Elliott Van Dusen is a retired Royal Canadian Mounted Police Corporal and the Corporate Director of Paranormal Phenomena Research & Investigation (PPRI), Nova Scotia’s oldest registered paranormal society. With over 15 years of experience in law enforcement and decades investigating the unexplained, Elliott brings a rare and credible voice to the study of paranormal phenomena. He has authored multiple books on the intersection of law enforcement and the paranormal and organized national symposiums and public education initiatives on unexplained phenomena. His work blends rigorous investigative methods with scientific inquiry to elevate public understanding of the paranormal.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/paranormal-stakeout-radio-tv-show-with-larry-lawson--3135813/support.
Please note that all XZBN radio and/or television shows are Copyright © REL-MAR McConnell Meda Company, Niagara, Ontario, Canada – www.rel-mar.com. For more Episodes of this show and all shows produced, broadcasted and syndicated from REL-MAR McConell Media Company and The 'X' Zone Broadcast Network and the 'X' Zone TV Channell, visit www.xzbn.net. For programming, distribution, and syndication inquiries, email programming@xzbn.net.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/paranormal-stakeout-radio-tv-show-with-larry-lawson--3135813/support.
Please note that all XZBN radio and/or television shows are Copyright © REL-MAR McConnell Meda Company, Niagara, Ontario, Canada – www.rel-mar.com. For more Episodes of this show and all shows produced, broadcasted and syndicated from REL-MAR McConell Media Company and The 'X' Zone Broadcast Network and the 'X' Zone TV Channell, visit www.xzbn.net. For programming, distribution, and syndication inquiries, email programming@xzbn.net.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Welcome to the Paranormal Stakeout Radio TV show with Larry Lawson.
As a former career law enforcement officer and law enforcement educator,
Larry focuses on the use of tried and true law
enforcement investigated techniques in conducting paranormal investigations. Despite his experience
and training, Larry also and keeps an open mind to
(00:31):
discussions on topics that deal with evidence that are not
quite as physical in nature. Paranormal Stakeout guests are professionals
in the field of the paranormal and parapsychology, conducting the
investigations and research needed to further the cause of paranormal study.
Larry advocates an agenda of standardization of structure and training
(00:53):
in the field of paranormal investigation and research for the
purpose of one day being able to produce the evidence
needed to convince a jury of the existence of the paranormal.
Whether it is ghosts, UFOs, unsolved mysteries, hauntings, or cryptids,
no topic is beyond the investigative reach of Larry Lawson
and the Paranormal Steakhout Radio TV show team. Now Here
(01:17):
is the host of the Paranormal Steakhout Radio TV show
Larry Lawson.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Good evening, everyone, and welcome back to Paranormal Steakout. I'm
your host, Larry Lawson, coming to you again from beautiful
Vera Beach, Flora, the home of the Florida Bureau of
Paranoral Investigation and Indian River Hauntings. And I like to
call it the Southern command post of the Exone Radio
and TV Network. And I'd like to give a shout
out to my good friend, producer and star of The
(02:01):
X Zone, Rob McConnell, Thank you for having me on.
I also want to give a shout out to my
assistant Shelley McCowan, who's doing some fantastic work helping me
prep for all the shows. I want to give you
a shout out, Shelley. So got a great show tonight, folks. Really,
I'm going to have a good friend of mine on,
a gentleman that I've known for a while. We've talked
many times. He's got some of the most interesting philosophies
(02:25):
in the world of paranormal research. His name is Elliot
van Dusen. Elliott served the people of Canada for fifteen
years at the RCMP. He was a mounte specialized in
criminal investigations, particularly major crimes, sex crimes, homicides, things like that,
and now he's a paranormal researching He retired from the
Mounties after fifteen years as a corporal investigator. He's got
(02:49):
a degree in from the para Parapsychology, degree from Stanford
a Career Institute, a doctorate degree of parents Psychology from
American at International University. And he's also the director of
the Paranormal Phenomenon and Research and an investigation organization, a
very well known and respected outfit in Canada. And tonight
(03:14):
we're going to be talking about not only his philosophers,
but something that's really really interesting coming up that I
want to share with everybody. So i'd like to welcome
to the show my friend Elliot van Deusen.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Great to see again, Larry.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Good seeing you, my friend. You know, it's been a while,
but you know, it's just like guys, we don't see
each other for a while, we just pick up like
we all like we just saw each other the day before.
So it's good talking with you again. I know all
about you pretty much, but a lot of my guests don't.
So why don't we start off by sharing with my
audience out there, who you are, how you got into
(03:48):
this field, and a little bit of your background.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
It's been a while since I've been on paranormal stakeout.
A lot of people ask me if I had an
experience got me my interest into the paranormal. But it
was actually Unsolved Mysteries because I knew I wanted to
be a police officer, and specifically knew I wanted to
do homicide investigations, so Unsolved Mysteries was perfect. It had
(04:14):
very interesting cold cases, and then every once in a
while they teach you with the ghost story or UFO story,
which I also thought was really fascinating. And then fast
forward to nineteen ninety seven, I discovered the television show
The X Files, but it had been on TV since
nineteen ninety three, but I thought it was really interesting
that you had two law enforcement officers investigating claims of
(04:34):
the supernatural. So I created my nonprofit organization, Paranormal Phenomenal
Research and Investigation. Started out by collecting local folklore stories,
which then led into investigations and trying to take as
many courses as I possibly could. I've studied from all
over the world, and I was Scochied Community College, University
(04:55):
of Edinburgh, University of Ottawa, Strafford Career Institute. Wherever I
could get my hands on courses, I did it, and
I've been doing it now for twenty eight years. Like
you said in my introduction, I served Canada for fifteen years.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
So I take both that law.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Enforcement experience in paranormal investigator experience and combine it with
my role here at PPII.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Excellent. Here's a question for you. I get this quite
a bit being retired caught myself. Does your experience, your
background in law enforcement, does that help? Does that make
it easier? Does it help you with your investigations into
the paranormal?
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Yeah, it certainly has.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Obviously the interviewing training that we receive as police officers helps.
You know, I took a special course on how to
interview children, So if we do have a case involving children,
there's a certain way to interview them without leading them on,
Unlike adults, where you know you can get the pure
version statement from them first and then ask direct questions.
(05:59):
A little bit different with children. You don't want to
taint their diversion. Even the way that we handle evidence
now in paranormal investigations. I treat it almost like an exhibit.
So we have somebody that collects all the evidence at
the end of the investigation uploads it to our shared drive.
We try and keep continuity of who has what device and.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
What else have I done.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
Certainly safety aspects, I never send any of my investigators
alone to a site, even if the person has no
sign of mental health issues or anything like that. I
always send at least two investigators just for safety reasons.
And we actually just implemented a new policy that when
we finish our investigation, when everyone travels home, they have
to text her email or call the lead investigator and
(06:47):
let them know that they arrived home safely. So taking
a lot of my law enforcement experience over to the paranormal.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Does it help with your examination of the evidence? And
have you been able to work with your teammates that
maybe don't have your background to understand what your concept
is with that.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
Yeah, we're a pretty cohesive team. We're a small team.
I think I think we're at sixteen people now. Each
of us has our own specialty. I have two professional photographers,
I have a psychiatrist, two parapsychologists, my wife doesn't have
any background in the paranormal, but she's a chartered human
resource professional, so she's very good with people.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
She's skeptical, so she makes us work for our answers.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
I have a medium I have a retired Air Force
member that leads our UAP or UFO unit. He was
actually an air traffic controller with the Royal Canadian Air
Force and had some UFO experiences himself. And I also
have a retired Royal Canadian Navy members, so we have
a very diverse background. Everyone you know is respectful and
(07:58):
listens and is to follow policy, so we haven't had Yeah,
I haven't had any issues there. We're all very open
minded and all get along, so we have a very
good name.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
It also sounds like your folks you included, are very educated,
well educated and not necessarily going to college to get
the degree, but also educated in the field. Do you
find that a lot of other teams, people you may
interact with, they maybe watched a couple of TV shows
and jumped out there, or do you find that most
(08:30):
of them have taken the time that you and your
folks have to educate themselves.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
I have come across a few good teams in my day,
people that I would have on my team for sure.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
But I do follow a lot of people that.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Are involved in investigating from the amateur side, and I
do see two kind of sides. I've always kind of
sided myself with what I call the academic side of
the paranormal. You know, I sit on the the Ryan
Research team of about fifty people that meet every Wednesday.
I've taken lots of courses from Ryan Education Center and
(09:09):
kind of.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Associate with with the academics.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
Whereas other people are, you know, more about the para
cons and the Hollywood TV type investigators, and I have
seen some ethical and methodological flaws in their investigations.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Yeah. I look at two types, you know, two types
of investigators, the research versus the thrill seekers so to speak.
That's a term that I like to use. What's the
ratio of those of us out there between what we
call the folks that just want to hear the bump
in the night as compared to really wanting to find
(09:47):
out what the answer is to this mystery?
Speaker 4 (09:51):
You know, I think that there's a lot of people
out there that do it because they find it interesting.
And I think there's a lot of people out there
that are doing it that have good intentions, but they
might just not be necessarily following the best practices.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
And then there are some that.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Are just out there for YouTube fame and clicks and likes.
For sure, I've come across that as well. There is
a lot of that I have noticed though. On the
academic side, they're trying to create the citizens Scientist type
program where you know, academics will try and either embed
themselves in some groups or offer workshops because academics do
(10:34):
realize that there are a ton of people interested in
the paranormal, a ton of people out there doing research
and investigations and capturing interesting stuff, you know, whether it's
electronic voice phenomena or photos, and so they're trying to
teach them kind of best practices and best methods to
collect this information because it is valuable overall, especially if
(10:56):
they share it. That's another thing I've noticed about the
amateur There's a lot of times they don't share information
or they almost act like a certain particular site is theirs,
and they get really offended with another group or organization
comes in.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Don't you think that might come from maybe lack of
confidence that they actually know what they're doing, and therefore
they don't want perhaps somebody to come into their area
and maybe prove them wrong.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Is that possible, I mean, I think it's possible.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
I also think there's a lot of like jealousy in
the paranormal field. I see a lot of like slandering
happening online between different people and different groups, and I
certainly don't get involved in that kind of stuff. And
sometimes it makes you know, the newspapers, for example, I
just read an article that the Society for Psychical Research
(11:49):
shared talking about Jason Hawes trying to use gofundmeing money
to purchase the Conjuring House, and you know, there's quite
a bit of ethical issues with that. So you know,
I read it and I stay on top of it,
but I don't chime in, well.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
What's your thoughts. And then for those of that don't
aren't familiar with Jason Hawes as a member of the
original Ghost Hunters, he's involved or in friends with Andrew
Parne and she wants him, from what I saw on
the YouTube, to purchase the Conjuring House so it doesn't
fall into improper hands or somebody that won't take care
of the property. And he's done the youth to I'm
(12:29):
sorry go fund me account in order to raise the money.
What are your thoughts on that? Do you have an opinion?
Speaker 4 (12:35):
Yeah, Like, initially when I saw it, it sounded like
good intentions. You know, the Conjuring House has been for
sale multiple times. I saw it back in twenty eighteen,
I believe, when an elderly lady still owned it. It
was after the Conjuring movies came out. There were no
trespassing signs everywhere, and she eventually sold it just because
(12:58):
of all the trespassers. And then after that it's kind
of switched hands a few times and become kind of
a paranormal marketplace where they charged ghost hunters astronomical amounts
to go spend the night there.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
And that's a whole whole different subject. Is this paranormal
selling of paranormal spots to folks that want to get
that thrill? How often do you see first questions, how
often do you see true researchers go to places like that?
Speaker 4 (13:30):
You don't, you know, it's usually your YouTube people, And
of course if you want a live stream at the location,
it's astronomical amounts. I know at one point I believe
the Conjuring House was charging almost twelve hundred dollars US
if you wanted to live stream from there.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Wow, just the live stream.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
And we've seen places like Conjuring House, Edmon Lorraine Warren's
house was just purchased by comedian Matt Rife. We've seen
Lizzie bordenhouse purchase. So all these, you know, classical paranormal
type sites are being purchased for monetary purposes.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Want to kind of talk a little bit more about
that and get your thoughts on that, because I have
my feelings too that I'll share with you. But we're
in about forty five seconds. We're going to take our break,
but I'd like you to take a couple seconds. You
mentioned the Ryan Institute. People out there might be wondering
what that is. Can you just take about thirty seconds
to kind.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
Of yeah, So Ryan is a great spot to take courses.
We're in an education center. It was part of Duke
University way back in the day with jb.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Ryan.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
They had their own parapsychological laboratory and then when the
funding dried up, they purchased the building right across from
Duke University. It's a nonprofit organization called the Ryan Research Center,
and they do excellent courses.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Okay, so folks check out. Education is everything, but we've
got to take our first break, so stay with us.
Elliot Van Duson's got a lot to share with us,
So don't go away. See in a few minutes and
we're back for part two of tonight's show. You really
got me thinking after that last bit, because this has
been a subject that's been kind of bothering me a
little bit, and that has to do with the the
(15:10):
the purchasing of buildings strictly to put it out there
as haunted. Maybe take advantage of the situation, and the
Prone House is a great example of that. Do you
think in your opinion that this for profit paranormal ghost
(15:30):
hunting is hurting the field or helping? And before we
answer that, I believe that the TV shows, as much
as most of us don't really like them anymore, I
do think it brought it to the forefront of our society.
That made it more normal for lack of a better term. Therefore,
more people got involved and interested and became serious researchers.
(15:54):
But have we passed that point? What are your thoughts? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (15:59):
I mean, that's a great point. I will give the
TV shows that credit.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
For sure.
Speaker 4 (16:04):
Their exposure has certainly gotten people interested in the paranormal.
You know, I have people that attend my events that
watch you know, Ghost Adventures and all those classic shows. Certainly,
it also makes people aware of the technology because when
I'm talking to people and doing an educational component, you know,
(16:24):
they know what a rempod is, they know what the
K two meter is, and all that is, you know,
thanks to television. So it certainly has its positives. You know,
some of the negatives is that it is.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
What I call para entertainment. A lot of it is
you know, hyped up.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
The fact that they investigate in the dark. For example,
the Side of Psychical Research, which is our first ever
kind of ghost hunting group that was started back in
eighteen eighty two. You know, they've studied thousands and thousands
of cases and they've been able to determine that ghosts
can appear at any point in time, whether lights are on,
lights are off, indoors, outdoor, snowstorm, sunny Florida weather, it
(17:06):
doesn't matter. So on TV you'll see them shoot in
night vision quite a bit just for their dramatics. I
also know that they like tools like the K two
meter because it's got lights on it and it looks
good on TV. So there are you know, certain things
that they do just for entertainment purposes, which I do
think is a negative thing for serious people like yourself
(17:26):
and I.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
So do we champion it or do we do we
champion getting them off the air? If what do you
think it's?
Speaker 4 (17:40):
You know, it's it's really interesting. I know a lot
of people that I've spoke to, they kind of know
that it's for entertainment.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
You know.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
When I do our public ghost ons, I do incorporate
an educational component to it, and I always ask people,
you know, how many people think what you see on
TV is real?
Speaker 3 (17:57):
And either no one raises her hand because it don't wanna.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
They don't want to look stupid, I guess, or most
most people are aware that it's it's a little bit different.
So we even started having people towards the end of
our public ghost and start to listen to some of
the audio that's been recorded that evening, just to show them,
you know, what our videographer and photographer and audio engineer
would have to go through later on when they're sifting
through all that data just to kind of give them
(18:22):
a taste of, you know, what it's really like to
be a paranormal investigator.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
And that's been my experience. Also, I've talked to folks
beginning of a tours, my historical tours. Do you understand
that TV shows are for entertainment? Now, there's some decent
people out there, We've got to keep that in mind.
There's some folks that have been on TV. They're they're decent, honest,
sincere folks. I don't think there's anything doubt about that.
But TV is for entertainment, but it also has given
(18:49):
rise to this for profit. Uh, the situation the conjuring house.
I won't even mention some of the other places, but
a lot of things the mental health, asyle, prisons, things
like that. Yeah, can can those the exploitation of that building.
(19:09):
We'll just use that term be helpful to them in
their upkeep though? Is that a positive?
Speaker 4 (19:15):
I think some of them could be for sure if
they used it for that. Like you said, prisons are
another one. There's one around here called the Dorchester Jail,
which is kind of an airbnb. You can rent it out.
Your room is actually an old cell. You know, I
filmed there for the television show Repossessed. They called me
(19:38):
in to do an expert opinion on the show, and
you know, very cool spot and it's reasonably priced. But again,
I guess it depends on what you're into. So my organization,
we don't go out and proactively investigate. So I don't
call up our local museum and ask to go there
and investigate. We're strictly a reactive organization, so usually we
(20:01):
get about seven to twelve cases per year. Somebody reaches
out looking consistence, we don't charge them for anything. That's
why I do all my fundraising throughout the year so
that it doesn't cost the client any money. And you know, there's.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
I don't think I would pay, you know, one thousand
dollars to have my team go and spend the night
at a Lizzie Borden house or a conjuring house or
anything like that. I just don't think it's worth worth
it research wise, investigation wise, it's a lot of money
to spend when you're a nonprofit organization and everyone's doing
this on a volunteer basis exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
And part of what we do is also to fund
those types of things too. I guess the reason why
I've gone down this line of questioning is I've come
to find that going to those places really tend to
be I don't want to say a waste of time,
but I get more out of a small little spot
that somebody has had a problem that we go in
(20:59):
and take a look at. I've had more activity there.
I've uncovered more evidence in spots like that than I
have like the Stanley Hotel, just to use an example
which leads to this question. Places that are investigated a lot,
can they be, for lack of a better term, fished out.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
I think certain cases are, you know, like for the
Conjuring Home, there's been homeowners that have lived there that
have gone on the record saying that they haven't experienced
anything paranormal. Perhaps when the parent family did reside there,
they were experiencing phenomena, but it doesn't seem to be,
you know, the case anymore. I always laugh as well
(21:42):
at what tools people are using, and I find when
they start using like the applications on the phone, or
a lot of the gear that you can buy online
that's marketed to ghost hunters, they're always getting results. But
when we go in and we use the gear properly,
such as you know, a high quality electromagnetic field radiation detector,
(22:04):
a flur thermal camera, you know, high quality recorders with
no software and no applications, you usually come out of
those places with a lot less We have cock stuff,
but it's not as frequently as when people are using
all the gimmicks. And when you actually read the manual
and go through the descriptors on it, a lot of
(22:26):
it will say entertainment purposes only.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Especially the phone apps, which is a whole whole different subject.
Do you also find that many people use in the
equipment can't really can't really even describe the theory behind
its use or what the how they're getting the evidence.
They they just they don't understand it. Do you find
that at all?
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Yeah? For sure.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
Actually I was just in thunder Bay at a paranormal
convention and they did a public ghost on.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
One of the first things I noticed was the lights
were off.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
So I had asked, you know, the lead organizers if
they investigate put the lights out, and they said sometimes
they do, sometimes they don't. And then I was in
the room trying to charge my laptop because it had died.
I was using it all day at the conference and
I couldn't get it to charge and I tried every
jack and I'm like, oh, this is weird. So I
went out and talked to one of the museum members
(23:19):
and they told me that they had turned the breaker
off and I said, okay, and then they're like, I
could turn it back on, but it won't be you know,
it's a ghost hunt, it won't be spooky or whatever.
So there's a lot of people that do you know
these ghost hunts, and they spoofed them up like that,
like keeping the lights out and stuff.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
So I gave a very educational lecture.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
I told, you know, every group that would come visit
me that there's no reason to investigate in the dark,
and I explained what the equipment is, and I was
actually very impressed. All the four groups that cycle through me.
I asked them if they know who uses an EMF
reader in real life besides ghost hunters, and each group
there was somebody in there that knew that it was
(23:58):
a tool used by electricians to look for unshielded and
ungrounded wires.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
And I was very impressed by that.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Well, and that shows people taking time to read and study.
So that's that's excellent because that's the one thing that
I've had in my experience. People really oh, they know
the lights come on, and that supposedly means there's activity,
but they can't tell me why the lights go on.
So that's that's very interesting. One thing. I I'm kind
of another side of it, dowsing rocks. People have been
(24:28):
using those for generations to find water, and I've actually
had not only well diggers on my tour said oh yeah,
we use them still today to find water. I've actually
had electricians say, yep, I use dowsing wires rods to
find wires and walls. So that's the other side of
it also, I guess right.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Oh absolutely.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
I just I did a presentation actually at thunder Bay
and it was called Law Enforcement and the Paranormal, and
ironically I talked a little bit about dows Like you said,
it's also known as witching, but diamond mind companies and
mineral companies use them. Oil companies use them as well.
(25:10):
And there was actually a case in the state of
Georgia where dowsing was actually admitted as evidence. I detective
that testified to finding bones from a missing Girl, and
he explained how it works and actually did a demonstration
in court and the evidence was actually accepted, and I
(25:30):
played that clip there at the thunder Bay Paranormal Convention.
I told them, I said that this is very important
because the courts normally don't accept evidence from the paranormal
but in this case, dowsing was actually accepted as evidence.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Because you can actually describe a scientifically proven method to it.
And that's and that's what we've got to get to
what we have to get to to get our evidence
into the into the scientific world. Now, just before we
get our next break, you've got a really really neat
event coming up. I want to just touch on that.
(26:06):
We'll go to more detail on the other side of it,
but tell us what you've got coming up this weekend.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Next week is our third annual Halifax Paranormal Symposium. It
is our biggest one yet. So far, we have one
hundred and twenty out of two hundred seats sold, which
is phenomenal. This year, we introduced a Alexander Keys Brewery
ghost hunt. We're only the second organization to be granted
permission to investigate at Alexander Keith that was sold out,
(26:34):
and we're also doing psychic medium Laura Warren Live in
Halifax workshop as well, and that sold out as well.
So next year for our fourth conference, I'm actually looking
at expanding to two full days.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Excellent, excellent. You mentioned mediums. You are a cop for
a long time. Did you use them when you were
on the job.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
No.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
There was one cold case that I reviewed when I
was up in Yellowknife and I did see a medium
tip come in there. It was completely inaccurate. It was
talking about a missing girl that was from the Northwest
Territories and that they saw sand dunes and cactuses. The
medium was from southern US, and of course in Canada Subarctic,
(27:23):
we don't have cactuses and sand dunes.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
You know. It was a complete opposite description.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
And how do you feel? What is your opinion of
mediums as a whole?
Speaker 4 (27:36):
You know what, I have a very good medium on
my team, Jody Russell. She has shown me time and
time again that she has the legitimate ability. She has
given us information that we were actually able to corroborate
multiple times and just absolutely phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Now, when I was on the job, I would have
medium's call on homicide instigations giving information. Nothing ever panned out.
Excuse me. I had a very very negative view of
it until I met a couple that actually a couple
of different ones that actually changed my mind on it.
So I was wondering about that, And you're going to
have this person at your event. Also, they're going to
(28:17):
be doing I know they're doing private sessions, but are
they going to talk to the crowd at all about
what they do?
Speaker 4 (28:23):
Yeah, So in the workshop, I've asked Laura Warren to
do a like a group reading for two hours, so
it was limited to forty people. She probably won't get
to read all forty people, but she'll get to do.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Quite a few. People always find her really interesting.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
I had her as a guest speaker last year talking
about her mediumship abilities, and she was one of the
favorite guest speakers.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
So excellent. Well, we're going to talk more about your
symposium as a whole right on the other side after
this break, so folks stay with us. Elliot Van Dus
and my guest tonight seeing just a couple. You know,
(29:27):
I'm sitting here during the break, Elliott thinking, you know,
there are just so many things I want to talk
with you about. There's just there's such a huge variety
of things I would like to go over with you,
and we've just got this this short little hour, so
we're gonna have to do this again in the now.
I want to get into a couple of those other
different topics, but really I want to spend a little
(29:48):
bit of time now talking getting really into this symposium.
You've told us a little bit about who you're going
to have there, but I'd like to hear more about
the setup. I'd like to see to know what it
is your hoping to accomplish by giving this presentation. What
are you what are you looking to do to help
the field.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
Yeah, so there isn't many conferences of this type in Canada.
A lot of these happened down in.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
The United States.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
You know, there used to be some Bigfoot conferences out
in British Columbia. We do have the sag Harbor UFO
Expo here in Nova Scotia that's going into thirteenth fourteenth year.
They just started going to a hotel about four years ago,
so they just kind of, you know, kind of up
their game, so to speak. But they only deal with
UFOs and extraterrestrials. Whereas I try and bring in different
(30:41):
topics every year from all the fields, so not just
parapsychology ufology, but any anomalous phenomena. So you know, this
year we have a whole range of topics. Doctor Jannet
Greenberg's coming from San Diego to talk to us about
ancient astronauts or aliens. We have Tony Rath been coming
to talk to us about electronic voice phenomena and talk
(31:04):
about his ITC research with the program and device that
he's created called staticcom where he believes you can communicate
with the dead in real time. He did do a
private session with doctor Yanna and I once and we
were asking questions about the afterlife and we weren't getting
any responses that we were hoping for, but I just
(31:25):
threw it out there. I said to Yana, why don't
you start speaking Russian and see what happens. And when
she started speaking Russian, the voices on the other end
started to make fun of the Russian language and Russians,
and doctor Yanna is very proud of her Russian heritage,
so she was kind of offended, but it was kind
of funny and it was interesting that the conversation became.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Relevant, and.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
He'll be doing a live demonstration after lunch where we're
gonna pick different people from the audience. He'll have five
minutes to come up on stage and ask whatever questions
they want. I have seen other videos that they produced
where deceased loved ones have come forward and people have
gotten meaningful responses.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
So I'll be curious.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
It'll be like a live experimentation at the symposium this year.
Then after lunch, we'll have Natalie Jones from the CEO
of Paraflex, coming to talk to us about energy work
and awakening the higher self. We'll have Brian Baker, who's
a journalist coming from Toronto to talk to us about
cryptozoology and some of the very unique stories that he's
(32:31):
covered over over the years. And last, but not least,
we'll have one of our own investigators, Pierre Philitrow, who
has an interest in Ouiji boards, to talk to us
about the history of the Ouigi board some of the
fallacies about them, and I think that'll be very interesting
as well.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
And you're expecting a big crowd, I guess right.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
Yeah, So this is our best year so far. I
think our first year when we launched, we had one
hundred and three attendees. Last year it dropped off a
little bit, we had ninety nine and this year right
now we're sitting at one hundred and twenty, so it's
our biggest year yet. Plus we added the two workshops
which sold out. So yeah, we're we're looking forward to
a to a big year this year.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
And folks still get tickets to the event.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Yes they can.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
They are available on event bright that's the easiest way
to find us. But you can also go to our
website as well ppri dot nes slash tickets and that'll
bring you directly to the event right website. Like I said,
there's about eighty seats left I think for general mission,
and our other workshops are sold out already, So sounds
(33:40):
like you've gotten a huge bit of interest this year.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
That's excellent.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Yeah, what do you.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
What do you want to accomplish? What is what is
the reason you're doing this?
Speaker 4 (33:52):
Yeah, so, like I said, we wanted to bring back
a conference like this to Canada because we don't really
have anything.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
We've actually become the biggest.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
Paranormal conference or convention symposium in Atlantic Canada that no
one else does anything quite like this, So that's something
to be very proud of. But one thing that I've
really taken pride in this is I always get people
comment about when they're in the crowd and they look
around and they see all the other people that have
(34:21):
the same interest as them, they don't feel like an outcast.
They feel very included, and they feel like they're part
of a community that they didn't really know existed.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
So I love hearing about that.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
Certainly, there is still some stigma out there about the
paranormal and different topics like UFOs and extraterrestrials and all
that stuff, but it has gotten better since even when
I started investigating twenty eight years ago. But of course
there's still a bit of a stigma out there. So
I think people feel safe coming to our symposium and
(34:55):
being able to just be who they are and open
discussion and ask questions and not feel ridiculed or ashamed.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
And I've seen conferences like that well. People They've had
actually workshops where people who present evidence they had themselves,
and people would sit upon high on the d is
looking at their evidence and determining whether or not it
was real, and actually sometimes it was downright insulting to
people you know, folks just want to know. But are
you wanting to educate folks in the field. Are you
(35:28):
wanting to open it up and get people to open
their minds a little bit more become part of it.
What do you think it's your priority here?
Speaker 4 (35:37):
Yeah, certainly all of that really, you know, even skeptics.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
It's funny.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
You can talk to somebody and they might not believe
in ghosts, but the minute you start telling them about
one of the investigations you were on where you caught
something what happens, they go quiet and they listen very intently,
even just the story. They might not necessarily believe it
by the time you're done telling the story, but in
the story itself captures their attention. Even a skeptic can't
help but listen to a good story. So I think
(36:06):
we get, you know, a mix of people, and we've
kind of designed it so that it's a mix of
education but also.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Some entertainment as well.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
Because you can't be too highly academic, I find you
start to lose people. And even academics are starting to
realize that now instead of talking you know, boring peer
reviewed journal language, they're trying to just speak in layman's
terms now, and I think people really appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Well. I was at a conference recently, I won't say where,
a good conference, and there was a gentleman presenting a
topic and he was brilliant, he really was. But after
a while, nobody knew what he was talking about because
he got so deep into the weed. So I understand
exactly what you're talking about, and it's difficult. You've got
You've got to make it at a little for everybody
(36:54):
that to jump in. So I totally get it. You
said something a little interesting a minute ago.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
Though.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
You talked about taking away the stigma when you first
came on the job. And I don't know if you
had any experiences while you run duty, ever, but I
know what I came on. You may talk to your
own partner about it, or the guy you're working with,
our guy you worked with, but you didn't talk about
it any time after that because you'd be afraid the
(37:20):
boss would send you for a psych email. It's different now,
it's different now, But how how have you did you
experience that at all back in your early days?
Speaker 4 (37:28):
Oh god, yeah, I'm pretty much like my fictional hero
Fox Molder, where his FBI colleagues were always making fun
of him about little green men. You know, I'd have
people tape pro Tom packs to my locker. I had
people fill out requisition quits and our acquisition forms and
(37:49):
put it on the staff sergeant's desk asking for a
pro Tom pack for me. Different things like that.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
It was funny.
Speaker 4 (37:56):
I actually got called in the staff surgeon's office once
about being involved in this, and I was kind of
getting obsessed at this point, and I said, you guys,
do realize like our organization, the RCNP used to actually
investigate UFOs.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Right, And they said, well, what do you mean.
Speaker 4 (38:11):
I'm like, well, I said, I have all the files
at home from the sixties, seventies, and eighties the RCNP
used to investigate UFOs.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
There was a very strict process.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
You had to notify Department and National Defense anytime a
UFO seting came in. You know, I've got hundreds and
hundreds of RCMP documents from when we used to investigate UFOs.
They had no idea, So I always found that ironic.
And then when I wrote my two books dealing with
just with law enforcement and the paranormal, it was interesting
(38:47):
because I had a lot of people in the parapsychological
community contact me and say, how.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Did you get these people to talk to you? We
can never get cops to.
Speaker 4 (38:54):
Tell us their paranormal experiences, I said, to be honest
with you, I said, I don't know. I don't know
if it's just they trusted me because I was a
member of the law enforcement community and a paranormal investigator.
But I said, I just started by reaching out to
people I knew, asking if they had any experiences. And
next thing I know, I had sheriffs, military personnel, ERCNP officers,
city police officers telling me their ghost stories, UFO stories,
(39:16):
near death experiences, everything. And I managed to collect over
a hundred stories that might not have been told if
I hadn't have reached out, collected them and published them.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Who do you think, And I'm going to start calling
you fox fanduism by the way, it's gonna fit you.
But do you think going back to the what I
mentioned earlier about the TV show is bringing this more
into the forefront? Do you think that helped folks in
our community maybe feel more comfortable.
Speaker 4 (39:48):
Yeah, for sure, I think it's kind of normalized it.
I mean, everyone has a good ghost story that they've
heard or that's been passed down to them. Everyone's heard
about local superstition and local folklore, so it's certainly something
that's very prevalent. I think humans just in general like
a good mystery.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
And I think that's a big part of this also way.
And we're also still questioning what actually happens after we're gone.
I mean, I know from the experiences you and I've
talked about that we've both had, there's something that's going on.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
But yeah, I mean, one of my favorite quotes was
from doctor Sampirina, who's a medical doctor at New York University,
and he said that he can empirically say that he
knows human consciousness can survive our physical body after death
for at least two hours. And he knows that from
the studies that he's done where he's brought back people
that have died and they resuscitate them and they asked
(40:44):
them a series of questions and they're able to corroborate
some of the information that they've given, so he knows
that somebody has died and their body, their spirits has
walked around that hospital and seen things that they wouldn't
have been able to see because they were bedridden or
they weren't able to make it up to the roof,
and they knew exactly which lights were burnt out on
the roof.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
So he said he can empirically say.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
He knows human conscious can stay outside the physical body
for at least two hours after death. Now what happens
after that, he said, would only be speculation for him.
But that's where you and I come in, and we
do our investigations and sometimes, you know, you collect some
pretty amazing evidence.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
I actually had a doctor I was on a tour.
It was one of those tours where his wife brought
him and I didn't think he wanted to be there,
just by his demeanor. And then after the tour he
pulled me aside to say he was a me our
doctor during his residency and actually experienced something where a
guy should have died but didn't. But then came back
later and asked who this other doctor was, and how
(41:42):
could you know that doctor? You were completely out of
it while I was sitting up in the corner of
the room looking down, and this very very educated man said,
there's no way the guy could have known that. So
just interesting stories like that, you can't say that it
just doesn't exist. The question is what exactly is it?
So exactly what do you think the phenomenon is? You
(42:05):
got an opinion your do you have a philosophy that
you can share with us what you think this whole
thing is.
Speaker 4 (42:11):
I think there's different types, Like, certainly I think that
you can die and your human consciousness and personality survives
outside of the body, and for whatever reason, you've either
chosen to stay behind on our physical realm, or perhaps
you didn't know that you were dead. We hear that
from medium sometimes they're talking to a spirit and for
(42:32):
some reason they don't know that they're dead. Some are
our residual hauntings. Obviously, those are like your video recordings,
where it's not an intelligent haunting, it's just energy trapped
in the environment that replays over and over again based
on certain environmental circumstances. And then we know that there's
some things in the internatural world that can cause us
(42:54):
to experience a haunting.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
Carbon monoxide is one.
Speaker 4 (42:57):
There was a case in two thousand and two where
a lady showering female apparition appeared in the shower. She
called her local paranormal team. They were smart they did
an environmental assessment. Bandaccia had a hot water tank that
was improperly installed, so she was actually suffering from carbon
monoxide poisoning. And then we know from great Canadians like
doctor Michael Persinger that EMF I got a cause.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
Yeah, and that we're going to talk about that too,
but we've got to take our last break. Heck to
cut you off, Elliott right right when we're getting into something.
But folks, stay with us. We'll be back right after
this break man. This hour has gone fast, always does,
always does. Listen. We were talking about something really interesting
that when I had to cut you off, and you
were talking about people that have experiences where there's high
(43:44):
levels of MF, which we all know can mess with
your head. The lady in the shower with the carbon monoxide.
All good points and easy to say that you know
that's what's causing it. But let me toss this out
to you. Is it possible that, while yes, both the
EMF and the carbon monoxide create illusions in the head,
(44:06):
is it possible that also creates an opening for whatever
it is to contact us that maybe it isn't so
much a hallucination as it is just an opening that's
been made because of that phenomenon. Does that make sense?
Speaker 4 (44:23):
EMF can for sure, certainly. One other thing that doctor
Michael Persinger found is that it started to help people
open up their psychic abilities. And once he passed away,
the patent ended up being shipped around and you can
actually buy basically a home version of what he called
(44:44):
the god helmet. So in his laboratory he used a
snowmobile helmet that he modified with electrodes, found research participants
and exposed in the high amounts of EMF, and that's
where he found that it opened up psychic abilities and
then at a certain level caused them to experience haunt
and characteristics such as feeling watched, seeing apparitions, hearing auditory hallucinations,
(45:05):
and if you were religious, some people actually reported seeing
the Virgin Mary show up in his laboratory. But you
can buy the Sheer helmet. It's called online and you
can use it to try and open up your your
psychic abilities.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
We do have one. We haven't played around with it yet.
Speaker 4 (45:24):
I always threaten to put it on my colleague Darryl
Walsh and watch them crank it up and watch them
pee his pants.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
But we haven't that we haven't tried it out yet.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
But once again getting back to that the phenomenon itself,
it's it's really easy for us to say it's your
mind causing this hallucination. But I think you'll agree that
the ability of our own mind has not been fully explored.
We do not know all of its capabilities. So is
(45:58):
it possible even with the EMF or the carbon monoxide
that you were talking about, isn't it possible that it
could be opening up conduit to the other side drugs?
Let's let's talk about a little bit the mk Ultra
experiments and what they did and a lot of that
led to the remote viewing that that was all part
(46:22):
of that project. Is it possible that there are ways
to modify our brain that it's not show that it's
not an illusion, it's not a hallucined as a hallucination,
I can't talk, but actually a conduit to the other side.
Is that possible?
Speaker 4 (46:39):
Elliott, Well, there has been lots of research done on
altered states of consciousness, and that is so vague. You
and I could have a cup of coffee right now.
We've altered our state of consciousness, you know for us,
you know, it makes us alert other people, you know,
they might have a negative reaction to caffeine. But there's
(47:00):
lots of different things you can do to kind of
alter your state of consciousness. And of course the more
common environment you're in and the lower your anxiety and
your thought process and almost meditation level. They have found
that it does again open up your site, your psychic site.
(47:22):
That's why things like the gans Felt. They use earphones
and they play either white or pink noise. They'll put
half ping pung balls over your eyes. They'll have a
nice red light, and they found people score above chance
for telepathy in the gans Felt when they're in a
more relaxed state like that. So certainly possible drugs as well.
(47:45):
Like you said, there's Shamans and different First Nation tribes
as well, certain substances in order to do meditation or
you know, open up their psychic abilities as well. So yeah,
there's there's there's so much in this field. It's it's
really unreal.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
What's it going to take then for an organization, your
organization or some other organization. Obviously there's got to be
some sort of financial backing, but to really start studying this,
I mean you you cannot argue what the first nations
are are Native Americans have used over the years to
enter that altered state and come up with answers to
(48:31):
get there.
Speaker 3 (48:32):
It is tough. I know.
Speaker 4 (48:34):
In the academic world there is not a lot of
funding for parapsychology. That's why a lot of professors will
mask their study though, you know, call it one thing,
but they're really kind of looking for something else in
the study, and then they kind of publish it into
parapsychological peer reviewed journals. But it's it's really interesting. I
(48:56):
can see why mainstream hard scientists, your physics and your
chemists and your biologist don't like the paranormal because it
doesn't operate on.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
The rules that we know scientific theory.
Speaker 4 (49:07):
It always happens when you least suspect it. You could
be a ghost center with all the gear and just
have to go use the washroom and something will happen
in the washroom and you don't have any of your
gear with you. It always happens when you least suspect it.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
And you can't repeat, repeat it.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
You can't repeat it right.
Speaker 3 (49:24):
You can't repeat it.
Speaker 4 (49:25):
We had a really interesting thing happened with the spirit
box SB eleven, which I don't believe in. It's not
a scientific instrument. All it does is scanned radio stations.
I gave it to two of my investigators. I said,
go ahead, go upstairs and use it if you want,
but you know, just know that I don't believe in it.
After seventy minutes, it came downstairs. I asked somehow it went,
(49:45):
and they said, actually, it was really interesting.
Speaker 3 (49:47):
I said, okay, what happened?
Speaker 4 (49:49):
They said that there was a time where it started
to say all their names, the homeowner and my two
investigators' names. And I didn't just say it once. It
said it multiple times. They provided me with the clip.
I listened to it over a seventy second time period.
It said the homeowner's name once, it said Scott my
photographer's name, four times, it said medium or Jody, my
(50:11):
medium name, three times, and when they would ask it
to repeat it, it would repeat their names. And so
I'm not a math guy. I'm your social scientist kind
of guy. So I had chat GPT run a statistical
analysis on it, and he said, over seventy minutes, you know,
it would have the chance to say each of their names,
probably once, but it's at over a seventy second period
(50:33):
where it said their name so many times, especially when
they asked it to repeat, would be one in billions,
if not more. And I actually presented that to the
forty third online Conference of the Society for Scientific Exploration
because I thought it was so fascinating.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
And see, those are just how does that happen? We
need to talk about a case that I'm working on
where I actually got a name over the spirit box
and at the same time my medium came up with
it through earphones so nobody could hear it. And then
we have a grave site. We have a grave site
to go with it.
Speaker 3 (51:11):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
See stuff like that is how do you explain it?
Speaker 3 (51:15):
No, you can't. It's an anomaly.
Speaker 4 (51:17):
And when you try and repeat it, So we all
went upstairs after they told me that, tried to repeat
it and not one thing came across the spirit box.
Had another anomalous EMF hit in the same house from
a cast iron pot which does not give off electromagnetic radiation.
I lifted the lid off, the reading stopped. I put
the lid back on. We tried everything to try and
(51:37):
get it to replicate. Couldn't and I understand that hard
scientists don't like that, but unfortunately that's the way the
paranormal works.
Speaker 2 (51:46):
And maybe the time is coming for us to convince
or work towards convincing the scientific community that maybe there's
other ways to do this because saying you just you
can't do it because it doesn't necessarily cut it anymore.
Which leads me into this next question right here for you, UFOs, ghosts,
(52:09):
and encryptids. Are they connected in your opinion?
Speaker 4 (52:13):
You know what, Sometimes sometimes I think they they could be.
I was just we were talking about portals there the
other day, and you know a lot of people in
cryptozoology are kind of leaning towards the fact that perhaps
Bigfoot somehow is an intertmensional being, because we can't seem
to find this guy, but there's thousands of people that
(52:34):
have seen him.
Speaker 3 (52:35):
Same with UFOs. I've seen some.
Speaker 4 (52:37):
UFO videos where it shoots up into the atmosphere, But
then there are some UFO videos where it's just gone
in a blink of light. Is it going through some
sort of portal or tele teleportation because it's not shooting
up in the atmosphere, it's just gone.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
Well, the first time I had heard about. It was
an individual told me that they had a house that
was haunted, and then they later saw a UFO the
size of a football field, I believe, passing over their
house and they were convinced that it was connected. And
I initially thought, how bogus does that? Still do actually,
but I'm hearing more and more about there's a connection
(53:17):
dimensional connection our cryptids, our UFOs, our ghost dimensions. I mean,
when you think about it, one theory is that the
ghost that you see is just the merging, the temporary
merging of two dimensions.
Speaker 3 (53:31):
Yeah. No, yeah, no, for sure.
Speaker 4 (53:33):
I think it's a possibility, and it's obviously something that
we're still working on. And I do like the fact
that quantum physicists are starting to kind of do paranormal
studies because they're really on the fringe of science looking
at very extreme things. But I can almost see in
the future quantum physicists working hand in hand with academics
(53:54):
that study parapsychology and other anomalist phenomena.
Speaker 2 (53:58):
I agree, and I'm thinking, I'm hoping that's the way
we go to trying to come together with the scientific
community to find out the answers to say that nothing
is going on is as bad as or saying that
it can't happen, as bad as hearing one bump in
the middle of the night and saying it's a ghost
for sure, the answers in the middle, something is happening.
(54:18):
But in our last couple of minutes together, Elliott, I'd
like you to once again tell us how folks can
find out about the symposium. I'd like to know about
some of your books and where folks can find them,
And go ahead, tell us a little bit about your
books and symposium.
Speaker 4 (54:32):
And yeah, so I've written three books. My first one
was Evil in Exeter. It was about a home investigation
in Exeter, Rhode Island. A second book was called Supernatural
Encounters True Paranormal Accounts from Law Enforcement, where I collected
over fifty stories from law enforcement that are all true.
And then, of course once that came out and I
started doing podcasts and interviews, I had more law enforcement
(54:56):
contact with more stories, so that one's called More Supernatural
Encounters from Law Enforcement. And all three books are available
on Amazon dot Com and Amazon dot CA. The best
way to get in touch with me and find out
about my organization or the symposium is go to our
website at ppr I dot net.
Speaker 3 (55:16):
Take a look through it.
Speaker 4 (55:17):
It's very very cool website that my business partner, Spencer
Collier designed. You'll see under events. The Halifax Paranormal Symposium
has its own link. We also have resources on there.
I list out different academic studies such as, you know,
why we look at temperature changes, why we look at
EMF readings in the hauntings. There's a contact US form
(55:41):
and we even have our new UAP section. So anyone
out there listening that has had a UFO siting in
Atlantic Canada or the New England area and they have
never reported it to an agency, we take those reports
and we share it with other ufologists. So we do
have a UFO reporting form for anyone that has not
previously reported a UFO siting.
Speaker 2 (56:04):
Now, what made you guys decide to head in that direction? Also?
Speaker 4 (56:10):
I realized after going to the shake Herber UFO expo
about two years ago, that we don't get many UFO
cases anymore, and I wondered why, And then I went
to our website and I saw that it was kind
of heavily geared towards parapsychology, which is a scientific study
of extrasensory perception or psychic abilities, mind matter interaction or
psychokinesis and survival. And so I really changed our mission
(56:33):
statement to say that, you know, we investigate all an
anomalous phenomena and that UFOs are part of our culture.
We actually had merged many years ago with the New
England UFO Investigative Group, so we do do UFO research.
Speaker 3 (56:50):
And when you ask people how many people have seen a.
Speaker 4 (56:53):
UFO, they put their hand up when you ask them
how many people reported it?
Speaker 3 (56:57):
Not many people.
Speaker 2 (56:59):
And see, this is why our conversations we've touched on
so many little things and they can go so much deeper,
so much farther. So we're going to have to do
this again. My friend, I want to thank you again
for joining us and folks, Elliot van Dus and check
out his website, check out his books. Definitely one of
the stars of the paranormal field. So once again, thanks
(57:22):
for being with us, and we will have you back
as we've got just so much more to talk about,
and folks, we'll see you again on the next episode
of Paranormal Stakeout. It's been a great night, thanks for
being with us. Folks, have a great night, and we'll
see you on the other side. Have a good night, folks.
Welcome to the Paranormal Stakeout Radio TV show with Larry Lawson.
As a former career law enforcement officer and law enforcement educator,
Larry focuses on the use of tried and true law
enforcement investigated techniques in conducting paranormal investigations. Despite his experience
and training, Larry also and keeps an open mind to
(00:31):
discussions on topics that deal with evidence that are not
quite as physical in nature. Paranormal Stakeout guests are professionals
in the field of the paranormal and parapsychology, conducting the
investigations and research needed to further the cause of paranormal study.
Larry advocates an agenda of standardization of structure and training
(00:53):
in the field of paranormal investigation and research for the
purpose of one day being able to produce the evidence
needed to convince a jury of the existence of the paranormal.
Whether it is ghosts, UFOs, unsolved mysteries, hauntings, or cryptids,
no topic is beyond the investigative reach of Larry Lawson
and the Paranormal Steakhout Radio TV show team. Now Here
(01:17):
is the host of the Paranormal Steakhout Radio TV show
Larry Lawson.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Good evening, everyone, and welcome back to Paranormal Steakout. I'm
your host, Larry Lawson, coming to you again from beautiful
Vera Beach, Flora, the home of the Florida Bureau of
Paranoral Investigation and Indian River Hauntings. And I like to
call it the Southern command post of the Exone Radio
and TV Network. And I'd like to give a shout
out to my good friend, producer and star of The
(02:01):
X Zone, Rob McConnell, Thank you for having me on.
I also want to give a shout out to my
assistant Shelley McCowan, who's doing some fantastic work helping me
prep for all the shows. I want to give you
a shout out, Shelley. So got a great show tonight, folks. Really,
I'm going to have a good friend of mine on,
a gentleman that I've known for a while. We've talked
many times. He's got some of the most interesting philosophies
(02:25):
in the world of paranormal research. His name is Elliot
van Dusen. Elliott served the people of Canada for fifteen
years at the RCMP. He was a mounte specialized in
criminal investigations, particularly major crimes, sex crimes, homicides, things like that,
and now he's a paranormal researching He retired from the
Mounties after fifteen years as a corporal investigator. He's got
(02:49):
a degree in from the para Parapsychology, degree from Stanford
a Career Institute, a doctorate degree of parents Psychology from
American at International University. And he's also the director of
the Paranormal Phenomenon and Research and an investigation organization, a
very well known and respected outfit in Canada. And tonight
(03:14):
we're going to be talking about not only his philosophers,
but something that's really really interesting coming up that I
want to share with everybody. So i'd like to welcome
to the show my friend Elliot van Deusen.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Great to see again, Larry.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Good seeing you, my friend. You know, it's been a while,
but you know, it's just like guys, we don't see
each other for a while, we just pick up like
we all like we just saw each other the day before.
So it's good talking with you again. I know all
about you pretty much, but a lot of my guests don't.
So why don't we start off by sharing with my
audience out there, who you are, how you got into
(03:48):
this field, and a little bit of your background.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
It's been a while since I've been on paranormal stakeout.
A lot of people ask me if I had an
experience got me my interest into the paranormal. But it
was actually Unsolved Mysteries because I knew I wanted to
be a police officer, and specifically knew I wanted to
do homicide investigations, so Unsolved Mysteries was perfect. It had
(04:14):
very interesting cold cases, and then every once in a
while they teach you with the ghost story or UFO story,
which I also thought was really fascinating. And then fast
forward to nineteen ninety seven, I discovered the television show
The X Files, but it had been on TV since
nineteen ninety three, but I thought it was really interesting
that you had two law enforcement officers investigating claims of
(04:34):
the supernatural. So I created my nonprofit organization, Paranormal Phenomenal
Research and Investigation. Started out by collecting local folklore stories,
which then led into investigations and trying to take as
many courses as I possibly could. I've studied from all
over the world, and I was Scochied Community College, University
(04:55):
of Edinburgh, University of Ottawa, Strafford Career Institute. Wherever I
could get my hands on courses, I did it, and
I've been doing it now for twenty eight years. Like
you said in my introduction, I served Canada for fifteen years.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
So I take both that law.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Enforcement experience in paranormal investigator experience and combine it with
my role here at PPII.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Excellent. Here's a question for you. I get this quite
a bit being retired caught myself. Does your experience, your
background in law enforcement, does that help? Does that make
it easier? Does it help you with your investigations into
the paranormal?
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Yeah, it certainly has.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Obviously the interviewing training that we receive as police officers helps.
You know, I took a special course on how to
interview children, So if we do have a case involving children,
there's a certain way to interview them without leading them on,
Unlike adults, where you know you can get the pure
version statement from them first and then ask direct questions.
(05:59):
A little bit different with children. You don't want to
taint their diversion. Even the way that we handle evidence
now in paranormal investigations. I treat it almost like an exhibit.
So we have somebody that collects all the evidence at
the end of the investigation uploads it to our shared drive.
We try and keep continuity of who has what device and.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
What else have I done.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
Certainly safety aspects, I never send any of my investigators
alone to a site, even if the person has no
sign of mental health issues or anything like that. I
always send at least two investigators just for safety reasons.
And we actually just implemented a new policy that when
we finish our investigation, when everyone travels home, they have
to text her email or call the lead investigator and
(06:47):
let them know that they arrived home safely. So taking
a lot of my law enforcement experience over to the paranormal.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Does it help with your examination of the evidence? And
have you been able to work with your teammates that
maybe don't have your background to understand what your concept
is with that.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
Yeah, we're a pretty cohesive team. We're a small team.
I think I think we're at sixteen people now. Each
of us has our own specialty. I have two professional photographers,
I have a psychiatrist, two parapsychologists, my wife doesn't have
any background in the paranormal, but she's a chartered human
resource professional, so she's very good with people.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
She's skeptical, so she makes us work for our answers.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
I have a medium I have a retired Air Force
member that leads our UAP or UFO unit. He was
actually an air traffic controller with the Royal Canadian Air
Force and had some UFO experiences himself. And I also
have a retired Royal Canadian Navy members, so we have
a very diverse background. Everyone you know is respectful and
(07:58):
listens and is to follow policy, so we haven't had Yeah,
I haven't had any issues there. We're all very open
minded and all get along, so we have a very
good name.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
It also sounds like your folks you included, are very educated,
well educated and not necessarily going to college to get
the degree, but also educated in the field. Do you
find that a lot of other teams, people you may
interact with, they maybe watched a couple of TV shows
and jumped out there, or do you find that most
(08:30):
of them have taken the time that you and your
folks have to educate themselves.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
I have come across a few good teams in my day,
people that I would have on my team for sure.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
But I do follow a lot of people that.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Are involved in investigating from the amateur side, and I
do see two kind of sides. I've always kind of
sided myself with what I call the academic side of
the paranormal. You know, I sit on the the Ryan
Research team of about fifty people that meet every Wednesday.
I've taken lots of courses from Ryan Education Center and
(09:09):
kind of.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Associate with with the academics.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
Whereas other people are, you know, more about the para
cons and the Hollywood TV type investigators, and I have
seen some ethical and methodological flaws in their investigations.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
Yeah. I look at two types, you know, two types
of investigators, the research versus the thrill seekers so to speak.
That's a term that I like to use. What's the
ratio of those of us out there between what we
call the folks that just want to hear the bump
in the night as compared to really wanting to find
(09:47):
out what the answer is to this mystery?
Speaker 4 (09:51):
You know, I think that there's a lot of people
out there that do it because they find it interesting.
And I think there's a lot of people out there
that are doing it that have good intentions, but they
might just not be necessarily following the best practices.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
And then there are some that.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Are just out there for YouTube fame and clicks and likes.
For sure, I've come across that as well. There is
a lot of that I have noticed though. On the
academic side, they're trying to create the citizens Scientist type
program where you know, academics will try and either embed
themselves in some groups or offer workshops because academics do
(10:34):
realize that there are a ton of people interested in
the paranormal, a ton of people out there doing research
and investigations and capturing interesting stuff, you know, whether it's
electronic voice phenomena or photos, and so they're trying to
teach them kind of best practices and best methods to
collect this information because it is valuable overall, especially if
(10:56):
they share it. That's another thing I've noticed about the
amateur There's a lot of times they don't share information
or they almost act like a certain particular site is theirs,
and they get really offended with another group or organization
comes in.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Don't you think that might come from maybe lack of
confidence that they actually know what they're doing, and therefore
they don't want perhaps somebody to come into their area
and maybe prove them wrong.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Is that possible, I mean, I think it's possible.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
I also think there's a lot of like jealousy in
the paranormal field. I see a lot of like slandering
happening online between different people and different groups, and I
certainly don't get involved in that kind of stuff. And
sometimes it makes you know, the newspapers, for example, I
just read an article that the Society for Psychical Research
(11:49):
shared talking about Jason Hawes trying to use gofundmeing money
to purchase the Conjuring House, and you know, there's quite
a bit of ethical issues with that. So you know,
I read it and I stay on top of it,
but I don't chime in, well.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
What's your thoughts. And then for those of that don't
aren't familiar with Jason Hawes as a member of the
original Ghost Hunters, he's involved or in friends with Andrew
Parne and she wants him, from what I saw on
the YouTube, to purchase the Conjuring House so it doesn't
fall into improper hands or somebody that won't take care
of the property. And he's done the youth to I'm
(12:29):
sorry go fund me account in order to raise the money.
What are your thoughts on that? Do you have an opinion?
Speaker 4 (12:35):
Yeah, Like, initially when I saw it, it sounded like
good intentions. You know, the Conjuring House has been for
sale multiple times. I saw it back in twenty eighteen,
I believe, when an elderly lady still owned it. It
was after the Conjuring movies came out. There were no
trespassing signs everywhere, and she eventually sold it just because
(12:58):
of all the trespassers. And then after that it's kind
of switched hands a few times and become kind of
a paranormal marketplace where they charged ghost hunters astronomical amounts
to go spend the night there.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
And that's a whole whole different subject. Is this paranormal
selling of paranormal spots to folks that want to get
that thrill? How often do you see first questions, how
often do you see true researchers go to places like that?
Speaker 4 (13:30):
You don't, you know, it's usually your YouTube people, And
of course if you want a live stream at the location,
it's astronomical amounts. I know at one point I believe
the Conjuring House was charging almost twelve hundred dollars US
if you wanted to live stream from there.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Wow, just the live stream.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
And we've seen places like Conjuring House, Edmon Lorraine Warren's
house was just purchased by comedian Matt Rife. We've seen
Lizzie bordenhouse purchase. So all these, you know, classical paranormal
type sites are being purchased for monetary purposes.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Want to kind of talk a little bit more about
that and get your thoughts on that, because I have
my feelings too that I'll share with you. But we're
in about forty five seconds. We're going to take our break,
but I'd like you to take a couple seconds. You
mentioned the Ryan Institute. People out there might be wondering
what that is. Can you just take about thirty seconds
to kind.
Speaker 4 (14:25):
Of yeah, So Ryan is a great spot to take courses.
We're in an education center. It was part of Duke
University way back in the day with jb.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Ryan.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
They had their own parapsychological laboratory and then when the
funding dried up, they purchased the building right across from
Duke University. It's a nonprofit organization called the Ryan Research Center,
and they do excellent courses.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Okay, so folks check out. Education is everything, but we've
got to take our first break, so stay with us.
Elliot Van Duson's got a lot to share with us,
So don't go away. See in a few minutes and
we're back for part two of tonight's show. You really
got me thinking after that last bit, because this has
been a subject that's been kind of bothering me a
little bit, and that has to do with the the
(15:10):
the purchasing of buildings strictly to put it out there
as haunted. Maybe take advantage of the situation, and the
Prone House is a great example of that. Do you
think in your opinion that this for profit paranormal ghost
(15:30):
hunting is hurting the field or helping? And before we
answer that, I believe that the TV shows, as much
as most of us don't really like them anymore, I
do think it brought it to the forefront of our society.
That made it more normal for lack of a better term. Therefore,
more people got involved and interested and became serious researchers.
(15:54):
But have we passed that point? What are your thoughts? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (15:59):
I mean, that's a great point. I will give the
TV shows that credit.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
For sure.
Speaker 4 (16:04):
Their exposure has certainly gotten people interested in the paranormal.
You know, I have people that attend my events that
watch you know, Ghost Adventures and all those classic shows. Certainly,
it also makes people aware of the technology because when
I'm talking to people and doing an educational component, you know,
(16:24):
they know what a rempod is, they know what the
K two meter is, and all that is, you know,
thanks to television. So it certainly has its positives. You know,
some of the negatives is that it is.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
What I call para entertainment. A lot of it is
you know, hyped up.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
The fact that they investigate in the dark. For example,
the Side of Psychical Research, which is our first ever
kind of ghost hunting group that was started back in
eighteen eighty two. You know, they've studied thousands and thousands
of cases and they've been able to determine that ghosts
can appear at any point in time, whether lights are on,
lights are off, indoors, outdoor, snowstorm, sunny Florida weather, it
(17:06):
doesn't matter. So on TV you'll see them shoot in
night vision quite a bit just for their dramatics. I
also know that they like tools like the K two
meter because it's got lights on it and it looks
good on TV. So there are you know, certain things
that they do just for entertainment purposes, which I do
think is a negative thing for serious people like yourself
(17:26):
and I.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
So do we champion it or do we do we
champion getting them off the air? If what do you
think it's?
Speaker 4 (17:40):
You know, it's it's really interesting. I know a lot
of people that I've spoke to, they kind of know
that it's for entertainment.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
You know.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
When I do our public ghost ons, I do incorporate
an educational component to it, and I always ask people,
you know, how many people think what you see on
TV is real?
Speaker 3 (17:57):
And either no one raises her hand because it don't wanna.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
They don't want to look stupid, I guess, or most
most people are aware that it's it's a little bit different.
So we even started having people towards the end of
our public ghost and start to listen to some of
the audio that's been recorded that evening, just to show them,
you know, what our videographer and photographer and audio engineer
would have to go through later on when they're sifting
through all that data just to kind of give them
(18:22):
a taste of, you know, what it's really like to
be a paranormal investigator.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
And that's been my experience. Also, I've talked to folks
beginning of a tours, my historical tours. Do you understand
that TV shows are for entertainment? Now, there's some decent
people out there, We've got to keep that in mind.
There's some folks that have been on TV. They're they're decent, honest,
sincere folks. I don't think there's anything doubt about that.
But TV is for entertainment, but it also has given
(18:49):
rise to this for profit. Uh, the situation the conjuring house.
I won't even mention some of the other places, but
a lot of things the mental health, asyle, prisons, things
like that. Yeah, can can those the exploitation of that building.
(19:09):
We'll just use that term be helpful to them in
their upkeep though? Is that a positive?
Speaker 4 (19:15):
I think some of them could be for sure if
they used it for that. Like you said, prisons are
another one. There's one around here called the Dorchester Jail,
which is kind of an airbnb. You can rent it out.
Your room is actually an old cell. You know, I
filmed there for the television show Repossessed. They called me
(19:38):
in to do an expert opinion on the show, and
you know, very cool spot and it's reasonably priced. But again,
I guess it depends on what you're into. So my organization,
we don't go out and proactively investigate. So I don't
call up our local museum and ask to go there
and investigate. We're strictly a reactive organization, so usually we
(20:01):
get about seven to twelve cases per year. Somebody reaches
out looking consistence, we don't charge them for anything. That's
why I do all my fundraising throughout the year so
that it doesn't cost the client any money. And you know, there's.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
I don't think I would pay, you know, one thousand
dollars to have my team go and spend the night
at a Lizzie Borden house or a conjuring house or
anything like that. I just don't think it's worth worth
it research wise, investigation wise, it's a lot of money
to spend when you're a nonprofit organization and everyone's doing
this on a volunteer basis exactly.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
And part of what we do is also to fund
those types of things too. I guess the reason why
I've gone down this line of questioning is I've come
to find that going to those places really tend to
be I don't want to say a waste of time,
but I get more out of a small little spot
that somebody has had a problem that we go in
(20:59):
and take a look at. I've had more activity there.
I've uncovered more evidence in spots like that than I
have like the Stanley Hotel, just to use an example
which leads to this question. Places that are investigated a lot,
can they be, for lack of a better term, fished out.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
I think certain cases are, you know, like for the
Conjuring Home, there's been homeowners that have lived there that
have gone on the record saying that they haven't experienced
anything paranormal. Perhaps when the parent family did reside there,
they were experiencing phenomena, but it doesn't seem to be,
you know, the case anymore. I always laugh as well
(21:42):
at what tools people are using, and I find when
they start using like the applications on the phone, or
a lot of the gear that you can buy online
that's marketed to ghost hunters, they're always getting results. But
when we go in and we use the gear properly,
such as you know, a high quality electromagnetic field radiation detector,
(22:04):
a flur thermal camera, you know, high quality recorders with
no software and no applications, you usually come out of
those places with a lot less We have cock stuff,
but it's not as frequently as when people are using
all the gimmicks. And when you actually read the manual
and go through the descriptors on it, a lot of
(22:26):
it will say entertainment purposes only.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Especially the phone apps, which is a whole whole different subject.
Do you also find that many people use in the
equipment can't really can't really even describe the theory behind
its use or what the how they're getting the evidence.
They they just they don't understand it. Do you find
that at all?
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Yeah? For sure.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
Actually I was just in thunder Bay at a paranormal
convention and they did a public ghost on.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
One of the first things I noticed was the lights
were off.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
So I had asked, you know, the lead organizers if
they investigate put the lights out, and they said sometimes
they do, sometimes they don't. And then I was in
the room trying to charge my laptop because it had died.
I was using it all day at the conference and
I couldn't get it to charge and I tried every
jack and I'm like, oh, this is weird. So I
went out and talked to one of the museum members
(23:19):
and they told me that they had turned the breaker
off and I said, okay, and then they're like, I
could turn it back on, but it won't be you know,
it's a ghost hunt, it won't be spooky or whatever.
So there's a lot of people that do you know
these ghost hunts, and they spoofed them up like that,
like keeping the lights out and stuff.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
So I gave a very educational lecture.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
I told, you know, every group that would come visit
me that there's no reason to investigate in the dark,
and I explained what the equipment is, and I was
actually very impressed. All the four groups that cycle through me.
I asked them if they know who uses an EMF
reader in real life besides ghost hunters, and each group
there was somebody in there that knew that it was
(23:58):
a tool used by electricians to look for unshielded and
ungrounded wires.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
And I was very impressed by that.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Well, and that shows people taking time to read and study.
So that's that's excellent because that's the one thing that
I've had in my experience. People really oh, they know
the lights come on, and that supposedly means there's activity,
but they can't tell me why the lights go on.
So that's that's very interesting. One thing. I I'm kind
of another side of it, dowsing rocks. People have been
(24:28):
using those for generations to find water, and I've actually
had not only well diggers on my tour said oh yeah,
we use them still today to find water. I've actually
had electricians say, yep, I use dowsing wires rods to
find wires and walls. So that's the other side of
it also, I guess right.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Oh absolutely.
Speaker 4 (24:48):
I just I did a presentation actually at thunder Bay
and it was called Law Enforcement and the Paranormal, and
ironically I talked a little bit about dows Like you said,
it's also known as witching, but diamond mind companies and
mineral companies use them. Oil companies use them as well.
(25:10):
And there was actually a case in the state of
Georgia where dowsing was actually admitted as evidence. I detective
that testified to finding bones from a missing Girl, and
he explained how it works and actually did a demonstration
in court and the evidence was actually accepted, and I
(25:30):
played that clip there at the thunder Bay Paranormal Convention.
I told them, I said that this is very important
because the courts normally don't accept evidence from the paranormal
but in this case, dowsing was actually accepted as evidence.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Because you can actually describe a scientifically proven method to it.
And that's and that's what we've got to get to
what we have to get to to get our evidence
into the into the scientific world. Now, just before we
get our next break, you've got a really really neat
event coming up. I want to just touch on that.
(26:06):
We'll go to more detail on the other side of it,
but tell us what you've got coming up this weekend.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Next week is our third annual Halifax Paranormal Symposium. It
is our biggest one yet. So far, we have one
hundred and twenty out of two hundred seats sold, which
is phenomenal. This year, we introduced a Alexander Keys Brewery
ghost hunt. We're only the second organization to be granted
permission to investigate at Alexander Keith that was sold out,
(26:34):
and we're also doing psychic medium Laura Warren Live in
Halifax workshop as well, and that sold out as well.
So next year for our fourth conference, I'm actually looking
at expanding to two full days.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
Excellent, excellent. You mentioned mediums. You are a cop for
a long time. Did you use them when you were
on the job.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
No.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
There was one cold case that I reviewed when I
was up in Yellowknife and I did see a medium
tip come in there. It was completely inaccurate. It was
talking about a missing girl that was from the Northwest
Territories and that they saw sand dunes and cactuses. The
medium was from southern US, and of course in Canada Subarctic,
(27:23):
we don't have cactuses and sand dunes.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
You know. It was a complete opposite description.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
And how do you feel? What is your opinion of
mediums as a whole?
Speaker 4 (27:36):
You know what, I have a very good medium on
my team, Jody Russell. She has shown me time and
time again that she has the legitimate ability. She has
given us information that we were actually able to corroborate
multiple times and just absolutely phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Now, when I was on the job, I would have
medium's call on homicide instigations giving information. Nothing ever panned out.
Excuse me. I had a very very negative view of
it until I met a couple that actually a couple
of different ones that actually changed my mind on it.
So I was wondering about that, And you're going to
have this person at your event. Also, they're going to
(28:17):
be doing I know they're doing private sessions, but are
they going to talk to the crowd at all about
what they do?
Speaker 4 (28:23):
Yeah, So in the workshop, I've asked Laura Warren to
do a like a group reading for two hours, so
it was limited to forty people. She probably won't get
to read all forty people, but she'll get to do.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Quite a few. People always find her really interesting.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
I had her as a guest speaker last year talking
about her mediumship abilities, and she was one of the
favorite guest speakers.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
So excellent. Well, we're going to talk more about your
symposium as a whole right on the other side after
this break, so folks stay with us. Elliot Van Dus
and my guest tonight seeing just a couple. You know,
(29:27):
I'm sitting here during the break, Elliott thinking, you know,
there are just so many things I want to talk
with you about. There's just there's such a huge variety
of things I would like to go over with you,
and we've just got this this short little hour, so
we're gonna have to do this again in the now.
I want to get into a couple of those other
different topics, but really I want to spend a little
(29:48):
bit of time now talking getting really into this symposium.
You've told us a little bit about who you're going
to have there, but I'd like to hear more about
the setup. I'd like to see to know what it
is your hoping to accomplish by giving this presentation. What
are you what are you looking to do to help
the field.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
Yeah, so there isn't many conferences of this type in Canada.
A lot of these happened down in.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
The United States.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
You know, there used to be some Bigfoot conferences out
in British Columbia. We do have the sag Harbor UFO
Expo here in Nova Scotia that's going into thirteenth fourteenth year.
They just started going to a hotel about four years ago,
so they just kind of, you know, kind of up
their game, so to speak. But they only deal with
UFOs and extraterrestrials. Whereas I try and bring in different
(30:41):
topics every year from all the fields, so not just
parapsychology ufology, but any anomalous phenomena. So you know, this
year we have a whole range of topics. Doctor Jannet
Greenberg's coming from San Diego to talk to us about
ancient astronauts or aliens. We have Tony Rath been coming
to talk to us about electronic voice phenomena and talk
(31:04):
about his ITC research with the program and device that
he's created called staticcom where he believes you can communicate
with the dead in real time. He did do a
private session with doctor Yanna and I once and we
were asking questions about the afterlife and we weren't getting
any responses that we were hoping for, but I just
(31:25):
threw it out there. I said to Yana, why don't
you start speaking Russian and see what happens. And when
she started speaking Russian, the voices on the other end
started to make fun of the Russian language and Russians,
and doctor Yanna is very proud of her Russian heritage,
so she was kind of offended, but it was kind
of funny and it was interesting that the conversation became.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
Relevant, and.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
He'll be doing a live demonstration after lunch where we're
gonna pick different people from the audience. He'll have five
minutes to come up on stage and ask whatever questions
they want. I have seen other videos that they produced
where deceased loved ones have come forward and people have
gotten meaningful responses.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
So I'll be curious.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
It'll be like a live experimentation at the symposium this year.
Then after lunch, we'll have Natalie Jones from the CEO
of Paraflex, coming to talk to us about energy work
and awakening the higher self. We'll have Brian Baker, who's
a journalist coming from Toronto to talk to us about
cryptozoology and some of the very unique stories that he's
(32:31):
covered over over the years. And last, but not least,
we'll have one of our own investigators, Pierre Philitrow, who
has an interest in Ouiji boards, to talk to us
about the history of the Ouigi board some of the
fallacies about them, and I think that'll be very interesting
as well.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
And you're expecting a big crowd, I guess right.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
Yeah, So this is our best year so far. I
think our first year when we launched, we had one
hundred and three attendees. Last year it dropped off a
little bit, we had ninety nine and this year right
now we're sitting at one hundred and twenty, so it's
our biggest year yet. Plus we added the two workshops
which sold out. So yeah, we're we're looking forward to
a to a big year this year.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
And folks still get tickets to the event.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
Yes they can.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
They are available on event bright that's the easiest way
to find us. But you can also go to our
website as well ppri dot nes slash tickets and that'll
bring you directly to the event right website. Like I said,
there's about eighty seats left I think for general mission,
and our other workshops are sold out already, So sounds
(33:40):
like you've gotten a huge bit of interest this year.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
That's excellent.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Yeah, what do you.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
What do you want to accomplish? What is what is
the reason you're doing this?
Speaker 4 (33:52):
Yeah, so, like I said, we wanted to bring back
a conference like this to Canada because we don't really
have anything.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
We've actually become the biggest.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
Paranormal conference or convention symposium in Atlantic Canada that no
one else does anything quite like this, So that's something
to be very proud of. But one thing that I've
really taken pride in this is I always get people
comment about when they're in the crowd and they look
around and they see all the other people that have
(34:21):
the same interest as them, they don't feel like an outcast.
They feel very included, and they feel like they're part
of a community that they didn't really know existed.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
So I love hearing about that.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
Certainly, there is still some stigma out there about the
paranormal and different topics like UFOs and extraterrestrials and all
that stuff, but it has gotten better since even when
I started investigating twenty eight years ago. But of course
there's still a bit of a stigma out there. So
I think people feel safe coming to our symposium and
(34:55):
being able to just be who they are and open
discussion and ask questions and not feel ridiculed or ashamed.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
And I've seen conferences like that well. People They've had
actually workshops where people who present evidence they had themselves,
and people would sit upon high on the d is
looking at their evidence and determining whether or not it
was real, and actually sometimes it was downright insulting to
people you know, folks just want to know. But are
you wanting to educate folks in the field. Are you
(35:28):
wanting to open it up and get people to open
their minds a little bit more become part of it.
What do you think it's your priority here?
Speaker 4 (35:37):
Yeah, certainly all of that really, you know, even skeptics.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
It's funny.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
You can talk to somebody and they might not believe
in ghosts, but the minute you start telling them about
one of the investigations you were on where you caught
something what happens, they go quiet and they listen very intently,
even just the story. They might not necessarily believe it
by the time you're done telling the story, but in
the story itself captures their attention. Even a skeptic can't
help but listen to a good story. So I think
(36:06):
we get, you know, a mix of people, and we've
kind of designed it so that it's a mix of
education but also.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Some entertainment as well.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
Because you can't be too highly academic, I find you
start to lose people. And even academics are starting to
realize that now instead of talking you know, boring peer
reviewed journal language, they're trying to just speak in layman's
terms now, and I think people really appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Well. I was at a conference recently, I won't say where,
a good conference, and there was a gentleman presenting a
topic and he was brilliant, he really was. But after
a while, nobody knew what he was talking about because
he got so deep into the weed. So I understand
exactly what you're talking about, and it's difficult. You've got
You've got to make it at a little for everybody
(36:54):
that to jump in. So I totally get it. You
said something a little interesting a minute ago.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
Though.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
You talked about taking away the stigma when you first
came on the job. And I don't know if you
had any experiences while you run duty, ever, but I
know what I came on. You may talk to your
own partner about it, or the guy you're working with,
our guy you worked with, but you didn't talk about
it any time after that because you'd be afraid the
(37:20):
boss would send you for a psych email. It's different now,
it's different now, But how how have you did you
experience that at all back in your early days?
Speaker 4 (37:28):
Oh god, yeah, I'm pretty much like my fictional hero
Fox Molder, where his FBI colleagues were always making fun
of him about little green men. You know, I'd have
people tape pro Tom packs to my locker. I had
people fill out requisition quits and our acquisition forms and
(37:49):
put it on the staff sergeant's desk asking for a
pro Tom pack for me. Different things like that.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
It was funny.
Speaker 4 (37:56):
I actually got called in the staff surgeon's office once
about being involved in this, and I was kind of
getting obsessed at this point, and I said, you guys,
do realize like our organization, the RCNP used to actually
investigate UFOs.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Right, And they said, well, what do you mean.
Speaker 4 (38:11):
I'm like, well, I said, I have all the files
at home from the sixties, seventies, and eighties the RCNP
used to investigate UFOs.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
There was a very strict process.
Speaker 4 (38:23):
You had to notify Department and National Defense anytime a
UFO seting came in. You know, I've got hundreds and
hundreds of RCMP documents from when we used to investigate UFOs.
They had no idea, So I always found that ironic.
And then when I wrote my two books dealing with
just with law enforcement and the paranormal, it was interesting
(38:47):
because I had a lot of people in the parapsychological
community contact me and say, how.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Did you get these people to talk to you? We
can never get cops to.
Speaker 4 (38:54):
Tell us their paranormal experiences, I said, to be honest
with you, I said, I don't know. I don't know
if it's just they trusted me because I was a
member of the law enforcement community and a paranormal investigator.
But I said, I just started by reaching out to
people I knew, asking if they had any experiences. And
next thing I know, I had sheriffs, military personnel, ERCNP officers,
city police officers telling me their ghost stories, UFO stories,
(39:16):
near death experiences, everything. And I managed to collect over
a hundred stories that might not have been told if
I hadn't have reached out, collected them and published them.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Who do you think, And I'm going to start calling
you fox fanduism by the way, it's gonna fit you.
But do you think going back to the what I
mentioned earlier about the TV show is bringing this more
into the forefront? Do you think that helped folks in
our community maybe feel more comfortable.
Speaker 4 (39:48):
Yeah, for sure, I think it's kind of normalized it.
I mean, everyone has a good ghost story that they've
heard or that's been passed down to them. Everyone's heard
about local superstition and local folklore, so it's certainly something
that's very prevalent. I think humans just in general like
a good mystery.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
And I think that's a big part of this also way.
And we're also still questioning what actually happens after we're gone.
I mean, I know from the experiences you and I've
talked about that we've both had, there's something that's going on.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
But yeah, I mean, one of my favorite quotes was
from doctor Sampirina, who's a medical doctor at New York University,
and he said that he can empirically say that he
knows human consciousness can survive our physical body after death
for at least two hours. And he knows that from
the studies that he's done where he's brought back people
that have died and they resuscitate them and they asked
(40:44):
them a series of questions and they're able to corroborate
some of the information that they've given, so he knows
that somebody has died and their body, their spirits has
walked around that hospital and seen things that they wouldn't
have been able to see because they were bedridden or
they weren't able to make it up to the roof,
and they knew exactly which lights were burnt out on
the roof.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
So he said he can empirically say.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
He knows human conscious can stay outside the physical body
for at least two hours after death. Now what happens
after that, he said, would only be speculation for him.
But that's where you and I come in, and we
do our investigations and sometimes, you know, you collect some
pretty amazing evidence.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
I actually had a doctor I was on a tour.
It was one of those tours where his wife brought
him and I didn't think he wanted to be there,
just by his demeanor. And then after the tour he
pulled me aside to say he was a me our
doctor during his residency and actually experienced something where a
guy should have died but didn't. But then came back
later and asked who this other doctor was, and how
(41:42):
could you know that doctor? You were completely out of
it while I was sitting up in the corner of
the room looking down, and this very very educated man said,
there's no way the guy could have known that. So
just interesting stories like that, you can't say that it
just doesn't exist. The question is what exactly is it?
So exactly what do you think the phenomenon is? You
(42:05):
got an opinion your do you have a philosophy that
you can share with us what you think this whole
thing is.
Speaker 4 (42:11):
I think there's different types, Like, certainly I think that
you can die and your human consciousness and personality survives
outside of the body, and for whatever reason, you've either
chosen to stay behind on our physical realm, or perhaps
you didn't know that you were dead. We hear that
from medium sometimes they're talking to a spirit and for
(42:32):
some reason they don't know that they're dead. Some are
our residual hauntings. Obviously, those are like your video recordings,
where it's not an intelligent haunting, it's just energy trapped
in the environment that replays over and over again based
on certain environmental circumstances. And then we know that there's
some things in the internatural world that can cause us
(42:54):
to experience a haunting.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
Carbon monoxide is one.
Speaker 4 (42:57):
There was a case in two thousand and two where
a lady showering female apparition appeared in the shower. She
called her local paranormal team. They were smart they did
an environmental assessment. Bandaccia had a hot water tank that
was improperly installed, so she was actually suffering from carbon
monoxide poisoning. And then we know from great Canadians like
doctor Michael Persinger that EMF I got a cause.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
Yeah, and that we're going to talk about that too,
but we've got to take our last break. Heck to
cut you off, Elliott right right when we're getting into something.
But folks, stay with us. We'll be back right after
this break man. This hour has gone fast, always does,
always does. Listen. We were talking about something really interesting
that when I had to cut you off, and you
were talking about people that have experiences where there's high
(43:44):
levels of MF, which we all know can mess with
your head. The lady in the shower with the carbon monoxide.
All good points and easy to say that you know
that's what's causing it. But let me toss this out
to you. Is it possible that, while yes, both the
EMF and the carbon monoxide create illusions in the head,
(44:06):
is it possible that also creates an opening for whatever
it is to contact us that maybe it isn't so
much a hallucination as it is just an opening that's
been made because of that phenomenon. Does that make sense?
Speaker 4 (44:23):
EMF can for sure, certainly. One other thing that doctor
Michael Persinger found is that it started to help people
open up their psychic abilities. And once he passed away,
the patent ended up being shipped around and you can
actually buy basically a home version of what he called
(44:44):
the god helmet. So in his laboratory he used a
snowmobile helmet that he modified with electrodes, found research participants
and exposed in the high amounts of EMF, and that's
where he found that it opened up psychic abilities and
then at a certain level caused them to experience haunt
and characteristics such as feeling watched, seeing apparitions, hearing auditory hallucinations,
(45:05):
and if you were religious, some people actually reported seeing
the Virgin Mary show up in his laboratory. But you
can buy the Sheer helmet. It's called online and you
can use it to try and open up your your
psychic abilities.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
We do have one. We haven't played around with it yet.
Speaker 4 (45:24):
I always threaten to put it on my colleague Darryl
Walsh and watch them crank it up and watch them
pee his pants.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
But we haven't that we haven't tried it out yet.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
But once again getting back to that the phenomenon itself,
it's it's really easy for us to say it's your
mind causing this hallucination. But I think you'll agree that
the ability of our own mind has not been fully explored.
We do not know all of its capabilities. So is
(45:58):
it possible even with the EMF or the carbon monoxide
that you were talking about, isn't it possible that it
could be opening up conduit to the other side drugs?
Let's let's talk about a little bit the mk Ultra
experiments and what they did and a lot of that
led to the remote viewing that that was all part
(46:22):
of that project. Is it possible that there are ways
to modify our brain that it's not show that it's
not an illusion, it's not a hallucined as a hallucination,
I can't talk, but actually a conduit to the other side.
Is that possible?
Speaker 4 (46:39):
Elliott, Well, there has been lots of research done on
altered states of consciousness, and that is so vague. You
and I could have a cup of coffee right now.
We've altered our state of consciousness, you know for us,
you know, it makes us alert other people, you know,
they might have a negative reaction to caffeine. But there's
(47:00):
lots of different things you can do to kind of
alter your state of consciousness. And of course the more
common environment you're in and the lower your anxiety and
your thought process and almost meditation level. They have found
that it does again open up your site, your psychic site.
(47:22):
That's why things like the gans Felt. They use earphones
and they play either white or pink noise. They'll put
half ping pung balls over your eyes. They'll have a
nice red light, and they found people score above chance
for telepathy in the gans Felt when they're in a
more relaxed state like that. So certainly possible drugs as well.
(47:45):
Like you said, there's Shamans and different First Nation tribes
as well, certain substances in order to do meditation or
you know, open up their psychic abilities as well. So yeah,
there's there's there's so much in this field. It's it's
really unreal.
Speaker 2 (48:05):
What's it going to take then for an organization, your
organization or some other organization. Obviously there's got to be
some sort of financial backing, but to really start studying this,
I mean you you cannot argue what the first nations
are are Native Americans have used over the years to
enter that altered state and come up with answers to
(48:31):
get there.
Speaker 3 (48:32):
It is tough. I know.
Speaker 4 (48:34):
In the academic world there is not a lot of
funding for parapsychology. That's why a lot of professors will
mask their study though, you know, call it one thing,
but they're really kind of looking for something else in
the study, and then they kind of publish it into
parapsychological peer reviewed journals. But it's it's really interesting. I
(48:56):
can see why mainstream hard scientists, your physics and your
chemists and your biologist don't like the paranormal because it
doesn't operate on.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
The rules that we know scientific theory.
Speaker 4 (49:07):
It always happens when you least suspect it. You could
be a ghost center with all the gear and just
have to go use the washroom and something will happen
in the washroom and you don't have any of your
gear with you. It always happens when you least suspect it.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
And you can't repeat, repeat it.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
You can't repeat it right.
Speaker 3 (49:24):
You can't repeat it.
Speaker 4 (49:25):
We had a really interesting thing happened with the spirit
box SB eleven, which I don't believe in. It's not
a scientific instrument. All it does is scanned radio stations.
I gave it to two of my investigators. I said,
go ahead, go upstairs and use it if you want,
but you know, just know that I don't believe in it.
After seventy minutes, it came downstairs. I asked somehow it went,
(49:45):
and they said, actually, it was really interesting.
Speaker 3 (49:47):
I said, okay, what happened?
Speaker 4 (49:49):
They said that there was a time where it started
to say all their names, the homeowner and my two
investigators' names. And I didn't just say it once. It
said it multiple times. They provided me with the clip.
I listened to it over a seventy second time period.
It said the homeowner's name once, it said Scott my
photographer's name, four times, it said medium or Jody, my
(50:11):
medium name, three times, and when they would ask it
to repeat it, it would repeat their names. And so
I'm not a math guy. I'm your social scientist kind
of guy. So I had chat GPT run a statistical
analysis on it, and he said, over seventy minutes, you know,
it would have the chance to say each of their names,
probably once, but it's at over a seventy second period
(50:33):
where it said their name so many times, especially when
they asked it to repeat, would be one in billions,
if not more. And I actually presented that to the
forty third online Conference of the Society for Scientific Exploration
because I thought it was so fascinating.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
And see, those are just how does that happen? We
need to talk about a case that I'm working on
where I actually got a name over the spirit box
and at the same time my medium came up with
it through earphones so nobody could hear it. And then
we have a grave site. We have a grave site
to go with it.
Speaker 3 (51:11):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (51:12):
See stuff like that is how do you explain it?
Speaker 3 (51:15):
No, you can't. It's an anomaly.
Speaker 4 (51:17):
And when you try and repeat it, So we all
went upstairs after they told me that, tried to repeat
it and not one thing came across the spirit box.
Had another anomalous EMF hit in the same house from
a cast iron pot which does not give off electromagnetic radiation.
I lifted the lid off, the reading stopped. I put
the lid back on. We tried everything to try and
(51:37):
get it to replicate. Couldn't and I understand that hard
scientists don't like that, but unfortunately that's the way the
paranormal works.
Speaker 2 (51:46):
And maybe the time is coming for us to convince
or work towards convincing the scientific community that maybe there's
other ways to do this because saying you just you
can't do it because it doesn't necessarily cut it anymore.
Which leads me into this next question right here for you, UFOs, ghosts,
(52:09):
and encryptids. Are they connected in your opinion?
Speaker 4 (52:13):
You know what, Sometimes sometimes I think they they could be.
I was just we were talking about portals there the
other day, and you know a lot of people in
cryptozoology are kind of leaning towards the fact that perhaps
Bigfoot somehow is an intertmensional being, because we can't seem
to find this guy, but there's thousands of people that
(52:34):
have seen him.
Speaker 3 (52:35):
Same with UFOs. I've seen some.
Speaker 4 (52:37):
UFO videos where it shoots up into the atmosphere, But
then there are some UFO videos where it's just gone
in a blink of light. Is it going through some
sort of portal or tele teleportation because it's not shooting
up in the atmosphere, it's just gone.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
Well, the first time I had heard about. It was
an individual told me that they had a house that
was haunted, and then they later saw a UFO the
size of a football field, I believe, passing over their
house and they were convinced that it was connected. And
I initially thought, how bogus does that? Still do actually,
but I'm hearing more and more about there's a connection
(53:17):
dimensional connection our cryptids, our UFOs, our ghost dimensions. I mean,
when you think about it, one theory is that the
ghost that you see is just the merging, the temporary
merging of two dimensions.
Speaker 3 (53:31):
Yeah. No, yeah, no, for sure.
Speaker 4 (53:33):
I think it's a possibility, and it's obviously something that
we're still working on. And I do like the fact
that quantum physicists are starting to kind of do paranormal
studies because they're really on the fringe of science looking
at very extreme things. But I can almost see in
the future quantum physicists working hand in hand with academics
(53:54):
that study parapsychology and other anomalist phenomena.
Speaker 2 (53:58):
I agree, and I'm thinking, I'm hoping that's the way
we go to trying to come together with the scientific
community to find out the answers to say that nothing
is going on is as bad as or saying that
it can't happen, as bad as hearing one bump in
the middle of the night and saying it's a ghost
for sure, the answers in the middle, something is happening.
(54:18):
But in our last couple of minutes together, Elliott, I'd
like you to once again tell us how folks can
find out about the symposium. I'd like to know about
some of your books and where folks can find them,
And go ahead, tell us a little bit about your
books and symposium.
Speaker 4 (54:32):
And yeah, so I've written three books. My first one
was Evil in Exeter. It was about a home investigation
in Exeter, Rhode Island. A second book was called Supernatural
Encounters True Paranormal Accounts from Law Enforcement, where I collected
over fifty stories from law enforcement that are all true.
And then, of course once that came out and I
started doing podcasts and interviews, I had more law enforcement
(54:56):
contact with more stories, so that one's called More Supernatural
Encounters from Law Enforcement. And all three books are available
on Amazon dot Com and Amazon dot CA. The best
way to get in touch with me and find out
about my organization or the symposium is go to our
website at ppr I dot net.
Speaker 3 (55:16):
Take a look through it.
Speaker 4 (55:17):
It's very very cool website that my business partner, Spencer
Collier designed. You'll see under events. The Halifax Paranormal Symposium
has its own link. We also have resources on there.
I list out different academic studies such as, you know,
why we look at temperature changes, why we look at
EMF readings in the hauntings. There's a contact US form
(55:41):
and we even have our new UAP section. So anyone
out there listening that has had a UFO siting in
Atlantic Canada or the New England area and they have
never reported it to an agency, we take those reports
and we share it with other ufologists. So we do
have a UFO reporting form for anyone that has not
previously reported a UFO siting.
Speaker 2 (56:04):
Now, what made you guys decide to head in that direction? Also?
Speaker 4 (56:10):
I realized after going to the shake Herber UFO expo
about two years ago, that we don't get many UFO
cases anymore, and I wondered why, And then I went
to our website and I saw that it was kind
of heavily geared towards parapsychology, which is a scientific study
of extrasensory perception or psychic abilities, mind matter interaction or
psychokinesis and survival. And so I really changed our mission
(56:33):
statement to say that, you know, we investigate all an
anomalous phenomena and that UFOs are part of our culture.
We actually had merged many years ago with the New
England UFO Investigative Group, so we do do UFO research.
Speaker 3 (56:50):
And when you ask people how many people have seen a.
Speaker 4 (56:53):
UFO, they put their hand up when you ask them
how many people reported it?
Speaker 3 (56:57):
Not many people.
Speaker 2 (56:59):
And see, this is why our conversations we've touched on
so many little things and they can go so much deeper,
so much farther. So we're going to have to do
this again. My friend, I want to thank you again
for joining us and folks, Elliot van Dus and check
out his website, check out his books. Definitely one of
the stars of the paranormal field. So once again, thanks
(57:22):
for being with us, and we will have you back
as we've got just so much more to talk about,
and folks, we'll see you again on the next episode
of Paranormal Stakeout. It's been a great night, thanks for
being with us. Folks, have a great night, and we'll
see you on the other side. Have a good night, folks.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders
Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders takes you back to 1983, when two teenagers were found murdered, execution-style, on a quiet Texas hill. What followed was decades of rumors, false leads, and a case that law enforcement could never seem to close. Now, veteran investigative journalist M. William Phelps reopens the file — uncovering new witnesses, hidden evidence, and a shocking web of deaths that may all be connected. Over nine gripping episodes, Paper Ghosts: The Texas Teen Murders unravels a story 42 years in the making… and asks the question: who’s really been hiding the truth?
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com