FunkQuest with John Olsen Paranormal investigator

Is the ​Paranormal a real thing? Find out with John Olsen. John has lived in a haunted house in Bridger​land, Utah ​when he was very young and has ​ been tracking down paranormal incidents for most of his life.​His books are full of stories about people who have encountered the ​Paranormal in all sorts of ways.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
So I am an interviewer of theparanormal, interview people from all over the
world about their paranormal stories, includingghosts, UFOs, cryptids, you name
it. So, what was yourfirst day at work? Like, how
did you get into this? Igrew up in a home that was built

(00:20):
in eighteen eighty three, an oldfarm home that was extremely paranormally active,
and so as a youngster, Ihad experiences from full body apparitions, to
stares and voices, to things moving, being things thrown at me. And
because of my situation, my parentsdidn't like us talking about it. Having

(00:43):
grown up in a small city,in a small town, we were trying
to avoid being called the crazy people. So so I dove in and started
learning everything I could about the paranormal. That's what really got me started on
this whole trip. Okay, howold were you? How old were you
when you first remember? I wasaround eight years old when I remember thinking

(01:03):
that my house was much different thanmy friend's house. The things that went
on, full body apparitions of agentleman that we as kids called the man
in the hat because he had overallsand a white shirt and a wide brimmed
hat, looked like an old,tall, skinny farmer that we would see
on occasions. So what makes youroll your eyes every time you hear it?

(01:26):
You used to be around this worlda long time. What do you
think just because of the shows thatare out there and in some of the
misconceptions, I see dust particles oncameras, It really makes me roll my
eyes because and just trying to explainpeople to people the difference between particles in

(01:47):
the air and actual orbs that theycall them. That definitely makes me roll
my eyes and hurts my head sometimes. So when you get a let's call
it a leap, like somebody says, hey, I've got a haunted house.
Are you like Ghostbusters? Where he'sgo and you know, run and
go and see him. Earlier thisfall, I had a family that contacted

(02:07):
me, and entity is the onlything I could explain it as that had
was trying to attack their daughter.And so the first thing I did was
go out and talk to the peopleand I helped them based on their belief
system. And as for the actualinvestigation with the electronics and stuff like that,
I have groups that I trust togo out and do that. I

(02:30):
do a lot of the interviewing andbackstory and looking at for example, you
know, what had happened on thatland in the past that may have caused
it. Hopefully you can just chalkit up to something natural and maybe their
water heater is really loud or something. And then once you've eliminated that,

(02:52):
then helping them get through this,which has a lot to do with,
you know, again, their beliefsystem and how they want to deal with
it. If it makes sense likethat. I'm not saying that I watch
Airhead Christmas movies, but if Idid, it seems like this is a
theme the Christmas ghosts, and usuallyhe's very good looking. Is there something
particular about the holidays and people's sightings? You know? Of course Halloween people

(03:15):
are more opt to pay attention tothat, and so they might see stuff
right exactly knock on the doors.I do get a lot of stories where
individuals are visited by family members whohave passed, because movies don't necessarily make
you roll your eyes. No,I'm not at all. I actually really

(03:38):
enjoy it those Christmas Carol is probablyone of my favorite kind of stories,
probably Christmas wise, because it doeshave ghosts in it. Okay, where
on Earth would you like to visit? Oh, I would love to visit
Scotland and northern England. My grandmotheris actually from Newcastle up on Time,

(04:00):
Yeah, and so I would loveto visit the castles up there and get
the ghost tours and kind of getthat rich history of it. How would
you let's say the nearest castle toois probably Baldover Castle, which is probably
about seven or eight miles that way, how would you start to search the

(04:23):
history of say Baldover Castle, readeverything I could obviously online. Then then
I would probably find some of thehistorians that's specific for that castle, and
then I would go from there andI would love to talk to the people
that work there. When people haveworked different places for a long time,
they end up with really personal stories, especially when it comes to the paranormal.

(04:46):
So that's where I would end asgetting their stories, and then you're
able to paint a huge picture allthe way from historical past through to the
future or to the present with theghost stories. Been to Dudley Town,
I have not no, but Iwould love to. If they say now
that you're not even allowed to visitthe town because so many people supposedly had

(05:11):
you know, all these different encounters, and it became a thing that teenagers
wanted to go out into the woodsanyway. So I was just curious there
were hunters of the paranormal that kepttrying to break into the town. So,
John, do you have almost likecompetitors in this field? You know?
I don't. I wouldn't necessarily sayI have competitors out there. I've
got to meet a lot of friendsand made a lot of friends, and

(05:33):
I love the fact that it feelslike most people in this field, not
all, but most people like tolift each other up and help each other,
which is really nice and I andI really like it. I know
there is a lot of infighting betweengroups that investigate ghosts and stuff like that,
but I haven't found much animosity atleast towards me or the people I've

(05:56):
met at all. So how easycan you tell a lie? When somebody's
talking? You think, Yeah,it's very interesting when I'm interviewing somebody about
their paranormal story. When people aretelling this story and it has usually a
deep meaning to them because in theirmind they go right back to that situation
and become very emotional. This personreally did have this experience you know,

(06:19):
there must be some kind of wackosthat think, you know what, I'm
going to get this guy come downand he's going to pay me attention.
What's the word, bob for?Where you want to like get people to
like with medical things, it'd beMunchausen's right, or it's like you're gonna
take a symptom to get I don'tknow what it is with the paranormal.
In my books, I allow peopleto change their name and change the location

(06:41):
if they would like to keep theiranonymity, And the further along I go,
it seems like the more people areokay with it. So I'd never
paid for a story because I feellike that would more you know, get
people to want to, you know, make things up. What I do
is I give if I use theirstory, they get a free signed copy

(07:04):
of that book. And I feellike if they want to tell their story
and they wanted to be out there, that's really, you know enough for
them. So how if you tohow do you find something out that might
be a different part of your countryor other English speaking countries? How do
you find where is your antennae?How do you find out something about saying

(07:27):
Bob's neck of the woods. Myfirst few books were just locally really yeah,
what I called my first couple ofbooks were in what what I call
Bridgerland, which is northern Utah southernIdaho. That my first couple were that
because for years I had to wordof mouth or go out and hunt it
down or anything like that. AndI'm up to seven books now the word

(07:54):
has gotten out where I don't haveto hunt so much. Now they kind
of come to me through my websiteand I have my email in the back
of every book and ask if youhave a story, please contact me.
And so it's kind of gone alot like that. How often use your
best stuff? How much of thematerial that you get makes it to the
book of books, and how muchends on the cutting room floor. I've

(08:18):
had people say, oh, Isaw a ghost once and I'm like,
oh, well, tell me aboutit. And They're like, I was
in this house and it walked by, And that doesn't make a great story.
You know. I can ask themmore details and try and drag it
out of them. But and someof my favorite stories that I've gotten that

(08:39):
are what I call glitches in thematrix that aren't necessarily ghost or cryptid or
something like that. It's something thathappens to people that they can't explain.
Sometimes it's like a personal Mendela effectwhere something has changed from what they remember
and it's very personal. So,you know, I like to sprinkle in
a lot, like I'll have somany ghost stories, so many cryptied stories,

(09:01):
so many glitches in the matrix stories, and then try and get at
least one finding through my stuff that'slike really out there that it's kind of
a head scratcher for sure. Ifeel foolish asking, but what is a
cryptid? So cryptid would be bigfoot, lizardman or fay fairies, things like

(09:24):
that that would fall under the cryptidkind of thing. Bigfoot guy that we
had on would disagree with you.I thought he was saying that they were
just animals. Well, and encryptedcould mean just an animal as well likes,
but it would be a unrecognized animals. John, thanks so much for
being on the show. How canwe contact you by your books, listen
to your podcast and general hang outwith you online? So you can contact

(09:48):
me at Strangerbridgelin dot com. Mybook series, which is the Stranger Bridgelan
Book Series is available on Amazon onpaperback and kindle. And you can also
listen to my podcast which I dowith my wife, which is the Stranger
Bridgeland Podcast. So reach out tome if you have a story. I'd
love to hear more stories from allover the world, including England and the

(10:11):
UK and everything. So yep,that's the best way to get hold of
me, Bob. How can wecontact you? You can get ambitious and
spell my name online and it'll takeyou to my website where you can contact
me from there. Thanks so muchand we'll speak soon.