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Ghost Hunters don't read the book in 'Ghost of Carnegie' on Astini News

This week's episode of Ghost Hunters takes the TAPS team to West Homestead, Pennsylvania and one of the over 3,500 libraries that steel magnate Andrew Carnegie built. Included in the building is also a music hall (not that Music Hall) and an athletic center with an enormous locker room.

As the TAPS Monster Trucks head to the location we are told about Britt Griffith being in the back seat with Maddie the Ghost Hunting dog, books falling off the shelves, shadow figures under the stage and in the locker room. As we begin the tour with Board President Daniel Lloyd we get a quick history lesson in one of the most famous union strikes in American history, the 'Homestead Strike.' You can read more about it over here on that fountain of somewhat factual information Wikipedia. In a nutshell, Pinkerton security agents went up against around 5,000 union mill workers and bad things happened, both sides said the other side shot first, the Pinkertons tried to surrender only to be taken prisoner and beaten and finally the State Militia had to step in to shut things down but only after several people (both Pinkertons and union workers) were killed. Getting the quick version of the story Jason Hawes says he wants to see if that battle still rages.

Starting out the investigation Jason and Grant Wilson take Dog the Ghost Hunter, Maddie into the music hall. With the k2 meter going off Jason manages to wave the device in front of the dog enough times that she eventually gets mad and snaps at the air to try to get him to stop it. Next they hear what Jason says is a door closing to which Grant replies that is a door opening and Jason reiterates that it was a sound of a door closing and Grant is back with claiming that it was a door opening -- When finally Jason says he doesn't know what it was doing, either opening or closing, you just know that somewhere off camera Grant is stifling the urge to scream "Opening!"

Next up is Britt, Amy Bruni and Adam Barry in the Reading Room looking for books that fall off shelves. Britt gives the front door a slam or two and Amy decides that that is too much like actual work so she sets up the laser grid pointed at the bookshelves so they can all go sit down somewhere and take it easy.

We now return to Jason and Grant, still in the Music Hall where they are sitting around and we hear what sounds like a frantic yell off in the distance loud enough that it is captured on the production cameras audio. Cutting to Amy and Britt they hear the sound as well. Commiserating over the walkies the two teams can't agree on where the sound is coming from so nobody bothers to go anywhere to try to investigate it.

Finally we join Steve Gonsalves and David Tango in the Reading Room where they finally get to take a seat. Having set up the ion generator, Steve proceeds to yell at Mr. Carnegie until he sees one of the lasers move on the grid. Inspecting what book it was pointing to it turns out to be a little number called 'Ghost Dancing.' Being amazed that the book has 'ghost' in the title apparently prevented the guys from actually reading the jacket of the book by Anna Linzer which would have shown that the book was not anything paranormal but instead is a collection of stories about Native Americans. Oh, scary!

Calling the investigation the team begins analysis and we are told that the camera in the Reading Room wasn't able to record the laser points so there is no proof that one of the lasers actually moved, the team also plays a 'giggle' heard in the locker room by Jason and Grant which is quite loud but yet indistinct.

During the reveal the client is told about the door opening versus the door closing noise and the 'Ghost book' laser show. They play the giggle in the locker room and the yell that was heard by the two teams although they do not offer a possibility of what was being said. Ending out the location Jason declares that the place has some activity happening and Grant offers that 'you don't feel alone, but you don't feel threatened.'

The second investigation of the evening's episode the Ghost Hunters team remains in Homestead, Pennsylvania and meets up with Tango's dad, Bruce Tango. Some of my favorite episodes of Ghost Hunters have included Bruce and it was a pleasure to see Syfy bring him back this season for another case!

Because the investigation was brought to the team's attention by Bruce we are given the downlow on the location by Tango instead of Amy as the Monster Trucks drive through rural Pennsylvania frightening no small number of Amish buggy drivers in their travels.

Tango tells us we are headed to a police department building that used to be a post office and is no longer being used. There were so many experiences of paranormal activity that the police chief had anyone that had experiences in the building email himself and the mayor and 'they got a lot of emails.' He tells us about Jail cells opening and closing, footsteps and 3 suicides that took place in the cells.

Meeting up with Bruce and Chief of Police Jeffrey Desimone we are given a tour of the building as he tells us that he has found that 2/3 of everyone in the building has had some type of experience. We are told about the front doors opening, slamming noises, banging pipes and a shadow in the basement.

Jason and Grant head up the investigation where they hear someone 'walking with keys' and when Jason yells hello, they receive an answer as a voice yells hello back. In what I hope was just an error in judgment when they cut this scene together, it looks like the guys don't even attempt to track down the 'hello' and move instantly into a door slamming session to try to debunk the stories about the front door to the place. The whole thing was just odd and awkward. They literally spent a full minute or more on the door slamming and maybe 3 seconds looking for something that yelled 'hello' from the recesses of the building. Awesome.

Steve, Tango and Bruce head off to the jail cells where instantly Steve yells at the entities asking if they feel any remorse having offed themselves. Bruce and Tango are so mortified that Steve would be so rude they head off to one of the back cells and find a shot gun shell which they drop repeatedly and say that that was a sound that they had heard.

Amy and Britt head to the basement and try to debunk the shadow person seen by the meter reader and they decide that it was a reflection cast in the plastic covering over the meter itself although nothing is specified that this was where the shadow was spotted. Soon they hear banging on the pipes as was claimed by the client only to call upstairs and find that it is indeed Tango and Bruce banging their heads against the pipes in an attempt to get Steve to stop yelling rude stuff at the ghosts.

In a typically adorable Bruce Tango interview we hear him say that he had fun and that he's proud because now his son is teaching him investigative techniques. This is exactly why I love Bruce! What an awesome guy. Hopefully he'll be back on the show again very soon (ahem…. Halloween might be an option here! Hint hint!)

During the analysis and reveal they tell the Police Chief about the shot gun shell noise although it's not on camera, they play the non-investigated 'hello' and they mention that they debunked the shadow in the basement as being something that they totally made up. In an attempt to get out of there as quickly as possible Jason and Grant neither really mention if they believe the place is haunted or not and it's a fist bump and on to the next. Wow.

Ok. I am going to start with the fact that you can certainly tell that we are in the middle of the Ghost Hunters half-season because frankly this episode had a whole lot of 'not much.' The locations weren't that spectacular and the evidence certainly wasn't anything to write home about never mind to spend an hour watching on television.

Oddly the 2 pieces of audio that were caught that I felt were the most compelling things found during the investigations seemed to be almost skipped over in the actual 'ghost hunting' portion of the show. Neither the 'frantic yell' heard at the Carnegie Library nor the 'hello' heard in the Homestead Police Department were given very much air time, instead they spent a plethora of precious seconds slamming doors and discussing book titles. I'd give this Ghost Hunters episode a 4 on the scale of 1-5 and the only reason it didn't rank rock bottom at number 5 is because of Bruce Tango. If it comes down to watching this rerun of Ghost Hunters or the episode from 'Man, Woman, Wild' where the woman finally tells her husband what an annoying pompous ass he is, I say go for the MWW episode. Okay, so for some reason that woman hasn't told her husband where to stick his leech-infested, urine-drinking television show yet. But she should. Any day now.

I'll see you back here next week on Monday with the sneak peek video of what I'm sure can only be a better episode than this one of Ghost Hunters. In the meantime you can follow me on Twitter, I'm @lmerwin on there and I swear, I'm not always this mean. Well. Most of the time.

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