Eastern State Penn Ghost Video

For those of you who may not know there's a show currently running on the Sci Fi channel called Ghost Hunters which follows a group of (oddly enough) ghost hunters on investigations. Anyway on the most recent episode they were at the Eastern State Penitentiary conducting an investigation when they captured THIS VIDEO. Now there is lots of discussion on other boards about the authenticity of the video so I figured what better place to get lots of good real analysis than right here on ATS.

On first seeing this video I was almost sure that this was the best video capture of an entity ever, until I really began to dissect it. I'll save my conclusions until after some of you take a look and comment on it but suffice to say this is strange video for various reasons whether it's proven fake or not. Discuss.

The following was taken from the TAPS website regarding the video:

We went all the way to Good old Philly, PA to visit Eastern State Penitentiary. The place left an impression on us all. We did capture something odd on video. It is a figure of some sort coming toward the camera and then leaving quickly back down the hallway.

We want you to check it out yourself.

Here are some things to consider when watching this. While it does look like someone in a cape, the figure moves with great speed and does not turn to go back down the hallway, also it doesn't bob up and down & it would have to be about 4 feet tall. If someone was messing with us they would have had to have hidden in there all day, and known where all the cameras were and know when to stop right outside of the field of vision of the DVR camera. Everyone who was there that night was out eating dinner together when this footage was captured.

We can't say 100% what it is. But we had other experiences to support this as potential evidence. So, we present it here for you to examine and you can come to your own conclusions. We are on the fence, what about you?

The file is rather large, but it shows three different versions of the clip during the clean up process.

EDIT= Added more info and link






[edit on 5-11-2004 by RR]

This appears to be someone dressed in a black cloak walking towards the camera and then walking away. It looks as if you can see the bottom of the cloak billowing out as they turn. Nothing would indicate this is a ghost. The image seems very solid and non apparition, if you know what I mean( you can't see through it).

doctorduh

A ghost does not have to be see through. It can look just like you and me. We did an interview with an author who went to a restaurant with her husband on a trip. Being on the open road for a long time they both needed to use the restroom. There was a men's and women's restroom, however they were for single person use only. The author was able to walk in right away however when they were walking up to the bathrooms a elderly gentlemen walked in ahead of her husband. So he had to wait. He waited and waited, standing at the door waiting for his turn. She came out and he was still waiting. After a long while he began to worry about the man's safety. Did he have a heart attack, blow an O ring, etc. So he entered the bathroom and there was no one there. There was no other way out of the restroom. No windows, nothing. He had stood in front of the door the whole time. The man simply vanished. He looked like a living human being.

When I was little my grandfather visited me after his death and he appeared to be solid and even hugged me. I could feel it.

Uh, i dont know if anyone else noticed this, but when it turned round you could see the things feet. Smells like a hoax to me.

Ghosts can appear to be fully physical, just because there ghosts do not give them an absence of body parts.

In fact Apparitions, have varying levels of appearance. They are not your run of the mill movie ghosts with cut off or missing pieces like legs and etcetera.

In fact there was an apparition of my deceased aunt in my house. She appeared 100% real as life, and of all things was walking to the bathroom and closed the door.

Ghosts are not always transparent, that's a reinforcement of hollywood.

-ADHDsux4me

I noticed when i watched the video several times that the sheet or the white piece of material on the left hand side of the video is motionless and when the ghost appears and turns around the sheet of white moves as if like someone passes it by with a gust of wind...i love this stuff...i give it a 6 out of 10 for being a real ghost.

Ive watched the video a number of times again and am starting to think that it is real because of the speed that the being turns round. Its fast. Even if its a hoax, its still a good one.

There are certain things about it's motion that make it seem unusual, I wonder if the film has been carefully composed and edited. The figure does actually seem to turn and reverse itself in the hallway but it does this instantaniously. It looks as if a few frames have been edited out of it turning but the airborne 'fluff' in the film doesn't seem to jump where the missing frames have been cut. As Spaceghost says the white sheet on the left of the film does move as if disturbed by the air turbulence created as it runs back past it at speed. The airborne 'fluff' seems to be affected by this turbulence also. You do also seem to be able to see trouser legs kicking out from under the cloak as it runs away from the camera. If this is a fake film, it has been cleverly done. If it's a real unedited film, who knows what it is, but it ain't a human.

Looks like a fake to me. When it moves back the other way you can see that the bottom of it whips as if it were tied to a line at the top. You can see it's feet whip out and hit the side rail. IMO it's bunk

Man, I watched that on sci-fi
Definite hoax. You can clearly see the pantleg underneath the black sheet That kid that reviews the footage for them thinks anything he sees is a ghost. Specks of dust, fog while investigating a lighthouse, or any random noise.
Out of how many episodes......any actual ghost activity or footage, besides pulling the chair with a string a couple feet across the floor, EVP's. SCI-FI is well known for trying to play hoaxes off as real evidence.

I could'nt see anything in it.

Trust me, Jason and Grant would not allow Sci-Fi to fake anything. It is not what they are about.

How many of you know exactly what every ghost looks like, acts like, and will look like on a video? I know there are obvious fakes but don't just debunk it because your minds can't grasp life after death or that the Christian churches have brainwashed you into there is only heaven and hell.

I was watching this program the other night and the footage gave me shivers. It just seems to good to be true.

Is it just me or does this thing look like:

1.) It's crouching down while running at an amazing speed (which is somewhat inhuman)

2.) It is extremly short (shorter than 4 feet)

3.) Or the torso of this thing is just...not there

I've played the video a number of times and can make out a white object above the 'feet'. I'm not sure if this is the face or a hand.

I watched the video a few times, and here is what I think. Two possibilities. 1, its a fake. A big possibility. But there are some things that tend to counter this. We come to 2. Ite real. Im not saying this is real, but a few things make me think that maybe it is. The handrail has to be built to code. Each state has thier own buoilding code, but they are all pretty close. My state says that handrails from the second floor up must be at least 36 inches from top of the rail to the point of entry into the floor. If that handrail is 36 inches tall, then the person/ghost probably isnt over three and a half to four feet tall.This tells us a few things. It was a dwarf, or it was a child. I have a six year old daughter, and Im here to tell you I have never seen her move like this. There is no bobbing motion prevalent in all bipeadal animals. There is no variation in the trajectory either. Its perfectly straight. I have also never seen a child that could spin that fast and hold thier balance without falling over, or loosing thier footing. The whole movement is wrong for a person traveling on foot.

It could be a hoax though. There are a few ways this could be duplicated. You could film someone in a black. Focus close, then zoom out. Then impose it on the original film of the hallway. Youcould also film someone on one of those personal scooters. There are just too many ways to fake this thing for me to be able to fully believe it. However, with that being said, the clip was very creepy, and at first glance, is quite convensing

Just something more to point out.. the white cloth or insulation or whatever it is thats hanging down on the Left (above the rail) sways by the movement. You'll also notice an increase in the speed of the dust after it turns around,

Both indicating wind. Movement.


Also, this would be easily reenacted. Wrap someone in a black blanket, tie a rope around their waist, have them run and then have 2 people pull him back in as fast as they could. That would explain the sudden change in direction

Run, pull for the sudden stop then reverse

The only thing that seems "fast" is the initial stop/reverse. The sprint to the camera and away, is perfectly normal speed.


[edit on 11/5/2004 by QuietSoul]

Ok now watch it again and notice that there is never an actual "turn" made which may indicate that, if it is in fact a fake, the person under the cloak was walking backward toward the camera then sprinting back away from the camera.

Secondly notice the dust that is floating at a slower speed in front of the camera then as the thing sprints off it speeds up dramatically possibly indicating that the film itself was sped up.

Thirdly and probably most damning of all is the hanging piece of insulation to the left of the catwalk that moves as the thing speeds past it indicating that whatever it is has solidity and is producing a "drag" effect causing the insulation to sway which probably wouldn't even have been noticible if the tape hadn't been sped up as the "ghost" runs off.

I'm not a hardcore skeptic and really wanted this footage to be authentic but I'm really leaning toward fake considering the above evidence. Watch it again and look for the things I've pointed out.

If the footage is in fact fake then the big question becomes who faked it, the TAPS team leader states that everyone was outside eating when the footage was taken except for the team member who first found it on the tape, the same team member who earlier in the show had been chastised by the team leader for running away from something in the prison that had startled him. If this is the case and a team member did in fact fake it then of course TAPS would loose all credibility and would probably be unable to recover from such a thing.

The second possibility is that the staff of the prison faked it to publicize their tourist attraction, an attraction by the way, that uses real actors in it's annual Halloween Event. What better advertisement for their attraction than having it declared "haunted" by a team of paranormal investigators on national television?

Personally if I were investigating this polygraph tests would be the order of the day because the bottom line here is that the team's reputation is on the line pure and simple so everything should be done in my opinion to either prove or disprove this as a hoax.

[edit on 5-11-2004 by RR]

i watched this when it aired as well. the hair stood up on the back of my neck when i saw it. anyways, after they replayed the footage, they did try to recreate it and found it to be physically impossible. the guy had the cloak over his head and couldn't see a thing and had a very hard time walking, let alone running. i do agree that they could have done it elsewhere and edited it in, but being pulled by a rope? who in their right mind would let that happen to them? have you ever been running and and ran into a wall? that's probably what it would feel like. i know i wouldn't subject myself to that. i'm actually at work so i can't watch the video again, but i'll check it out when i get home to see the things that you guys picked up in it. real or hoax, very cleverly done!

Hoaxes being as plentiful and easily-concocted as they are--

this one doesn't appear to be a manufactured experience.

--too many non-lit orbs floating about'
--"Time " in the film does not run at the same rate as "Time" here;
--too much random stuff blowing around that has no physical referent;
--no indicator of identity or innovator--no Ego apparent

I get the impression that the camera caught an interdimensional experience, because light picked up by any camera may not always be of the frequency that can be picked up by the human eye form as it exists >here< in physical reality, where cause-and-effect are dominant.

Cameras are wonder-full for showing interdimensional shift.

It does look like a hoax, why does the "fluf" fly back up? it looks as if it switches to reverse half way through the clip.