A local news station is going to "investigate" claim of a haunted hotel.

[nickgutierrez]

Needless to say, it's a Fox station. There was all kinds of X-Files-y music, and scientific-looking instrument-type thingies, and scared "newspeople" talking about high, consistent readings. This is going to be an "investigation" like the Salem witch hunt found "witches".

:banghead:

What's Joe Nickell up to these days?

[TZ]

1. What is it with Fox local news stations and woo?

I see more woo on my local Fox station than all the other three local news stations combined...

[realisticphish]

2. ....do you really need to ask

;)

[realisticphish]

3. "ah, the phase variance indicator is reporting level NINE READINGS!"

"get the quantum desiccator, and turn on the syntho-spectrogram!"

[FM Arouet666]

4. You can really investigate ghosts with sensitive instruments.

This is an E-meter, a Mark Super VII Quantum E-meter to be specific. It will allow researchers the ability to not only detect ghosts, but they can also do audits with the ghosts. After all, we all know that ghosts haunt houses because they suffered some tragedy in life. Like a murder or some other act of violence. They respond in death by haunting. A kind of supernatural adjustment disorder. With the E-meter a trained professional can audit the poor soul freeing them of their ghostly intent and add one more thankful follower to the rolls of scientology. Once scientology has an army of souls at their disposal they can start to take over heaven, heck they can even start to take over hell. L Ron will like that, it is getting a bit hot down there.

Only on FAUX NEWS, we distort you comply..... ;)

[onager]

5. Here's a bunch of haunted hotels...z-z-z-z-z...

Out of morbid curiosity, I tried to find some statistics on the number of people who die in hotels every year. But Hilton and Marriott ain't talking, and for good reason, I guess.

But quite a few people must Check Out Permanently while staying in hotels. Ergo, they should be some of the most haunted places going.

Anyway, here's a website with some of the more famous haunted hotels (and houses). You'll notice the usual vagueness. No names, no dates, no specifics, just "the ghost of a little girl haunts Room XXX," "a guy killed his girlfriend in Room YYY," bla-bla-bla.

And of course, the usual coincidence of ghosts only showing up when believers in ghosts are around. With your average demonic possession, poltergeist activity, or haunting, I always say the best way to fix it is to bring in a skeptic. The Spirits always vamoose.

One of my favorites is on this site, the Winchester House in San Jose, CA. Almost every year, usually at Halloween, a reporter or other skeptic spends the night in that house. AFAIK, nothing remotely scary ever happened to them. Poor old Sarah Winchester was haunted, all right. But only by the fake psychics who robbed and unnecessarily terrified her.

The scariest thing to me was the Comments:

...The spirits have a “legal ground” to stay and that would be a tragic event such as a fire or someone dying on the property. There is a curse because of a death on the property. The legal grounds must be removed.

You can sue the Spirits? That must be an interesting development for the legal community.

If the owner does not deal with this. Visitors must do this if you are a Christian. Whenever you pay for a room at a hotel before walking in you say I cover myself and family with the blood of Jesus Christ, I break any curses brought in by a death in the area where I occupy in the Name of Jesus Christ. I bind all demons and command you to leave this room in the Name of Jesus Christ , I command you to leave in the Name of Jesus Christ (repeat many times).

Isn't "many times" sort of...vague? And when should I do the incantation? On the sidewalk outside the hotel? At the check-in desk? I'm confused.

Read the bible out loud in the room. They might follow you home. Say Any demon that transfered to me followed me or was sent to me I bind you and cast you out in the Name of Jesus Christ. Demons can change their appearance to look like a person. They don’t want you to know who they are. There are more details on my website http://wwwHauntedHouseBuster.Com--Minister Helena Garilano

http://www.realhaunts.com/united-states/claremont-hotel/

[nickgutierrez]

6. Given what I know about the medical and legal professions...

...it seems dangerous to outsource the job of exorcism to the untrained layperson, rather than a real priest. What if they say the wrong thing, and make the ghost turn into grape juice and crackers, or something? Seems to me that the article here is an incitement to malpractice. :sarcasm:

[WhollyHeretic]

7. This is just dangerous. Newspeople should not be attemting things with the spirit world

They are not trained for it. They don't know the protocol. What if they offended the ghosts and caused an interdimensional incident. If they want to do a legitimate story on ghosts they should call the plumbers from Ghost Hunters.

[TZ]

8. Ah...I see it now...

A new career for Joe the Plumber! Joe the Ghost Buster!:rofl:

[WhollyHeretic]

9. He would fit right in

The two guys from that show are actually plumbers during the day. The one on the right is an active mormon (he was my wife's boyfriend in high school), I'm not sure how that works since doing a show like Ghost Hunters is against church teachings.