Aaron Sagers | Ghosts, Paranormal Encounters and Bigfoot

Aaron Sagers is a renowned journalist, paranormal researcher, and TV personality, known for his expertise in the realms of paranormal pop culture. Aaron shares his journey into the mysterious world of the unexplained, discussing how his passion for storytelling and the supernatural merged into a unique career path. He provides fascinating insights into some of his most memorable paranormal investigations, exploring both the eerie and the unexplored aspects of ghost hunting and supernatural lore. Aaron also delves into the cultural impact of paranormal phenomena in media and society, and how these stories reflect our deepest fears and curiosities. This episode is a compelling blend of spooky tales and thoughtful discussion, perfect for anyone interested in the intersection of pop culture and the paranormal.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Talking to Death is released weekly every Wednesday and brought
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dot com or on Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Talking to Death is a production of tenderfoot TV and
iHeart Podcasts.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Listener discretion is advised. Mike Pain, where are you?

Speaker 1 (00:26):
I'm in La. I didn't sleep for shit last night,
but this Airbnb's kind of doing it right now. Bunch
of natural light I had when I got up, I
just pulled down like every damn shade there is in
here because it was too much light. I want to know,
just like just like off the riff here knee jerk reaction.

(00:48):
Do you believe in ghosts? Do? I?

Speaker 3 (00:51):
M hm yeah since radio rental, Yeah, I definitely do.
I didn't before I even though I've kind of seen one,
I didn't really believe in them at all.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
It was right, yeah, a weird story, right for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
And it was like green glowy, like you know, haunted
mansion style, and it went, you know, it was it
was ahead of me. It was dark outside. I was
driving to go drink beer at a park when I
was like sixteen what it bro I know, it's crazy
wild times, right, and it it went across the road
and I realized like, and it was going like the

(01:23):
speed of a guy on a bike, right, and it
kind of looked like that size, right, And it went
across and I was like, who's who's riding a bike
this late going from? And it was going from a
like a greenhouse nursery to somebody's front yard, right, that
was what was on either side of the street. Then
when I got to where it was, I was like,
wait a minute, there's a fence on either side of

(01:43):
the road, and it went through it as if there
was no fence. And when I tried to when I
got close enough, I tried to like see where it went,
and just like disappeared. I was like, what, how did
whatever that was? How did that go through two fences?

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Like they weren't there, So it like it was like
translucent move through like an object or what.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah, it was. It was like one hundred feet away,
so it was hard to make out, but yeah, it
totally just went through one fence on the left side
of the road and then across the road and then
a fence on the right side of the road. Like
they weren't there, never slowing down, never going over it,
never climbing over. It was just through the fences.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
I feel like since I've known you, you've been more
of a skeptic of things just over the years. But
I do remember, like definitively one time where we both
received this picture or a series of pictures from one
of the radio rental stories, and I remember like reading
the post and then clicking the picture, which we get

(02:42):
into in today's episode later. But do you feel like
that was sort of a I don't know that changed
the way you felt about it, because I mean, it's
a real picture. It's it's not doctor, and I don't
think it's a live photo from my iPhone.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
No, it's real and it's unexplained and it's hard to
wrap your head. And when I saw that one, on
top of all the other radio rental stories, we went,
I mean we went. We spent so many years going
around listening to people's like unexplained stories with that, and
then that photo was the final thing where I was like,
all right, this there's something to this. I don't know

(03:16):
what it is. It could be aliens, it could be ghosts,
it could be who knows some other dimension. But yeah,
that that that one. I remember going back to my
hotel room in Denver and I could not sleep, and
I kept looking over my shoulder like I was looking
at it on my phone.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
I was like, you scaring little nightmails or what a
little bit a.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
Little bit of nightmails?

Speaker 1 (03:37):
No, it was.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
It was terrifying and I didn't want to be alone.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Today's guest is I would just call him an expert
in the paranormal. His name is Aaron Segers. This guy
has done the real deal, though, the stuff that you know,
we that I would joke about doing, like yeah, I'll
go to the haunted house, but when I get there
for real, I'm like that, I never mind. I don't
want to actually confront some demon or some shit. I'm good.

(04:04):
I don't want to. I don't want to conjure that
up in my life. But this guy has tons of
experience going to some of the world's most haunted places.
He's a TV personality. He has a really cool podcast
called Talking Strange. We had some really just fun conversations
that went into the philosophy and sort of the concept

(04:25):
of what what the paranormal is at all, what ghosts
could be. And after a while we end up going
talking about Bigfoot, and I have a pretty strong opinion
on Bigfoot, and you'll hear later, but this guy is
just funny as hell. And I think that, you know,
I've always been curious about the supernatural and wondering what

(04:48):
that means or if it's some concept that we've created,
and we just have great imaginations and we want to
exist because the world's so boring sometimes or is it
just that we're scre actually at the surface of something
really insane that we just have no idea about, right,
And so I think that we got we got super

(05:08):
deep in the conversation with Aaron, and I feel like
I have a more nuanced take on the whole thing. Now. Yeah,
we get into Bigfoot, aliens a little bit, working in
reality TV and paranormal experiences, and I even have a
paranormal experience of my own that I've never shared before

(05:30):
that I that I unpack for you on today's episode,
and after you listen to it, I want you to
tell me what you think it was, because to this day,
I don't really know, or maybe I'm just you know,
being imaginative, but I had a weird I had a
weird night one time, and uh, I'm curious what everyone

(05:52):
else thinks about it. You tell me if it's paranormal
or if I just had one two mini beers. This
is episode eleven, Aaron Sagers. Well, thank you for being here. Aaron,

(06:16):
you are such an interesting person to me because you've
done so much weird shit. How would you even describe yourself?

Speaker 2 (06:25):
I don't know. It kind of depends on the day.
I guess it's funny. So I do these presentations when
I go to events and like comic cons and stuff,
and I put up a picture of like, this is
what it looks like I do, and it's like sort
of this foreboding picture of me holding a weige board
in front of a haunted doll, like Robert the Doll down.
I'm like, but this is actually what I really do.

(06:45):
And I post the meme of a Charlie Day from
It's Always Sunny, where he's like got the crime the
murder board, and he's like just kind of going nuts.
I'm like, that's like me. Most of the time. I'm
wandering around in my place eating cheese it's and talking
to myself and trying to connect the dots. Of weird
shit and my dog looking at me like I'm a
crazy person.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
But do you have a boy? Do you actually have
that wall?

Speaker 2 (07:08):
Though I have in the past, because that's actually that's
kind of cool. I don't know. I mean, I guess
I would say journalists, paranormal journalists, and then TV host
and then just researcher of weird shit, you know, like
it's but and and spooky nerd. That's that's like my
origins is just a nerd that was into all this

(07:29):
spooky stuff and then it somehow became a job.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
So as a paranormal investigator, Yeah, is this some Ghostbusters shit?
Like what's going on here?

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Uh? You mean me personally?

Speaker 1 (07:42):
What do I think of it? I mean, you know,
like what got you into that?

Speaker 2 (07:47):
So it's funny because I've only really recently started talking
about this, but as a kid, okay, into comic books
and a science fiction and a horror watching repeats of
In Search Of with Lennard Nimoy and then Unsolved Mysteries
with Robert Stack, but also like Culchack the night Stalker,
which is before my time, but somehow I'd locked onto

(08:07):
it at some point I dug it and so all
that nerdy stuff, you know, stayed with me. But I
also have weird stuff going on in my house when
I was a kid, and I don't I swear hand
to God, like only recently started talking about this. It
was only last week. In fact, I did an event
and I'm like, all right, I will give you guys
the spooky origin story. But yeah, like I was, I'm

(08:29):
the youngest of five kids. I was raised Catholic. I'm
not really particularly observant these days, but pretty Catholic family,
and my brother, oldest brother, started getting involved in some
weird stuff and actively trying to almost summon about activity.
And whether or not he was successful, I don't know,
or if something was already lingering in our house.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
What was he doing though was weird.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
So it's you know, you know, like the satanic panic
of the eighties, which is now kind of still existing.
I hate to say, like because he was playing Dungeons
and Dragons or I had you know, black light posters
of Iron Maiden on the wall. You know, that's not
what led to it, even though he did have that shit. No,
he just like was an angry teenager that actively he

(09:14):
wanted some sort of control, and I think he was
like trying to find grimoires. I doubt he found anything
really good. I just think that intention, that anger and
intention and wanting to bring about something. He described it
as like he felt like he had conjured something that
was almost electrical, looking like almost like this static type

(09:34):
of entity is how he describes it. I didn't see that.
I don't know, but I do know. Weird shit started
happening in our house, and for me, being the youngest
of kids, I started seeing stuff, including this very tall
figure in my doorway of the bedroom I shared with
my middle brother, and had this kind of crooked head

(09:58):
and sort of like a Halloween type of mask. It
was very tall, and the mask itself looked almost like
a Halloween devil type of mask, and yet deep lines
in its face, kind of an old type of face,
a some sort of etching or something on its chin,

(10:20):
some sort of not a room. And again I was
such a little kid. I was probably six years old,
so I'm filling in some gaps, I'm sure, but some
sort of etching on his chin and almost like a
fright wig type of hair.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
It sounds terrifying, so it is.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
And this is kind of like one of my theories
is like when we see stuff, I don't know if
if we're perceiving it as it is, or if maybe
there's weird stuff out there that's like beaming itself into
your brain. And it's like, what would be an image
that would scare pain and let me present myself in

(10:59):
that way?

Speaker 1 (10:59):
So that would definitely scared the shit out of me.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
Yeah, But so maybe unconsciously I had seen this at
like a Walmart or whatever, right, and I've thought nothing
of it. But now this image is implanted in my
brain and whatever was presenting itself showed itself in that way.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
And if you were, if you were a skeptic, you know,
you might say, well, was it sleep paralysis or something
like that? From your experience, what did it feel like
to you? Were the circumstances different than that, or you
remember being consciously awake and seeing it, or just just
describe that part of it.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
Yeah, I remember being awake, I remember being frozen in fear.
And in modern times and a lot of the shows
I work with and just the paranormal TV business people
would probably just label that as a demon. I don't
really throw around this this D word, you know, because
we the D word, because I think there's so much

(11:54):
more going on out there that's complex and different. I
think there's good and bad, but I don't think it's
just like heaven, hell, angels and demons. I think it's
a lot more nuanced. But I do remember being awake.
I do remember seeing this thing and being like frozen
in fear. And again, I was like six years old,
so like you, like, what do you do in that situation?

(12:15):
And as a as a young Catholic kid, I remember
I was taught two prayers. I was taught a lot
of prayers, and most of them I do not I
could not tell you now, I could not recite. But
there was two that I recall. One, Now I lay
me down to sleep, I pray to the Lord my
soul to keep if I die before I wake, I

(12:38):
pray to the Lord my soul to take pretty dark prayer.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
In every horror movie ever, it's that was a pretty
dark like some kids saying that Donal Hallway echoing and
it's like a Catholic hymn to sleep. Yeah, like that's terrifying.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
And the other prayer was because I think on some
level my mom My mom said she never felt comfortable
in that house. I think on some level she knew
there was something creepy going on. So the other prayer was,
if you ever encounter something bad, say in the name
of Jesus Christ, I cast you out right. And so

(13:16):
those were the things. Like I was like, I was
chanting things, well, yes, or at least chanting it in my
head or whatever, and the thing did fade. But weird
stuff continued in our house. And I don't think that's
like some magic bullet. In fact, priests came through, there
was blessings and whatnot, and stuff still continued up until

(13:39):
the time that we ultimately moved out of the house.
Not for that reason, but we ultimately moved out of
that house, and then weird stuff even happened after we
moved out for the following residence of that place. So
I think it was just a weird house.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
I mean, as an adult now reflecting back on that,
what do you make of it? I think that was
it a kid's imagination.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
No, because all of my siblings, So what's funny is like, Okay,
so now you know, I do this job where spooky
stuff is part of the job, and I have one
sibling that is into this stuff.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
But not.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
She's like more casually. My sister is into it, but
not professionally. And then I have one brother that will
not talk about this stuff at all. And then I
have another brother that's very, very religious. And then the
oldest brother who initially experienced this thing. He's had a
lot of struggles with substance abuse, but he I remember

(14:42):
it was like right before the COVID lockdown and everything.
I was talking to him and he was, unfortunately and
quite inebriated, but he told me. He's like, yeah, I'm
sorry that it caused problems with the family and everything.
He's like, but you know, I still think that that
thing is out there. I still talk to it, so
he'll talk to it.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
Yeah, So what does the what do you mean? Like
I's communicating this thing as an adult.

Speaker 2 (15:09):
I think the struggles he has had with substances reflects
still on someone that's trying to have control, have some
sort of like some some sort of control over his
life or whatever.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
Do you think the link there is more likely that
the substance abuse is lifting some sort of veil or
blurring reality in some way.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
I think that I don't necessarily know that they're connected,
but I think there's just something really something hurting inside
of him. And in my experience, I think that sometimes
this activity can prey on your needs or weaknesses and

(16:01):
things like that, and I think maybe that's what's happening
with him potentially, that it's it's not necessarily lifting a veil.
It's not that the substance abuse and whatever, haunting or
whatever it is or connected. But I do think it
can prey on that weakness.

Speaker 1 (16:19):
You know, if you if you were to sum up
your viewpoint on all things hair and normal in just
a couple of sentences, what would it be.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
I don't think we have a clue what's going on.
I think that there's everything is kind of fair game.
I've traveled around enough, I've explored enough, I've talked to
a lot of people, and I think that there's a
lot of things connected. But we ultimately don't really know

(16:52):
what's going on.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
But you're also saying that there is something going on.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
Oh I think there's Yeah, So you through the word
out skeptic. I think there's a spectrum of belief, if
you will, and on one hand, is unquestioning, unwavering belief,
almost dogmatic, And I find that problematic. If you're not
even just wanting to believe, but blanket belief. That's one

(17:20):
end of that spectrum that's in everything these days, right,
that's everything, And I find that problematic. And on the
other end of the spectrum is cynicism, total non belief.
But where I try to be in the middle, and
where I think a lot of people actually end up
as sort of sliding scale, but open minded, but asking

(17:42):
questions and being skeptical. Skepticism is a good thing. It's
not a dirty word. But I've had crazy shit happen
to me that I do not think I have an
explanation for. But I've also been in plenty of places
with leaky plumbing and bad wiring. And I don't think
everything is a ghost or a bigfoot or an alien

(18:03):
or whatever. Right, so exactly, And I'll steal a line
from a friend of mine, John Tenny. I like his
philosophy that the stuff you think is weird is probably
weirder than you think.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
I like that line.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
Yeah, I wish i'd come up with it, Damn, just
cut out one, cut out the attribution part, right, Yeah,
like I heard it from you first. But yeah, there's
a lot of in between spaces there where weird things
are happening.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
There's so many just ties with spirituality and religion when
it comes to paranormal stuff, even UFOs and aliens, and
the older I've gotten and the more I've looked into
stuff like this myself, I'm convinced that one day science
will explain everything. And you know, even if you think

(18:53):
about a UFO that was there and then just gone,
usually the way that it's described by someone who's all
that is that it was literally there and then gone,
not necessarily completely took off, but it was it went
somewhere else, to another dimension or something. And maybe as
vast as the universe is this way, which we're learning

(19:14):
is only bigger and bigger than we thought it was before.
It's equally as vast this way or something where there's
layers of dimensions, which it sounds crazy a little bit,
but is it though?

Speaker 2 (19:29):
No, nothing really, I don't automatically dismiss anything as crazy anymore,
because I do think what you're talking about, Like the
word ghost, okay, I find a very it's almost very limiting.
It's like this umbrella term because okay, as a ghost,
an echo and time like some sort of energetic footprint,

(19:49):
imprint or an imprint. Yes, is a ghost a your
dead aunt Edna coming back to visit you? Is a
ghost something that happens not always hated aunt Edna? Is
a ghost a someone that has unresolved issues that's stuck here,
either voluntarily or involuntary.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
Right?

Speaker 2 (20:11):
Or is a ghost a time slip, something that's continuing
to exist in its own time and meanwhile we are
the ghost to it? Yes, is a ghost? Something from
another dimension? Is a ghost? Something else entirely? And my
answer is like, yeah, maybe all of those things, you know. Yeah,
It's like, so all of this weirdness could kind of

(20:33):
be coinciding. So the people that think aliens are from
another world versus another dimension, maybe both.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah, but that that other world may just be a dimension.
I think they also can simultaneously exist. There could be
some other Earth way out there. I mean, statistically, it's
very possible. We'd be insanely lucky if we were the
only ones physically in this realm of all the galaxies.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
Out there boring. Would that be?

Speaker 1 (21:03):
I mean that would just weird, be so disappointing. Yeah,
I mean I guess we Yeah, that would just suck.
It'd be like what a waste of space? Yeah, God, like,
no one else could figure this shit out, and.

Speaker 2 (21:15):
We rarely haven't. It's not like, you know, we can't be.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
The best at this did if we are, then that's
that's not good.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
We're definitely, yeah, we're definitely maybe the test program, the
pilot program, you know, and there's there's other ones out
there that have done way better. I'm I'm kind of
borderline convinced that we must have, you know, just a
little bit outside of our solar system. Maybe there's just
caution tape or construction cones around our area saying like

(21:45):
under construction or you know, don't approach Earth like these guys.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
It's like you can go there, but they're why yeah, yeah,
where the best guys are still figuring it out. And
I mean they'll shoot your ass down too. They're not
even playing around.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
But i mean, yeah, like the stuff that just in
the last few months I've experienced has made me kind
of question that that paradigm. So it's constantly shifting.

Speaker 1 (22:10):
What do you mean you had you've had recent experiences
that are unexplained or something.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
Or what, Yeah, things that I can't explain. Give me example,
So one a couple of months ago, I was at
a location I think it was Belvoir Winery, which used
to be this odd fellow's home and outside of Kansas City,
and I was leading a group of people. It was
an appearance kind of thing. I was leading a group

(22:35):
of you know, folks through a location that was said
to be haunted, spooky, ghoest ghosts.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
It was like, so you do some of these events
and you know, you're you give a presentation, you talk
to people, and then at night they ask, like some
of the TV folks to lead people on a paranormal investigation,
and and I love doing it like it's it's fun because.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
It does sound fun. I mean on both sides.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
I'm getting paid to do something that I used to
you know, it's getting paid to do it as opposed
to trespassing when I was a kid. You know, like
it's kind of cool to walk around building and me
the authority on it.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, And like sonya we're doing in a audio session,
trying to get some electronic voice phenomena.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
All those things real.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
I've had weird stuff happen with it, right, And it's
like this is why I also try to present myself
I say, paranormal journalist, researcher and whatnot. I don't build
myself as a ghost hunter or paranormal investigator, even though
I go do those things.

Speaker 1 (23:30):
Sure, you know.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
But but we were doing this thing where we were
sure getting some weird voices and whatnot. I'm like, okay,
that's odd. I don't know what that is. But the
strangest thing is I set a recorder down far into
a hallway.

Speaker 1 (23:44):
It was a.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
Recorder I have used for a long time. I know
how this thing works.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
Which one was it? Do you?

Speaker 2 (23:51):
It was an old Sony icy recorder was a digital recorder,
and I forget the precise model, but I started using
it on board speakers on it and just yeah, yeah,
And it was actually one that I used when I
was first starting out as like just a regular reporter,
like doing regular interviews, not looking for ghosts or whatever.

(24:12):
One of the art producers uses like like a old
Sony and you actually recently bought a new one, but
like the old ones.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
Like works like a charming It is has a sound
to it. It's kind of cool.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, it is great, and it picks up noises from
pretty far away as a very sensitive mic onboard mic.
But what was weird about this session was I set
the recorder down. I walk away. I joined this group
of people and I'm like, okay, I've set the recorder
down the hall. We're trying to establish contact if something

(24:46):
is ear if something wants to say hi to this.
So I'm doing this session trying to have a conversation
with whatever is out there. This goes on for several
minutes and I go and I pick up the recorder.
I'm like, okay, walking back to the recorder. I'm picking
it up, I'm shutting it off, and I'm voicing all
of this so that way there's no stray sounds that
might be mistaken as some sort of anomaly. So recorded

(25:10):
for about eight minutes, and when I play it back,
you hear my intro. This is Aaron, I'm at Belvoir Winery.
I'm setting this recorder down. Okay, I'm walking away. Those
are my footsteps as I walk away. Okay, And instead
of eight minutes of audio, you hear my intro overlap

(25:31):
with my outro. So and I'm setting the recorder down,
I'm walking away, and then you get me saying okay,
and then I'm walking back and I'm picking up the
recorder and shutting it off. There was eight minutes of
missing time there, and it overlaps. It's not a stop.
It's not like a hard stop on the audio. Instead,
it overlaps. There was no voice activated function on it.

(25:54):
There was no no one messed with this audio in between.
I've used this recorder a lot. I know how the
device works. Could it be some sort of glitch in
the recorder, possibly, but it had never happened before, hasn't
happened since. It was almost like eight minutes was just
gone and overlapping with other with the rest of my voice.

(26:17):
It was now a twenty second file. I even though
I had set it down, it was recording this whole time.
All you get is twenty seconds of me setting up
the audio session, overlapping with me shutting it off, me
coming back and shutting off. And it was not a
stop in the file. There was not like a hard stop.
It was all one file. There was no click, no

(26:39):
shut off it I'm telling you, man. And it sounds
weird too even described, but it was like missing time.
And other people were around me and witnessing this whole thing,
and they're like, yeah, we don't know what happened either.
So this wasn't part of the show, no the gig, no,
no no, but it.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
Got your intro in outro, meaning that it was it
was recording at this point in time and that point
it's actually yeah, like it's it like it didn't just
shut off and stop recording. It got the end of
your shit too.

Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yeah, it was like I was talking over myself that
intro and outro. It was like those overlapped.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
So what do you make of that?

Speaker 2 (27:19):
I don't know. I've tried to explain as much as possible,
and anybody that's that's checking out this episode, please like
if you I can even provide the model number at
some point the Sony icee. I forget which one it was.
I don't know, but I do think that weird stuff

(27:40):
happens from a time perspective with whatever it is we're
dealing with with this unexplained phenomena. If you want to
go just strictly in the ghosty territory, maybe the Goes
didn't want to answer questions and fucked with the audio.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
And said I'm good, but this is all you get. Yeah, yeah,
maybe sorry Aaron, but not today. And I don't know.
But having doing this so much and being in so
many locations and being pretty tuned into I think what's
going on, the fact that this happened, it kind of

(28:17):
it's peculiar to me. Yeah, I mean it is. And
I know the recorder you're talking about, if that happened
to us, and I mean, we make podcasts for a living,
dealt with tons, thousands, tens of thousands audio files. I've
ever heard of something uniquely like what you're describing. And

(28:40):
it is strange that it happened in a haunted place
when you were talking about that, but all those things
could be coincidences. But it's still strange as hell.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
And I'm not sitting here saying, right it's a ghost,
you know, or temporal anomaly. I'm just saying I don't
understand it, and it is weird, and whatever it was,
it was anomalist for me, you know, it was anomalous
for my experiences.

Speaker 1 (29:10):
You know, I've always, like, since I was a kid,
I've always thought that there was something else going on,
you know, just more than we can see, more than
we'd know. But I'd never really had any of my
own experiences as a kid that convinced me of ghosts
or anything paranormal. But there was There's a few things

(29:33):
that have happened to me in my life or things
that I've seen that made me go, Okay, what the
hell is this? And So I have a show called
Radio Rental, which I've been on your show, Yeah, we
talked about yes, where I basically just talk to different
people across the country who have their own weird personal
experiences and strange stories, from near death to even the

(29:58):
realm of paranormal. There was a one story this lady
who was running in Hawaii and she was describing this
this thing that was captured on her phone by her friend,
and she didn't realize it till later, but she remembers
consciously having this pain in her in her leg or

(30:22):
her knee at the exact time this series of photos
was taken. So I was sent this story by this person,
and I remember being on my couch a laptop up
and I read it and I was like, all right,
I mean that would be pretty scary. And she's like
and she said, I've attached the the live photos, like

(30:44):
the iPhone live photos. I'm like, okay, and I'm not
gonna lie to you when I when I clicked it,
it was way scarier than I thought it was. And
the first thing, I mean, I'm getting that goosebumps right now.
The first thing I did was like look behind me, like,
oh my god. I actually I saved it on here.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
I know which photo you're talking about.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
It's one of the few things that I've seen on
a on any media that is convincing to me that
it's either otherworldly or something. And I have the live
photos from her, I message, I have all the data.
This is not some doctored shit, so I know that

(31:27):
it's real personally. But yet, what is your take on
this thing? Have you heard about this story?

Speaker 2 (31:33):
Well, I heard your episode of it and then clued
me in on it. And the first off, the live
photo of it is especially compelling. And this is creepy
as hell, like this is that's that's a paranormal technical term,
creepy af uh right, it's this is.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
Yeah, this is classified as creepy as fuck.

Speaker 2 (31:55):
And it also fits within I know the the caption
is night marcher. I don't know if that is a
night marcher or not, but that fits within that lore
of that area of Hawaii, And yeah, I find that
very compelling.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
I will say I did a just a simple Google
search of night marchers and a lot of there's a
lot of artwork that's super old, and it kind of
looks like a night marcher, you know, if you were
a skeptic, which you know, I posted this on the
radio rental Instagram and I've had a lot of people

(32:32):
going there and like, that's obviously a person and I'm thinking,
zoom in there, buddy. To me, it would be even
scarier if it was an actual person, because it doesn't
look like a person, like not yeah, I'm not saying
that it's a person that looks weird. I'm saying it
doesn't look like a human. It's it's facial features aren't

(32:58):
human looking to know. And it in the live photo,
if you you know, when you press down on it,
you can kind of see it emerge where it for
a moment seems translucent, seems translucent in between the brush.
So I don't know, but that to me, it's it's
a it's a it's a compelling piece of evidence.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
So journalistically, and again, like I had plenty of a
career as a journalist before the paranormal stuff became part
of the profession, you know.

Speaker 1 (33:36):
Before non paranormal drug.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yes, yeah, like I mean, it's still weird, but uh yeah, yeah.
The and I've interviewed a lot of people. I talk
to people all over the world, and I still do
outside of paranormal stuff. I do other pop culture things
and then also interview with people for other things, and
I feel like I have a finely tuned bullshit meter.
I also and I think you can relate to this.

(34:00):
It's like when you're speaking to people, there's a certain
you pick up a little bit on the psychology of people,
and there's people that might actively be trying to pull
one over on you. There's some people that are telling
a story I've seen and experience, and there's people that
are trying to tell you a story that you might

(34:20):
think it's kind of flawed, but they believe it. Yes,
And then there's that legit level of like they're telling
a story they believe it, but also this is a
thing that actually happened to them, which makes them a
little bit more compelling. And I don't think that everyone
out there telling these stories of the strange and unusual.

(34:44):
I don't think they're all delusional, and I don't think
they're all trying to pull a scam on someone. I
think they there are actual things taking place. And then
add to that, we're talking about cultures that, when you
separate the labels from you know, Takeaway Night March or whatever,

(35:05):
other cultures folklore have stories a very similar phenomena globally,
peoples that have never interacted with one another. So when
you start seeing this repetition, when you start seeing these
patterns from lore and amongst people themselves telling a story,
it starts making me think there's something here. There's truly

(35:27):
something going on here, because not everybody is trying to
pull a scam.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
Yeah, I mean, I would say that the most compelling
stories I've heard in this realm were all people who
were not foaming at the mouth to tell me the story.
They oftentimes were sort of reluctant.

Speaker 2 (35:45):
You have to coax it out.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
They weren't excited to be here today. I mean, they
wanted to tell their story, but they weren't like, all right, cool,
let's go. This happened. It was a traumatic, scary thing
that they didn't understand, and it wasn't just super comfortable
for them to relive it necessarily. But but they wanted
to tell it because they've heard other people with similar

(36:08):
stories and.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
They start feeling like this is a safe enough space
that they can share it without that total judgment. But yeah,
I encounter that all the time. In fact, the ones
that the stories I love the most are the ones
that where the people don't really want to tell that story,
where there is that reluct and you just have to
coax it out of them a little bit. And that's

(36:30):
that's unfortunately also sociologically, we if you hang you know,
if you hang out in the bar long enough, sooner
or later, you know a ghost story or strange lights
in the sky kind of story, it's going to.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
Come up, especially if it's if it's with us, yes existly, yeah,
like like what is up with these fuckers?

Speaker 2 (36:52):
But even if you don't mention that you do this
as a job, it'll be like, oh, yeah, this bar's haunted,
or yeah, man, I saw this weird thing happen. And
people will always say, I don't believe in any of
that stuff, but there's this one time.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:07):
And from a sociological standpoint, what they're doing is they're
creating that buffer to say I'm not a weirdo. I
pay my taxes, I go to a job all that.
You know, I'm an upstanding member of society, so I'm
not a crazy person. But I saw something crazy. You know,
they're trying to buffer it to make it okay to
tell that story exactly. So just like yeah, I mean,

(37:30):
like again, I think you, of all people kind of
get that, Like whether you're talking about crimes or whether you're
talking about unusual phenomena. The stories people are reluctant to
tell a lot of times are the juicy ones exactly.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
Yeah, if they're that reluctant, it probably means they might
not be making it up, you know, unless this is
some really good act, which if you're an experienced journalist
and you've dealt with people for years, you can kind
of tell sometimes your bullshit meter is actually were something.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
It's also just such a big kind of swing to
say that this lady who's doing ultramarathon is going to
be faking this thing based on a random bit of
Hawaiian lore. It's just like, to what end, Like, to
what end are you gonna create that kind of story
and fake that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
She also got a lot of shit for bringing up
the night Marcher thing at all. Yeah, which I mean
I understand that it's you know, it's part of the
Hawaiian culture there and the lore. But she was so
perplexed as to what this was that she was determined
to figure it out, and it just so happened that
on this island there is this sort of legend of

(38:43):
these night marchers, and it does kind of look like
a night marcher. So even if it's a guy in
the woods with you know, covered in mud or something, then.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
That's equally terrifying to meet.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
That's more fucking scared. Yeah, there was some guy staring
at me that I didn't see, who was a physical
person who looked scary in the woods when I was
by myself.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
Yeah. Well, so I do this show called Paranormal Caught
on Camera where people submit footage or from around the
world of supposed phenomena, strange things happening.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
Do you think most of those are real? I mean,
obviously there's probably some fake stuff, but yeah, you know,
that's like the I feel like as a viewer, you know,
is it all fake? Is it like what's your I mean?
Or can you not tell me because it's a TV show? No?

Speaker 2 (39:34):
I mean I can tell you that I So I
try to maintain an open mind and do I think
anything can be faked. Anything can be faked, especially now,
especially now, And I tend to think that, Okay, are
there some My example is, you know, let's say there's

(39:55):
a clip of something that looks like a bigfoot or
moving through the woods, right, and people are like, I
don't know, that's a little too clear, that's a little
too in focus. It's too good to be true. And
yet if you show them another clip where it's like
a little bit out of focus, maybe it's kind of short,
little fuzzy, they'll be like, I don't know, it's just
not good enough. So I think that sometimes we have

(40:19):
to be willing to appreciate that sometimes things can be
that good and actually legit, especially with the cameras documenting
every moment of our lives all around us. You know,
I'm looking out this window, and I know there's a camera,
you know, multiple cameras from that building that could probably
see in all over the place, right, So I don't

(40:41):
I think that there is a lot of legitimate stuff
that's being sent into paranormal con on camera. And I
think there's a lot of legitimate stuff being captured out there,
and and hell, honestly, if I had the time and
the budget, I would be scooping up all these old
nature documentaries from the past and scouring over those to
see if there's anything strange caught in the background that

(41:03):
was missed. But I also don't think what I don't
think there's much to be gained in faking all of
this stuff.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
I mean, some people clearly get off on that, but
it can't be the majority of people. I mean, maybe
I'm wrong there, but I get I don't like to
do pranks and trick people, but there's a lot of
effort that goes into that, and usually part of it
is the reveal at the end, gotcha, not just some
you know, boldfaced lie and just sitting back and going

(41:32):
ooh hoho, like I don't know.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
And again that psychology comes into play when you're when
you're talking to people and trying to get a sense
of like the story behind the story, like what's happening
when this, Like when they don't have every single detail
nailed down, when it's not an entirely clear story, that
can be interesting because people that have every detail nailed

(41:56):
down starts to feel scripted.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
Yeah, this is too You remember this too well? Right?
Did you start filling in some of these gaps?

Speaker 2 (42:04):
Right?

Speaker 1 (42:05):
Did you write this story? Right?

Speaker 2 (42:06):
So, like those little fuzzy bits, I think can be interesting.
But yeah, I think that a lot of people are
capturing compelling stuff out there. So maybe there are these
fakes that are moving around as well, but there is
compelling stuff being captured.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
Do you think Bigfoot is real?

Speaker 2 (42:26):
So I've never met bigfoot, I've never had a Bigfoot science.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
I know. I want to we doing here that I
thought I thought you said you did.

Speaker 2 (42:34):
I wanted to, like, you know, name drop all the people.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
Who actually did. I probably still wouldn't believe you, so
wouldn't yeah, nyah, Or if I did, you wouldn't believe me.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
I don't know. I might, I might believe you. Yeah,
I think the science is actually there's a guy named
Jeff Meldrum who is a actual scientist who researched by
peedle Haminid's There's Maria Mayor who is a primatologist who
discovered I think it was the world's smallest primate in

(43:07):
recent years. And these are people. There's Jane Goodall. There's
people that are out there doing research that say, yeah,
we think there is something going on. There is an
undiscovered species of bipedal hominid that is moving around in
the wilderness.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
Based on what science like, based on what science, I guess, well,
and I'm not a primatologist, and I'm not, but some
of the compelling things is like, look at the Patterson
Gimlin film the I I did an interview with Jeff
Meldrum where he was talking about the Patterson Gimlin film.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
That's a classic, you know, perhaps the most famous UH.
I would almost say, yeah, it's it's definitely the most
famous paranormal footage out there, you know, regardless of what
anybody thinks about it, it is famous. But he said
at that time people dismissed that as far as well,

(44:04):
and you know, the proportions are off for an ape a,
the movement is off. He said, well, that was a
couple of years before the discovery of UH. And I'm
gonna batch the name of the of the fossil. It
was like Australopithecus that they discovered. I think it was Lucy,

(44:25):
this kind of frozen preserve and he said, so Patterson
Gimlin took place before the discovery of this and what
they discovered. When they found this, Lucy was oh wow, okay,
so you know, based on her proportions and everything, she
could move this way that kind of resembled the Patterson

(44:47):
Gimlin footage. So the science wasn't established at that point.
The science kind of caught up a little bit after
the Patterson Gimlin film came out. And even like the
fact that special effects people that are like, no back
then in nineteen was it nineteen sixty two is when

(45:08):
that film was was captured, They're like, there was no
technology to be able to create that level of suit
at that time.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
I thought, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. I
thought that this was proven to be a hoax and
it was a costume or or somebody who was a
part of the film came forward and said something like
that is true.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
There was Yeah, so was it Patterson. I think Bob
Gimmelin is still alive. I think it was Patterson that
said it wasn't legit, And so there was a split
between those two guys.

Speaker 1 (45:43):
Why would he say that if it wasn't true.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (45:46):
Also, where's the costume because I want to see it
it was a pretty damn good job. Yeah, it was
a good costume, and they'd have to still have it
right threw it away if it was. I don't know,
like right, where is that thing?

Speaker 2 (45:56):
I find it? I find that piece of footage compelling.
Some people are going to be like, this guy is
super gullible and we'll believe anything. And it's not that.

Speaker 1 (46:03):
It's that.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
I just like, you've got actual researchers out there saying, yeah,
we think there's something going on here. I've talked to
enough people throughout the years that have had encounters with
a variety of phenomena that I think, Okay, something is
going on. And I do think that there is something
that could be moving around those woods throughout the world,

(46:25):
not just the Pacific Northwest, that we just haven't caught
up to yet.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
And it's totally possible and I could not disprove it.
The only My biggest problem with Bigfoot is that I
just cannot buy that they're just so good at playing
hide and seek.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
The Hide and Seek Champion.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
It's crazy. I'm like, really, I mean really it. We
see everything else, but this thing, like we should have
found one by now. There should be a dead one somewhere.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
I spend plenty of time in the woods, and I'm
not running into a bear every time I go on
a hike. In fact, I don't know if I have
seen bear out in the wild, but not frequently.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
It's not like it's everything you see a bear.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
Or encountering like a bear carcass, you know, like nature
is actually very effective at breaking things down and quite quickly.
So I think if there's these carcasses out there, it
could be broken down rather quickly. Again, I am not.

Speaker 1 (47:26):
Yeah, I mean all these things were true though, Yeah,
you're right. Yeah, That's why I could never disprove it.
And I would be amazed if, holy shit, we found
one and it is real and they were just good
at hiding, or maybe there's only ten of them left
or something. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
But if there's some level of intelligence to it as well,
then that would make it. You know, it would seem
pretty effective at staying off the radar. But again, there's
plenty of animals out there that we're not running into
constantly because when we're being noisy and trapesing through the woods,
they note a scatter and get out of our way.
So but again I am not a primatologist. I am

(48:03):
like the lore and the stories of Bigfoot and Sasquatch
across cultures across the world is compelling to me. Yeah,
and the stories I've heard from people is compelling to
me because it just keeps overlapping and there is these
patterns to the stories. I also think that as we

(48:25):
continue to wipe out the woods the forested areas, it's
probably going to increase the likelihood that we will come
upon probably a dead Bigfoot at some point.

Speaker 1 (48:36):
I mean, at least in the paranormal TV shows which
you are a part of. And they're all amazing that
the Netflix show is awesome.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
Thank you. They're not all amazing.

Speaker 1 (48:44):
Well, the ones that you're a part of, I think
are twenty eight Days Haunted. Yeah, it's very cool, very
well done. Love that show. I feel like every and
this is not a disc but every Bigfoot show that
I've seen, I mean, you never see Bigfoot and they're
always just you know, walking around the woods looking for
something that's that they never find. At least in every

(49:08):
other UFO show you see footage of something or paranormal,
you see some weird chit going on, or you hear
a voice, but they never find Bigfoot. They all have
a story of how they saw Bigfoot one time, but
conveniently never had their phone. Now, And you know, I think,
like on the spectrum like you're saying, where you know,

(49:29):
you want to believe something so badly or you know,
I think that that's one of those magnets as well.
But also on the flip side, scientifically, maybe it's possible,
and all those you know, scientific elements explain why it's
so hard to cap and I couldn't prove it either

(49:51):
way currently.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
So I kind of take well, first off, the paranormal
TV shows. You know, I love I I've been fortunate
to be involved with several throughout the years. I know people,
and I know folks involved with pretty much every show
that's out there now. And you know, I think by
and large, most of the people that I've interacted with

(50:12):
or I consider friends or colleagues or resources, do truly believe,
you know, in what they're trying to do. That said,
paranormal TV shows are ultimately it's it's entertainment. It's entertainment TV.
And pass forget it is a TV it is a
TV show. It's like no one it is.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
Something has to happen. Yeah, because it's a TV show
and that kind of what you mean, Well, I don't
whether it's really going on or not. You gotta if
you get a shot that looked good.

Speaker 2 (50:44):
It's I mean, I personally have never been involved with
anything that has had any kind of uh fakery taking place.
Right then again, intentionally hoaxing something, yeah, yeah, And then
again the shows that I've been a part of, like
a lot of time i'm working as a host, I'm
you know, I'm doing I'm not necessarily the guy that's

(51:04):
out there doing that ghost hunt, you know. But that said, Okay,
so paranormal TV is entertainment, and I would never say
to anyone go watch this show and choose to believe
or not believe, or go watch this show and say
I now know how to be a primatologist, or it's

(51:25):
it's a snapshot of a moment.

Speaker 1 (51:28):
Yeah currently yeah watching this, Yes, yes.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
It can be, I hope with a lot of projects
that I've involved with, Like I love doing paranormal caught
on camera because even if it's a clip that I
don't love, ultimately, if I can talk about a piece
of lore and another part of the world, that's pretty
freaking cool. You know, if I can introduce the notion
of a night marcher or a you know, a lobostomeim

(51:55):
in Brazil, you know that's pretty cool. But still I
would never advise anyone to just watch it and forget
the fact that it is entertainment, not saying that people
are taking things left and right. Does it happen? I'm
sure it has happened. Have I ever been a part
of it?

Speaker 1 (52:15):
No? I feel like everything's happened once, so I at
least once.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
I'm sure there's been some funny business taking place, like
with paranormal investigations. I tell people, if you want to
go out there and explore this stuff, the shows are entertainment,
but it's not teaching you how to do that thing. Yeah,
it's a snapshot of a moment. Yes, so yeah, you

(52:40):
can't read into it too much. I mean I see
people on Twitter, you know, breaking down some show.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
I'm like, guys, it's a show, like you know, you're
not breaking down the evidence, you're just breaking down an edit.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
Well, it's if someone was going to do a show
about being a reporter, they're going to show the sexiest
moments from that job.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
They're not gonna show in a show like that, I
mean up and vanished my other podcasts. We we did
a docuseries on Oxygen, and you know, it was all
real and the realist moments were the ones where I
went and knocked on the bad guy's door at the end.
But there were times where we were just sitting around
a table just saying shit for an edit, right, like

(53:28):
to connect A to B. But every interview I did
was really there, and all the emotion is real. But
we're still making a show here.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
And you're not seeing the hours of either researching things
or trying to come up with like you know what
connect the dots, like, like I said, the moment of
me all together and making sense of any of it, right, Yeah,
like me walking around my again, walking around my place eating,
see myself.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
You don't see the cheese eating in your underwear, right,
and you haven't showered five days. You don't see that. Yeah,
It's like and you shouldn't. I don't, you know, I
don't want anyone to see that.

Speaker 2 (54:04):
Nobody of me be seeing that. Yeah, So they're seeing
a snapshot of people's doing people doing these paranormal investigations.
They're not seeing the full uh, you know, investigation, and
they're not. I wouldn't say become an expert at anything
by watching TV anything.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
Since I've made radio rental, I get asked a lot,
you know, do you have your own radio rental story?
And you know there is a story that comes to
mind immediately every single time, but I've I've never told
it on a podcast. But because you shared your story
with me, I'll give you the shorter version of it

(54:43):
because it's kind of over a period of time, and
this is what I witnessed that convinced me that there
was some other shit going on for real. So this
would have been in probably twenty fifteen, and I was
with my ex girlfriend at the time, and I was
a filmmaker back then doing freelance stuff and I had

(55:05):
a little office. It was shitty, but I would stay
there late and edit stuff. I was there late this
night and I told her I was probably gonna be
there till like two am. I had a deadline in
the morning. And right as I'm getting into my car
heading home, she uh calls me and I answered, She's like,
are you on the way home? As, yeah, I'm leaving now,

(55:28):
and she just sounded very concerned. She's like, well, can
you can you hurry? And I'm like, uh yeah, like
is everything okay? I'll tell you when you get here.
And then she hangs up and I'm like, well, full shit,
Like is there are you like being held hostage right now?
Is there someone like robbing the house? Like what am

(55:48):
I going to be confronted with when I get here?
And so it was an agonizing fifteen minute drive. I
get there, unlock the door, just hern here and she's
sitting on the bed and she is white as a
sheet and clearly terrified. And I'm like, okay, what's going on?

(56:08):
What happened? And she said that she was folding clothes
and was like down on her knees and putting clothes
into the drawers, and she felt a hand on her shoulder,
and so my first thought is okay, like an actual hand,
like like a physical hand. She's yes, okay, I'm going

(56:28):
with you. I'm believing you on this. And it didn't
end there. She said she got freaked out, and so
she turned the lights off to go to sleep, and
she got under the covers and one of these standing
lamps we have in the room fell over and broke,
and I look over and it's back standing up now,
but the glass on it had broke. I was like, okay,

(56:49):
and so I walk over there, but being a little skeptical,
and I just give it a little nudge, and it's
not going anywhere. I was like, come on, like, why
isn't this just falling down right now? I really wanted
just to crash with just a little bit of wind,
but it would have taken some decent force to push
it over, and so I was obviously terrified. For the

(57:11):
rest of the night, I'm like, okay, cool, my new
apartment is haunted, right, And so I didn't sleep a wink.
And for the next two weeks, weird shit kept happening,
but it was always kind of happening seemingly to her
and not really me. The two things that I did
experience were I went I was in my kitchen and

(57:37):
I went to my bedroom and I came right back
and the fridge was open, and I'm positive and I
totally could have just goofed and left it open, but
it scared the shit out of me, like I didn't
do that. That's one thing you could explain that. The
other one was I was laying in bed one night
and my bathroom was probably like from me to my

(58:00):
and I heard this weird sound and I tried to
recreate it later, and the best I could come up
with was if you take a quarter and you just
rub it on the countertop of like an apartment bathroom,
and it just sounded like it was this scratching sound
that was very unique, that wasn't like a creek, and

(58:24):
it was audibly coming from inside of the room, not
from across the wall whatever. The last straw was one
of our mutual friends came over. You know, we were
in a studio apartment. We didn't have very much room
to sleep. He just slept on the floor with some

(58:44):
sheets and pillows. I wake up in the morning to
get to make some coffee. I see him and he
is terrified looking and I see this big, huge potted
plant that we have just fucking broken soil everywhere on
the ground next to him. I was like, what the
hell happened? He said, I literally just woke up and

(59:07):
this thing just tipped over and broke. I was like what.
I'm like, Okay, if you're branking me, this is some bullshit,
because this is a lot to clean up. And that's
like an expensive pot from my mom, and I'm like, okay,
fuck this, we're burning stage, We're doing all this stuff.

(59:29):
And someone had told me one time, and I don't
remember who it was, I was willing to try anything.
I was like, there's something going on in my house,
real or not. I'm over this shit, someone told me.
And this could totally be some bullshit. It probably is.
If you take a glass of water and you put
a knife in it, then maybe it'll go away. I
was like, whatever, I'll try anything. So I did this,

(59:51):
and a full day went by because shit was happening
every day and we were good. And so then she
went out of town the next day and I was
woke up around two in the morning to this screaming
sound and it was definitely a man's voice, and it
was coming from outside in the hallway. I opened the

(01:00:12):
door and I see ten other neighbors with their doors open,
and my next door neighbor, who I had never met
or even seen yet, was running around the hallway screaming,
just bloody murder, and we were all freaking out, didn't
know what to do. Someone called nine one, paramedics came.

(01:00:34):
They literally strapped him to a stretcher and took him off,
and I was like, holy shit, what happened? Like mental breakdown?
I don't know. And so I told my friend about
this that next morning before the Falcons game, and later
on that night, we came back sad that we lost
and didn't go to the super Bowl, and confidentially I

(01:00:58):
was going to buy some weed and I went to
my car first to get some like some cash out,
and as I'm walking back to my apartment door, I
hear a voice coming from inside of his apartment. And so,
because of what I witnessed the night before, which was

(01:01:18):
really scary, and you know, it seemed like he was
unsafe in that state, I put my ear to the
door and I could hear him talking to himself the
way that I heard it, and I was picturing because
we had the same apartment. It wasn't like he was
talking to himself. It seemed like he was talking to

(01:01:39):
something else that wasn't there, but that he was convinced
was or he or was there. He wasn't like talking
to himself. He was like threatening something else to stop
or asking something else to stop that wasn't him. And
it just got louder and louder, and I was like,

(01:02:01):
holy shit, like, is someone in there? Is he being,
you know, held up by a knife right now? It's
what it sounded like. So I knocked on the door
and say, hey, are you okay? Complete silence, and I
was like, oh, that doesn't sound good. And I have
my ear there for thirty more seconds, absolutely not a peep.

(01:02:24):
Then my friend's like, cool, let's go. The guy's ready
to meet for weed. I'm like okay. And so the
whole ride there, I'm thinking, I'm like, that didn't feel right.
That didn't sound right. I didn't like that. And so
all of twenty five minutes goes by and I come
back and I go out on my balcony and I

(01:02:45):
hear sirens and I'm like, I just know they're coming here,
And sure enough they did, and I looked down and
this is horrible. He had jumped from the balcony and
had pierced himself through I may I learned later the details,

(01:03:10):
but he was basically just pierced inside this metal fence
that has the sharp top to it, and they had
to use the jaws of life to get him out.
And it was fucking terrifying. And so months later he
ended up surviving, but his mother was coming to get

(01:03:31):
his stuff and she was asking she saw me leave
the apartment, and she just asked what I saw, because
it was a very confusing story about a guy who,
according to her and every friend, was totally normal, never
had any episodes like this before, and it was a
total freak thing. I didn't dig super into the paranormal

(01:03:52):
part of anything, but has told her literally exactly what
I witnessed. But in hindsight later, as I just kind
of sat with it over the year, I started thinking,
what if there was any connection at all from that
shit that I know was real that I was experiencing
in my apartment and then just all of a sudden ceased.
And then the next thing, you know, the guy next

(01:04:15):
to me has this breakdown that is so out of
his character and harms himself. I don't want to like
make assumptions and say that that's what happened, because it's
a tragedy. Thankfully they were able to me, they were
able to sue the hospital because they let he was
being suicidal and they let him out too early, And
I mean, it wouldn't have happened had they not let

(01:04:36):
him out. But they did. But I always just it
always fucked with me what I was experiencing. And then
this happened. And you know, I've never told it as
a radio rental story because it's you know, it's it's
there's a family who suffered from this, and it's probably
it's it's a permanent thing, but it was. It was

(01:05:01):
so crazy to me, and I can't help but think
about weird connections.

Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
Yeah, sorry for the loment to store, but no, no,
I love it your take. I love I mean, I
don't love it. I'm sorry that happened to that guy,
But I mean I love the story because it does
make you wonder. It's easy to like jump to all
the negative things, okay, and I do think there's weird
stuff out there that's not so nice, but it does

(01:05:30):
almost make you wonder, like did you clear it out
of your place and then it went next door? You know,
did it right?

Speaker 1 (01:05:37):
Did it? I mean, all I know is that something
was definitively happening that was not nice or friendly in
my apartment and then it stopped and then this happened.
That's all. That's all I know factually, and from how
surprised they were at this episode, I was like, what

(01:05:59):
the fuck? I don't know?

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
Yeah it it also it's interesting how a place, So
what whatever a ghost is. I don't think it has
to be connected to some sort of tragic event that
took place or some significant history or whatever. I think
anywhere can be haunted. I bet you know there's probably

(01:06:24):
some uh freakin' ikea that's like loaded with ghosts that
no one's paying attention to because then they're not kid.

Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
All over that part. Sure and just yeah, yes, but
they're not doing it's assembling anything.

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):
No, it should be no. And maybe there's attachments to
something you get at I cam, maybe you're home.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
Always missing the one screw that you need and.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):
You're like, why is my fruit for nog and moving
across the room on its own? I didn't, I didn't
order it. Just yeah, as a ghost. I mean, so,
I don't think whatever we're dealing with has to be
connected to like history or bad things happening.

Speaker 1 (01:07:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:01):
I like, so, I'm I live in Brooklyn and the
place that I'm in is an old walk up building,
loads of history, there, loads of things that have taken place.
But you know, I don't think anything that I'm aware
of was like, uh, necessarily like significant or that took
place there. Yeah, but there was a time and I
lived there for a while. There's a time that I

(01:07:24):
was away for a long stretch handful of months and
came back and nothing really weird had been taking place
at my apartment prior to that. But I come back
in and it was almost like I picked up a
spectral squatter while while I was gone. I come back
to this apartment and then weird stuff starts happening out

(01:07:44):
of nowhere. I'm like, okay, this is kind of different.

Speaker 1 (01:07:47):
Then.

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
Yeah, it very much felt like I was suddenly sharing
a space with someone that hadn't been there before.

Speaker 1 (01:07:55):
Yeah, it's a not good feeling.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
Well, it wasn't. It was more annoying, That's what I was.

Speaker 1 (01:08:00):
More annoyed. You know, this is not my safe place anymore.
And I sound nuts. I called my one uncle, who
was like, Okay, here's what you gotta do. I'm like,
who's the guy who's gonna just absolutely believe me here?
But I was like, I don't feel like dealing with
this shit right now.

Speaker 2 (01:08:16):
And that's it. It's like, and that's the kind of
story that I love hearing. From people. We said, like
there's the stories that are somewhat reluctant that people are
reluctant to. Yeah, that's compelling, but also that very human
reaction of like I just can't be bothered with this
right now, Like this is just annoying.

Speaker 1 (01:08:31):
And I was upset about it. Yeah, And it was
always weird that it never seemed to fuck with me directly,
but it fucked with other people who came over and
my girlfriend at the time. Yeah. And I don't know
if that if that's for any particular reason, but I
did witness all the things that happened, and I did
hear and see stuff, so I know it is happening,

(01:08:52):
but it was never you know, grabbing my shoulder. But
I was also probably giving off this like get the
fuck out of here energy.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
Yeah, I And who knows what is like going through
the quote unquote mind of whatever you're dealing with. Who
knows if like that thing was viewing your girlfriend at
the time as sort of the easy target or your
friend as the easy target, that's what and they felt like.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
And I don't want to make the assumption, but it
kind of felt like that because I was, you know,
I was convinced that it was real at a certain point,
but I was perplexed as I was also thankful that
it was not fucking with me, but it just didn't,
but also almost felt like I knew that it wouldn't.

Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
So I think, you know, maybe there's some nasty business
out there that finds its targets, you know, and goes
after them in that way, if ghosts exists and it's
us in some form sticking around, I think that like
walk down the streets of New York City, if you
say hi to people or tip your hat, most people

(01:09:53):
are gonna be like, oh hey, Some people will not
say anything at all. Some people will say like fuck off,
you know, but most people out there are not outwardly
evil or bad, right, And I think, why would that
not be the same in the case of potential ghosts
that are out there. Some are nonplussed, some are friendly,

(01:10:14):
some are jerks, few are actually.

Speaker 1 (01:10:17):
And maybe it's more fragmented than that. Maybe it's not
just the ghost of the grumpy grandpa who's just toying
with people. It's something that doesn't even know what it
is anymore, and it's just like stuck or something, and
it's just doing anything to get attention or move around,
and it's not really this evil thing. It's more of

(01:10:39):
it's just how we perceive it because it's taunting and
it's like scary as hell and it won't stop. But
maybe it's not really as malicious as it is perceived
sometimes or something.

Speaker 2 (01:10:53):
I've been in some locations where my kind of theory
coming out of there witnessing some weird activity, my theory
coming out of like places like some prisons or places
where people suffered a lot, like a you know, like
right now, I'm thinking of a Pinhurst Asylum, and you know,

(01:11:17):
people that suffered had a lot of mental and physical challenges.
Maybe when they pass on, for some people, there has
to be this almost like healing process of like maybe
there's something about the ghostly form that's like an afterlife
therapy almost like they're they're working through their issues before

(01:11:40):
they kind of move on to that next level whatever
it might.

Speaker 1 (01:11:43):
Be or back to the science explains everything maybe eventually
where it's some imprint, Yeah, where it's just it was
so emotional or strong that it just left a imprint
and know in time and space or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:12:01):
I love what I do, and I love talking to
people and getting stories out of people. And I'm fortunate
that I get to travel all around the world. Like
I said, when I was a kid, it was called trespassing,
and now it's a profession and that's kind of badass.
It's like, that is amazing. But also you have to
have a sense of humor about this. I've there's some

(01:12:22):
people in the paranormal realm that are constantly wearing black
all the time and very serious and like, well, you know,
this place is very haunted, and the ghosts don't like
it when you do that. You know, they're getting hints
all the time, right, dude. Meanwhile, I'll go into a
place where I'm like, oh, man. In fact, last week

(01:12:44):
I was in this resort that was said to be haunted,
and I'm like, man, but there's some pretty good parties
in here, Like, you know, did you guys like to party?
And you start getting interactions, you almost start getting activity
when you're joking around about the weirdness of all of this.

Speaker 1 (01:13:03):
Yeah, like you can't take yourself even too seriously or
else that even sounds maddening, all right, I.

Speaker 2 (01:13:10):
Mean and boring and boring. It's like, if you're gonna
do this as a job and not occasionally be able
to laugh at yourself and laugh at just the universe,
You're kind of missing the point. Yeah, I mean, I
don't really know what's going on. I have lots of
ideas and theories, but and I think it's pretty cool
out there. The universe is a pretty cool place.

Speaker 1 (01:13:32):
M h.

Speaker 2 (01:13:33):
I also think it's freaking weird and freaking hilarious.

Speaker 1 (01:13:36):
So it is, it's absurd.

Speaker 2 (01:13:37):
Having a sense of humor about what I do and
also just about the universe is necessary.

Speaker 1 (01:13:41):
Well, I appreciate that about all your work, and I'm
just I'm a huge fan and I'm impressed by all
the shit that you've done and I'm looking forward to
what you got coming next. And let me be on
your podcast next, dude. Yeah, we need to get you
back on the on my show on the podcast. Yeah absolutely, so, No,
I know what like, I like what you do and

(01:14:01):
it's weird, just like it's funny to me that we
kind of weirdly moved in similar circles for a while
before actually meeting one another. Yeah, totally, and then one
day there was the connection made and now we're kind
of in our zeitgeist bubble thing that. Yeah, I mean
you're like, you're like one of the first people kingdom.
My way, I need to talk to Aaron on my

(01:14:22):
show because this is we'd have a fun convoke.

Speaker 2 (01:14:24):
Well, what we should do is, you know, the ghost
stories are cool, haunting places are cool. I love it.
But there is such an interesting extra level of weirdness
out there that I think it would be fun to
explore with you, Like when you're talking about urban legends. Yeah,
when you go into you know, outside of New York City,

(01:14:47):
just go forty minutes down the road and you'll find
places where they have these super creepy stories, super creepy lore,
And I think there's.

Speaker 1 (01:14:56):
Some people to be a cool dynamic there because I'll
probably be like, I'm not like a huge skeptic, but
I'm also not not a skeptic in the healthy sense.
I'm like, all right, that's that sounds like some bullshit,
but let's see. Yeah, well dude, I don't wait, never mind,
it's not. But I think that, you know, that would
be a fun balance. We could go find the Jersey

(01:15:17):
Devil or something. Only if we do it naked though.
That's the only way I'd ever do it. And I
think that that's what the ghosts want, and that's how
we're gonna get some this shit onto the stipulation.

Speaker 2 (01:15:25):
All right, pain, I guess this is what's happening. Let's
do it.

Speaker 1 (01:15:28):
Yeah, Hey, I don't make the rules.

Speaker 2 (01:15:30):
It's a good thing. Actually heard under that.

Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
Flowed me some ideas. Man, Yeah, that's that sounds super fun.
And I mean Mike's just as into this ship as
Yeah we are, and you know, we we've liked that
we've been able to explore, you know, outside of true
crime and all the other weird stuff that we've always
been into as kids too. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:15:46):
So, and that's if at the end of the day,
like I don't I don't even label myself a believer,
Like I say, I think there's something going on out
there and I don't know what it is, but you know,
have lots of ideas. But at the end of the day,
let's say there is nothing else going on and this

(01:16:08):
is it and we're just you know, meat bags. We die.
The universe is just us. If that's it, it's still
pretty rad that I have gotten to do this, that
we get to do this, Like if we're just kids
playing pretend and poking around literally and figuratively in the dark.

(01:16:30):
That's still pretty freakin cool.

Speaker 1 (01:16:31):
That's pretty pretty badass. Also, I think that would say
we have such a great imagination at this point that
we've convinced ourselves that there is something going on when
there's not. And to me, that sounds a little walkier
than there being some little nuggets of truth in there.

Speaker 2 (01:16:50):
It makes me, I think, philosophically thinking a lot about
weird stuff and pursuing weird stuff. It's philosophically it makes
me a happy person, I think, because I do get

(01:17:11):
to play in this imaginative snapbox. And it also I
think kind of prepares you for the daily weird stuff
in a way like if a flying saucer appeared overtime
Square and the aliens are like, hey, we're here. On
some level, I'd be like, well, I kind of expected this.

(01:17:31):
I've spent you know, since like what are.

Speaker 1 (01:17:33):
You bringing y?

Speaker 2 (01:17:33):
Yeah, yeah, Like all right, you're here.

Speaker 1 (01:17:35):
I'll bet have anti gravity in there because we are
in desperate need of it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:39):
I think we've got a few other things we need
to take care of before we get the.

Speaker 1 (01:17:42):
Probably I'm trying to get the hell out here, That's
what I'm saying I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:17:45):
Know that we should be trusted with like flying cars
just yet or jet packs. But I will take a
jet pack.

Speaker 1 (01:17:51):
You, you and I we could get I mean, I
still want to test it out. I want one, but
I don't think we should all have one.

Speaker 2 (01:17:57):
I will most certainly take a jet packs.

Speaker 1 (01:18:00):
Everyone would say that.

Speaker 2 (01:18:01):
But you know, thinking about the weird stuff also prepares you,
I think, for the day to day challenges in a way,
because you just have to laugh a little bit. And
like when you get stuck on the subway like I
was today and you know, I didn't know how long
I was going to be there.

Speaker 1 (01:18:16):
I could die here. It's like probably not.

Speaker 2 (01:18:18):
I'm like, but so it goes. You know, it's a
quote Kurt Vonnegutt. It's like, so it goes like it
just it kind of levels you out a little bit,
if that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (01:18:28):
No, I like that. Yeah, well, thanks again, man. This
has been an absolute blast, and thanks for coming to
me and doing it in person. It's just a fun experience. Man, dude,
Let's keep talking about shit, like, let's figure out the
next move and tell me more about what you're doing,
and yeah, figure some shit out.

Speaker 2 (01:18:45):
Well, I appreciate you having me on. I also had
a lot of fun. And it's also a lot easier
to do this in person as opposed to it is
virtually where you don't have that dynamic yep. But yeah, man,
let's go and find Mothman in Jersey Devil and let's
get real weird.

Speaker 1 (01:19:01):
Tell us where to get the hats?

Speaker 2 (01:19:03):
Oh, thank you? All right, the shameless plug time. Yeah, no,
I've designed some apparel at Spooky nerd shop dot com
and the this is the Spooky Nerd hat and uh
and yeah, check out Talking Strange. The podcast and what
Paranormal Cought on camera is still going on, and so
is twenty eight Days Haunted on Netflix.

Speaker 1 (01:19:25):
Amazing, dude, Thank you, thanks man man, cheers man you.

Speaker 3 (01:19:31):
Talking to Death is a production of Tenderfoot TV and
iHeart Podcasts, created and hosted by Payne Lindsay. For Tenderfoot TV,
executive producers are Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright. Co executive
producer is Mike Rooney. For iHeart Podcasts, executive producers are
Matt Frederick and Alex Williams, with original music by Makeup

(01:19:51):
and Vinity Set. Additional production by Mike Rooney. Dylan Harrington,
Sean Nurney, Dayton Cole, and Gustav Wilde for Coohedo. Production
support by Tracy Kaplan, Mara Davis, and Trevor Young. Mixing
and mastering by Cooper Skinner and Dayton Cole. Our cover
art was created by Rob Sheridan. Check out our website

(01:20:12):
talkingddeathpodcast dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:20:20):
Thanks for listening to this episode of Talking to Death.
This series is released weekly absolutely free, but if you
want ad free listening and exclusive bonuses, you can subscribe
to tenderfoot plus on Apple Podcasts or go to tenderfootplus
dot com