Spooky and creepy experiences are now overtaking genre fans, in honor of Halloween. Surprises are awaiting supernatural enthusiasts during this month’s anticipated revival of America’s first mega-hit paranormal television series, ‘Ghost Hunters,’ after an almost year-and-a-half year absence of new, original episodes.
The reality show’s 14th season is set to kick off with a special Halloween episode on Sunday, October 31, exclusively on the streaming service, discovery+. The debut of the 13-episode season will be included in Discovery’s cross-brand “Ghostober” programming schedule.
The new season, including the special Halloween event, features ‘Ghost Hunters’ returning original team leader, Jason Hawes, who will be joined by fellow paranormal investigators Steve Gonsalves, Dave Tango and Shari DeBenedetti. The Halloween episode, much like the rest of the season, follows the TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society) team as it takes back the paranormal reins in epic haunted locations. During the Halloween episode, which is set inside Missouri State Penitentiary, one of America’s scariest prisons, the TAPS team members will be joined by a few returning special guests, including Amy Bruni and Adam Berry (‘Kindred Spirits’).
Gonsalves, Tango and DeBenedetti generously took the time to participate in a roundtable interview this past weekend during New York Comic Con 2021 to talk about the revival of ‘Ghost Hunters.’ Among other things, the paranormal investigators discussed how they’re looking forward to sharing the new season’s first episode with fans on Halloween, as they enjoy being a part of viewers’ spooky holiday festivities every fall.
Question (Q): We live in a world that relies on science. How do you deal with skeptics?
Shari DeBenedetti (SD): I personally don’t even care if people believe in (ghosts) or not; I’m in it to help the clients who believe in it. I’m not here to prove if there are or aren’t (ghosts).
Dave Tango (DT): I like skeptics, and think we need more of them, because people always jump to ghosts. So you need to investigate and research the history (of a location). Ninety percent of the time it’s not ghosts; it can be the wiring or even the wind.
Steve Gonsalves (SG): I actually hate skeptics because they have an agenda. They don’t believe and don’t want others to believe, so they have an agenda, and that’s troublesome. But I do welcome skeptically-minded people.
DT: I definitely agree. I’ve run into a lot of people who want to teach me that (ghosts) aren’t real.
SG: I agree with Dave and Shari. I’ve never seen a ghost, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to stop looking.
Q: You’ve been investigating and filming ‘Ghost Hunters’ for 17 years. How have things evolved, especially in terms of technology, during that time?
DT: The technology has changed significantly, and so have the techniques. Some things work better than we initially expected them to, and other things we thought would work better didn’t give us the results we hoped for and expected.
SD: Our experiences have also shaped how we work. We can look back and say, “This happened at this one house, and this is what the results were.” So you can learn from those experiences over all the years, too.
SG: I went a science-based route, so I operate under the principle that if something disobeys science, I misinterpreted the experience, or it’s in my head.
So what I mean by that is if an investigator says they saw a shadow on a wall, I say that’s impossible. In order to create a shadow on a wall, you need to have something obstructing the light. If something’s obstructing the light, there has to be enough mass there for us to see. So if there’s a shadow on a wall and no source for it, it’s just a shadow on a wall and it’s coming from something. So that’s how I feel I’ve changed.
Q: What keeps you all going and continuing investigating the paranormal after all these years?
DT: Like what Shari said, helping people is important to us, especially when we’re helping children in homes. These people really do need help, and besides making a TV show, we’re actually helping them. That keeps me going.
SD: That’s why I got into it. I’ve had my own experiences. So to be able to go to people’s homes or businesses and help them and teach them everything I’ve been taught during the experiences I’ve been through, and try to comfort them, is part of the reason why I keep going. We’ve all been doing this for so long, and helping people is why we keep doing it.
SG: That’s right; it’s all about helping people. But I don’t know if that’s what keeps me going; I feel like people have a lot of places to turn to for help with the paranormal.
SD: But it’s about finding people they can trust.
SG: That’s true.
Q: Are there any investigations that have stayed with you after you finished filming the episode?
DT: There was an investigation with a gentleman in a trailer. What was his name?
SG: Corey. He had PTSD. His house was so scary inside, as there were loud bangs that kept happening. It was so frightening for him that he had to stay in a trailer next to his house.
So we did research that made him feel better. Being able to explain what was actually happening was really amazing. Now he’s able to go back into his own home. That, to me, is absolute gold.
DT: That, and also the couple married we investigated. They came to visit us in Jersey recently. I forgot her name…
SG: Heather.
DT: That’s right. She’s a writer. They were so scared, they were going to move out of their house. But then she sent us this long email thanking us. She also told us that they were doing everything we said and they’re now happy living in the house, and their relationship is back to normal.
SD: For me, it was the couple who had just lost their daughter. I know it’s terrible, but it’s something you always think about. Somehow there was a communication with her.
SG: But it helped them out. It gave them closure.
DT: They thought a ghost killed their daughter, who died in her sleep. She was always writing in her journal that something was coming and visiting her, and she drew pictures of it.
SD: Yes, the pictures in the journal were horrible.
Q: Does religion play a part in your investigations?
SG: It depends on the person. For me, it does not. I believe in it, but for me, what we’re dealing with is more science-based. But when people talk about demons, that goes into that religious aspect.
SD: I’m very spiritual, but I’m not religious. I believe in angels and all of that, but I don’t go to church.
DT: I respect all religions, and I’m Catholic, but it doesn’t play into my investigating at all unless we’re around something that’s particularly nasty.
There was one case when we had a reverend who helped us with a house where a lot of bad things were going on.
SG: It was actually the same case with the daughter.
DT: He did his thing with the blessings and drove out whatever was there. There was then a tangible difference in the house after he did what he did.
Even our film crew, who doesn’t believe in this stuff, walked in after and asked, “What happened? What is going on here?” Even they noticed a difference in the house after the reverend did his blessings.
But I don’t think religion has to play into it. It’s not like you see some shows where it’s always demons.
Q: What was the scariest encounter you’ve ever had while filming the show?
DT: I think it involved an animal in a wall that was trying to physically attack us.
But as far as the paranormal goes, if something’s happening, I’m staying there. I want to experience it and know it’s really happening.
One instance I do have to mention is a case we had a long time ago at Fort Mifflin in Philadelphia. I was in a spot there for maybe five minutes. Steve and Shari know me, and that I can usually last much longer than five minutes in a place that’s supposedly haunted.
But for whatever reason, I felt threatened at Fort Mifflin. I’m not a psychic, and don’t go by that kind of stuff, but I felt like there was something there that wanted to hurt me. That’s the one and only time that’s ever happened to me, and I felt like I had to leave.
SG: Not me. I’ve left for other reasons, like bats and spiders.
That one case, where we were talking to the little girl, I just got really sad, because she was 14. So I excused myself for a minute. It was emotional, but not because of the ghosts
SD: It was emotional.
DT: We get invested in the case.
Q: In the episodes, you show a little bit of the prep work before the investigation. But how much work actually goes into one investigation?
SG: Before we get there, we spend about three or four months lining everything up. Once we decide we want to do the case, because we have final say on what cases we do, we’ll make sure that everything lines up.
Discovery+ has brand filters, and our cases have to fit into those filters. We have to make sure we can do the episode. We also have to check if we can film at all the places and get access to all the historical places, as well as do all the research. So a lot goes into it.
Q: Since the new season begins streaming on October 31, has any paranormal activity happened to you on Halloween that made you want to investigate what was going on?
SG: Well, we filmed the Halloween episode about five or six months ago, so it was hot, and not Halloween time. (Gonsalves laughs.) But I love Halloween, and think it’s amazing to be a part of other people’s Halloween.
We did a live show every year (before the show’s revival), and viewers would say, “You’re a big part of our Halloween.” It’s amazing to hear that because I have things that are my favorite part of Halloween. Even though this episode’s not live, there will be a few million people watching us on Halloween, after they get home from their party or trick-or-treating.
SD: It’s fun because my kids and I watched the Halloween episodes all the time before I joined the team. I wasn’t part of the live shows, but since I was a fan, I watched them with my kids after our trick-or-treating. Now that I’m on this year’s Halloween episode, my kids and I will definitely watch it together when it streams.