by George Root

Created on: April 20, 2009   Last Updated: April 21, 2009

When it comes to paranormal investigation people love to try and prove that an investigator, or their very popular weekly television show, is creating evidence just to keep up ratings. It would be very easy to make that assertion with Ghost Hunters if it were not for one thing, on the show the T.A.P.S. team discounts more information than they confirm in any given investigation.

It is important to remember that Ghost Hunters is a television show, and within that television show there needs to be more than just stories about hunting ghosts in order for the show to be interesting to a wide audience. The only part of Ghost Hunters that may be created for television is some of the drama that goes on with the T.A.P.S. personnel. The notion that this person does not trust that person or the idea that Jason puts the wrong people in charge of investigations on a regular basis seems a bit contrived at times. As Hollywood as the drama may seem, it would be counter productive to the show and its producers to fabricate the paranormal activity they capture.

If you watch Ghost Hunters then you start to realize that it is more about great editing than it is hunting for ghosts. A majority of the time the T.A.P.S. team finds absolutely nothing of interest during an investigation, but yet they use the preview of scenes to come after a commercial as a way to glue people to the television. The producers and editors of the show are experts at taking the slightest action or commotion, and turning it into something that you will sit through four commercials to see just to find out what happens. Ghost Hunters does not need to fabricate their paranormal evidence, the anticipation of the audience does that for them.

So in the argument of whether or not Ghost Hunters is making up paranormal activity in order to boost ratings, the common sense answer would have to be absolutely not. There is no need to fabricate any evidence when it is obvious that the show does not need to capture any real paranormal activity to be popular. People live for the anticipation that one day Jason will announce that they have really captured the image of a ghost on camera and that a building is genuinely haunted. While Jason and Grant have both declared buildings haunted in the past, they have always done so with a sense of hesitation.

There have been some very spectacular images captured on Ghost Hunters, and there has been many minutes of inexplicable sound recordings made as well. But because of the expert editing and anticipation created by the way the show is packaged, and real paranormal activity that is captured is background material to the feeling the audience gets when the show goes to a commercial and you have no idea why the previews of coming scenes have people screaming and running down hallways. It is all a game of anticipation which means that nothing need be faked; it just needs to look good after the editing is over.

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