Generation X Paranormal
Generation X Paranormal Podcast: Exploring the Unexplained, One Mystery at a Time
Delve into the world of the mysterious with Generation X Paranormal, a gripping podcast hosted by the dynamic duo, Logan and Nicole. Each episode takes you on an immersive journey through spine-chilling paranormal encounters, unsolved mysteries, cryptid sightings, and supernatural phenomena. From haunted locations and ghostly legends to UFO encounters and Bigfoot investigations, Generation X Paranormal fearlessly explores the unexplained with a blend of curiosity, wit, and reverence.
As seasoned paranormal enthusiasts, Logan and Nicole bring expert insights, compelling interviews with renowned researchers, and deep dives into famous cases like the Ariel School UFO sighting, the Michigan Dogman, and historic hauntings. Whether you're a believer or a skeptic, this podcast will captivate your mind and leave you questioning the unknown.
Tune in weekly to discover the truth behind the legends and unravel the mysteries that continue to baffle humanity. Subscribe to Generation X Paranormal today and join a community of curious minds seeking answers in the shadows.
Generation X Paranormal
Jeff Belanger: From the Peak of Kilimanjaro to the Depths of the Paranormal
Ghost stories unite us when everything else divides us. Jeff Belanger—author, podcaster, storyteller, and paranormal researcher—takes us on a journey from the haunted catacombs of Paris to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, revealing how our fascination with the unexplained transcends political, religious, and cultural boundaries.
Belanger shares the moment he transitioned from objective ghost researcher to believer while exploring the Paris catacombs alone. Walking through narrow hallways lined with millions of human remains, he encountered what appeared to be a shadow figure crossing his path—an experience that defied rational explanation after six years of writing about others' ghost encounters.
The conversation takes an unexpected turn as Belanger recounts his deeply spiritual experience climbing Mount Kilimanjaro to honor his brother-in-law who passed away from cancer. At 19,341 feet, disconnected from technology and watching the sunrise above the clouds, he experienced a profound connection that transcended death itself—a moment so significant it became his only tattoo.
What makes this episode particularly thought-provoking is Belanger's philosophy on why ghost stories matter. "Ghosts exist because we, the living, have unfinished business," he explains. These stories represent our collective struggle to reconcile with history's tragedies, injustices, and unsolved mysteries. By acknowledging these hauntings, we might avoid repeating past mistakes.
As digital media increasingly controls what information reaches us, Belanger discusses his return to print with Shadow Zine, a monthly paranormal magazine that can't be algorithmically suppressed or edited after publication. It represents a tangible connection to storytelling that doesn't require batteries, internet access, or corporate approval.
Whether you're a dedicated paranormal enthusiast or simply curious about the human connection to the unexplained, this conversation offers a refreshing perspective on why we continue to be fascinated by what lies beyond our understanding. As Belanger suggests, perhaps a ghost story really could save us all.
https://jeffbelanger.com
https://shadowzine.com
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I was walking down a long hallway toward the exit there was, and it was just as I mean. You know, if I put my hands out on either side, that's how wide it was I saw what looked like the shadow of a man. Just step out from one side and go to the other, and then he went back again and I said, all right, wait a minute. I thought I was alone and then I thought, okay, there must be. My default is always explain it away.
Speaker 1:Because if you can explain it away. You should? Yeah, absolutely. And then I'm looking and I'm like, no, I kept going, there's no side tunnel, it's just straight all the way to the end. And I just went oh, if that's not a ghost, I don't have another word, thank you well, hey everybody, welcome back.
Speaker 3:Hey everyone, this is Generation X Paranormal. I'm Logan and I'm Nicole. Guys, we have got a heck of a show for you. Yes, we do. Every one of our guests have been just amazing. I love all our guests. I mean, we've had some amazing people, and today is absolutely no different. We have arguably one of the. I mean, if there is a forefather of the paranormal, he's one of them. He's been doing it for so long and, of course, we're talking about Jeff Bellinger. So what can you tell us about Jeff?
Speaker 2:Jeff Bellinger is an author, podcaster, storyteller, adventurer and explorer of the unexplained. He's written more than a dozen books that have been published in six languages. He served as a producer, writer and researcher on numerous television series, including every episode of ghost adventures. He's an emmy nominated host, writer and producer of the new england legends series on PBS and Amazon Prime. He also hosts the award-winning New England Legends weekly podcast, which has garnered over 6 million downloads since its launch. He's a publisher of Shadowzine, a new monthly paranormal magazine.
Speaker 3:Awesome. Yeah, guys, this is going to be great, and let's just talk to Jeff.
Speaker 2:Let's talk to Jeff.
Speaker 3:Well, hey, Jeff, how you doing.
Speaker 1:I'm good. How are you guys we're doing?
Speaker 3:great Welcome to Generation X, paranormal.
Speaker 1:I'm in the right place. I am Generation X.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, as a matter of fact, in doing some of our crack investigative work, you did investigative work on crack. Well, yes, but I don't think this is the podcast for that.
Speaker 1:But anyway, Okay, fair Crack is whack, as our people would say.
Speaker 3:I've heard that for years and it's probably true.
Speaker 1:I've never tried. They don't say it anymore. No, they don't. I know they don't say whack.
Speaker 3:I mean throw away a good thing.
Speaker 1:Sorry go on.
Speaker 3:Anyway, I found out we're probably only, I think, a month apart in age, so it was kind of cool, I was that old.
Speaker 3:I am that old, I am, yeah, same to you. I it sucks but it's OK, I don't mind it. There's some good parts to it too. But but yeah, you know kind of just rolling into everything. You know, obviously anybody who's probably listening to this knows a good portion of what you've done in the past and things of that nature.
Speaker 3:But I think the one thing that that a lot of people don't get a sense of and I'm gonna, I'm probably gonna put you on the spot a little bit here but you know you meet a lot of people and you go through a lot of these things and you're just a genuine guy and I think I appreciate that so much Because You're just a genuine guy. And I think I appreciate that so much because, seriously, though, you know you look at like 30 odd minutes when you know things are just sort of in the beginning or sort of you know some time ago, right to when we met at Missouri Paracon. I mean you're just kind of the same guy all the way through and it's so appreciated. I just wanted to let you know that.
Speaker 1:I don't really know how to be anything else, logan, but thanks, I guess. For sure it's 30-odd minutes. Boy, that's black. You know what's funny? We take it for granted. This is 30-odd minutes, right, but I was doing it at a cable access station with bubble gum and duct tape. There was no. Streamyard, there was no zoom. Yeah, we had tin cans and wire and um, it was wild.
Speaker 1:I went into this local cable access station and um, and I I said, hey, I want to try to figure this thing out. Uh, because the reality is, any town's cobalt cable access station has, at any given time, four, sometimes five viewers.
Speaker 1:Right, right, like I mean maybe right, I'm being generous sure, sure, if it's like rating sweep week, you know and so when you're asking someone to come on a show that's going to reach four people, you could literally go to a grocery store and just yell I've got a new book out right, you're gonna reach more people right.
Speaker 1:so then I said, all right, how can we do this? How can we do this thing where we get it online and we do it? Fine, you can do it locally, sure, but I'm only going to reach four people locally, but how do we do this thing? And so, myself and this young guy that worked at the cable access station they had a green screen, we had a laptop, we had Skype, and we were figuring out a way to get the laptop into the broadcast system and then up on the screen, and then I would look at like a pretend point just like a weather person you know, telling the news.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we, just we rigged that thing, like you know, like you wouldn't believe.
Speaker 3:It's so cool though it was bubblegum and duct tape. I'm sure then it was, and we somehow made it work.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and then we gave the show to like every other cable. There's a, there was a service called peg media, which is public education and government and whatever. You could upload it for free and anybody could download it for free. So we were on like 200 public access stations around the country, wow. And then it was on youtube and then it was streaming live and so all that together was like an audience, a real audience, you know and um and it was so much fun.
Speaker 1:And now you, you young kids, take it for granted when you just turn on your stream yard or your zooms and you're like oh look at us. We got a green screen background.
Speaker 3:Oh, we did all that with like paint and you know Foley artists and stuff, right, oh, foley Gosh man, but anyway, so, but that was a great time and I got to talk to so many cool people.
Speaker 1:Some of them were my friends, some were people I didn't know, and it was like a paranormal talk show video before anyone else could do it and now everybody does it. But it was a lot of fun, but thanks for mentioning it that was a blast from the past. Oh, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we watched a few.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a few, and I think what cracks me up is just now. Look, I'm sure at the time it was like you know, it's really hectic and it was, you know, probably stressful. But looking at it now I'm like it's so cool because it's so like retro and it's so you know, it's all the things I remember, you know, growing up so it's like takes you back? Yeah, it takes you back, so it's really cool, but um so how?
Speaker 1:so? One more thing like how could you not be down to earth when you're at a cable access station?
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:Like toggling switches with your feet right. Exactly and like you know the old guy that's going to be yelling at a fern on the stage.
Speaker 3:His shows up next Right Between two ferns.
Speaker 1:It's pretty easy to stay humble. I'm just saying, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:I get it, I do, I really it, I do, I really do. But no, it's really cool and we love the fact. You know, can you bring in your family involved? We watched the Dave Schrader Cinco de Mayo thing where Sophie's painting your face.
Speaker 2:That was so cute. She is so cute, by the way.
Speaker 3:Thanks yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, we're big fans. It is what it is.
Speaker 3:That was a COVID thing, wasn't it?
Speaker 1:yeah, it was so, yeah, yeah, those days. So, um, yeah, my daughter's older now, I mean she's about to graduate high school, but it's funny how, um, when we did that, uh, we were just like what do we do? Right people like dave, people like me. If we don't have an audience, we'll die right do you, we'll die without an audience.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:And I'm like Dave, what do we do? Just to do anything. He's like I don't know. Let's have our kids put makeup on us on Zoom or something. I'm like fine, whatever.
Speaker 2:It was cool, it was really awesome. It was fun to watch.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it was a lot more. It was interesting how they were trying to pitch questions and you're like, well, I can't look, so it's like from behind it's just hilarious, but uh, but anyway, we're gonna get into the, the, the paranormal stuff and all that here in a second. But there is one thing that I know, nicole, and I want to ask you, because it is so beyond paranormal and and honestly, for me it's like, wow, how did you do that? But kilimanjaro man, geez, oh yeah, wow, yeah, uh, if you do that, but Kilimanjaro man geez, oh yeah, Wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, If you don't mind, just take a couple seconds. Kind of what got you to that point and wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in 2017. And I've always been a hiker, ever since you know, college, and Kilimanjaro was on my bucket list because it's one of the seven summits, one of the tallest summit in Africa, and I love the song Gen X, right. I love the song Africa by.
Speaker 2:Toe Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Growing up just as sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti, and so that was part of it. And then it's also one of the tallest mountains. That's not a technical climb, which means you're not hanging by ropes or anything Like. There's a path where, if you can hoof it, you can get yourself to the top Right. So it was on my list. And then in 2015, my brother-in-law, chris. He got sick with cancer and he went through a process a dying process that was over two years, and during that time, he and I got a lot closer to each other, because he's like man, you're into some weird stuff, and I said yeah yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1:When he said, and I'm going through something pretty weird, I said that's true too. And so we talked about this, this thing dying death, you know, I mean, and when you're talking about the paranormal, that is, the elephant in the room, right, it's really what we're talking about, truly, right. I mean, it's kind of a critical part of the equation. So Chris and I talked a lot, we got a lot closer and, you know, as he declined, it was just, it was really special and I'm forever grateful to him for that. And by the time he passed, you know, I just remember it was such a blow to my family my nephew was five at the time, his son, you know and I was just like, oh my gosh, this could happen to anybody.
Speaker 1:Six months later I was doing a charity event a historic fundraiser at a historic home and a woman I know from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society historic fundraiser at a historic home and a woman I know from the leukemia lymphoma society. Um, she said, hey, jeff, we got another fundraiser coming up and I was like, uh, you know, I've helped them in the past. And I was like, all right, you know, if I can, if I can help, I will. What's going on? She said we're gonna climb mount kilimanjaro to raise money for cancer. And I just went, oh, and it was like in a, in a movie, you know, where all the action for all the characters stopped except the two talking.
Speaker 1:That's what happened Like everything froze and the record scratched.
Speaker 1:And I'm like did you say Kilimanjaro to raise money for cancer research, and I just went well, when is it? And she said it would be March 2017. And I said that's a good time of year for me. If it's October, if it's fall, there's no way I could do it. And I went I'm in, I've got to do this. And so we trained, we raised money, we did it, and then it was six days to the top, to 19,341 feet, and it was absolutely life-changing. It was deeply spiritual, especially at the end. It was amazing to be unplugged.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Wi-Fi, no internet, no phones. Day one is just stressful what if someone needs me? And day two, you're just like all right, well, the world's going to keep spinning whether I'm on my email or not. And then to get that unplugged and then that connected to myself and to something much bigger. And it was profound, that's just all I can say it was. And by by the time we made, made for the summit, watching this sunrise, you know, from high above the clouds, you know the cloud bank just way below you, and seeing this golden sun come up. And there's a Swahili term for the top, which means you know where, where the house of God, or where God dwells, because they believe only those that God deems worthy is allowed up there. And I felt Chris at that moment, and I felt this incredible connection that I will never, ever forget. In fact, I got a tattoo of it. It's the only tattoo I have.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:It's the only thing I felt like you know, marking my body up permanently for Well, yeah. I mean if wouldn't rule out another, but also but it was so, so deeply spiritual and I just came back a different person and I'll never forget it. I still kind of sort of want to do it again.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that would be cool, that would be amazing. Yeah, and I know you wrote a book about it and it is definitely on my short list of things I want to read. It was a colleague.
Speaker 1:He dies at the end. Oh, no, he doesn't.
Speaker 3:No, no, you better not because otherwise I am talking to a full-bodied apparition. But no, we definitely wanted to check it out and you know, obviously you've gone to some great places. I know you travel, you do some adventuring and I know you've been to Machu Picchu, which mega jealous. Yeah, no kidding, and the Paris catacombs, and I guess I read that that was your first ghost experience. What?
Speaker 1:happened. So I'd been writing about ghosts for six years when I went to Paris. I started ghostvillagecom in 1999, and I'd already been writing about ghosts since 1997. And then I was working at a whole other field, a whole other world, and they sent me to Paris for work. So we had a day to ourselves and some of my colleagues were like we're going to go to the Louvre and check out the you know, mona Lisa, or whatever you want to go. And I was like we're going to go to the Louvre and check out the you know, mona Lisa, or whatever you want to go. And I was like I'll catch up with you later, I'm going underground. And so Paris is beautiful, it's an incredible city. It sprawls, it's not a tall city at all, it just goes out forever in the distance and there's all these great limestone buildings.
Speaker 1:And to get to that limestone eventually they had to tunnel under the city. And as they tunneled and tunneled and the city got denser and bigger, they had two problems the cemeteries that were on the outskirts were now no longer on the outskirts, they were encircled and there was no more room for the dead. They were just piling up corpses in these boneyards and the buildings are starting to collapse into the hollow ground underneath, so they had to shore it all up, empty the cemeteries, which is, you know, a universal taboo Sure. So I go down there um, you know, it was about 10, 30, 11 in the morning, sound, mind and body, sober. You know the whole thing, right. And, uh, I go down there and I'm the only one down there, it's, it's very quiet, it, down there, it's, it's very quiet, it's just like water dripping through the limestone. It's completely silent.
Speaker 1:And I get to this doorway that says in french you know, stop, this is the empire of the dead. And then, when I walked through, there was millions of human skeletons all around me and I just got the hebes and the gbs at the same time and, um, and then eventually you start to calm down. It's sort of beautiful, right, I mean the intricacies of the bones and the design, and I'm walking around and I'm going all right, the signs that tell you where the bones came from. And then, as I was walking down a long hallway toward the exit, there was, and it was just as I mean, you know, if I put my hands out on either side, that's how wide it was. Wow, I saw what looked like the shadow of a man, just step out from one side and go to the other. And then he went back again and I said, all right, wait a minute. I thought I was alone and then I thought, okay, there must be. My default is always explain it away.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Because if you can explain it away, you should. Yeah, absolutely. And then I'm looking and I'm like, no, I kept going, there's no side tunnel, it's just straight all the way to the end. And I just went oh, if that's not a ghost, I don't have another word. And then I thought about my last name. It's Belanger, but over there it's pronounced Belanger. Yes, right, it is a French name, even though my family's been here for like four generations now.
Speaker 1:Sure, but I but I'm like my DNA is down here somewhere right like it's in some of these bones, somewhere somehow there's strands or something, and I just thought it was. It was one of those things where it took weeks to like fully sink in, because at that point I'd interviewed hundreds of people about their ghost experiences and I was sort of took the position like well, I believe that you believe I'm not gonna call you a liar, I wasn't there, you know, but I believe that you believe.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to call you a liar. I wasn't there, you know, but I don't know. But once I had that experience, I went. I just lost an awful lot of objectivity here today. You know, I'm like, I'm a believer. I admit it. I'm still skeptical, plenty skeptical. However, I've had a few that was the first and I've had a few experiences where I go all right, I got nothing. If that's not paranormal, then I lack another word to explain what it is that I experienced.
Speaker 3:Oh, 100% I mean, but talk about one of the very first places you get to go is the catacombs in Paris.
Speaker 3:I mean what was your first? I want to know? Mine was in San Antonio, so it was about as far from Paris as you can get In the basement of the Alamo with Pee Wee's bike. Yeah, I can't do the voice, no, but no, we were. I was driving back and she knows this already, but I was on a date with somebody else and it was a long time ago. But we were coming back and-.
Speaker 1:That hussy? Yeah, like I care it was forever ago, if she's listening it is what it is, but please don't no go on, Sorry.
Speaker 3:It's okay, we're driving and we see go across the freeway from one spot to another and I'm using my hands here, so those are listening, you're going to love this. But from left to right, we see at first what I thought was like a glad bag, you know, like a, I guess, basically like a trash bag.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And it was just kind of floating in the wind kind of doing its thing. And I'm like, as we got closer, I'm like that is not a garbage bag, it was about as much of a shadow kind of conglomeration that went across. And when it got to the side where the shoulder is to get off the freeway, poof gone. And I looked at the person I was with and said, and before I could even utter the word, she goes did you see that? And I'm like, oh, 100%, I saw that. And it was like okay, that was one of those, you're right, and I was in the Army at the time and you're just like, you know, you, you know you're gonna rationalize everything and, uh, that had nothing, absolutely nothing and and the fact that someone else is there is so helpful, right?
Speaker 1:because? If you were alone, you could just go. I don't know, but someone else said that saw the same thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah and uh I'm gonna offer you my professional opinion on what it is.
Speaker 1:you saw, demon, I mean.
Speaker 3:I wasn't there, I have no idea, but I'm going with demon. It's a demon.
Speaker 1:Let's start there.
Speaker 3:Rubber stamp Demon it is.
Speaker 1:It is All right, Nicole, your turn. We're sharing.
Speaker 2:Okay. So I don't know how old I was. I'm going to guess between six and eight and eight okay, but I grew up in a haunted house and my mother saw a lot of stuff. But the first thing that I can actually remember and it stuck with me because it was terrifying is in my bedroom I had a very long, dark, deep closet like a narrow. It was all like dark wood on the inside and it had just like the swingy light oh yeah, you know the one that's in every home, yeah, yeah yeah, but it was open those are like five bucks to replace, but go on.
Speaker 1:Thanks, mom and dad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go on but I woke up one night and I just felt like something drawing me towards the closet in my bed and I could see it just from across the room and I hated that closet growing up like. I never wanted to look at it. I always turned away from it while I was sleeping. But that night, for some reason, I turned and looked and from the back of the closet there was a face that just came forward that looked like my aunt at the time and it was smiling at me and as it got closer it went faster and then the grin turned in kind of like um, the grinch's grin, you know where it's kind of like and then it just turned evil and the eyes were red and like these teeth came out and it just like rushed at me and I remember like throwing the covers back and screaming and running out of the room to my parents and that has stuck with me forever okay, my professional opinion on that one babadook.
Speaker 1:I'm just kidding demon for mine yeah, it's a demon no that's. Oh my god, that's scary, that's like horror movie stuff.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, yes, like amityville type stuff yeah, yeah, that's really frightening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, no wonder you turned out okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course that's why we that's what we do yeah, we do what we do, we're searching.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, we drink yeah, oh, that's for sure why, yeah, that's that's crazy.
Speaker 1:No, that's for boy. You never forget that, especially when you're young and impressionable. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, I can still see the face.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in my memories I'm a DIYer, like replacing those dangling, scary, horrible light bulbs would cost you like five bucks for like a little thing and yeah, it's nothing.
Speaker 2:And it's an yourself. Just turn the breaker and do it. I would never even walk in that closet. I remember when I was forced to clean my room and put stuff away. I just stand about five feet away and throw stuff. Why is?
Speaker 1:your closet, so messy nicole makes perfect mom, do you know what's?
Speaker 2:in there yeah, it was creepy well, it is creepy.
Speaker 3:wow, it's interesting how these experiences kind of just usher you into this world. It's just, it's amazing. And you know you're 100 percent right, because I'm I'm more the skeptic, she's more, I wouldn't say the believer, but I'm definitely the more skeptic and I immediately something happens. I'm a mockums razor. I'm in there going, ok, it's got to be, you know, and knowing her family and knowing everything that had happened, you know, it's one of those where you're like, of course that happened. There's no way to you know that knowing the validity behind it was not a question. It's just like, wow, what in the world could that have been? You know, yeah, it's just wild, it is absolutely wild. But listen, listen, getting on to uh, kind of kind of some of the stuff that you got going after 30 odd minutes, um.
Speaker 1:So which was like 2007, by the way, it's quite some time ago, yeah, almost 20 years.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's just wild. It's that long. Um so, new England Legends and, and it's amazing, there's two Emmy nominations behind it. So we know it's it's amazing. But uh, what two Emmy nominations behind it. So we know it's amazing. But what a great place to be. And I know you're from there To have that rich a history. What kind of led you down that road? Was it just to kind of bring up that history so other people could kind of get to know it?
Speaker 1:So when I first started in this, my website was global and I was in Paris and had my first ghost experience. My first book was in 2004. It was called the World's Most Haunted Places. I picked haunts mainly from English-speaking countries because that's where I could interview people, but all over the world I'm like I got to be global. I got to be global. Then I was asked to write this book called Weird Massachusetts back in 2006.
Speaker 1:I was part of the Weird US series and I fell into the trap, the horrible trap that every one of us falls into thinking all the cool places are somewhere else and somewhere far from me. Right, it's not true. Right, you live somewhere very far from most of us, you know, and you have really cool places in your own backyard. And it's embarrassing when you're like I didn't even go there because I figured it would always be there. It's a half hour from my house. Why would I go? You'd there? Because I figured it would always be there. It's a half hour from my house. Why would I go? You'd go because it's cool. You'd go because it's amazing and it's got a great story. So once I started popping around Massachusetts and doing what I do all over the world, but doing it near home. I was like wow, and I could get in deeper around here.
Speaker 1:You know I'm not have to pay for hotel rooms and all that other stuff yeah, no kidding. And so that was part of it. And then I was part of a documentary called Things that Go Bump in the Night for PBS, and I met this producer and we discovered we were born in the same hospital, like a month apart.
Speaker 1:And you know like and then we both love these stories and I said how cool would it be to do like a series of this, like where we just cover these weird stories around New England? And so that's how it started. It started as a TV project. We got no funding, it was literally just us, our visa cards, and then our friends like beg, borrowing and stealing whatever we could Like, literally like hey, could you come run sound for us for a day, could you compose this piece of music for us, or whatever. Like just begging our friends Right. And we got nominated for an Emmy. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:That's awesome.
Speaker 1:We were like can you imagine how short our acceptance speech would be?
Speaker 1:I'd like to thank me I'd like to thank, like the five people who worked on this and no one else right, All of us oh that's awesome I mean it's a short list but it was really really cool to cool, because I was working on Ghost Adventures at the time, which is great and I'm proud to be part of that. But I'm a cog in the wheel there. That's not my baby, right, I'm just an employee. But this was just like, hey, we don't answer to anybody, it's whatever we think is best we do, and it was just cool to tell those stories and the podcast rolled out of that. Because it takes so long and it's so expensive to produce television, oh sure you need insurance. Just to be standing on a location, yeah, it was like 300 bucks for insurance and I'm like so what does this cover? Like, if we break a camera, oh no, that doesn't cover that. Well, if we break the location, no, no, it doesn't cover that.
Speaker 3:I'm like what does it cover? What am I?
Speaker 1:insuring right? I still don't know. I don't know. I couldn't tell you and I did it like seven times. I paid for that policy, gosh, and I still have, but we had to have proof of insurance.
Speaker 2:I'm like hey, great, that covers nothing yeah, congratulations.
Speaker 3:I have no idea what this does yeah, no idea.
Speaker 1:Except it cost us like hundreds of dollars. Then I I have nothing to show for that. But the podcast was great because you know we had theater of the mind and we could go even more. You know we could cover more stories, and then from there it just really sort of grew. And what's been great is that the stories are crowdsourced now, so we have such a great audience. I get emails almost daily that's just like hey, have you heard about this weird well in Maine where, like, the kid went down and came back and never spoke again. And you know, and I'm just like no, what is that, you know?
Speaker 1:and then there's your next story. And it's been so much fun to do what I do, but do it in your home. So that's really what it came down to. And then I do a lot of speaking engagements and it's just kind of easier to get around near where you live. Sure Of course.
Speaker 1:That's part of it, because when you're flying somewhere, you lose a day Right, a day of travel there, a day of travel back, and I love this stuff. The only thing I love more than the subject is sharing it, like when you get to share it in front of an audience, when you get to talk to people about their experiences and you realize there's these through lines, right, that just kind of go through every person, every community, every place and every weird subject, and it's such a unique way to kind of look at this human experience 100% and so, yeah, so convenience is my main reason. I'm biased. I love where I live, I love to travel. I will go absolutely anywhere and adore that, but you know, this is home.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you're right. I think we are within a stone's throw of probably about gosh 10 places that. I know people are like gosh, you really need to go out there and look at that thing. And I'm like, well, we haven't, we've gone, we've gone other places We've, we've gone to, like Jerome Arizona, but you know not here. So, um, but yeah, you're right, it's terrible.
Speaker 1:I know you should be ashamed. I am.
Speaker 2:I am, and there's a 12 step program out there for me, I'm sure.
Speaker 3:But uh, yeah, but like do that?
Speaker 1:thing you do close to home. How cool is that? Yeah, because not only that, here's the here's the really cool thing when you're really local, like there's a trust with local people.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Agreed, yes, like like when you go into Boston, if I start, you know if I have a beer and start dropping my eyes a little bit, you know like sure, oh, you're one of us, come on in, I'll get you into. I'll get you into the catacombs that we don't let anybody into Nice yeah, you're right and you're like okay now we're talking. Did I see you at that bar in Southie?
Speaker 3:Yeah, let's go Right. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And you're locals, you can talk the language. You might know some of the English language I'm not supposed to do this, but. And I'm like stuff's going to get good now. Access.
Speaker 3:Come back after a while. We'll square things away, yeah.
Speaker 1:We can go in at midnight on the full moon and turn off the security cameras. I'm like something's either going to be really good or really bad.
Speaker 3:Really bad or both or both, yeah, I mean mean they're both.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean they're. Either way, get your emf meter out. You know what I mean. Just don't record anything, something's gonna happen for sure, no, you're right, and it's amazing.
Speaker 3:And new england is just one of those places where, uh, you know, I tell people all the time that you know our country's still really, really young in the overall global experience, but you know, it all kind of started there. So it's, it's the more graduated look at that, there's my 10. Anyway, I won't get into it but it's the much more you know people have been there longer, so it's going to have more history than, say, you know, well, I'm from Tucson, arizona, so you're going to have more information and more history there than you would in Tucson. So it's just it's amazing. So I can only imagine, you know, kind of the whole gamut of different things you can cover and the fact that you have listeners and people who feel like they can be a part of it is just that's awesome, cause you know you get, they get that kind of like that ownership feeling, like they feel that's also their, their, uh, their show. So they, it's a different thing for them yeah, no, that's the.
Speaker 1:I mean the whole idea always, you know, with a. What I love about podcasting is that it's so intimate. You know what I mean? It's, um, I have a co-host, ray. Uh, we've known each other for years. He's a radio guy, so he, he had me on his show and then that evolved. Our friendship evolved from there and we always talk about, like, when we record our podcast, it's always just Ray and me and one other person. We always think about one, just one, right? We don't think about anything beyond that. We're just like it's two people having a conversation and you're hanging out and we want you there with us. We want to make sure that you see what we see and feel what we feel. And, uh, when we travel through time which is very painful, by the way, you go back two centuries every week and like, see how you feel after it's exhausting.
Speaker 1:My knees are already tired yeah, so it, so it's, uh, but we want you there with us in the tavern having a beer or whatever, and overhearing this conversation and seeing how this thing happened and why the legend exists. And to me, I took this mystery writing class in college. It was so fun. I remember the teacher saying he's like look, this genre is super easy, you just write it backwards. That was like day one, right, I just basically gave you a semester of college, right there. He's like it's all you do. You have a crime, fine, and then you go backwards and now you have a motive. And then you got to go backwards and establish other suspects, and then you just go backwards and just write it, that's it. And I was like, oh, that's sort of easy. And then I thought about paranormal investigation. We do the same thing. Yeah, sure do.
Speaker 1:We start with this building's haunted. Why? Well, because something happened here.
Speaker 2:What.
Speaker 1:Well, that's now, we got to go backwards. And so we start at the end. It's haunted. And then we got to go backwards. We got to go back and say, well, who lived here? Who died here, did anything tragic happen, what happened, who's seen things? Then you go back and back and back as far as you possibly can and then you tell it again to the front I didn't invent that. Scooby-doo does that. Right, it's a tried and true formula. But I was like that's what paranormal investigation is, absolutely.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 1:I think that's why it speaks to us, you know.
Speaker 3:For sure, yeah, we Tar. That's why it speaks to us, you know for sure, yeah, we tarantino stuff all the time. I mean, that's just kind of how it goes. You know it's, you're right, you got to build that history after the. You know, okay, it's haunted, like you said, and okay, well, why? And it's that quest, that's just that. I think that's the fun part is the quest absolutely everybody, always talks about.
Speaker 3:You know what, if you prove that there was, you know, a ghost? Well, I don't need to prove it, I already know it's there, I can feel it, I accept that. But even if you told me that the journey to that point, I think, is the best part of it, I mean, that's the story. Like you said, learning the history, you know, you look at, for example, we were at Missouri Paracon where we met and sitting in the audience, you can see, when you look around, there is just you talk about different walks of life. You've got people from all over the place, from you know, some that don't even speak the language, some that you know, whatever religious beliefs, whatever have. You Talk about a global community, you know, and it's just that fun, that journey that they get to go through. So it's just awesome and I'm so happy to hear that. That fun, that journey that they get to go through.
Speaker 1:So that's it's just awesome and I I'm so happy to hear that that's kind of how it was shaping the show, that that's awesome so what I love about missouri paracon was great and, as you know, a lot of them are like that, where you have people from all walks of life. I know this is going to sound so preachy and soap boxy, but I don't care. Sure, I think a ghost story could save us all, I agree? Yeah, truly, I think that you know, if we started talking about religion, we're going to fight, that's how it works.
Speaker 2:100%. That's how religion works. We're going to fight.
Speaker 1:Even if you're the same religion, you're not quite the right brand.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:You could go to the same church and still fight.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that gets us all in a huff and it divides us. But, boy, if you talk about ghost stories even skeptics who say there's no such thing as ghosts you go. Okay, no problem, Sit down and hear a story then.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Well, I like a good ghost story. Fine, then sit down and hear a good ghost story. The ghosts exist because we, the living, have unfinished business, period. I don't think the dead have any unfinished business. It's done. They're not paying taxes anymore, right? Yeah, business is concluded.
Speaker 2:Right but we.
Speaker 1:We have unfinished business, an unsolved murder, unfinished right. Someone got away with something years ago. Ah, we don't like that at all, I don't care how long ago it was a horrible atrocity took place, uh, a civil war battle, uh any war battle, right that that left thousands dead who just thought they were doing the right thing. That haunts us. You know, um, where someone got lost and died.
Speaker 1:That haunts us yeah you know, and I think the most simple explanation that I've, that I can offer, which I think we've all experienced you're driving home late at night on the highway, you're getting drowsy and you pass a cross on the side of the road, mm-hmm, where someone put up a little memorial to someone who died doing exactly what you're doing right this very minute. And, boy, does that wake you up. Yes, it does just just a teeny tiny bit. Right you go.
Speaker 1:Oh right you know, slap the face, turn up the radio, put the window down a little bit, wake up wake up this you don't always get to the destination alive, and and so I think that is the simplest definition of a ghost it's the past coming to the present, because we are still trying to reconcile something that happened, and if we can be haunted by history, if we allow the ghosts through, there's chances that we won't repeat the same damn mistakes over and over. It's a small chance, because if you study history.
Speaker 2:You know we do make the same mistakes over and, over and over again, but there's a small chance, because if you study, history. You know we do make the same mistakes over and over and over again.
Speaker 1:But there's a chance. There's a better chance if we at least understand it. And if a ghost haunts some place and makes enough of us ask why and we find out the answer, maybe we can just grow as a people. Yeah. Agreed and that's why I truly believe a ghost story could save us all, if we let them haunt us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, that's 100% accurate. I feel the same way. You know, it's one of those things where it doesn't matter who you are, everybody gets touched by the paranormal. Ooh, that's a tagline somewhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Real quick, though I'd be remiss if we didn't bring up ghost adventures.
Speaker 1:You know it's I'd obviously been 25 years now, right, 17 years, 17, 17 years, this very month maybe this very day wow, really, when I got the call yeah, wow, I don't know why I got 25 anyway, um
Speaker 2:probably feels like it.
Speaker 3:Well, no, it's just oh, that's what I'm thinking 25 seasons, that's where I'm at in the head.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it doesn't always line up with years. Right, yeah, that's right. Okay, I feel better now.
Speaker 3:What started, and I know you weren't there for the first part, the documentary where they kind of what was it? The Nevada?
Speaker 1:The Goldfields and all that. Yeah, the Goldfields.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but since then I think you've been along for the ride for the whole thing. Has that been something? That's been just one of those labors of love, that just kind of you get to kind of be a storyteller and you get to watch it sort of play out, you know, sort of?
Speaker 1:So when it started, like you said, they did the documentary and then the documentary served as a pilot, the Travel Channel bought it and they were going to do eight episodes and Zach called me and said, hey, hey, we know, you know haunted places all over, we're looking for someone to help us with research, with writing and finding witnesses that we can interview on camera. And I was like cool, I've done this for newspapers, magazines, the web. I've just never done it for TV, like that's neat, it's just a different medium. And so, uh, it was. It was neat to be there to like form a show.
Speaker 1:It's very difficult to form a show because you need to sort of develop a formula that becomes familiar to the audience, that they know what to expect, when to expect it. And so it was really cool, it was really neat, especially those early years. And then it was a hit and they said we got to do more, get back to work. And we did and we pretty much haven't stopped since. So it was cool. But that is very much a team, you know, and I'm a piece of it and I give what I can give, but it's not my baby, you know what.
Speaker 2:I mean Right Sure.
Speaker 1:That's my day job. Which, how cool is that Like that's?
Speaker 2:my day job. The rest of us don't get that, and the books and other stuff is my more passion project.
Speaker 1:Yeah, stuff as my, you know my more passion project, so, but it's still really cool. I love when we get a location and they're like all right, jeff, it's all yours. And then I dig in and I find some nuggets and stuff that you know people may not have uncovered before, or I piece together the right people and then you know what happens when they investigate is whatever happens, it's Zach's show, no question. I just try to give them pieces to work with. That's so cool.
Speaker 3:Man, that's a great day-to-day job I get to be a network engineer.
Speaker 1:Hey, you need that stuff running before they take it all down, I know, Gosh, they did that.
Speaker 3:I'd never sleep again. So I have to admit, what you've got going on right now is something that um and I'm going to be a little less cryptic here in a second um, this guy right here, shadow zine oh, look at that yeah yeah, and, and I have the, the pleasure we had the pleasure of having, uh, you autograph it, so that's yeah, look at that yeah, look at that. Uh, this is awesome.
Speaker 3:By the way, yeah, it is so cool, I love it, thank you I remember when I was a kid and and I know you'll understand this you know you would go to like, whether it was a convenience store or whatever, there was always a magazine. You know whether, whatever you were into, there was literally a magazine for every flavor of the person out there and you would see things like, of course you know, the teen beats and the Fangorias and stuff.
Speaker 2:Teen bop.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the teen bops and stuff.
Speaker 1:Logan, which was your favorite, corey, Be honest.
Speaker 3:I think I'm a Haim guy honestly.
Speaker 1:Haim, okay, yeah, rip Haim.
Speaker 3:Rip, yeah, I know, but yeah, it's just being able to touch something, being able to pick a book up. You know, right now it's a great time, don't get me wrong. I love the technology. I love being able, like you said, to do the things that we do. It affords us the ability to do some things. That was much, much harder, you know, going back, but it's also kept us from some things that I think is sorely missing, especially when it comes to paranormal. I remember just getting like a reader's digest or like even like a, a national geographic. Remember you'd see like the picture and there's like a skull there and you're like I gotta figure out what the heck this is about. And you're reading it. And there was, there was that connection between you and the print. That's really making me sound old, I know it no, no, no, listen, go on, don't stop.
Speaker 1:But yeah, it's, let's push this through that.
Speaker 3:That's the whole thing that I think is so great about shadow zine is that you take uh and this is the first volume you take a, like you did the bridgewater triangle in this first one, and there's so much history there I mean I'm sure you had to take stories and not include it, because it just oh yeah, you know you could go for days, but you know you take this one topic and you give little nuggets of of stories that people can digest.
Speaker 3:You don't have to read the entire thing at one time, you know you can just kind of pick it apart, but it's just, it's filled with some really cool stuff. There's some humor in there. It's that connection to what you wanted us to know and it's it's. It's it really is. It's just one of those things that it's a forgotten not a forgotten art, but it's just. It's something that I think is is sorely missing.
Speaker 1:So when I started in all this back in the nineties, I worked on zines, like desktop publishing was was still coming up Photoshop, you know, pagemaker and Quartz I don't even know if they make those anymore, but like so, I was working on zines, I was working on newspapers. And desktop publishing came around in the 80s and 90s, during a time when media was consolidating. Right Like radio stations were being owned by just a few companies, newspaper companies were being owned by just a few companies and they were really starting to control the narrative. The difference with print was that newspaper companies still had local reporters covering your local news, so there was hope. But then the late 90s came around and the internet came on.
Speaker 1:And we were like. Zine publishers like me were like this is great, print is expensive. You got to pay for those you know, and so the web. I was like 80 bucks a year and I can do anything. Right, this is amazing. And so the web took off, and it was the wild west right. I started a website called ghostvillagecom. We eventually had message boards with 50,000 members. We had so much content. It was absolutely massive. But then, around 2010, something else happened. Social media blew up. Facebook and MySpace was first right.
Speaker 1:And then Twitter came along and all these other things, and now my grave concern is that newspapers have all died. There is nobody covering local news in your town. In our country, corruption has always been from the top down. Absolutely the people way high up are corrupt, but the local cop's not going to shake you down for 20 bucks.
Speaker 1:But because you had the fourth estate. The fourth estate was the media. They did protect you. You can say whatever you want about them, but they did protect you from certain corruption, especially locally. Now, if you're like planning and zoning person is just doing corrupt things to just benefit their personal business and not really caring about the town, how do you hear about it, Unless you go to town meetings? Raise your hand. If you go to town meetings.
Speaker 2:Yeah, nobody does Not a hand up in the room, you know.
Speaker 1:And so suddenly we have this. We now live at a time where, if you think about it, I would argue 90 to 95% of people spend their time on the internet on just six or so websites. Right, yeah, facebook, instagram, twitter, truth, social, if you want, tiktok, YouTube, reddit right, I mean, jump in if I'm leaving anybody out right, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean you've said more than I look at, that's not even seven people that control all that and they're dialing up and dialing it down politically and content-wise. Facebook used to work. If I choose to follow you because I want to follow you and you start putting up ad after ad for the stuff you're doing, your punishment is I unfollow you, right, because I'm like, oh, he's just trying to sell me something at every turn, so I unfollow and you go. Well, gee, I better do something different or people aren't going to follow me. It just worked itself out naturally. Now Facebook is deciding eh, what you just posted looks like an ad. You gonna have to pay for that, and and so it's, which is fine. They got to make money too. I get it, but now I'm really scared that we are living in a time where the narrative is desperately trying to be controlled by a tiny handful of people.
Speaker 1:Sure, uh you know, stuff gets suppressed on the web. Google can decide what you find and don't find. So I'm like I know this sounds a little conspiracy theorist, but print is real. You hold it in your hands Exactly. And so I'm like you know what? No AI, no ads. You pay for it. You buy the content. And I wrote the first one, sure, but Richard Estep wrote the second one. I'm going to have different authors writing each one. They're going to get paid for it. They're going to get a royalty on it, which is how the paranormal started, right? We?
Speaker 1:were producing zines and so we're going back and TV networks have canceled pretty much all the paranormal shows I know, because they don't know what to do. They're not sure what they're doing, and so I'm like you know what, if we're going underground, then good, let's go back underground. I was happy there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, I've got friends there, you know, landmarks I recognize, and so the whole idea is Shadowzine is going to go back underground with print, traditional print, through the mail. It can't be edited later, it can't be, you know, suppressed or whatever. It's just, I answer to nobody but the reader and that feels so good right now in this world we're currently living in you know where, you don't know what to believe or who to believe anymore, because the narrative changes every day.
Speaker 2:We're not at war with.
Speaker 1:East Anglia. We're at war with West Anglia. I'm like I've read this book long ago, 1984. And suddenly I'm just like you know what Print? Print, I think, will save us. Doesn't need a battery, doesn't need sunlight, you can take it anywhere you go. That's right, and it's tangible and it's user-friendly like you mentioned. So anyway that's my soapbox, and I'm trying it, you know, like let's see where this goes. And so I'm going back to very old school ideas, and, and so I'm going back to very old school ideas and here we are.
Speaker 3:Well, and that's I think it's really needed, because not only do you get the and, honestly, 10 bucks, I mean, it's like it's really. I mean, if you go to stinking Starbucks and you order one coffee, here's your coffee, I mean.
Speaker 2:It's gone, it's gone, and then it's gone.
Speaker 3:You don't have it right and it's just, it's amazing to to kind of see it back. And you're right, and it's that same cyclical, you know. So let's, I agree, let's get this back out. And uh, we've got richards on the way.
Speaker 1:So we're pretty excited about that, but, uh, thank you, yeah, yeah, um, the response so far has been really good you know like people I think people appreciate a couple things that, like I remember one woman said to me in missouri.
Speaker 1:She said you know, I know you guys write books and it's great and I want to be supportive, but I don't have time for a book. If I have time for this, this is a little. You know a zine, and I'm like all right, cool, hey, whatever, whatever you, whatever, whatever works for you, and I think that's great. I mean, I get it. I like reading short stuff too sometimes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's super fair too, because you never either the folks that have the affinity to pick up a book and read it and spend a lot of time with it, and that's one group of people and that's great. But there are definitely those folks that they just want a piece, they just want a little bit little nuggets. You want an appetizer, you don't want the whole meal Exactly.
Speaker 3:Totally fine and it's awesome, because I think the one thing that we're missing and I've said this before and I'll do my soapbox for like two seconds but you know, in our time, when we were growing up, information was so hard to get. You had to fight for information, whether it be a book, whether it be whatever medium you could find it. Whoever had the information won in the end. That was the thing, and unfortunately, a lot of it had to do with people of affluence had all the information, yada, yada, all that kind of stuff. But we have information just force fed down our throats constantly and, like you said, the algorithm dictates what we're going to eat and we're just going to consume it. You know.
Speaker 1:It's awful, and not only that, like they know what gets you right, so they know what sport teams you watch and what'll get you clicking. They know what makes you mad and you'll click on it. They know what makes you happy and you'll click on it. And they're feeding it to you to keep you there. And the irony is and I get it I need social media to make my living.
Speaker 1:I need social media to get the word out, but at the same time you ever go a day without it. You ever notice that weird feeling at the end of the day. It's called happiness, it's called calm. And you're like, wow, I was just at the beach all day today, or I was at the lake just hanging out, you know, and you're suddenly like huh, I forgot my phone. And once the jitters stop, you're like wow.
Speaker 2:This is great.
Speaker 1:Sobriety ain't so bad I know it's so funny.
Speaker 3:When TikTok went offline, our daughter literally had a complete meltdown. Oh yeah, it was bad she was just can't, I don't know what I'm doing and and I'm like, yeah, it's no big deal, we just put it away I was actually really thrilled that was kind of nice, you know.
Speaker 3:I mean, you're right, we all have to do it. It is something that you know. We've got our own social media. It's, you're right, it's how you get the word out. But sure, um, but no. And I'm so glad you brought this medium back and I don't want to say it was completely dead, but this form of it, you know, it's like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the magazine was gone.
Speaker 3:The magazine was gone and even when it was around, before it completely had its swan song, it had started to kind of just become. I remember I got an what was it? I think it was like a guitar magazine and literally two pages was content. The rest was like ads and just like it was garbage by that point. So, um, awesome so thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I'm, I'm trying something here and um, and the good news is, like I've been doing this so long, I'm friends with all the authors out there that are doing the same. We're all. We're all friends with each other, Right? So I'm just like, hey, you want to try something weird?
Speaker 3:And they're like yes, let's try something weird yeah.
Speaker 1:And here's a little inside information. So I have a book coming out in September called Wicked Strange. It's a photo journey and a weird journey around New England. All kinds of stories that we cover in the podcast ghosts, monsters, aliens, all the other stuff. It's available for pre-sale now. When you sign these literary contracts, there's a clause in there that says this will be your next book. Well, I signed that contract over a year ago, you know, and so that's a year and a half where that has to be my next book. Anyway, wow, this is a zine, yeah anyway, wow, this is a zine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly stick it to the man captain, loophole strikes again.
Speaker 3:That's good stuff. Well, jeff, I mean this is great and and I really want to urge our listeners and anybody out there, please- please, please pick this up and support it. It's just. This is where we need to go. We need to get back to this sort of thing. We need to get back to storytelling. We need to get back to actually knowing what the heck a story is. You know, it's just, it's fantastic. And you know I really look.
Speaker 1:I think we will, and I think what's happening right now is pushing everyone away, right, because people are realizing how toxic it all is, oh yeah, and they're realizing like, what can I do? That's real. You know what's real. Go out to your local haunts and check them out and your local stories. Go into your own woods and look for Bigfoot or whatever it is that excites you. But do it. Don't like watch it in 30-second bursts on your phone.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, don't like watch it in 30 second bursts on your phone Right Like go be active, go jump into this life experience because you'll be happier. And just ask yourself am I happier now, or was I happier when I was on my couch looking at TikToks? Yeah, you know, and I think you'll find the answer is overwhelmingly like wow, when I get away from that and do things, I'm happier. And yeah, share the story. Storytelling is how we connect. We're so disconnected right now, which is the political climate we're in. Do you ever post on social media like eating an orange? Well, of course you are. That's what you would do, you jerk? That's just crazy.
Speaker 2:Social media.
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, you're just like oh, I didn't think that was political.
Speaker 2:I was just eating an orange. An orange, yeah, you know, like chicken sandwich.
Speaker 1:Oh, figures, that's so true.
Speaker 2:That's so sadly true, hide behind the keyboard and yeah, I don't know how you could politicize that.
Speaker 1:but here we are. You know, it's just crazy. So, yeah, we're living in this time where it's just so, so toxic, yeah, and it's toxic because we're not talking to each other, we're just online exactly darts.
Speaker 3:Yeah to anybody who'll listen or take a dart yeah, yeah, or you're in the echo chamber.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're right, we're all just yelling the same thing I know boy, are we gonna learn and grow? I know here there's innovation for you well and and you know what too, like so in the paranormal we I've saw over time right, I've been doing this a long time. I remember when orbs were big and eventually we were like all right, let's learn how cameras work and learn the lens, flare and things that can cause orbs, and I'm not saying it's never paranormal, but overwhelming percentage of the time it's probably not right.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah.
Speaker 1:Let's just understand the equipment and so or orbs kind of went away the talk about it went away and then uh, meanwhile everybody was just sort of parroting the same thing that they heard on tv shows and I was like those tv shows are ripping off harry price, who wrote confessions of a ghost hunter in the 1920s and we really haven't evolved much in a hundred years, you know, like it's still his ideas and even then, like he got his ideas from, like, psychic mediums and everything else, like and I'm not saying it's wrong, maybe it's correct, but maybe it is wrong and we shouldn't just keep repeating the same thing over and over again. Let's try different stuff.
Speaker 1:You know, let's bring what we do to the table, whatever that is. You know I like research and history. You know other people like the tech fine, do what you do, you know. But but let's try to chase down some different ideas.
Speaker 3:And you need a happy medium of both. I mean, there has to be, you know, give and take for both for sure. And you know the other thing that we always we fail to realize that we always think that we're so dynamic on this side of the lens, what, what? Why do we think that the paranormal side, the, the ethereal plane, is not also very dynamic? You know, it's just. It always baffles me that people forget that. That, you know, just because it was one thing before does not necessarily mean it's going to be the same thing the next time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, and it's a human thing, right. So I mean, I always try to imagine it's called empathy, right. But imagine, like, well, how would I be? How would I be if I was sort of in a space where I couldn't necessarily be seen or heard all the time and people are poking around in the dark? What would I do? What would I say? Sure, probably a lot of get outs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, you know what are you doing. I would be that one that would pick on him.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, just because it would be fun, logan Nicole get out.
Speaker 3:Get out, do you remember Get off my lawn. Oh I'd definitely be that, yeah, you definitely would Do you remember the movie Twilight Zone, of course, yeah, do you remember when he's like I think it was Dan Aykroyd's character where he's like hey, want to see something scary and the guy turns and he's like this horrible monster and scares? That would be me, 100%, that would be me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course They'd probably think I was a demon Beetlejuice right.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Absolutely.
Speaker 1:We would just reenact it all over and over. Yeah, no, it's, but I still love the subject because you're asking really big questions.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. You're asking, like what happens after we die and what legacy will I leave, and what part of history are we still grappling with, and what does it mean and how do I want to live my life? For sure, you know how do I want to be remembered, like all these really big things that we can talk about freely under the guise of paranormal and ghosts. That we can talk about freely under the guise of paranormal and ghosts, whereas if you do it under the guise of a religion, well, next thing you know, we're all drinking Kool-Aid and dying in a field in South America and making documentaries about us.
Speaker 3:That crazy guy.
Speaker 1:Or we're getting on a spaceship and cutting off our testicles. Either way, I don't know which one's worse. Yet I'm sticking to ghosts. You know what I mean?
Speaker 3:I'm good with ghosts. I don't know which one's worse, yet I'm sticking to Ghost. You know what I mean. Yeah, I'm good with Ghost. I'm good with Ghost. Yeah, let's do the Ghost thing. Let's try that. Yeah, I'm with you on that one.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Oh man let's see where this one goes.
Speaker 3:That's hilarious. Yeah Well, Jeff, I know our audience is going get the shadow zine and kind of get involved with what you got going on. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm always happy to correspond with other weirdos. Um, uh, the the shadow zine is shadow zinecom. Uh, it's like magazine but just zine. And then, um, and then my website's my name, jeff Belangercom, and Facebook and Instagram and YouTube. Exploring Legends is my Instagram and Facebook and Legend Tripping is my YouTube. You can follow me, but I really don't know where I'm going, if I'm honest.
Speaker 3:But we can get lost together and make a few laughs. It's the journey. That's what counts For sure. Well, jeff, thank you so much for spending some time with us tonight. We had a blast. Yeah, it was awesome and hope to bring you back someday. And yeah, we'll talk about some more zine stuff and some retro stuff. Sounds good. But thank you so much and we'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1:Take care.
Speaker 3:Perfect. Thank you, sir.
Speaker 1:Appreciate it. I'm closing no, I'm out. Just let me unplug my internet.
Speaker 3:Yeah, then you get the email. Hey, would you mind?
Speaker 1:jumping on for a second, but it saves it though, so it doesn't I mean that's good for you. It says it's 99%, it's still going.
Speaker 3:It just takes a second or two. Yeah, no worries, it's fine. Yeah, actually it a second or two, yeah, no worries. Um, yeah, actually it's really great because it like right now it's on recording on like 720p, but up there I get to pull it down to 4k. So cool. There's some really cool upside too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's awesome, hey when's it come out um we?
Speaker 2:it'll be like two or three weeks. Yeah, I can't remember.
Speaker 3:Yeah, cool exactly, but yeah yeah, we'll give you the links and and I we'll make sure you get all the information up ahead of time.
Speaker 1:So again, thank you so much, Jeff we appreciate it. Yeah, you too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're all uploaded. So again, thank you so much, and we look forward to talking to you soon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, are you guys based in Arizona?
Speaker 3:No, we're actually in Missouri, oh you're in Missouri? Okay, yeah but I'm from Arizona and I was raised somewhat in California too, so I'm a West Coast, and when I was in the army I met I met this one here and I just realized my life wasn't going to be okay without her. So we, we stayed here.
Speaker 1:Nicole, were you army too? No, no, oh, you're just nearby.
Speaker 3:I was just a local girl, yeah, yeah, and my friend was actually trying to hook up with her and I'm like I'm sorry I'm going to say it, but I'm like, hey, she looks really high-maintenance man.
Speaker 2:Which I couldn't be further from high-maintenance. You couldn't be further from that, which is funny.
Speaker 3:So he's like yeah you're right, we'll just skip over it. In the meantime, I'm like writing down her MySpace name and stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you said MySpace. Yeah, it was MySpace. Hey, what Riz you have.
Speaker 3:That was gosh. That's almost 20 years ago. Yeah, Girl, let me get your ats. Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:Wow. I've never said that to anyone but I want to Let me get your ats. You should bring it back.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Let me get those ats, oh man.
Speaker 3:Well, jeff, thanks again. We appreciate it, man, and we'll let you know when it's coming out. It's great.
Speaker 2:Sounds good and we love the book, we really do. Yeah, yeah, it's very refreshing yeah it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks. Well, we'll make more. All right, sounds good, we'll read them Take care guys, All right.
Speaker 3:Thanks, Jeff. Take care it was yeah, first of all if he hadn't gotten by now. He's just so much fun to talk to. He is, you know he's definitely one of those guys where it doesn't matter how you feel, man, when you're in his orbit it's like, yeah, all right, he just he pumps you up.
Speaker 2:Exuberant energy. He's exuberant. I like that.
Speaker 3:Exuberant, yeah, exuberant energy exuberant, yeah, exuberant, nice, yeah, guys, we really like this. It's um, you know, it's exactly what we talked about. It's just little nuggets, little, and it's all about. This particular one is about the bridgewater, uh, triangle, um, and I know there's one coming from, uh, richard estep and uh is the second month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's the second month coming up.
Speaker 3:Yeah which we got on the way, but it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:And I think it would be really good for the young like maybe not super little kids, but like young teenagers, because a lot of them are starting to get into the paranormal. They're wanting to go on investigations and learn a lot, so this would be perfect, because their attention spans are not great.
Speaker 3:They're used to this thing here. That's why the TikTok is so popular.
Speaker 2:So this would be great because they could pick it up, read one story, set it down come back to it later and it's perfect for that.
Speaker 3:It absolutely is, and I know that I would imagine is one of the things Jeff was really trying to hammer in, because it's just those nice little stories and it's just great and it's it's so awesome to get back to storytelling and we're so happy that Jeff and Richard and and all the people that he's going to have involved in it, it's just, it's, it's awesome, it's what we need.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I love I mean, even though this is a magazine so happy to see that they're putting it back in print, because I remember years ago when the kindle like in the the.
Speaker 3:What was the?
Speaker 2:oh the nook, yeah the nook came out and he was trying to convince me get rid of your books, just get this. It's all electronic and I like fought him hard. I'm like I don't want that. I like the feel, I like the look like holding a book in my hands, the smell of the book, and even I got you know.
Speaker 2:I started to like that too, I realized that it was we were losing it, you know right, right, and so I'm very happy to see this, and I came home from missouri paracon with the whole library. I swear we bought many, many books yes, we did from almost every single person that had them available for sale so but I got to add it to paranormal library and this was one of them, that's awesome, and we've already ordered the second second edition. So, yeah, go out and get it.
Speaker 3:It's really, really cool it's not expensive, it's worth every dime. It's it like you could literally take this anywhere. It's not, you know, it's not obstructive, it's not getting in the way anything.
Speaker 2:It's perfect great for an airplane, oh yeah, yeah, you fly a lot okay, well, I know what I'm taking to ireland.
Speaker 3:Guys, seriously, um, jump on his website, pick it up. You're not going to be uh let down. It's a great time, um, but uh, yeah, thanks a lot, guys. Let us know what you think jeff's great um, reach out to reach out to him and uh, yeah, well, other than that, guys, we'll we'll see you next week. See you next week, thank you.
