"We're TAPS. We're here to help."

What is this, you ask? I need to give you a little background first before you understand it.



Well, I saw something that was really aggravating. Wednesday's episode Ghost Hunters followed the usual format. First haunting confirmed, second one, make the family look like idiots to prove how "scientific" you are.

Balls, Jay. You are dirt, Grant.

So, apparently the husband from the second case was not happy with how his wife was portrayed. Here is what he wrote on the SyFy board in response to the humiliating treatment he received. (Please note that I am not vouching for the paranormal, but I am vouching for fair treatment of people who are genuinely concerned about things they have not been able to explain.)

Hello Folks,

My name is Leigh Macneil, I am the home owner of the house that was investigated in the second half of the episode. I am very angry with the way the production portrayed my wife and our claims. This episode was totally manipulated to paint us in a negative light and give credibility to the first half of the show:

#1: Complete hack job, they completely manipulated our case to offer creditbility to their goofy findings in the first half.
#2: They did not use any of the physical evidence offered by the paranormal group that originally investigated the house to justify their visit, which BTW we were approached though the New Hampshire Paranormal group.
#3: The clock radio went off 2X in the four years we have lived there and for the record it went off closer to 3am. In order for the radio to turn on,volume to max and open the top CD part you need to hit 3 separate buttons and the default time was always set at 12:00AM. They unplugged the radio and put it in the middle of the room on top of a hamper and it was all of a sudden set to go off at 2:00AM!!!! I have reason to believe that they purposely set the clock to go off at 2:00AM.
#4: They also neglected to include the interviews of my neighbors and the evidence presented by New Hampshire Paranormal(Supposed TAPS family)
#5: This thing about fear and my daughter was a complete joke, we were never fearfull of anything we love it here.
#6: They completely cut out all the claims(And there were a lot) that they could not debunk!
#7: We gave the below listed image to Grant to debunk and he was blown away by it according to him and could not give us any explaination behind it. We also gave him a file of an EVP recorded with a video camera during the first NHP investigation as well, with no answers!!



Heres the back story of the image:

Two of my wifes students were dog sitting for us one weekend and one girl took a picture of the other with her cell phone and this strange image appeared in the photo. This girl did not know anything about our house(Nobody did!!) and did not know the ghost hunters had been there to film. When my wife anounced to her class (She is a High School Teacher) about the show the girl freaked and pulled my wife asside right there and showed her this picture, she did not have any time to photoshop it either. So check this out and tell me what you think:

If you can't view the image attached search my name on facebook the picture is in my profile

Thanks guys for making my wife look stupid, who BTW has more inteligence in her finger nail than the entire production crew put together!!

Thanks,

Leigh Macneil

VictoriaHelene followed up:

We just come here to talk/gripe about the show. Jason and Grant know what we say but you won't get answers from them here. Welcome to the forums. Grab a drink, pull up a chair, and stay awhile. I hope you will not mind the 4,000 questions you are going to get.

Did you have to sign anything that said you could not say anything negative about GH?

Would you be offended if I contact the first set of investigators?

It does not take long to hoax a photo and the face looks like the girl.

To which came the reply:

We signed a lot of stuff, don't remember, don't care. That episode made our claims look ridiculous.

Im sure the New Hampshire Paranormal group would field your questions.

I checked that, if you zoom into it there are features that don't match.. However, that was my first thought as well

Good for you! This is very important. People who are victims of these pathetic hacks need to call them out and put them in their place. Contracts become invalid when they commit fraud. I think. :/

They also deleted the part of the reveal where they said "If your daughter acquires imaginary friends, call us right away because they won't be imaginary." Now does that sound like it came from people who did not believe our house had paranormal activity????

What I read (thanks, Animala!) ends with the following comment:

You know Im just wishing we never did this. I was only on there for 5 seconds, I feel mostly for my wife because it made her look so ridiculous. Anyone that knows my wife knows that she is a very level headed and logical person and this episode just makes her look the opposite.

Excellent point. I strongly suspect, as you have found out the hard way, that these people are not on your side. Call in some skeptics. I would recommend someone like Ben Radford. Here's an example of his work. They would be fair and respectful, and I think a real skeptic would be able to approach your situation without an agenda. Well, besides possibly putting the squeeze on TAPS.

BTW: I found that it is possible to take double exposures on some digital cameras, but I'm not convinced that we're not looking at pareidolia. I base this on the following comparisons, to give a sense of how vague the image is, regardless of how it was caused:

In one, the face really pops out at you. In the other, treated exactly the same way, the face vanishes. This suggests to me that, in fact, one is real, the other is a product of our very, very convincing tendency to see faces where there are none. Pareidolia is a well understood psychological phenomenon.

Good luck, guys! I hope that you get someone in there who is able to help and not treat you like their own personal cash cow. I will send this to the Skeptics' Circle to see that your story gets as wide circulation as is possible!

HJ