Close Encounters of the Best Kind

Recently, I came across some highlight film segments for a television show entitled "Ghost Adventures". The gist of the show is three guys who go to haunted locales and spend the night. The "lead" guy is a theatrical, type A personality who is in the habit of talking directly to the ghosts. The show "works" because they seem to find a lot of evidence for paranormal activity. I noticed that as I watched the clips, I felt drawn into them and they really are spooky (the spooky soundtrack added later helps a lot in this regard). The problem is that there is really nothing necessarily paranormal about these films whatsoever. They don't constitute any sort of "evidence" of the paranormal. The video quality is poor - they are using hand-held video cameras and the things that they film - which do include objects appearing to move on their own and one instance where one of the guys starts behaving oddly, to the alarm of the other two - are not without logical explanations. There is nothing logically inconsistent with the argument that they are just faking the whole thing.

Thus, the entire thing hinges around the premise of the "adventure" - namely that these guys are going into places they have never been and spontaneously filming things that they find there. This is sort of like what the "Blair Witch Project" did some years back. The problem with the Blair Witch movie was that it was very difficult to maintain the premise with a large-screen movie format. With the TV format, we are more accustomed to "live" events from news broadcasts and the like. The lead guy in the ghost show is very good - he make a lot of jumpy reactions and is effective at seeming scared, using technical sounding jargon given under supposed fear and duress.

The problem with the whole thing is that this is is sort of a "ghosts-on-demand" show. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, if they really are doing what they claim to do (setting aside the SLIGHT conflict of interest here in that they are a lot more likely to get their show's contract renewed if the FIND ghosts, versus NOT FIND them...) it better, at least, be the case that they have a lot more hours of video footage of them finding nothing versus finding something and they better have A LOT of instances where they go to supposedly haunted places and find NOTHING AT ALL.

That said, I am personally a big believer in the supernatural. Namely, because Christ reveals that the supernatural is to be believed - casting out demons etc. And the show gets its biggest boost in credibility for me from an unexpected source - namely the experiences of priest exorcists that I do trust (the monetary conflict of interest is less of an issue with an exorcist) who have related stories that are every bit as creepy as anything the adventures the ghost busters go on. How about real cases of possession where you aren't just hearing disembodied "EVP'S" (jargon - "extrasensory voice phenomenon" - makes it seem more scientific), but rather rational, or at least cogent exchanges between the priest and alleged possessed person in which information is given that the person could have no way of knowing, or the person speaks in languages they could have no way of knowing?

My belief in the supernatural makes watching the "Ghost Adventures" show even creepier. There have been many, many saints and visionaries through the years who have had visions that have revealed that the level activity of the demons in the world is far more than most people understand. Even the ancient Romans knew this - part of the reason that the early Christians hid in the catacombs was that the Roman legionaries were afraid to go underground because they thought ghosts were down there. But in our modern world, the supernatural is "fun" and the lead character in the Ghost Adventures series says repeatedly - "I am not afraid of you".

Early UFO enthusiasts defined three "kinds" of interaction - seeing a UFO (Close Encounters of the First Kind), seeing with UFO with tangible physical evidence (Close Encounters of the Second Kind) and seeing an "animate being" with the UFO (Close Encounters of the Third Kind - the famous movie). According to Wikipedia, this list has been expanded of late - to include things like UFO abduction (Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind), extended back and forth exchange (i.e. messages) with UFO entities - i.e. "contactees" (Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind), events in which people are killed as a result of interaction with UFO's (Close Encounters of the Sixth Kind - watch out for that one!), "human-alien hybridisation" (!!! - Close Encounters of the Seventh Kind), alien colonization (!!!!!! - Close Encounters of the Eighth Kind), and the much looked-for open revelation of an alien race to the entire planet (Close Encounters of the Ninth Kind).

All of these phenomena reveal our desire for the unknown, for those "X-files" (dating myself here...) that will give use the underlying truth behind this confused life. This is even the name given to my generation - "Generation X". The ultimate X-file rotates the X forty-five degrees into a cross (- with props to Lino Rulli). The Close Encounters of the Best Kind are those of a God who reveals himself to the entire planet, who forms us in his Body into a colony of human-divine hybrids, who is abducted and killed as a result of interaction with US and who has continued to send messages throughout human history. This is the one who tells us "Don't be afraid of me". God, give me the grace to not be afraid.

The truth is out there. The Truth is in here.