Monday, June 30, 2008

Goofin' on the Ghost Hunters (TAPS)

I and my wife Jill had the opportunity to meet the cast of the Sci-Fi Channel's hit show "Ghost Hunters", ('TAPS')and to take part in an onsite nocturnal investigation of Fort Mifflin in South Philadelphia - supposedly one of the most haunted places in America (featured in the first episode of Season 4) and 'the fort that saved America' in the Revolutionary War. We'd met them the year before when we took part in an investigation of the famous Eastern State Penitentiary, and were delighted at how cool, down-to-earth, and nice these guys were. Since we'd been fans of the show for years, and now that they were doing these fun paranormal convention/investigations, I figured it'd be a nice thing to give something back to them by doodling up some caricatures of them, and perhaps have them raffled off to raise money for the Fort, which has been in danger of closing (www.savefortmifflin.org) for a while. (As it turns out, the fort is now on solid financial footing due to the fundraising efforts of groups such as TAPS and other paranormal investigation groups who have been conducting conferences and investigations there for the public , as well as re-enactors, and private financial contributors.) I only had time to work on some initial sketches before the show, and there was no raffle anyway (as was done at E.S.P.), but I brought my work to show the guys, and they were thrilled...here's some pics from that day...





Needless to say, it was a thrill once again investigating with Grant, Jay, Steve, Tango, and Kris, and John Zaffis (demonologist extraordinaire) and even picked up some weird voice phenomena with my digital recorder, of a Hessian soldier bemoaning how 'ssssloww' the war was going...
I got to talk to Dave Tango's dad, Bruce, who was at the event helping out, about donating my caricatures when they were finished to the fundraiser that he was arranging for the Tourette's Foundation in Westfield, NJ, with TAPS as special guests. So....fast forward to November, and the next post...