In a stunning revelation likely to scare the most hardened of ghost hunters, a special effects company claims to have created numerous hoaxed hauntings at legendary locations.
Predominantly the creators of elaborate effects at theatrical haunted houses, Kentucky Special FX told the Week in Weird that they have also had considerable business creating hoaxed events for clients.
Owner of the company Mike Bisch claims that the group has been tasked with fabricating ghostly activity for both companies and individuals on over twenty different occasions!
According to Bisch, they have actually developed a way to replicate the eerie activity reported by ghost hunters over the years, such as sudden temperature changes and equipment failure, without being detected as the ones responsible.
The group even uses embedded 'ghost hunters' to help further the illusion and trick unsuspecting individuals into thinking that they are having a paranormal experience.
Based on their past successes, Bisch boasted to the website, "we don't get caught, ever."
As one might expect, the disclosure that there is a special effects company creating activity for purportedly haunted sites has been met with considerable dismay from the ghost hunting community.
Those who partake in the activity lament that a significant amount of time and resources go into an investigation, making the news about these hoaxes particularly disheartening.
And owners of 'real' haunted houses argue that the company does a great disservice to sites that try and provide a legitimate location for researchers to study.
Bisch, however, sees his work as a way of 'critiquing' what he sees as a lack of effort from paranormal researchers and ghost hunters.
His argument is that quality ghost hunters would be able to spot the hoax, although that appears not to have happened yet.
It's likely that we'll never know exactly where and for whom the company has hoaxed a haunting, but it's a safe bet that the explosive revelations about the practice will have ghost hunters second guessing their evidence for quite some time.
Much more on the story, including whether there is a legal recourse for ghost investigators fooled by the fake hauntings, over at the Week in Weird.