Eastern State Evidence

[PPI Brian]

TAPS calls this clip one of the most controversial video clips they ever captured. I know they spent a lot of time trying to duplicate it, but they were unable to do so.

What do you all think? Is it a Full Body Apparition?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kibyJGRWpkY

[lkasak]

I thought when I first saw it on the show that there was no way it wasn't a full bodied. Now, with the help of You Tube, I have no idea what to make of it. It is so solid, yet moves so unnaturally. I really can't determine either way! I wonder if if will go down as one of those incredibly famous pranks that our grandkids will look back on and think "How the hell did they think this was real?"

[PPI Karl]

I respect the thoroughness the TAPS team must have used to try to discount this evidence, and I know that many, many personal experiences at the prison include accounts of black shadow figures.  (Even Britt had one of these while he was there.  Ask him about it.)  However, every fiber of my being says this particular footage is a prank.  It's a man in a black coverlet walking backward out of the darkness, counting his steps, and then walking forward again back into it.  (Counting the same number of steps forward permits him not to walk into the wall that's waiting for him down the catwalk.  It's not really all that difficult.  Anyone who's studied ballroom dance or even tai kwon do knows how to use forms of movement to navigate precisely through the dark.)  I know it's easy for me to say this without going there myself and trying to reproduce it in this way, and that's why I keep my humility in check with this particular footage.  But I still think it's a hoax, possibly initiated by someone at Pilgrim (because a hoax would obviously lie far outside the integrity of the TAPS group), and it makes me angry to think that it might be one--just as angry as I got about the prank at the Queen Mary with the bedspread.

[johnny]

I really enjoyed the GH episodes and the Live special TAPS filmed there then ran across this Most Haunted episode at Eastern State Pen. live for the premier of the 5th season of the show that aired 9/11/2004.  Looks like at least 30 parts to this as this was a 6 hour live special.  The last part i could find so far is   Most Haunted Live! USA pt30- The Crew Speaks.  Here's the start


Most Haunted USA! Live pt1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc0_QY9Bobo

ok, so far... a jumping ouiji table with alleged activity, the parapsychologist finds a green fog on the thermal imager during heightened activity (pt21), tons of things being thrown at them all through part 15(probably pranksters), rain, thunder and lighting causing lights to seem like they flash across a room (besides the creepiness of the place and weather).  They play with marbles, notes bound to rocks, etc... all pretty theatrical.. but their accounts of shadows and voices seem somewhat credible.  The knocking of answers is tough to decide on.  The parapsychologist even seems creeped out by the place but skeptical of everything and the only thing unexplained he states in pt21 is the scratches that appear on Karl's arm.  

[bellalaghoste]

i love eastern state pen... we need more investigations here.  It will be so rad!!!!

[ttjoon]

TAPS calls this clip one of the most controversial video clips they ever captured. I know they spent a lot of time trying to duplicate it, but they were unable to do so.

What do you all think? Is it a Full Body Apparition?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kibyJGRWpkY

This clip has really made the rounds.  What is so clear to me when I watch this (and I have watched this many times both on tv and the web) is that you can plainly see a pant leg and what looks like a sock and shoe, when the figure turns and retreats.  To me, it is as plain as day.  My 8 year old even said, "Mom..you can see the pants!"  I truly am amazed that this was actually taken seriously as evidence.  As with the stunt that was pulled at the Queen Mary with the covers looking as if they had moved down the bed and it ended up being a case of someone playing a prank and tampering with the camera , I think this is just more of the same; that being someone clearly trying to make something look like paranormal evidence when it is nothing of the sort.

That's my 3 cents, for what it is worth.   

[MichaelF (FPIE)]

I always thought that I saw a shoe and pantleg as it turned as well.  The thing about that whole footage was that I had to make a choice.  Did I believe that Jason and Grant were real, or did I believe that they had sold out for TV purposes.  If they were for real, they had to have seen the same thing I did and tried to debunk the hell out of it.  Remember that a pantleg and shoe will look sort of different on infrared.  If I trusted them, they would have had to try to debunk it.  If they had "sold out," would they have let something so stupid like a shoe leak through to question their credability? 

In the end, I chose to keep my trust in TAPS alive and give them the benefit of the doubt that they debunked it.

[ttjoon]

I always thought that I saw a shoe and pantleg as it turned as well.  The thing about that whole footage was that I had to make a choice.  Did I believe that Jason and Grant were real, or did I believe that they had sold out for TV purposes.  If they were for real, they had to have seen the same thing I did and tried to debunk the hell out of it.  Remember that a pantleg and shoe will look sort of different on infrared.  If I trusted them, they would have had to try to debunk it.  If they had "sold out," would they have let something so stupid like a shoe leak through to question their credability? 

In the end, I chose to keep my trust in TAPS alive and give them the benefit of the doubt that they debunked it.

The only question in my mind is how it could materialize out of thin air so quickly and then in a second, be gone.  They were using an IR camera that went straight to the dvr.  It wasn't like the Queen Mary, where they set up a handheld (high 8, I think) that could be paused and then started again.  Steve, Tango, Jason and Grant really hammer the heck out of evidence and there are so many things that get thrown out.  I don't think they are sell outs by any stretch of the imagination.  Their reputations are on the line constantly.  This clip is so puzzling because it is almost explainable, yet it's not.  Perhaps it would look different when on a large screen, but to me, I still see what appears to be a pant leg on the left as it turns and retreats.  But where did it just appear from and how is it gone in one second flat? 

Anyone else have any theories at all?

[MichaelF (FPIE)]

To me, it's "appearance" is far more realistic then it's vanishing.  If you watch the railing closely as it appears, it seem's to move in slowly and form out of the air.  If it wasn't for that dang pant leg affect, I would have no problem believing it.  I saw a similiar black cloud once and it looked a lot like that.