Meeting the Ghost Hunters

Recently I had the chance to meet Grant Wilson and Jason Hawes, the founders of The Atlantic Paranormal Society or TAPS. TAPS is the focus of the hugely popular show Ghost Hunters on the Sci Fi channel. The success of the show is due largely to TAPS' no-nonsense, scientific, down to earth approach to paranormal investigation which stresses scientific method and audio and video evidence over intuitive feelings or questionable science in determining whether a place has genuine paranormal activity going on. More than 80% of the cases that TAPS investigates are debunked, or proven to have no paranormal activity. The other factor that has led to the success of the show is the personalities of the TAPS investigators led by Jason and Grant. Jason and Grant are best friends, plumbers, and very down to earth guys who have been conducting paranormal investigations for nearly twenty years. They have worked with the Catholic church, politicians, and other well known groups and have investigated claims of paranormal activity in some famous places.

Recently I had the chance to attend a presentation given by Jason and Grant at Harper College in Illinois and to meet them after the presentation. I would say that I'm skeptic of claims of paranormal activity which is why I really like the scientific approach that TAPS uses when investigating paranormal claims and I was very excited to get the chance to see and hear some of the evidence that has TAPS collected and talk with Jason and Grant. The event sold out a week before the actual talk, and when I arrived at the venue the place was already packed. There were hundreds of people waiting to see Jason and Grant.

I do have to say that Harper College did a terrible job of managing the event. Since the event was sold out, they should have been better prepared for the large number of people coming to Harper for the event. Parking was non existent, and most people had to park a mile or more from the actual auditorium. Hundreds of people, including some elderly people and one older woman I saw with a cane, were herded into a ridiculously overheated gym and seated on uncomfortable bleachers. The view of people working out on the exercise equipment in the corner while the presentation was going on didn't really add to the experience either. The tickets weren't expensive so I wasn't expecting luxury, but if it were my elderly mother who was expected to climb into unsteady bleachers with a cane I would have been a little upset. The staff was a few IQ points away from retarded and couldn't have been less helpful. It was obvious that they didn't want to be there and just wanted us all to leave so they could go home. I would highly recommend never going to an event at Harper College if you can avoid it.

But Jason and Grant gave a great presentation. They were self-deprecating and funny, and seemed genuinely humbled by the hundreds of people who had come to hear them and meet them. Their presentation was informative without being preachy and they were very interactive with the crowd. The real high point of the presentation was of course getting to see and hear some pieces of evidence that they collected on investigations firsthand. Some of the presentation involved them discussing in depth some of the investigations that had been featured on Ghost Hunters. They also showed and played evidence from investigations that never made it onto the show.

The most impressive evidence to me were the EVPs. EVP stands for Electronic Voice Phenomena. EVPs are gathered by asking questions in a room while having a recorder of some type recording. Sometimes the recorder will pick up voices that the human ear can't hear at the time but are audible on playback. The EVPs that were presented were very convincing to me and they were much more startling than I expected. Hearing them on TV the quality is naturally diminished so hearing the actual recordings being played in the gym was a very different experience than hearing them through the TV.

We has a surprise guest at this presentation, a TAPS investigator who had been on the infamous investigation from last season where the TAPS team investigated paranormal claims at the site of the brutal Manson Family murder of Sharon Tate was also there and was able to answer some questions about the equipment used on that investigation. Jason and Grant did an extensive question and answer period where they made a real effort to answer as many questions as possible and then they signed autographs and took photos with fans. Some of the best questions asked by the IL audience were about the duo's feelings about Yvette Fielding and the British hit "Most Haunted" which is widely regarded as a joke. Jason and Grant were very tactful in their answers and were very professional although the audience obviously had a low opinion of Most Haunted. Personally, my friends and I have a drinking game where we all take a shot when Yvette screams, which means we are all pretty much drunk in the first 15 minutes of the show. All in all the presentation lasted about 3 hours and it was a lot of fun.

When it was my turn to meet Jason and Grant I was immediately impressed with how "real" and accessible they were. It was obvious that they were just two guys who were really appreciative of their fans and really interested in meeting them. They did refuse to answer questions about what personal experiences sparked their interest in the paranormal, which is something that I think most TAPS fans want to know, but it was still a great presentation and made me respect TAPS and the work that they do even more.