PARANORMAL INVESTIGATORS . . . REALLY?

I'm veering off my personal recounts of Cowboy Bob on this post to vent a little.  I was flipping through channels last night and paused on a repeat episode of "Ghost Hunters" for a few minutes, but quickly went back to channel surfing.  They insulted my intelligence.  Is it just me, or are these shows actually hindering mainstream acceptance of the paranormal?  You know, I'll admit it.  I've gotten sucked in more than once.  And unashamedly I will tell you that I've seen some very strange, unexplainable snippets from several of the paranormal investigator shows like "Ghost Hunters" and "Ghost Adventures."  I haven't tuned in to the new ones, such as "The Dead Files," "Destination Truth" or "Paranormal Witness," because, frankly, the first two I mentioned eventually gave me 'paranormal overload.' And then there are those shows which actually make me nauseous . . . especially "Scariest Places On Earth" and "Most Haunted."  

I'll get to them in a minute, but first let's talk about the prevailing idiocy of these shows in general.  The team goes in to supposedly secure and investigate a building the size of Titanic, then has the nerve to act surprised when they find out someone is screwing with them in the name of promoting tourism for their commercial venture.  Or they try to convince themselves, and ergo we the audience, that we're actually hearing spirits reaching out in the form of a plate dropping on the floor in the kitchen, or a door slamming from another room.  Right.  Are we supposed to believe that something the size of the mega-floored and wide-open Waverly Sanitarium in Kentucky, as an illustration, couldn't have some very alive-and-kicking self-promoters slipping in the back door to rattle a few chains, drop that plate or slam that door?  

Did anyone see the episode (I believe it was Ghost Hunters) where the team was investigating a huge ship, perhaps the Queen Mary, and they thought they'd captured a bed comforter folding down all on its own? They were so excited one of them might've done a handspring.  Upon closer inspection of the film, however, they figured out that someone had come in and time-lapsed the video camera while the team was investigating a different part of the ship, pausing the camera between takes as they ran over and moved the comforter down the bed a little more each frame.  Well, hello! If the site can't be completely secured from outside influences,  what's the point?  Some sites that these shows investigate are so vast and open the whole town could creep in and start dancing a jig on the floor above the investigators in the time it takes the team to set up their equipment.  Now on to my most dreaded of this genre:

"Scariest Places On Earth" has Zelda Rubenstein (Tangina from "Poltergeist" fame) doing voice-overs in that nasally, SSSLLLOOOOWWWWW drawl of hers that, like nails scraping on a chalkboard, makes me cringe and cover my ears.  Not even Linda Blair's perkiness can drag me back to the channel after Zelda's whiny narrative.  Meh. And then there's "Most Haunted," a British paranormal team headed by Yvette Fielding, who lock themselves up in supposedly haunted buildings for a night, but the minute a mouse farts they all jump and scream like banshees, especially her with that shrill, bloodcurdling shriek, dropping their cameras, running into each other.  God help them if anything ever really came out of the shadows- they'd wet themselves. AND, Yvette has admitted some of their scenes were faked.  Horrors!

That screaming-at-the-drop-of-a-hat theme pervades on several shows I've seen.  They come up with this brilliant money-making reality television show premise, to be God's gift to paranormal investigating, until something actually happens.  Then you don't hear a word for several seconds because they have to 'bleep' out all the cussing and the screaming like little girls.  Personally, I think the guys who keep their heads the best are the team from TAPS, (The Atlanta Paranormal Society) who do their stuff on Ghost Hunters.    Maybe it's because they've been doing paranormal investigating for so long.  Or  maybe it's because they're Roto-Rooter plumbers by day.  Perhaps their day job grounds them in a little reality . . . steels them for the horrific at night.  After all, having to deal with that much crap during the day, it stands to reason you won't take crap from anybody else at night, no matter what dimension they're slinging poo at you from.  What are your opinions on these shows? Seen any clip that has really knocked your socks off?  Made you stop and think, "Yeah, maybe . . ."  I'd love to have you post comments; so it's not just me flapping my gums!  I'm just sayin' . . .  Later, friends!