Steve and Tango from “Ghost Hunters Academy” on being paranormal professors

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.

(more…)