Talking with Joel Sturgis AFTER HOURS AM Paranormal Radio Legend, EVP Expert

America's Most Haunted Radio is thrilled to talk with paranormal radio legend Joel Sturgis of AFTER HOURS AM.

Minnesota native Joel Sturgis has been in the radio business for over two decades and has hosted such hit shows as ZTALK Live, AIR STRIKE RADIO, and now the wildly successful AFTER HOURS AM. AFTER HOURS reaches over 2 million listeners each weeknight from 9-11pE via terrestrial radio and over the Internet. Joel is also the program director of 10 radio stations in the Upper Midwest and is a radio engineer, because why not?

Joel's unique blend of tact, subversive humor, and serious research have made him a favorite with listeners and guests alike. He has interviewed all the biggest names from the fields of the paranormal and entertainment and many in between.

Joel also has a deep personal interest in all things paranormal and loves a good horror movie! His interest and knowledge of audio and the paranormal has rather naturally led to a fascination with and expertise in the realm of EVP, electronic voice phenomena.

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Good evening, my friends. I'mEric Olsen and it's time once again for
America's Most Haunted Radio, bringing togetherthe finest minds and personalities from across the
paranormal spectrum. America's Most Haunted TheSecrets of Famous Paranormal Places is now an

(00:29):
epic book from Berkeley Penguin History Legends, investigations, interviews and profiles of America's
ten most Haunted hotspots by Eric Olsenand Haunted housewife Teresa Argie. Be sure
to join us on Twitter and Facebook, at a m Haunted Pinterest, at
America's Most Haunted, and our websiteAmerica's Dash Most dash Haunted dot com.

(00:52):
And here every week on America's MostHaunted Radio with all the top names in
the paranormal field. Joel Sturgis hasbeen in the radio business for many a
moon and has hosted such hit showsas Ze Talk Live and Airstrike Geo Radio
and now the world famous After HoursAM has interviewed the biggest names from the

(01:17):
world of the paranormal and entertainment andeverything in between. Joel also has a
deep interest in all things paranormal,his own bad self in the real world,
and he loves a good horror movie. Welcome to America's most haunted Joel.
Hey man, it's well, thankyou for having me, and boy,

(01:38):
did you ever make me sound goodway better than I am in reality?
I tried. It was a meresmall section of your contributions to life
and earth. Wow. Now,okay, now you're making me blood showby
here, and that doesn't happen veryoften. But here's the thing is.

(02:00):
I know my bio was short,and the reason for that is because I'm
a radio host, so usually allthe spotlight goes on my guests, and
not often as the microphone turned onthis end, So I guess i'll expand
on that. I have actually beena paranormal investigator for the last twenty years.
I mean too long ever since youknow, I'm forty now, so
it's about twenty years old. Igot bit by the bug. You know,

(02:23):
A lot of it was just acouple of experiences I couldn't figure out
like much like you. You know, we talked about your experiences, weird
make you scratch your headcome experiences,and I start digging deeper and deeper into
it. And the thing that hookedme being a radio personality and being in
radio for all these years, ishow sound works and where are these voices

(02:47):
really coming from? That's a grabme because you know, anyone can sit
there and they can say, well, hello Johnny and being a normal voice
that we hear every day. Butit's the ones that are on our own
hearing capabilities that actually pique my interestthe most. Absolutely it really. I
agree with you. I find ofall the various objective quote unquote forms of

(03:14):
paranormal evidence between video, photographs,obviously personal experiences, but I guess that's
not really necessarily considered objective evidence,though I don't know, I guess it
should be. But nonetheless I agreewith you. Audio to me seems the
most promising in terms of actually havingmeaning, as we all know unfortunately unfortunately

(03:39):
too. But in this digital age, with all of the tools available,
it's just so so easy, andI imagine for some people tempting to fudge
the material a little bit photoshop andwhatnot, and with video as well,
but with audio it seems to beeither people are perhaps just less inclined to

(04:03):
do such a thing because maybe it'snot so dramatic, but it just seems
to be also just more legitimate,and I think it's maybe it's harder to
get that kind of other worldly soundor even kind of that metallic ish sound
that we hear so often with EVPs. So for those various reasons and the

(04:24):
fact that, my god, wherethe heck are they coming from? I
agree with you. I think theyare the most indelible forms right now anyway
of paranormal evidence exactly, barring andghost jumping out on live TV, dancing
around and saying here I am andexplaining everything for us, that's the closest

(04:45):
we have And the reason why peopledon't fake it is it's really simple because
my equipment doesn't lie to me.There's no way a person with a human
voice can mimic above the normal octavesand a range of a human listening.
You're that's what we do when westart getting into the forty five thousand,
sixty seven thousand approximate hurts range.Now we're talking. Now, we're talking

(05:11):
what like a dog would hear it? And that is why a lot of
I think, now this is myown opinion, why a lot of animals
react to hear and why they seemto hear things we don't. I really
firmly believe that on the other side, quote unquote, the mega hurts range
is more in tune of the dogshearing than it is our own, and

(05:32):
that's why we don't hear real time. But have you ever seen a dog
react just weird, like for nogood reason, like run into the door
and barking for just no good reason. Oh? Absolutely, that seems to
be a very common response. Arekind of a first response. You know,
it's the canary in the coal mine. The first thing that happens is
the dog. Yeah, exactly.And I kind of ran my own tasks.

(05:55):
I have a little chihuahua. Ilove him, dearly love him.
His name is Moose, oddly enoughpound dogna moose figure, but he thinks
he's huge. But when on acouple investigations which orre, I knew there
was activity, and I knew thingswere going on the friendly places. So
before you win, y Els,I put my dog in jeopardy. These
were all really safe, private homesof people I knew, and I wanted

(06:17):
to see how he reacted during anEVP session, and I would mark the
times that he wouldn't kind of lookup or look around or act like he
was hearing something that I was notat the time and marking that time,
stamping that and then going back tomy own audio, I said, son
of a gun, he's here inthis he's here in this real time.

(06:41):
He's reacting to what I can't hear. And so that's what kind of you
know, doing a firsthand, realexperiment rather than the computer. Rather the
computer trying to tell me what Ishould be hearing. I brought an animal
with me to really test this,and it was pretty startling the results I
had. That's fascinating. It reallyis. You know what we should look

(07:01):
into maybe you have I haven't yet, is we should look at what the
frequency range is of various animals andthose that are at least tamable, Well,
you know, you know, weshould bring them in. A cat
has a sixty four thousand hurts rangeof listening, so they are actually even

(07:24):
more higher pitch than a dog.They can hear further into the octaves than
even dog skin, and a horsehas thirty three point five thousand hurts.
Well you do know these things,well I do, you know, just
just because I've studied different ways thatdifferent animals here, because quite honestly,
are our range of hearing as humanbeings. We don't have the greatest hearing

(07:48):
range. In fact, when itcomes right down to it, we're not
very good at hearing. We're reallygood at seeing things, and we're really
good at picking things out, especiallyfaces that are there with their eyes.
But as far as hearing goes,we are we kind of rank, really
loan the totem pole of actually hearing. And yet we're the ones who spend

(08:11):
all the money on high end audioequipment. You don't see dogs doing no,
they don't need it. They're like, leave me alone with the audio
exactly. You know, there wasan experiment with bats, because bats they
actually hear one hundred and ten thousand. I was actually going to mention bats
because I did know that they hada very wide range. Go ahead,

(08:33):
Yeah, And they did what theydid as various experiments on them with sound
with voices actually of various human voicesand dogs barking things like that at different
mega hurts to see how they reacted. And it was startling when when they
saw the range, which we didnot know that they could hear at that

(08:56):
frequency until they did a study onthem, that they can actually hear into
one hundred and ten mega hurts section, which is unheard of because actually the
only thing that beats them, youknow, is not on land. A
porpoise actually hears at one fifty hurts, so you know, one hundred and
fifty thousand hurts. So it's juststrange how they can react and how they

(09:20):
can hear. But anyhow, gettingaway from all that science crap, the
thing that intrigued me was how it'shappening, Not that it's happening, but
how it's happening and where it's comingfrom. You know, I firmly believe
that when a spirit voice comes throughand you're having this interaction and you're hearing

(09:41):
the hurts or what have you goingon, it's really a marvel of somewhat
I guess quasi science that's even happening. Number one, because if they are
in another dimension, they are crossingdimensional lines, which would explain. Now,
Eric, have you have you everheard popping in EBP like in the

(10:01):
beginning in the end, Yes,definitely. That to me, my opinion
is popping is them their voice crossingdimensions. Fascinating because it'll almost be like
a high pitched like a pop,like an electrical pop, and then you'll
get the voice and then a lotof times you get the same pop on

(10:22):
the way out. To me,I do believe in my opinion, of
course, and if someone can proveme wrong, I love it because I'm
always up for a good debate.That is them crossing their hurts ranges and
creating that distortion. What are yourthoughts on why spirits or energy or ghosts

(10:45):
whatever whatever we're calling them these entities, what are your thoughts on why they
function in the range that they dofunction in? You know, that's a
good question. Nobody quite knows thatone yet. I mean, you know,
once we're there will kind of beable to know all this. But
I do believe that it's it's moreof a dimensional gap that's causing it.

(11:09):
And I'm not quite sure what hurtsthey operate in, or or whether they're
actually having to use the atmosphere aroundus as an electrical churcharts to create these
voices. That would really lend credenceto the manipulation of the atmosphere, not
them necessarily talking, but them actuallyjust manipulating the atmosphere around them to make

(11:30):
voice, right, Because of coursethat's the whole other side of it is,
how are they generating this what amountsto energy when they don't have a
body to do so, they don'thave the physical mechanism to generate sound like

(11:54):
we do anyway and other earthbound creatures. We use the physical structure of our
heads and our faces and our throatsand our lungs and tongues and e in
order to create those sounds. Whatare your thoughts on how they actually generate

(12:16):
that energy when they have bodies.There's a lot of schools of thought on
this SIDEAD Number one is shouldn't evenbe there by all rights. Um.
Einstein had this great theory that energycan neither be destroyed, nor manipulated,
nor created. Truly, it canonly change shape. And I think that

(12:41):
when we leave our body, weleave as energy. Okay, we get
released back in the atmosphere. Fromwhat someone would say, we come at
that point we are the theory is, And I'm not sure because all the
stuff, as we move forward,it's going to get them clear and clear
as technology maybe gets better and maybewe learn a little bit more. But

(13:03):
we are able to manipulate the atmosphereas in ions and electric electrical charge and
the atmosphere to create noise. Butthe thing of it is is most electrical
atmosphere. Noise is above our hearingrange. So when a spirit goes to
manipulate it, they don't have thebody. All they have is the energy

(13:28):
to manipulate the energy that's already inthe room to create the voice, got
it, So they're kind of marshalingit there are kind of using it.
That's why the yeah, kind oflike the cold spots, energy seems we
sucked out of a room. Nottswhy emath is really utilized because we're able

(13:48):
to monitor the atmosphere and the electricalcharge and the manipulation that might be occurring
in the atmosphere. When when energyis being sucked out of the atmosphere,
it gets colder because they're taking awaybecause when it gets warmer, that means
that everything's moving faster. When itgets colder, that means everything's moving slower.

(14:09):
So they're actually grabbing and harnessing.In a lot of theories and this
is all theoretical, of course,they're actually grabbing and harnessing this electrical charge.
Fascinating. Um, I'm I'm thinkingdeeply as we speak, pondering that
reality. It's a little bit differentfrom from really how I've had it presented

(14:35):
before. So I think that makesan awful lot of sense. I think
it's really quite logical, very interesting. I've had a couple of different people
say that they think that it's allconveyed psychically, and then, of course
our question was, well, well, then how could it be recorded if

(14:56):
it's If it's only being conveyed throughthrough psychic channels from mind to mind as
it were, how you know,how can there be a physical manifestation of
it? Yeah, that that's youknow, I have I respect Evan's theory
first, I want to throw thatout there. And if that's the theory
that they have subscribe to, andit's as good as any theory out there,

(15:18):
to be honest, I don't necessarilybelieve that because why do we have
the physical evidence as if it's purelypsychic? Why is the third party,
as in a recorder, able topick that up? It needs to have
some type of audio going on topick it up, right, Eric,
Exactly, if it's psychic, ifit's if it's minds linking, there is

(15:43):
no outward expression of noise, there'dbe no way to record it. Exactly,
it would not register on any kindof equipment, no, and there
are people that have what they calleb you know, instead of EVP,
they just have the voice phenomena wherethey actually hear it's once in a while
real time. And that's another interestingthing. I was just presented with a

(16:06):
recorded um phenomena. Voice phenomena can'tcall EVP because they heard this real time
and everyone reacted to in the room. It was simply it sounded a lot
like a shotgun going off, buteverybody heard it and no one had an
explanation for it. Wow. Sowhat are your thoughts on the kind of

(16:26):
that side of the the evidence quoteunquote spectrum, whether it be audio or
otherwise. About the the recording.You know that that that energy has been
somehow recorded and it's just in essenceplaying back over and over again. There

(16:48):
there is a possibility of that,but we have to take in consideration now
intelligent conversations that are going on.There are many many times I heard this
where someone asks a direct question andthey get direct answer, right, How
would they know if it was arecording going over and over and over,

(17:08):
saying the same phrases over and overand over. How would they be able
to not only have just one sentencecommunication I've heard our near full conversations going
on between with the EVP and theand the person the investigator, where where
you just can't fake that it's itis what it is, it's it's it's

(17:30):
alive and it does its thing,and I don't believe it's by chancer and
a long story short. Interesting tome, it seems like there's kind of
probably has to be two different phenomenawhere you do have the residual, as
it is often called, the recordingthe playback, so somehow that energy has

(17:52):
been stored. I believe that that'spossible. Now I'm not saying there is
not residual. I believe that thereis, but I also believe that there's
intelligent. Yeah. Well, it'spretty hard to explain away. Like you're
saying, all these various responses andconversations, and I mean they're all throughout
our book. You know, we'vehad all kinds of EVP that reflect direct

(18:15):
responses. What are your thoughts onthe shall we say mitigated or intermediated voice
phenomenons are sound phenomenons ie through thespirit box? What are your thoughts on
the legitimacy of the spirit box,And maybe just give everyone a quick rundown

(18:37):
on what that is. Well,the Spirit Box really, I mean it
really began with Frank Sumption, withFrank's Box. It's where the you know,
the kind of the grandfather of themall and God rest the soul.
And then we had the radio shackHat Come Home, which is just a
radio that's modified. All this devicereally does is there are a set amount

(18:57):
of frequencies and there's one hundreds setinto any radio. Any digital radio that
can scan. Radio stations will havehundreds preset into their logs. You flip
it on and you let it.First off, you have to modify the
radio to not stop on audio,you know, I mean like it finds

(19:18):
like Billy Joel playing a song,it doesn't stop there, like like your
car stereo. Will you know,if you hit the seak button, it
will stop on any strong station.First you modify the box so it will
keep going through the frequencies no matterhow strong the frequency is. And the
thought behind that is is that ifyou modify these boxes so it's covered all
these different frequencies, all these differentmegahurts, you are able to do direct

(19:44):
real time conversation with the debt moreor less. In essence, you're able
to say who was the president whenyou were alive? And it should spit
out in a lot of the demonstrationsI've seen an answer. The problem with
something like this is a you havea ton of interference going on. It's

(20:07):
really hard for me to make highor hair of these conversations. Quite honestly,
we're an EVP that's clean, especiallyin class A. There is no
guessing to what that class EVP setat all. Where you have this radio
that's going through all these frequencies andit sounds like a lot of static.

(20:29):
You can matrix that to say whateveryou want to do if you listen hard
enough. It's a lot like seeinga wall face on the wall. You
stare it along enough, you're gonnastart seeing faces. Well, our ears
are a lot like that, Sowe easily manipulate static into words. I
don't really I don't believe that theyare very reliable. I do believe that

(20:51):
they have their place if investigators wantto use them. I support it because
you and we don't push the feelsforward, we're never and then get any
more answers. But do I believethat they are very reliable In my opinion
and my opinion only. No,no, sir, I agree. I
agree. It's like you said,it's too often that what could be almost

(21:15):
anything is interpreted as words, andespecially then when you take that additional stretch
of having what sounds like it couldbe almost anything and you apply it to
a question that's been asked and say, well, you know, that's a

(21:36):
clear answer of the question. Iagree, I find that to be unreliable.
I agree with you too. Imean, there's no tool. Tools
are are tools. Tools are onlyas good as the people using them and
in their ability to make the functionand equally importantly to interpret them. So

(21:57):
there's nothing wrong with tools, AndI agree with you. There certainly could
be times when when it's possible thatan entity would could somehow figure out how
to manipulate that those signals to comeup with a sound. But um,
you know, it's it's an interestingtheory on how it works. But to

(22:19):
me, from what I've heard anyway, the results are are tenuous. Hey,
I really want to get back toyour origins. We we kind of
glossed over that, I course onyour show when I was being interviewed by
you when I was a guest forAmerica's Most haunt. It talked about kind
of my origin tales and how indeliblyimprinted they were on me. And in

(22:45):
fact, I ran away from itall for about for about thirty years or
close to it. And um,so I'm very interested in hearing what your
really core experiences were, you know. Um, I even take you as
far back as six years old.How's that sounded? Oh, my goodness.
When I was a six year oldboy, I lived in a creepy

(23:07):
and I know, like everybody else, a creepy farmhouse. And I will
never forget the time. I wasa young guy, just a young kid,
and I have sisters, they're fiveyears older than I am, and
my parents had gone out for theevening and they left us all alone,
and way upstairs in the attic wasmy room. Of course, I gotta

(23:32):
have the creepy part of the house, you know, So I go upstairs
because I'm told by my older myeldest sisters. They're twins, of course,
to twin sisters, so they canbeat the crap out of me.
So I listened to a lot backthen. It's time to go to bed,
time to time to put your pajamason, do all that kind of
fun stuff, and we're gonna staydown here and watch TV, all right,

(23:52):
Okay, well okay, so Igo upstairs mine in my own business
like I did a thousand times andfour, and I stopped because there's a
thing eric sitting on my bed.Oh my, it was the darkest,
blackest shadow. Imagine the darkest,darkest you've ever seen in your life.

(24:17):
I know, I know what thatis. I've seen that, and it's
sitting staring at me on my bed. I stopped in my six year old
mind, and this I can recallevery detail this story, even today,
and I'm forty years old. Imean, this is how ingrained is in
my mind. I stopped. Itlooked at me, I looked at it,

(24:38):
and we locked eyes. I meanit seemed like we were sitting there
staring at each other for hours,and reality is probably one two or three
seconds. And the thing just oozednastiness, you know what I mean?
How you just get that feeling somethingright and it's just nasty line, yeah,

(25:00):
yes, just just evil, youknow, just just that feeling.
And I was scared. Literally Ithink i'd year and run down my pants.
I'd be surprised if be doing andit looked at me. I looked
at it, and I blinked myeyes and it was gone. Now I
don't know what the heck this entitywas when I was six years old sitting

(25:22):
on my bed, but it alwaysstuck with me, and of course I
told my mom, told my dad, told everyone that listened. Of course,
you know, no one listens tosix year old. You know,
they're like, well, you know, you were just scared. It made
just scared. So I tucked thatin the back of my head until I
saw it again when I was inmy twenties. Yeah, it was.

(25:44):
It was an odd thing. Iwas living in a small efficiency apartment,
living off ramen noodles. I wasjust trying to make it like everybody else,
you know, young guy going tocollege, doing his thing. And
I had a creepy Yes, Iguess I have this long running end to
live me in creepy places, atthis creepy efficiency apartment, and I was,
you know, I came in late, I had worked the late shift.

(26:07):
I was kind of stumbling, andyou know how guys treat their apartments
like a locker more than a house, you know, and so you know,
I was going to uh, itwas probably about eleven o'clock. I
was gonna throw my clothes in theclose an old hamper if well, let's
just be honest, I never useda hamper. I was gonna get changed
to go down to the bar,like every young guy does. But instead

(26:30):
I opened the door to my apartmentand I gaze across and there's just every
sole little bit of light coming fromthe southern window shining in. It was
a big moon too. I meanit was one of those big almost like
this is September, so we're gettingclose to those harvest moons, you know.
I'm talking about those great big moonsthat just kind of shine real high.

(26:52):
Sure, absolutely there's songs about them. Exactly perfect light was coming through
that window, and when I creepopened that door, there's that son of
a gun just sitting on my bed. Again. Looked at it, it
looked at me, and this timeit was more of a I'm not gonna
be afraid. This time I'm oldernow, Eric and bigger afraid of this

(27:15):
stuff. Well, Urine comes downthe leg again and I say, I
don't know what the heck you are. In my mind, of course,
this was not a like you andme talking. This was more of a
conversation I guess through the mind,right, It was more I stopped dead

(27:37):
in my tracks, like, oh, what the hell is this thing?
And it actually at this point stoodup. Eric, this this occasion stood
up. I would say, youever see Shaquille O'Neill on TV? Yes,
taller than him easily, Wow.And it took off, just took
off. But the thing of itwas wasn't so much the encounter. It

(27:57):
was the encounter again, but thesame feeling of fear, the same foreboding
feeling just kind of there and anags that you once you're once you look
at something like this and you havean encounter with a dark entity, it

(28:18):
almost nags you in the back ofyour head, you know, because you
know, what the heck was it? And is it going to come back?
That's another thing that always scares you, you know, is it going
to come back? After that?After that second encounter with I don't know
with what everybody I wish I did. I'm still trying to figure that out.
I started looking deeper into the paranormal. Well, first I started,

(28:41):
of course, you know, inthe bad stuff the demonology, going oh
my gosh, I must be ademon and it must be something bad that's
probably been following me since I wasa kid, just didn't know it.
The more I dug into, themore intrigued I was of how it works
and why it works and where dowe go? And are there other dimensions

(29:03):
with other creatures? Because I firmlybelieve this thing was inhuman. I don't
believe it was like Casper the friendlyGhost. I think it was something that
wasn't necessarily the nicest little critter inthe world. Why I was the one
to see it, I don't know. I don't have that answer for anybody.
But I did see it. Butthat's really eric the story and that,

(29:26):
I mean, that's really what gotme thinking about paranormal Well that would
do it. But are you sureit was the same Do you think it
was the same entity. I don'tknow that that's just it. It wasn't
like, you know, they don'thave name tags on it, a Hello,
my name is Bob. I don'tknow if it was the same,
or whether it was the mindset,or whether it was any factors involved.

(29:51):
You know, it was one ofthose moments where I was just going to
throw my clothes in my apartment,get dressed in some you know, auto
work clothes, go downtown and maybemean the young lady who knows God knows,
you know, I mean, whoknows what would have happened that night,
But instead I had the I mean, you know what scared right outomy.
It was just that whole what areyou moment? I mean, that's

(30:14):
the thing that gets me the most, isn't it's what is it? Yeah?
I mean, what is this?I agree entirely. I think if
you have any kind of a analyticalmind at all, that's where the fascination
lies. You know. Of coursewe know there's other elements. There's religious
elements, there's kind of philosophical elements, but I'm I'm absolutely fascinated with.

(30:38):
Okay, So, assuming any ofthese things that sure seem to be real
are real, what are they?What is the physical mechanism that creates it?
How do they function? Do theyhave quote unquote lives? Do they

(31:00):
have inner lives? Do they sitaround and think about things? You know?
I mean, what's the reason forbeing exactly exactly? And if you
think about it, some of thesescenarios are just ineffably sad, you know,
like if they're trapped, if theydon't know they can't find their way,

(31:22):
they don't know who they are,they don't know what they're supposed to
be doing, or they're simply tooafraid to move on there they themselves,
they're afraid of what they will findat the next level. Questions like that,
I mean to me, it's like, Wow, some of those answers
would be so sad. I juststarted watching, believe it or not,

(31:45):
after all these years, I juststarted watching. We finally broke down and
we watched. We've been watching DoctorWho this season, this is it.
This is the very first time,and I found it mostly very entertaining,
fascinating. Some things are, youknow, kind of hokey, but for

(32:05):
the most part, I mean Ioccasionally caught an episode maybe you know,
once every ten years, dating backall the way to when I don't even
know when it was first on TV. Time been around forever, and I
know there was a break. Butthe old the production values of some of
those old old shows of decades ago, where shall we say poor. So

(32:30):
this is much much more realistic andbetter looking, and it's very imaginative.
Anyway, one of those episodes,it was towards the end of this that
the season that just ended recently.Uh was uh the girl the current girl
who who I like a lot.She's very cute, smart, perky,

(32:53):
makes a TV show too, hiseye appeal. Well, she's cute,
smart, art, perky, allthat good stuff. So I'm digging her.
So she had a boyfriend, notdoctor who because this doctor who's old.
In fact, this doctor who ismy age? Exactly do you years

(33:13):
old? No? I'm only ninethousand years old. So but anyway,
they make a big deal about thefact that there's this, you know,
large age difference. It's probably aboutwhat thirty years I guess approximately between them.
Anyway, So she had a boyfriend. The boyfriend heroically heroically died saving

(33:34):
the world, which is a goodway to go if you're gonna go.
He saved the world, that boyfriend. So they communicate with the boyfriend in
the afterlife, and what they findout is, and this really made me
think, what they find out isnothing stops just because the body is no

(33:58):
longer responsive. It's kind of likethat ghost boy who's been making all the
rounds lately. He could feel everything, he could hear everything. So imagine
what the message he eats out is, please bury me, I do not

(34:22):
burn me. Think about it becauseyou feel it right exactly. Oh my
goodness. So what a terrible,you know, fascinating, interesting, but
awful concept that that all these thesepoor people, and you know, like
let's say India, for for hundredsof years or thousands of years, all

(34:45):
these poor people are feeling the agonyof being burnt so so that you continue
to have all your sensory input andwhat your body does even after you're dead.
So so that was the premise ofthat episode. And gosh, I
mean, I hope that's not thecase. Oh I hope so in either

(35:05):
because you know what if you dinein a fiery car wreck, oh my
gosh, and then just whatever happensto you, you know after that,
you know. But I have atheory. I have a theory that kind
of thought on for a while.I think it's more like this, Eric,
if you'll bear with me for asecond. Imagine we all live an
apartment building, you know, bighigh rise building, and we have common

(35:28):
areas like the coke machine, thelaundry area, things such as this,
where everybody goes to it to useit. And let's just say a human
beings live on a third floor.Big puts tenth floor lockness, monsters,
whatever floor demons or this floor.Once in a great while you'll run them
too, real run into each otherthe elevator, you know, just a

(35:49):
happening of running into each other inthe common area. I like that.
That's a very good analogy. Itdoesn't necessarily mean that they dwell in our
area. We have our own lord. But they're going down. They're going
to go down to let's just say, the fifth level. They're going to
the candy machine, exactly when wehappen to bump into them. And it's

(36:09):
nothing as in like they meant tobump into us or we meant to bump
into them. It's just that happensdowns. I think that's as plausible as
any other theory. I think that'sa great theory. It makes a lot
of sense. Do you also think, though, that there are actual,
kind of committed hauntings. I mean, do you think that entities do reside

(36:32):
in a given place or I thinkso. I think what happens is a
lot of reason why maybe a lotof entities in my experience don't move on
to s Fear fear of the unknown. You know, they don't know what's
going to happen next. I amstill What amazes me and I kind of

(36:53):
always circle back to this, isI envision this triangle where one of the
legs of the triangle, one ofthe sides is science, and one of
the sides is what we now callthe paranormal, which is it's not science.

(37:15):
It may be it can be quasiscience, it can certainly use the
scientific method, but it's not science. And then the third is religion.
And what fascinates me is the intersection, the intersection of all three of those,
where those three all come together.You know, it's a very gray

(37:38):
area. Those are gray areas becauseyou don't know exactly what's what, and
it can be parts of all ofthem, and so you know, someday,
I'm convinced we'll get a fair amountof this sorted out. And I'm
talking about here on Earth, notafter we individually move on, but we

(38:00):
hear in our earthly strictures. Ithink we'll get a lot of this sorted
out. I think eventually we'll getmost of the scientific aspects sorted out.
We'll figure out, hey, whatis this energy? We may even figure
out if we go if we stickaround long enough, if we last long
enough as a race, we mayeven figure out some of this interdimensional aspects

(38:22):
and how that works and why thatexists and all that kind of stuff.
Well, it would be nice,though, legitimate science would throw their hat
in their ring and figuring this out. Oh, sure would. And there's
lots of aspects you mentioned Einstein earlier, you know, there's lots of aspects
of especially all the cutting edge youknow, the quantum physics and cosmology,

(38:45):
everything, all these various discoveries andneuroscience. My goodness, all these things
going on right now that have avery strong, at least potential bearing on
the paranormal. And I'm pretty surethat they will. But as you say,
it's not as if the vast majority, there's this tiny, tiny percentage,

(39:06):
but the vast majority of scientists aren'tlooking into these things because of their
impact on the paranormal. They justhappen to you know, cutting edge quantum
physics and whatnot. Quantum entanglement Ifind fascinating because how can these two particles
interact faster than the speed of sound, I mean speed of light from opposite

(39:32):
ends of the universe. I mean, how can that be something is faster
than light and that defies physics aswe now currently understand, because I just
Stein always said, if you gofaster than the speed of light, you
have a huge mass increase exactly,That's right, and you just get bigger

(39:53):
and you get bigger and you getbigger. I mean, that's his theory.
That's that's Einstein's theory, and he'sbeen right about a lot of things
things. I'm not gonna question histheory. But this proof, like you
said, is there of these thingsmoving faster than lights? It's there,

(40:14):
all the data is there, exactly, So how can that be skirting this
law of physics? I agree thatis the absolute fundamental question, and I
would think that honest scientists, orat least open minded scientists, that would

(40:35):
occur to them as well, Wow, if this can be, and it
certainly appears to be, there's gotto be a lot of stuff going on
out there that we simply don't understand, and that it's arrogant in the height
of hubrists to think that we knoweverything that's going on, or even that
we have the basic platform for knowingwhat's going on because we and arrogance is

(41:00):
right. I think you hit thenail on the head because a lot of
the problem with the paranormal has takenas a legitimate research is well, there
is no standards and practices, there'sno no one does it the same.
I mean, there's no real uniform. We have collecting data exactly exactly,

(41:22):
and there needs to be for itto move forward. So I'm very much
sympathetic with this whole movement, especiallyin the last ten fifteen years, and
it seems to kind of coincide toa certain extent with the proliferation and success
of the various ghost hunting TV shows. But um, I am sympathetic very

(41:44):
much so with the desire, withthe urge to come up with physical,
objective evidence. But on the otherhand, as as Teresa says, very
often, that's kind of a shadowthat evidence is in and of itself,

(42:07):
kind of just a mere reflection ofthe reality of the actual paranormal experience,
which is so much which is threedimensional, which is so much fuller and
more real and more immediate and moreundeniable than any form of evidence. And
you went through it with your twoencounters with the menacing shadow figures. I

(42:32):
am certain that in your six yearold self and your young adult self,
you never for one instant doubted thereality of that experience. No, because
once it's in your face and it'sthere, all all questions are all there,

(42:53):
more than they ever were. Butthen you don't doubt either. I
mean, it only takes one experienceturn of skeptic and to believe her.
Boy, isn't that the truth?Hey, you know we gotta talk about
we barely mentioned. Let's talk aboutyour show. I just fill everyone in
when you're on where they could findyou, what the contact info is after

(43:15):
ours am is Really it was aradio show that was never meant to really
be It's kind of funny. Istarted this show. It was oddly enough
on my wife, Jennifer. Wedid it as just a hobby because she'd
always kind of wanted to get intoradio, and and just kind of took
off. It took you know,began a life of its own, and

(43:37):
now it's become what it has andeveryone listens to the show knows that how
it became what it is. Butit really meant to be fun, just
like just like this show is justjust fun, man, Because if you're
not having fun or radio, don'tdo it, you know. And so
as through the fun and through thelisteners. It's grown to be actually one
of the bigger listen to radio showsout there. Oddly enough, people actually

(43:59):
enjoy listen to me for some strangereason. I stilln't figure that part out
yet. Oh heck, we haveactually we have some of the top paranormal
researchers and just normal folk on theshow. We've had you on the show.
We had a great, you knowexperience with you, great interview.

(44:19):
Everybody can catch that of course,and the archives. But then you also
co hosted. Oh my was that. I'm glad you had a good time.
It's it's really a laid back show. It's just like this one.
It's just free form talk, isreally what it is. You can catch
us really, uh well, jeez, we're cant and catch us kind of
thing. Best place to go toget us though, to get all your
information After Hours AM is www dotafter hoursam dot com. You can get

(44:46):
everything there you ever want to know. But we're afraid to ask. Can
you even get well? And yourpast shows? And you get here Eric
right there on After Hours Am.We interviewed while the Hana, the paranormal
genealogist, is who we had onthe show. When we had a blast.
But After Hours Am is just growingand growing and growing. I couldn't

(45:07):
be happier it. So I'm likea prog popa over here going all right,
Way to go, kid, andwe have no plans of stopping anytime
soon. You can hear us prettymuch. If you go to Afteroursam dot
com you can get us twenty fourhours a day, seven days a week,
as well as at tune in Radiodot com you can get us twenty
four hours, seven days a week, and better radio stations everywhere pretty much.

(45:29):
While we're kind of scaling back abit because the time constraints right now,
a few things going on with someradio stations and moving a few things
and growing. You can catch uslive on the internet now. The internet
feed is every Thursday at eight pm. Everywhere else is every night, of
course on the old terrestrial end.So but if you want to know what

(45:51):
terrestrial stations in your area, geta hold of me and I'd be happy
to share that information with you.But everybody visit www dot after hours em
dot com. And boy, didI ever sound like a radio host student
That didn't I? You did?And you are, aren't you? On
about two hundred stations you said,but yeah, we're we're cooking with gas.
Yeah, we're We're up there.We're about two bills and it's it's

(46:14):
I want to get bigger. Umwhile not bigger, but it's really radio
for the people, by the peoplekind of thing. And so as long
as people want to listen, we'llkeep building the thing. And we're gonna
have really quality people on the show. And that's what makes it go is
the quality of the people on theshow, like the hosts, um you

(46:34):
know, like you coming on theshow being co host, and my my
regular co host, Bruce Barraclaw andhe is actually he is a Bigfoot researcher,
which we lock horns once in awhile because I'm not exactly sold on
bigfoot. Well that's just me.And it kind of comes together with all
these different views and mixes to bea really interesting show and we're growing and

(46:59):
then of course look for a HauntedAmerica to be you know part of this
too. America's most Haunted is goingto be uh well, you can read
a lot of the articles that Ericis gonna be putting out there right there
after OURSAM dot com. I'm reallylooking forward to it. Oh so AM
I. Yeah, we're kind of, uh, we're finding an intersection between

(47:21):
our brands, and we definitely havesome we have some complimentary strengths, so
we're we're looking to help each otherout in that regard. And I think
that really that's what's most fun aboutit is we really are in a position
to sort of offer things to eachother that that one is really good at
and experienced that and the other isnot. And holy cow, that's that's

(47:45):
the way it all goes. Pluswe get along and have a ball.
Like I said, boy, orlike you said, we really have a
lot of fun. That was lastThursday night. It was And I want
to actually give a shout out toIntrepid Paradigm Radio. We're joining their network
over there at Intrepid Paradigm Radio dotcom. And I'm hoping do you hear

(48:07):
this extremely fine program live with usover there sometimes Sue and IHI, Eric,
Oh yeah, yeah, we lovelive. You know, we always
did the America's most haunted blog talkradio show Live until really just the last
several months, and it just seemedthe way the wind was blowing was everything

(48:31):
seemed to be heading toward a podcastformat, and we were told that that
was how we should handle it.And yeah, I mean it's fun.
I like kind of the editing andputting it together and being able to create
this new entity, the the audiolong ago audio engineering me enjoys that part

(48:54):
of it. But but there's nothinglike live, and I absolutely love the
spontaneity. I feel very comfortable thatway. It feels real somewhere somehow in
the back of your mind, nomatter how much you treat it like live
and here and now, some portionof your brain knows it isn't. So

(49:17):
it isn't quite the same. There'sa little something different. So yeah,
I mean I like them both.I love them both. And of course
people should know in case it wasn'tclear to them that your show, while
you do it live, it's eachevening weeknights, it's every show is of
course recorded and is then is availablein podcast form. So yeah, we

(49:43):
would love to switch into that,and we'd love to go to even you
know, more than one day aweek. I mean interacting with you and
since appearing on your show and thenco hosting and just chatting about how all
this goes and where this may goand how it might go, it has
absolutely revitalized my interest in radio.I feel like, you know, starting

(50:07):
all over again, yet with havingI won't even tell you how many years
on and off of experience. Sufficeit to say, my first radio show
was when I was fourteen, soit was a while ago. You got
some actually, you got some experiencebehind the microphone. I do have some

(50:28):
experience. But I really do feelcompletely revitalized and starting all over again.
And I feel I feel like avirgin. And it's uh, it's super
fun and very exciting. And I'mpicture me dancing around like Madonna in that
video. Well you know, youknow that's that's the thing too. And

(50:50):
you touched on a little bit radiolive and podcast. The radio industry has
changed so much even the last tenyears. Uh, you know, it's
gone to a very closed off communityof people. You know, it's come
from rather a closed off community whereyou really had to beg maybe as program
director or no somebody at a stationor somehow get yourself into studio to be

(51:14):
able to talk or you know,or even spin records for that matter.
You really had to have that insidetrack. Now anybody quite honestly, with
the drive and passion to have aradio show. Ken, that's a beautiful
thing and sometimes a terrifying thing allone time. Yes, well, it's
like all of the changes of thedigital era. The barriers to entry are

(51:40):
greatly reduced, I mean essentially eliminated. You know, a little bit of
learning curve, how do you usethe equipment, how do you do this?
How do you do that? Onceyou get that sorted out, there's
essentially no barrier to entry. It'srelative, it's an expensive In fact,
it can be essentially free, almostfree anyway. So that's a wonderful thing.

(52:00):
There's been an explosion of content.Think of it in every area,
not just radio, but in bookwriting, in blogging, so that would
be the equivalent of some form ofperiodical writing or journaling perhaps, I guess,
and you know, just across theboard in video, look at YouTube.

(52:20):
My goodness, the barriers to entryin all these different media are now
either either utterly gone or at leastgreatly reduced. But what that means is
is you have an enormous glut ofcontent and no one is really sorting it

(52:42):
out what is good, what isbad, what is mediocre? And that's
what we've lost. And so lookat all the tools that have grown up
just in the last say even fiveyears, where you're curating and you're performing
that editorial function by recommending to othersthis is good, this sucks. So

(53:04):
it's become a community. It's acitizen project in terms of curating all these
different mediums. So circling back towhat you said, it's fantastic that those
barriers of entry are down that essentiallyanyone can now do a radio show.
The downside of it is those barriersof entry are down and virtually anyone can

(53:28):
now do a radio show exactly.And I get asked a lot of times,
how do I get into radio?How how do I kind of bust
into the higher echelons of it,you know, because there's there's there is
definitely a division in radio, Ohsure and everything. You have your oh
small just as important shows out therethat you know, maybe don't get the

(53:52):
airplay and after hours Am does oror you know America's most haunted does it's
But the thing of it is isyou have to pay your dues. Number
one. You just can't show upand say, hey, I got microphone
and I got something to say.It doesn't work that way. You gotta
pay those dues. You got tokind of do all those things. Approve

(54:13):
yourself. Prove number one, thatyou have talent. That's the number one
hurdle. Everybody thinks that they havetalent to do radio. Evone's grandma tells
them that they're great. Yeah.I mean, Eric's family is gonna say,
hey, that was a great radioshow. But when you start putting
it out there for the masses andtrying to move it forward, then you

(54:37):
run into guys like Eric. You'rerun into guys like me. You run
into guys that know what they're doingin radio, and you ask for our
critique. I guess would be thebest word. Because I hear a lot
of radio shows. A lot ofradio shows, get links, get emailed
to me. It's in the show, it's it's a wonderful show. Absolutely,

(54:58):
I click on it, I listen. I get a good fifteen minutes.
If it's really good, I'll listento the whole thing. Rarely do
I listen to a whole radio showanymore. Normally I can have the host
peg down to strength and weaknesses withinfifteen minutes of the show. Sure,
fifteen minutes is a lot. Imean that's a long time. It's a

(55:19):
long time, but I guess whatI'm saying, long story short is anyone
can have a radio show, butnot anyone can have a good radio show.
Yeah, there's a lot of variables, and you can speed it up,
you can speed up the experience.And obviously there's a whole, very
very wide range of innate talent,So of course that is a factor.

(55:40):
But just assuming you know a modicumof talent something to say, reasonable voice,
reasonable diction, and ability to stringsentences together. So assuming all that,
there's still a kind of a wholerange of things that people don't necessarily
think a lot about. You gotto make it sound good. There's that
whole side of it, the kindof the engineering side of it. You

(56:02):
need to make sure that you aredoing the best you can anyway to make
it sound the best that it can. That does count. That's important.
There's sustainability. I think most peoplereally could do a really good show or
two or maybe ten. I thinkmost people really could. But can you
sustain it show after show after showafter show and keep it interesting and can

(56:27):
you keep up your own personal interestin it? Because that's what you find
on some of these mass outlets likeblog talk radio, which which you know
is a fantastic outlet for tens ofthousands of people, but what you find
is is that it's very difficult,and not a whole lot of those people
stick with their shows for a varietyof reasons. You just lose interest,

(56:51):
you just don't think you're getting anywhere, you get bored, just whatever.
You know, There's any number offactors. So that's kind of the next
level. It has to be sustainable. You have to be able to do
something that people want to come backto, not just here once or twice,
but to come back to. Andyou have to know how to interact.

(57:13):
If you're going to have guests,you have to know how to interact
with them, and you have toknow how to function as a host,
not just someone who blabs all thetime. And hey, I'll tell you
what that is something I've really hadto had to relearn. I did a
lot of interviews real early in mycareer, and I mean very early.
I mean like twenty thirty years ago. I did a lot of interviews,

(57:35):
and then there was a long gapwhere I was basically, when I was
on the radio, I was basicallya DJ. I was solo, I
was playing music. It was funbecause I was mostly picking out the music,
and that was my key interest duringthat time, was to pick out
music, put it together, introducenew music to people, all that kind
of stuff. But I was onmy own and working with music. So

(57:59):
coming back into it through the blogtalk radio door, you know, I've
had to relearn how to shut upa fair amount of time and to function
as a facilitator and not to justbe someone who's blab and I'm blah blah
blabbing away, you know, tohear myself talk. So that has been
something I've had to relearn, andit takes time, and it takes effort,

(58:22):
and it takes some humility. Youknow, I have to say,
hey, I am not perfect.I mean a cough right now, alrighty
the cough. No, you're absolutelycorrect. I mean you have to be
comfortable in your own skin, numberone, and be confident in your own
abilities to do an interviewer. Howmany times do you hear a show where

(58:44):
the guest actually becomes an interviewer Ina lot of ways, they just take
it over and they just kind ofgo and talk for hours and you don't
even know that there's a host,right Yeah, especially especially some of these
very often interviewed guests. Now theyjust launch into their routine. Well,
I'll tell you what we have.Unbelievable. We have once again just chatted

(59:07):
up a storm for an hour.An hour has come and gone. As
mentioned previously, I must dash offinto the night. But wow, another
great time, fantastic experience. Actuallylearned quite a bit myself about got some
new perspective on EVPs in particular,but just the whole paranormal experience as well

(59:30):
as the whole radio experience. Kindof a horizontal and vertical approach tonight.
So once again I want to thankthe great Joel Sturgis. Be sure to
catch him every weeknight after hours amgo to his site to find out to
either listen to recorded shows or liveshows, or find out where you can

(59:52):
hear the terrestrial broadcasts of his show. And that is after hours am dot
mom. All info is there,And as Joel mentioned, we're gonna start
filling up that site with some printcontent as well. We'll start kind of
covering the paranormal news and reviews andall that, and that is going to

(01:00:14):
be lots of fun. So onceagain, thank you so much, Joel.
Always a pleasure to talk with you. Not a problem. I really
enjoyed. I always have a goodtime. Eric, It's always a good
conversation. I don't think we've evertalked any less than an hour. Man,
we have a hard time shutting upbecause we are so cool and sympatic.

(01:00:35):
Oh that's right, we are thecats me out exactly. All right,
Thank you everyone. Have a greatevening and or day or afternoon,
that's right, good one, orbrunch? All right. Well, I
got a haul Lily off to herto her bus, and that'll be good

(01:01:04):
experience. Bid her a tearful farewell. She's gotten to camp every year she's
been away fair amount, but notfor a while. It's been a while
since she's been gone. Think ofthe experience that she's gonna have up there
in Canada. It will be exciting, I'm sure. And do lots of
Franka phoning she'll be You know,I live an hour away from Canada.

(01:01:25):
I know you're way up there.I do deal the Canadians all the time,
A bunch of assholes, to behonest with you, Oh Canadians.