Haunted Collector – Haunted Bayou/Library Ghost – S01E01

SyFy has spun up yet another show on the paranormal called Haunted Collector which features the work of John Zaffis and his family as they try to help people cope with otherworldly events. I’ve been intrigued by the idea of the show but after watching the first two episodes that have aired I must admit I find several flaws.

John has grown up with the paranormal and has been around it just about his entire life. He studied demonology under the guidance of his aunt and uncle, Lorraine and Ed Warren. Yes, that Lorrain Warren of Amityville Horror and Paranormal State fame. That connection alone makes me a little skeptical but let’s put that aside for now.

What John does is investigate locations with paranormal activity and looks for the source. The angle here is that he believes objects are responsible for activity and by removing those objects you remove the activity. He believes that objects become haunted or contain spirit energy. Certainly a different take on things. Although we did see some of this in the very early episodes of Ghost Hunters and Paranormal State.

This first episode starts with John and his family visiting a home with activity. I do like the idea of the daytime sweep where they check for EMF and other unusual things during the day so they can take baseline readings. This is something we haven’t seen the other shows focus on. It was also interesting that they did EVPs during the day as well. Everyone does them at night as though that’s the only time spirits come out. Again, I like the idea of them working during the day and spending more than just one day at a location.

As they investigate the house during the night they pick up something odd on the thermal imager. They see a big blue cold spot on the wall. To try and discover the source of the problem they end up in the crawl space. Seeing there is no renegade pipe or AC unit they decide to start digging. And what do they find? Yep, a metal box. The chain of events leading to this box seems a little too coincidental to me but I’ll run with it.

And what’s in the box you ask? Why a gun of course. They just happen to find some gun in a little metal box under the house. John figures this is the source of all the problems and goes to a gun dealer to have him check it out and give some details on how old it is. The team makes a connection between the gun and some shooting.

The homeowner of course wants the gun gone so John takes it back to his museum for safe keeping.

For his second outing John heads to an old library with claims of activity that is scaring the kids. There are lots of noises and things bumping around. John and his team once again check out the building by day and try to get a history of the objects they find there. These items include a large stove and a typewriter in particular.

The typewriter is interesting since they get EMF readings off it. Somewhat odd for a manual typewriter to give off EMF spikes. They decide to set up some experiments to watch it which includes hanging some string in the room to detect movement as well as 4 IR cameras. They don’t collect any real evidence during the night but they feel the typewriter is the center of the problems so John goes to have it looked at by a dealer. It’s a very old unit and would have been quite expensive. Of course letters were the main form of communication during the time. I’m not sure why but John feels taking the typewriter away will solve the paranormal problems.

After these items are removed the clients claim the activity has dropped off. I find some of the show very interesting while some of it seems a bit too oddball. First, I’m not too much of a fan of an object becoming possessed with dark energy. While we know a tiki can possess the Brady family while they’re off in Hawaii I’m a bit more skeptical when it comes to this sort of things happening to other people.

Second, John and his team make some pretty big leaps in logic. A gun buried under a house that has no connection with the owner and that could have come from anywhere and a typewriter several floors up in a library are the causes for paranormal activity? I’m not quite seeing the correlation.

So far I have mixed feelings. I like some of the techniques. I like the research based approach. I’m not sure the findings are very solid though.

Let’s see what this next episode brings.

Other Articles of Interest:

• Haunted Collector – My Mother’s Ghost & Paranormal Predator – S01E02
• Haunted Collector – Uncivil Spirit & Revolutionary Ghost – S01E05
• Haunted Collector – Stirring the Dead and Ghost Writer – S02E06
• Haunted Collector – Slaughterhouse Ghosts & Supernatural Sword – S01E06
• Haunted Collector – Haunted Villa and Spirit Springs – S02E03
• Haunted Collector – Haunted Seminary and Ghost Games – S03E11
• Haunted Collector – The Sanitarium & Firehouse Phantom – S01E04
• Haunted Collector – Burning Spirits – Ghosts of the West – S01E03
• Haunted Collector – Hulbert House and King House – S02E02
• Paranormal Challenge – Ohio State Reformatory – S01E04