May 22, 2025 • 41 mins
Join Kim and Alison as they welcome Richard Bigg to the show to discuss the paranormal and his books "Strange Stories From the Skulking Stream"
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
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(00:31):
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Speaker 2 (00:53):
You're listening to Rip Paranormal and Friends with your hosts
Caim Parvis and al l Sir Robinson h Make sure
(01:31):
to check us out on our Facebook pages Rip Paranormal
and Friends and Rip Paranormal Busters for up to date
show information and events.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Hey everyone, welcome to another night of Rap Paranormal and Friends.
We have a special guest for you tonight. It's been
a little while since we've done a show, so I'm
I'm very glad that we are finally able to connect
with our guest here tonight.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Richard Big.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Richard is a native Eastern Pennsylvanian and has decades of
experience in the paranormal research and investigations. He was the
former director of Pennsylvania Paranormal Research Team, and in the
last few years he has been compiling a lot of
local tales into his first book series, Strange Stories from
(02:44):
the Silken Stream. So welcome, Richard. I'm so glad we
finally get to chat.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Oh yeah, absolutely so. I kind of want to know
before we get into some of your you know, books
and things that you have out, I want to know,
how did you get into the paranormal.
Speaker 6 (03:04):
I was kind of born into it even before I
was born, just weird things were happening around my mom
when she was pregnant, and then just from the time
I could talk, I would talk to my parents about
dead relatives, people that they couldn't see, talking to them
about things that were going to happen, or people that
(03:26):
were coming to visit before they showed up, talking about
things that were going to happen before they did, as
if they already happened.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
Like I was confused about where we were in time,
that kind of thing. When I was really little, I.
Speaker 6 (03:40):
Used to talk a lot about my previous lives that
I had lived and things that I had done. So
I've just always kind of been a weird paranormal type
of dude and just continued that as I grew up,
took him more of an interest in it, and just
kind of learned as much as I like to learn
as much as I can about the world in general,
(04:01):
and I think that the paranormal is kind of a
window into a deeper sense of reality. And I tend
to experience things and see things and run into weird situations.
Speaker 5 (04:15):
So I just kind of it's just kind of my life.
Speaker 6 (04:18):
I didn't really gain an interest in it in any
particular time, or nothing really happened in particular that got
me into it.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
It's just me, Yeah, kind of. I'm kind of the
same way. Honestly. I literally had experiences when I was
growing up very little. You know, I had a dark
figure next to my bed. My mom would always talk
about how I was having conversations with somebody in the
middle of the night. Sometimes it sound like I was
(04:45):
talking in tongue.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
I'd be crying laughing.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
She remembers one time I had come downstairs and I
looked at her and I said, I'm ready to go
home now, And she was confused by that because we
were all ready at home, and she didn't think anything
of it until she talked to one of her friends, goes,
do you think she was talking about like a past
life experience or something.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
But that she just recently brought up to me with
them last year.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
But so I totally know where you're coming from with that,
because I grew up with that too, and you know,
as I got older, we kind of discussed that and
a bunch of us decided we were going to go
to the Boliska Axe Murderhouse, and after that, it's just
been kind of like, I want to know more why
these phenomenons are happening?
Speaker 5 (05:33):
Is that?
Speaker 4 (05:34):
I mean, is that why.
Speaker 6 (05:35):
You Once you get that, it's sort of an addictive
rush when you do experience something that's beyond the normal,
seeing a ghost or talking to somebody who you can't see,
who is acting as if they were in the room
(05:55):
with you, It's it's really exciting. It's it's weird, and
your heart beats a little bit harder. And you start
sweating a little bit. It's kind of a rush I
get into it. That's why I got into doing more
investigations back.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
In the day.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
I haven't been doing any lately, but whenever I do
get a chance, it's always exciting.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Where was your first Where was the first place that
you investigated?
Speaker 6 (06:25):
Well, I guess my house technically. When I was growing
up as a little kid, after I had seen visions
of my grandfather dying before it happened, and while we
were on vacation and asked my parents about it, as
if this was something that they had already.
Speaker 5 (06:43):
Knew known was happening.
Speaker 6 (06:46):
After he died, I had talked to my grandmother and
told her things that he wanted to pass along to
her that wouldn't have made sense for like a four
year old to talk to his grandmother about. So I
think when I when I was about four and a
half or so, my grandmother sat me down in our
(07:09):
dining room at my house and we sort of had
a little seance. So I guess that was like my
first normal attempt at transcommunication, trying to talk with my
dead grandfather, which I ironically really didn't like me when
he was alive.
Speaker 5 (07:27):
Because I used to creep him out.
Speaker 6 (07:30):
He would send me home when he was babysitting me,
send me home because I would creep him out by
talking about ghosts. And but yeah, yeah, he had to
go to come back as a ghost and talk to
me anyway.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Gosh, that's insane. I think you have to be the
youngest person I've ever heard to do a salance like
that is just insane.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
I had a little little round ball of.
Speaker 6 (07:57):
Glass that I found in the in the forest, and
it was like my I called it my crystal ball,
but I just knew that, like you had to have
a crystal.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
Ball pro sean.
Speaker 6 (08:08):
So I had had that on the table and lowered
the lights and did all that stuff. Oh wow, So
that was probably the first. When I was about five,
we went on vacation to Virginia or somewhere down there,
and I had found in like some kitty magazine that
(08:30):
I had read in preschool. I got a copy of
it and had a little blurb about a ghost story
that took place nearby where we were staying, and I
talked my parents into stopping by to try to see
the ghost. It actually wasn't It was the magazine had
listed the wrong address and went to the wrong place.
(08:51):
But that was my first attempt at going to an
investigation when I was about four and a half.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Five.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
Oh my gosh, that's insane.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Oh my god, I can't believe that. At four and
a half, Like, I mean, yeah, I saw a little spooky,
you know, dark figures in my room and I did
all that kind of stuff and it freaked me out.
And you know, I had to sleep at the night
light till like the third grade, until my dad's like, Okay,
here's the deal.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
If you get rid of your night light, I'll get
you that snoopy tackle box you've been looking.
Speaker 5 (09:20):
At my soul.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Sould, you know.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
But like I was too, I was so freaked out
about that. So I can't believe at four and a
half you're like, okay, let's do a seance and let's.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Go look for ghosts.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Like I was terrified at that age when I had
that stuff happening, because I had no idea or why
they were coming to me, or what it was or
what it meant.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
You know, that's just mind blowing to me.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Now, when you've been on investigations, what do you think
about it? Do you think that more of the hauntings
are residual, or do you think they're intelligent from your perspective,
like your investigations.
Speaker 5 (10:02):
I've been on investigations that turned out to be both.
I was. I was. I did one investigation that was
pretty interesting where the team wasn't notified of any of
the background.
Speaker 6 (10:17):
And I had requested this as like the person that
went over the evidence, I said, we should do one
where we don't know anything about the home that were
going into. So the leaders of the group at the
time actually contacted the people received the contact request for
us to go there, didn't tell us anything about it.
(10:40):
And it was one of those things where things are
coming off the wall. There was like a ladder on
a stairwell that came off of the wall and would
fall down, plates and things would rattle. There were several
reports around the house that you found regular normal thing
(11:00):
to debunk them, like certain smells and things that we
found causes for. But we didn't find any sign of
intelligent haunting, Like there was nothing on e vps.
Speaker 5 (11:11):
There was nothing. There was no sense of a presence.
Speaker 6 (11:15):
And that's something like I don't I tend not to
see ghosts a lot, but I can sense if there's
something there, and I didn't get that at all. And
in paranormal investigations, there's but what I call psychogenetic hauntings
or things, hauntings that are caused by people's emotional reactions
(11:40):
and things. Historically, they're usually centered around younger girls. So
I basically said, I'm willing to bet that there's a
young girl that lives here who's going through some emotional
hardships right now. And the mom said, yeah, I have
a twelve year old daughter and she's seeing a therapist
(12:01):
and taking medications. And I said, that's your haunting right there.
She's just there's just things happening in the house because
of her. She's getting treatment. It's going to be okay,
don't be afraid of it, you know. So that's that
kind of haunting. I've been on cases where it is
sort of a thing that seems to repeat itself. In
(12:23):
my third book that's coming out later this year, I
talk about the different kinds of hauntings, and my main
theory is that what we're seeing in hauntings is sort
of a presentation of what we would call post traumatic
stress disorder. PTSD. Used to be measured by how close
(12:44):
you came to dying. And there's different things that cause
PTSD that don't involve death or physical trauma, like you
can have emotional trauma, but trauma itself used to be
measured by how close you came to dying. So that reasoning,
you can assume that if someone dies and their intelligence
(13:05):
and their consciousness lives on, that they would have experienced
the most traumatic thing that a human can experience. So
if you look at the psychological definitions for PTSD, there's
things like reliving the traumatic events, and that's your classic
(13:26):
residual haunting, you know, the same thing happening over and
over again. I think sometimes that's a spirit literally focusing
on those traumatic events.
Speaker 5 (13:36):
I do think that there are.
Speaker 6 (13:37):
Cases of you know, just somebody washing the dishes over
and over again. You'll see that person. But I think
as far as classical what we would consider a quote
unquote haunting, I think that a lot of times it's
spirits that are traumatized by their death or by things
that happen to them and they're reliving it. One of
(13:59):
the other psychological definitions or criteria for diagnosing PTSD is
extreme acting out behavior or lashing out at.
Speaker 5 (14:11):
Minor threats, and you see that.
Speaker 6 (14:15):
In hauntings with poltergeist activity, a port activity.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
Things get thrown around.
Speaker 6 (14:21):
I mean, if you picture what would really be happening
if that was a person standing there, they're throwing things,
They're pulling things off the wall, throwing them on the ground.
It's obviously somebody having a hissy fit. They're having an
emotional reaction to something. So I think that if you
look at all of the things that you see in
classical hauntings, I think they line up one to.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
One with PTSD criteria.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
So you think that a person, if they're going through
some through some things in their life, do you think
they can create their own hauntings.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
Yeah, And I haven't seen that myself.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Maybe.
Speaker 6 (14:58):
I mean I I had weird situations come up where
I've seen people that are alive and it's like a
spirit and they're not going through anything necessarily, Like I
don't know if that's me having that experience, like me
having a vision of them, or maybe they are, maybe
(15:21):
they're out of their body. Maybe it is a haunting
type of thing. One thing that happens here at my
current house. I've seen several on several occasions I've seen
my dad walking around when he's not here. My dad's alive,
he doesn't live here anymore, but I've seen what looks
like him walking around like a ganger. Yeah, yeah, like
(15:45):
a Domino gang er. I guess when he did live here,
I had seen him sometimes like walk through the hall
and go to the bathroom or something, and then I
would see him do it again.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
I'd be like, wait, I thought you just went by,
and I'd say no.
Speaker 6 (16:00):
My mom, when she lived here, had said that she
on a couple of occasions woke up because she heard
my dad come into the room and say her name,
and he.
Speaker 5 (16:11):
Was at work at the time. So I think, yeah,
I think maybe.
Speaker 6 (16:16):
There are cases where either spirits are acting like somebody
who's alive, or somebody's.
Speaker 5 (16:22):
Having a vision of someone who's alive.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Or.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
There's some kind of.
Speaker 6 (16:30):
Phenomenon happening where the person's consciousness has been sort of
recorded onto reality, like we would see in a residual haunting.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Do you prefer, like if you were to do an investigation,
do you prefer residential or do you prefer like a
commercial type location to investigate.
Speaker 6 (16:51):
I've always gotten the best evidence in things and had
the most interesting cases with residential hauntings. And also I'm
not a really fan of the sort of commercialization of
paranormal investigation that has sort of come out of the
(17:12):
nineteen nineties and like the whole paranormal TV show, reality
TV buzz type of thing that was around when you
started to see those commercial places charge investigators to come
into investigations and.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Things, charge of armentalaning to get into those places.
Speaker 6 (17:31):
I've only ever paid to investigate one time, and it
was a special case because it was to help out
somebody and because of how the case, what the case
was about, and I figured it was worth it for
me to pay ten dollars to go in and get
what I needed for the person and for the spirit,
(17:52):
and that's in my third book. But yeah, I definitely
prefer and I also prefer helping people. So I think
residential hauntings a lot of times it's a family that
is just trying to live their lives. And I think
nine times out of ten it's people that don't even
believe in hauntings and they're just like, I don't know
(18:15):
what's happening. I need somebody to tell me that this
is just something that happens and it's okay, and sometimes
that's all they need to hear.
Speaker 5 (18:23):
Sometimes you do have to go in and.
Speaker 6 (18:24):
Actually go a little bit further and do more investigation,
do some more more activity with the spirit, work with
them a little bit to try to.
Speaker 5 (18:37):
Figure out what's going on.
Speaker 6 (18:39):
And I think that the things that come up with
residential hauntings are just more interesting than a lot of
the classical things. They tend to be like famous stories
and things. And the book series is about the Schoogle River,
and we have sort of the most haunted, most famously
haunted locations along with the School River, like Penhurst or
(19:08):
the Eastern State penn in Philadelphia. Those are all right
along the School River. I don't touch on any of
them in the book because they've all been told a
thousand times. But you have residential hauntings where you have
things where history seems to be repeating itself. Like a
family a mother, father, five year old son, and one
(19:31):
year old daughter moved into a house. The original owners
of that house were the same. It was a mother, father,
young boy, baby girl moved into the house. Like history
is repeating itself. People that aren't even in the house
are responding to it somehow, like they're running into people
(19:54):
that are telling them things that don't make sense unless
they know about the house. It's really weird, like karmic
sort of things that go beyond what you would consider
normal haunting that people tend to look for when they
go investigating it the non residential commercial type places.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Now, when you go into a residential location, what do
you do to prepare yourself?
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Do you do any research?
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Do you ask them a bunch of questions to make
sure that you know they haven't done like a Ouiji
board or seance or anything in the house that could
have you know, amped up this energy or anything like that.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
Yeah, you want to know what you're going into.
Speaker 6 (20:42):
I always try to get a feel for what's going
on before I even go there or anything. Just try
to find out, like, is this somebody that might just
need some mental help. Most of the time, it's just
somebody that needs reassurance that, yeah.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
This is something that happens.
Speaker 6 (21:02):
Talk back to it, tell it, assert yourself, assert your dominance,
Assert that you're the owner of the house and that
they're not welcome, and call me back if anything. If
it doesn't change, and you still need to you still
feel like you need help, And a lot of times
they don't. They and I call them back and they say, yeah.
Speaker 5 (21:23):
That worked. When I do go and investigate, I have an.
Speaker 6 (21:29):
Initial questionnaire that does cover all the things he talked about.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
I also ask about the dates of.
Speaker 6 (21:37):
Things that happened and try to compare them to geomagnetic activity,
sun spots and things like that. I look for things
in the environment, like if they're near high power lines
or if there's a go over everything with the K
two meter, make sure that there's not power leaks that
are possibly causing psychological problems or things that can resemble haunting.
(22:04):
And then I also try to ask things about like
have you dealt with a Wigi board?
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Have you.
Speaker 6 (22:14):
Tried to contact spirits? And a lot of times it
does track back to things like a Oigi board. I've
had some really some of the roughest cases tend to
track back to just minor things or what people consider
minor things at the time. And yeah, So I try
to gather all that information I can before I go
(22:36):
in and do a little bit of initial analysis and
try to find out what I think might be happening.
And a lot of times I'm surprised at what it
turns out to be. But yeah, I try to gather
the information before I go in. I tried to repair
myself obviously as an investigator. You want to charge all
(22:58):
of your batteries and everything's charged, and I try to
charge myself up, do a little bit of meditation, do
a protective prayer or.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
Something like that before I go in. When I was
with the.
Speaker 6 (23:13):
P p r T, the Pennsylvania Paranormal Research Team, we
would always stand in a circle and do a prayer
asking for protection, and when we left, we would always
do a closing prayer and pop to the spirits directly
tell them that they're.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
Not welcome to follow us.
Speaker 6 (23:32):
Things like that, smudging, using stage and things like that
if we need to, or just personally myself afterwards.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
You know that that's the kind of thing I usually do.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Now. I know you said you use a K two,
do you any Do you use any other equipment?
Speaker 5 (23:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (23:54):
I have a couple of Franks boxes, some EVP recording equipment.
I have some white spectrum cameras. I have a god helmet,
which is uh.
Speaker 5 (24:12):
Ok. Yeah, I've got.
Speaker 6 (24:16):
Different lighting and recording devices, laser grids.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
You know the usual type of things.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Okay, perfect. Do you have a favorite?
Speaker 5 (24:29):
Probably the god Helmet.
Speaker 6 (24:31):
I've had a lot of really good experiences with that.
I've worked with psychics and they said that it's helped
them to get in touch and feel things. Frank's Box
is also one of my favorites because you can get
really direct communication with that. With the stuff like the
(24:54):
ovelists where you have the pre recorded words and just
picking them at ran and them, you never really know
like how much you're associating what words come up with
what's being said.
Speaker 5 (25:08):
Some of them are.
Speaker 6 (25:08):
Really really eerily some of like you you almost have
to think like they're communicat there's something communicating.
Speaker 5 (25:14):
With me when it's word afterword.
Speaker 6 (25:17):
But with Frank's Boxes, I think that I've gotten the most,
as far as I'm concerned, the most relevant and meaningful feedback.
I was lucky enough to have a couple of cases
where I could actually talk like a back and forth
conversation as if I was talking with somebody over a
(25:39):
walkie talkie.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Very cool, that's awesome. Now I know you've done a
lot of paranormal investigations and now you have books. Why
why did you turn to books like what made you
want to write about this kind of thing.
Speaker 6 (25:56):
I like to read about paranormal things. There are some
local authors that do paranormal stories of this region, nothing
really specific to write where I live or like the
Lebanon County area. I was aware a lot of the
(26:17):
stories growing up, just you know, local folkal or local
superstitions and things like that, and there's not like one
place where you can find them all. And I'd like that,
and I always enjoyed writing. So when I was in
high school, my mom got me for my birthday of
(26:39):
fortune reading like a taro, and I think she read
my poems too, and that was a really really interesting one.
She said some things that were really really spot on.
And one of the things that she told me was
that I would write, that I would travel around to
(27:00):
different interesting places and write about them. And several people
have told me, just talking about the paranormal, that I
should write a book and maybe probably to shut me
up when I'm bobbing on about the paranormal over and
over and just write a book and that.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
But then that's when you come back on audio, so
they have to listen, right.
Speaker 6 (27:28):
So for years I had thought about it, and I
collected the stories with like something in mind.
Speaker 5 (27:34):
And then.
Speaker 6 (27:36):
When COVID happened, I had a lot of time to
myself here at home and sitting around, and I was
reading a couple of the Pennsylvania paranormal type stories of books,
and I thought.
Speaker 5 (27:49):
I could I could write better than some of these, So.
Speaker 6 (27:53):
I started doing deeper research into it and getting the
full stories. I found a lot of details about a
lot of the stories that hadn't been published before, especially
in a lot of the paranormal stories paranormal books about
the stories.
Speaker 5 (28:09):
So I thought that.
Speaker 6 (28:13):
Having done the research, having done the investigation in some
of these places, I thought it'd be a good idea
to sort of link them all together. So my book
just got longer and longer. Eventually I just split it
up into three different books because it just would have
been like a thousand pages if I published it all together,
(28:35):
so I split it up.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
And yeah, yeah, and in volume one, I believe of
the strange stories from Skulkan Stream.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
You talk about cryptozoology.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Now, is that something that also fascinates you or have
you ever gone out searching for any of those kinds
of things?
Speaker 5 (28:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (28:59):
I love animals and I love the paranormals, So paranormal
animals things that people don't want to believe are real.
It's obviously something I would be interested in. I've always
been interested in bigfoot me too. That's the one paranormal
type of thing I think I've never seen. I don't
think I've ever seen a bigfoot. I've had weird things
(29:20):
happen that might have been something like that are associated
with bigfoot, Like I've heard weird stomping in the forest
and had a tree come down in front of me,
but I didn't see anything, So I can't say I've
seen a bigfoot, but I've always been interested in.
Speaker 5 (29:37):
That kind of thing.
Speaker 6 (29:39):
In twenty two thousand and eight or so, I was
at work in a nearby town here called Auburn, and
the locals there were talking about this three yeared rabbit
and I saw it one day when I was driving home,
(30:00):
and I think that it was I don't think it
was an ear.
Speaker 5 (30:02):
I think it was a horn.
Speaker 6 (30:05):
Rabbits can actually get charitonized tumors on their faces, and
that's most likely where the jackalope legend comes from. So
I say that I've seen a jackalope, which is probably
the most outlandish of the cryptozoological things. Some friends of
(30:27):
mine have seen black panthers. I've seen a puma, a panther,
which according to Pennsylvania the Wildlife Associations, they we don't
have them in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 5 (30:43):
But everybody knows that they're here.
Speaker 6 (30:45):
So that's sort of the most seen cryptozoological animal in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 5 (30:51):
The mountain lion because the.
Speaker 6 (30:54):
Government doesn't want to admit that they exist here, but
they obviously do.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Yeah, same hair mountain lions, and they don't have any
but everybody's catching them on their trail cams. They can
they're breeding. They have little ones with them, cubs whatever
they call them. Yeah, you know, I don't know what
you're talking about.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
Yeah, I get that.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Not okay, So in your books, it's not just always
about paranormal and stuff, but you also talk about like
witchcraft and different legends and things of that nature too.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
Correct.
Speaker 6 (31:32):
Yeah, Eastern Pennsylvania is actually well Pennsylvania as a whole,
but Eastern in particular, because of the history, Pennsylvania is
uniquely suited for witchcraft and magic use. Not many people
know that William Penn's sort of established Pennsylvania as a
place for religious Freedom. We had the first witchcraft trials
(31:57):
in the United States, well before the United States and
the Bonies. I think it was about nine years before
the Salem Witch Trials something like that. Down in Chester County,
which is just a little bit beyond the Schoogol River.
Not long after the Salem Witch Trials, I think by
a couple of years. Also in Chester County, there was
(32:20):
another witch craze among a group of Quakers. That case
was really interesting because it associated a lot of the
underground sale of occult books, and that sort of wrapped
up stories with Ben Franklin and other figures that were
(32:45):
part of this underground.
Speaker 5 (32:46):
Book sale of occult and magic use.
Speaker 6 (32:54):
In Burke's County, Johann George Homan wrote the Law Lost Friend,
which was a book of Powow or brockha Eye, which
is Christian folk magic. That's a that's a that took
place in Burke's County, which is another spot along the
(33:15):
Schoogol River. The sixth and sixth and seventh Books of
Moses was another Grimore from the Middle Sorry Renaissance era,
I think, and there was rumors that a special copy
of that had been buried somewhere in the Blue Mountains
of Scuogl County along the Kiddaninni.
Speaker 5 (33:38):
Ridge of the Appalachian Trail.
Speaker 6 (33:41):
So we have a long history of witchcraft magic users
where I live. Within about five mile radius of me,
there's probably a dozen stories from colonial times up through
the eighteen hundred of people using magic to do things
(34:03):
like chain shapes turned into a white cat. We had
a case of a guy cursing his murderer, a guy
who would see a shadowy dog that would tell him.
Speaker 5 (34:18):
To kill himself.
Speaker 6 (34:20):
We had a wizard nearby here who if you've seen
the cover of the second book Magic in the Mountains,
there's a flaming wagon wheel.
Speaker 5 (34:32):
So this guy actually summoned.
Speaker 6 (34:35):
This flaming red wheel of fire to drag along these
thebes that had stolen a wagon cart top from a
local farmer.
Speaker 5 (34:49):
So the farmer asked him for help.
Speaker 6 (34:52):
He stayed up late at night to find out, like,
is he going to get somebody to bring my stuff back?
Is he bringing it back?
Speaker 5 (34:57):
Did he take it? You know?
Speaker 6 (35:00):
And the sky turned yellow, weird fiery shapes appeared in
the sky, and this flaming wheel of red fire came
rolling down the mountain with shadowy figures behind it, carrying
all of the items that were stolen from his farm.
Speaker 5 (35:18):
In the first book, I talk about.
Speaker 6 (35:22):
Werewolf, which would be a case of witchcraft used for
changing shape. In the book on Magic, there's a lot
of witches or magic users that turn into cats.
Speaker 5 (35:37):
One lady that turned into a pigeon. Yeah, a pigeon, Yeah,
I guess.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
I probably want to turn into something that I could
tear people apart. That pissed me off.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
I don't know pigeon.
Speaker 5 (35:53):
I mean you can poop on people. Think that's why
all of them turned into big cats?
Speaker 4 (35:57):
Yeah, exactly?
Speaker 5 (35:58):
Probably? Or wolf?
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 7 (36:03):
Now do you ever do any like expos or para
cons or anything to get your.
Speaker 5 (36:11):
I've done a lot of book signings.
Speaker 6 (36:13):
I have one coming up in a couple of weeks
at the Mechanics Bill or mechanics Burg Mystery Bookstore. I
haven't done any of the parent I've done a lot
of historical things. I haven't done any paranormal conventions yet.
I was waiting for the second or third book to
come out before I started that, just because they are
each focused on a little bit different things. I figure
(36:36):
if I get a couple different books on different subjects
or sub subjects of the paranormal more likely to get
more people to buy them before I start, you know,
paying to go to the conventions and things.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
Right, Yeah, I could see your point on that, because
you know, they are a little expensive to go to
those things. Him and I've only done too because they
are kind of I mean, we don't really sell anything.
We just go there and you know, our cars and
things and talk about paranormal and if they you know,
promote our podcasts and stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
But they do get kind of expensive.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
So I can see where you're coming from on that.
That's probably a good idea, like to have a couple
of them out because you know, I do see a
lot of people actually go to these things and buy
buy books and stuff, so I mean, and I mean
you have some very interesting topics and things like that
also that will also you know, people will will enjoy
(37:34):
because we see it. Like I said, we go to
these things and a lot of people pick up on
that kind of stuff. So yeah, for sure.
Speaker 6 (37:41):
Yeah, so I am planning to Now, I am also
a home body, so I tend to put things off
and I'm.
Speaker 5 (37:47):
Like, oh, maybe I'll go to the next one.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
Yeah, yeah, how I I agree with you on that
sometimes too, you know, just I don't do bigging. You know.
I don't do very well in big crowds, you.
Speaker 5 (38:02):
Know, because the energies and.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
Things like that, like it really gets to me.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
And I'm trying to you know, I'll do a little
bit of that stuff, but it's very hard for me
at times, especially if energy and stuff is off and whatnot.
But so yeah, I mean I could see that. I
totally agree. Now, do you have any like.
Speaker 7 (38:23):
Social media or anything that our followers can like follow
you or see what you're up to if they have
any questions or want.
Speaker 4 (38:31):
Anything like that.
Speaker 6 (38:33):
I have a website Richard Big dot com, Richard Big
with two g's okay, sog dot com.
Speaker 5 (38:42):
I have.
Speaker 6 (38:46):
X slash Twitter profile that I rarely post on. I'm
on there too, Okay, I'll look for you on there. Yeah,
I can't think of what my handle is reads is
Richard Big, but I think there's like an underscore in between.
So just go to the Richard Big dot com and
(39:07):
it links to there. Other than that, I'm pretty antisocial,
so social media is not my thing. So just look
for the books, look for the website look. Website links
to my other podcast appearances. If you want to hear
more stories, if you want to read more stories and
get a larger picture, go.
Speaker 5 (39:29):
For the books.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
Yeah, okay, perfect, Yeah, I and.
Speaker 6 (39:33):
My contacts are on there too. If anybody needs information
or once made an investigate or do a presentation or something.
I do presentations at libraries bookstores often. So everything's on
the website.
Speaker 4 (39:51):
I'm with you.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
I mean on social media though I have Twitter, zeth,
I have Instagram, I don't have face Book. I don't
do any of the other stuff. I just do those
because that's how you know, we let everybody know to
listen to our shows. So that's pretty much what I
I post. And uh, that's what you're gonna get because yikes,
(40:14):
it's it's something out there, that's for sure.
Speaker 5 (40:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
Well, it was an absolute pleasure talking to you tonight. Now,
if anybody wants to buy your books, is they just
solely on your website or can they purchase some somewhere else?
Speaker 6 (40:31):
Or there are a couple of local bookstores, like I said,
the mechanics Burg Mystery Bookstore, the Schoogl County Historical Society.
Right now, I think they're the first book is at
the Comic Bookstore in Paulmyra.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
I'm working on contacting some people.
Speaker 6 (40:55):
Like I said, I'm not big, I'm being social, reaching
out to people and supporting myself something great job right.
Speaker 5 (41:02):
Now, I'm working on it. I'm working on it. This
is me forcing myself to do it.
Speaker 6 (41:08):
So the easiest way is to just go to the website.
Speaker 5 (41:13):
You can get it chipped to your house within a
week or so.
Speaker 7 (41:15):
Okay, perfect, all right, I will make sure all of
our listeners. If you didn't quite get that, we will
post it on our social media too. How you can
get a copy of books, or if you want to
find out any more future books or anything like that,
or if you're in the Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Area and you hear he's going to be doing something
at a bookstore or anything like that, you know we'll
do our part in helping you find out where he's
going to be or how you can get in contact
with him. And thank you Richard for joining us. It
was a pleasure talking to me. Yes, absolutely until next time.
Speaker 4 (41:48):
Ready you peace out.
The views of the opinions expressed on this podcast by
the host android the guest do not necessarily affect the
views of the host and or paranor the Buzz Radio
and Word sponsors. The use of any material produced by
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Parabal Buzz Radio will not be held responsible for you
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(00:31):
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we promise to make que of you as you're run
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Speaker 2 (00:53):
You're listening to Rip Paranormal and Friends with your hosts
Caim Parvis and al l Sir Robinson h Make sure
(01:31):
to check us out on our Facebook pages Rip Paranormal
and Friends and Rip Paranormal Busters for up to date
show information and events.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Hey everyone, welcome to another night of Rap Paranormal and Friends.
We have a special guest for you tonight. It's been
a little while since we've done a show, so I'm
I'm very glad that we are finally able to connect
with our guest here tonight.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Richard Big.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Richard is a native Eastern Pennsylvanian and has decades of
experience in the paranormal research and investigations. He was the
former director of Pennsylvania Paranormal Research Team, and in the
last few years he has been compiling a lot of
local tales into his first book series, Strange Stories from
(02:44):
the Silken Stream. So welcome, Richard. I'm so glad we
finally get to chat.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
Oh yeah, absolutely so. I kind of want to know
before we get into some of your you know, books
and things that you have out, I want to know,
how did you get into the paranormal.
Speaker 6 (03:04):
I was kind of born into it even before I
was born, just weird things were happening around my mom
when she was pregnant, and then just from the time
I could talk, I would talk to my parents about
dead relatives, people that they couldn't see, talking to them
about things that were going to happen, or people that
(03:26):
were coming to visit before they showed up, talking about
things that were going to happen before they did, as
if they already happened.
Speaker 5 (03:33):
Like I was confused about where we were in time,
that kind of thing. When I was really little, I.
Speaker 6 (03:40):
Used to talk a lot about my previous lives that
I had lived and things that I had done. So
I've just always kind of been a weird paranormal type
of dude and just continued that as I grew up,
took him more of an interest in it, and just
kind of learned as much as I like to learn
as much as I can about the world in general,
(04:01):
and I think that the paranormal is kind of a
window into a deeper sense of reality. And I tend
to experience things and see things and run into weird situations.
Speaker 5 (04:15):
So I just kind of it's just kind of my life.
Speaker 6 (04:18):
I didn't really gain an interest in it in any
particular time, or nothing really happened in particular that got
me into it.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
It's just me, Yeah, kind of. I'm kind of the
same way. Honestly. I literally had experiences when I was
growing up very little. You know, I had a dark
figure next to my bed. My mom would always talk
about how I was having conversations with somebody in the
middle of the night. Sometimes it sound like I was
(04:45):
talking in tongue.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
I'd be crying laughing.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
She remembers one time I had come downstairs and I
looked at her and I said, I'm ready to go
home now, And she was confused by that because we
were all ready at home, and she didn't think anything
of it until she talked to one of her friends, goes,
do you think she was talking about like a past
life experience or something.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
But that she just recently brought up to me with
them last year.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
But so I totally know where you're coming from with that,
because I grew up with that too, and you know,
as I got older, we kind of discussed that and
a bunch of us decided we were going to go
to the Boliska Axe Murderhouse, and after that, it's just
been kind of like, I want to know more why
these phenomenons are happening?
Speaker 5 (05:33):
Is that?
Speaker 4 (05:34):
I mean, is that why.
Speaker 6 (05:35):
You Once you get that, it's sort of an addictive
rush when you do experience something that's beyond the normal,
seeing a ghost or talking to somebody who you can't see,
who is acting as if they were in the room
(05:55):
with you, It's it's really exciting. It's it's weird, and
your heart beats a little bit harder. And you start
sweating a little bit. It's kind of a rush I
get into it. That's why I got into doing more
investigations back.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
In the day.
Speaker 5 (06:12):
I haven't been doing any lately, but whenever I do
get a chance, it's always exciting.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Where was your first Where was the first place that
you investigated?
Speaker 6 (06:25):
Well, I guess my house technically. When I was growing
up as a little kid, after I had seen visions
of my grandfather dying before it happened, and while we
were on vacation and asked my parents about it, as
if this was something that they had already.
Speaker 5 (06:43):
Knew known was happening.
Speaker 6 (06:46):
After he died, I had talked to my grandmother and
told her things that he wanted to pass along to
her that wouldn't have made sense for like a four
year old to talk to his grandmother about. So I
think when I when I was about four and a
half or so, my grandmother sat me down in our
(07:09):
dining room at my house and we sort of had
a little seance. So I guess that was like my
first normal attempt at transcommunication, trying to talk with my
dead grandfather, which I ironically really didn't like me when
he was alive.
Speaker 5 (07:27):
Because I used to creep him out.
Speaker 6 (07:30):
He would send me home when he was babysitting me,
send me home because I would creep him out by
talking about ghosts. And but yeah, yeah, he had to
go to come back as a ghost and talk to
me anyway.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Gosh, that's insane. I think you have to be the
youngest person I've ever heard to do a salance like
that is just insane.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
I had a little little round ball of.
Speaker 6 (07:57):
Glass that I found in the in the forest, and
it was like my I called it my crystal ball,
but I just knew that, like you had to have
a crystal.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
Ball pro sean.
Speaker 6 (08:08):
So I had had that on the table and lowered
the lights and did all that stuff. Oh wow, So
that was probably the first. When I was about five,
we went on vacation to Virginia or somewhere down there,
and I had found in like some kitty magazine that
(08:30):
I had read in preschool. I got a copy of
it and had a little blurb about a ghost story
that took place nearby where we were staying, and I
talked my parents into stopping by to try to see
the ghost. It actually wasn't It was the magazine had
listed the wrong address and went to the wrong place.
(08:51):
But that was my first attempt at going to an
investigation when I was about four and a half.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Five.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
Oh my gosh, that's insane.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Oh my god, I can't believe that. At four and
a half, Like, I mean, yeah, I saw a little spooky,
you know, dark figures in my room and I did
all that kind of stuff and it freaked me out.
And you know, I had to sleep at the night
light till like the third grade, until my dad's like, Okay,
here's the deal.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
If you get rid of your night light, I'll get
you that snoopy tackle box you've been looking.
Speaker 5 (09:20):
At my soul.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Sould, you know.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
But like I was too, I was so freaked out
about that. So I can't believe at four and a
half you're like, okay, let's do a seance and let's.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Go look for ghosts.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Like I was terrified at that age when I had
that stuff happening, because I had no idea or why
they were coming to me, or what it was or
what it meant.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
You know, that's just mind blowing to me.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Now, when you've been on investigations, what do you think
about it? Do you think that more of the hauntings
are residual, or do you think they're intelligent from your perspective,
like your investigations.
Speaker 5 (10:02):
I've been on investigations that turned out to be both.
I was. I was. I did one investigation that was
pretty interesting where the team wasn't notified of any of
the background.
Speaker 6 (10:17):
And I had requested this as like the person that
went over the evidence, I said, we should do one
where we don't know anything about the home that were
going into. So the leaders of the group at the
time actually contacted the people received the contact request for
us to go there, didn't tell us anything about it.
(10:40):
And it was one of those things where things are
coming off the wall. There was like a ladder on
a stairwell that came off of the wall and would
fall down, plates and things would rattle. There were several
reports around the house that you found regular normal thing
(11:00):
to debunk them, like certain smells and things that we
found causes for. But we didn't find any sign of
intelligent haunting, Like there was nothing on e vps.
Speaker 5 (11:11):
There was nothing. There was no sense of a presence.
Speaker 6 (11:15):
And that's something like I don't I tend not to
see ghosts a lot, but I can sense if there's
something there, and I didn't get that at all. And
in paranormal investigations, there's but what I call psychogenetic hauntings
or things, hauntings that are caused by people's emotional reactions
(11:40):
and things. Historically, they're usually centered around younger girls. So
I basically said, I'm willing to bet that there's a
young girl that lives here who's going through some emotional
hardships right now. And the mom said, yeah, I have
a twelve year old daughter and she's seeing a therapist
(12:01):
and taking medications. And I said, that's your haunting right there.
She's just there's just things happening in the house because
of her. She's getting treatment. It's going to be okay,
don't be afraid of it, you know. So that's that
kind of haunting. I've been on cases where it is
sort of a thing that seems to repeat itself. In
(12:23):
my third book that's coming out later this year, I
talk about the different kinds of hauntings, and my main
theory is that what we're seeing in hauntings is sort
of a presentation of what we would call post traumatic
stress disorder. PTSD. Used to be measured by how close
(12:44):
you came to dying. And there's different things that cause
PTSD that don't involve death or physical trauma, like you
can have emotional trauma, but trauma itself used to be
measured by how close you came to dying. So that reasoning,
you can assume that if someone dies and their intelligence
(13:05):
and their consciousness lives on, that they would have experienced
the most traumatic thing that a human can experience. So
if you look at the psychological definitions for PTSD, there's
things like reliving the traumatic events, and that's your classic
(13:26):
residual haunting, you know, the same thing happening over and
over again. I think sometimes that's a spirit literally focusing
on those traumatic events.
Speaker 5 (13:36):
I do think that there are.
Speaker 6 (13:37):
Cases of you know, just somebody washing the dishes over
and over again. You'll see that person. But I think
as far as classical what we would consider a quote
unquote haunting, I think that a lot of times it's
spirits that are traumatized by their death or by things
that happen to them and they're reliving it. One of
(13:59):
the other psychological definitions or criteria for diagnosing PTSD is
extreme acting out behavior or lashing out at.
Speaker 5 (14:11):
Minor threats, and you see that.
Speaker 6 (14:15):
In hauntings with poltergeist activity, a port activity.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
Things get thrown around.
Speaker 6 (14:21):
I mean, if you picture what would really be happening
if that was a person standing there, they're throwing things,
They're pulling things off the wall, throwing them on the ground.
It's obviously somebody having a hissy fit. They're having an
emotional reaction to something. So I think that if you
look at all of the things that you see in
classical hauntings, I think they line up one to.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
One with PTSD criteria.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
So you think that a person, if they're going through
some through some things in their life, do you think
they can create their own hauntings.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
Yeah, And I haven't seen that myself.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Maybe.
Speaker 6 (14:58):
I mean I I had weird situations come up where
I've seen people that are alive and it's like a
spirit and they're not going through anything necessarily, Like I
don't know if that's me having that experience, like me
having a vision of them, or maybe they are, maybe
(15:21):
they're out of their body. Maybe it is a haunting
type of thing. One thing that happens here at my
current house. I've seen several on several occasions I've seen
my dad walking around when he's not here. My dad's alive,
he doesn't live here anymore, but I've seen what looks
like him walking around like a ganger. Yeah, yeah, like
(15:45):
a Domino gang er. I guess when he did live here,
I had seen him sometimes like walk through the hall
and go to the bathroom or something, and then I
would see him do it again.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
I'd be like, wait, I thought you just went by,
and I'd say no.
Speaker 6 (16:00):
My mom, when she lived here, had said that she
on a couple of occasions woke up because she heard
my dad come into the room and say her name,
and he.
Speaker 5 (16:11):
Was at work at the time. So I think, yeah,
I think maybe.
Speaker 6 (16:16):
There are cases where either spirits are acting like somebody
who's alive, or somebody's.
Speaker 5 (16:22):
Having a vision of someone who's alive.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
Or.
Speaker 5 (16:26):
There's some kind of.
Speaker 6 (16:30):
Phenomenon happening where the person's consciousness has been sort of
recorded onto reality, like we would see in a residual haunting.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Do you prefer, like if you were to do an investigation,
do you prefer residential or do you prefer like a
commercial type location to investigate.
Speaker 6 (16:51):
I've always gotten the best evidence in things and had
the most interesting cases with residential hauntings. And also I'm
not a really fan of the sort of commercialization of
paranormal investigation that has sort of come out of the
(17:12):
nineteen nineties and like the whole paranormal TV show, reality
TV buzz type of thing that was around when you
started to see those commercial places charge investigators to come
into investigations and.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Things, charge of armentalaning to get into those places.
Speaker 6 (17:31):
I've only ever paid to investigate one time, and it
was a special case because it was to help out
somebody and because of how the case, what the case
was about, and I figured it was worth it for
me to pay ten dollars to go in and get
what I needed for the person and for the spirit,
(17:52):
and that's in my third book. But yeah, I definitely
prefer and I also prefer helping people. So I think
residential hauntings a lot of times it's a family that
is just trying to live their lives. And I think
nine times out of ten it's people that don't even
believe in hauntings and they're just like, I don't know
(18:15):
what's happening. I need somebody to tell me that this
is just something that happens and it's okay, and sometimes
that's all they need to hear.
Speaker 5 (18:23):
Sometimes you do have to go in and.
Speaker 6 (18:24):
Actually go a little bit further and do more investigation,
do some more more activity with the spirit, work with
them a little bit to try to.
Speaker 5 (18:37):
Figure out what's going on.
Speaker 6 (18:39):
And I think that the things that come up with
residential hauntings are just more interesting than a lot of
the classical things. They tend to be like famous stories
and things. And the book series is about the Schoogle River,
and we have sort of the most haunted, most famously
haunted locations along with the School River, like Penhurst or
(19:08):
the Eastern State penn in Philadelphia. Those are all right
along the School River. I don't touch on any of
them in the book because they've all been told a
thousand times. But you have residential hauntings where you have
things where history seems to be repeating itself. Like a
family a mother, father, five year old son, and one
(19:31):
year old daughter moved into a house. The original owners
of that house were the same. It was a mother, father,
young boy, baby girl moved into the house. Like history
is repeating itself. People that aren't even in the house
are responding to it somehow, like they're running into people
(19:54):
that are telling them things that don't make sense unless
they know about the house. It's really weird, like karmic
sort of things that go beyond what you would consider
normal haunting that people tend to look for when they
go investigating it the non residential commercial type places.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Now, when you go into a residential location, what do
you do to prepare yourself?
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Do you do any research?
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Do you ask them a bunch of questions to make
sure that you know they haven't done like a Ouiji
board or seance or anything in the house that could
have you know, amped up this energy or anything like that.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
Yeah, you want to know what you're going into.
Speaker 6 (20:42):
I always try to get a feel for what's going
on before I even go there or anything. Just try
to find out, like, is this somebody that might just
need some mental help. Most of the time, it's just
somebody that needs reassurance that, yeah.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
This is something that happens.
Speaker 6 (21:02):
Talk back to it, tell it, assert yourself, assert your dominance,
Assert that you're the owner of the house and that
they're not welcome, and call me back if anything. If
it doesn't change, and you still need to you still
feel like you need help, And a lot of times
they don't. They and I call them back and they say, yeah.
Speaker 5 (21:23):
That worked. When I do go and investigate, I have an.
Speaker 6 (21:29):
Initial questionnaire that does cover all the things he talked about.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
I also ask about the dates of.
Speaker 6 (21:37):
Things that happened and try to compare them to geomagnetic activity,
sun spots and things like that. I look for things
in the environment, like if they're near high power lines
or if there's a go over everything with the K
two meter, make sure that there's not power leaks that
are possibly causing psychological problems or things that can resemble haunting.
(22:04):
And then I also try to ask things about like
have you dealt with a Wigi board?
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Have you.
Speaker 6 (22:14):
Tried to contact spirits? And a lot of times it
does track back to things like a Oigi board. I've
had some really some of the roughest cases tend to
track back to just minor things or what people consider
minor things at the time. And yeah, So I try
to gather all that information I can before I go
(22:36):
in and do a little bit of initial analysis and
try to find out what I think might be happening.
And a lot of times I'm surprised at what it
turns out to be. But yeah, I try to gather
the information before I go in. I tried to repair
myself obviously as an investigator. You want to charge all
(22:58):
of your batteries and everything's charged, and I try to
charge myself up, do a little bit of meditation, do
a protective prayer or.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
Something like that before I go in. When I was
with the.
Speaker 6 (23:13):
P p r T, the Pennsylvania Paranormal Research Team, we
would always stand in a circle and do a prayer
asking for protection, and when we left, we would always
do a closing prayer and pop to the spirits directly
tell them that they're.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
Not welcome to follow us.
Speaker 6 (23:32):
Things like that, smudging, using stage and things like that
if we need to, or just personally myself afterwards.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
You know that that's the kind of thing I usually do.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Now. I know you said you use a K two,
do you any Do you use any other equipment?
Speaker 5 (23:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (23:54):
I have a couple of Franks boxes, some EVP recording equipment.
I have some white spectrum cameras. I have a god helmet,
which is uh.
Speaker 5 (24:12):
Ok. Yeah, I've got.
Speaker 6 (24:16):
Different lighting and recording devices, laser grids.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
You know the usual type of things.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Okay, perfect. Do you have a favorite?
Speaker 5 (24:29):
Probably the god Helmet.
Speaker 6 (24:31):
I've had a lot of really good experiences with that.
I've worked with psychics and they said that it's helped
them to get in touch and feel things. Frank's Box
is also one of my favorites because you can get
really direct communication with that. With the stuff like the
(24:54):
ovelists where you have the pre recorded words and just
picking them at ran and them, you never really know
like how much you're associating what words come up with
what's being said.
Speaker 5 (25:08):
Some of them are.
Speaker 6 (25:08):
Really really eerily some of like you you almost have
to think like they're communicat there's something communicating.
Speaker 5 (25:14):
With me when it's word afterword.
Speaker 6 (25:17):
But with Frank's Boxes, I think that I've gotten the most,
as far as I'm concerned, the most relevant and meaningful feedback.
I was lucky enough to have a couple of cases
where I could actually talk like a back and forth
conversation as if I was talking with somebody over a
(25:39):
walkie talkie.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Very cool, that's awesome. Now I know you've done a
lot of paranormal investigations and now you have books. Why
why did you turn to books like what made you
want to write about this kind of thing.
Speaker 6 (25:56):
I like to read about paranormal things. There are some
local authors that do paranormal stories of this region, nothing
really specific to write where I live or like the
Lebanon County area. I was aware a lot of the
(26:17):
stories growing up, just you know, local folkal or local
superstitions and things like that, and there's not like one
place where you can find them all. And I'd like that,
and I always enjoyed writing. So when I was in
high school, my mom got me for my birthday of
(26:39):
fortune reading like a taro, and I think she read
my poems too, and that was a really really interesting one.
She said some things that were really really spot on.
And one of the things that she told me was
that I would write, that I would travel around to
(27:00):
different interesting places and write about them. And several people
have told me, just talking about the paranormal, that I
should write a book and maybe probably to shut me
up when I'm bobbing on about the paranormal over and
over and just write a book and that.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
But then that's when you come back on audio, so
they have to listen, right.
Speaker 6 (27:28):
So for years I had thought about it, and I
collected the stories with like something in mind.
Speaker 5 (27:34):
And then.
Speaker 6 (27:36):
When COVID happened, I had a lot of time to
myself here at home and sitting around, and I was
reading a couple of the Pennsylvania paranormal type stories of books,
and I thought.
Speaker 5 (27:49):
I could I could write better than some of these, So.
Speaker 6 (27:53):
I started doing deeper research into it and getting the
full stories. I found a lot of details about a
lot of the stories that hadn't been published before, especially
in a lot of the paranormal stories paranormal books about
the stories.
Speaker 5 (28:09):
So I thought that.
Speaker 6 (28:13):
Having done the research, having done the investigation in some
of these places, I thought it'd be a good idea
to sort of link them all together. So my book
just got longer and longer. Eventually I just split it
up into three different books because it just would have
been like a thousand pages if I published it all together,
(28:35):
so I split it up.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
And yeah, yeah, and in volume one, I believe of
the strange stories from Skulkan Stream.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
You talk about cryptozoology.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Now, is that something that also fascinates you or have
you ever gone out searching for any of those kinds
of things?
Speaker 5 (28:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (28:59):
I love animals and I love the paranormals, So paranormal
animals things that people don't want to believe are real.
It's obviously something I would be interested in. I've always
been interested in bigfoot me too. That's the one paranormal
type of thing I think I've never seen. I don't
think I've ever seen a bigfoot. I've had weird things
(29:20):
happen that might have been something like that are associated
with bigfoot, Like I've heard weird stomping in the forest
and had a tree come down in front of me,
but I didn't see anything, So I can't say I've
seen a bigfoot, but I've always been interested in.
Speaker 5 (29:37):
That kind of thing.
Speaker 6 (29:39):
In twenty two thousand and eight or so, I was
at work in a nearby town here called Auburn, and
the locals there were talking about this three yeared rabbit
and I saw it one day when I was driving home,
(30:00):
and I think that it was I don't think it
was an ear.
Speaker 5 (30:02):
I think it was a horn.
Speaker 6 (30:05):
Rabbits can actually get charitonized tumors on their faces, and
that's most likely where the jackalope legend comes from. So
I say that I've seen a jackalope, which is probably
the most outlandish of the cryptozoological things. Some friends of
(30:27):
mine have seen black panthers. I've seen a puma, a panther,
which according to Pennsylvania the Wildlife Associations, they we don't
have them in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 5 (30:43):
But everybody knows that they're here.
Speaker 6 (30:45):
So that's sort of the most seen cryptozoological animal in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 5 (30:51):
The mountain lion because the.
Speaker 6 (30:54):
Government doesn't want to admit that they exist here, but
they obviously do.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Yeah, same hair mountain lions, and they don't have any
but everybody's catching them on their trail cams. They can
they're breeding. They have little ones with them, cubs whatever
they call them. Yeah, you know, I don't know what
you're talking about.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
Yeah, I get that.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Not okay, So in your books, it's not just always
about paranormal and stuff, but you also talk about like
witchcraft and different legends and things of that nature too.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
Correct.
Speaker 6 (31:32):
Yeah, Eastern Pennsylvania is actually well Pennsylvania as a whole,
but Eastern in particular, because of the history, Pennsylvania is
uniquely suited for witchcraft and magic use. Not many people
know that William Penn's sort of established Pennsylvania as a
place for religious Freedom. We had the first witchcraft trials
(31:57):
in the United States, well before the United States and
the Bonies. I think it was about nine years before
the Salem Witch Trials something like that. Down in Chester County,
which is just a little bit beyond the Schoogol River.
Not long after the Salem Witch Trials, I think by
a couple of years. Also in Chester County, there was
(32:20):
another witch craze among a group of Quakers. That case
was really interesting because it associated a lot of the
underground sale of occult books, and that sort of wrapped
up stories with Ben Franklin and other figures that were
(32:45):
part of this underground.
Speaker 5 (32:46):
Book sale of occult and magic use.
Speaker 6 (32:54):
In Burke's County, Johann George Homan wrote the Law Lost Friend,
which was a book of Powow or brockha Eye, which
is Christian folk magic. That's a that's a that took
place in Burke's County, which is another spot along the
(33:15):
Schoogol River. The sixth and sixth and seventh Books of
Moses was another Grimore from the Middle Sorry Renaissance era,
I think, and there was rumors that a special copy
of that had been buried somewhere in the Blue Mountains
of Scuogl County along the Kiddaninni.
Speaker 5 (33:38):
Ridge of the Appalachian Trail.
Speaker 6 (33:41):
So we have a long history of witchcraft magic users
where I live. Within about five mile radius of me,
there's probably a dozen stories from colonial times up through
the eighteen hundred of people using magic to do things
(34:03):
like chain shapes turned into a white cat. We had
a case of a guy cursing his murderer, a guy
who would see a shadowy dog that would tell him.
Speaker 5 (34:18):
To kill himself.
Speaker 6 (34:20):
We had a wizard nearby here who if you've seen
the cover of the second book Magic in the Mountains,
there's a flaming wagon wheel.
Speaker 5 (34:32):
So this guy actually summoned.
Speaker 6 (34:35):
This flaming red wheel of fire to drag along these
thebes that had stolen a wagon cart top from a
local farmer.
Speaker 5 (34:49):
So the farmer asked him for help.
Speaker 6 (34:52):
He stayed up late at night to find out, like,
is he going to get somebody to bring my stuff back?
Is he bringing it back?
Speaker 5 (34:57):
Did he take it? You know?
Speaker 6 (35:00):
And the sky turned yellow, weird fiery shapes appeared in
the sky, and this flaming wheel of red fire came
rolling down the mountain with shadowy figures behind it, carrying
all of the items that were stolen from his farm.
Speaker 5 (35:18):
In the first book, I talk about.
Speaker 6 (35:22):
Werewolf, which would be a case of witchcraft used for
changing shape. In the book on Magic, there's a lot
of witches or magic users that turn into cats.
Speaker 5 (35:37):
One lady that turned into a pigeon. Yeah, a pigeon, Yeah,
I guess.
Speaker 3 (35:48):
I probably want to turn into something that I could
tear people apart. That pissed me off.
Speaker 4 (35:52):
I don't know pigeon.
Speaker 5 (35:53):
I mean you can poop on people. Think that's why
all of them turned into big cats?
Speaker 4 (35:57):
Yeah, exactly?
Speaker 5 (35:58):
Probably? Or wolf?
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 7 (36:03):
Now do you ever do any like expos or para
cons or anything to get your.
Speaker 5 (36:11):
I've done a lot of book signings.
Speaker 6 (36:13):
I have one coming up in a couple of weeks
at the Mechanics Bill or mechanics Burg Mystery Bookstore. I
haven't done any of the parent I've done a lot
of historical things. I haven't done any paranormal conventions yet.
I was waiting for the second or third book to
come out before I started that, just because they are
each focused on a little bit different things. I figure
(36:36):
if I get a couple different books on different subjects
or sub subjects of the paranormal more likely to get
more people to buy them before I start, you know,
paying to go to the conventions and things.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
Right, Yeah, I could see your point on that, because
you know, they are a little expensive to go to
those things. Him and I've only done too because they
are kind of I mean, we don't really sell anything.
We just go there and you know, our cars and
things and talk about paranormal and if they you know,
promote our podcasts and stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
But they do get kind of expensive.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
So I can see where you're coming from on that.
That's probably a good idea, like to have a couple
of them out because you know, I do see a
lot of people actually go to these things and buy
buy books and stuff, so I mean, and I mean
you have some very interesting topics and things like that
also that will also you know, people will will enjoy
(37:34):
because we see it. Like I said, we go to
these things and a lot of people pick up on
that kind of stuff. So yeah, for sure.
Speaker 6 (37:41):
Yeah, so I am planning to Now, I am also
a home body, so I tend to put things off
and I'm.
Speaker 5 (37:47):
Like, oh, maybe I'll go to the next one.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
Yeah, yeah, how I I agree with you on that
sometimes too, you know, just I don't do bigging. You know.
I don't do very well in big crowds, you.
Speaker 5 (38:02):
Know, because the energies and.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
Things like that, like it really gets to me.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
And I'm trying to you know, I'll do a little
bit of that stuff, but it's very hard for me
at times, especially if energy and stuff is off and whatnot.
But so yeah, I mean I could see that. I
totally agree. Now, do you have any like.
Speaker 7 (38:23):
Social media or anything that our followers can like follow
you or see what you're up to if they have
any questions or want.
Speaker 4 (38:31):
Anything like that.
Speaker 6 (38:33):
I have a website Richard Big dot com, Richard Big
with two g's okay, sog dot com.
Speaker 5 (38:42):
I have.
Speaker 6 (38:46):
X slash Twitter profile that I rarely post on. I'm
on there too, Okay, I'll look for you on there. Yeah,
I can't think of what my handle is reads is
Richard Big, but I think there's like an underscore in between.
So just go to the Richard Big dot com and
(39:07):
it links to there. Other than that, I'm pretty antisocial,
so social media is not my thing. So just look
for the books, look for the website look. Website links
to my other podcast appearances. If you want to hear
more stories, if you want to read more stories and
get a larger picture, go.
Speaker 5 (39:29):
For the books.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
Yeah, okay, perfect, Yeah, I and.
Speaker 6 (39:33):
My contacts are on there too. If anybody needs information
or once made an investigate or do a presentation or something.
I do presentations at libraries bookstores often. So everything's on
the website.
Speaker 4 (39:51):
I'm with you.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
I mean on social media though I have Twitter, zeth,
I have Instagram, I don't have face Book. I don't
do any of the other stuff. I just do those
because that's how you know, we let everybody know to
listen to our shows. So that's pretty much what I
I post. And uh, that's what you're gonna get because yikes,
(40:14):
it's it's something out there, that's for sure.
Speaker 5 (40:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
Well, it was an absolute pleasure talking to you tonight. Now,
if anybody wants to buy your books, is they just
solely on your website or can they purchase some somewhere else?
Speaker 6 (40:31):
Or there are a couple of local bookstores, like I said,
the mechanics Burg Mystery Bookstore, the Schoogl County Historical Society.
Right now, I think they're the first book is at
the Comic Bookstore in Paulmyra.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
I'm working on contacting some people.
Speaker 6 (40:55):
Like I said, I'm not big, I'm being social, reaching
out to people and supporting myself something great job right.
Speaker 5 (41:02):
Now, I'm working on it. I'm working on it. This
is me forcing myself to do it.
Speaker 6 (41:08):
So the easiest way is to just go to the website.
Speaker 5 (41:13):
You can get it chipped to your house within a
week or so.
Speaker 7 (41:15):
Okay, perfect, all right, I will make sure all of
our listeners. If you didn't quite get that, we will
post it on our social media too. How you can
get a copy of books, or if you want to
find out any more future books or anything like that,
or if you're in the Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Area and you hear he's going to be doing something
at a bookstore or anything like that, you know we'll
do our part in helping you find out where he's
going to be or how you can get in contact
with him. And thank you Richard for joining us. It
was a pleasure talking to me. Yes, absolutely until next time.
Speaker 4 (41:48):
Ready you peace out.
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