A&E’s Extreme Paranormal

A&E’s Extreme Paranormal premiered last night and I have to say that it was one of the worst paranormal reality shows that I have seen since “Ghost Adventures”. I cannot believe what I was seeing or hearing. Honestly. These were some of the most disrespectful and theatrical displays I have seen.

Extreme Paranormal is made up of 3 members of the “Ghostman & Demon Hunter” radio show. Shaun Burris (Ghostman), Nathan Schoonover (Demon Hunter) and Jason Gowin are the 3 investigators that make up the show. I’ve have listened to a few episodes of the “Ghostman & Demon Hunter” radio show, and can remember not being to enthused over the material. I think I listened to maybe 2 episodes.

Since their radio show is pretty well known, I’m guessing that A&E looked around for some “extreme” paranormal investigators for their latest addition to the few paranormal/reality shows on rotation. Why someone would sign with A&E after knowing how they edit and butcher what really happens, is beyond me. I just remember when the whole “Dog The Bounty Hunter racist remarks” thing unfolded. I was really angry at the fact that A&E went ahead and continued production with that racist redneck’s show. It’s funny because when this was all going on, I remember driving through south central L.A. one day and I had spotted a few billboards with Duane “Dog” Chapman’s face on it, issuing some form of apology to the black community. I had mentioned to my girlfriend how this was not gonna fly with the people and that his show was done. Guess I was wrong. Go A&E!

Anyways, I digress.

So the show last night was really, really bad.

It does not focus on parapsychology at all. It does not even attempt to collect any scientific data whatsoever. All I kept hearing and seeing were yells of “DUDE! What was that!”, “HOLY SH!T, I just felt something” or “Oh my god! I saw a shadow” and them running clumsily into the dark. As if their plan was to tackle down these “shadows”.

Worst part of how these guys operate is that they come on as being “extreme”. So the point of the show is to show them going into supposed haunted locations and taunting the spirits to manifest themselves. Regardless of how ridiculously it’s done, or how stupid they look. For example there was an incident in that penitentiary in which inmates who had full control of the prison, were cutting the rods from a cell to get ahold of a certain inmate. After the inmates had cut through the bars, then beat the hiding inmate and burned his body outside of the cell. All this while the prison was in full riot. Visible burnt marks were seen on the cement. So what do these “extreme” investigators do?

Nathan Schoonover (Demon Hunter) starts talking about creating this circle of fire with a “dead tree” blood symbol in order to conjure up the spirit of the dead. So he gets in the fetal-position (just like the body was found) and the others trace it with chalk and then what appeared to be hand sanitizer. Nathan Schoonover cuts himself with a razor to use his blood to paint the symbol inside the circle. He starts to chant/conjure up the spirit of the burnt victim. Saying something along the lines of “you are dead, you don’t belong here” while Jason Gowin films it. Nothing happens. Of course. No one really had any proof that this place was haunted in the first place. The show’s producers picked out this place and decided to stage all these dramatic scenes of “extreme paranormal investigating”.

After a few minutes, nothing happens of course. So then you hear Shaun scream about hearing something. They all run towards Shaun. He had recorded some EVP which sounds like nothing I have ever heard before. Very clear and very “monster like”. A little too fake if you ask me.

In what I think was a disrespectful gesture, one of the investigators mentioned how they “had” the spirit in their radar, so they say “Let’s go get this bastard!”. Referring to the person that was burnt and supposedly was haunting this place. Some real investigation alright.

Then there was another scene in which Jason was sitting inside the cell, while Shaun was trying to saw through the rods. Nathan was spraying saline solution all at the same time in order to create an ideal “haunting environment”. Shaun says something along the lines of “let’s recreate hell!”. LOL.

All that came from that investigation were a few very clear EVPs that sounded fake, and a lot of “What was that”, “Did you see that?” “someone pushed me! ” and “DUDE!” remarks.

The next investigation was in New Mexico.

The team investigates the town of Bonito, NM. Which turned out to be at the bottom of a lake. So they had to do some underwater ghost investigation. How extreme.

The town of Bonito had seen a few killings from a murderer named Martin Nelson. After the killings many people left the town and eventually it was flooded.

Turns out, these guys made some floating circle of pentagrams to throw in the water to attract the spirt of the killer and a protection circle on land. Where Nathan and Jason were staying inside of. For protection of course.

Shaun puts on a wetsuit (which was scary enough) and then paddles inside the floating circle for a bit before diving deep under to attempt underwater EVP recording. Remember, this is “extreme” investigating.

Nothing really happens. Shaun screams something about “someone grabbing his legs” or something like that. Honestly I was falling asleep. it was already 1:30 am.

There was a shot of Jason and Nathan inside the protection circle, in which Jason had with him a K-2 meter that was supposedly being used to communicate with the killer.

At this point, I remembered an email that Gary@GhostTheory had sent to me. About how people can easily fake a “K-2 ghost reading”.

Why TAPS (Ghost Hunters) Can’t Be Trusted – Click here for this week’s top video clips

To recap, this show is one of the worst that I’ve seen (and I’ve seen plenty). Its editing is bad, its locations are “ho-hum” and the investigators are disrespectful.
Disrespectful to the spirits of the departed, the relatives of the departed and the viewers; who are taken a wild-goose chase through scenes of them yelling and running aimlessly, self mutilation, obnoxious “frat boy” lingo and pointless religious/magic/sorcery practices that I’m pretty sure they don’t know how to use properly.

So if you like overweight guys running around in the dark, yelling at “ghosts” to appear before them and then hearing them yelp when they see shadows…this is the show for you.

But don’t take my word for it, check out what other GhostTheory readers had to say:

KOZ says:
October 19, 2009 at 7:57 PM (Edit)

Changing diapers is more interesting than what I just witnessed.

jrock says:
October 19, 2009 at 8:49 PM (Edit)

Wow! I just sat through the lamest hour of television I’ve watched in a long while. I guess some networks will give just about anyone a show nowadays. If you like cheesy, overacted, scripted audio dubbing over a “recorded investigation” by all means tune in because there is nothing extreme or paranormal about this show. For those who value the paranormal I would strongly suggest you find something, anything else to do for an hour. I sure wish I had…

Kevin says:
October 19, 2009 at 11:56 PM (Edit)

Excruciatingly bad acting; yes acting! I wish “Martin Nelson” dragged all their sorry asses to the bottom.

Robert says:
October 20, 2009 at 7:11 AM (Edit)

I just finished trying to watch it this morning. Too tired to stay up last night, so I used the trusty DVR.

I couldn’t finish it due to its being so bad. Excuse me, not just bad, VERY bad.

Will we even see a show that uses controls and proven scientific research methods to either prove or disapprove paranormal activity?

Congrats A&E, you’ve just given us the American version of Most Haunted.

There was also a very concerning comment left on a previous post:

yvonne says:
October 19, 2009 at 11:00 PM (Edit)

The show was really awful, and I’d guess authentic paranormal researchers and explorers were nauseated.

Shows like Extreme Paranormal have the very real potential to cause undue pain for the survivors, relatives, and descendants of victims of violent death, and for what? So the average hypnotized and dummied down TV viewer can get their rocks off?

I am a direct descendant of the victims of the Bonito Lake New Mexico tragedy being featured on Extreme Paranormal show tonight.

First of all, my ancestors have spilled more than enough blood already. You know, like REAL blood?? That their tragedy is being exploited for sensationalized reality TV is stupid, disrespectful and wrong.

When anything horrible happens anywhere: ghost stories spring up. Does that make any of these “ghost” stories true? I doubt anybody involved with Extreme Paranormnal has a clue…

The show’s chubby cheeked boy hosts have obviously never had any authentic contact with negative entities from the other side, cause if they had, the last thing they’d be doing now is trying to fool around with the ghosts of mass murderers. They would have already learned their lesson.

In the first segment, one guy cuts himself so his blood would help summon spirits of tortured dead people – and another uses a saw to cut through jail cell bars to harrass one of these poor souls? They ought to be ashamed and embarrassed.

And, this trend of increasingly disrespectful and aggressive paranormal shows is contributing to fast growing numbers of dumbshit copycat kids going out there causing property damage at supposedly haunted sites and invading cemeteries all over the U.S.A.

Lovely.

Incidently, when the “Extreme Paranormal” researchers contacted our family, they were dishonest, hiding the fact that they were out to taunt the killer, “…daring demons to attack” and all that macho childish crap. When my relative tried to straighten the researchers out on the actual facts, it soon became apparent that the show wasn’t likely to allow the truth to get their way.

Indeed, the show ignored the facts, like how they talked about the town beneath the lake, when their researchers knew the buildings were torn down before the lake was created.

So tonight, some bullshit super fictionalized story went out into the world, and for what? To feed gullible goofballs with too much time on their hands their daily dose of hype that now replaces meaningful interaction with actual people in the actual world?

By the way, if you want to know the truth about the Bonito City tragedy, google it in six months, my relative is writing the true story.

Finally, there is no basis to any ghost stories at the Lake. None of the longterm residents and fishermen who’ve lived or now live near Bonito Lake have reported any paranormal activity. Yet some say how on a clear night sometimes one can see the steeple from the old church poking out of the water. Yeah right, the lake is 75 feet deep, and oh, there was never a church in old Bonito City….The show is a sham, but you know that already, right?

I think all these comments sum it up nicely.

So if any of the A&E producers are reading this, this is what you produce. These are the exact thoughts of your critical thinking audience out there.

Who else saw this travesty of a show?

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