Monday, October 7, 2013

Midget Ghost Theory and A Review of the 100th Ghost Adventures Epsiode


            I understand that I promised this post on Saturday.  But in that case, Saturday meant Monday, so  I hope you forgive me for that temporal flop as I finally post something after not knowing exactly what to blog about.  There's two parts to this one…with this half part warming you readers up.

            Please allow me to explain the title…. because it might not make sense to a random "normal" person stumbling upon this blog out of sheer boredom or Googling.  First of all, the Ghost Adventures Crew just aired their 100th episode so I'm going to review that.  Yes, a review of their 100th episode.  They have been around for years so why haven't I reviewed any of the others?  Easy: I didn't have this blog up before!

            "Midget Ghost Theory" came out of a discussion on Twitter where I was simply scrambling for a topic to blog about.  I just asked a few people for topic ideas, but @NotGayDalek just had to bring up religious topics and gay marriage and I'm like, "I'M NOT DOING THAT!"  Later on, people brought up the Amish and "gay Amish," "Amish Gay Marriage" and finally "Gay Amish Ghosts".  To which I responded with the tweet pictured below…..

            And there it is….I have my reasons for it, which includes audio from the Nerdist Podcast.  But I'll get to that in a moment.

            First, the review of Ghost Adventures episode #100!

Ghost Adventures #100: The Exorcist House


            I'd like to first congratulate Zak Bagans, Nick Groff, Aaron Goodwin, Billy Tolley, and Jay Wasley (whom I've met and chatted with at Parafest 2013!  SQUEE!) on making it all the way to their 100th episode!  And being a nerd, I can't forget to also say congratulations to the rest of the production team, the editors and the team at the Travel Channel…  Giving credit where credit is due so people don't feel left out…

            It's either credit or plastic!  Though plastic may be a bit cheaper…


            It was only 2004 when Zak, Nick and Aaron first started filming the documentary and captured not only footage of a FULL-BODIED APPARITION (which is a big deal within the paranormal community because it's SO RARE!) but also poltergeist activity on film.  (You can read more about this in the books Zak Bagans published, Dark World, or Chasing Spirits by Nick Groff)  Now, they've been considered experts in the paranormal field, and are quite often recognized as celebrities by a ton of fans.  Their investigation style quite often involves breaking one of the rules of paranormal investigation: never go someplace alone, which has safety and practical reasons behind it.  They also sometimes provoke and almost always head to locations with a dark history and what could be demonic activity.  They've investigated strip clubs, brothels, casinos, abandoned hospitals, Loretta Lynn's Ranch, an English fort, even an island used to quarantine people and cremate their remains when plagues hit Italy, the very same island that is now forbidden to locals and tourists on holiday by the Italian government.  But for their 100th episode, they decided to do something very significant, to give a very special intense treat to all the fans who also like horror films….


            The Exorcist was a novel and also a film that is actually based on real events that happened in the 1940s in St. Louis.  It is believed that the demonic entity that possessed the boy when he and his grandmother were playing with the Ouija board is still in that house where the actual exorcism.  People are afraid to enter it and even the family that currently owns it is afraid to talk about it at all.  So this little journey really seems like a search for some answers for the crew's previous bouts with demons.  It's also dangerous, as demonic forces can really fuck your health and life up, perhaps even possess you and tear families apart.  It is real and very dangerous; people could die from demonic possession.

            There have been strange goings-on surrounding this investigation as well, with Father Ashcraft, their consulting priest, falling ill a couple of days before the investigation when he was on his way to talk with the crew, with an unexplainable crack appearing in one of the windows while talking with a neighbor, with the guys feeling such fear, especially Nick, who exclaimed, "I have a…family!  I don't want to die from this!"

            My assessment of the episode?  It definitely seems special, definitely has that sense of darkness that surrounds the story.  The sequence editing (arranging the clips in a certain order for those who don't understand the jargon I sometimes use to sound technical), I probably wouldn't touch for now but if there was a better way to arrange things, I would've done it that way.  It wasn't the best episode  by far but it could have some improvements so it could be better.  I can't pinpoint them at the moment.  The narration could also use some polishing….  All in all, it's still a very exciting episode, with #GA100 becoming a trending topic on Twitter!

            But there are also questions related to the paranormal that I feel need answering--which brings me to the next topic in regards to little people (which will sometimes be referred to as "midgets"--simplification, not labeling, so please don't take offense; apologies in advance….)

The Midget Ghost Theory


            People can come up with some weird questions for Google; mine included, "Do people who abuse LSD see in ultraviolet when on acid?" or "Can cats hold complete conversations in not-dubbed English with people?"  And the most important one I wouldn't just ask the GAC, but also members of the Haunted Collector team, TAPS and the Constantinos:

DO MIDGET GHOSTS EXIST?

            It is a bit difficult to determine whether the ghosts of little people really do exist, as they can be mistaken for children due to their being "fun-sized".  But there is another reason for this, as "midget ghosts" might just not exist at all.  The best explanation for this can be provided by a Matt Mira story from Nerdist Podcast episode number 10, which was recorded at a live show at Largo in LA and features Adam Savage from Mythbusters….

Here's the audio from Youtube......

Matt Mira:  I have a somewhat related midget story.  Uh, the, uh… When I, I used to work at a funeral home and, uh--
Chris Hardwick:  Oh my god!  His…funeral home stories are…and he loves it, like, when he goes home to Boston, he fills in part-time at the funeral home, just helping out.
Matt Mira:  Put the fun in funeral!  (Laughter)  But, uh, so we're at the cemetery, and uh, Manny, one of the cemetery guys who digs the graves, he says--we're just standing there afterwards, you know, we make sure that the grave is filled in so that no one steals stuff.  Uh, so we stand there with him….
Chris:  That's the minimum that guy's job is, making sure that the grave is filled…
Matt:  So he turns and he goes…He just goes, "Hey, uh, can I ask you something?"  And I was like, "Yeah, what's up, Manny?" and he goes, "You guys ever do a funeral for a leetle person?" and I think and I ask my friend Joe, and we're like, "No, we haven't."  And [Manny] goes, "We haven't either, man.  They don't die!"
(Laughter)

            So, with that (so-called) knowledge, we can now apply the property of Association:  if ghosts are the earth-bound spirits of dead people, and little people don't die, then how can there be midget ghosts if there aren't any dead little people?

            Of course, I might be wrong.  Which is why this is called the Midget Ghost Theory, not the Midget Ghost Fact.  I might also be wrong in the sense that there are midget ghosts and they are just mistaken for children.  They could just be hiding somewhere out of the way or something, or they could move on right after death to some unknown afterlife that many religious scholars and quantum physicists theorize about.  We just really don't know.


            But I really hope there are midget ghosts, if not for my excitement but also to help my tweep @LisaR_M feel less disappointed about the supposed non-existence of these types of spirits; if there are any of them out there, we need to hold the digital recorders and PX devices a little lower or provide step stools to help them out, lest we feel phantom kicks on our shins that are trying to grab our attention.


            (Please note that this second half is solely based on silliness and comedy.  There's almost nothing serious and factual about the "Midget Ghost Theory".  And I'm not an expert, so don't take my word for it.)

No comments:

Post a Comment