Ghost Nation
Premiering October 11, 2019—the same year as the Ghost Hunters reboot—Ghost Nation is Ghost Hunters, just with a new name.
After Ghost Hunters ended its original run, TAPS team members Jason Hawes (TAPS Co-founder), Steve Gonsalves, and Dave Tango established the United Paranormal Research Organization (UPRO) in order to bring together teams from across the country under a unified set of paranormal investigation methodologies.
The Mission Statement of Ghost Nation is outlined in the first episode—They’re traveling the country to help UPRO member groups with their most difficult and dangerous cases. Their goal is to standardize paranormal investigation and help their clients feel safe and comfortable in their own homes.
Format
Ghost Nation follows a fairly strict format—they start out on their way to the next investigation where they’ve been contacted by a UPRO member with a case that they have not been able to solve. In most cases, the experiences are extreme or violent and the paranormal group doesn’t have the experience to tackle themselves. Once they introduce the case, they meet with the investigator who contacted them to get more specific details about why the case is so difficult and to be introduced to the clients. Once the clients are introduced, the investigators are given first-hand experiences along with a tour of the property and the hotspots that coincide with the reported paranormal activity. After they’ve completed the tour, the clients leave the property for five days while Jason, Steve, Dave, and the local investigator get to work.
The Investigation
The investigation has all of the familiar parts. Wandering through a reportedly haunted property throughout the night with infrared night-vision cameras, taking EMF and temperature readings, using tools to communicate with the entities nearby, and doing historical research to find out who used to live in the home, how many deaths occurred on the property, and whether any nearby events may have caused enough trauma to cause a haunting.
In true Ghost Hunters fashion, they do their fair share of “debunking” by trying to find alternate causes to activity both that’s been reported to them and that they’ve experienced themselves. In one instance (Season 1, Episode 6: The House At Deadman’s Curve) they are able to find that there is an animal living in the walls of the home by using a thermal camera to locate a warm spot that they are also able to feel. In this case, they’re able to determine that it’s most likely this animal making noises that is grabbing the client’s cat’s attention rather than something paranormal.
Analysis
Let’s start with the UPRO.
It’s a great idea to develop a set of standardized methodologies and resources for paranormal groups to tap into and use in order to investigate cases of paranormal activity and help their clients. The main issue with this, though, is that the methods are less-than-scientific since there is no way to reliably measure the results or repeat a particular method to test its efficacy. While there are problems inherent in the methods popularized by paranormal investigation groups and on ghost hunting shows, the goal of creating a set of standards is a good start.
One area where there is room for some improvement is in the “research” performed in each episode. In one instance—Season 1, Episode 2: “A Nightmare in the Nursery”—Dave heads to a local historical museum where he comes across a map showing the old Native America trails that passed through the area. Based on what was shown in the episode, from this encounter the team determines that the haunting could very well be Native American and possibly because a burial mound was disturbed nearby.
This is a stretch. Based on this, you could argue that any haunting in North America is due to Native Americans having been present in the area or something Native American was disturbed nearby. Another issue with this is that not all mounds created by Native Americans were for burials and there didn’t seem to be any research performed regarding what mounds were in the area—it’s stereotyping to call all Native American mounds “burial mounds” (they didn’t show any research that would have lead them to conclude they were burial mounds, that’s just what they called them from the beginning). There are different kinds of mounds used for different purposes, each with their own meanings, and these mounds can be sacred for many reasons. Unfortunately, viewers won’t learn this unless they choose to do their own research into the area and they likely wont because the stars of the show are supposed to be the experts.
Other research they performed, revolved around finding who the previous landowners were, looking for deaths that occurred on or near the property, and any traumatic events that may have taken place in the area. It’s an often repeated hypothesis that trauma and death can cause spirits to stay in a location. While this is not an unreasonable direction to investigate, it does help push investigators toward “confirmation bias” or to prove their hypothesis.
As with other shows, Ghost Nation leans toward the “ghost hunting” side of the paranormal investigation scale, but it does look back to the early seasons of Ghost Hunters on many occasions and the team will look for non-paranormal causes for a number of the claims and even their own experiences. The show takes ghost hunting back to its roots with a genuine want and need to help people understand what’s taking place in their homes and provide them with the information and resources they need to live in their homes peacefully.
Ghost Nation airs on Travel Channel. You can purchase seasons or single episodes on Amazon Prime Video, watch Seasons One and Two on watch.travelchannel.com or the Travel Channel Go app by logging in with you cable or satellite subscription, or with your Discovery+ subscription.