I'm more apt to believe that we are in touch with something on
that level than a Bigfoot that we can't find.
But with that said, I can certainly believe that there
might be something in the ocean depths that we haven't found yet
or seen now. Is it a monster?
I think a great white shark is a fucking monster.
Welcome to Splintered spirits. I'm your host Gary, and along
with my nephew John Santa from Santa Paranormal, we try to
explore the potential answers to the question, What are spirits?
Today, I'm sitting down with one of the most respected skeptics
on the planet when it comes to hauntings, monsters, and
mysterious claims. Benjamin Radford is the deputy
editor of Skeptical Inquirer, a research fellow with the
Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and the author or contributor to
more than 20 books, including Investigating Ghosts, Scientific
Paranormal Investigation, and Tracking the Chupacabra.
He has written thousands of articles on critical thinking,
folklore, and the strange corners of belief, and his work
has appeared everywhere from CNN and ABC News to The New York
Times and Scientific American. He has helped build some of the
smartest conversations in this space through podcasts like
Monster Talk and Squaring the Strange, listed on Splintered
Spirits. We talked to believers,
experiencers, investigators and storytellers.
And today we talked to the guy who walks into the same haunted
places, hears the same stories, and asks where is the evidence
and what is really happening here?
Some people love it. Some people are absolutely going
to hate it, but if we are ever going to figure out what spirits
are, we have to communicate with the other side.
And I don't mean the other side like the dead, I mean non
believers. Ben could not have been nicer
and a real joy to talk to. Let's dive into the
conversation. Ben, thank you so much for
joining Splendor Spirits today. Thanks for having me on, this is
going to be fun. Oh, yeah.
It's the look. If nothing else, we, we we have
fun with this. I mean, we're talking about
ghosts. I mean, if we can't have fun
doing it, what are we? You know, what's the?
Right. If you, if you can't, if you
can't make ghosts interesting, then there's something wrong
with you. So that's just, that's just how
it is. Well, believer or skeptic,
that's just the fact. I, I, I tell you, man, you know,
and I'm glad you said it that way because the way I started
this was trying to understand what my, what my nephew does.
And he is a top TikTok influencer.
He, he's not a ghost. He's not an investigator.
He'll tell you we're out of the gate.
He's not an investigator. He documents spirits and really
what he does, he just talks to his community.
He has a spirit box apps or spirit boxes going and they say
things and he comments or he got really famous.
What really launched him was he was one of the first people to
start walking cemeteries about four or five years ago.
Nobody was really doing that, certainly not on social media
before that. And then he would clean
headstones and that and, and talk to spirits while doing it.
And that was what really launched him.
And the things and the responses he got were beyond the generic
that I get when I download these apps, right?
Which is what makes it interesting, right?
So I got into it because I'm like, OK, dude, what is going on
now? You got a million people
following you. It's like you can start your own
religion or something. And this seems insane, you know,
So what you know, and I, I wouldn't say I'm a skeptic.
I think I'm in hell. I'm a hell.
I'm curious, right? Like one of our things is to
stay curious and I want to know what's going on.
And I've been, I'm talking to everyone with this podcast in
terms of mediums and witches and parapsychologists and academics
and authors and, and skeptics. And then when I came across your
name and, and I've spoken to some other people that like CFI
as well. What I really am fascinated
about your background is you seem, and correct me if I'm
wrong, you like to investigate claims as opposed to straight up
dismissing them and it would you say that distinction is fair to
say and is that an an important distinction to you?
Yeah, absolutely, partly because you know, if the the fact of the
matter is that you don't know if you don't look.
And that's true regardless of what it is, right.
And so, so I've always been a believer in and trying to find
out. So, you know, when I was a kid,
when I was a teenager, I would see these stories about, you
know, the Loch Ness Monster and UFOs and ghosts and the weird
stuff everywhere. And I'm like, this is super
cool. Like I, I, I love this, right?
This is spirits and, and you know, and dark forces and all
sorts of crazy stuff around me. And then, but, but as I began
consuming a lot of the stuff and a lot of the materials at the
time, this is in the, this is in the in the 80s, That's how old I
am. And, you know, this is long
before, of course, podcast and, and, and, and YouTube and stuff.
And what I found was that there was very little actual
investigation. It was mostly people I don't
want to see talking out of their ass.
But it was just sort of like, Hey, here's a story that I heard
about some spirit that haunts, you know, some hotel, like, OK,
right. And it wasn't really until you,
you a couple day decade, decades later, when when you had the
TAPS team going out there, you had the popularization of ghost
hunting, things like that. And all of a sudden there's this
sort of grassroots explosion of interest in the paranormal and
ghosts specifically. And, and at that point, I'm
like, OK, well, this is interesting.
And, you know, so the, the question then became, how can we
approach these scientifically, right?
So we have the world around us, we have things that we, we know
exist, right? We know that fish exist.
We know that cheese exist. We know that electricity exists.
There's lots of things that we know exist.
And the question becomes, you know, how do we know those those
things exist? And can we apply those same
processes to ghosts? So that's that's always been my
position is you shouldn't be, you shouldn't just dismiss
things out of hand because you you don't know.
On the other hand, you shouldn't just accept any random things
being evidence of ghosts. Was there ever one?
Was there one single moment early on, like a a specific case
or something or or story that really pushed you hard into what
people would categorize you as becoming a professional skeptic?
There, there were a couple, you know, some of them were cases
that I, I'd read about as a, as a, as a kid, right?
So I would pick up, you know, the, the Reader's Digest book of
mysteries, you know, you know the kind I'm talking about, the
mysteries, unknown, all those sorts of things.
And I used to love that. In fact, I, I've got, I've got a
big stack of them behind me. That's, that's those books right
there. That's, that's, that's, that's,
you know, a third of my of my shelf of those.
And so I would see all these mysteries presented on, you
know, in search of and, you know, that's incredible for, for
those and just all these other shows.
And and so though I would see just all in.
It was like, it was almost like thrown.
It was like the kitchen sink approach, like there's ghosts,
there's mysteries or, you know, it was all just sort of lumped
together and thrown at the thrown at the at the audience.
And I'm like, well, you know, in some ways that's kind of
disingenuous because because just because somebody somewhere
doesn't know the explanation, all that means is that some
random do doesn't know the explanation, doesn't mean that
others haven't solved it, doesn't mean has been
investigated, and it doesn't mean that that there aren't
explanations for these things. So I think one of the first ones
that really, really jumped out at me was the case of the moving
coffins and Barbados. Do you know the Chase Vault
story? No, tell me.
I don't know. By the way, I'm this is what I
love because I don't know much about the paranormal.
This is sort of my journey into figuring, learning about it.
So tell me about this this story, Barbados.
Yeah, OK. So this.
Is this might be a reason why I never go to Barbados by the way,
But let's hear it. So, yeah, so it's, it's, it's,
it's a long, it's, it's kind of a complicated story in some
ways. It's a very simple story.
I'll, I'll spare you the, the, the details, but basically there
was this famous case that I can, I read about when I was 8 or 10
or something. I'm like, oh, because I, I grew
up here in New Mexico. I'm still in New Mexico, land of
Breaking Bad and bugs bunnies, what we're loving for.
I've been loving Pluribus right now too, but yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I haven't seen it.
I'm the last person on earth who hasn't seen it yet.
Oh, it's so good. But it's so, so I grew up here
and, and so all like all these mysteries, they all seem very
far away. It's like, you know, the Loch
Ness Monster is in Scotland. Where's Scotland?
It's some island by the North Pole, just like as you're a kid,
it's just some, some far away place, right?
And, and so there were all these mysteries that were intriguing
to me because they're presented as mysterious and unknown and
unexplainable. And some, maybe some of them
were, but, but I was like, well, I, I was just a kid.
I can, I can figure I can't really investigate this because,
you know, I'm 10, I live in the desert.
I'm not in these places, but one of the ones that had jumped out
at me was the chase vault story. And again, I'll give you the the
short version. So the story is that there's
this this, this, this vault, this cemetery in Barbados.
And it's was owned by the Chase family.
And the story is that the starting, I think in the 1820s,
I want to say that there was this family and, and they would,
they had this big, this big stone slab and they would bury,
as you know, because it was a family vault.
Whenever somebody died, you know, they would, they would
push a cut the push aside this huge stone and they'd put in
the, the, the, the coffins like Jesus, yes, very much like
Jesus. But he, there, there was no
returning in this case. And, and the story was that,
that the first, this happened a couple times and that the
coffins would be moved. And so the story was that
because, you know, again, this family and every now and then,
you know, some infant would die and, you know, for childhood
disease or some elderly relative, whatever else.
And over the course of decades, every time they, they pushed
aside these, this huge stone that took 666 grown men to move
the, the, the coffins had been moved.
And the question is. And this is what years, what
years were this? This is 18.
Well, it actually went over the course of several decades, but I
think it was 1818, eighties, 1870s crossing, you know, for
for many years. So this is this is sort of, this
is, I want to say a mystery set in stone, but it's it's sort of
a dusty mystery. In other words, it's not
actively happening today. Anyway, so today's your
question. That was one of the first ones
that really intrigued me. You feel like moving coffins,
How is this possible? Right.
And so there's all these different explanations.
Some people thought it was voodoo.
Some people said it was grave robbers, but #1 nothing was
stolen from the coffins. And #2 that they would you, you
would have to move the stone put and then push it back.
And it would, it would take eight people to do this.
And this is a small island in, in, you know, in the Caribbean
anyway. So as it happened, I actually
went there and investigated. So I, I was there for a cruise
actually. And they're like, Hey, do you
want to go scuba dive? And like, no, I want to go
investigate this, this famous mystery.
OK, so I spent the, spent most of the afternoon there.
I took a bunch of photos and, and I interviewed some people.
And I actually, I, I think I did a pretty good job of solving the
case, but that's one of the first ones where.
Can you tell me what you can't leave me like that bro?
What's the why? How'd the coffins get moved?
So the the the the short version of the story is that is that the
legend itself is made-up. In other words, the the claims
about the movie coffins that that is the legend.
In other words, it's not that it's not that the coffins
removed. No one knows how it happens.
Like the coffins weren't actually moved.
That's that that that is itself the legend.
It's like, it's like, it's like when I blame my wife because I
can't find my car keys and I say that she moved them.
Exactly. And in some ways, I mean there's
even parallel to the Bell Witch story in Tennessee.
And and so and, and, and, and I've investigated many cases
like that. There was 1 here in Albuquerque
called the the Chemo Theatre Ghost.
And it's a one of the famous haunted locations in the
Southwest, certainly in New Mexico.
And again, I'll, I'll spare you the whole story, but basically
there was this, it's a theater, it's about maybe 5 miles from
here. And it's allegedly haunted by a
boy ghost. And if you if you don't leave
doughnuts for him, because who doesn't love doughnuts?
Sure, everybody loves. Certainly boy ghosts do.
Of course, the the story is that if you didn't leave doughnuts
for him, then he would haunt the theater.
So he would like, he would like ruin performances there if they
had plays and things like that. And again, I, I grew up hearing
about this story cause 'cause it's every Halloween.
Hey, do you know about the Keno Theatre ghost?
So I grew up, I'm like, and finally I'm like, is this true?
It's like, I, I'm, I'm a ghost investigator.
I've written books on this. I I, but I hadn't actually
investigated one of the most famous cases in my home state.
So once again, I, I circled back and I did investigations and I
interviewed people there. And, and you know, this goes
back to what you're saying. Gary's it was, it was not, it
was not a matter of like, this can't be true.
This is all bullshit. I'm like, I don't know if this
is bullshit. I, I, I sincerely don't, I'm
skeptical, but you don't know if you don't look.
So those are a couple of examples where, you know, it was
important to me to not just be the sort of dismissive debunker.
I'm not a debunker at all. I in the course of investigating
things, I sometimes debunk them, but I don't, I don't go into
them saying this can't be true. Let me prove it.
I'm with you. I, I'm, I, I say this all the
time. I don't.
I find debunking unfun. It's and and easy, right And to
me. Well, it's also beside the
point. I mean, if you look, I mean why
and, and, and this is this is this is one thing I've never
understood, like when, when I or other skeptics get accused of
being debunkers. My question is, why would I
bother? Like why?
If, if you're so certain that I know that ghosts don't exist,
I've never claimed the ghosts don't exist.
That's not a scientific claim. But the question because would
be like if you knew something was not true and why would you
spend days or weeks on that? You just be like, oh, this is
not true. I'm going to waste my time.
So so, but there's. Certainly there are certainly
skeptics in in your field specifically too that just
believe that ghosts aren't real or spirits are real.
That that's true. I mean, but, but, but I mean,
you have to make a distinction between investigative skeptics
and just sort of general people who who think that ghosts don't
exist. I mean now.
Do you believe ghosts exist? I Do you believe in spirits?
Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, it's, I'm not trying to be
evasive, but it sort of depends. I mean, I haven't seen, I
haven't personally seen good evidence of ghosts.
I've looked, I've, I've wrote a book called Investigating
Ghosts. Shameless plug.
Yeah, I know it's listen, I'm going to plug.
I'm going to plug all your stuff for.
Sure. Yeah.
No, I'm, I'm just, I was just, I was just, I was just playing
with you. But no, I mean, so, I mean, so
it's like, you know, do I believe they exist?
I don't think so, but I'm certainly open to I'm, I'm open
to suggestion. I'm I'm always happy to hear to,
to have to see evidence. The problem is in my experience
that when I've contact, when I've I've been on ghost hunts
with, with believers, I mean, I do that all the time.
I've been dozen lots of cases. I've been on TV shows, private
investigations, public investigations, so on.
And I'm always there again, if I was sure this was all, you know,
not true, I wouldn't waste my time.
I have. Better well, like that.
I well, I like that about you, but I like the fact that you're
going there with this site like you want it sounds.
Tell me if I'm wrong. It sounds like you want to be
proven wrong. Yeah, absolutely right.
Wouldn't that be wild? Yeah, Well, this is the thing,
right? I mean, I'm in fact, I, I'll
tell you, I had to, I, I was doing an investigation in in St.
Catharines ON just outside of Niagara Falls, about an hour
South of Toronto. And I was doing investigation at
this place, this, this haunted Fort and it was like, it was, it
was, we spent a couple days there overnight freezing cold
like Buffalo in November. Like whose idea was this?
And, and, and I'm talking to this, this guy and, and, and he,
he's, he's, he's a hardcore believer.
He was part of, I think it was called the, the Golden Horseshoe
ghost hunting groups. There's A, and the Golden
Horseshoe again between Buffalo and, and, and Toronto, There's
this Niagara Falls and Burlington, lots of ghost
centers there. And I was sort of the token
skeptic and we're, when we was like 2:00 in the morning and
we're just, we're just chatting. There's, there's, there's
cameras all around. We're waiting for something to
happen. And at some point, again, we're
tired. We're, we're eating lots of, you
know, Tim bits and Tim horton's coffee, trying to stay awake for
this thing because nothing's happening.
Nothing's happening. And I'm, and I turned, I turned
to this guy. I'm like, we've been here for
two days nothing's happening, dude, and it's like I'm like, I
understand ghost only perform on command.
So you know, they're they're arguably they're arguably, you
know, entities that are tricksters.
They'll do something and they won't do it another time.
I I said, I get all that, but I said, look, here's the deal.
I said, I pointed to there was this, there was a big, big
grandfather clock in, in the room where at the, at the, at
Fort Niagara. And I said, look, if we're all
here right now, if that clock flew up in the air and flew
across the room, I would be a believer in an instant.
I would, I would be like, Yep, I was here.
There's no strings attached. I saw this thing fly.
There's I mean, I would be like, this is all it would take.
And he's like, yeah, I know. And we.
And so, yeah, it was, it was, it was interesting because it was,
you know, we're not on camera. We're not, we're not having a, a
debate for television. We're just two guys hanging out.
We're cold, we're tired. We, we're both, we both, we're
both fascinated by ghosts. He, he believes there's ghosts
all around. I'm not so sure that things he's
thinking of ghosts aren't, are in fact ghosts.
But we're just, we're just two guys talking.
And I'm like, look, this is the problem that I have here is
that, you know, I come to these ghost hunts.
I I, I see these TV shows, I see all these things.
It's all this ambiguous evidence.
It's, you know, we set up five cameras and this chair did that.
Well, OK, I mean, or we set up an EVP and you know, we, we, we,
we, we recorded things and did you hear that?
Did you hear that? Oh my God, this would I'm like
come on, man. Right, OK.
I mean, listen, I, I, I get, I get it, I get what you're
saying. But let me ask, let me ask you
this from your experience from talking to these people, you
know when they say like I know what I saw and you can't tell me
I didn't experience it, how do you respond without dismissing
the the sort of the emotional reality of that experience for
them? How do you handle?
That how do you handle that? Person No, no, that, that's an
excellent question and part of it goes back to my background in
psychology. So I've, I have a bachelor's
degree in psychology, got a master's in education and public
health as well. Not bragging here, but but my
background psychology actually helps inform a lot of my
investigations because when you're talking to ghost
experiencers, for lack of a better word, for the most part,
they're sincere. I, I, I can tell you personally,
90% of the people that I've met who have told me about their
ghost experiences, I believe them.
I, I, I, they're not crazy. They're not lying.
I don't think they're hoaxing. They're not.
This is not bullshit. They sincerely had some
experience like I, I don't, I don't doubt that at all.
The question is, is, is their interpretation of that
experience correct? The question is, you know, and,
and, and we can get into the phenomenology of ghosts, right?
We can get into when people report ghosts, what do they mean
by that? And that's important.
And I, I think that often times ghost hunters, they sort of
elide that they sort of like ghost, blah, blah.
And I'm like, no, we take a step back here.
What do you mean by ghost? And and as as you know.
You know, different people mean different things by ghosts.
So to some people a ghost is a playful little unseen spirit in
their house or at work that like moves their keys or turns on the
radio when they step out or does little things like that.
To other people, that's not a ghost at all.
To other people, a ghost is some sort of like semi transparent
thing they saw on video camera from informed by TV and things
like that. So, so where I'm going with this
is that in my, in my experience, the best way to understand these
topics is to recognize that the word ghost is a label for an
experience, right? Because what is a ghost like?
You can, you can go, you can mirror and Webster.
I mean, the fact, the fact is that I can give you 4 or five
different definitions of ghosts that are mutually exclusive,
right? Some people think that you, if
you subscribe to to stone tape theory, it's you know, some,
some event happened get it, you know, Gettysburg battlefield or
some murder, whatever else. And the emotions and the
passions seeped into the environment, the trees, the
stones, the, the architecture, the walls and that are then
replayed. Other people say, no, that's not
correct. Ghosts are instead
interdimensional beings. Other people say, well, no,
that's not correct. Ghosts are spirits that that
can't transition for whatever reason, right.
So there's three or four or five or more different, different,
different, different definitions.
And so anyway, to answer your question, a part of it is, is
because I recognize that when someone tells me that they see a
ghost or they experience a ghost, it's, again, it's as
investigators, it's important for me to understand.
What do you mean by that? Because I can tell you, and
I've, I've done this before. I've I've, I've been in a room
with five different people and they, they, they, they say they
all saw a ghost. But when you, if you just talk
to me like, oh, they all five people saw ghosts.
But if you actually listen to what they say, if you ask
questions respectfully and things like that, you realize
they're talking about different things.
They're not talking about the same the thing.
And it's important to to make these distinction if you're
going to investigate. So that's, that's part of it to
me is because I'm coming from a background of psychology and
because it's important for me to understand what's going on,
right. So if someone says I saw a
ghost, my answer is not, no, you didn't.
My answer is not That's crazy. My answer is, that's
interesting. What do you mean by that?
Tell me. Tell me what you experienced.
Tell me what you photographed. Tell me what you heard.
And let's look at the context and see.
Is that the most likely explanation for it?
What would constitute meaningful evidence to you of a ghost?
Well, so, well, I give one example, which would be you
know, of grandfather clock spinning in the air, flying
through the I mean, that would be.
OK, but but all right, I, I heard you say that before, but
let me ask you this. If I showed you a video of that,
you would you believe it? No, you would have to.
It sounds like you would have to be there to fit personally be an
eyewitness. Is that?
Is that not? Necessarily so, for example.
But. But I mean, you're asking
exactly the right questions, right?
Because if you're going to have me or anybody else come on and
say I want evidence for ghosts, it's a fair question to say what
evidence do you want? Right?
What? What are you waiting for?
Right? What?
What are you looking for? I'm just curious, yeah.
What would make you a question A?
Believer it's a it's a, it's a valid question.
So, so, you know, so the, the broader question is the, the,
the, the bulk of the problem really is that the bulk of
evidence offered for ghost as with evidence for Bigfoot as
evidence for aliens and psychics.
I mean, again, I'm not. Oh, we're going to get we're
going to get into cryptics. I don't know if it's coming out.
We'll get we'll get that. We'll get down there in a
second. But here's.
What I'm saying is it is it, is it in a way they're all sort of,
they're all of a kind, right? Because in, in all these cases,
what you have is the bulk of the evidence is actually anecdotes.
It's stories. It's someone says they saw
something, someone says they heard something someone says.
And again, they maybe they did. I'd, I, I don't know.
I wasn't there. The problem is that just
eyewitness anecdotes and stories, they're not good
evidence. They're just not Police
detectives know this. Psychologists know this, right?
So, I mean, just someone said they saw something.
My answer is, OK, I what what do you want me to do with that?
Right. Someone says, oh, you know, I
was camping in the woods last week.
I saw something dark and hairy in the woods like.
What would make but other than you, but again, other than you
just being there to eyewitness see the clock fly across the
room, what would someone present to you then you would say, well,
I guess my job here is done. This exists.
You're right. So there's so there's so there's
a couple answers that one of them is that, you know, if, if
you're going to talk about ghosts specifically, right?
So, so I'll give you the like the grandfather clock I
mentioned earlier, right? So, so why would that not be
necessarily be good evidence for ghosts, right?
The answer is that we don't know why that clock flew across the
flew across the room, right? It's fair enough, right.
So for example, so if if someone said to me, so let's to take
this example in Niagara Falls, you know in Ontario in the
middle of middle of November about 10-12 years ago, if that
grandfather clock had flown across the room, he would say
we're in a ghost haunted place that was clearly ghost.
I would say that might have been a ghost or it could be that it
could be that, you know, maybe there's a maybe there's a person
with psychic psychokinetic abilities, right?
People claim to be able to move objects with their mind or
Geller and many other people. So, so again, this is part of
the problem when you're investigating these things is
how do you rule out those explanations?
So, so if, if someone, and again, this this applies to all
ghost evidence, right? Whatever it is, whether it's a
needle moving or a, a sound, an EVP, whatever it is, could it be
a ghost? Sure, anything is possible.
The question is what is the evidence for it?
So let me give you one example of what would be considered to
be good evidence for for for Evps.
Let's just take Evps as a simple example.
So good evidence would be so you know, this, but just for the
audience. So Evps basically are are, you
know, electronic voice phenomena.
So these are allegedly voices from the dead people who are no
longer with us that, well, obviously they can't communicate
because they don't have vocal cords and tongues and teeth and
things like that. But they, they communicate
through, through different sounds, static, for example, you
know, different devices and so on.
So the question then becomes, OK, well, how do we know?
How would we know? How would, how could we
logically know that we're getting information from the
other side, right? How, how?
So there's a couple answers to that, but the main answer is
information that only that person would know, right?
So this Albert Einstein, right? So Einstein is dead.
He's been dead for a long time. There are details about
Einstein's life that only his biographers know.
There are, I mean there are so or we could pick anybody if
someone who died recently, well then, right.
This is the Houdini thing right? Like where you gave a like.
A yeah, exactly believe right. So so this so anyways, but
again, so this this goes back to your question, right?
So if someone presented to me an EVP that was clearly of somebody
who who was dead. So, I mean, it was, we know they
died. You know, if they're, if they're
notable enough to have an EVP about them, then presumably, you
know, there's somebody famous Kennedy, John F Kennedy, for
example, right. So Kennedy died 1963.
And if there was an EVP of Kennedy talking about Obama or
Kennedy talking about Trump or Kennedy talking about some
current event, that could be proven right.
So this is a current event. This happened yesterday.
John F Kennedy's ghost is presumably still with us, right?
I mean, that this, that's the premise, is that ghosts are
still with us. They can hear, they can, they
know what's going on. They can interact with us.
They know about current events. That's that's part that's often
part of the premise. Right in one definite, right in
one definition of A. Sure, Yeah, yeah.
So, so, yeah, so I mean, but that's, so that's that's that's
one example. So, or, you know, again, if you,
if you have part of the problem is that the vast majority of
Evps are banal things like, you know, Maria, I love you, get
out, you know, murder, right? So I, I, I, I've, I've listened
to, you know this right? And so, so this is the problem.
This is the problem for ghost hunters who want to hang their
hats, their evidential hats on Evps is that with very few
exceptions, I would argue none, but I'm, I'm, I'm willing to
listen to them. With very few exceptions, the
the supposed ghost responses are generic, banal.
They're nothing that's identifiable.
It it there's nothing that says, you know, yes, I'm the ghost of
this. I died here in 1926.
I was shot by and this is the other question, right?
It's like you have all these unsolved homicides, unsolved
murders, unsolved disappearances, right?
You have just. I, I, I see, I see where you're
going with it. I think, though, I think we're
going to in the weeds on, I think I, I, I find that when it
comes to ghosts, even if I presented you like if I walked
up, OK, here's this house I investigated.
Here is 24/7 recordings of the house without anybody in it.
We know where all the creeks are.
We checked the plum. Here's a plumbing report.
Here's every noise. We did a whole, here's a graph
of all the EMF readings so we know where all the hotspots are.
And now here's the differential. Once we did a Ouija board
session, we brought a medium in and look, here's like, you know,
here's some like all these tools using these evidence, right?
Then it's like, look, then we captured, you know, here was
this room with we had the most high def camera possible.
Like whatever, I'm just making shit up, right?
But we use all this stuff and it's like there's clearly
something. Plus we have 6 eyewitnesses that
we had people sleep in the house.
We had, we had a, a triple blind.
We had people go there that didn't know that we were sending
them there for a ghost investigate.
You know, thing we sent 3 mediums in there, 3 alleged
mediums in there that that say they have psychic bills.
And we said 3 laymen in there and had no idea.
It was just that they thought it was an Airbnb and then we took
their reports of things that, you know, all this stuff.
We have this testimony before, after this that, and it was
like, wow, something's weird in this house.
Like for all accounts. Would you still believe?
Would you? Believe it unless you experience
I think that's the thing with ghost stories.
It's almost like even if what my point be like I have with with
the EVP, with the thing with the EMF reading, with the change,
with the reports and then the the difference there this that I
think it with ghosts, there's always going to be either a
yeah, I got to. See it to believe.
It I think that ultimately at the end of the day, someone
other than like a scientist would be like, wow, did you read
this in Scientific magazine? I guess we solved cancer.
You know, they just, you know, they're going to take the word
of another scientist based on their the test.
But there's no test in the ghost world that someone will look at
and be like, wow, they did it. Wow.
I guess there's ghosts you don't like.
There's just nothing I don't think.
So. So there's a couple things #1
because of my background psychology, because I've done
this for a long time, unlike most of the ghost hunters, I
would actually more be be more skeptical of my own anecdotes
because I am so aware of how people, including me, including
this guy right here, I'm very aware of how we can all
misunderstand, misunderstand things and misperceive things.
So in the same way that I often talk to ghost hunters who are
like, I know what I saw, you know, I was there.
I'm like, well, number, you know, OK, I, I know you were
there. But here's the distinction,
right? Is that is that when I talk to
ghost hunters and same thing with with Bigfoot, Bigfoot
ciders and so on, they are so certain of their own
infallibility. They are so certain, like I know
what I saw. That's that's a common phrase.
I know what I saw. My question is how do you know
what you saw? And I'm not being sarcastic.
I'm I'm being right because you tell me like this.
This is the problem, right? Someone says I saw that I know
it's a ghost. How do you know it's a ghost?
I'm. Again, I'm being totally.
Sincere right and I'll I'll give you so it at that same haunted
location in in Canada. I had a woman come up to me
during that she was like a three day shoot.
And she's like, Hey, can you listen to this EVPA recorded?
And I said, yeah, sure, whatever.
And I said, I said, I will listen to your.
She had one of those, one of those parabolic mirror things
and the other whole, the whole thing.
I said, I will listen to your, I will listen to whatever you have
to say. But first answer me question.
I said, what, what do you think you have?
She says, well, I have a child ghost.
I I was in this part of the I was in this part of the, the,
the Fort and it was a couple hours ago.
And you know, I listen. I said.
I said I again. Being totally.
Sincere, How do you know it's a child ghost?
And she said, what do you mean? I said, well, I know what a
human child sounds like. I mean, I know what that sounds
like. I know what a human sounds like.
I sincerely don't know what a child ghost sounds like.
How do you know? How, how can you be so certain?
I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm, I'm being sincere.
How can you be so sure what you recorded must be child ghost?
Cause 'cause what are we comparing that to, right For
all, I mean, again, being totally sincere.
Like for all we know, a child ghost could sound like a donkey.
It could sound like a, a, a pencil sharpener.
We no, I'm being sincere. We don't.
No, no, no I. I am listen, I, I, I totally
agree. I totally get what you're
saying. Anyway, so so the the.
Rapper to the stories and and and it was interesting because
like nobody's ever answered that before.
And again, I'm not being a Dick. I'm not being, I'm, I'm being
sincere, like I will, I will listen to your EVP.
How can you be so certain that it's what you assume it is?
And she sort of thought for a second she's like, well, it just
sounds like when I'm like, OK, that's, that's that's a fair
admission. It sounds like when.
But but The thing is, the fact, the fact is you, you don't know.
But let me just let me circle back to your original question.
Yeah, yeah, please. Yeah.
So, so here's the here's the biggest problem that I've
encountered is, is, is is a lack of baseline, Right.
So ghost hunters go into a location and they go in,
sometimes they go in the witching hour, you know, they,
they, they, they show up around 8:00 in the eight in the
evening. They have lunch, they have
dinner, whatever else. They set up cameras at 3:00.
They're wandering around doing all those sorts of things.
So they're for, they're there for overnight, you know, 10-12
hours, whatever it is. The problem is that, that they
don't take the time and effort to establish a valid baseline,
right? So they may go there a day
ahead, they may take some readings.
Here's where this is, this is the temperature, things like
that. But in virtually all the cases
that I looked at, and I've looked at many of them, the
biggest problem is the is that in order to know what's abnormal
or or extraordinary, you need to know what's ordinary or normal.
And in most cases, and again, I'm happy to be proven wrong,
someone wants to send me some stuff I'll look at.
But in most cases that I've seen, all the ghost hunters are
interested in doing is showing up doing overnight thing.
We're doing a lockdown. We're we have video cords
everywhere over this. And then like, and then it's
like, oh, look at this, you know, so the, the temperature
went from, you know, it dropped 10° from between 10:00 PM and
6:00 AM. I'm like, OK, how do you know it
doesn't do that Every how do you give me, give me something to
compare it to? But ghost hunters don't do that
for a couple reasons #1 it's a, it's a lot of time and effort.
It's a lot of time and effort to, to repeatedly go to a
location, do a valid sampling, establish a baseline, because
you have to keep going back. And, and you know, it's, that's
science is science is hard establishing.
So this is this is the biggest problem is that over and over
again, ghost hunters don't take the time and the effort and the
money to do a. Do a.
Valid sample. All they do is they go in, they
swoop in, they walk around, they listen to their Evps, they have
these recordings. And we don't have to compare
that to. So just telling me that you
heard something at 2250 in the morning doesn't tell us
anything. For all we know, if you had been
in the same, in the same, if you'd been also at 2:50 in the
morning a house 2 blocks away which is not said to be haunted,
you would have you would have heard and see the same thing.
You don't know unless you sample and I want.
To come back to some of that, talking about today's ghost
hunters in in a second, but so and I hear and you're, you're
making total sense. That's why in my example I was
talking about here is like a baseline report plus the
abnormalities to it. So you talk a lot about in your
books and in your writings and your essays talk a lot about
folklore and psychology. As you, as you mentioned
already, you know, and I read this book by Mark Eaton called
sensing spirits. He's a professor.
I, I, I forget where, but I, he, he talked to like 45
investigators. How, how much of the ghost
belief do you is in your mind? I think I might even know the
answer to it. But you know, is good is science
versus cultural shaping us like when and.
When you talk to the. People that you've talked to,
right? Like is it, you know, is it
really just like maybe that woman, you know, she thinks it's
a kid because that's her back or, you know, like whatever she
does, she might have been, you know, a kindergarten teacher for
all I know. I'm just making that up.
But like, what is the how much is that?
Do you have to weigh that in your investigation, the cultural
aspect of these people, what they're bringing to it versus
what they're taking from it? No, that then that's that's an
important. Question.
I'm glad you asked that there. There's 2 answers that the first
answer is it doesn't matter. It does not matter if ghosts are
real, if there is actual ghostly activity.
It doesn't matter what the cultural context is.
It doesn't matter what the beliefs are.
I mean, it's again, either the grandfather clock flew across
the room or it didn't. I mean, that's either either
either either you're in a poltergeist house and the
cupboards are are opening and slamming shut or they're not.
It doesn't matter what the belief is doesn't matter.
So, so this, this is the problem is that is it in case after case
after case, there is not good evidence for it.
If there was good evidence, then everybody like it doesn't matter
whether the the people that reported ghosts are atheists,
Hindu, Muslim, Christian, it's it's totally irrelevant because
this isn't this isn't objectively verifiable external
phenomena that we can all see. Right.
Unfortunately, for reasons we can get into, that typically
doesn't happen. So then the question becomes OK,
well, because there is this stark lack of evidence is this
stark lack of obvious physical evidence.
And again, we give reasons for that later on.
The question becomes, OK, Well then, then, then we get back to
anecdotes. Then we get back to personal
experiences. And this is where, where the,
the, the, the psychology comes in, right?
Because then you start talking to people and one of the first
things I ask ghost experiencers, I say, I say, you know, first of
all, I understand you think it's a ghost.
It might be a ghost. I'm, I'm not saying it's not.
I understand why you think it is.
Tell me, tell me why. How did you come to that
interpretation? How, why, why, why do you think
this is a ghost instead of someone playing a prank or a, a,
a psychic nearby who having, I don't know, depends on what the
phenomena is, right? So the OR, or, for example,
would be like, you know, some, some, some camera glitch, right?
Some surveillance camera. We've all seen this.
Some, some, you know, Oh, I was looking at my, the surveillance
camera in my garage last night and there's this sort of like
weird or flying through this empty garage.
No one was in there. I'm like, well, it looks like a
bug to me. I mean, I'll just, you know, IR
camera bugs. I mean, these things happen,
right? So so orbs or.
Or yeah, yeah or yeah, don't get.
But but again, this is this is this is part of the
investigation process is asking someone again, in all sincerity,
this is not a gotcha. Yeah.
Why do you think it's a ghost? Right.
Why? What?
Why are you assuming that? So there's a there's a couple
answers. Typically they give one is and
one is the TV. They're they are, they're fans
of taps, They're fans of the these, these, these YouTube
groups. They're, they're, they're fans
of the ghost hunters. And so, and, and this is
important, right? Because the question becomes, if
you have something weird going on in your house, you have
something weird going on in your backyard, your work, whatever it
is, why, why do you say must be a ghost?
And that that's a fair question. And usually the answer is, hey,
I, I love the ghost hunters I saw on TV, Ghost Adventures,
Zach Baggins, all stuff. I saw this on TV.
And what they what they will tell you is that that they
experienced something or they saw something that resembles
something they saw on ATV show that was treated as a ghost.
This is important, right? Because there's they're they're
like, I'm not I'm not a scientist.
I don't have any degrees. Yeah, I'm a I'm an assistant
manager at Target. I'm I'm nobody, but you know
what I saw on TV? These these ghost hunters,
they're they're showing something that that's a lot like
what I experienced. That's why I think it's a ghost.
And you know who do you know? Do you know Steve?
Parsons is I've. Throw the name.
Yeah, Steve Parsons is a He's a ghost.
Hunter, he's Auk ghost investigator.
He's written a couple books. He he would say the exact same
thing you're saying right now. And I interviewed him and it was
funny because he and he, he talks about it, but he look,
he's a believer in ghosts and he does it and he says you how he
talks about the, the look on one hand, these ghost shows are
great because they kept the interest in this parascience
alive, right? It, it, it's what is some for
some something's happening. There is a lot of different
elements to parascience and this keeps it going.
On the other hand, for him, as someone who does this, when he
shows up, when people call him for investigation, he shows up
at the pad and pen because he wants to do an interview and get
the personal experience. And they're, they're wondering
where all the gear is, you know, because they've seen the TV and
his book Ghostology is all about like, listen, this is what this
gear is. And this is what it does.
And it has nothing to do with ghosts.
It has an EMF is not a ghost detector.
It is an electromagnetic field. Preach.
Preach, Gary, Preach. So no but he no, but he's.
But he's a believer, right? Like, so he just like explains
to you and and it talks about it, you know, in a way that
listen, if you haven't read it, I think you'd enjoy it.
But it's it's believer in a. Skeptic come under the exact
same the same damn thing, right. It's really, and it's really
like for me, it's. Being able to talk to people on
both sides is, is really interesting.
You know, to to how you to how you look at it and, and come to
that conclusion, like listen, if we we all want to see look, I
like I said, I've met skeptics already that are just like there
doesn't exist. So, you know, don't even try it
and just, you know, let's see it And and it's a joke, but I love
your perspective of yeah, you know, look, I'm, I'm skeptical,
but I am happy to have this discussion.
And I want to be proven wrong. There's a very big difference.
It's a nuance, but it's but it's different.
Well, yeah, I was. Just saying, I mean, part of it
is that is that to me, it's interesting either way.
And I mean, that's sincerely right.
So, so my position is that whether we're talking about
ghosts or, or chupacabras or psychic, whatever else is that
my position is they may exist. They might I, I don't know.
I, I sincerely don't know. I don't think so based on the
evidence so far. But anything is possible in
science. So let's let's talk.
Let's talk about the the cryptids for a second.
You know, and how does is there a difference between people who
believe in that wholeheartedly versus ghosts?
Like, you know, people who believe in Bigfoot versus go,
are they one and the same? Or is there a difference in
those types of people? Do they?
Well, there's some. Yeah, there's some overlap.
Part of it depends. I mean, part of when you ask
people, why do you believe in it, right.
So, and there's lots of research on this.
I'm fascinated by that because the question becomes, you know,
we have the this, this ambiguous phenomena, right?
So if Bigfoot was known to exist, they'd be in the zoo,
they'd be in the Natural History Museum.
We can go, we can all go see one, right?
Like, hey, kids, this is a Bigfoot.
This was finally found in 2010. This is where they live.
This is their DNA. This is where they, this is all
sorts of things. Same thing with ghosts, right?
If, if, if we knew for a fact that ghosts existed, we could,
we could see them. They'd be in a in a Science
Museum. Hey, kids, this is a ghost.
We finally figured out what they were.
They're this there's a there's this form of energy, right?
So, so the, the point here is that if these things were self
evidently real, then we would all agree on it.
There'd be no, there'd be like, yeah, that the, the grandfather
clock flew across the room. There's no other explanation.
It's either a ghost or, or some telekinesis or something else,
right? So, so the question becomes, the
question then becomes whether it's Bigfoot or ghost, things
like that is why, what, how, what is the evidence that they
are interpreting? What is the ambiguous evidence
they're interpreting as evidence for Bigfoot or ghost, right?
So the question is where again, why?
Why do they attach that label on that experience?
And in some cases it's because they had personal experiences,
right? So you, we, we, we both talk to
people. I know what I saw, I was, I was
in this, I was going down this hallway, you know, and this with
this EVP and I, I, I heard something, I saw something.
And so a lot of times it's personal experience.
In a lot of cases it is informed as we were talking about a
second ago by pop culture, by, by horror films, by The
Conjuring films, by TV shows, by ghost hunters and so on.
And so it's, it's, it's important to try and parse that
out because those influences as, as he was talking about Parsons
talking about before they're, they're very much there.
So I I think one difference is that I'm just just off the top
of my head is that Bigfoot believers and and believers in
encrypted tend to be men. It's that feels overwhelmingly
dominated by men. Usually we're going to, you
know, weekend warriors. I'm going to go out and find me
a Bigfoot. All right, Why?
Why do you think is? That is that.
Why do you think that is? I think there's Is there a?
Type. Is there a type that you've?
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's. It's it's.
I wouldn't read too much into it, but there's definitely a.
There's definitely a case in which those are the Dumber
species, yeah. No, there there's part of that.
Well, the there's. The other aspect to this is that
as you know, with ghost hunting, that blends very much into
psychics, because you mentioned before, right?
So often times, not all the time, often times in ghost
investigations, they will bring in a medium, they'll bring in a
psychic to communicate with a ghost to try and get feelings,
this and that. So that that adds and I talk
about this in my book, right, that that's a bad idea because
you are exponentially complicating matters because
psychics have not been proven to exist.
And we can talk about that at all you want, but the fact is
that you can't use one unproven technique to to prove a second
unproven idea. You simply can't do it.
So, so this is part of the problem.
So anyway, getting back to the gender issue, is that because
it's the same thing. So again, typically believers in
Bigfoot and Chupacabras and Mothman, those people who are
interested are men. Most of this in in most cases.
And it's different with psychics, for example, often
times psychics have women's intuition.
You have more women are more empathic, they're more
sensitive. Some of the world's top mediums
are mostly women and sometimes and gay men.
Tyler Henry and others as well. James Dan Prague.
So again, that's not good or bad.
It's just that's that's just the the the the stats that we know.
Yeah, right. The.
Stats that we currently know for sure anyway.
No, no, sorry. That's like I'm just I'm.
Just having fun talking to you. No, no, I love it so.
Has there ever been? Well, you know, just before we
go so you know where my head is a little bit on this stuff.
It's in what? What I've discovered, it's look,
I don't know what spirits are. I don't know what's happening
when it happens. I do.
There's been a couple people that have said a couple things
to me that have stuck with me where I to help me keep an open
mind. One guy was Dan Sturgis, an
investigator who pointed out like we didn't even know how
lightning worked until we had the high speed camera, right.
It might just be something we haven't figured out yet.
And that was recent. That wasn't that's fairly recent
science, you know, in tech. That's one thing, you know, in
terms of, well, I, I, I would argue, I would argue.
That we, we did have a pretty good idea how I I mean.
So here's the thing about that analogy.
And I've heard that analogy before.
People have known about lightning for for centuries.
You know, of course I've been frank, but no, but, but, but
this is the important part of this is like we is it in
science? We didn't know the details about
lightning. We so scientists may have only
and that that's that's how science works.
The more you learn, the more studies you you get the details.
But but there's an important distinction here is that is that
no one doubted the lightning existed, whereas people do
doubt. I mean, there's clear evidence
of lightning. We've all see it.
No, no. I, I, I, I would, I'm.
Like ghost, I'm like Bigfoot. But I would, I would listen.
I would tack. On to that.
What you were just talking about.
We knew how lightning works, but before they figured out what it
was, they thought it was from the gods.
I mean, you know what I'm saying?
Like there was a progression how far back you got.
Yeah, but. No, but I'm saying there was a.
Yes, but there was a progression, as slow as it may
be, to realizing that it is not a supernatural thing and this is
what it was. So.
So that's all. That's all my point with germ
theory with the. Plague.
Yes, absolutely. So that that that's just for me
and I do buy into something about, you know, the we don't
understand what consciousness is.
We don't really know how the brain works.
We know there's electrical synapses in our brain, but we
don't know consciousness and what it is.
And I do buy into this idea of what you just said to, to tack
on to what you just said, why it made me think of it like
intuition, right? We all get, and I, and I feel
that there is, you know, look, if you're in a, we use this
example all the time when you're in a bar and somebody walks in
and can give you a bad vibe, like that's something that
dude's not cool. Like there's something wrong.
Like we all have that, you know, flight or fight, there's a
reason for it. There is a ingrained intuition.
And do I feel that maybe some people are more intuitive than
others? Absolutely.
Just like I think some people are more physiologically better.
It's then become professional athletes than others.
I compare these things. I think there is something to
that. I don't know what that is.
That's my journey with this talking to different people,
right? And I don't know how to measure
it. I don't know how to prove it.
So that's that's kind of the fun of this and and talking about
it. Well, but again, I mean, I would
say, I mean. You know, I with consciousness,
I mean, that's, you know, I again, I've heard that a lot
like people, you know, well, psychics are probably psychics
probably just because we don't, we don't know everything about
how the brain works. OK, But I mean, we can't prove
it. We Yeah, we can't prove it
negatively or positive. No, but.
But it's it's it's, it's called an argument from ignorance.
It's it's, it's, it's, it's saying we we don't know X there.
That's not a logical You can't say we don't know all about X.
Therefore psychics are real. We don't know.
I'm not saying that. No, no, I understand.
I'm just saying it's a slippery slope there, no?
No, you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right.
And I. Agree with that completely.
We don't know. I know the experiences I've had
with certain psychics more than others now that I've been doing
this has been I, you know, for the life of me can't figure out
certain things. I've had people take a look at,
listen to the recordings of me with a psychic to see like where
did, are they playing me? How did they do it 'cause I
didn't notice and I haven't, you know, I haven't figured it out.
But that's neither here nor there.
I just sort of, but I know of course, of course there are
charlatans. There's the cold reading
charlatan that's out there versus somebody else who does
it. And but again, that's just, it's
like, you're right, it is not a proof of psychic mediumship.
But for me that keeps my mind open to, OK, how can we get to
to a place of, of that? Has there ever been a mystery
you've investigated or a legend outside of like the caves you
talked about earlier? You know, especially with, like,
cryptids or monsters that, you know, that that surprised you
once you dug into it. I don't mean surprise you in a
way of like, wow, this could be a monster.
I mean, or just surprise you. Like, holy Christ.
It was this little kid in this village walking around with
footprint. You had bigger feet than
everybody else. Yeah.
That's sort of fun. Yeah.
There's been a couple. I mean it's.
It's a case of where you know I've done this long time.
I've been doing this for 20 years or so.
And of course, all, all sorts of books, investigations and my
podcasts and like that. So the, you know, I, I'm drawing
upon a pretty broad stuff. So I would say one of my
favorites would be I, I did a book called Lake Monster
Mysteries. I wrote it with the late Joe
Nickel and came out maybe 10-15 years ago.
And so we, we, we looked at lake monsters around the world,
including, of course, Loch Ness and, and, and yeah, sturgeons
are monsters. That was.
A monster. They are absolutely right if
you've never seen a sturgeon up. Close if you're not a fisherman
yet. So here's the thing.
So, so I was one of, so one of my chapters in that book is
about a, a monster called Lake Cresi in Lake Crescent,
Newfoundland, in a town called Robert's Arm.
And if you go there, it's a beautiful little town.
It's very picturesque. Population is like 5, depending
on whether Joe's in town or not, but it's a cute little town and
it's, it's adorable. And, and as you go into it,
there's a, there's a, there's a, a little sculpture, not a big
sculpture saying you welcome to Robert's arm.
Anyway, I was there investigating the, the local
lake monster. And before I went there, I, I
did my due diligence. I was reading reports and
saying, OK, what are people describing and who's your
witnesses and so on. And so I went there and I, I, I,
again, there's five people in town.
So I stayed at the hotel and I said hi.
And I said, so I want, I want to, can you tell me about, you
know, Cressy, the local monster? I feel like, Oh yeah, they're
happy to talk. And I said, well, I've noticed.
I'm just talking to the local guy, you know, he's been there
forever. You know, he grew up there.
He's, you know, he hasn't wandered more than 10 feet from
where he was born. And I said, I said, I've noticed
that unlike a lot of other lake monsters I've researched, this
one. It, it's the, the, the, the
description is very consistent. Typically the sort of like
smooth shiny surface. There's no, there's a couple
distinctive house, but there's no, there's no like Ridge or
anything like that and nothing, nothing distinctive about the
head. So I'll be honest with you.
This sounds like eel. You know, I said, are there, are
there any eel in the lake? He's like, Oh yeah, there's huge
eel. They're like there's, there's as
big as your thigh. I'm like, do you think I, I'm
just spitballing here. Do you think your local lake
monster might be an eel? He's like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
it could be. It's like, all right, that's
fun. So they're having some fun and
it's just sort of. Part of the legend I I see that
and it you know listen, you know look for me it's so this is
going to be weird I am probably more apt to believe in ghosts
than I am to believe in Bigfoot interesting A lot of people
would say the opposite why is that I I.
I just feel like like again. I've, I don't and I'm using the
in my definition of ghost. As you said, there's multiple
definitions. I tend to I tend to think if it
is anything, it is somehow consciousness possibly trap like
stuck to energy of some kind. There's something, it's just, it
sounds strange, but like the theory is my nephew has this
theory, which, you know, again, it's, you would call it like any
of your theory because you can't prove it.
But it's this idea that, you know, listen, energy can't be
created or destroyed. What happens to this energy in
our body when we pass? It has to go somewhere and we
don't know what consciousness is.
So is it memory? Is there a transfer of that to
something? I don't know if it'll ever be
proven or how it is, but I'm more apt to believe that we are
in touch with something on that level than a Bigfoot that we
can't find. But with that said, I can
certainly believe that there might be something in the ocean
depths that we haven't found yet or seen now.
Is it a monster? I think a great white shark is a
fucking monster, right? Like I think, I think Australia
is Monster Island. So it's like, you know, they got
spiders that will. They got things.
Everything there wants to kill you.
So it's like, you know. I am certainly apartment to
believe that there is something in the ocean that we we don't
know what it is. Well, we'll just you know,
eventually we might discover it because it's just insane.
But, you know, it's, it's fun, you know, So listen first.
Of all, Benjamin, thank. You so much for taking the time
I got a couple more questions for you This is fun talking to
you I. Always enjoy, you know, I get
interviewed by people and, and honestly, most of the time they,
they, they don't know anything about the topic.
So it's it's really refreshing to actually talk to somebody
and, and have a more than super visual like, you know, my, my,
my work is me fooling you is work then, because.
I'm learning, I'm still learning about the topic, but I try to
read everything and I certainly your books are on my list to
read for as we roll into as I roll into 2026.
I'm I've I've just been reading. So yeah, look like right now I'm
reading this is this is what I'm on right now.
It's a classic, you know, so. Yeah, it's a class.
So I'm trying to get my head around it all.
Let me ask you this as. We wrap this up here, So.
What do you think the paranormal community could learn from
skeptics? And then what do you think
skeptics can learn from the paranormal community?
Sure. No, that, that's a great
question. I've always been.
Advocate for forever of more dialogue between between
so-called skeptics and believers.
I've always found conversations like this to be interesting,
useful. It you know, there's, there's a
quote that says, you know, if you don't understand your
opponent's position, you don't understand your own.
And I and that that's true. You need to you need to
understand what what does the other.
I mean, this is not an antagonistic hostile.
It's like, hey, we're all interested in these things,
right Bigfoot, ghosts, weird shit like this is inherently
interesting. We're we're spending time on
this. We're we're talking about where
people are listening to us talk about this.
So, so I think on, on one level, we're on the same page because
I'm sincere in my search for ghosts.
I'm, I'm not, I sincerely want to find, I want to find Bigfoot.
I want to find real psychics, right.
So the question then becomes how can, how can, how can we work
together to sort of refine these sorts of things?
So to answer your question, I would say that the biggest thing
that I think that the ghost hunting community in the
paranormal community in general could, could learn from from
skeptics is to apply is to apply a more science based
perspective. I used to say, OK, I'm again, I
was talking about before about the baselines, right?
So instead of just, hey, I'm a ghost hunter, I'm going to go in
someplace, I'm going to walk around for a couple hours with,
with the, with the, with the recorders and stuff and then go
away and survey the footage. Understand that, understand
that, that in order to do this scientifically, you need to,
it's a lot more work. You need to establish a
baseline. You need to, you need to, you
verify facts, you need to, you need to, you know, if you're
going to do, if you're going to do psychics and mediums, test
them beforehand, right? Have them come in blind.
So say, make, bring them to a location and say, OK, don't give
me any, any clues. Just say, OK, is there a ghost
here? Yes or no?
And if so, what is the ghost? Just bring them in separately so
they're they're not talking to each other.
Bring into an unknown location. And I can tell you what will
happen. I can I can tell you what will
happen because I've done this is the psychics with her.
Come up with nothing or they'll give you completely different
stories. Oh, yeah.
There's a little girl named Maria, and she died here about
20 years ago in a fire. And then someone else will say
you, you, you don't bring in the same room, you bring in a
different cycle. You're like, yeah, there's an
old man, there's only one ghost. And they'll give you totally
different, different information.
Anyway, So Long story short, I would say that the main thing
that that that I would hope that ghost Hunter's investigators
could bring, could, could learn from skeptics as again, more,
more understanding the methodology research design,
right, Research design. How do you conduct an
experiment? How do you do research?
And I'm not, I'm not being sarcastic.
The the problem is that most people the the average
layperson, and again, I'm not, I'm not being mean.
This is skeptics and believers. They don't know how to
investigate. That's not what they do.
That it's not their investigation is that it's, it's
a skill set. There's, there's a reason why
FBI investigators and police investigators are trained.
They don't just pull them off the street.
They don't just, they don't just put a, a, a magnetometer in
their hand and go tell them to look for ghosts.
They train them in, in methodologies.
So that would be my thing is, is recognizing and appreciating
that there are actual scientific methodology that can be applied
to ghost hunting. And I've, I've written about
that in my book and, and, and do that.
And so, and when, when skeptics are offering a different
perspective, a respectful perspective, engage with them,
say, hey, maybe you're right. How can we, how can we up our
game so that people are more responsive and believing in, in,
in, in the evidence we're finding?
And conversely, I would think that the one of the things that
skeptics can learn from believers and the ghosting and
parallel communities is to is to recognize that that there's not
one blanket, It's not homogeneous group.
There are people who people come from all sorts of different
perspectives. Some people, you know, the
reason they believe in ghosts is because their grandmother passed
away and they're very close to them.
And, you know, and skeptics can learn to be more diplomatic and
instead of having the sort of abrasive, dismissive wet
blanket, you know, perspective saying, OK, we'll hold on here.
Often times believers, there's a reason they believe these
things. They're not they're not lying to
you. They're not hoaxing.
They're not trying to pull pranks.
Some of them are clickbait. I mean, I have I got suspicions
about how sincere Zach Baggins is, for example.
I'm going to get into that. But most people, they, you know,
they're sincere, right? And so I would say one thing
that the skeptics could learn is, is to give more respect to
eyewitnesses, to believers and so on.
It's great. Yeah.
Listen, I don't know. You know I.
Had one of the producers of Ghost Adventures is a good
friend of mine. He was on the show and you know,
from and he's a very he's an award-winning documentarian.
So he got into the paranormal from the production side of it,
from a very a very straight place, you know, from coming at
to being a, you know, he's done documentaries about let you
know, Tupac and Biggie to, you know, the sisters of Ukraine,
which is on Amazon right now. This guy is very straightforward
and he's like, listen, I'm, I'm filming this stuff, I'm just
capturing it. There's no, we're not faking and
there is a constraint to television production, as I know
very well. That's that's my background.
So and I understand that and speaking to like, you know, so I
can't speak to I I don't know Zach.
I have, I'd love to get Zach on to talk to him about it, but
it's like, you know, I can't speak to his validity or not or
I, I believe he's a believer. And I find that when you say
that really interesting because I had James underdown, I did an
interview with him that we're going to be doing it.
And you know him and he's, and, and he said to us, you know, for
his big $500,000 cash prize, the amount of people that come in
are trying to pull the wool over his eyes and fake it are is 0.
It's like they're believers. And so that's an interesting,
you know, the way it's wild to me, right?
Like this is, this is where it's coming from for, you know.
What do you? Think, then, is if you could
leave our listeners here with one practical tool for thinking
more clearly about mysteries, you know what what would you
tell them that's a good I mean there's.
There's several, I would say probably the, if I was going to
give one piece of advice, I mean, I, I could, I give you a
dozen, but I, it would be 1. I touched on earlier, which is
to recognize that when you're investigating mysteries that
these, these words that are thrown around as if everybody
agrees what they are ghosts news for you.
People don't agree on what ghosts are.
We don't know what ghosts are. We literally don't know what
ghosts are. We have, we have a cultural
script about what ghosts are. There's different, there's
different dictionary definitions, bigfoots and so on
thing like that. So, so I would say that the one
piece of advice would be to recognize that when someone uses
the word ghost, when someone uses the word Bigfoot, they're,
they're describing it's a label for an experience.
They, that they're, it's, it's a convenient socially recognized
label. And that's an important
distinction because you can't investigate a label, but you can
investigate an experience. So instead of focus, instead of
saying, well, how do we prove the ghosts exist?
Back up whole second investigate each case specifically.
So, so you know, because like, you know, I've, I have, I have
proven that specific ghosts don't exist.
In other words, there are specific cases, not all ghosts.
There are specific cases. And I can list a dozen off the
top of my head where something was believed to be a ghost that
was later proven pretty much by everybody that was not a ghost.
So I debunked, I disproved that one, that one situation, that
one situation, right? I, I have never claimed that
that disproves all ghosts. You have to case on a case by
case basis. And you have to recognize that
that people are describing to you their experiences.
And there may be more than one explanation for that experience.
So instead of just leaping to, oh, it's a ghost.
What does that mean? Even if you're right, Here's the
thing, even if you were right, if someone says, I saw there's a
ghost in my house, and even if you're right, that gets us
nowhere because we don't know what that, that doesn't they
just, it just kicks the can down the down the road.
Because then the question is what, what do you mean by ghost?
What, what, what is a ghost? Right.
And so again, is it, is it, is it stone tape theory?
Is it the, you know, spirits of those who and so on.
So, so I, I would say, you know, question your assumptions, take
a step back instead of instead of lurching into trying to prove
that this place is full of ghosts, take a step back and
look at what people are actually claiming.
Take a step back and look at people what actually
experiencing. And once you do that, you, you
recognize there's other explanations that aren't ghosts.
Ben, tell the tell the good. People where to find you and
follow you online. Yeah, I'm around and about.
I have a podcast called. Squaring the Strange.
It's available on all the major platforms.
I've written a couple books on ghost, including Investigating
Ghosts and Scientific Parental Investigation.
I have another book coming out next year on mysteries in New
Mexico, my home state. So it'll be there's even a
couple ghost investigations in that case.
So I'm round about, I'm on Facebook, I'm on Twitter every
now and then. Are you?
What's your handle at? BT Radford at.
BT Radford. Wonderful.
Benjamin, thank you so much for being on Splinter Spirits.
I really this is a wonderful conversation.
Thanks for having me on. This has been super fun.
I'll be happy. To come on some another time and
and talk more about let's do it. Well, that's it for another
episode of Splintered Spirits Be.
Sure to like, share, and subscribe to our YouTube
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Until next time, stay curious.