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Airdate: Ghost Hunters International

Sci Fi will air Australian-filmed episodes of Ghost Hunters International set at Sydney's Quarantine Station and Port Arthur.

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Sci Fi will air Australian-filmed episodes of Ghost Hunters International, the spin-off from US paranormal series Ghost Hunters.

The team visited Sydney’s Quarantine Station. Opened in 1833, it housed sick immigrants, some of which were kept under fairly harsh conditions. Plague, typhus, cholera, smallpox and Spanish influenza were rife and many died within the station’s confines.

They also filmed at Port Arthur in Tasmania.

It’s time for the Ghost Hunters International team to get ill, as they head out to Sydney’s Quarantine Station. Opened in 1833, the location served as an entry point for passengers in which the sick were separated from the well and kept under some fairly harsh conditions. Cases of plague, typhus, cholera, smallpox and Spanish influenza were all prevalent there, and many people died within the station’s confines.

The team’s liaison at the site, Caz Stokes, takes them on a tour of some of the locations in which paranormal activity has been reported. She opens with the showers, the first place sick people were brought and home to apparitions and disembodied voices. The hospital area and kitchen also have been hot spots, with apparitions actually interacting with tour guides and visitors. Unsurprisingly, the morgue has been home to a few encounters, and both the Third Class Dining Room and basement kitchen have been the site of apparitions.

The tour over, equipment is unpacked, and the lights go out.

Joe and Robb start out in the shower block and immediately begin to see and hear things, including a rattling door handle that both investigators pinpoint very clearly. Barry and Dustin spend some time in hospital area using a new 360-degree mic that allows Barry to hear responses in real time. Meanwhile, Brandy and Ashley are led into the basement by noises, and Brandy experiences a cold flash down one side of her body. Something is definitely going on at Quarantine Station.

Paul, however, has the most distinctive experience, conducting a solo investigation in which he lays on the morgue’s slab and calls for the spirits to contact him. He hears feet shuffling outside but, upon investigation, discovers nothing that could have caused the sound. Returning to the morgue, he, too, experiences a temperature drop, that he characterizes as frigid and pervasively cold. As he was standing by the data loggers, he hopes the evidence will back him up.

The investigation is wrapped by Robb, and the analysis begins. The footsteps during Paul’s solo investigation prove too faint to be conclusive, but Barry is able to isolate a woman’s voice in the showers saying, “Paul.” Barry also scores with a photograph of the exterior of the hospital…one that Robb and Dustin agree, while reviewing evidence with Caz, clearly shows an apparition of a young boy. Caz is extremely satisfied that the team’s findings have backed up her own personal experiences, and Robb does not hesitate to call Quarantine Station both an exciting place to investigate and most definitely haunted.

The first episode airs 8.30pm Thursday, 6 January.

15 Responses

  2. There is an Australian crew filming a docu due to air on Foxtel next year. Check out ghoztcrew.com/

    Would much prefer to see this, from the P.O.V of an Aussie crew – rather than these guys.

  4. David you just need to meditate, not Bex. 😉

    Was wondering how long before the “extraordinary evidence” would come out – a standard fallback for sceptics. What is extraordinary evidence? Surely evidence is evidence to a true scientist? Statistically significant is statistically significant, regardless of what’s being studied.

    I have been healed of asthma that I had since I was a child as well as cancer by an American Indian Medicine Man. That is not a belief, that is a fact. You saying it’s not true doesn’t make it not true. This goes back to my first comment that your views may change once you have your own experience (as opposed to citing fraudulent studies). As I said, the evidence is there if you look… but you showed you don’t bother to look far in your comments about TBBT in the ratings section (unaware of information that was on this very site, never mind further afield). I also notice you’ve not taken the opportunity to apologise for your insulting remark. Whatever.

  5. @Donald – (the last bit of time I will spend on this): I am fully aware of how to establish the protocols for conducting double-blind tests. They’ve been done and there is no evidence beyond normal probability. I’m sorry that you think that the stupid closed-minded scientists are just ignoring the evidence or haven’t conducted the experiment properly.

    The trouble with a lot of paranormal research is that there is a filtering bias of the results because the researchers are looking for any scrap of evidence to confirm their belief.

    We’re not talking about an everyday event such as someone claiming that they went for a drive. We are talking about extraordinary events for which we require extraordinary evidence. Just because you can’t think of an explanation for something doesn’t make that thing paranormal. I’m sorry Donald, your belief is mistaken. I’ve been looking for a long time and the evidence isn’t there.

  6. The prayer studies were just ones that came to mind as well-researched, repeatable, and found to be true. There are well-researched ghost examples as well, just not as many.

    “simply the power of positive thinking” – this is hilarious, and exactly what I’m talking about. Is there an explanation, in Newtonian terms, exactly how this works as far as “scientific” sceptics are concerned – what is the physical cause of the effect? The “power of positive thinking” is indeed a spiritual manifestation (mind over matter). If you want to say it’s not, then explain the mechanisms involved, otherwise you have nothing. And by the way, do you know what “double blind” means? It means neither the people in the control group nor the people in the prayed-for group knew whether they were being prayed for or not, so therefore “positive thinking” on the part of the subjects is already ruled out as a potential confounding factor. Sounds to me like you’re not that familiar with scientific procedure yourself.

    “it doesn’t make it true” – and saying something isn’t true doesn’t make it not true. If you self-publish a non peer-assessed statement on your blog that you went for a drive yesterday, and I say you didn’t and can find no evidence you did, that doesn’t make it not true. In any case you know I was talking about double-blind studies – I’m not the one using straw-mans.

    You can apologise for being insulting or not – the choice is yours – but the genuine evidence is there if you go looking for it. David won’t want me writing “war and peace” comments about it here (it’s already long enough just rebutting a few of your points – sorry David).

  7. @Donald – you have strayed from the subject at hand and have set up a “straw man” to tilt at. The “power of prayer” is not in dispute here – it is simply the power of positive thinking and anyone that has meditated, used affirmation and positive reinforcement, or just listened to some music that they really like will attest to the benefits. This is like the placebo effect – a sugar pill obviously cannot cure illness in and of itself, but thinking that it will help, or that talking to someone in a white coat will, is sufficient for some people to show an improvement in their condition.

    None of this is what I was talking about.

    Donald, I can find all sorts of codswallop using Google – it doesn’t make it true. Self-published, non-peer reviewed material is irrelevant. Scientists have carried out properly-conducted investigations and found the evidence severely lacking.

    Lastly, some of these “spiritual” people that you refer to certainly do try to foist their beliefs on the general population (and make TV programs to help achieve this). They also rip people off by (for example) charging exorbitant rates to telephone and receive a horoscope, or have your future read, or colour divined.

  8. P.S. the spiritual people already know it’s true, and don’t feel they need to prove it to anyone else. i.e. they’re not forcing their belief onto anyone. Sceptics are the ones making the claim it’s not true, and then insist the spiritual people prove it to them that it’s true. i.e. expect someone else to disprove their own belief system. Why are these “scientists” so lazy that they can’t do their own (proper) investigation? They’re the ones making the claim that it’s false, it’s up to them to prove their claim. The spiritual people don’t feel the need to prove it to disbelievers – they already have their own proof, and what someone else thinks doesn’t bother them (unlike the “scientists” who are determined to make everyone think the same way as themselves, and insult their intelligence if they don’t. As I said, name-calling shows a lack of actual evidence for your own claim).

  9. There is plenty of evidence out there if sceptics stop closing their eyes and putting their hands over their ears and saying “la! la! la!”. The only “scientific” investigations done by sceptics, as I said, have in fact not followed scientific best practise. e.g. not double blind, etc., so of course they come up with a lack of evidence. The scientists which do serious investigation with an open mind have in fact found definite evidence. e.g. praying has found to have a positive effect on ill patients compared to the non prayed-for control groups, etc. If you wanna be an ostrich with your head in the sand, that’s your choice, but there is plenty of scientific evidence there for those who look seriously. Start with Google if you like. David won’t like me writing a “war and peace” comment here. 🙂 Seek and ye shall find.

  10. @Donald – I and anyone else do not need to provide “evidence of a lack of evidence”. It is for those who are making the extraordinary claims to provide said evidence. Whenever any said claimed evidence is properly investigated (TV shows do not count for either side) it is found to be seriously wanting in substance and credibility.

    I’ve had my fair share of “spooky” experiences and none of these have proven to be paranormal activity upon proper investigation.

    You would think that with twice as many people on this planet since 1960 and with many, many more recording devices being carried around by people 24/7, that there would be so many more photos and videos of lake monsters, ghosts, and flying saucers. Plus, the quality of these images would be a lot better than the always blurry images from 50 years ago. Sadly, this is not the case.

    Have the lake monsters all become extinct? Have the ghosts finally resolved their issues and moved on? Is Earth too expensive these days for ETs to make the long improbable haul from their homeworld? Or is it just that they were never there in the first place?

  11. Grinspoon, many of these shows are really poor, but the local one that ran on TVS was very good. Hopefully this will be more like that than the mediocre stuff. The title reminds me of “Ghost facers” in Supernatural though, which doesn’t help perceptions. 😉

    Secret Squirrel, if you have your own experience, your perception may change. The “scientific” shows which attempt to de-bunk are even worse – sceptics using completely non-scientific reasons. If you’re going to debunk, then use genuine scientific methods, not “well, it might be this…”, or “we conducted this (non double blind) test and found no evidence”, whilst insisting on double-blind tests from the other side. Lame, lame, lame. Insulting the other’s intelligence doesn’t further your cause either, just shows lack of actual evidence on your own side that you have to revert to name-calling.

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