ArtRojasDesign

Zak and team head out to Staten Island to investigate the old seaside town of Snug Harbor. In it’s previous years it was a haven for retired sailors, a place where they could go and be amongst other sailors. There are tales and legends of a matron who had an illegitimate son with one of the sailors and through her shame she locked the boy in the basement. He once escaped, killed his mother and then the townspeople turned on him and hung him from a tree. There is also a confirmed report that after giving Sunday service a Reverend was gunned down by one of the sailors for motives that remain a mystery. The sailor then turned the gun on himself and took his own life. There are also reports of a white female figure that appears on-stage in the theater. The theater manager took a picture and there is a completely white figure standing several feet above the stage along with the practicing orchestra. The figure is completely white as though all the pixels for the image have been removed.

A couple of interesting stories, so does the investigation go? For this investigation "Dateline" is going along with the investigation to document them documenting the location. That’s a bit different.

One thing to note about the first story, there is no evidence to support the idea that one of the matrons had a child with a sailor, that there was a child, that the child committed murder or that the townspeople hung him. There are no newspaper items, no written accounts from trusted sources, no journals, no corroborating evidence whatsoever to suggest this is a true story. They don’t even have a name of the matron, the sailor or the boy involved. Right off the bat this story is nothing but legend. It’s been handed down for so long that people just accept it. Until some piece of evidence comes to light this story is nothing more than a farce and needs to completely discounted. For Zak and the show to make such a big deal about it with their horror effects of a child stabbing his mother with a pair of scissors all the while soaked in blood is simply ridiculous.

The investigation yields very little in the way of evidence. As you can almost predict, there is the sound of footsteps and bangs throughout. For an old building that’s clearly settling that hardly seems surprising. Zak claims to capture EVPs of the extremely faint variety, most of which don’t make any sense. "1-D" how do you put that together?

The first part doesn’t really yield much so they head over to the church where the priest was murdered. Instead of doing the investigation outside where the event took place, they go inside and sit in the pews of the church. You kind of overshot there guys…

Nick says he hears something down in the basement of the church, but they don’t actually find anything. Zak keeps claiming that he sees shadows and balls of light that indicate the presents of spirits.

When they head over to the theater they continue to get orbs moving around and Zak is firmly convinced this is spirit energy moving around and paying them a visit. While Nick hears voices and movements on the stage, Zak gets pictures of orbs out in the audience. Are these really piece of evidence? Is there more to this than just illuminated specs of dust? Whatever the case may be there is certainly no "woman in white" making an appearance on the stage and certainly no clear cut figures like the one in the photo.

In the end Zak feels the three buildings still resonate with the energy of the departed. I’m going to disagree. There is nothing to suggest the captured anything more than the sounds of a settling building and captured cars moving past the obvious building and street lights. They certainly didn’t capture the sound of a boy committing murder against his mother because that story never happened. To be honest I’m pretty disappointed they glamorized such a weak story and tried to make it sensational for television ratings.

Other Articles of Interest:

• Ghost Asylum – USS Edson – S03E01
• Haunted Collector – Haunted Island and Ghosts Of Maui – S02E12
• Ghost Adventures – Chinese Town of Locke – S12E05
• Deep South Paranormal – Got Them Lady In Black Blues – S01E03
• Paranormal State – The Jersey Devil – Season Finale
• Ghost Adventures – Hotel Metlen – S13E07
• Ghost Adventures – Sacramento Tunnels – S04E23
• Ghost Adventures – Nopeming Sanatorium – S10E07
• Ghost Adventures – Silent Movie Theater – S14E05
• Paranormal State – Bedroom Eyes – S05E13

For this episode the guys are off to Wyoming to investigate a prison with a violent history. At least that was the original intent, but by the time they actually get out there they’re doing everything but investigating the prison.

We catch up with the guys in an RV as they make their way to a prison that could have a death toll as high as 200 inmates. There are many confirmed deaths as prisoners on Death Row met their end either by hanging or the gas chamber. But there is another side to the story which speaks of prisoner on prisoner violence. There are several stories on inmates hanging each other, throwing people over the ledge and ever turning on the guards and bludgeoning them to death.

I have to say I’m confused by this investigation. Instead of focusing on the prison and the interesting albeit dark history, they end up staking out some home where odd events have been reported in the garage. We then spend the next 20 or so minutes in the library and then wandering the streets looking for the owner of the "garage" so they can look into it. What’s going on here? Do we really want to watch footage of them sitting an RV eating pretzels and farting on each other? When this sort of thing happens, my opinion of these guys drops to an all time low. Way to show professionalism guys, nice work.

Anyway, they fool around for who knows how long, get access to the garage and claim to find some phantom cat. They see some odd shadow moving in the corner of the IR camera. They also claim to see a shadow or figure in the mirror. Too bad that’s not caught on camera. However, since there are claims of something with black tentacles going after people and objects flying off the shelves you would have expected something a little more from this place. Overall they barely walked away with any interesting.

Meanwhile, Billy is at the prison listening too all the noises of the place. Here is something that really bothers me. The prison is empty, yet it makes a ton of noises. There are bangs, pops, creaks, groans and all sorts of other things. Now maybe this is some sort of paranormal activity, but more than likely this is an old ass building that makes a ton of noise as the pipes expand and contract. It seems to me these are perfectly normal noises for a building of that age. The proper thing to do would have been to run the audio for a couple of nights and see if they hear the same thing over and over again. If they do, that’s just the way the building sounds.

But… There are a couple of interesting things in the prison. I don’t know about this light or figure that Billy was chasing, but that camera twisting and falling over is odd as hell. When it first happened, I thought Billy was actually picking up the camera to take it off the tripod. It seems to move one way and then the other before it crashes to the ground.

Granted the legs could have collapsed or something with the tripod came undone, but damn that looks odd.

I also have to ask, what the hell is wrong with Nick and his flipping out when he feels something touch him on the head. I’m sorry, but he’s being doing this for how long? Why in the hell is he flipping out like that? He does this a lot. The flipped out at the Linda Vista Hospital too. He’s gonna break his damn neck if he doesn’t settle down.

To be honest this episode was odd. They come unglued in the prison, they go wayward with some secondary location, they sit around in an RV stinking up the place and they get worked over noises that sounds perfectly normal. I’d like for them to redo this investigation and give more attention to the prison and perhaps come up with a real explanation for that camera tipping over.

Other Articles of Interest:

• Ghost Adventures – Central Prison Unit in Sugarland Texas – S07E01
• Ghost Adventures – Fort Chaffee – S04E10
• Ghost Adventures – Missouri State Prison – S08E04
• Ghost Adventures – Alcatraz – S08E08
• Ghost Adventures – Nopeming Sanatorium – S10E07
• Ghost Adventures – Nevada State Prison – S12E10
• Ghost Adventures – Sacramento Tunnels – S04E23
• The Dead Files – Terror in the Shadows – S01E03
• Ghost Asylum – Castillo de San Marcos – S03E05
• Ghost Stalkers – Holmesburg Prison – S01E04

Here we have yet ANOTHER highlight reel from previous investigations. This time it’s all about haunted nightclubs including Bobby Mackey’s Music World, The Old Washoe Club, Kell’s Irish Pub, The Lyceum, Moon River Brewing Company and Excalibur Club.

Quite honestly these recap shows really getting boring. If there aren’t any new episodes, that’s fine, but this continually slicing together previous footage is getting old. When you start doing "Greatest Hits" it’s usually the precursor to retirement. Seven years has been a good run so no one can complain about that, but if that’s the route we’re going, let’s have something better than this.

Maybe this is an end of the year thing and something new will be coming once we get to the new year. Let’s hope so anyway, I’m bored as hell with what they’re doing now.

Other Articles of Interest:

• Simpsons Halloween Special XVIII
• Simpsons Treehouse of Horror XIX
• Lucifer – New Series with Tom Ellis
• The Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror XXIV
• A season of being Stranded
• Destination Truth: Season 1 – Finally on DVD!
• American Horror Story
• Killer Contact – The Hell-Fire Club – S01E04
• Paranormal Challenge – Western Virginia Penitentiary – S01E05
• America’s Most Haunted Town

Here is yet another recap show featuring Asylums, Hospitals and Institutions. The locations include Pennhurst State School, Yorktown Hospital, Ashmore Estates, Northern New Jersey Asylum, Waverly Hill Sanatorium, Linda Vista Hospital, Letchworth Village, Rolling Hills Asylum and the Old Tooele Hospital.

These recap shows don’t do much for me, but I will say this collection is uniquely disturbing and shows the sad state of treatment for mental disease that has existed in this country. The stories are shocking and the buildings themselves now come across as horrifying. I’m sure the people who put these buildings together had the best of intentions, but as well as know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It’s a very sad look back at some very disturbing places. Out of all of them, it’s hard to imagine which would have been the worst fate to end up at.

Other Articles of Interest:

• Ghost Asylum – Peoria State Hospital – S03E03
• Ghost Adventures – Dead Men Walking – S07E08
• Ghost Adventures – Pennhurst State School and Hospital
• Ghost Adventures – Lechtworth Village – S05E06
• Haunted History – Pennhurst Asylum – S01E04
• Ghost Stalkers – Springfield State Hospital – S01E02
• Ghost Adventures – Death by Wild West – S07E12
• Ghost Adventures – Passport to Hell – S07E20
• Ghost Asylum S01E02 – Kuhn State Hospital
• Paranormal Challenge – Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum – S01E07