I’m sure Ghost Hunters Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson get pretty sick of the endless Ghostbusters references. But, honestly, it’s no secret that bustin’ makes Jason and Grant feel damn good too, so I’m sure they understand. Anyway, we had a chance to catch up with the boys this week to see what those crazy Ghost Hunters are preparing for their six-hour live special this Halloween night, which will include live investigation, audience interaction and a look inside the setup of a Ghost Hunter hunt! Check out the full interview after the jump and find out more about the live Ghost Hunters special on October 31st.

Could you tell us how you first became involved or interested in the paranormal field?
Jason Hawes: Yeah, well we both had our own personal experiences. Before that we were non-believers. You know, to be honest with you it was just our own personal experiences we’ve ever kept – we’ve always kept private. But it just took two non-believers and thrust us into a field. And when we first got into this field we just realized that there’s so much garbage out there. There are people out there selling pictures of a dot online for you to view for, you know, three dollars a month in membership fees and stuff of that nature. When we came in, being people who did not believe prior, we just looked at the field differently and we were willing to call it out. It’s funny because when we first started off a lot of people hated us because of the way we saw things and how vocal we were about them. But yeah, there were personal experiences that just fueled our passion into the unknown.

You’ve talked on some of the episodes about the fact that the past of a location has a lot to do with what’s going on there in the present. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Grant Wilson: Sure. We like to just kind of hear what the stories are of the people who were there and then research the history later. But we’ve found, interestingly enough, that a newer building can be just as haunted as an old building with a checkered past. The places that have more tragedy to them, unfortunately, seem to have a little bit more activity. But you never know. So that’s why we always take places we’ve already investigated for the live show because we know there’s activity there. We’ve already “built a rapport” with what may be there. But the Fort Delaware hasn’t really seen too much action as far as battles, though. It was mostly accidents – most of the deaths there were due to accidents. But nonetheless, it was a prison camp at one point and that’s always miserable.

You’ve got six full hours to fill on October 31st, what will we see over the course of that time?Jason Hawes: You know what, we’re just going to – we’re going to head around. We’ve got Amanda Tapping with us, and the rest of the TAPS guys, some are close friends from GHI, Ghost Hunters International. And I think it’s just a really interesting location, and a lot of ground to cover. So I honestly, you know, I think it’s going to be a good night. Whether we catch something or not, it’s just going to be a wild night. It really is. What do you think, Grant?

Grant Wilson: I think it’s going to be an interesting location because it is on an island, so we have to barge everything over there. So once we’re there we can be completely uninterrupted. There’s no chance of any kind of contamination or anything like that. But as far as how we’re going to spend the time, I don’t know, maybe we’ll play some cards. I don’t know. We’ll see.

Jason Hawes: I believe a part of the episode the first hour – because it’s a total of seven hours long – I think they’re going to show what it took to make this happen, be able to get in there and do this live show. They’re going to show how much chaos [there is in] trying to get the actual trailers over to the island and everything else. So that should be interesting.

Five hours of this is going to be live and one hour is pre-recorded. Is that right?
Grant Wilson: All right, here it is. This is the breakdown. Yeah, you’ve got what they call the pre-game show, for an hour of the show exactly – them getting all the trailers over there and all the equipment setting up, so that the audience really knows how much effort goes into it, which we wanted to get across. We wanted to make sure they understood that this is crazy for us as well. And then six hours of just live chaos. No, it’s not only us – them just following us around. We actually pull the audience in as part of it where they can go online. They can watch special camera angles online. They can report activity.

Jason Hawes: Panic button, yeah.

Grant Wilson: Yeah, they have a panic button, which was pressed, I don’t know, tens of thousands of times last time when people think they see stuff. And then if it’s legitimate we’ll go investigate. And so it’s more than just watching it. You actually are interacting and somewhat investigating with us.

What kind of activity did you guys initially find, at this location that separated it from the other locations that you had been, scouring throughout the season?
Jason Hawes: One of the great things that we had happen was we set a camera up down a hallway and you were able to see something walk out about 100 feet down the hallway - walk out, turn around and walk back into what appeared to be a wall. And that’s while Grant and I were heading down there. So we decided we’d set the thermal up - thermal imaging camera up by itself and just let it roll for the night. And again about an hour or two later we were able to see a head and shoulders (clean) out from behind the wall and pull itself back in. That was one... Yeah, that’s one of a bunch of different things we had happen. At one point Grant and I are sitting at a table in the kitchen talking and all of a sudden it sounded like either an explosion or a loud bang happened right there, right next to us - scared the life out of both of us. But couldn’t find any reason or anything that made that happen. So there are a bunch of great little things - EVPs, things of that nature that were caught that really led into just a wonderful (case).

Grant Wilson: The reason it was chosen was not only was there great activity but because it’s (the right size), it’s got a good history, something that we won’t exhaust the building in the six hours on TV. And it is completed isolated because it’s an island so we don’t have to worry about anybody sneaking up and trying to pull fast ones on us.

Geraldo’s famous Al Capone Vault kind of fell apart years ago and people still talk about it – what’s your dream scenario for that not happening with your live event at Fort Delaware?Jason Hawes: Of course we hope that all the ghosts come out to play but we can’t guarantee that, you know what I mean. These things don’t work on cue so we’re going to hope that these things come out and play. But, you know; only time will tell. We’re just going to pretty much investigate like we investigate and see what comes out of it. You got something to add to that, Grant?

Grant Wilson: No all we can do is just investigate like we always do and pull out all our techniques. Our audience is kind of aware that it doesn’t happen all the time. So if nothing happens, at least, hopefully we can instruct them in some kind of debunking technique or something and keep it interesting. But we will have some friends on the show that are inexperienced which should keep it interesting. They should have a lot of questions and probably get spooked out, so it should be good.

Is there a particular ghost that you guys would like to hunt – like say Elvis or somebody like that?Jason Hawes: Yeah, a particular ghost? You know, of course...man, well, Elvis? I have no idea even how to comment on that one. But...

Grant Wilson: I think he’s still alive, so I can’t...

Jason Hawes: Yeah right. You know what? I think any type of spirit activity – of course, when you go places that people are claiming Al Capone’s spirited – things of that nature, that’s just incredible. We were actually talking about doing Graceland at one point. So it’s funny that you brought up Elvis. You know what, any place that there’s possible paranormal activity is just wonderful for me. I’m never going to look at a place and…just to get in on investigating Graceland does not mean that the spirit of Elvis is at Graceland.

Grant Wilson: I think it would be cool to get in touch with maybe like Houdini’s spirit or something like that because he was so – you know, he spent a lot of his life trying to debunk all these claims. But honestly, it’s so hard to get any spirit to respond to you. Good luck finding a specific one. So yeah, it’s going to be rough.

Have you noticed if there’s more paranormal activity at this time of year or is it just the same as any other day?Jason Hawes: It depends on what part of the country. Like right now, of course, you know, the northern states – in the northeastern states you get a lot more reports. And the reason behind that is it’s colder. People are in the house more often. A lot of that could be chalked up to everything from the heat turning on, the wood popping and cracking making the sound of footsteps. You know, you’re also – you’re around Halloween so it’s all the scary movies, the ghost movies, everything of that nature. So it’s not that real paranormal activity takes off. It’s just that people’s perception that there is more paranormal activity picks up because of that.

Overall would you say most of your encounters are with evil forces or is it just a mix of everything?Jason Hawes: You know, Hollywood does a great job by really sparking up the demons and everything of that nature. But out of all the cases we’ve done I could say, out of the last 15 to 18 years, that we’ve actually been sent in by churches to do cases... and that’s how we’ve been sent in to really 600 or 700 church cases – maybe two of them have turned out to be negative type entities. So the rarity – it’s so rare to actually run into a negative type entity no matter who tells you what. You know, it’s just some people think that that sells so that’s what they want to put out there. We want to put out the truth and that’s what matters to us.

Grant Wilson: This is Grant. You got to say most of the people who we encounter or entities we seem to encounter are just people. I mean they had lives. They had families. They had jobs, careers, you know, ambitions and stuff like that. And that doesn’t really change according to our research past the grave. So I mean more - you can pretty much walk down the streets of New York City and not get killed hopefully. And that’s because people are generally good natured and that continues beyond the grave. So anything we encounter, usually it can be reasoned with or there’s no real threat.

Jason Hawes: Well and just touching up on what Grant just said, the only time I really hear people say “I’ve got a demon in my house,” is if they’re extremely religious people in the beginning anyways. So most people just look at a ghost as a ghost so a lot of – you know, certain people – very religious people look at it, and it’s seen as something negative. A lot of times you find that highly religious household but you really find out most of the time that it’s nothing to do with a negative entity.

The show has held a lot of influence for amateur ghost hunters. What do you think are the upsides and downsides of people forming their own groups and going out there and investigating?Jason Hawes: Honestly, I think it’s great that you’re just seeing all these new people come into the field. I’ve seen everything from nuclear physicists, forensic scientists and everybody else get involved in the field since our show has been out there. So there’s that huge upside to it. You know, it – which makes me happy. But in return, a lot of these groups that are popping up disappear at the wayside as fast as they popped up because people see the show and, wow, look – TAPS caught something here, they caught something there. What they don’t understand is there might have been ten episodes that never aired because we never caught anything. So it’s a real waiting game. I also worry a lot of times about certain groups getting in over their heads. We’ve been doing this for 18 plus years. Fifteen years before the show even existed our dedication level was there a long time prior. We went through sometimes a year, a year and a half before we caught any evidence. And that’s one thing that these groups need to remember. But also, getting in over your head is something we… Grant and I and cast have been called in on many cases of groups that just popped up, who all of a sudden go to a house and with what they believe to be a negative type entity or too much activity. They’re frightened and in return frightening the homeowners even more. So there’s that big downside to it all, too. Yeah, I’d recommend people form a group and get out there and investigate. But I recommend that they, you know, they don’t expect anything to happen. That’s the biggest thing right there – just be prepared for when something does happen, you know?

Grant Wilson: Yeah I’d say...

Jason Hawes: You don’t want to go running out of a house when somebody is there requesting you to come in and help them.

Grant Wilson: Yeah I think it’s good. It’s very nice that we’re raising awareness. But with the raise of awareness, we hope the quality goes up as well. We feel a certain responsibility to make sure these groups are getting off on the right foot and getting trained right. We do lectures and things to help the groups start off on the right foot. We’re actually working with someone else to help him write a book about the real dangers of getting involved in it. Not the psychological dangers but, you know, walking into someone’s house as they pull a gun on you and stuff like that. Those are the things that...

Jason Hawes: We’ve seen that happen.

Grant Wilson: Yeah it does happen.

You guys have some pretty awesome gadgets like the [flare] thermal scan, but that one can get pretty pricey. What do you recommend for people who want to go out and start their own investigative group? What are the basics that any new group should have?

Jason Hawes: When Grant and I started we were using an old camcorder, which was huge. We were using old cassette recorders, things of that nature. You really – you work up to where we are, you know. I recommend people just go grab, you know, some cheap camcorders, cheap digital recorders and start off that way, and build their equipment as they need to and financially they can.

Grant Wilson: Yeah, you can go so far as just – you can use a compass instead of an EMF detector. It’s not going to be as accurate but at least you’ll get some response. Some people have baby monitors. They can use those as far as some of them with the cameras and things. If you research enough you can find a good amount of equipment for any budget. But the most bang for your buck is a video camera and a digital recorder.

What’s the special appeal of Ghost Hunters over some of the other more dramatic paranormal shows or the other shows out there?Jason Hawes: Well first of all – this is Jason again – I think the main appeal about our show is that we’re normal, down-to-earth guys. We’re not, you know, these scientists out there talking over everybody’s head. And I think that that’s very important. I think one of the main things is we’re not a group that was put together to make a television show like most of the other shows out there. We are a group that existed long before this television show and we’ll exist long after. And we’re a big family. We really are. We’ve been together long before this show. And, you know, our families have grown up together. Grant’s wife and kids and my wife and kids. Steve, you know, has been over to my house for years before the show, hanging out with the family and the kids. And all the other cast members. So I think those three reasons are what sets us apart from any other show out there.

Grant Wilson: You limit your audience by catering only to those who believe already. If you’re a believer, you watch the show and have experiences. If you’re not, you can watch our show and hopefully we’re doing exactly what you are thinking, as far as saying, “Oh, maybe it’s a window that closes a door,” or anything like that, trying to debunk it. That gives you the window for the whole world to eventually appreciate your show rather than just believers like most of the other shows do.

Do you ever find yourself struggling, where you’re leaning towards one side or the other, feeling like you want to ignore the science of it and focus more on saying that it is haunted?
Grant Wilson: I don’t think that you could ever ignore the science of it. The only time we even entertain the idea that it’s paranormal is once we’ve exhausted all the science at our fingertips. That doesn’t mean we have all the answers. But if we’ve exhausted all our expertise and our knowledge, then we don’t know what it is, and we will put it out there for experts to find. And once they don’t know what it is, then it’s truly paranormal. It’s just something you don’t encounter everyday. But we – you never ever want to overlook anything, be it one way or the other. You don’t want to overlook the paranormal and just brush it off as something, some excuse you’ve made up, and you don’t want to brush off the science, just because it’d be easier to believe that it’s an entity.

How often do clients have particularly extreme reactions to your findings? Have you ever had a client just want to flat out argue with you if you’ve been able to declare the site haunted?
Jason Hawes: Oh, absolutely, and we’ve had clients argue with us when they believe the place is haunted and we found reasonable explanations that really say that it’s not because some people want the notoriety of having a haunted house. Very rarely do you have somebody get angry with you when you say the place is haunted. It’s mainly when you’re shooting it down and somebody actually wants it to be haunted is when they’ll get argumentative. But you know what? We need to be honest. We need to be true and that’s what matters. We’re there to try to help out families but we’re there to be honest. If that means that we’re not making friends then so be it. But at least we’ve been honest to ourselves and we can go home and sleep at night.

Are either of you fans of scary movies or Sci-Fi TV shows, or is that subject matter kind of old hat when you spend your working hours dealing with that?
Jason Hawes: I’m a fan of horror flicks. I’m more into the zombie movies – Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later – things of that nature. That’s always been my favorite type of thing.

Grant Wilson: I like sci-fi, fantasy. I can’t do horror. I can’t handle the gore and garbage. Thrillers I like, you know, where it’s all suspense and they wait until the last minute to show the monster or whatever. I can’t do horror.