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This is one of the longer investigations we’ve seen in some time, taking up an entire episode by itself. The Ghost Hunters stays at an historic Inn near Gettysberg that served as a base for Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War. The Cashtown Inn is owned by Jack, who had been “on the fence” about it being haunted, and his wife Maria who believes there is definitely paranormal activity going on.

We start to see some odd things happening almost immediately. While TAPS is setting up their equipment Grant is talking to Steve over the walkie-talkie to get one of the IR cameras set up correctly and just as Steve is saying something to him the television in the room turns on, despite no one having touched the power button and the remote control being in plain sight. When Grant doesn’t see Steve moving the camera he radioes to find out what’s going on and just as Steve is telling him the television turned on by itself, it turns off. Very odd.

We see that they are still using the Faraday cage, presumably with the wireless microphone (as discussed in Podcast episode 2) but yet again it doesn’t really come into play at all when all is said and done and they’re reviewing the evidence. If that’s been the case in every investigation since St. Augustine II then perhaps that’s a result in itself: No EVP’s in a Faraday cage ever might, in some minds, disqualify the EVPs they have been getting on the other recorders as noise.

Jay & Grant go up the third (and uppermost) floor suite to do some EVP work but before long they (and we) can plainly hear what seem to be footsteps. According to the guys, they seem to come out of the bedroom behind them and into the living room where they’re sitting. We’re not told outright but it’s assumed no one from the team is over there, and we can actually see into the bedroom from one of the cameras as this is going on, so if the sound is coming from there and into the living room we would be able to see any actual person in that area.

They captured the sound on one of their recorders and while they point to some specific sounds they believe suggests a solid (Civil War army) boot I like to keep it simple and noticed that there does seem to be some heavy wood creaking sounds that would seem to suggest heavily (no pun intended) that these are indeed footsteps. Since they are on the top floor and there is no one in the area the footsteps are coming from they think this must be paranormal. This is where I’m going to disagree.

Now, I’m not saying this is what actually happened but since this is an Inn and not a private residence it is possible that the owners might want to drum up some extra tourism by having a “haunted hotel” so I just wanted to explore the possibility of how someone might hoax this, should someone want to. From the look of the room I’d guess there is a crawlspace attic overhead with a ceiling probably 5 feet or so in the center. I don’t think it’s impossible that maybe one of the owners, one of their staff, or a rogue Pilgrim crew member snuck up into the attic and took a short walk (hunched over, of course) at an opportune time.  I’m not saying that’s what happened, but that it could have happened so I’m not entirely comfortable labeling it definitively paranormal.

Shortly after these footsteps though, Jay said he felt someone sit down on the couch next to him. He and Grant felt their air on that side of the couch and said it was very cold, but no one seemed to have a thermometer handy. As Jay is rubbing his hand across the cushion (presumably to feel for the depression he said he felt) we can see clearly from the camera that the only depression on the cushion is the small one his hand is making.

Still, this is a bit interesting not only because it does seem to tie in with the footsteps but also because when they tell Jack about it during the reveal, he tells them that the couch Jay was sitting on is a pull-out bed and people sleeping on the right-side of that bed have reported having their head touched — and their heads would have been right where Jay said he felt someone sit down.

Meanwhile, Tango and Kris decide to investigate Steve’s mysterious television set. They’re not in the room ten minutes when, just as Tango is on the radio letting the guys know what he’s up to the television turns on by itself. Dave thinks it’s got to be the IR from the cameras reflecting off of one of the many mirrors or glass surfaces in the room but nothing seems to work. He even tries the IR thermometer, bouncing it off of different surfaces across the room. Steve apparently sees this on the camera and radios to ask what Tango is doing with the thermometer. As Dave is answering him the television turns off and Dave Tango puts another notch in his debunkers belt: Somehow the talk key on the walkie is what’s causing the TV to go on and off. I don’t know exactly how that is possible but the causality seems clear, so kudos to Tango for another debunking job well done.

After the TV was sorted out Dave and Kris went down into the basement, which had been used in the Civil War as a hospital and several people had reported seeing an apparent surgical scene play out in the boiler room. The only thing that happens during this investigation though is that Kris gets nauseous and has to run upstairs and be sick.

Jay & Grant dutifully come down with their EMF detector and note that the multitude of unshielded electrical cabling running through the ceiling in the basement is causing massive EM readings. Grant suggests it could be a “Fear Cage”, inducing effects ranging from paranoia to physical discomfort. Jay points out that some people theorize spirits actually use the abundant EM radiation to manifest more easily, once again making it clear to anyone paying close attention that this arm of science is filled with best-guesses and none of it can really be relied upon as an accurate explanation/conclusion to what’s going on.

Kris recovers after a while and wants to go down there again but before long she’s got the nausea once more. This time Tango has the EM meter but he doesn’t detect any strong electromagnetic fields around where they are. Jay says it could be that Kris is hypersensitive to the gas fumes, which apparently you can smell throughout the basement (that doesn’t sound safe…)

During the evidence review Tango finds one EVP, and I wish he didn’t because it takes away from his stellar debunking earlier. On the recording you can hear Dave asking, “Do you miss your family?” followed by what the Ghost Hunters will tell you is a voice saying, “Yeah”. To me (and apparently Jack, the owner) it sounded more like someone just inhaling. And not even sharply, just like normal a normal breath. Whatever.

The real star of the show is of course the moving picture frame that TAPS so uncharacteristically gave away during the preview last week. There is absolutely nothing about this video that I can point to as “clearly suspicious” and it does appear very impressive but there are just a bunch of minor things about it that really nag at me.

First off, the camera was set up in this room because there were reports that the chair in the corner moved regularly. No one reported anything else moving. Now, the frame doesn’t move so much as it rotates — and it seems to be rotating away from the front of the table (facing the bed) and towards the side of the table (facing the chair). That might be relevant, but I just got a little itch of doubt when it was the picture frame moving instead of the chair itself.

The way it moves also bothered me. It moved in a jerky motion, similar to the chair in the attic of Race Rock Light House. It spun the same way, too. Both things are suggestive to me of someone tugging on a little string or fishing line tied to the left side of the object and tugged on by someone standing off-camera to the right.

Now of course I’m not going to cry foul unless I’ve got good reason, so I looked to the right side of the frame to see if I could make out a string or wire but I couldn’t confirm or deny anything since the right-side of the frame is flush up against another object on the table. In fact, the table was full of objects right next to each other packed so closely that someone could have run a piece of thick rope behind them all and we wouldn’t have been able to see it.

Then Grant comes into frame while this is going on (after the first time it moves, but before the final time). That would normally work towards exonerating him of potential suspicions of mischief except that from the way he stands he’s flush to the right of the camera frame so we can’t see anything to his right. He could be tugging on a piece of string with his right hand while we see the left side of his body on camera and we’d never be able to tell.

Another point that bothered me was that although Grant said he thought it was the candle by the window that was moving, as we see him on the camera he walks in front of the picture frame for a brief moment and then suddenly steps back as though he realized he was blocking the cameras view of the frame (which he claims he didn’t know was moving). Add to all of that the fact that this was captured two minutes into a new tape. They had left a tape running while they investigated and apparently there was nothing on that tape, and apparently nothing else on this tape either. It just seems rather odd that the event would happen right after Grant came into the room but before he went to sleep, is basically what I’m saying here.

Now, I want to emphasize that this is complete speculation and there’s really no evidence to prove this was hoaxed, but with the pattern of suspicious events that seem to only occur around Grant I’ve just grown a bit wary. For me to even come close to believing in a piece of evidence that was collected by Grant while he was alone in a room it would have to be pretty rock solid. I just see too many little possibilities in this video for me to let my guard down and be impressed.

So, this may have been their best investigation yet this season, but because of the circumstances of the two most compelling pieces of evidence (the footsteps and the moving picture frame), while I’ll agree they certainly don’t seem to have any natural explanations in my opinion either one wouldn’t have taken much effort or imagination to hoax.  All the footsteps would take is someone in the attic, which TAPS may not have even realized existed but I am nearly certain it must from what we see of the room and building. And there seems to have been a rash of tourist destinations having declared paranormal activity lately.

In the case of the frame, well if someone were to hoax that it would certainly be more difficult than if they were to try to hoax the moving lamp at Myrtle’s Plantation but in that case there was a room full of people, in this case it’s Grant in a room by himself. More than ever that seems to narrow the options for me. Either we just witnessed something truly paranormal or we have a hoax and only one potential suspect.