The Ghost Adventurers will interview local witnesses and paranormal guest experts, some of whom will be on site during the lockdown, and the team will communicate with fans online via Webcams, live video chat, and text messaging, making it a truly interactive event. (Fans can also chat with the team the night before, at 11:30 PM ET at travelchannel.com.) The live event serves as a pre-season kickoff for a new round of Ghost Adventures episodes that premiere November 6. Calling in from location last week, Bagans gave Gerri Miller & Weirld.com the exclusive inside story.
Where did you get the idea for Ghost Adventures Live?
It just goes along with the passion I have for ghosts. My whole goal is to try and get people right next to me when I hunt ghosts so they can see this. There’s such a rush when it happens. I wish I could take the whole world with me when I do an investigation and this is that opportunity, to take people with us, right there. You know within fractions of a second when this stuff is happening and you have to be right there with us to see how it happens, right before your eyes.
How did you pick the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum?
We always heard about it. When you start investigating in the paranormal community you start learning about a lot of locations everywhere. We were just really attracted to the size of it, the history and how much activity is going on there, so we felt that it would be an ideal location to do a live show.
How much preparation has gone into this investigation?
A lot. Just like any other investigation we do, though, we just try and learn about the history, we try to find out people who had worked there, people that are having their own experiences with ghosts there. That all goes into the preparation but doing a live show and us being locked in there, it’s the technical Superbowl, with all the cameras we’re having inside. It’s just the three of us that operate the cameras, but for this we’re going to have robotic cameras everywhere being operated by people outside the location.
What equipment other than the cameras, recorders and infrared lights that you usually use are you taking with you for this?
Because it’s so long and so big, we want to make a big impact on the viewers by doing it live. You can’t predict activity, but we chose the location because of how much activity is going on there and we’re real confident that we’ll walk away with good stuff. But we’re going to be bringing in some other people. When you have science and scientific instruments to back you up, that moves us toward our goal of validating that ghosts exist. We have a guy named Robert Bess, who designed a Parabot, a ghost chamber that he claims can actually catch a ghost. We’ve done some research on it and it’s extremely fascinating. We hope to try it and have success with that. And we’re bringing in Mark and Debby Constantino, who specialize in EVPs [electronic voice phenomena], voices from the dead. They’re going to be rotating in and out at different intervals.
How did you get interested in ghost hunting? Did you have a personal experience?
Yes. Six or seven years ago I lived in an old historic shipyard town called Trenton, Michigan and a month after I moved in I started hearing this woman screaming my full name at three in the morning every night. And finally on the seventh or eighth night she screamed it again and I woke up. I was pretty much pinned down on my bed, like somebody was holding me down. When the pressure stopped I flipped up in bed and saw this lady standing at the foot and just staring at me. Then she disappeared right before my eyes. That’s an experience that really just lived with me from that day on and I just couldn’t ignore it. So when I met Nick in Las Vegas we decided to hit the road and do a bunch of investigations and that’s what we did.
Did you ever find out who the ghost was?
I went back three years ago to visit my dad, who lives near there and was filming outside the building. The maintenance man working there remembered me and said that a woman committed suicide inside the bathtub years before I moved in there.
Prior to that, did you have any experiences or encounters before that incident?
I was always intrigued by ghosts. I always had weird feelings going into old towns when I was a kid. I don’t have exact stories but I know that my mind back then was open to paranormal and ghosts. It did used to cross my mind when I was a kid.
Did any books or movies about the subject make an impression? Did you see Poltergeist?
Yeah, that was a freaky movie. But it didn’t really make an impression.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I love that movie.
Your investigative style is pretty confrontational and aggressive. Why is that the best approach, do you think?
That’s my personality. I’m excited when I witness this stuff right before my eyes.
The adrenaline level is pretty high.
Exactly. We’re not collecting rocks and inanimate objects. And you know, paranormal is so opinionated. It can be a very touchy subject. ‘Why did you act like this?’ ‘Why did you overreact here?’ Everybody has their own take on how they do an investigation. I know what it feels like to be scared of something, of a ghost, and when nobody listens to you, and thinks you’re crazy
So if I know that certain evil spirits that are harming the living I’ll switch gears and target that spirit only. I don’t disrespect ghosts. I respect them 100%. But if I do find out that there’s ghosts attacking people, like the elderly or women, I will use aggression to see if those attacks can happen to me and then that will validate their stories.
Of all the places that you have investigated, which was the scariest one so far?
Probably Proveglia, Italy, because I had a really bad energy overcome my body so I just didn’t feel like I was in control of myself. I felt like I was briefly possessed by some kind of dark energy and it made me act very, very weird and I don’t remember too much of it but when I watch the videos it’s very scary to watch.
Are there any supposedly haunted places that aren’t?
Yeah, I just recently did an investigation where we concluded that nothing paranormal was going on there. We pick these locations so carefully and we’re there for so long, 12 hours, with three hand-held cameras and eight regular cameras and we’re walking away with almost a 100 hours of footage to put together a 20 minute lockdown edit. We are very distinct in out methods and I feel that gives us a lot of the activity that we get. But in the new season there’s a particular location that we don’t think anything paranormal is going on there. I’d rather not say where yet.
Can you name some of the places you’re going this season?
We’ve got nine new episodes coming up. Some of the locations are Remington Arms Factory in Bridgeport Connecticut, Mansfield Reformatory, Pennhurst Hospital, Execution Rocks Lighthouse, to name a few.
You’ve shot all these?
Yes.
Which was the most interesting?
They all are. Every investigation is very exciting. I can confirm that we’ve definitely found some great evidence in some of those locations.
Do you feel any pressure to come up with some evidence each time?
No, absolutely not.
Any new updates on Bobby Mackey’s in Kentucky?
We did a live event there that was pretty cool, but we already went back for our update. I don’t particularly want to go back.
Are there any places on your to-do list that you especially want to investigate?
Yeah, maybe go overseas. There’s a place in Iraq that’s supposed to be really darkly haunted and other places all over Europe
You went to film school.
Yeah, the Motion Picture Institute, in Michigan
Was it always your intention to make documentaries about ghosts?
I just liked the documentary and journalism aspect, searching for answers, and that’s what the paranormal is all about.
Has the fame you now have changed your life or impacted the way you work in any way?
Not really other than there are a lot of people telling me I’m doing a good job, which is very rewarding.
You have a MySpace page and a fan site. Is interactivity with fans important to you?
Yeah. It’s very important, absolutely. I do it every day.
What scares you most?
Nothing aside from evil spirits trying to harm me.
Do you have any advice for new ghost hunters?
If you want to find a haunted location in your area, just Google your city, type “haunted’ and see what comes up. Get a digital recorder and try to get some EVPs. If you get a spirit voice, that is your first evidence.
