Note from Lightspirit13: This is the same Shack Hack model I use. I am happy to see such a simple improvement that even I can make. I will be trying this in the next couple of days. I will continue to follow J.D. Farrell’s work.

Aaron Sagers

 Steve Gonsalves and Dave Tango

Combine an education of science, philosophy, psychology and history with a little electrical and plumbing vo-tech training and the result is a well-rounded, multi-faceted curriculum that many institutions of higher learning would be proud of. Add in ghost hunting and it’s the school of The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS), also known as Ghost Hunters Academy.

Ghost Hunters Academy is the second spin-off from the popular Ghost Hunters brand, which began in 2004 with the flagship show starring plumbers Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson. Following the 2008 travel-themed Ghost Hunters International, the new Academy is a unique reality-TV paranormal series which focuses on training and selecting new members for the TAPS team. 

Led by Ghost Hunters investigators Steve Gonsalves, 34, and Dave Tango, 24, the group is comprised of five college-aged “cadets” who travel around the country in an RV to favorite haunted hotspots visited on the main show such as the St. Augustine Lighthouse in Florida, Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, Pa., the battleship USS North Carolina in Wilmington, N.C., and the Buffalo Central Terminal in upstate New York. 

During the initial six-episode run of the show, which begins at the Revolutionary War-era Fort Mifflin in Philadelphia, Gonsalves and Tango test and occasionally eliminate recruits who can’t live up to the TAPS standards. Along with being a shot across the bow at the other college-focused show Paranormal State on the A&E Network, Academy is a chance for the Ghost Hunters and TAPS team to educate fledgling investigators about what goes into the often-tedious, several-night waiting game of ghost hunting. 

Gonsalves and Tango, who both had their own paranormal investigative groups before joining TAPS, spoke over the phone about their new roles as leaders on the show, and what it is like to bring their experiences to the amateur recruits. 

Q: What makes for a good cadet and potential TAPS member?

GONSALVES:  The passion – that it’s there, it’s in them and that they love it and want to do it forever.  If you join our team, we don’t investigate in the same capacity as any other team on the planet. We’re much more involved with much more equipment. We do multiple investigations a week where most teams do one a month. If your heart’s not completely in it, you’re going to fizzle out after six, seven, eight months.

Q: What’s a common misconception your cadets, and even some viewers, have about paranormal investigative shows?

TANGO:  These people come into the show and a lot of them think it’s just like they see on TV. That it’s like 20 minutes in a room, and that’s not the case at all. There’s a lot more to it and I’m glad Steve and I were able to show them that. It can be rough sometimes, but that’s the way it is. It’s not as easy as it looks.  Yeah, we’re sitting down and we’re pointing a camera but there’s a lot more to it with the setup and the procedures and protocol of investigating.

GONSALVES: You have to have a lot of knowledge.  Not that we all have degrees in it, but you have to have a lot of knowledge in the paranormal: the current theories, the past theories, the energy theories. You have to know all this stuff and they all came in not knowing any of it but boasting as if they did. One person says, “I love it, I love it, it’s my favorite.”  She’s so happy that it’s what she’s wanted to do forever, but yet has never read one book, never been to one lecture, never done anything.  How can that passion be in you for as long as you can remember but you’ve never bothered to pick up one book?

TANGO: Don’t just say, “I read this on the Internet, I read that on the Internet.” You need to get real books from parapsychologists and true investigators. A lot of these students say, “Well I read this on the Internet so it must be true.” Maybe it is, but we don’t know that.

GONSALVES: We have one girl who says it’s been her lifelong dream to be a parapsychologist. I finally asked her, “How do you plan to do that?” She says she’s going to go to school for it. It made me realize she had no idea what she was talking about. There is no accredited course in the United States for that … These are people who think they know everything but are quickly finding out that they don’t really know anything.

Q: Can you say which cadet said that?

GONSALVES: (laughing) No.

TANGO: It will unfold on its own.

Q: While you have to train the cadets, do you also have to break bad habits picked up from watching TV, and even from watching the main Ghost Hunters show?

GONSALVES: It would be breaking bad habits, but there’s only one or two of them that have any investigation experience coming into it. Those people we definitely had to break bad habits. The other people we had to break bad habits because they did see these things on TV, but it was a little easier because they didn’t have any prior experience. It was frustrating, it really was. There’s this one that just claims to be the queen of the paranormal, but yet… Well, you’ll see on the show. But it was an experience they all loved. Afterwards, they say, “This was amazing.”

TANGO: You do see progress. Whether it’s a little bit or a lot … a lot of it is just common sense stuff. I think, for Steve and I, that was the most frustrating – things that you don’t have to have any knowledge about. That’s the stuff that bothered me the most.

Q: At Fort Mifflin, there’s an instance when cadet Susan Slaughter is overcome with sadness and the situation becomes really emotional. The TAPS team stresses not forcing people to be uncomfortable, but do you find yourself rolling your eyes at that drama?

GONSALVES: One hundred percent, man. Without a doubt. It’s hard to watch. She hid some important stuff from us, like that she even has those feelings … there’s five qualities we’re looking for during this show. One of the qualities is composure; another one is professionalism. What she does there doesn’t show either one of those.

TANGO: Or even honesty.

GONSALVES: Right. In that circumstance, she blew all of them. There’s nothing wrong with having feelings you can’t control or needing to get out of the investigation site. But you say, “Hey guys, I’m feeling uncomfortable. I need to excuse myself, can somebody walk me outside the premises?” You don’t just break down and take off. If there are clients there, can you imagine how they’re going to look at us now?

Q: There’s an excellent moment in the premiere when Steve intentionally misleads cadet Chris McCune to test how susceptible he is to the power of suggestion. Why did you screw with him like that?

GONSALVES: (laughing) Yeah, we do that quite often. One of the big problems in this field – and it’s not just with new investigators – is to let what other people say suggest what you are seeing and experiencing. You become very impressionable. We do test them continuously throughout the episodes.

Q: Steve, I know you like reality-TV competition shows like Top Chef and Hell’s Kitchen. As a viewer of those, you know there are contestants you immediately like or dislike, and people you don’t think will last long. Did you have the same experience in the leadership role?

GONSALVES: You do find yourself thinking that way, but what I did was treated it like an investigation. When you go on an investigation, you get those feelings at first like, “Oh, we’re not going to find anything here.” But you have to put all that aside and do a thorough investigation no matter what you think because you never know.  That’s sort of the way I approached this. I may think this person is never going to last; I may think this person is goofy or whatever, but I have to put all that aside and give them the best training and experience I can.

TANGO: It’s like a big roller coaster ride. You think you know this person, or that person’s not going to last, and they come out of their shell and it gets interesting.

GONSALVES: It’s going to be an interesting show for people because it is an extreme roller coaster. Just when you think they’re doing awesome, they end up doing a horrible job. When you think they’re going to do bad, they end up killing it. There hasn’t been a reality show like this. Ever. It encompasses every element of reality shows, plus you’re ghost hunting and in haunted places.

Q: Is it tough being the boss?

GONSALVES: What’s funny is we all become friends. We’re all on the road, we investigate every week and we spend 12 hours a day with these people … so it gets a little tough.

TANGO: They’re all great people, and it does get kind of tough but we have to do what we have to do.

GONSALVES: Like I said to one guy, “Hey, I’d be friends with you … but it doesn’t necessarily make you a good team member.” You have to sort of separate that.

Q: You don’t get rid of cadets every episode, so how do the eliminations work?

GONSALVES: If we see somebody is at the point where we’ve done all we can, and they’re just not going to get it, we have to get rid of them and bring in somebody we can potentially use. We do that quite often. That will be fun.  What’s nice is the recruits are around long enough that the audience will be able to connect with them … so it’s not like you’ll see this person for just one episode or half an episode, and you’re like, “Aw man, I was just starting to like this dude and he just got kicked off.” You’ll get to experience each cadet. And then we kick them off! Just kidding.

Q: Since Steve used to be a police officer, who is the good cop and bad cop between you two?

TANGO: It’s kind of both. Certain things will bother Steve, and certain things will bother me more. When they start dilly-dallying, for some reason I can’t deal with it. If they’re talking away and not doing what they have to do, I just can’t stand it. I don’t know if it will show on camera, but I get tense and I just snap at them.

Q: Does it frustrate you that you worked for years as paranormal investigators and becoming part of a hit TV show was a result of that, and now you have a group chosen by video submissions dropped into a spin-off without experience?

GONSALVES: I know I shouldn’t be, but I am. I find myself thinking sometimes, “Wow, I had 15 years in the field before I got a TV show.” Now, everyone nowadays looks at ghost hunting on television as a reward system for being in the field. That’s why they’re in the field – to get on a TV show – which sort of bothers me a little bit. But what I like about it is if it isn’t us choosing the people, it’s going to be somebody else. At least we’re there filtering appropriately.

Q: On the main show, you two are known for pranking one another and exchanging dares. Does that dynamic have to change now that you’re the leaders?

GONSALVES:  It’s still there … but these first six episodes we’re still trying to figure out the show and what it’s exactly supposed to be. We didn’t really have much time to be walking around, investigating and just come up with stuff like that.  You’re going to see a different side of us, a more authoritative side with a jokester sense as well.

Q: Steve, your fear of flying (along with heights and spiders) is pretty well known. Was that the reasoning behind the RV?

GONSALVES: That’s funny.  No, I showed up the first day on set when we filmed at Fort Mifflin, and they were like, “This is your RV.” We told them we’d be on board, because we wanted to take care of the paranormal aspect of it, but that’s all we really cared about. They didn’t really tell us about the other mechanics of the show. To show up and find we had an RV was pretty cool.

TANGO: Steve, you’re an excellent driver, by the way. I don’t know if I’ve told you that. If I drive that thing, it will drive off a cliff, believe me. I could not do that. Seriously, everyone would die a horrible death.

Q: Wouldn’t that make for a great season finale?

TANGO: If they could recover the tapes!

examiner.com

Even experienced paranormal investigators sometimes get the creeps. Find out which moments made PRS members’ skin crawl.

Addicted to Spirits

Ryan discusses the dangers of becoming too attached to the spirits that occupy your home.

New Season Premieres December 15

Chris Fleming on Ghost Adventures Live with the new  SB7 Spirit Box.

I have received a lot of questions and requests to obtain the SB-7, the MEL-8704 REM, and the E-POD that I had used on the Ghost Adventures LIVE episode. Since they are all brand new, in demo mode the engineer who makes them is currently putting some finishing touches on them and will allow me to offer them on my site. www.unknownmag.com in the shop under Equipment as soon as they are available.

While I am taking pre-orders on the Mel-8704REM…

The SB-7 wont be available for about 1-2 months as we are reworking the DEMO you saw used on the show to work in more restricted areas, due to lower frequencies and have more power to the speaker and amplification areas. I am not an engineer so I dont know all the technical stuff involved. But I hope to see a stronger antenna connection and more power to the new demo. Once these changes are made I will be testing it again before it goes into production. We expect them in 1-2 months and I will be offering them on my site unknownmag.com as soon as they are made.

You can PRE-ORDER the MEL-8704REM with the EM magnetic antenna RIGHT NOW at my site unknownmag.com in the store section. This is an awesome device and the best MEL made in my opinion with many features. I also started carrying the E-POD you saw us place on the floor. This device will light up when a EMF field comes in contact or in the proximity of the device. Great for having energy light it up and make signs or signals similar to the K- 2 meter when first introduced.

This was the mel meter I used on the show that ZAK and I used to verify that there was a energy field in between us as well as verifying the sensation you get when what is believed to be a ghost or spirit passes through you. This device PICKS IT UP! It is not currently available as they are hand modified. So a number of them are currently being made and I will have the first shipment by Dec 7th. So pre-order yours today so you are first in line for this awesome, control packed device that tells temperatures, picks up EMF and can register a magnetic field that makes your hair stand on end.

CHRIS FLEMING

J.D. Farrell, Paranormal researcher from the U.K. gives us another example of what can be accomplished by speaking through the “Shack Hack” or the “Ghost Box.”

There are some who say that you are more likely to pick up on lower entities through this means. Others say that although entities can respond to telepathic questions, it is best to speak them as a way of protecting oneself. Then comes the final caveat, as with any device you never know to whom you are really speaking, though most sensitives can discern the difference in energies among differnt types of entities.

We are all learning together in this field.

Lightspirit13

There will be a Ghost Adventures Live Post Mortem show at 8 PM et on Friday.

New Season Preview

Zak Bagans, Nick Groff and Aaron Goodwin from Ghost Adventures join us to discuss the Live show from Oct. 30th.

We are also joined by Chris Fleming, Dean Haglund, Mark & Debby Constantino, Jeff Belanger to talk about our experiences during the airing of the live show and take your calls and questions.

Thats right! The entire cast of Ghost Adventures LIVE all on one show to share thier thoughts on the experience.

Join our LIVE CHAT and LISTEN LIVE
www.DarknessRadio.com

8-10pm Pacific Time
9-11pm Mountain Time
10-Midnight Central Time
11pm-1am Eastern Time

www.darknessradio.com

Lightspirit’s Note: Did he forget somebody?

 The Portage Theater, Chicago, IL

I attended the Chicago Ghost Conference on October 2nd and 3rd at the historic Portage Theater in Chicago.

The event kicked off on Friday evening with a welcome reception and live music from the band Redbird.

The first speaker of the evening was Bill Konkolesky, the Michigan Director of MUFON (Mutual UFO Network). Bill was a highly informative speaker and talked about several big sightings in Michigan and other areas. He also brought up the fact that there seems to be a trend between people experiencing more than one type of paranormal event. This theme would crop up all weekend.

Following Bill’s remarks, was Dave Schrader from Darkness Radio show and podcast. Dave is a funny guy and a great speaker. He related some of his personal experiences including things he has seen at Waverly and on The Queen Mary. Anyone not familiar with his radio show/podcast should check it out at www.darknessradio.com. It’s one of the best shows out there.

After Dave spoke, there was a panel discussion with some of the different speakers from the weekend and members of various paranormal groups. Jeff Belanger moderated the event. Jeff is another extremely funny guy. One of the best questions asked was “How did you become interested in the paranormal?” It was intriguing to hear everyone’s personal reasons for being involved.

The panel ended at around 8:30pm and then it was time for the Chicago Ghost Tour. They had about 120 people spread over three buses. The buses visited some of the more famous haunted locations throughout Chicago including Hull House, Concord Hotel, and the location of the deadly Eastman Boat Disaster. I was unable to go on the tour, but everyone said it was a great night.

 The doors opened again on Saturday morning at around 7:30am.

Ray Sawyer from Darkness Paranormal out of Connecticut was the first speaker. He gave a presentation about EVP’s, giving good hints and tips.

Next up was Joshua Warren. Joshua is the author of eight books and creator of LEMUR (League of Energy Materialization and Unexplained Phenomena Research) Paranormal Investigations of Asheville, NC. Joshua takes a scientific approach to the paranormal and tries to recreate events in his lab. He has been investigating the Brown Mountain Lights for the past 15 years. These lights are seen regularly on the side of Brown Mountain in North Carolina. Joshua talked about the ties between people experiencing more than one paranormal event; including Ghosts, UFO’s and Cryptozoological animals. I was impressed by Joshua’s presentation. He can be heard weekly on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory and has his own radio show in North Carolina.

Following Joshua was Tony and Deb Pickman from the Sallie House. I still vividly remember the Sightings episodes that showed the Sallie House with psychic Peter James. I remember scratches appearing out of nowhere on Tony during filming.

Tony and Deb only lived in the house for two years, from 1992 to 1994. To Deb the house and spirit was peaceful and playful. For Tony though, it was demonic. For some reason the spirit did not like Tony. It would scratch him all the time and even started his clothes and other things on fire. Deb and Tony showed many pictures taken at the house over the years. There were quite a few that showed shadow figures, dark brown or blue masses of shadow and things that spontaneously combusted or were singed. Tony and Deb gave an emotional and powerful presentation. This was actually the first time they had talked at a public paranormal conference. Although they left the house in 1994, they have been back several times since to investigate it. Amazingly, they even have experiences at their current home when other groups are investigating the Sallie House. GREAT presentation.

I believe the next speaker was Jeff Rezman. Jeff mainly talked about using ghost boxes and some of the dangers of using them if not done properly. The main thing he wanted to stress was that you had to properly end a ghost box session by asking the guides or technicians to help the spirits get back to their side. You have to wait for an OK signal before shutting the box down. If you don’t you are in danger of the connection or portal remaining open and the spirits being able to travel back and forth at will. I would have liked Jeff to demonstrate an actual session while on stage, but his presentation was informative and interesting.

Next up was the crew from Paranormal Cops, a new show that will be appearing on A&E later in the year. Three of the members of the group are Chicagoland police officers. Along with a psychic and technical manager they investigate Chicago area haunts.

They showed the trailer for their new show and then took questions from the crowd. Once again Jeff Belanger moderated. I think that the forensic and investigative skills these guys use professionally on a daily basis will make this a deeply interesting show to watch. I think they may bring something new to the genre.

Filmmaker Dan Hall spoke next. He is currently finishing up his fourth paranormal documentary and he showed two scenes from his recently released movie Ghost Stories II. One scene was an investigation at Whisper’s Estate in Central Indiana and the other showed the investigation of the Wayne County Historical Museum where EVP’s were captured from a 3000 year-old Egyptian mummy. The clips were fascinating and I plan on getting his movies.

He has one movie just on the Central State Asylum for the Insane in Indianapolis. Dan was a riveting guest, and I look forward to seeing more of his work. (I won a copy of his movie Ghost Stories 2, so I’ll let you know what I think)

Fredrick Stonehouse followed Dan. Unfortunately, I missed his talk. Fredrick is an outstanding author of over 30 books about Great Lakes Maritime history. I have heard him before on a podcast and he has some incredibly interesting stories. I’m a little upset that I missed his presentation, but at the time I was talking with Scott L from Ghostly Talk podcast. Ghostly Talk is one of the longer running paranormal podcasts out there. I believe they started in 2002. I’ve been listening to the show for the last two years, so it was nice to finally meet Scott.

Jeff Belanger finally got to talk about his work. He is the author of nine paranormal books. Jeff is an extremely funny guy and is very knowledgeable about the paranormal. His talk was a quick history of ghosts, ghost hunting and communicating with spirits. The highlight of his excellent presentation was Ursula Bielski coming out as Resurrection Mary and giving her story and history of her haunting as a phantom hitchhiker.

The final speaker was the famous Lorraine Warren. Lorraine and her late husband Ed are paranormal researchers, investigators and demonologists with over 40 years experience. Some of their famous cases include the Amityville Horror and the house from A Haunting in Connecticut. Lorraine and her husband Ed are two of the godparents of the paranormal, up there with Hans Holzer.

Lorraine gave a brief history of her and Ed’s life together, and showed some pictures from their many investigations. One picture in particular was awe-inspiring. It showed a large demonic head formed out of either mist or ectoplasm. The amount of detail in the face was downright creepy. At the end of her lecture she showed a film showing an actual exorcism. In the movie Maurice “Frenchy” Theriault is shown drooling and the drool turning into blood, a scratch appearing on his forehead and when asked a question in Latin he responds in Latin backwards. Towards the end of the video his eyes rolled back into his head so you could only see the whites of his eyes and he slumped forward. This was a fascinating film clip. It was a sincere pleasure seeing Lorraine Warren speak. Imagine all of the things she has seen over the years!

After Lorraine, there was a buffet dinner where everyone just hung out and mingled. Afterwards, there was live music with three different bands.

I would like to say that Wanda Spudic, Ursula Bielski, Mike McDowell and the rest of the crew did a wonderful job of keeping things moving smoothly and on time. I did not notice any problems and other then things getting a slow start on Saturday morning, all the speakers stayed on schedule.

It was a great weekend; all the guests were interesting and approachable. Most of them had tables set up for when they weren’t onstage. Along with the presenters, there were also booths for different artists, crafts and merchandise. It was a pretty impressive collection of paracelebrities considering 2009 was only the second year of the event. This should be a must attend event for anyone in the Chicago area in the future.

KEN GREER
SW Michigan Paranormal Research

Klinge Brothers

From a music hall where Elvis is believed to have never left the building to Civil War battlefields where the fallen are still heard, Brad and Barry employ the latest technology to research the supernatural and separate fact from fiction.

BOOTHILL GRAVEYARD from TOMBSTONE episode.

Close up of shadow person.

A&E follows three fearless investigators who stir up paranormal activity as they explore chilling local phenomena in “Extreme Paranormal,” two original one-hour specials premiering Monday, October 19 and Monday, October 26 at 10 PM ET/PT.

Determined to find the truth behind local legends, curses and hauntings, Shaun, Nathan and Jason go beyond normal paranormal investigative methods and intentionally put themselves directly in harms way with their bold antics by taunting ghosts, summoning the dead and daring the demonic to attack. These guys have spent the last ten years kicking sand in the face of ghosts across America and every Sunday at midnight, they recount their latest mission on their popular radio show “Ghostman and Demon Hunter”.

In “Extreme Paranormal: New Mexico State Penitentiary,” premiering on Monday, October 19 at 10 PM ET/PT, the trio explore an abandoned maximum security lockup where visitors claim the tortured souls of inmates, who were violently murdered in the worst prison riot in U.S. history, still linger. Our investigators want to see if there is any truth behind the legend in this potentially volatile paranormal environment and go as far as recreating moments of this horrific event, shedding their own blood, to provoke the violent spirits to show themselves to the cameras. Then, in the first-ever underwater paranormal investigation, the team descends to the eerie depths of a remote haunted lake to locate a lost city and summon the spirit of a mass murderer who massacred seven innocent victims more than a century ago.

In “Extreme Paranormal: Pennhurst Insane Asylum & Manchac Swamp,” premiering on Monday, October 26 at 10 PM ET/PT, the investigators explore a decrepit mental asylum and haunted swamp. Traveling deep into the heart of Manchac Swamp just outside of New Orleans where an entire town was wiped away by a massive hurricane in 1915, the trio goes as far as to bury one of their own alive in a mass gravesite in order to contact the souls of the residents. The team then travels to Eastern Pennsylvania to the Pennhurst State School, a rundown mental hospital that was closed in 1986 after decades of abuse, neglect and torture. They investigate strange sightings and unexplained phenomena and relive horrific abuses such as prolonged restraint and electroshock therapy in the hopes of experiencing and coaxing restless spirits to come out of the shadows.