 9 PM.

What happened to Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files?

Season 3 is expected to start Spring 2012.

When is the new season of Destination Truth?

New Season was expected to premiere in first quarter of 2012 but one report claims it may be late as Summer.

Will they bring back Long Island Medium?

TLC has announced that its new series Long Island Medium has been picked up for a second season. Season two is slated to premiere in March 2012 with 12 half-hour episodes.

Is Haunted Collector coming back?

Syfy has ordered a 12-episode second season of Haunted Collector. The series is expected to return during the second quarter of 2012.

Will The Dead Files be renewed?

The Dead Files has been renewed for a second season of 12 episodes and begins filming in 2012. According to Steve Di Schiavi, the new season may air in early Spring.

Will there be more episodes of Paranormal Witness?

Paranormal Witness has been renewed for a second season and is expected to premiere August 2012.

When is the next episode of Celebrity Ghost Hunt?

Celebrity Ghost Hunt with Chip Coffey was just a one episode pilot. If you want the network to pick the show up, you can help by writing them and letting them know. ae.viewerrelations@aetn.com

Why was Paranormal State canceled?

Ryan Buell stated creative differences, exhaustion and other projects as his main reason for leaving. You can read his full explanation here.

A&E may continue with “Paranormal State: The New Class”

Is Psychic Kids coming back?

Sadly, after three seasons, Psychic Kids was canceled.

Is Paranormal Cops coming back?

Paranormal Cops only had one season and was never renewed. Investigator Ron Fabiani, of the Chicago Paranormal Detectives, stated the team will continue to be available to those who need their services.

What happen to Ghost Lab?

Ghost Lab was canceled. However, the Klinge Brothers and Everyday Paranormal continue to make public appearances and hold public events and have revamped their team in order to embark on a documentary film project

Will Paranormal Challenge have another season? How can I get my team on the show?

According to Dave Schrader, no decisions have been made regarding another season. They are currently NOT taking applications for team appearances on the show.

Roger Marsh

Get ready for a network “dirty little secret” – A&E and its North South Productions show manufacturer are sitting on a hit series.

Paranormal Cops recently had its network launch with six episodes.

And this is no ordinary paranormal show. Forget everything that turns you off to paranormal research in neat little network packages – this one is for real.

Host Ron Fabiani – reached by telephone today – admitted he’s not running around the country hyping “most haunted” properties and seeking out the “paranormally afflicted.”

Fabiani and staff of the very real Chicago Paranormal Detectives (CPD) only take on cases in the greater Chicago area. Clients seek them out and cases are chosen that fit CPD’s investigation criteria. They are all currently Chicago area policemen and they investigate cases using similar methodology.

“We cannot stop being policemen,” Fabiani said. “We’re always asking – where’s the evidence? People may come to us with pre-existing notions. They want to talk to us about demonic possession, or maybe a poltergeist. But we don’t really know that these things exist. Anyone can say that. We investigate the unknown.”

Fabiani says they look for recordable evidence. Their tools include video taken at the scene and sometimes Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) recordings.

“EVPs are probably the most common piece of recordable evidence that there is,” Fabiani said. “People sometimes ask me – how do you know that you’re not picking up a radio station? Well, a tape recorder is not an audio receiver – it’s a tape recorder. And the intriguing aspect is when you get a specific response to a specific question.”

And to balance their investigations – Fabiani says they use a medium.

“Mediums are much like a polygraph test,” Fabiani said. “Inadmissible in court. You can’t make a criminal case if that’s all you got. However, it can steer you in one direction or another – from one suspect to another – it’s sometimes the process of eliminating suspects.

“We use our medium in much the same way,” he said. “If she says the Easter Bunny is standing next to you – we’ll look for some corroborating evidence to substantiate that – like a temperature drop or an EVP.”

Fabiani says she’s another “tool in our tool box.”

While the show remains a Chicago fixture instead of storylines from around the country, Fabiani insists he’ll never run short of material.

“We get requests for interviews, appearances, investigations,” he said. “We turn down 85 percent of the investigation requests. We offer to refer people to another local organization.”

But on the cases they consider taking on, it’s police work from the beginning.

“We may do a preliminary interview first,” Fabiani said. “And we interview everyone involved separately. But if it’s a business – say a restaurant – we might show up unannounced and order dinner – ask around – chit-chat with the waiter. That’s a concealed interview. That’s how you get a genuine response from people. What’s their motive? Do they want publicity? Or are they genuinely intimidated by something that’s going on? We compare notes in a case like that – and then we set up interviews where they know we’re coming.”

“We’re not into sensationalism,” he said.

On the business end, every time a show is produced, the group has to check their schedules and coordinate so that they can all get together on the same dates. That might mean trading shifts with someone, or taking vacation time from work.

If our readers want to get involved and let the folks at A&E know you like the show and want to see more than these first six episodes – you can send your positive comments by email direct to the show’s producers -  AE.viewerrelations@aetn.com. 

Your comments will count. Don’t be shy. Talk directly to the producers and let them know you want more of the real stuff.

Paranormal News Examiner

Samantha Newburn

Austin Weinstock & Rob Fabian

Austin Weinstock may be a police officer in the Chicago area, but he’s investigating more than just crimes and corruption.

The Effingham native is part of a six-person team who, free of charge, investigates the paranormal and has begun its own television show on A&E.

He is the son of Steve Weinstock, a private investigator in the Effingham area. Austin’s brother, Adam, is Mattoon’s Deputy Police Chief.

Austin Weinstock followed in the footsteps of his crime-fighting family and became a police officer in the Chicago area in 2005, after serving in the Air Force as a military police officer.

“From a young age, my father was instilling in me how to be a cop,” Weinstock said.

During his free time, Weinstock decided to take on a different angle in police work, and in 2006, he joined a group called Chicago Paranormal Detectives. The group consists of three other police officers and two civilian personnel.

The members look into strange happenings upon the request of others. The team doesn’t solicit work; instead, the group is asked to investigate claims of paranormal activity, Weinstock said.

Sometimes the group will work on two claims a week and other times it’s only two claims a month.

But the team does all its work free of charge, and although group members take an investigative approach to the claims, they do all of the work off-duty.

Weinstock said he investigates claims of paranormal activity just like he would a homicide investigation or other police investigations. The group tries to close in on every angle, follows up on leads and does research.

“We’re police,” Weinstock said. “We help people on the street and off the street, and we do it without charge.”

The group approaches every claim as if it’s a crime scene and seals off the area to make sure nothing interferes with the evidence. The group prefers to do investigations inside a building or a house, since it’s harder to keep elements away from an outdoor scene.

The two civilian team members set up a command van outside of the building under investigation. The camera crew also sets up stationary cameras to capture anything that happens inside or outside the building, along with cameras at each corner of the building and every entrance and exit.

Weinstock says the team does all of its work based off evidence, using sources such an electromagnetic field detector (EMF), electronic voice phenomenon (EVP), thermal imaging devices and digital thermometers.

An EMF detector is believed to sense when a spirit moves. The movement changes the electromagnetic field, and the machine will show spikes or a constant rhythm of change.

Weinstock said it’s hard to depend on the machine because water or electricity can interfere with it.

When the EMF detector does sense some sort of movement, one of the group members will ask the “spirit” yes or no questions, and the group hopes for a response that can be heard on the EVP, which is similar to a digital voice recorder.

The EVP helps the group find information that wasn’t present during the initial investigation, Weinstock said.

It can be difficult for the group to clarify each sound on the EVP because a group member or members of the camera crew can accidentally shuffle their feet or bump into something in the dark. Weinstock said members will clarify any noise they make during the recording, so later on the group will be able to identify the noise.

Each noise or spike in an electromagnetic field may seem like it’s important, but with his police background, Weinstock feels the need to take the logical approach to each case.

The group also utilizes a medium, Mariah, who has a sensitivity that can supposedly connect to the other side. The team uses Mariah’s skills to help tap into spirits or beings the members can’t access themselves.

For example, if Mariah says she feels something paranormal happening, the group will use detectors and recorders to try and find out what she is sensing.

However, her findings are not used as actual evidence; instead, her skills are used as a collaborative tool, Weinstock said.

“We can’t use someone else’s opinion as evidence,” he said.

Weinstock understands people’s skepticism, which can be put into classifications. One type is a nonbeliever, which is someone who doesn’t believe in the paranormal or the other side at all. A second type includes open believers. This group believes paranormal experiences happen and take place on a daily basis. The third type includes in-private believers. They think things can happen, but they may not admit to it.

Before he joined the group to investigate the paranormal, Weinstock said he would make fun of the people and didn’t believe what they were doing was logical or real.

This changed in October 2000, when Weinstock met his girlfriend’s family. During a family get together, Weinstock went down to the basement to get something. When he got the bottom of the basement steps, he saw a woman.

“She was like a real person. No holistic hologram, just a person,” he said.

When he introduced himself to her, she turned around and walked away. Perplexed, Weinstock went back upstairs, and asked family members about the woman downstairs whom he thought had ignored him. The family nonchalantly told him he had met Grandma, who was dead, as if having a ghost in the basement was normal.

Weinstock thought it was a joke and searched the house for the woman. His girlfriend finally showed him the proof he wanted. Her family was Italian, and at most Italian funerals, the family will take pictures during the wake. The album had a picture of the woman in a casket. The woman in the basement was wearing the same dress as the woman in the casket.

The experience bothered Weinstock or a long time, especially since it was something he couldn’t explain.

“You think you’re going crazy,” he said.

To the girlfriend’s family, the spirit ‘s presence was a normal happening, and the family members thought it was funny how Weinstock agonized over the incident. He tried to deny the incident occurred and began to think his girlfriend’s family was talking him into something he didn’t believe.

But later, he finally told the investigators — the ones he had made fun of — about his experience. Their response was to invite Weinstock to join the paranormal team by grabbing a camera and documenting what he might see in the future.

The experience defined Weinstock, who later married the woman he thought was putting ideas in his head.

“It was the only time in my life, before joining the detectives, where I felt something was paranormal,” Weinstock said.

But his initial experience still bothers him, because he doesn’t know why the spirit decided to show herself to him that day. He says he still can’t explain why it happened, and he hasn’t seen her since.

“It was a one-time thing, and I think that’s why it bothers me even more,” Weinstock said.

Most people who do have paranormal experiences don’t talk about it openly, but he became interested after his own personal experience, Weinstock said.

When Weinstock became involved with the paranormal detectives, other police officers gave them a hard time. But since the group documents and gathers hard evidence with each experience, the officers began to understand.

“Now they know we’re for real,” Weinstock said.

After joining the group, team members began looking at putting a show together to air on a public access channel. They wanted others to see the phenomenon is real and they were hoping the exposure would lead to more credibility.

So they put a trailer together for the show for a public access channel that aired shows for community news and local entertainment. One thing led to another, and before they knew it, A&E wanted to air the show.

“It was a very short process, and we were all surprised,” Weinstock said. “We had no intent on getting a show like this. We just wanted to do what we do.”

The group had to take a step back and ask themselves if they really wanted to do a show because team members had no intention of being in the public eye.

Even though he’s on cable television in front of millions of people, Weinstock said he’s doing what he wants to do, which is research people’s claims of paranormal activity and answer some questions of his own.

“We leave earth when we’re dead, but not everyone leaves,” Weinstock said. “Who gets to stay?”

Effingham Daily News

A&E sets out on a ghost patrol with a team of Chicago-area police officers who spend their off duty hours as paranormal investigators in the new original real-life series “Paranormal Cops.” The six-episode half-hour series kicks off with a special one-hour season premiere on Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at 10:30 PM ET/PT.

“Paranormal Cops” follows a group of larger-than-life cops who walk one beat during the day as real-life Chicago-area police officers and another at night when they apply their forensic and investigative expertise to paranormal casework. Responding to the pleas of people who are victimized by distressing and inexplicable activities in their homes and workplaces, these cops bring their no-nonsense approach to hunting ghosts and real-life police skills to separate the fact from fiction and often happen upon results much scarier than the paranormal.

In “Casa Madrid,” the one-hour series premiere, the team responds to a store manager who is so distraught over events taking place in the basement of his store that he is ready to quit. An investigation turns up paranormal activity and uncovers that the store was once a notorious hangout and gambling hall frequented by figures from the underworld and host to countless crimes, even murder.