Ep.401 The Thing on the Balcony

Tonight, we welcome JJ from Southern Demonology, joining us from Virginia. His paranormal encounters began in an old Appalachian log cabin, but they did not end there. Tonight, JJ will take us from the shadowed mountains of Virginia to the mist-shrouded landscapes of Japan, sharing unsettling encounters from two very different cultures. Different countries, different beliefs, but perhaps the same unseen world waiting in the darkness.

Southern Demonology Podcast
https://www.youtube.com/southerndemonology

MORE ON THIS EPISODE
Visit the episode page for additional information, links and additional material:
https://ufochroniclespodcast.com/ep-401-the-thing-on-the-balcony/

SHARE YOUR ENCOUNTER
Have you witnessed a UFO, experienced something paranormal, or had an encounter you cannot explain?

You can share your experience or apply to be a guest on the podcast here:
https://ufochroniclespodcast.com/share-an-encounter/

SUPPORT UFO CHRONICLES PODCAST
If you enjoy the podcast and would like to help support the show:

Ko-fi:
https://ko-fi.com/ufochroniclespodcast

Patreon:
https://patreon.com/UFOChroniclespodcast

Podcast Merchandise:
https://www.teepublic.com/user/ufo-chronicles-podcast

Follow and subscribe on X:
https://x.com/UFOchronpodcast/

All podcast links:
https://linktr.ee/UFOChroniclesPodcast

Thank you for listening and supporting UFO Chronicles Podcast.

If you enjoy the show, please follow, rate and share the podcast. Sharing episodes on social media helps the show reach new listeners and, importantly, more witnesses with experiences to tell.

Keep Watching The Skies.


Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/ufo-chronicles-podcast--3395068/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You'll be away five seventeen.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Do you want to report a UFO hanging in?

Speaker 3 (00:05):
We don't want to report every thirty one. Do you
wish to.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Report a UFO over hey, we want to one of.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
Those areas thirty one.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Do you wish to find a report of any kind
of it?

Speaker 1 (00:18):
I wouldn't know what kind of reports clouds.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Time areas thirty one me neither there were self. If
it was anybody a h above us to pass us,
Like thirty seconds ago, we were sending one top of
golf negative, okay, off fi the UFO. Yeah, it's murder
ten nine o'clock. Yes, I'll passed over, I go. I

(00:43):
don't know what it was, but it's from at least
to three thousand feet above us. See, I passed right
over the top of US.

Speaker 4 (00:51):
Ninety one one.

Speaker 5 (00:53):
You just called up to me before.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
They're after staying the airplanes?

Speaker 1 (01:00):
He is, I where to god more? Calm in on
an unidentified object every Liberty four call or calm on
an unidentified flying object?

Speaker 5 (01:13):
All Welcome to UFO Chronicles, a place where people share
their experiences of the strange and unexplained. If you've had
an encounter, I would like to be on the show.
You can email me at UFO Chronicles at gmail dot com.

Speaker 4 (01:48):
Hello everyone, and welcome once again. I'm Nick Hunter and
you're listening to the UFO Chronicles podcast. Tonight, we welcome JJ,
creator and host of the seventy monology podcast, joining us
from the state of Virginia. His paranormal encounters began in
an old Appalachian log cabin in Tennessee, but it didn't

(02:09):
end there. Tonight, JJ will take us from the shadowy
mountains of Appalachia to the misshrouded landscapes of Japan, sharing
unsettling encounters from two different cultures, different countries, different beliefs,
and perhaps the same unseen world waiting in the darkness.
JJ is up next, but first, if you enjoy a

(02:30):
show and you would like to help support the podcast
on Patreon, you can do this for as little as
one dollar a month. Head on over to patreon dot
com forward slash UFO Chronicles podcast. You can also find
a link in the description of this episode. Any help
is very much appreciated. Now on with the show. Hello, JJ,

(03:03):
Welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
Thank you very much, and the pleasure to be here. JJ.

Speaker 4 (03:09):
The pleasure is all mine and you're coming to us
from the state of Virginia.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
I am indeed big shout.

Speaker 4 (03:17):
To our listeners in Virginia, which we do have a few. Now, JJ,
you have few experiences you're going to be sharing with
us tonight. Would you like to start the beginning, please, sir?

Speaker 3 (03:28):
Sure, I'd be more than happy to So. I grew
up in I think you can only refer to it
as a haunted house. It may be more appropriately described
as a cursed piece of land. I grew up in
the smallest town in the state of Tennessee. Almost every

(03:53):
single property has its own lore and legends and ghost stories,
and mine was no different. In fact, we had Native
American burial mounds that surrounded our property. Weird things happened.

(04:15):
But I grew up in a log cabin that was
around more than two hundred years old. It was not
built at the same place. It was originally way back
in the haller, and then they brought it forth to
be near the road. In fact, it was kind of

(04:36):
the mirror opposite of what my grandma's sister had, which
was just one hill over in our next door neighbors.
But in that house, my family has a very long
history of ghost stories that also doubled as protection myths.

(05:02):
I guess you could describe it. And I grew up
listening to all of these ghost stories and the associated like,
this is what you do in this situation, This is
what you do in this situation to protect yourself, and
became fascinated with them, and in fact, I was kind
of the unofficial storyteller of my entire class. Some of

(05:27):
them liked it, most of them probably did not, but
I did not have the self awareness to actually know that.
But be that as it may, so, I you know,
every time you would go down this one particular hollow,
then there would be all of these stories around. You know, Oh,
this spirit gets into the car in the middle of

(05:49):
the night, and always make sure that you pay attention
to your back seat to oh, you know, this is
a former slave plantation, and you can hear the chains
rattling about if you happened to go near it. Things
of that nature. But in the house I grew up
in our family had a spirit that we affectionately called Patrick.

(06:12):
And Patrick would love to play various games. For example,
like our upstairs you could it was just a wooden
door that was held closed by a wooden pin that
you would lot into place, and if you walked up there,
then half the time you would see a body in

(06:33):
print laying on the mattress that was up there. Very common.
You would have all of the doors closed, all the
windows closed, so there's no air tunnel whatsoever, and the
attic door would just open on its own, and then
it would close on its own, and it would keep
repeating that over and over again. Nothing major, but you know,

(06:58):
we've had a lot of store worries in our family,
of warnings that have been taking place if someone was
in a major accident, et cetera. But that's how I
grew up, and it left me hungry for other ghost

(07:18):
stories and other things, and I think that's what kind
of shaped my interest in the past. And so I
became interested in ancient languages when I was in college
and started studying Second Temple Judaism, and then that ran

(07:39):
me down the path of angelology and demonology, which I
found absolutely fascinating. And so all of those interests kind
of combined into what I now, you know, have been
researching and publishing episodes about for quite a while. But

(08:01):
in terms of some of the experiences that I've had
that I think would be the most relevant. There's a few.
When I was a kid, we would I would often
play with our front door neighbors. They were the kids
that lived directly in front of us, across the road,

(08:21):
and it was right near Halloween. It was maybe like
a day or two before Halloween, and we would do
this thing called fright Nights where I would dress up
all the white towels and I would have them rubber
banded around me and we'd go over and it was
just a modified version of hide and seek. It was

(08:42):
two They had two kids. One that was a boy
that was a year younger than I and we were
good friends. And then he had a sister who was
I think two years older than I was, or three years.
And then they also had a couple of adopted kids
that would run and they were, you know, a good
six or seven years below. All of us went over

(09:06):
there to play hide and seek and chase them around.
It got a full night fell and I couldn't find anybody,
and I'm like, well, this is weird. So I went
around to the back of their house and was looking around,
and then I looked off into the woods. So their

(09:28):
house was right next to a very large parcel of
woods that they call the colons. And it's called the
colons because, just like the body part, it has a
lot of holes everywhere, and it's not been uncommon for
people to go back there hunting or doing whatever and

(09:51):
falling into a hole and breaking their legs. So they
have it all gated off so that kid can't go wandering,
et cetera. So I look past this gated area off
into the woods and I saw a white figure, solid white,
almost blowing. The only thing that my brain could think

(10:12):
of was that, oh, that must be the eldest daughter,
because it was a very slim figure, and she was
very tall and thin, so I thought, oh, that must
be her. Not but I had like goose pimples all
over my arms, but I just kind of chalked it
up to, well, that's the only rational explanation that my

(10:34):
mind could come up with. I then walked into the
basement and there the entire family was, even the parents
laughing at me because I had been outside for fifteen
or twenty minutes, aimlessly wandering around trying to find these
kids in the dark. And then I realized, Oh, the

(10:56):
eldest daughter sitting right there in that chair. What was
out there? And then my mind came upon the realization
that it was nobody in this room. They couldn't have
been out there because it was a good you know,
five hundred yards down a dirt path. There's no way

(11:16):
they could have beat me into this room. That must
have been a ghost or something. I don't know what.
All I know is that was radiating a glow, which
my mind kind of thought initially that it must be
moonlight reflecting off from their skin. But there's no way
that could happen. So I never played fright night with

(11:40):
them again like that, and if I did go over there,
it was only during the day. And that was kind
of my first brush with something that I would say
would be truly paranormal in nature. I've had others throughout
my life, but I think that the one that to

(12:02):
this day still scares the ever ever living crap out
of me would be my experience in Tokyo. So in
October of twenty eleven, just a few short months after
the three eleven major incident up with Fukuchima Daichi in Japan,

(12:28):
I went over there to live for business purposes, and
we were in the heart of Tokyo, and we lived
in a furnished apartment that costs way too much for
me to ever like to have hoped to have lived
in if I was paying for it, but fortunately I wasn't.
I was up on the fifth floor this apartment, which

(12:51):
was very small, but it was like four hundred and
twenty square feet in nature, and it did have a
very large balcony and if you looked over toward the ground,
then you would see a large graveyard. Now in Japanese culture,

(13:11):
there's almost everyone believes in spirits, and I do too.
I've had too many experiences not to. But one of
the things in which is widely believed is you don't
go wandering near to a graveyard because it was easy
to attract spiritual presences and have them follow you back.

(13:35):
I grew up in graveyards like in the South where
I was from. Then we lived not just in the
Bible Belt, we lived in the Bible Belt Buckle, so
there's a church every mile and a half, and every
church has its own graveyards. And I come from a

(13:57):
very large family. I've got like fifty first just of
its own, So we have a lot of family and
they're buried all over the place, and most of the
churches did not have the capability of paying someone to
mow the upkeep the grounds, so usually my grandmother would

(14:18):
take that responsibility owned for our family graves, especially for
close family such as our you know, her parents or
et cetera. So almost every single weekend it was me,
my grandmother and her sister in her family would always

(14:39):
descend upon these graveyards to mow them out. So I've
grew up in graveyards. My very first remembrance is being
six years old and burying my own headstone that would
mark where my grave would be when I died. So
I have no fewer graveyards. So actually living in a

(15:00):
place to overlook the graveyard was rather comforting to me. Well,
that became not so true afterwards. So where we lived,
you could take all of these dark alleyways to get
to a more populated part of the city. Like in Japan,

(15:23):
everything is safe, so you know, if you like I
grew up in the US, so you know not to
walk down alleyways because you're just being bagged to get
mugged or killed or something else. In Japan you don't
have to worry about that. It could be three am,
nobody else around. It's you know, solid dark, and you're
still going to feel safe, and so I would often

(15:46):
walk right by this graveyard in order to go to
the don King, which is a major department store, and
grab things and then go back to my house. Well,
I must have attracted something or something just really wanted
my attention. I don't know which, but I was up late,

(16:08):
working extremely late. It was like maybe four or five
am in the morning, and I finally fall asleep on
my bed and I wake up to a thing on
the balcony. It was transparent, I couldn't really see it,

(16:32):
but it was banging on the glass doors, and it
kept saying one word over and over again. Hide, Hide,
Hide Hide. This thing desperately wanted to get into where
I was, and I was petrified because not only was

(16:56):
this the most frightening thing that I have ever witnessed,
but the sound from the fist banging to the actual
voice it's something that I have never experienced before or since,
because it was being pumped directly into the center of

(17:17):
my brain. It's the oddest feeling. I hope to never
encounter that sensation again. And suddenly I wake up on
my bed to an earthquake alarm going off on my cellphone.
But I remembered that word, and so I ran to
my Japanese English dictionary, looked it up, and sure enough,

(17:42):
hidu means to enter. This thing was demanding entry, and
I know that even if I had the capability, which
I did not because I was frozen in place to
actually allow this thing in, then I would not be
he to this day. And so from that point onward,

(18:04):
I kept two little bowls of purified salt right by
the balcony glass doors in order to help keep away
anything that may decide to come into play. The last
experience that I'll explain happened in Oki Gahata. So i've

(18:28):
you know, I've been a fan of ghost stories. I've
been a fan of the Japanese culture and language for
you know, up to that point. I started studying that
ten years before I ever went, and one of the
places that fascinated me was Oki Gahata. In Japanese, it

(18:49):
means the sea of trees, and it is the forest
that is at the base of Mount Fuji. It's around
thirty two kilometers some length. It's quite vast, and weird
things happened there, mainly because of the fact that it

(19:10):
is the second largest most popular suicide spot in the world,
right behind the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. People
will go there either alone or with They will travel
in groups that are looking to do the same thing.

(19:30):
Some of them will kill themselves immediately. Some people need
to camp out for a week or two or a
few days before they find the courage to take their
own lives. And before COVID, they would actually be like
monthly patrols through Oki Gahada to fine bodies, and then

(19:53):
after COVID it became like once every six months because
of safety concerns and manpower and all that kind of
good stuff. Well, I think this was in November of
twenty eleven. I convinced a few co workers to go
out there with me because I wanted to visit this place.

(20:13):
I read so much about it, heard so much about it.
I thought it would be a fantastic thing to go
check out, and so we did. We all piled into
a car and drove the three four hours to get
there with traffic, and we get there and there's a
couple of like lava and ice caves that have formed naturally,

(20:34):
and so you go visit them. And the first thing
I thought of when I saw these places was a
if they existed in the US, they would be sued
into oblivion on day one because they are dangerous, they're slippery.
In fact, there are all of these cardboard dioramas that
are put up around the place to showcase all of

(20:57):
the ways that you can injure yourself because they are dangerous,
but they're fascinating places. We toured like two of them,
and then we went to the forest itself. We parked
in a little parking lot and it was right next
to a major road, so you could hear all of
the traffic because it was a lot of traffic. But

(21:18):
the moment you cross into that tree line, these are
old trees. This is an ancient forest. It's reputed that
people would leave the ill or the elderly in this
forest in ancient times so that they would not be
a burden to the community. But the moment you cross

(21:40):
that tree line, it's just silence. And the first thing
that I noticed after the silence was a sound. It
was this like whoosh, whoosh. I couldn't explain this worse
of it, and I asked all of my friends that

(22:03):
were with me, and there's like four others with us, like,
do y'all hear that? And they're like, no, we don't
hear anything. To be completely honest, I am not like
sensitive by any stretch of the imagination. I don't commune
with spirits, nothing like that. So why I was the
only one to hear this, I have no idea whatsoever.

(22:26):
But the further we walked in, the more I heard
this sound, to the point where it was like every
danger sence I've ever had is like almost going off continuously.
So I tell my friends, I'm like, look, we got
to go back, and they're like, you're the one who

(22:47):
wanted to come here. Don't you want to go further
into the forest? And I went no, no, I do not.
So we snapped a few photos and then we hiked
the what the fifteen minutes back to the car, and
I wouldn't ever step foot into that forest again. Do
I know what it was that I heard?

Speaker 5 (23:04):
No?

Speaker 3 (23:05):
All I know is that something did not want me there,
and I am not going to tempt fate enough to
disagree with it.

Speaker 4 (23:15):
Thank you for sharing that, JJ. Yeah, that is a
tragic area in Japan. That on the side of the
mountain exactly. It is a very famous obviously with YouTube
now it has been made kind of even more famous.

Speaker 3 (23:29):
Oh, there's been so many horrible movies made about that area.
It's not even funny.

Speaker 4 (23:35):
Which I don't know. I think something like that is
a disrespectful you know. I always like to tread carefully
when it comes to the dead. When it comes to suicide,
obviously that's another level completely. But you said is an
ancient forest, But do you think it's an area of
energy that draws people in?

Speaker 3 (23:53):
There is definitely something there. I mean, there's a lot
of tails around Okigahata. They'll say that, oh, the ground
is pure volcanic glass, and so cell phones don't work.
That's not true. Cell phones work, Compasses can work, although
they can be spotty at times, so it's nothing like that.

(24:14):
But there is definitely something there that calls to people.
I don't know if it's just the same way that
a major bridge might be an obvious place to jump off,
but it's definitely a symbol of death, and I would
say that it's a well earned symbol of death.

Speaker 4 (24:36):
I know they have signs when people leave the car
park and you enter the forest. Yes, you know they're
trying to turp, but there's always been a drawf I'd
like to think that, you know, there are people which
go in and you know, they do spend some time there,
and then some people do go and camp, but spend
some time in the forest, and I like to think
some do have a change of heart and do leave.

Speaker 3 (24:57):
Yeah, some can, thankfully, But I mean there's a ton
of videos around this. But people will bring blue terrapin
sheets and make little camps out of it, and the
ones that do go through with that act, you will

(25:17):
still find the remnants of their camp, the things that
they brought, and it's just it's heartbreaking. I mean it's
not even something of sick fascination. It's just you see
these remnants of their life and you just feel heartbroken

(25:38):
for them. And yes, Japanese culture comes with a lot
of expectations. There's a lot of societal judgment that goes on,
and there's a lot of pressure to be a good
model citizen, to not bother others, and that can dry

(26:00):
people to their breaking point. Combined with a business culture
that expects you to dedicate your life to the job. Essentially,
there's a lot of various reasons as to why someone
may find themselves in that kind of a desperate spot.
But to see all that come together in this place,

(26:21):
which is yes, it's filled with you know, foresty goodness.
I mean, the trees are gigantic. It's a beautiful spot.
When the sun comes down and filters through the branches,
it feels like you're in a magical place. But there's
something just sinister about it to like, even though their

(26:42):
sun may be shining, like on the day that we went,
all you can see are the shadows, and I don't
know it. It grips you and will not let you go.

Speaker 4 (26:54):
Do you ever think when you're Japan you'll carry on
along those trails? Would you ever go back again?

Speaker 3 (26:59):
Oh? I would I go back to Japan at least
once a year for a month at a time. I
love Japan. I absolutely adore the people with the place.
You know, we have a house there, So I am
committed to being in Japan for as long as I
possibly can. But there are also aspects and things that

(27:24):
I simply do not do. Like, yes, there are these
ideas of power spots and paranormal investigators will try to
go to you don't see a whole bunch of that
in Japan, just because there's a severe difference between like
Western ghost stories in Eastern ghost stories, and when it

(27:47):
comes to the East, things usually wind up a good
bit more deadly than you would get in the western counterparts.
So you always take your life in your like for example,
when we were looking at places to purchase in Tokyo,

(28:08):
there is this one house that we went to and
I got weird vibes from the neighborhood itself, but the
moment we went into this house like, things are fine
up until the point when I got to the third floor,
which was the attic, and I opened the door to
that attic and there was something there that simply said

(28:31):
you will not be here. I didn't hear anything, but
every nerve ending on the back of my neck was like, no,
get the hell out, and so I did. I even
though I was wearing slippers that were like three sizes
too small for my American feet. I ran down the stairs,
I grabbed my wife, I told the real estate agent

(28:54):
we're getting out of here, and we left and he
was like, wh why did we leave so quickly? And
I'm like, Nope, there's something there, did not want me there,
and I am not arguing with it. He didn't like
he had seen some things. In fact, I did an
episode on stigmatized properties in Japan in which I relaid

(29:16):
some of the things that he told us. But yeah,
my wife didn't feel anything. He didn't feel anything. But
I don't know if it was just something that hated
Guiden or foreigners. I don't know, but uh, yeah, I
left there as quickly as I could.

Speaker 6 (29:38):
Do you have an interest in the parent normal did?
You'll love the unex network dot com. The x is
your streaming audio and video for everything supernatural, strange and
mysterious like UFOs, Bigfoot, Ghost and so much more from
host like Clyde Lewis, Whitley Streeber, Michah Hanks, and Christina Gomez.

(29:59):
Visit the unexnetwork dot com show page for a complete
list of all the paranormal programs you'll find on the AX.
Be sure to follow us on Twitter for updates at
kyu n x dB, follow our Facebook group ONEX network,
by the podcast on Spotify, iHeart Audible and Apple podcast
It's time, It's the.

Speaker 3 (30:21):
X x X.

Speaker 4 (30:29):
A lot of us have all lived in properties where
people have died, there's been horntings and all that. It's
not unheard of to live in a property like that.
But in Japan, stay agent, does he have to disclose
to you if anything that's happened, you know, maybe a
crime has been committed. He does, he does.

Speaker 3 (30:47):
Yeah. In fact, it's a hard and fast real estate
law that if a person has died in this property,
if there were police activity in this property, then that
has to be disclosed. And in fact, if a place
seems to be cheaper than it should be, then that's
also a great indication that you're dealing with a stigmatized property.

(31:10):
There's in fact, there's even one website that has been
created which has hundreds of thousands of entries and it's
where people were going and they will say, yes, there
was this property here, it's been you know, this is
what happened to it, and real estate agencies are all
over that website challenging, you know, clarifying it's a really

(31:35):
big deal.

Speaker 4 (31:36):
Can seem like a good deal to get, you know,
cheap property, especially in a place like Japan, but could
be a chance that you might have to be digging
up your basement to see what's down there.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
Exactly. I mean there are places in which you know
they can't keep an occupant for more than a month
or two just because they're scared crazy by whatever happens
in that location, and so they will immediately leave. And
renting a place in Japan is not the easiest of things.

(32:07):
You have to come up with not only the security
deposit in the first couple of months rent, but you
also have to pay the key money, which is just
extra gratuity that you have to pay to the landlord
as thanks for using the place. It gets really expensive
and for someone to move in and then immediately move

(32:28):
out is costing them a lot. So this is not
something that will be done on a whim.

Speaker 4 (32:35):
Okay, So say, for instance, JJ, if you moved into
a property you started to get some strange things happen.
Who would you speak to come and maybe check the
place out or do or do a clearing.

Speaker 3 (32:47):
There's a few options. There are freelance mediums that people
can hire. You can also go to your local Shinto
shrine and inquire. Now, both of these are going to require,
you know, a pretty hefty donation in order to get

(33:07):
a priest or a medium in order to investigate and
hopefully clear things out for you. But those are the
places that people will turned to the most often, especially
the Shinto priests in which will come in and hopefully
take care of the situation for you. Of course you've
not to go through a Buddhist priest as well, but

(33:29):
it's usually the Shinto priests that deal with this the
most often.

Speaker 4 (33:33):
And JJ, do you believe that, say, like the entities
that you have in your part of the world, do
you think in Japan they're fundamentally the same but kind
of interpret it differently.

Speaker 3 (33:44):
I honestly have no idea. I would say that there's
a lot more deadliness when it comes to the paranormal
when you're dealing with Eastern falts, and I don't know
if it's because the spirits or fundament mentally more ancient,
more agitated. I'm not quite sure what it is. But

(34:06):
there's also this idea of you can run across a
cursed object, if you happen to pick it up and
take it with you, then that can easily spell your doom. Now,
some of this has been overly dramaticized within Japanese horror
TV shows. I'm not saying that it's not, but that
idea is still very much there. There's this concept of

(34:31):
your fate being there's the red line of fate or
red thread of fate, which can connect, usually in a
romantic sense, of two individuals that are soulmates, but it
can also lead to other deeper, darker connections in your
life as well. And you'll normally find those kinds of

(34:53):
cursed things to fall into that category. And there's two
different levels of curses. You have your taciati and then
you're not oi. Not always just your generalized curse, but
tachiati is kind of a spiritual corruption. It's almost like

(35:13):
the divine has touched the mortal plane, but it's become
putrefied or corrupted, and those are the most dangerous versions
of curses.

Speaker 4 (35:27):
Interesting, is your wife from superstitious? How does she feel
about all this? Oh?

Speaker 3 (35:32):
She is. In fact, she doesn't like it when I
wear scary TV shirt through I mean like a scary
T shirt. She normally asks me to go change, especially
if we're going to go out somewhere. She doesn't want
to invite bad things into the house. So yeah, definitely,
there's I'm a rather superstitions an individual myself, but she

(35:56):
goes way past me in that regard.

Speaker 4 (35:58):
Mine's exactly the same. She's always telling me, don't do that,
you might bring something back, don't step on that, don't
pick that up, don't touch that. Obviously, you know we're
both seekers, you know, especially when it comes to the paranormal.
If you knew a property was wanted, would you live
in it?

Speaker 3 (36:12):
If it was if it was in Japan, probably not.
I've gotten a fair bit of respect beaten into me
in that regard. If it was in the US, probably
I don't think I would have too much of a
concern with that. But yeah, in Japan, I definitely I

(36:34):
would not do that. I'll put it that way.

Speaker 4 (36:36):
The downside of things like that is that if you
do have an experience, say, for instance, if something's talking
to you or you know, leaning over the bed, you
know when you're trying to sleep and saying words to you,
is having too huge Google Translate to find out what
they're saying.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
Yeah, same thing with the word hi, do like, you
don't immediately know that this thing is intimately threatening you
until you go back and having that slow realization creep
over you once you find the answer is I don't
know if it, which would be worse, but it's definitely

(37:14):
not a pleasant feeling to gain that knowledge all of
a sudden.

Speaker 4 (37:18):
Sometimes I'd have voices which turn up in your as
you probably know you have strange sounds which turn up
on audio now and again, strange voices. And there's been
periods of time where I've had a voice come on
saying something which you know hasn't been in English, or
I think going to ask my wife, do you know what?

Speaker 3 (37:35):
You know what this is? Saying it's funny?

Speaker 4 (37:37):
And sometimes i'd release an episode and I won't hear
a voice or whatever, and then I'd end up having
emails back. Or sometimes I'd hear it and just release
it and don't say anything, if you know, I'm left
it on the audio, and then I'll get emails back
saying did you hear this on the on the audio?
And I say, actually did.

Speaker 3 (37:54):
Yeah, Yeah, I've I've had I think three or four
episodes where I've hads show up, and normally I can
catch them, and in fact, i'll highlight it and like
in the intro piece of that episode, I'll say, yep,
this is the EVP that I called. This is what

(38:14):
it sounds like, I've had one that was like a
demonic grunt a few different things like I could not explain,
and I always attempt to explain it because there's you know,
if there's an easy way of you know, I don't
want to just leave people on or go oh I
call this, but in reality, someone burped. You know. I'm

(38:36):
never trying to do that, but if I cannot explain it,
then I'll leave it up to the community to listen
and provide input see what they think. And it has
definitely led to some interesting conversations.

Speaker 4 (38:49):
Fascinating stuff.

Speaker 3 (38:50):
JJ.

Speaker 4 (38:51):
So you grew up spending time in graveyards. They're not
morbid places, are they. The graveyards are very relaxed, very
peaceful places.

Speaker 3 (39:01):
They are. In fact, it's actually kind of funny. So
the last time I was in Tennessee visiting my family,
I went out to that same graveyard in which when
I was six years old, I planted my own headstone
in and I was actually recording, even though I like,

(39:23):
I still feel funny about graveyards ever since my experiences
in Japan, but I was like, Okay, it's gonna be fine,
and so I'm recording a little bit. I see something
dark flash across my peripheral vision and I almost throw
my phone. I'm like, oh my gosh, what in the world,

(39:43):
And then I realized, oh no, it's two little puppies
that had invaded the graveyard because the person who lives
next to it he has dogs that he doesn't take
care of. But yeah, these two little dolls came up
and I started up playing with them. But yeah, not
everything in a grave guards a scary thing. Agreed. Agreed.

Speaker 4 (40:02):
The cabin When you were young, you spent time in
the cabin. Is it still there?

Speaker 3 (40:07):
It was until two years ago. So, like, I lived
in that cabin until I was in eighth grade, and
then my mom had a double wide trailer. Yes, it's
in the South. It's a it's a stereotype of a redneck,
but that's what we lived in until you know, she

(40:29):
actually she still lives in that. And the old house
was still in front. It was used as storage for
a large number of years until it became infested with
like brown recluse spiders, and then the floors began caving in,
and it just it was a death trap to even

(40:51):
try to walk into this place. At which point, I
mean the lumber was still very valuable because of how
old it was. So there was a company that came
out and volunteer to tear the place down in exchange
for keeping the lumber that made up the outer walls.

(41:13):
And so that's what they did. And so it's been
gone now for more than two years.

Speaker 4 (41:19):
Like an end of an ere, isn't it seeing Yeah,
the place where you grew up and gone.

Speaker 3 (41:24):
Exactly, it's sad, but you couldn't use it for anything.
It would take so much money to kind of de
insect the place and get it to be even remotely
safe to walk into that it just wasn't worth it.
So it was sad to see it go. But it's
also you know, it opened up the land a good

(41:44):
bit allow my mom to she's having with some mobility issues,
so it allowed us to move the driveway much closer
to the house. And yeah, the benefits far outweighed the costs.

Speaker 4 (41:57):
Of course, his family is doing the same.

Speaker 3 (42:00):
They are. In fact, my mom still lives on the
same piece of land. Whenever I go back, I stay
with her and I get to visit it and re
live my childhood every single time. Oh I hear that.

Speaker 4 (42:13):
Okay, do you think with the cabin. Do you think
it was the cabin itself and what was inside it?
Would you possibly think the land had played a part
in that.

Speaker 3 (42:24):
That's actually something that I've explored with an exorcist friend,
and I've thought about it a good bit. I really
think that it was a generational curse. I'll tell you why.
Like I'm a very scientifically minded individual. I don't put

(42:45):
stock into things that I can't rationally prove. But I
have grown up having night terrors my entire life. My
mom is the exact same. In fact, many of my
family members are the same. And it was only after

(43:06):
I started carrying a couple of Blessed Exercised Saint Benedict
medallions around have the nightmares stopped. And it was actually
it took me a couple of months to even realize it.
But once I did, I'm like, well, what changed. I'm like, yeah,

(43:28):
it was these medallions that I used to wear and
now I just keep them on the desk next to
my bed, and it stopped the nightmares. I mean, I'll
have like one every two years, but that's not a
bad trade off and I will take that any day
of the week, because these nightmares they were an absolute doozy.

(43:51):
They wrecked me.

Speaker 4 (43:53):
Sometimes would the nightmares, would they vary or would it
be about the same thing or time.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
They would vary. Now, I did have like a couple
of trilogy of demonic dreams, once when I was in
college and then once actually white before I started carrying
these these exercise medallions. They were scary, like, these are

(44:23):
the scariest things that have ever happened to me from
a psychological standpoint, Yeah, I think that these things are
something I don't know if it was from the land
or if it was something that my family had done.
My family's been around for more than two hundred years,

(44:43):
so yeah, these nightmares seem to follow us as a family,
and it's been that way ever since. I remember. My
mom remembers, my grandmother remembered.

Speaker 4 (45:00):
Yeah, so growing up in the Bible Buckle, as you say,
I like that there could be in someone in your past,
someone along the generations that maybe possibly dabbled, you know,
maybe it was the black sheep of the family.

Speaker 3 (45:13):
It could be. But in addition to yes, you'll find
people that like to play with the dark side of things.
But in the area that I grew up and you
also have people that played with the light side as well,
Like there are there's always a couple of individuals that

(45:36):
are able to provide healing by whispering a certain passage
of the Bible or doing something similar. In fact, there's
one individual in which it would be passed down from
my mother to son. I don't know a lot of

(45:58):
details because A people just don't talk about this, and
B you don't look a gift horse in the mouth
if you happen to run across this. I know that.
Like one time, my aunt, when she was a kid,
she was covered in wartz, and my grandmother knew of
a woman, well she had a wart I think or

(46:20):
something or something, and my grandmother took her to see
this woman who supposedly could do this kind of faith healing.
And the next day my grandmother was covered in wartz
and she my grandmother went to another woman who said, oh, no,
she did it wrong. She actually cursed you, and so

(46:41):
she did something else and the next day my aunt
was perfect. In fact, there's a lot of tales of
like if you have a sty that forms around your eye,
then there's a rhyme. You would actually go to her crossroads.
You would say a particular rhyme, and that supposed to
then pass your affliction on to somebody else. So you

(47:05):
found a lot of those times of superstitions, but sometimes
they go beyond superstitions as well.

Speaker 4 (47:11):
Yeah, and just everywhere has these beliefs and traditions, and
I think over time as you get older, people lose
this absolutely. Now to our listeners, JJ runs a podcast
called sevent Demonology Podcast, which I must admit is fascinating.
How did your experiences influence the creation of this podcast?

Speaker 3 (47:33):
So I have a face for radio and a voice
for newspapers. And I grew up with the speech impediment
where I couldn't move. I had like a fold of
skin around my tongue and I couldn't speak until I
was four years old. Because it took a while for
doctors to diagnose me, they did a surgery. I was

(47:57):
actually able to then talk. I went through like speech
therapy in elementary school to kind of correct some of
the more egregious things within my speech patterns. But I
will say as a result, I've been driven to do
public speaking and getting out there. I absolutely love public
speaking in fact, but I didn't really think about doing podcasting,

(48:22):
but when I was in the job and would meet friends,
I would tell these tales of the really strange things
that I studied when I was an undergrad and then
went to Harvard for grad school. They're like, Okay, you've
got to do a podcast, dude, You've got to share this.

(48:43):
I don't know if it's because they thought other people
would find it interesting, or if it was just to
shut me up from telling them over and over again.
It could have been either not saying it's not But
that's when I started dabbling into it, and I grew
that I found that absolutely love it, and then over
the years, the community that I've made, it's just it's

(49:07):
been phenomenal. And you know, some of my best friends
have come out of this particular endeavor. So you know,
my experiences have definitely shaped what I do. But it's
also my academic training, like I studied Semitic philology and

(49:28):
the Pseudopigrapha, which are the collection of works written in
between the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament. It's
filled with a lot of anachronisms, there's a lot of magic,
a much more belief in angels and demons, and it's
all much more explicitly spelled out. It's absolutely fascinating. And

(49:53):
the funny thing is that you find all of these
concepts about angelology, demon and magic that originated from this
particular turbulent time that are still flash frozen in our
current belief systems. That's one of the things that I do.
I'll take a look at some of the textual basises

(50:17):
and take an academic approach to try to highlight that, yes,
this directly shapes how we think of X, Y or Z,
especially when it comes to exorcism or something similar. It's
been a very fun journey.

Speaker 4 (50:33):
Is it something that you've had a deep interest in
which you know and same as a lot of people
listening tonight do. Is it something you've ever dambled in.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
I have done some investigations in the past. I have
often have traveled to places that have been that have
rumors of being haunted, but it's not something that I
make a regular practice of. Though now I'm not so
much more. I'm much more of an academic. I call

(51:02):
myself an ancient demonologist. It's not just like a funny title,
but it kind of represents the fact that I'm not
a practical practitioner of anything. I am an academic. I
study these things, I elucidate upon them, but my knowledge

(51:22):
does not extend out from the academic side. I guess
you could say.

Speaker 4 (51:28):
A bit like the writer Dennis Wheatley. He would explore
these ideas, and I think sometimes he did get involved
in some rituals and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 3 (51:37):
Now I do perform consultations for people that think that
they've had an encounter with the infernal in order to
provide advice. I do do that, but I also know
what my limits are, so I can provide some saying that, yes,

(51:58):
you may have encountered something really bad here. It may
be trying to infect your life. And if the defense
mechanisms that I can recommend do not help you, that's
when I refer them to a more heavy hitter, such
as a priest of go seek them out. They can

(52:19):
help you better than I get at this point. So
I don't claim to be able to come in and say, oh, yeah,
I just do this and everything's going to be great again.
But I can at least point you in the right direction.

Speaker 4 (52:31):
And I think first of all, you probably have to
narrow down maybe what they're experiencing and how it came
about because some people just kind of just fall into
this hole get involved, you know, they're kind of new
to it. It's exciting for them, and others they don't
know what's going on. It's just something which has happened,
whether it's happened via a curse or evolved in with

(52:51):
someone that maybe you know follows a slightly different path exactly.

Speaker 3 (52:56):
Yeah, you have to see if it's really infernal or
not in nature. It could just be a haunting or
something similar. If it is infernal, then you have to
because there's generally three different phases that could be involved.
It could be purely mental, which would be obsession. It
could have moved into the physical, which is oppression, or

(53:21):
it could be seeking to perform a possession, which is
where a thing can take over your life and you're
along for the ride. It's not a good thing in
either one of those situations.

Speaker 4 (53:37):
And do you think there's been a rise in people
having these experiences? I mean you see stuff all the
time on TV and in music and all the symbolism
that you see and everywhere. Do you think it's something
which is actively done or as they say, it's just art.

Speaker 3 (53:55):
So I think there's two different issues going on. The
first is do I think that it's been increasing. I
don't know if that's the case. Now you'll get experts
that are priests or former priests that do this kind
of work, and they will say that, yes, it's evil

(54:18):
is definitely increasing. Father Malachi Martin was one of those
individuals who would claim that, I don't know if that's
the case, though, we don't have any real solid numbers
to back any of that up to go, oh, yeah,
there's been a three percent increase or a ten percent increase.
I'm not sure if that's the case. Now, these ideas

(54:41):
are definitely more prevalent, and some of that is from
Hollywood and TV shows, etc. The only thing is is
that most of the ideas that they propagate or the
concepts behind them are completely and thoroughly so you get

(55:02):
a mythology, but that mythology is not rooted in the
actual knowledge or information. It's kind of funny, like, for example,
the movie Fallen, which had Denzel Washington in it, this
idea that demons can just touch somebody and suddenly they're

(55:23):
completely possessed and they're overtaken. That does not happen in life.
I mean they couldn't even get the name of the
demon right. He kept saying Aazel, Aazel, and it's not.
It's as a Zel. There's a complete difference. So you
find more misinformation being spread than you do anything else.

(55:45):
In fact, it's extremely rare to find a genuine nugget
of information that can lead people down a somewhat correct path.
I would say it's bad for people like me that
actually know the history and the concepts behind it that
it can just ruin a particular franchise. Like, for example,

(56:08):
there's a new game that recently came out called Hell
Slave two. It's made by a company called Riscotier, and
it's supposed to be a lot of concepts around gnosticism
and the demonic a if it was actually like well
written story, that might be entertainment enough. But everything they

(56:34):
talk about in this game is so incorrect. It's just
it's like fan art or fan service for people that
picked up a little bit of a gnostic text and
then just begin making their own crap up really nilly.
Is it better that they did it that way? Maybe,
But I mean it's good that they're not spreading true

(56:58):
conceptions that could lead people down dark past. That would
definitely be a bad thing to do. On the other hand,
they're just making up nonsense that has nothing to do
with the actual concepts and ideas, and in fact, it's
those original concepts and ideas that can be so absolutely fascinating.

(57:22):
So it's a relief on one hand and it's heartbreaking
on the other if that makes any sense, Hey, it
does indeed.

Speaker 4 (57:28):
I mean you've had this podcast for ten years? Is
that is that right, JJ?

Speaker 3 (57:32):
Come April, that will Yeah, it will be ten years.

Speaker 4 (57:35):
That's a good long time for a podcast.

Speaker 3 (57:38):
It's been. It's definitely been fun. Now I do take
the occasional break between seasons, so it you know, it's
not I'm not running full speed, especially since I have
a day job that takes up a phenomenal amount of
my time. But but yeah, it has definitely been an interesting.

Speaker 4 (57:59):
Right, interesting write, indeed, fascinating show and pretty much when
we get up there tonight, I've got a few emails,
so I'm going to have some more of your episodes
on to our listeners. I will put JJ's links down
below in a description and on the website as well,
so I suggest if you are interested in this side
of things, then do check it out.

Speaker 3 (58:20):
Well. I greatly appreciate you having me on and it's
been a pleasure getting to meet you. JJ.

Speaker 4 (58:26):
I really appreciate you coming on and sharing all those
fascinating experiences with us tonight.

Speaker 3 (58:31):
I it has been an absolute honor for you to
get to meet you. And for any one that wants
to look up Southern Demonology, please feel free to go
to our website Southerndemonology dot.

Speaker 4 (58:42):
Com and I'm sure they will take care of yourself
and we will speak soon, sir.

Speaker 3 (58:47):
Thank you very much, sir.

Speaker 4 (58:49):
That is all for this episode. Keep updated and connected
with the show on x Facebook and Instagram. And if
you have an encounter that you'd like to share on
the podcast, you can email he me at UFO Chronicles
at gmail dot com, or you can reach out to
me via the contact page on my website at UFO
Chronicles podcast dot com. A big thank you to JJ

(59:13):
for sharing tonight, and thank you all for listening. I
will be back next week. Till then, stay safe and
keep watching the skies. Goodbye, A