I have a new paranormal favourite.
My biggest complaint about a series like Paranormal State or Ghost Hunters is that when it comes to actually documenting ghosts on the move or a door slamming closed, the evidence is pretty thin.
Everything happens off-camera and what evidence is collected seems to get quickly glossed over.
Not so with Ghost Lab, which ironically comes from the same production company as Paranormal State does.
Burly brothers Brad and Barry Klinge of Texas are an IT expert and special needs teacher by day, and paranormal investigators by night. The duo have been in search of spooks and spectres since 1990, when Brad (or maybe it’s Barry, they are hard to differentiate) captured a group of Civil War soldiers walking in formation through a field. As he got closer to them, they vanished.
Now they head up Everyday Paranormal, a group who investigates general creepiness all over the U.S.
What sets the Klinge’s apart from Ryan Buell of PS is their equipment. They have a nine-foot trailer tricked out with high-tech devices that capture every scratch, scream or furtive movement so that they can analyse it later. Using surveillance cameras that can shoot in the dark from over 90 metres away, data loggers, audio recorders and more than 2,000 of video cable, the Everyday Paranormal blankets a haunted building so that nothing is left undiscovered. (An additional check in Ghost Labs' column is that Dirty Jobs' Mike Rowe narrates.)
That comes in handy in the first one-hour episode of the 13-instalment first season. The Klinge’s head to Shreveport, Louisiana, to the Shreveport Municipal Auditorium where Elvis Presley launched his career, doors slam and voices whisper, “They saw the light.” Then it’s off to Myrtles Plantation, the most haunted home in the U.S., where cold spots and the giggling of little kids are caught on camera.
It’s freaky stuff, and I’m addicted.
Ghost Lab debuts Saturday, Feb. 13 at 11 p.m. ET/8 p.m. PT on Discovery
greg@tvguide.ca
Follow Greg on Twitter
Take a look behind the scenes of the TV world with Nuts & Bolts
Follow TV Guide Canada on Facebook!