Ghost Hunters Recap Episode 5.20: Ghost of Buffalo Bill

Posted by Ron Martin on 11.04.2009

Don't let the name on the marquee fool you, it's not just Buffalo Bill we're looking for. TAPS is joined this week by a special guest from Warehouse 13 as Clown Team gets all ghost huntery in preparation for their new show. Who will survive?

Halloween has come and gone and here we are to wallow in the leftovers.

I am sure all of you know by now, that the "LIVE special" was just about what we thought it was going to be. A mix of episodes with some "LIVE" interaction between segments. Josh Gates was tapped (and looking much warmer this year) to host these little segments. From the half an hour or so I saw in the background it looks as if there were gratuitous previews of other shows as well, especially the upcoming Ghost Academy. As promised, they showed glimpses of live feed from inside Essex Hospita, so I'm assuming the internet was full of live feeds. Whether or not Ghost Academy investigated inside, I do not know. I did see Tango and Steve with Josh at one point, so I know at least those guys were there. I'm not one to hang out in front of the TV on Halloween, nor am I one to record seven hours of episodes I've already seen.

I did see a bit of the Ghost Adventures LIVE show. From what I saw, it was pretty well done. It had that "LIVE" feel to it that I like in my shows. I did grimace when they brought in Chris Fleming. The show was pretty much par for what my experiences with Ghost Adventures have been. Pretty good and way overdramatic.

From early ratings, it looks as if the show did fairly well anyways. I guess there's that hardcore audience for the show that I talk about in my "A Fool's Utopia" column this week.

Enough about Halloween, on to this night's episode of…



On this episode of Ghost Hunters
TAPS checks out all things Buffalo Bill – and they got Pete from Warehouse 13! By the way, Warehouse 13 = great show. You need to be watching it. I be they school Pete on how to hear footsteps. Amy and Kris are all kinds of freaked out in many rooms. They are going somewhere else and they try to trick us into thinking Steve and Tango encounter a ghost, but I can tell Steve's "scared from a spider" look and that's the look he has today.

Alpha Team talks of all the cool Buffalo Bill things, in which Grant lists a gift shop in lieu of his recent stand (Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast) that no place with a gift shop could be haunted. Alpha Team tells of their "good friend" Eddie McLintock (Pete – and I have no idea if that's how you spell his name). It's amazing how many good friends Jason and Grant have. Amy seems excited, but I bet she's never even seen the show. Watch the show, Amy! It's good. Kris tells of ghosts as she drives because she knows no other way. She is sporting glasses and the wavy hair today. I could probably tell you the order the locations were filmed in just based on Kris's hair, but I don't really care enough to do that kind of research.

At the location Grant greets Eddie like they went to high school together. Eddie claims to be a complete non-believer. Hope you believe in footsteps, Eddie. And don't leave your water in the bathroom, dude.

Case #1: Buffalo Bill Museum, Golden, Colorado

The Investigation
They never find anything in these "famous haunting" cases. I'd be surprised if they do here. Eddie gets to go on the tour with Betsy, because he is VIP. Betsy spouts off some reason as to why she called TAPS. I heard "Our tourism will more than double because of this free advertising." Can't say I blame her. We get a short history of Mr. Bill (Buffalo that is, not the little clay guy who gets beat up by Sluggo). It actually looks like a pretty cool little museum. The janitor claims to be touched by the ghost because Bill likes things dirty. Jason is wearing TAPS this week. He is probably angry because Eddie is wearing a Warehouse 13 hat. In the dining area, people hear lots of conversation. There is no discussion on whether or not the conversation is coming from actual customers eating in the dining room. Eddie gets all crazy and asks about earthquakes. Jason shuts him up quick with "So where to now?" No one says "So where to now?" like Jason. NO ONE!!

Grant is talking while Amy gets everything prepared. I say Amy because literally she is the only person they show setting stuff up. Eddie makes a bad "skeleton in my closet" joke and give a quick smile when it doesn't go over well. That's right, Eddie, you're pretty. This is his first ghost hunt, by the way.

LIGHTS OUT! – the all Kris version.

It should be noted that Jason has switched to pimping The Spalding Inn at his point instead of TAPS. Eddie hangs out with Alpha Team because they don't let the other talk to the celebrities. They immediately go to the gift shop so that Grant can prove once and for all that no place with a gift shop is haunted….except for those that are. They immediately try to debunk the whole dolls falling off the wall deal by saying it's a giant air conditioner. Eddie is fascinated with the thermal and sees enough to give him his first ever…

COMMERCIALS.

Grant is still going on about the heater/air things while Eddie comes back freaked out and admits the room made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Everyone admits that it's colder in the creepy room. Grant explains that high EMFs might be why Eddie is all creeped out. They use the K-II to prove this. So the lights on the K-II are going crazy. How do we know this is because of EMF and not because some ghost lit the lights up? Have I ever mentioned how useless a K-II meter is? Especially when the team consistently undermines what it is actually suppose to be proving. I think I have, let's move on. There some sort of tower outside causing high EMFS.

Clown Team is on the ground where Tango admits to slipping and sliding on sand. Hmmm….interesting how slippery that sand is. Tango brings us a pretty good theory that people might be getting embarrassed from slipping and call it a ghost to save face because they heard the place was haunted. That's almost real ghost hunting and Steve will have none of that so the starts talking to the ghost. They hear some sort of animal in the distance, but it quickly turns into footsteps. I bet they will get admonished by Jason for hearing footsteps before him. Turns out its flag flapping in the wind.

Chick Team is in the actual museum. Again, somehow Kris has the info and has to explain to Amy things that have happened in the room. Does Amy sleep through these meetings or something? Amy asks the ghost for a quick tour. It's after hours, so that's not going to happen. They're kind of letting Bill know that all his stuff is here just for everyone to see. They hear something that Amy says sounds like something hitting the glass. Have you never seen Night at the Museum? Obviously the mannequins inside are coming to life! They can't figure out what made the sound and even though I totally expected Amy to give TAPS company line #43, she fooled me and fooling me is not nice!

Eddie escaped from Alpha Team and is with Clown Team in the gift shop. Maybe he refused to leave. There has been mist and black masses in this area. There's a totally hilarious cut where Tango just says "Steve, Eddie and I were investigating." I am really glad Tango cleared that up. He also says that he and Steve just do common sense type stuff while they are investigating. I guess I have a new definition of common sense that includes playing kitchen pots and pans as if in a band, running from spiders and betting each other to eat bugs.

Chick Team is in the museum still where Kris is still schooling Amy on the lowdown. Lots of EMFs near the electrical outlet, who knew? They hear a voice from offscreen and score one for Chick Team.

COMMERCIALS.

Kris things the noise might be coming from vents, but Amy is still creeped out. She is creeped out because she hasn't felt the phantom spiderweb for awhile. Out of the blue, they decide it's something on the roof and just drop it. Ooookay.

Clown Team is in the museum talking about a white mist being blowed in their face. Buffalo Bill smoke ‘em peace pipe? Something they can impart on their students next week, they sit on opposite sides of a bench facing opposite directions. Way to cover all angles, boys. Tango seems to have given up but gives a play on Company Line #43.

Alpha Team wants to go to a tower to see what the EMF readings are out there. As they expected, lots of EMFs. Jason wants none of it. Time to boot. Eddie says he's learning stuff, but he's so totally going to gloat about them not finding anything.

Eddie claims to be an honorary TAPS member. Not until Jason says so, bucko!

The Findings
Okay, the producer of the show must read this column and put in The Findings just to get to me, right? Group discussion where the only event that took place was the whole Chick Team with the museum windows deal. Oddly enough, Amy is not present here. Was she in California when they filmed this? They have some sort of EVP that sounds like something sucking…literally not figurative. Grant says no go. Kris found something interesting enough during the research to take us to commercials before we find out because we're not cool enough.

The Reveal
Betsy is not going to be happy. They immediately debunk the doll thing while still leaving it possible that it could be paranormal. Jason brings up the EMF towers. Eddie is not present here. Back to the warehouse with him! They discuss what we already know about EMFs to Betsy. Jason says it effects the equipment and that they can't investigate properly until they can break the EMF wall. Kris's big surprise is that someone hung themselves there. They finally messed up a voiceover! Grant talks – its obviously a voiceover, but you can see his lips moving on screen obviously saying something else. If Joe Chin were here there would be a battle to the death! That's a battle you will not win, Grant. Betsy says the tower is coming down because Jason says so.

Betsy is disappointed and brings up the fact that TAPS promised to come back. They're not coming back, Betsy.

Cartalk. Great investigation. Fistbump.

Case #1: Oakland Hall, Eatonton, Georgia

Ah, it's an ever so despised second location! Kris is back with straight hair and glasses this time. Why does she wear glasses sometimes and contact sometimes? WHY?!!!! I figured out why Amy never knows what's going on. She's always staring out the window when Kris is giving the info. By the way, that is not Oakland Hall in the picture, just an Antebellum style home.

The Investigation
Tanya is our tour guide for this antebellum house. I only know that because Tanya says so. General Sherman was supposed to have stayed in the house. Oh! They have a couch very similar to mine. I have antebellum furniture! Whooo!! The TV goes on and off and bulbs explode in lamps. Jason is amazing with his "So Where To Now?" There are shadows giving off phantom smells and another blonde lady confirms this. There's a rocking horse upstairs that plays hide and seek with the owners. On top of all that, there is little girl haunting the place. This is no place for a little ghost girl!

Jason pretty much goes over the entire plot of the show. Thanks, buddy.

LIGHTS OUT! A little of everyone.

Clown Team gets first cut in the attic. Jason will not be happy. He is already not happy because he is far away from home. The Jason In His Own Bed Meter reads 3. Not good. Steve loses a staring contest with the rocking horse. They hear something enough for…

COMMERCIALS.

There's something supposedly grunting in the walls of the attic. They are trying to figure out where it is beast or ghost…or ghost of beast. They can't figure it out, so they move on.

Jason, very monotone-like, tells us they are going to the attic because "Steve and Tango had an experience up there." They have no interest in checking out Clown Team's experience, however. Instead they concentrate on the horse and get all indignant about someone trapping a handicapped girl in the room. They last about five minutes before they get bored and move on.

Chick Team wants to check out the staircase where everyone gets sick and see shadows. Kris looks like she would rather be anywhere but here. Kris goes through a checklist of EVP questions like she's a telemarketer going through the same spiel for the hundredth time today. She is diddling the K-II around. Wow, can you be more bored? She gives TAPS Company Line #43 and we are out.

Clown Team is in the hallway looking for a misty, black figure. Steve does a better job at EVP on the staircase (wow, you know you're in trouble when Steve does a better EVP session). Steve stands at the bottom of the staircase to both "get in the way" and stand where the even occurred. There is really suspenseful music playing…and it leads to nothing.

Alpha Team is in the TV room. They turn the TV on "to research." They also turn the air conditioner on to see if its what is drawing power away from the TV…and the TV goes off.

COMMERCIALS.

Jason was surprised when all the power in the room went out. They follow the plug ins and extension cords failing to see the attack of Josh Gates in the bottom left corner! He did it! He turned everything off! Something jerked the cord completely out of the wall. Jason says they could have done it on accident, but an electrician needs to be called.

Jason says about 60% of the problems can be explained as possible electrical problems. They are calling an electrician.

The Analysis
Now we're back to analysis? For the love of….! There is six minutes left in the show, there' can't be much. Wow! Clown Team must have been extra good this year because they get Alpha Team to help them with the analysis for Christmas this year. They get something, but again we are not cool enough to know what it is until the…

The Reveal
They had an electrician check the house out and he found a lot of volts coming into the house – way too many. He also explained the exploding light bulb. They tell the whole TV going off story complete with cord coming out of the outlet. Apparently, the cord is very loose in the outlet and anything can cause the connection between the two to break and eventually pick back up. They then move to the noise in the attic, but have no explanation for it. Now the EVP with Clown Team. It's really pretty creepy – like a whisper. Everyone thinks it's saying "It's something." Once again, they are wishy washy on whether or not this place is haunted. They will not commit either way.

Tanya is happy with the fact that they didn't rule out a haunting.

Cartalk. Great investigation. Fistbump.

Fin.

Overall:
I am guessing these two locations were not filmed near each other in the order but were tossed together and put on tonight because Destination Truth has a big show tonight. If Ghost Hunters had no activity, Josh Gates will pick up the slack.

Other than that, it was two pretty dead locations. Tonight's show was more about showing off Eddie and TAPS debunking skills. They actually did a pretty good job debunking what they could, however, because of that we didn't get a lot of actual ghost hunting. Clown Team is trying to work their way back into my good graces by attempting ghost hunting again after and entire season and a half of doing anything but that. We'll see.

I think they mixed up THE FINDINGS and THE ANALYSIS just to mess with me personally. Yes, the producer is messing with a national show just to grate me. Nice!

Until next week kids, where I am sure we will see plenty of Steve and Tango as a precursor to the Ghost Academy premiere.

Later.