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People Who Were On Ghost Hunting Shows Explain What It's Like Behind The Scenes

People Who Were On Ghost Hunting Shows Explain What It's Like Behind The Scenes
Image by Herm from Pixabay

There's no such thing as ghosts, right?


Turns out working on a ghost hunting show may not provide any definitive answer to that question either. Ghost hunting shows were/are extremely popular for their production style, engaging hosts (bring back the glasses, Zak!), and haunting questions they'd leave the viewer with after episode ends. Questions like: What did I just watch?

Reddit user, u/Metakwaza, wanted to hear about the horrors behind the scenes when they asked:

People who have worked on those fake ghost hunter TV shows, what goes on behind the scenes?

Ghost hunting shows are about finding the truth, revealing the mysteries as nothing more than the wind. However, what happens when the show's production crew want to create a more overbearing sense of terror?

Turns Out You Can Do Anything With Computers

"I dated a guy who worked on Paranormal State and he told me that 99% of the spooky sounds and whatnot are added in post."

PlaceboRoshambo

Shot Within The Same Parameters

"I work and live in SE Ohio. I've seen a few episodes of a particular show that investigates monsters. It shows the team going to all kinds of different counties and places. But the actual footage is normally recorded within a 25 miles radius. There are lots of oil tanks in the episodes, they mark the county and township on the safety emergency/ ID tags. So a well trained eye can see that most of the footage is shot in the same area of SE Ohio."

dc1732

Why Crush A Car That Wasn't The "Haunted" Car?

"I dated a nice girl once who had an ex boyfriend whose ex-con step-father was a guest on a ghost hunter show. It was an episode about a haunted / cursed car in southie MA. At the end of the episode they made it seem like they destroyed the car in a trash compactor, but in reality the car was never destroyed and remains in the guys yard to this day. So, for this reason, I imagine there is a lot of fake situations created on these shows. If I recall, they paid him $10,000 for his story and time."

"The guy turned out to have various personality disorders and believed his car talked to him and prevented him from ever finding work, but honestly I think he just made it up as an excuse not to work, doubled down, and some how he ended up on this show."

Siollear

All Easily Explained Away

"That Ghost Hunters show did an episode in a large, old building where I work. (Rather not say the name.)"

"I laughed out loud throughout the episode at the idiocy."

'For example, they were taping in a freight elevator. Damn thing is in need of repair and has been for years. When it did a little jolt just before taking off, the hosts insisted that was supernatural in origin. Naah. That's what it does every time it moves."

"And it continued from there. Every single thing they said "proved" ghosts had a perfectly simple explanation."

"The company I work for loved the publicity, even though it was complete nonsense.""

ThatGuyFromOhio

The only people who know what it's like behind the scenes are the people who are there. While they might be presenting themselves as a group of individuals looking for the truth, the real truth is sometimes the creation of something is more interesting than what they've made.

So, They Just Show Up Whenever?

"I hope this fits here. I used to work for a company that had a few different properties/buildings. One of the properties did not get much business, so it was usually just manned by a receptionist. The usual receptionist was this older eccentric gal, who would also smoke a lot of weed on the job, probably due to the boredom/isolation of being there. On numerous occasions, she would tell me about how she was 100% convinced a ghost lived in the building. She even named him 'Matt' or something. Anyway, she got the bright idea to call up a ghost hunter show and invite them up to film, which they jumped at. Mind you she did not ask management for permission."

"Everything was agreed to, but on the date they were to show up, for whatever reason she flaked out and stood them up. Apparently the ghost hunter people showed up and were banging on the doors for a couple hours in the dark with no response. Fast forward a few weeks when I'm talking to the GM when he gets handed a letter. It's a bill for $1600 from some production company. Half of me wanted to get out of that office asap, but half wanted to stay for the lolz. The look on his face when he learned what happened was f-cking priceless."

startinearly

Best Excuses For Late Assignments That Were Actually True | George Takei’s Oh Myyy

Tough Schedule With Shades Of Reality

"I might be too late for this to be seen but I actually did a full season of one of these. I'm a production sound mixer, meaning I record all of the sound on set. For a show like this, I'm wearing a recorder/mixer combo in a big bag attached to a harness, have wireless lav mics on all the cast, and am running around with a boom mic as well."

"I did a less popular (but still legit) show where we traveled around the country for about six months, almost non-stop. Three days at a location, travel, three days at a location, travel MAYBE with a full day off peppered in there somewhere. It was a brutal schedule but a super fun experience with a great crew that I am all still friends with to this day. We definitely became a little family in a way I haven't with many other crews in my career."

"There were about 12 of us in total between the camera team, me, producers, and PAs, plus a cast of I think 5 people, one of which is a very legit person in the paranormal world."

"I went into the whole thing not believing in ghosts at all and I left believing in ghost slightly more, surprisingly, despite some of the BS our crew pulled."

"On our 3rd or 4th location shoot, I realized that there was a person on our crew who I had no idea what their actual job was considering I rarely saw him on shoot days and only on travel days and at meals. I asked one of the camera crew (who had done the previous season) and he told me he was "the magic man."

"Apparently the dude's job was to make things happen while we were filming and doing walkthroughs of buildings. Anything from making lightbulbs explode to creating creepy sounds to causing a bunch of stuff to fall off a table. I'm not gonna lie, he was VERY good at his job because I never saw him and some very creepy stuff would happen without warning and he never told anyone what he was planning for each location."

"I can't say the one thing that really creeped me out on the show without revealing what show it was but I genuinely can't believe one of the things that happened wasn't real. It involved digging up something that there was almost no way he could have buried without making it look like it had recently been buried. There was full undisturbed grass grown over the spot they dug into. To this day, it still creeps me out thinking about it."

"Overall, the only other time I "felt" scared or freaked out was once in a basement of a house in upstate NY. We were toward the end of the run and I was totally burnt out and just ready to get home to LA and see my girlfriend and dog. Ghosts are fake, this show is fake, everyone on the crew was annoyed with everyone else, the content was stupid etc."

"It was probably about -10° F near Ithaca, completely pitch black, and I felt someone come get right in my face, centimeters away, and start breathing for like thirty seconds. The thing is, the equipment I wear is big and heavy and sticks out almost a foot off my stomach when I'm wearing it, so there's no way anyone could have gotten that close. The thing was, I felt like I couldn't do anything about it. I reached out and no one was there but the warm breath and presence was still there. It freaked me the f-ck out and still does thinking about it to this day. It was definitely a human presence and lined up with the "story" we were shooting."

"Best part about the job? Or production manager used to work for Marriott so he was very loyal to that brand and always booked us in Marriott affiliated properties so we all were super platinum elite status for a long time at the end of the show. I ended up with like 10 free nights in nice hotels by the end of the run to use for my girlfriend and I, not to mention loads of airline miles and status upgrades."

LazerMcBlazer

At The End Of The Day They're Still A Show Concerned With Ratings

"Used to be on a show. Not a popular one and only a few episodes out there."

"It was a team of 3; an empath, an "undecided", and myself, the skeptic. Well my job was to debunk things on the show that the other two (or occasional medium we had on) were claiming was paranormal. Every time I would debunk something, it never made it on the air. The empath (the owner/producer) didn't want to be proven wrong I guess? For example, that meter they use to measure electro-magnetic force, where the lights go from yellow to red; ours would go off randomly. Well it wasn't random cause every time he power-cycled a handheld camera or his tablet it would go off. I proved it was the burst of electricity or electrical field (idk) from turning their devices on. Nope. Never let that see the light of day; cause it's a very common ghost hunting tool and you can't prove how it really works or else an exciting part of an investigation goes away forever."

"I love spooky stuff and the paranormal is really entertaining to me, but it sucked that he left out of skepticism because he thought it wouldn't draw people."

"I'm a fan of the original Ghost Hunters, where they would continuously prove that ghosts or haunting didn't exist, and present their finding to the homeowners to provide them relief. Even the main guy never admitted to hauntings; that was their thing. Once they got super popular they turned into just a normal ghost hunting show."

"I want a show, or to be a part of one, that does that. They go in, find something, and prove it wrong, but are still open to the idea and have fun with it. Because at that point if you do find something you genuinely can't explain, it has more weight because you're known to debunk nearly everything."

"I miss ghost hunting it was a lot of fun to me =)"

ChasingCerts

These shows might never be able to really answer the question about whether or not there's spirits lingering around us. What can be proven, without any doubt, is that working on a show that investigates supposed hauntings is never going to not be interesting.

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Old Wives' Tales People Still Believe For Some Reason

"Reddit user the_spring_goddess asked: 'What is an old wives tale that people still believe?'"

Close up of an owl tilting their head to side, looking bewildered
Photo by Josh Mills

The old wives' tales.

They are the stories of legend.

I think we all need a big DEEP Google dive though.

Where did they originate?

WHO ARE THE OLD WIVES!

You don't hear about them as much anymore.

It's like science and logic are suddenly a thing.

But they sure are a good way to keep your kids and their behavior in line.

Redditor the_spring_goddess wanted to discuss the tall tales we've all been fed through life, so they asked:

"What is an old wives tale that people still believe?"

"Wait an hour to swim after eating."

What a crock!

So many summer hours wasted.

I want revenge for that one.

Say Nothing

Giphy

"An undercover cop has to tell you he's a cop if you ask him."

LonelyMail5115

"Pretty much most advice when it comes to cops are old wives tales. I’m not even a cop but most of the advice you hear is pretty off."

I_AM_AN_A**HOLE_AMA

Say Something

"That you have to wait 24 hours to report someone missing."

Severe_Airport1426

"I really think this one is important and should be the top regardless. As it’s a piece of advice that needs to be relearned and the only way to do that is through awareness."

crappycurtains

"This used to be true. I think they changed it after some guy named Brandon went missing back in the '80s or '70s. You used to have to wait 24 hours if the missing person was an adult because they had 'a right to be missing' and then everyone realized that was stupid and stopped doing it."

AlbinoShavedGorilla

Body Temps

"That drinking ice cold water after eating oily foods will solidify the oil and permanently remain in your body. I informed my coworker that if your body temperature ever reached that point, you’d have bigger problems than weight gain."

chriseo22

"Oh, I have a cousin who 100% believed this. One of those guys who believed every early 2000s internet rumor and old wives tale. One night I chugged a big glass of ice water after dinner and he started freaking out and saying my guts were gonna harden."

"I sarcastically told him to drive me to the hospital if that happened. Obviously, nothing happened and the next morning I said something like 'Thanks for being on standby in case my guts filled with hardened oil.' He just walked off muttering under his breath."

apocalypticradish

Arms Down

"When I was pregnant, I was told by young and old alike that I should NOT raise my arms above my head or exert myself in such a manner because it could cause cord strangulation to my unborn sons and daughters."

Fatmouse84

10 Years Actually

Unimpressed Uh Huh GIF by Brooklyn Nine-Nine Giphy

"Chewing gum stays in your stomach for 7 years."

REDDIT

"I remember accidentally swallowing a piece of gum when I was a kid in like 1995 and just accepting my fate like welp, gonna have this in my stomach til high school I guess."

Gecko-911

I was so afraid to sallow my gum when I was young.

This tale is haunting.

High/Low

Hungry Debra Messing GIF by Will & Grace Giphy

"You can tell the sex of the baby by how you carry."

LeastFormal9366

"Pregnancy certainly wins awards for the most old wives tales. So much absolute BS was repeated to us by everyone we talked to."

IllIIIlIllIlIIlIllI

The Cursed

"If you’re a woman and you wear opal jewelry but opal is not your birthstone (October), you’ll never be able to have children, or will be widowed, or just generally have bad luck or something. You can counteract this by having a diamond in the same piece of jewelry as the opal, though."

"I have a nice opal ring that my parents gave me years ago, and I’ve had other women give me this 'advice' unprompted more than once when I’ve worn it. I have absolutely no idea where it started, but I’m pretty sure this little chunk of silicate rock has no concept of what month I was born in, let alone of how my reproductive organs work."

SmoreOfBabylon

Stay In

"Going outside with wet hair will make you get pneumonia. Or an earache. Or maybe arthritis. Depends on which old wife you listen to."

"Jokes on them - I haven't blow-dried my hair in decades and usually leave the house with wet hair in the morning. On winter mornings, the tips of my hair get frozen. No ear infections or pneumonia or arthritis yet."

worldbound0514

Dreams and Facts

"You never make anyone up in your dreams you've seen everyone in your dreams somewhere else before and never make anyone up entirely."

"How would you possibly prove that to be true? My partner adamantly believes this and tells me this 'fact' whenever I have a dream about someone I've never met before."

mattshonestreddit

"My late wife used to tell me that before she met me she would have dreams of standing at an alter on her wedding day but could never see the guy's face, no matter how hard she tried. After meeting me the face was filled in with mine. Don't know if it's true but one of those things I like thinking of every now and then when I miss her."

Darthdemented

Cracked

Getting Ready Episode 2 GIF by The Office Giphy

"Some people still believe cracking knuckles causes arthritis."

Choice-Grapefruit-44

"There's a doctor (Donald Unger) that cracked his knuckles a couple of times a day for 60 years, but only on one hand, just to prove it. Both hands remained exactly the same."

MacyTmcterry

I love my knuckles.

Do you have any tall tales to add to the list? Let us know in the comments below.

lottery tickets
Erik Mclean on Unsplash

A lot of workers daydream about some day winning the lottery and being able to say goodbye to their job.

Far too many workers are unhappy with their job duties, workplace dynamics or company culture.

But with a taste for luxuries like housing and food, they keep plugging away, year after year.

However not everyone feels that way about their job.

So what are these compelling careers?

Keep reading... Show less
Therapist talking during session
Photo by Mark Williams on Unsplash

Some people stand firmly stand behind their beliefs that everyone would benefit from therapy and that therapy is life-changing.

It's because of the totally life-changing truth bombs their therapist had dropped during their sessions.

Curious, Redditor anonymiss0018 asked:

"What is a little bombshell your therapist dropped in one of your sessions that completely changed your outlook?"

Communication Issues

"'If you don’t have these problems with any other person in your life, why do you think you’re the problematic person in this one?'"

- maggiebear

"I love this. I have a 'friend' who I always seem to run into misunderstandings with. Every time we had a conversation, it somehow turned into a debate even if it was me talking about my day. The conversations were never easy."

"I always evaluate myself first and take into consideration his critiques. He was very good at convincing me that I was contradicting myself or wasn't good at communicating my thoughts."

"I NEVER had this issue with ANYONE else in my life. I kept trying to figure out where the miscommunication was coming from. In the end, I just minimized contact and now I don't run into this issue."

- chobani_yo

"I read this quote somewhere once (and probably have it a bit wrong): 'It's a waste of time arguing with someone who is determined to misunderstand you.'"

- Reddit

Emotional Regulation

"'You can’t control your emotions, but you can control what you do with them.'"

"At the time, I was a young adult who had learned zero healthy emotional regulation skills (only suppression and shaming) growing up, so this blew my mind."

- lil_mermaid

Tough Relationships

"'It sounds to me like you are trying to convince yourself to stay with your girlfriend. I'm not so sure it should be so difficult.'"

"At the time he said this, I remember it was like he said, 'The earth is flat.' I thought he was crazy when he suggested relationships don't need to be difficult. But eventually, I started to realize I was trying to change myself to stay with this person rather than just being who I am."

"It took me three more months to finally break up with her but from that day on, I vowed to never again abandon myself just to be with someone I had convinced myself was better than me."

- metric88

High-Stress Situation

"I was at a high-stress time, and I asked her how people live like this."

"She replied, 'Oftentimes they have cardiac events.' She said it as an urging to care for myself as much as possible."

- KittenGr8r

The End of Alcohol

"I was struggling with my alcoholism, and we were discussing how I had been cutting back."

"She asked what I would consider success, with regard to my drinking."

"I said I wanted to get to a point where it wasn't interfering with my daily life. I wanted to just be able to have a glass of wine at holiday dinners or family gatherings."

"She simply asked me why. Why was it important for me to drink at those times?"

"It was as if she'd turned on a light. Alcohol had always been a key ingredient in every family function, for my entire life. When I smell bourbon, I think of my uncle. When I smell vermouth, I think of my dad. Alcohol ran through almost every happy childhood memory."

"But, even more than that, I was very afraid of the explanation I'd have to give when family and friends asked why I wasn't having a drink. I had tried to quit before but failed. What if I admitted my problem, only to fall off the wagon?"

"When she asked why I didn't want to completely quit, it was the first time I saw that last part of the big picture. I'd be willing to drink myself to death in order to avoid being scrutinized, or judged for possible future failures."

"That was the day I quit. I've been sober since May 6th, 2017. 2,407 days."

- sophies_wish

Acceptance vs. Enjoyment

"'Accepting something doesn’t mean you have to like it.'"

"That took away a lot of my inner conflicts about situations because I could accept a situation without expending energy internally fighting against the injustice of it."

- alibelloc

Emotionally Immature Parents

"You are not responsible for your parents' emotional wellbeing. They are independent adults who have been on this earth for many more years than you."

- SmokedPears

Not So Lazy

"'Why do you think you're lazy?' Then she listed off all the things she knows I'm doing for my family, my job, and my life."

"It kind of blew my mind when I struggled to come up with an example."

"She also described family dysfunction as water. Some families are messed up in a way that everyone can see the huge waves across the surface. Others are better at hiding it, but there's still a riptide that you can't see unless you're also in the water."

"It made me realize that trying to keep the surface from ever rippling doesn't erase what is happening underneath."

- flybyknight665

The Harm in People-Pleasing

"'Why do you make people more comfortable when you are uncomfortable?' when talking about people pleasing and fawning."

- ERsandwich

Agree to Disagree

"'Stop trying to get everyone to agree. When you need everyone to agree, the least agreeable person has all the power.'"

This really changed my outlook on planning family events."

- freef

Grieve and Start Anew

"For context, I had a major TBI (traumatic brain injury), seizures, strokes, and all around not a fun brain time when I was 28."

"They said, 'You have to grieve the loss of yourself.'"

"Most people wanted me to go back to how I was. The f**ked up truth is that part of my brain is dead. The person everyone (including myself) knew died. I needed to grieve the loss of myself."

- squeaktoy_la

Multifaceted Identity

"They told me that my job and career is just a way to make money; it's not my life or identity. That took a lot of pressure off me."

- unfairpegasus

Breaking the Cycle

"They validated me."

"'You always talk about not wanting to do to your daughters what your mom did to you. You worry about it so much in every interaction you have ever had with them."

"But your children are 19 and 21 now. They are happy and healthy and they trust you because you’ve never abused them in any way. So I just want to validate for you that you really have broken that cycle of violence."

"You did that. And you should be proud of it. I’m proud of you for it.'"

- puppsmcgee74

The Grieving Process

"I was constantly bringing up how I felt like a completely different person after my mom died... like there was a marked difference between before and after her death."

"But once, she was asking about my hobbies, I got really into describing all the things I loved to do or at least used to do before I got into a deep depression."

"She was like, 'Wow, you seem very passionate.'"

"And I just sat there like, 'Well, I mean, I can't change what I like to do, they're still fun to do.'"

"And it's like she knew when to take a step back, because it was like, wow, I may be super depressed about my mom passing, but I'm still me. I'm still my passions and those don't go away."

"I don't know, maybe it only makes sense to be, but it really started getting me back on track."

- Hannibal680

Sharing the Load

"I've never really had friends. I've had colleagues and classmates and housemates and people who have hung out with me, but I never really felt close to any of them."

"And I did that thing you see on here sometimes; I stopped reaching out to see if I would be reached out to, and I wasn't, which I took as confirmation that they didn't really want me around, or at the very least, that they wouldn't mind my absence."

"I was talking to my therapist about people I'd been close to in college, and she told me to pick one and talk about him. So I did. After I shared some basic stuff like his name and his major etc., and a couple of anecdotes, she asked me what else I knew about him."

"And I couldn't answer. It wasn't really a broadly applicable bombshell, but she said, 'What else?' and I started crying because I realized that for as simple as the question was, my inability to answer spoke volumes."

"I've never had good friends because I've never been a good friend. I'm withdrawn and reserved and I always made others do the work to drag me out, without ever extending my own friendship in a meaningful way in return. If I wanted to have meaningful relationships with other people, I would have to build them."

"I'm still working on this, but I'm trying to make more offers and extend more friendliness to others in my daily life."

- Backupusername

The discoveries in this thread were incredibly touching and profound; it's no wonder these were lasting concepts for these Redditors.

It's important to keep ourselves open to inspiration and insights from others, as we have no idea how their experiences could help us, or how we could help them.

Aerial view of a church in a small town
Sander Weeteling/Unsplash

There's something comforting about living in a small town.

It's characterized by close communities where neighbors know each other by name and there is an abundance of kindness extended to others.

Gift-giving is a commonality, as is the sharing of recipes, and people going out of their way to help each other in a time of need.

The pace of living in small towns is also a striking contradiction to city life, where crowds of people go about their busy lives without much interaction.

Curious to hear more examples of what small town living is like, Redditor official_biz asked:

"What's the most 'small town' thing you've witnessed?"

These are positive examples of a tight-knit community.

Live Updates

"We have a village Facebook page. Every time the ice cream man drives into the village, the entire page goes ballistic. People send live updates of where the van is and which direction he's heading. The ice cream man has started accepting DMs so he knows which streets to go down."

– PyrrhuraMolinae

Brush With The Law

"I’m from a town of less than 2,000 people. When I worked at the grocery store there people would often drop off stuff for my family members because they didn’t want to drive all the way down to our house. I no longer live there but recently got a call from my daughter. She had been stopped for speeding and handed over her license and insurance which happens to be in my mother’s name. The officer goes 'Hey, you’re Donnie’s granddaughter! I ain’t gonna write you a ticket but I’m telling Donnie when I see him tomorrow cause we’re going fishing.' She replied 'I think I’d rather have the ticket.'”

- Reddit

Roadside Catchup

"The traffic on the 'main street' of my town is so sparse, two drivers going opposite directions can stop and talk to each other for a few minutes without causing any problem."

– anon

When things go wrong, people take notice without incident.

Bank Robbery

"A guy robbed a bank and everyone knew immediately who he was and the teller got mad at him."

– AlexRyang

"A local bank was robbed and one of the tellers told the police to bring her a yearbook from about ten years earlier and she would be able to point the robber out. He had been in the grade before hers in school."

– Strict_Condition_632

Wise Woman

"When I worked at the bank in town there was an older lady that had worked there through 5 mergers."

"She knew everyone, there was a young guy yelling at me one day. She walked out of the back and he immediately quieted. She went off about telling his grandmother that he was treating young women like sh*t. She also said that if he didn’t straighten up not one girl in town would ever marry him she would make sure of it."

– ilurvekittens

Intoxicated Local

"Town drunk was paralyzed and used a motorized wheelchair to get around. I was driving home one Saturday night and said town drunk was passed out in his wheelchair doing circles almost directly in the town square. Had to call his brother who came and picked him up on a rollback truck. Strapped him down and drove off into the cold dark night."

– DoodooExplosion

Grazing Over To The Bar

"In my former small town, there was an older guy who'd lost his license after getting a few DUIs. Every day, he would ride his John Deere lawnmower to the corner bar around 3PM and sit around watching TV and sipping his beer well into the night. Then he'd head the couple miles back home on his mower. He even had a little canvass shell he put on when it rained or got too cold."

– brown_pleated_slacks

It's not surprising how small town people behave differently than those who are from metropolitan areas.

Welcoming Committee

"I lived in a small town. When I moved there, people would ask, 'Whose house did you buy?'"

–MoonieNine

"Move to a small town. 30 years later, you are still the new guy."

– impiousdrifter

"I lived in a small town for most of my childhood but I wasn't "from there" because my grandparents weren't from there."

– raisinghellwithtrees

"Worked with an older guy, relative of the owner of the business, he was 73. I asked him if he was a local, he said 'no his parents moved here when he was two.'"

– realneil

A Busy Day

"Lived in a town of about 5,000: A woman walked into the DMV on a Friday, saw that there were 3 people ahead of her and left to come back another time when they weren't so busy."

– KenmoreToast

Who Let The Dogs Out?

"My dogs got out while i was working. the police called my niece's elementary school (she was a 5th grader) to get her to round them up and take them back home."

– mediocrelpn

"There was a small kennel behind the police station for runaways. They called us saying they had our dog, and moments later our dog showed up home. He broke out of jail."

– Worried_Place_917

While life in a small town sounds appealing, I don't know if I can ever live in one.

I'm so used to life in big cities, I think it would be quite unnerving to adjust in a neighborhood where everyone literally knows your business.

I would be paranoid.

And I'm sure the same could be said of life in the big city.

Would you consider making the switch to life in a different setting?