T.A.P.S on Sci-Fi

These guys were brought up briefly last night as we were BS'ing in TS. Here's a link to another message board I frequent. They're discussing them as well.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=429616

For me, this paragraph from that thread sums up my thoughts exactly:

"Honestly folks - has it occurred to any of you "believers" that these charlatans are simply lying? I saw one of these shows once. This "team" had gone into a supposedly haunted house and made audio recordings. When they played them back, they heard eerie whispering voices on them. As the shows producers busily talked about explanations for these voices, nobody brought up the obvious explanation that the the person making the recording, who was standing there at the time, made the sounds."

For me to seriously discuss this show is difficult, as I get stuck at the above point. It's a TV show, I don't know these guys at all, and it's in their best financial interest to make things interesting. I have zero reason to believe anything they say or present. Post-production fiddling with audio, computer effects on the low-res, dark images, fishing line. . .any or all of these things can be employed, and given that it's a TV show that relies on ratings to make money, I'd say they ARE used. We have only the word of TV people that they aren't, and they ARE TV people, whether they look like everyday working Joes or not. Remember, Sci-Fi network is the same one that employed John Edwards, the guy that "talked to dead people". Remember that ridiculous show that was on a year or so ago where this diverse group of morons skeptics would travel around and "investigate" mysteries? It's entertainment, but I'm unable to suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy it, let alone believe it.

So that's my 2 cents. Maybe this will spawn some messages that are of a more "fun" nature. Unfortunately, as Worf said, "I am NOT a merry man." 😀

I was a skeptic, but I have seen and heard some things that really make me want to believe.

I watched a bit of John Edwards and I hated it.

But, there is a big difference between John Edwards and TAPS.

First, John Edwards used his "abilities" to make a living. It was in his best interest to make sure people believed him no matter what because it was how he made a living.

As for the TAPS guys, they are Roto-Rooter Plumbers by day. If they made all this money doing TAPS, do you really think they would be elbow up in shit every day? :-)

Steve, the tattooed one, is a cop. I am sure he catches enough crap as it is, but his reputation is on the line as well.

Another big difference is these guys go out of their way to debunk whats going on where as a guy like Edwards goes out of his way to make you believe it is real.

The thing you have to keep in mind, is if you don't watch the show all the time, you will think they are always finding something. Unfortunately, the commercials are done in a way that leads you to believe they may have found something, so you will watch.

I've watched quite a few episodes where SciFi sold it like crazy, yet the episode was ho hum. In fact, until the last few episodes, this season has been rather disappointing.

I agree with Atomm in that these guys are not doing this for a living. They never charge anything for helping people. They have been doing it for years before the show was even on. Do they get some cash for the show, I believe so of course. I do not think it is enough to get rich on. I see they got new equipment, which they always bought themselves in the past. They got new trucks as well, I assume supplied by Sci-Fi channel but am only guessing.

But as Atomm says if they had tons of video and audio "evidence" to make better TV that would be one thing. They usually find very little, as you would expect if they were legit. Go to their web page and check them out a bit.

They are definitely more believable in their passion for the truth than most out there. They always seem to go out of their way to debunk things and do not say a place is haunted easily. I have seen things they could have VERY EASILY have shut up about and it would have made for good evidence/TV of a ghost sighting. One example is they were on the Queen Mary or some haunted ship, and they got video of a bed in a supposedly very haunted room, in which the covers actually moved on camera. They went through the video and debunked it as someone messing with them and the camera. Someone paused the camera, un-paused it, moved the sheets, and re paused it to get out or something similar. Now to be fair they could have debunked this to actually heighten their credibility of course. 🙂

As for some audio recordings or EVP's to the pro's I have seen video of them standing there asking questions to the air and we see them not saying what we hear later on. So that is a bit of an answer to what you said.

I am personally a skeptic in the end for most of this stuff but I am totally open minded to the possibility of it all.
These things are a side hobby of mine and I have read and watched a lot of items on the subject.

I tell you one example that was a bit eerie. There is another show called "Destination Truth" on Sci-Fi as well.

Josh Gates, the main guy on the show, does not really believe in ghosts etc... He searches for "any" evidence of things like big foot, the Loc Ness monster and all kinds of things. As with the other shows on Sci-Fi they also hype it up in the previews but we really find little evidence on the show. That is a good thing as far as I am concerned.

A recent show he went to a village cemetery in Taiwan I believe it was, that was reported to be very haunted. So they stayed over night in the middle of this cemetery, which is scary enough to me 🙂

They put a remote microphone in the vault that they cremated people in. The vault was on camera all of the time and completely sealed. After awhile of no sounds they heard all kinds of noises on the microphone of things moving around in this sealed vault and they heard what sounded like voices in the native tongue. Later on they asked a translator that knew nothing of what it was about to translate and she said the voices said "leave this place" and "leave now" or something like that. THAT was a bit creepy..... 🙂

I also listen to Coast To Coast AM a lot and while I am skeptical, there are a lot of stories from a lot of people that are a bit hard to simply discount as a jumping on the bandwagon thing.

I also read briefly through that thread on straight dope and a lot of people seem to agree with us. Some on there believe they are also as legitimates as one can be with an unknown, unproven subject.

I try to think of it this way. 200 years a go would the people back then believe you could take a picture of the inside of a body without opening it up? Would they think you could talk to people on the other side of the town in real time via "invisible" waves? There are a lot of things that are second nature to us now but were totally unknown in the past. There are species of fish and animals thought to be extinct that are now found.


Just because it is not proven yet does not mean it does not exist.

Of course that works both ways but I want to believe. 🙂

I recently say an episode they did on the U.S.S. Lexington. I have a personal expierence with this place. My Dad used to own a fire alarm buisness in Corpus Christi, where the Lexington is located. About 12 years ago when they brought the ship to Corpus to turn in into a museum, my dad won the bid to put a fire alarm system in the place. Since it was sunk to the bottom of the shallow bay there it is considered a standing structure and therefore needs a fire alarm system.

At the time with so many workers on the ship trying to get it ready to open to the public, my Dad has to do his work at night. On the weekends I would go and help him doing small things. Let me tell you there are some freaky things that were happening. You can hear voices all over the place. People laughing in the staterooms, but when you look in the stateroom no one is there. I was walking by a briefing room and really thought that I heard something going on in there and nothing happened.

One night my Dad and I were wrapping up our work for the night, and one of the painter's ran off the ship screaming about a ghost. Once people were able to calm him down, he told a story about a guy in a painter's outfit hi did not recognize. They guy started talking to him, and the worker thought it was just someone there to help. He needed to get some more supplies from a friend a few passages away, left to go get the things, was gone 5 minutes tops, came back and the entire wall had been painted while he was gone. This was no small wall either.

One last story. My Dad and I weren't her for this one, but he heard it from the site manager. An electrician was working below decks, and fell off one of the ladders and broke his leg. He had be yelling for help for several minutes. And no one came. After a short time a man appeared to be walking down the corridor, saw the electrician and ran and checked him out. He then ran off to get help. Minutes later his co-workers came to the scene saying someone said he was hurt. After they tended to the wounded electrician, they looked for the person who helped him and he was no where to be found. This is strange that they never found him since everyone was accounted for. You had to has a special pass to come aboard, and log in and out. There was no way to get in otherwise.

These stories are hard to verifiy. If something like this happened to a person, they were always by themselves, and could never be verified. I'm not saying this stuff was caused by ghosts, or that the ship is haunted, but it's definitely spooky working in a place like that and hearing odd noises and whatnot. Haunted, maybe, weird, definitely.

Hey Man! Nice to see you around.

I saw that episode. They didn't find a whole lot, but there were some EVP's. It's really cool to get a first hand account of the place.