ICYMI: Michael Was on Ghosted! by Roz Hernandez

What's that at the foot of my bed?

It's spooky and kooky.

I'm pretty sure it's dead. It's coming this way.

Wait a minute. Hey, I'm ghosted.

I lost my minders. Leave me, please. Hey, boo. It's me, Roz, and welcome to Ghosted by Roz Hernandez, the podcast where I talk to people that I like about the paranormal. Oh, my God. We have, I think, our first ever practicing lawyer on the show today. It's Michael Foote. He is the host of the new podcast, Unexactly Right, called Brief Recess, a legal podcast, which he hosts with Melissa Malbranch. I'm obsessed with him. Many people know him from his social media, always giving great legal advice. And, you know, there are cases of the paranormal in court. And so we got to talk about some of those with him today. So fun.

He also has a great kind of ghost story situation. I'm filing this one under the category of expert. It's not like your typical episode. We didn't even get to the haunted eBay doll or the EVPs this week. And we ran out of time. But don't worry. We'll be back. Business as usual next week. All right. Let's just get to it. Court is in session. Here's my conversation with Michael Foote and with the show. Oh, my God. Court is in session. I actually, I have this always, actually.

Wait, oh good.

I would be such a good judge. You don't even understand.

You are a good judge. Thank you. And you're already on the stand, so thank you for having me.

I'm kind of like the ghost judge, so I have this. Sometimes people are like, I don't know if it's a ghost story.

And then you adjudicate? Yes. Okay.

Turns out, in my opinion, it's always a ghost, so.

And it probably usually is. And honestly, you're probably more accurate than the American judiciary. Your decision about whether something's a ghost is probably closer to justice than what I'm dealing with.

How is your life? What are you dealing with?

Right now, it's kind of a hot mess. If you were in the green room and you saw the inside of my bag, it's kind of like that. It's like candy wrappers, a couple pill bottles. Yes. And that's a half empty water bottle. It's that's kind of my life right now is it's chaotic. I mean, I'm an immigration lawyer in America in 2026. You can only imagine what's happening.

So that's kind of my life. And we don't have to get, I mean, deep into it. But my personal life is great.

Good.

Yeah. My husband's a bad bitch. Love him. Good. Yeah. He's an icon in his own right. He texted me this morning that the dog. Because I'm in L.A. now, and we live in New York.

And basically— But you're just visiting.

I'm just visiting, yeah. Basically, last night, it sounds based off a few chaotic text messages that the dog just kind of, like, helicoptered his dick while pissing all over the apartment.

That's actually very impressive for a dog to be able to do.

Yeah, he's 13. I was like, wow, the hip mobility.

You should be very proud.

He hit the ceiling. Like, yeah, I'm like, how'd you actually manage to— Hit the ceiling.

That is a stream on that guy. That's great.

Who among us hasn't?

I can't say I have.

That's impressive.

What's your dog's name?

Jack. Jack. Yeah. He's really bad. He's a really bad dog. Who was I talking to?

Okay, why are you trying to make me attracted to your dog? I feel like you're like, he's a bad boy with a huge dick.

And he's really into piss play.

Stop saying all my buzzwords. Okay.

You heard it here first. Are you on... Like sniffies or any of that stuff.

I'm on Grindr, but only for the most part. Only for finding guys to go ghost hunting with me.

That's a thing you can do on Grindr.

It's a thing I do. Good for you. On my YouTube channel, Roz Hernandez, the haunted doll.

You heard it here first.

Oh, they've heard it many times on this podcast. I never shut the fuck up about it. Please subscribe.

People were talking at the bar this weekend. I was at a gay bar and people were talking about how expensive the Grindr premium is. I pay. And that the ads are really bad now. Yeah. I haven't been on Grindr in a really long time. It's been like a decade.

Oh, it's great. You're really missing out on good stuff over there. It's really the scene.

But someone at the bar pulled up like the Sniffies app and was showing me what was happening.

That scares me.

That's hole on main. Like it's actually... So aggressive. Yeah.

I mean, it's nice to see who your neighbors are, but I don't want them to see where I am.

Yeah.

You see things that you can't erase from your mind of your neighbors if you're in a situation like that.

Yeah, because then you're taking out the trash and you know. You're like, oh. You run into them. You're like, oh.

I know what you're into.

Hi, Mr. Henderson. Hi, Gooner3434. Not the gooner. The first five minutes of the show, we're already talking about gooning.

Welcome to Ghosted.

Okay.

So you are here not to talk about gooning. You are here to talk about the paranormal with me.

I'm so excited. I'm a true believer. Really?

Here's the thing. I know this is fucked up and some people will not like that I'm saying this, but there is kind of a thing where you're like, wait, really smart people are not supposed to believe in this stuff.

No, I think I'm going to clarify your statement.

So when like a doctor or like a very educated scholar or whatever, you're like, wait, they believe in this? Then it might be real.

Yeah, no, I know. Like there are a couple of books about this. I think Mary Roach talks, like she's a scientist and she did a whole book on the paranormal. And I think that oftentimes gets mistranslated, right? This notion that people who believe in this stuff aren't smart or that really smart people couldn't possibly believe in that. But I feel like if you are really smart, you're able to understand an argument, understand logic, but also when that logic and argument fails. So I know the things that I've seen or heard from other people and I'm like, logically, there's no reasonable way this could have possibly happened without paranormal activity.

Well, these conversations, sometimes at least what we're looking for is these scenarios that you kind of hit a dead end with. And you're like, literally dead end. It must be the dead. If we can't figure out what this is, well, I guess the only logical explanation is an invisible dead person.

It's possibly that. Yeah. I think that I don't think we'll leave this conversation today with me. having any resolution as to what happened to me.

Good. I don't want that ever.

Do people come on here and they're like, Roz, figure.

My shit out for me. People come to me thinking that I'm going to give them answers and I don't know anything.

Okay.

None of us know anything.

We're just figuring it out together.

Don't believe anyone that acts like they know anything.

Yeah.

Just have fun.

Yeah.

Enjoy the mystery.

I do feel like that's where Sylvia Brown got a lot of the hate or is getting a lot of the memography right now I'm a Sylvia Brown truther. I think Sylvia Brown is right. Like, I think she's actually psychic. That is my hot take. And I'm willing to go on the record with that.

Why do you think that? Because her nails. Like, if you have nails like that, you know stuff.

She, I think we're so focused on how decisive she is. We don't know if that man drowned. When someone comes and says, hey, what happened to my father? He drowned. Okay. That person accepted it. That's actually on the audience member for not pressing her further on what happened. It's not really on her.

See, that's the thing. Now, you, with your law experience, do you got follow-up questions if someone says something like that?

I guess I do have some follow-up questions for Sylvia. Okay, okay. She's still alive.

Let's try it.

Okay.

Ask me what happened to your ex-boyfriend.

Sylvia, what happened? Happened to my boyfriend. He just he went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back. And I know he didn't walk out on me. He suffocated. That's actually all I need to know. That's actually really. I understand why there is no follow up question, because actually, I don't need to know. That's all the closure I need.

Sylvia Brown was giving people closure. She was giving them the answer. Maybe it wasn't the answer, but it was.

It was something.

It was something. Yeah. Yeah.

Have you been to Psychics?

I went to a Psychic with my friend when I was, like, very young. I think I was, like, a teenager. We were just walking by a little corner, went in, got a reading.

Where was this?

This was in Manhattan. Oh, are you from there? Yeah, in the village. I'm from Long Island, but I grew up in New York, so.

You know, Long Island is a classic spooky place.

For mediums, right?

Well, the Long Island medium.

The Long Island medium, yeah. Yes.

She's very— Icon of fingernails. She— I don't. And that's why I'm not good at my psychic predictions. But she's from there. Amityville Horror on Long Island.

Oh, the Amityville Horror. Yeah.

The Amityville Horror.

Yeah. That was a bad one.

There's also... Isn't there like a scary... Asylum or something?

Cropsey? It was in like Kings Park, Long Island. There's an asylum, like an abandoned asylum now. Yeah. Amityville Horror. I mean, we can get into that.

And that's something that like, you know, involved a trial and stuff because a guy killed his whole family.

Yeah, and we still don't really know what happened. Like, he seemed totally normal and went crazy. I do. What happened?

I've looked into the case.

What happened? Give me the bullets.

I'm... I don't know. These people, it was Ed and Lorraine Warren. Do you know these people?

No, I mean, not everyone on Long Island knows each other. And I think some of them are dead now. Okay.

Ed and Lorraine Warren in my world, um, they're big deal.

Okay.

And they're the ones that investigated the Amityville horror. Oh, they're the ones that the conjuring movies are based on.

Okay. Okay. Yeah.

Um, I ain't buying it.

You're not buying it? No. There was nothing paranormal there? There was just a guy who wanted, who killed his family?

Maybe I think there was a little bit. I think that like with everything, it's like, anytime you're like based on a true story, please.

Yeah. Yeah.

My lips are based on a true story. Okay? They started as real.

We're one surreal story.

I mean, they're. They are shaped as lips. There's been enhancements, and that is sometimes what happens when you hear based on a true story. It starts with something real, and then things start getting crazy.

You sold the rights, I think is what happened.

I sold the rights to these lips a long time ago, and you know what? They're making me money. Actually, because we've done this show since the early days of radio plays, There's always different kinds. We want to do different things a little bit. I was thinking it would be so fun to look at cases where ghosts have made their way into the courtroom.

I would love that. Yeah? Yeah, I know nothing about these.

I want to hear your expertise. Well, let's just start with one, and then I want to hear more about your stories. Okay, so Ranker.com has 10 spooky court cases involving ghosts.

Love that.

This was written by Jim Rowley in 2021. Okay, so the one case I was just thinking we could talk about for a second. It was a case that involved the Conjuring movies. So are you familiar? Are you like a horror?

I love horror, but I've never got into the Conjuring saga.

That's okay.

Because by the time it reached me in my life, we were on episode 2000.

Yeah.

The re-Conjuring of the underbelly of the first Conjuring. It was just, there were too many colons, ampersand, subtitle.

Honey, if there's one problem I deal with, it's too many colons. Too little time.

On that gate cruise you worked.

Too little time.

You just got back from a gate cruise.

And there were colons. Some of them semi-colons.

Okay.

So, the, and Lorraine Warren, there's the couple that these movies are about.

Okay. Okay.

They were real people. They, you know, again, studied the Amityville horror, but they studied these cases that became the Conjuring movies.

Okay. Okay.

So, in 2016, Gerald Brittle- who's the author of the 1980 book, The Demonologist, which details the case files of Ed and Lorraine Warren. He sued Warner Brothers for $ 900 million over the Conjuring franchise. According to Brittle's lawsuit, when he signed the agreement with Lorraine Warren in 1978 to write The Demonologist, it included an exclusive non-compete clause saying, that forbade anyone from making derivative works based on the Warrens' cases without Brittle's approval. Brittle's lawsuit also claimed that when he sent Warner Brothers a cease and desist letter, the company responded that it was basing the movie not on the demonologist, not the book, but on, quote, historical events.

Brittle's lawsuit challenged Warner Brothers to either prove that the hauntings and the demonologist had really happened... Or fork over nearly a billion dollars.

Wow.

They ended up settling out of court.

So this happens a lot with intellectual property cases is that you have to prove that the work was actually yours. It was an idea. So like the first rule of intellectual property law is that you have to distill it down into some sort of physical like material. Right. Whether that's recorded on some sort of drive. whether it is a written document, you have to distill it into something tangible because you can't copyright or trademark an idea. That's really like the one cardinal rule. So what it sounds like here is that they had a lot of conversations about what the demonologist or the conjuring was going to be, but only one of them maybe put it into writing or maybe sold it As.

An actual commodity. This was 36 years later? 26 years later.

Right, after they made a bunch of money on it. And then they threw together a lawsuit to just try and get some of that, a cut of that. And it sounds like they settled.

I don't think he got $ 900 million. Now, where do people come up with something like that?

They pull it together based off historic cases. There's usually a couple different types of damages categories. So it'll be like... Compensatory damages are damages that are owed to you based off what you lost. And then there's punitive damages, which are we want the next person who's thinking about doing this to know that they can't fuck around. So we're going to lump damages on punitive to ensure you're going to pay and you're going to be the story that we tell everyone this bitch had to pay this much money to set the precedent. So no one else fucks around in the future because you found out. Wow.

Isn't that crazy? But 900 million.

Yeah. And they probably did it, A, to make headlines, to get everyone's attention. And to get Warner Brothers to actually show up in court. Because I'm sure they're getting sued all the time, right? True. People are throwing lawsuits together. They actually had to get their attention somehow. So that is probably what I think happened there.

But something like this is also, like, I also know. I don't know the exact details, but there's also like the life rights. Like they like sold their life rights, I believe.

To Warner Brothers. Yeah.

So it's like, God, so many rights. It's like, God, can you just make a movie about me?

But those are the life rights. It's their life story as you're selling with the life rights.

I know, but then it's like, okay, but then this guy wrote a book about us and now it's like, sorry.

But it's true. At a certain point, you become a public figure and people can just start writing biographies about you. They don't necessarily need the rights, right? So like, We have the unofficial Madonna cookbook or whatever, right? So, like, is that Sylvia Brown book behind you even? Like, did she sell those rights from beyond the grave?

Well, I am planning on doing a biopic of Sylvia Brown temples on the other side. How wisdom from beyond the veil can help you right now. The number one New York Times bestselling author.

I think she was like the number one Halloween costume this year.

Oh, was she?

Oh, yeah. I saw a lot of Sylvia Browns out at the club.

Good for her. Okay, tell me your ghost stories or your paranormal experiences.

Okay. It was a crazy time in my life. I was, I want to say like 19 or 20, maybe 21. And I was, I don't want to say promiscuous. I would just say busy. I had dated a lot. I had plenty of, like, not plenty of.

Gunnar 21 in your neighborhood.

I was taking out the garbage and meeting Mr. Henderson, Gunnar 21 in the neighborhood. And I don't know.

This is in New York.

This is in New York. And I, you know, was dating. I was 19, 20. you're dating. You're not really seeing anyone. You don't have a boyfriend. There's nothing like that. Sure. But at the time, I started seeing this guy who was much older than me. He was deep into his 40s. And he was very wealthy. He worked in one of the major banks, I would say. He's pretty high up at one of these major banks. And I think he's still there because he is on social media. Yeah. So he was a really big deal even back then. And this is, I'm 37 now. So this is at least 15 years ago. So I started dating this guy. We'll call him Gunnar 21. Okay. And it wasn't, I wasn't being paid to date him. I want to be clear about that, but I was receiving financial benefits, right? Like

rent or a place to stay.

Okay.

Or gifts and stuff like that. You know? You know what? Good for you. It was... really liked him like this wasn't like oh i like this guy because he's paying for stuff or giving me gifts or has money or taking me out i really liked him like and that was honestly why.

Yeah You don't have to tell us. We get it.

Nowadays we would call this situationship. Yeah, we've all been there. Yeah, situationship. And I was broke. I was waiting tables. I had no money. And I hope that people who know me and watch my show know that I would tell you. If I really was just there for the money. Because I would fucking tell you, I'm not scared.

I mean, that's the best. If it's not some crypt keeper coming out that you have to be like, oh, God.

Night of the living dead. Yes. Yeah. Freddy Krueger.

Time to pay off my debts.

And he's got the Freddy Krueger nails. Nothing like that. Very handsome, lovely investment banker. So he goes out to the Hamptons for the summer. And he has a, I will, this, I was aware of this. He did have a whole family, a wife and kids.

Did they know about you or like?

No.

You had two families.

Yeah. Well, I wasn't his family. I was just some guy he was hooking up with.

As queer people, we get to choose our families.

Yes.

The two of you are a family.

So, I don't know what you... You've lived in New York, so you know that the Hamptons.

No, just temporarily every time I visit.

Okay. So, the Hamptons are like a couple hours outside the city. So, you could take a train, you could take a bus. Some people fly if you're really wealthy.

And so where was his family in the city?

Both. So people sort of go back and forth all summer to the Hamptons. So he would go out to the Hamptons and he would for the summer and he would put me up at like a shitty motel down the street.

Why wouldn't he get you a good place?

I don't know. And I thought about this before talking to you today. I thought about like, wait, why was I staying at like the Montauk Motel?

That's so weird.

But at the time, I wasn't really aware nor gave a shit. Like I was like, oh, I'm here to see him. And this is the hotel. You know, I was just, when you're young, you just don't really like think about it. Sure.

And it's all free. Like if it's free.

It's all free. And I hadn't been staying at really nice hotels before that. So it wasn't like, I was like, oh, this is so much shittier than what the hotels I'm used to staying at with my other boyfriend, Mr. Citibank. Like, no. I was like, oh, okay, this is the thing. And this is the place and I am here. You know, I just didn't really think about it. I was kind of a dumb bitch. So one night in this motel, I'm in bed. And I don't know how to describe it, but I'll do my best at some point. And he's not there. I'm alone because we're meeting the next day.

Something moved me in the bed physically. And I woke up and I couldn't move. It was the middle of the night. I'd gone to bed. I was drinking a lot and doing drugs back then, but I'm pretty sure I was sober that night. I was probably exhausted. Like I never, I didn't really sleep a lot.

Either way, you drink and do a little drugs, you don't just like get physically moved.

Yeah. So I remember waking up and being like, why am I moving right now? Like, this is not on my own volition.

But what do you mean by that? Like how much movement?

I was shifting in bed, sort of like if you're looking down at the bed counterclockwise. So my head's starting to move towards the right side of the bed.

Involuntarily.

Yeah, my legs are swinging to the left a bit.

That takes crazy physicality and you would feel it if you were doing that with your own muscles.

And I couldn't stop it. Like I wasn't able to be like, I'm going to get up and go to the bathroom now. I was like unable to move, but also moving. So I didn't have control over my body, which was like kind of terrifying. Whatever this was did turn me all the way to the other end of the bed. My head, by the end of the 30 seconds, was at the foot of the bed. And then it just stopped. And I was able to move with my feet on the pillow now. It was fucking crazy.

What do you think that was?

I think it was a ghost in the motel, the Montauk Motel or something. Like it was... It was definitely some sort of spirit. Like there was no voices. I didn't see anything. I could open my eyes and look around. I think partway through being shifted, I closed my eyes because I was terrified. Yeah. And yeah.

I think it was his wife.

She had me on wires. Yeah.

I think she was puppeteering you.

So that's not the end of the story.

Okay, good. Thank God.

She said, who fucking booked this guy?

After you set this all up.

She doesn't even read asparagus. Why did we book him? Who is this guy?

You've got to get into the asparamancer.

The asparamancer. I was doing a little asparamancing in that motel. I bet. Okay. So I would say within a couple months, maybe over the course of the next year, I started having recurring dreams. And I was traveling, so I eventually went to law school in New Orleans. I was having the dreams there.

Talk about haunted.

Yes. And I did. I lived in like a very haunted house in New Orleans. Okay, good. And it was from, it was like a 300-year-old building. But I would have these dreams of a sort of just like figure of a man standing over my bed. It happened, I would say, probably at least three, no more than five times.

Do you know about sleep paralysis?

Not really, no.

Okay. The thing I always say about this is I think that there's definitely a world in which it could be both scientifically explained and paranormal at the same time.

Okay. Like a bisexual. Exactly.

I do think that sleep paralysis is bi. So it's a thing that happens to a lot of people where you freeze and a lot of times you wake up, your body can't move, and a lot of times people hallucinate, particularly like A male figure or like a guy with a hat on.

Like a demon.

The hat man.

The hat man, yeah. Very big.

Yeah, demons, you know, whatever.

You see shit. Yeah. And it could have been that. And it was happening at a time in my life when I did have a really bad drinking problem. And I was like really abusing my body and I wasn't sleeping and I was in law school and I was very depressed.

See, that's all the stuff that a demon is looking for. I mean, I'm kind of like whatever about my belief in demons.

Sure.

I think so.

Whatever.

I don't think there's commas. We all think, but I think that darkness is attracted to low frequency, low vibration, like.

This was definitely like the low frequency moment in my life. And I was in sort of like the global capital of demonology. I was in New Orleans. Like everything there is so, you just like kind of feel the history when you're walking down the street there. Even if it's just this place that has so much running through it.

So I kept having those dreams. And I'd been going to acupuncture throughout this period of my life. And it was to help with my anxiety and like these panic attacks and ultimately to help me stop abusing, you know, alcohol and pills and stuff. So I'm at acupuncture one day and I got to know her pretty well. Like we were pretty close and I had seen her a bunch and she had never, ever talked about spirits or anything like that. Like it was always one of the more medical cerebral acupuncturists, right? Because there's a lot of woo-woo acupuncture out there. She was a very like logical cerebral person. So she's doing something on me with a needle.

And she's like, hey, can I just ask you like a weird question? I was like, yeah, sure. I mean, we talked about everything. I mean, I'm in a medical gown. You don't have to like ask. Like we're already, it's very intimate. And she's like, have you been having like a weird dream lately? And I was like, well, what do you mean? Because I'm also pretty skeptical. Like I'm not like immediately buying into this stuff. I'm like, what are you talking about? And she's like, is there like a guy that you keep seeing in your dreams? And you know, when you dream, you're sort of half remembering.

So I would wake up and I wouldn't be like, the man was in my dream again. I'd be like, oh yeah, okay. And then I'd go get coffee and life would kind of start. It wasn't haunting me through the day. But when she brought that up, it did kind of bring me back to that twilight REM part of my brain activated it. And I was like, oh my God, yeah. I kind of have been having a dream about some guy. She's like, sorry, not to like do this to you, but like he's here right now.

And I was like, bitch, what?

Who's paying for his acupuncture?

Thank you. Is this a copay? Is he a dependent? How does that work? So I was like, could you tell me, what are you talking about? Lauren, her name is Lauren and she's great. Love her. Shout out to Lauren. I was like, okay. And she was like, he's talking about you. Like, he's just kind of like talking to me.

Do you mind if I like tell you what he's saying? And I was like, yeah, sure. Bitch, what? Like it was freaky because she had never pulled anything like that.

So random.

I wasn't out of psychic. It was more of like a medical context. Yeah. So I was just not ready for it. So I was like, sure, let's see where this goes. Crazy lady.

Well, and it's also like, OK, you're smart. You know, you know how the body works. You're you're not supposed to believe in this stuff.

Right. Smart. Right. Where the medical issue was, she was like putting the needle in there. She wasn't doing it like on my leg to help with my neck. It was very much a A to B causal person. Logic, right? We're dealing with a very logical person.

And then all of a sudden she says, there's an invisible man here. He's talking to you.

She said, he's right next to you right now.

I would have ripped the needles down. out and ran.

And I was like, okay. And it's a safe environment. I felt very safe there. So I didn't run for it. And she was like, yeah, he's just kind of like, he's this brassy New Yorker guy. He's older. He's like in his 60s.

He knows you have a type.

Yeah.

Just saying.

It was the Monopoly man.

He thought he could get in there maybe.

He said, pass, go, honey.

He said, you just haven't met me yet.

And so she starts to kind of just tell me what he's saying. And she said that he's been following you around for a while now. He's this older guy in his 60s who's a New Yorker. He's kind of got this thick New York accent. And he's just kind of here for you. She's like, he's really right here. He's just kind of like yapping while I'm talking to you.

So she was kind of distracted. And she's like, yeah, like this does kind of happen like every now and then someone will just kind of like start talking to her. She told me that this has happened a few times in her life where someone comes in like with baggage. And she's like, yeah, he's been like in your dreams a little bit. And he just says that he's your guide.

He's just kind of like here just following you around. Like if you ever need him, he's like, he's here for you. And that was really it. Like that was the message. I was like, thank you. Yeah. Tell him I said thanks.

Were you like, can I have a drink? Or like, were you okay with this?

No. I was just kind of like, this is the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me. And she was like, if you don't believe me, just put your arm out like this. I'm not kidding. She said, just put your arm out. What happened? This sounds, you guys have to. You have to understand.

People that listen to this podcast understand.

They understand that I am not this person. I don't do astrology. I don't care about that. I really am a non-believer. Yeah. But I put my arm out and it truly was at least 10 degrees colder just to my right. And that really, that was for me where I was like, okay, this person is not lying. There's no vent. There's no draft. It was the middle of the summer. Like, she's not fucking with me. This person takes Aetna insurance. There's no way.

I was in New Orleans this past summer. If I had a freezing cold man following me around, that would have been great.

Yeah.

It's sticky.

It's... Yeah. Maybe that's why he was there for air conditioning. That's sweet. Yeah.

Now, when you were seeing him in your dreams... Did it look like a 60-year-old New Yorker guy?

It was just the outline of a person. Oh, okay. Yeah, it was just sort of like a shadow figure, which is why, like, I think probably the sleep paralysis is possible, right? Like, we can walk and chew gum. We can hold two things in our hand, right? Yeah. Like, it can be both. But I just sort of took it as, like, good to know. Like, thanks for letting me know. I never saw him again in a dream.

Really?

He really just, I think, wanted me to know. And then he was like, I'm out. Good luck, honey.

See, and what I think about with stuff like this is like, okay, we're all going to die one day. Am I going to be following around a 19-year-old in New Orleans?

Yeah, was it like a Mary Poppins situation? Like he was on to the next twink?

Yeah, how does this work?

I don't know. Yeah, like what are the rules? But he was there. I mean, I abbreviated the conversation, but she did for a little bit. She was like, yeah, he's kind of saying this and he's kind of saying that. And similar to my dreams, after I left that appointment, it kind of got filed away in subconscious. It wasn't like I walked around all day being like, oh, buckle up, passenger seat, got my ghost with me. Sure. It was like, oh, okay. Yeah, maybe if I'm a little high or if I haven't slept or I'm still in twilight sleep, I'll remember this acupuncture appointment. And I think even for her, I continued to see her for many years after that. She never really brought it up again. Really? I never really brought

it up again. We just kind of, like, moved on. It seemed like, for her, it was like, oh, I have to read this form before we start. We have to sign the release. It was a little bit like that.

Uh-huh.

Which is why it felt so real, because I wasn't in front of a psychic. I wasn't, you know.

She wasn't like, okay, that'll be 50 bucks extra.

She wasn't wearing a turban at the train station with a crystal ball. Right, right. She was like, hey, yeah, just like FYI, like this is what's going on. It was part of the treatment plan.

That's incredible.

It was really, and I wasn't spooked. Like I thought of my grandfather. I don't know if it was him. He never said it was him. But my grandfather did die when I was like nine or ten. And so I never really knew him as an adult. Right. And he was a brassy New Yorker, like an older man in his 60s. Like that's the only person from my life who I know is dead. who could possibly have been, I guess like following me around in a, in what was a really dark part of my life. Like to T no T no shade. Like it was really fun, but I wasn't dating older guys and like getting into these situations with married men because I was like happy with myself. Right. Right. Because I was like on a path of righteousness. Like I was figuring my shit out

in a really messy way. Um, and ended up in a lot of complicated relationships. So I, The notion that my grandfather was like, hey, hon, maybe get your act together.

That's so sweet. It was kind of cute. I had a messy like early 20s for sure.

Tell me more about that.

Well, I'm 11 years sober for a reason.

Wow. Congratulations. Thank you.

But I do think like I got to have some good guardian angels or something.

Yeah. There's some someone. Yeah, it's. It sometimes ends up too perfectly, works out so well for it to completely be chance sometimes. Yeah. So that is where I get a little bit hippy-dippy-woo-woo. I get a little in the sauce. But yeah, it sometimes does work out in an incredible way. Like after that, I don't want to say that I left that appointment and I was healed. It was on the path. I found the Lord. No.

But you stored it away and it became a great podcast story years later. You said, I don't know when I'm going to use this, but I will.

I don't think I've told anyone this story. Really? I don't. I really don't. Because, I mean, yeah, most people in my life don't really know me as someone who would really believe in that.

Yeah, but that's what makes it so good. Some of these people are like, and then this happened to me.

You're like. But I will say that the first experience in bed of being twirled.

Do you think that was him or someone else?

I think that might have been. That feels like kind of like a messy girl would do that. Like the mean sorority girl who like OD'd in that room. You know what I mean? Like that doesn't feel like an older gentleman who is going to appear in my dreams and be my guide would be... what, doing a round-off back handspring in the Montauk Motel? Like, that's kind of weird. Like, it just doesn't align.

But also, I think about, like, day one as a ghost, or, like, you're new to this.

Day one.

Like, you're new to this assignment, and you're like, what?

Get ready with me to haunt this diva. Like, yes, honey.

But it's like, what am I capable of doing? Like, can I, like, move some? Oh, I can. That's crazy. Okay, now I'm going to try dreams. That'll be fun. You know what I mean?

Look at this twink. Let me try and turn him over in bed. Yeah. Yeah.

Absolutely.

Do people come on and talk about like sex with ghosts? Who was it? Was it Anna Nicole Smith or Courtney Love? Someone said they banged a ghost.

All the credible celebrity sources. A lot.

Yes.

A lot of celebrities have talked about it. We've only had a few occurrences that have been shared on the show. I'm definitely open to more. Interesting. If anybody listening wants to share your story of having sex with a ghost, email ghostedbyroz at gmail.com. But the at least two experiences I can think of that have been shared on this show have been very positive.

Interesting.

Because I'm always like, there's like weird consent stuff.

Very positive like they finished.

Oh, yeah.

Wow.

And it was otherworldly. From what I heard.

Got your back blown out by a ghost. Damn. Exactly. That's hot. Put that in the Grindr bio. Put that. That is like your opener. Yeah. Not, hey, you up. Hey, I have transcended the realm.

Absolutely. And I don't even know where you go from there. Like back to a sentient being.

Yeah.

I don't know.

You can't go back to the rabbit toy. No. No. What are you going to do? The rosebud toy after that? No.

But this is.

I don't think so, honey.

This is what these people say. They say it's great. But I'm always asking myself or everyone else, like, there's a weird consent thing here. You know, like, how does... They can't just start... You can't just start fucking me and I can't see you.

I know. Yeah.

But there are these experiences people report where they're like, okay, I'm just going to go with it.

Do you think that, like.

Maybe that's what was happening to you in the bed.

Maybe. Maybe. I was freaked out though. So the consent was not there.

That's the thing.

I was like, just move me a little bit. I guess for me, we're speaking in hypotheticals now. If a ghost started to move me and I could move and then something freaky started happening, I might explore it. Okay. Because I have agency. I can move. Right. I couldn't move, which is why maybe it was sleep paralysis.

That's not fair.

Yeah. I was like, no. that's not my kink. Yeah.

No, that's not fair.

Like if I have agency and work, let me explore your other worldly body. Yeah.

I haven't gotten to the point yet, but there are like blogs you can read that are like, here's how you can. make this happen or like we talk about haunted dolls on this podcast and like there's a lot of them that are like you buy this doll and and you'll just start but.

You're just gonna be sopping yeah slide off your.

Chair i'm not there yet no but you should try it it's coming one day.

We could would you film it No way. I'm just saying that would do numbers on OnlyFans.

You would retire early. Yeah, I'm sure people would believe me. I'm like.

It's Gooner 21.

It's Gooner 21. Spiritual Gooner. Speaking of, let me show you a haunted eBay doll. This is crazy because I'm looking at the time and I thought by now we would have talked about like at least nine other famous cases of ghosts. But we're running out of time.

Let's do whatever you want to do.

You made this so easy. You know what? No doll this episode. Just because we got you here and you are a legal expert. And I want to know your thoughts on this.

On the extrajudiciary hauntings of the American justice system.

Yeah, for sure. Okay. Let me just throw some at you here. So this is a big one. New York City.

Oh.

Early 1990s. Okay. There were real estate developers named Jeffrey and Patrice Stambofsky.

Don't know them.

They purchased a home in Nyack, New York.

Nyack, that's on Long Island. Okay. Okay.

And it belonged to Helen Ackley.

Okay.

So the Stambofsky's were unaware that the house had a long reputation for being haunted, despite the fact that Ackley had published accounts of the ghostly occurrences three times between 1977 and 1989.

Wow.

Including once in Reader's Digest. So this lady wanted everyone to know that she's got a haunted house.

Yeah.

According to Ackley, the house was inhabited by three ghosts, a naval lieutenant from the American Revolutionary War and a couple from the 19th century. But Ackley never told the Stambovskys about the hauntings. When they discovered the house's history, the Stambovskys sued Ackley for fraudulent misrepresentation and asked for the contract to be rescinded. In 1991, the New York Supreme Court heard an appeal of the case. The court ruled that Ackley wasn't liable for damages, but also decided that because a haunting can't be determined by a home inspection, the Stambovskys didn't have to honor the contract either. Many people have called this the Ghostbuster ruling.

OK, let me just like read the fact pattern really quick. So I make sure I understand that.

Now, this is something I have talked to like real estate people about where I think they call it like stigmatized property or something where it's like if you buy the house from Breaking Bad, you do have to know that that's like the house from Breaking Bad. You will have people take pictures of it all the time. People know about it. There's going to be people trying to go on your property.

Right. Like the Sex and the City townhouse in New York City right now. There's always tourists lined up out front and the owners get really annoyed and upset because people will like climb over the rope and go up the steps. But with this case, what's interesting is that she was really public and open about how haunted it was.

She published three articles. So like that's kind of curious to me is like you're not doing your due diligence as a purchaser. of what is going on with this house.

But this is 1990. You can't just Google the address. Nowadays, you can for sure. You just Google the address.

How did people Google in the 90s? Can we get a fact check on that?

Wait a second. You're here to answer questions for us.

Sorry. Would they go to the library and just say, can you Google this?

Yeah, like microfiche or whatever.

Yeah.

Huh. Yeah, that's scary. Get in the comments and tell us. Let us know. In 1991, what would you have done to find out if your house was haunted?

Yeah. What's like the analog Google?

But that's, I don't know whose side I'm on with this. I do think, like, girl, you weren't too shy about it. I think you should probably tell people just so you know. Fun little fact about this place.

You don't get to be shy only when it suits your pocketbook.

Thank you.

Like, she was selling all those articles, making her money, telling everyone this shit was haunted. Yeah. Trying to get some attention. And now someone finds out in the middle of a purchase. I don't think. And if I was buying a house, putting all that money down, and I found out halfway through that it was haunted, like really haunted by three people, not just one.

But this is why I ask every apartment I've ever had. I say to the landlord, this is going to sound crazy. And if you Google me, you're going to see that. You'll understand. Has anyone ever died here? Is this place haunted? Are they honest with you?

I don't think they have to see.

Literally my current landlord was like, what? And I was like, forget it. I'll find out. I'll find out for myself. But okay. Interesting. How are you.

Going to conjure a spirit to fuck you if your house isn't haunted?

Yeah.

Don't ask.

So there's actually, like there's other cases where like people didn't, they weren't told and they found out that it's haunted.

Like that's.

I would think that's probably more common, maybe.

Sure. Yeah. Like I know in certain states you have to disclose if someone died in the home.

Right. And it's different, different places. And I think it's like there is like a kind of a statute of limitations.

Yes. If it's like within a certain number of years, someone's died in the house where it's going up for sale, they have to disclose.

Because that's kind of my question with this case we just talked about is like, how did they find out.

It was haunted? This woman was just sort of telling everyone. And then. They bought it and halfway through they found out. Was it the article or were they on a tour and they got tripped? Yeah. Did that couple, were they looking for a third? Like, we don't know what happened with that couple that died in there. How does a couple end up dying in the house, right? Was it at the same time?

Oh, that's scary.

Was it a murder suey? Was it like, what happened to that couple?

Seriously. Yeah.

That's spooky dooky. It is. I don't like that. And an old home in Nyack that's haunted by three people. I'm not buying that. New construction only.

So this other case in 2005. Great year. 2005.

I love how you're like the Bush administration. Love.

Honestly, I will take that. At this point, we didn't know how good we had it.

People were really thirsting after the good old days of GW.

I mean, he was a little quirky and maybe... He.

Had his little paintings choked on a pretzel once, but like, you know.

Maybe a war criminal, but you know, he was fun.

Other than that.

So 2005, great music, great movies... The landlords who operated the historic Church Street train station and entertainment complex in Orlando, Florida, filed a $ 2. 6 million lawsuit against two restaurant owners who refused to move into the property after learning that it was allegedly haunted.

Wow.

So they were trying to get these restaurant owners to open up business in this place. And then they were like, no, it's haunted. I don't want to see how they sued him. I don't understand this.

Let me read it. In 2005, the landlords who operated the Church Street train station complex in Orlando filed a lawsuit against two restaurant owners who were... Okay, so they're just refusing to move into the property because they found out it was allegedly haunted.

But why would they need to? They must have signed a contract or something, right?

So they had some sort of lease or agreement. And then they were like, actually, it's haunted. We don't want to fuck around in that place. According to lawyers for the restaurant owners... The owners were Jehovah Witnesses whose religious beliefs prevented them from having any contact with undead spirits.

That is a lawyer's argument. Because what the lawyer is doing here is basically invoking the First Amendment and saying that their First Amendment religious beliefs bar them from following through on this contract. Oh, please. This could have been totally made up. I call bullshit.

So they could have just been like, it's haunted, I swear. And it goes against my religion. They just didn't have the money.

Exactly. They just didn't want to go through with it. I call bullshit. According to the landlord's attorneys, I asked them if these were good ghosts or bad ghosts. And if they were good ghosts, why it was a problem.

Is that what the person from this website wrote?

No, no, no, no, no. That is one of the attorneys. That's one of the attorneys.

Yeah, they're good ghosts.

Why do you care?

That's opposing counsel.

That's the argument.

I love Florida. This is great.

Local news sources didn't report on a financial settlement or other resolution for the suit. It's just kind of left hanging. No one was even like, this warrants a settlement. No one's even trying.

That's crazy.

This was just, I don't feel like following. through on my lease. I'm just going to say I'm a Jehovah and it's haunted.

You know, there's, okay, we don't have to get into all these cases, but there are some where it's like people that sued God.

Sure.

Or the devil.

Yeah. They sued both of them. Didn't go, didn't go anywhere. And then another thing that I noticed in some of these stories, because I went to like Various different websites. Right now I'm just staying at this Ranker website. But there were also cases of people who like through a Ouija board contacted someone and then wrote a book with what the ghost told them. And then the family was like, wait a minute, we own the rights.

Even if you got the information through the Ouija board, it's still that person's life rights that you don't have the rights to that you're now writing the book on. You can write the book on your experience with the Ouija board.

I mean, can't you just like not say where you got the details from?

But then that's actually worse because now you're just stealing that person's story.

Okay. But can you get sued for it?

Yeah. You don't have the life rights. You've got to have that person's life rights.

But I'm not getting– okay. Let's just say hypothetically I conjure up the spirit of Joan Rivers.

Okay.

And she starts writing jokes for me.

Okay.

And– I don't ever have to tell anyone. And I can just use all these jokes.

Oh, that's fine. Yeah, but the second you say Joan Rivers.

Joan Rivers wrote that joke.

Melissa is going to be outside your house with a shiv.

Yes, she will.

There's no world in which a single Joan Rivers joke is being written and told posthumously where Melissa isn't getting a cut. I'll tell you that right now, honey.

Okay, wait, so let's just do this last one. There is a Mark Twain one that's like that.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah, okay.

No, tell me more. It's your show. Okay. Direct me.

Okay, so in 1917, two psychic mediums, Emily Grant Hutchings and Lola V. Hayes, published a book that they said was written posthumously. I can never say that word.

It's okay. It's annoying.

Posthumous.

That's how I say it, but I mispronounce stuff. I'm from Long Island, so that might.

Not be right. See, that makes me think of pasta.

I had really good pasta last night at Jones.

At Jones?

Yeah, in West Hollywood. I had the, it was the spaghetti with meatballs in the skillet. Highly recommend. Okay. Okay, back to the story, back to the story.

Costumously. Billion dollar idea. Gee, how you're going to have to cut this. A pasta restaurant. And each pasta dish is... I get the recipe from a Ouija board.

Why does she have to cut this?

Because I don't want anyone stealing this.

It's a brilliant idea.

Legal advice. Should I keep it in? Because then it makes it sound like I can always come back to this.

Yeah.

And I can say, I came up with posthumous.

I agree. Yeah.

This is good.

I'm not licensed to practice in California, though. So this is for entertainment purposes only.

Okay. Posthumous.

Posthumous.

No, that was just me saying pasta. I just wanted to say pasta.

What's your favorite kind of pasta? I am completely pansexual when it comes to pasta.

I'll put anything in my mouth.

But do you get what I'm saying? So basically, I get the recipes.

Yeah, get a recipe from a Ouija board. Make it, sell it at your restaurant called Postumus. That's hot.

And that's fun because then people can be like, oh, I want the Mark Twain rigatoni.

Or they're like, My grandma spoke to you and I want to taste her Puttanesca once more. That's one way to pass down a recipe.

Well, maybe I shouldn't do Mark Twain because maybe his estate will sue me. So he died in 1910. So this is 1917. So we're only talking seven years.

Oh, yeah. The body's not even cold yet.

So these mediums. They write this novel and they spent two years transcribing it through a Ouija board. That's a long time.

Each letter.

I mean, let the girls make their money. That's a lot.

Yeah, they committed to the bit.

So the story is set in a small Missouri town. Who cares? So Twain and Hutchings.

The second you said Missouri, you were like, fuck this.

I don't care. Twain and one of the psychics. They had corresponded 15 years before the book was published, and in one of his letters, Twain made a note to himself that read, Idiot must preserve. So maybe he had pitched the idea of this book.

While he was still alive? Okay.

At the time, publishing books that were supposedly written by ghosts was a relatively common phenomenon.

What? I've never heard of that.

A New York Times review of the novel noted three similar books were had come to print recently.

Okay, hack.

Okay, however, the year after the book was published, Twain's daughter, Kara Clemens, sued Hutchings and Hayes to prevent the book from being published. The two authors agreed to cease publication and destroyed all existing copies.

They destroyed it?

See, now I can understand if you're using the Mark Twain name to sell books. That is, yeah, I mean.

But they got the information from a Ouija board?

Yeah, use that as your hook to get people in to buy the book. Just use Mark Twain's brain. Don't give him credit.

Just use the Ouija board.

Just use the Ouija board and be like, guys, I made this out of a Ouija board. Doesn't it feel like something Mark Twain would write?

I've never done the Ouija board before.

Really?

I didn't know him. I've got big hands.

I wish we had one. Maybe we should bring one just for fun.

Oh, shit.

I just looked at the time and since you have to leave, you're very busy. We're just going to have to skip The ghost voices and the haunted doll and all that stuff. We'll do that next time.

Okay. Please come back. Yeah, I would love that. Yes. Thank you for having me.

Tell everybody what you got going on and where they can find you.

My name's Michael Foote. You can find me on... I sold my soul to the internet a long time ago. So I'm on TikTok, Instagram. That's really only where I post. And then my Exactly Right Show brief recesses... every Thursday here on Exactly Right and everywhere you get podcasts and we record at the iHeart Studios in New York which is fun so you can listen to it on iHeart as well cool thanks for having me oh my.

God I'm so happy to meet you oh my god he's so easy to talk to that was super fun we gotta have him back on here because there's definitely more cases that we could cover and make sure you're listening to his podcast Brief Recess a legal podcast Okay, that's it for this week. I love you all, both living and dead. But if I didn't ask you to haunt me, don't haunt me.

Okay, bye!

This has been an Exactly Right production. Want to share your paranormal experience on the podcast? I read stories out loud, and sometimes I'll even call you. So email me at ghostedbyroz at gmail.com. You can send a DM or voice message to the show's Instagram at ghostedbyroz. Give us a follow while you're there. And follow me, Roz, on Instagram at Roz Hernandez and on TikTok and Twitter at It's Roz Hernandez. My senior producer is the startling Jiha Lee.

Associate producer is the alarming Christina Chamberlain. This episode was mixed and sound designed by the eerie Edson Choi. My guest booker is the petrifying Patrick Kottner. My theme music is by the spine-chilling Brendan Lynch Salomon. Artwork by the spooky Vanessa Lilac. Photography by the terrifying Elizabeth Caron. Executive produced...

by the chilling Karen Kilgareth, the spooky Georgia Hardstark, and the frightening Danielle Kramer. Listen to Ghosted by Roz Hernandez on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

ICYMI: Michael Was on Ghosted! by Roz Hernandez

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