Bridgewater Film Fest: The Bridgewater Triangle on The History Channel

Local leaders always seem to get excited when cameras show up in Bridgewater (unless of course it's negative news, in which case no one wants anything to do with them). If a movie or television crew shows up to film in the area we can count on breathless local coverage giving the impression that Bridgewater is the next Hollywood. 

The almost giddy tone of a recent story in the Brockton Enterprise about The History Channel's segment on the Bridgewater Triangle is one example. Nevertheless our interest was piqued so we paid the fee to purchase the streaming episode of Beyond Skinwalker Ranch through Amazon Prime. The show itself was disappointing. We felt like we were watching middle-school kids making a film while they were camping out (except everyone involved was a grown man). While the crew does speak to some locals about the history of the area, we have no idea what their credentials are. No one from the Wampanoag tribe was interviewed about King Philips War or Puckwudgies even though both were discussed in the piece. 

The "evidence" they collect is laughable. For instance they take some footage of a flying glowing ball "It's not a plane! It's not a plane" they exclaimed over and over again. Perhaps it was a weather balloon? We don't know. They made no effort to find out. Bridgewater State University has an aviation department. If I were involved I might have asked someone there what they thought. 

The crew is also astounded that they have three different compasses pointing to three different "norths" in the Hockomock Swamp. Compasses not working properly isn't exactly proof of paranormal activity. In fact, it's pretty common especially in a place with a lot of electromagnetic activity (high electromagnetic activity is not a paranormal phenomenon either). Again, I might have taken advantage of the nearby university and spoken with someone in the geology and geography departments for further explanation.

It seemed the most extreme abuse of "evidence" collection was the fact that several pieces of  their (battery operated) equipment failed at the same time (again, in a place with a lot of electromagnetic activity) so they were unable to collect "data". They determined that this lack of data was in fact data. Holy moly.

This all made me think of the concept of "peer review". As an academic librarian I am very often asked to help someone find a peer-reviewed journal article. What they mean is a scholarly article that has been through a process in which other experts in the same field have determined that the author(s) did credible research with appropriate controls. Of course the term "peer" by itself simply means someone of your same age and/or circumstances. I sometimes tell students, for instance, that the entire University website is "peer reviewed" in the sense that the University vice-presidents all tell each other that they did a great job putting together a site that is simply a PR piece.

Likewise, the guys who made this show were simply clapping each other on the back telling themselves that they must have found something (because that's what they wanted). A healthy bit of skepticism was definitely in order. 

This was perfectly awful. For those interested in the Bridgewater Triangle we recommend the 2013 Bridgewater Triangle documentary

Triangle House?

The teller shuddered when I handed her the check, which I was depositing to cover the cost of renovations in the kitchen our Bridgewater home. When we bought the home in 2002, we arranged for structural repairs in the kitchen before we even moved in. The collapsing ceiling had, in fact, made our purchase of the house possible: we later found out that many of our friends had been interested in the house until they saw that ceiling. Once the major work was done, we turned our attention to the rest of the house, eventually making it a "rainbow house" inside, as we steadily remodeled each room.

Our kitchen, the "before" picture

Finally, our attention returned to the kitchen and its Full House-era cabinets, and this involved some banking. Back to the teller ...

I never really watched this show, but when we did catch an episode a few years ago, Pam noticed the cabinets right away.

The reason she was startled, she said, was that she had grown up in the house. Her family had owned it for 22 years, and they had sold it to the woman from whom we bought it. I mentioned our current project with the cabinets, which she of course remembered. I was pleased to meet yet another person connected to the house -- I think it might have been her mother who had a similar reaction to a check I wrote at the local grocery a few years ago, and we have bumped into a number of former residents over the years.

And then she asked if we had noticed anything happening in the house. I am not a follower of the paranormal, but somehow I immediately knew what she meant, and said that we had not. Because that is what I thought.

The teller -- who was training a new teller at the time, a man who stood silently by as we had this discussion -- related stories of her family's experience. Most notable was her brother, who slept with a baseball bat for fear of the ghosts in his room. The family had eventually hired a medium to put him at ease.

I reported this to Pam when I got home, and she found it interesting, repeating that she does not believe in ghosts, and had not seen any. Whenever I think of ghosts, I am reminded of C.S. Lewis, who asserted that seeing and believing are not the same thing. He had seen ghosts and did not believe in them, while a good friend of his was a firm believer who had never seen one. I have never seen one and do not believe in them (I think), but I do not doubt those who see them.

When I mentioned all of this to our kid -- 20 years old and home for the holidays -- they reported having seen one when they were about age 7. If they were sleeping in our room (which was often the case), they would see the ghosts walking back and forth in the upstairs hallway. JUST WHERE THE TELLER TOLD ME HER BROTHER SAW THEM.

We have since reconfigured that space, so that no wall divides the hall from the room. And we have a light fixture there that is new and professionally installed but sometimes simply does not work. Inexplicably. I am not sure I believe in ghosts, but I do believe in pranks.

As I was wondering whether the ghosts looked like my most consistent mental image of ghosts -- from the Alfred Hitchcock book ghostwritten by Robert Arthur -- Pam reminded me of the obvious: whatever kids in the house have seen, we are deep in the Bridgewater Triangle, and only a few steps from a famously haunted dormitory.

Maps: Paranormal Encyclopedia