Close encounters of a spooky kind at Coalhouse Fort, East Tilbury

The broadcast will be helmed by the regular Ghost Hunters duo of Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson - two Rhode Island plumbers who have achieved considerable cable fame in recent years as blue-collar ghost chasers - with Stargate SG-1's Amanda Tapping and Crossing Jordan's Steve Valentine serving as celebrity guest investigators.

"The fact they're inexperienced should keep it interesting," Wilson said in a recent conference call to promote the special. "They should have a lot of questions and will probably get spooked out."

However, the show's skeptical approach will remain intact: Most episodes in the series have the experts capably debunking claims of paranormal activity. "Eighty per cent of all our investigations turn out to be nothing," Hawes said.

The Ghost Hunters methodology involves the deployment of a wide range of ghost-detecting equipment, including digital thermometers, infrared cameras, white-noise generators and, on occasion, a Geiger counter. "We'll pull out all our techniques," Wilson said. "Our audience is aware that it doesn't happen all the time."

The Fort Delaware location was previously visited by the Ghost Hunters team in a fourth-season show. Commonly referred to as the "Black Hole," the site was used as a PoW camp during the Civil War and at one time housed more than 30,000 Confederate soldiers; roughly 2,400 perished.

"We've already built a rapport with what might be there. Most of the deaths at Fort Delaware were due to accidents, but nonetheless it was a prison camp, and that's always miserable," Wilson said.

In a nod toward interactivity, amateur ghost hunters can participate in the special by logging onto the Space website (http://www.spacecast.com), which will show alternative camera angles of the Fort Delaware grounds. Viewers at home are invited to watch and report any ghostly activity that might have been missed by the plumbers.

Ghost Hunters Live will also feature regular reports from the Space entertainment show The Circuit, which will be on-location from the offices of the Canadian horror magazine Rue Morgue (located in a former Toronto funeral home).

Keep in mind that ghosts tend to be finicky, and there is always the possibility Ghost Hunters Live could suffer the same fate as The Mystery of Al Capone's Vault.

Broadcast in April of 1986, the live broadcast was hyped for weeks and garnered an audience of more than 30 million viewers. When host Geraldo Rivera - who else? - finally opened the late gangster's vault in the show's closing minutes, the contents were revealed to be dust, and a few empty bottles. There's never any guarantee with this type of TV event.

"Of course we hope all the ghosts come out to play, but we can't guarantee it," Hawes said. "It's been our experience that ghosts tend to be fussy about when and where they decide to make themselves known to humans. It's just the way ghosts are."

Also chasing spirits tonight: Most Haunted (W, 8 p.m.), which is more or less the same concept as Ghost Hunters, except it chronicles the supernatural expeditions of English experts, some of whom run away like Scooby-Doo's pal Shaggy at the slightest hint of a spectral being.

There is always some jolly scurrying on Most Haunted, which airs a four-hour marathon this evening. It's the sort of program you must watch at least once. So if you've never seen it, start tonight.

Most outings in the long-running British-import series are hosted by Yvette Fielding, a wide-eyed TV presenter who takes her poltergeist pursuits seriously. Without fail on each outing, Fielding is accompanied by a famous British psychic, presumably to lend some degree of authenticity to the investigation; each field trip also includes several observers and TV crew members, always the first to flee madly.

Tonight's first Most Haunted explores the foreboding confines of Coalhouse Fort, situated on the banks of the Thames in Essex. Originally constructed to protect London from naval assault, the fort has inspired hundreds of reports from people who claim to have seen ethereal soldiers and floating orbs and the like.

Fielding teams with psychic Johnnie Fiori to communicate with the other side. As usual, she stands her ground, looking quite fetching in ghost-chaser night gear.

In the second show, the fearless Fielding is off to the seaside at Lancashire, this time with medium and "psychic artist" Brian Shepherd, to creak about backstage at the rundown Morecambe Winter Gardens. Locals have reported sightings of dead vaudevillians in the long-abandoned music hall, which leads to another midnight excursion, and more running away.

But for those weary of presumably real ghosts and night-vision footage this Hallow's Eve, perhaps the safer option would be the original Ghostbusters (Family Channel, 9 p.m.).

The top-grossing film of 1984 still holds up on repeat viewing, though it prompts some questions today, such as: Why did three of the four Ghostbusters smoke? Who designed those smart-looking jumpsuits? And whatever happened to Ray Parker Jr.?