Fright-con #42 - Ghosts: Is It Swayze Or Slimer?

Hello the internet and welcome to this spin-off episode of their daily zeitgeist which we call the iconograph instead of looking at the zeitgeist through current events on monday mornings we look at the zeitgeist through the powerful pop cultural deities that are our icons um or now that it's october our fright cons it's spooky season it's uh tdz house of horror episodes and uh So far, we've covered Dracula, Hannibal Lecter, and for our third FrightCon of October, we're going with the number one most believed-in paranormal character. According to the 2018 Chapman University Survey of American Fears, 58% of Americans believe in today's icon, which is more than have voted for any president in the last 42 years. Today,

we ask the question, are we indeed... Not afraid of no ghosts. I would say we are actually not afraid of ghosts. We are afraid of no ghosts. We want there to be ghosts. We're afraid that there's not ghosts. We need there to be ghosts. Yeah, we need there to be ghosts. I'm thrilled to be joined by my co-host.

He once sucked Dan Aykroyd off so hard it made his eyes cross. It's Miles Gray!

I really thought you were about to say that.

For me.

I really thought that was my intro, and I was like... Wow, they got real comfortable.

Wow. They're feeling real comfortable with me.

Yeah, I had a pretty off-color Halloween costume a few years ago, Jack's referencing.

But yes, great to be here.

A thing that I honestly, I'm always constantly grappling with this subject of ghosts.

Oh, yeah.

Because I come from a pretty spooky ghost culture. I straddle, like, black people like ghosts. Japanese people like ghosts.

Oh, yeah. But I hate them. I don't like them. They freak me out.

What they do is they give me a little bit to think about what it is about ghosts that kind of rubs me the wrong way or why I sort of don't want them to be real at times.

But anyway, I'm glad we're doing this. This is a good exercise. Let me ask you, do black people like ghosts? I know, I mean, in my family, there has been ghost talk. I have a lot of ghost talk. things. Like, they've always talked about haunted shit. T-O-K. Ghost talk. Ghost talk. They're on TikTok. They're on TikTok. But I mean, I think just a lot of stuff, too.

I think there's just a lot of spirituality that intersects with it that kind of can be supernatural. It also depends on the flavor of Christian you can be, because sometimes my grandmother would not like that, because she's like, there's only one.

This is the Holy Spirit kind of thing. Exactly. Yeah, I think my grandma's a little bit like that, too.

Yeah, but there was also times when it would be like, They're like, there was this, when I was a little girl in Chicago, there was this ghost. And I'm like, okay, so which one is it? Like, is it, is there only one ghost or are you constantly seeing ghosts?

They have encounters, but we don't want to admit it. Right. I feel like listening to our guests podcast this week, I was like, Oh yeah, I did have like some weird shit happen when I was a kid. That's really interesting. Um, let's get to in our third seat, uh, director, journalist, and the host of the other world podcast, which, uh, I've been on a tear listening to past week. And, uh, it's like every time, every year he comes on in October for our, uh, spooky season, uh, And I get pulled into a hole of just nonstop other world episodes.

He's a real life ghost examiner, and yet he's never once found a haunting to be an old wealthy guy in a latex mask trying to sink the property value of an abandoned amusement park. Please welcome back to the show. It's Jack Wagner. Jack. It's an honor to be back, folks. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's great to have you. Great time to be back.

And it's good timing, too, because I don't know if you listened to the most recent episode, but it's... I would say the most ghost evidence that I've encountered, at least on my show.

Which one is it?

It is called Long's Peak, for anyone who wants to check it out.

Duh! I was too deep in the archive, and I missed it. You should listen to it.

It is kind of crazy. Well, I could get into it further, but... Yeah, we can get into it. It's... Investigating this stuff is not super easy or cut and dry. I rarely get my hopes up. This is one where I usually try to look into things the best I can, but I rarely get my hopes up when it comes to somebody seeing something and being able to find out, like, oh, that was a real person that you saw, and this is who it was. But that was the case with this episode, and we were able to further... confirm it later on.

Like straight up conjuring shit, where you're like, if you actually look at these photographs. Yeah, yeah.

But that almost never happens, and... It took me by surprise. I still don't know what to make of it. That being said, I feel weird accusing people of being a ghost. So I kind of like kept the guy's name out of it just because that feels so weird to me. Like if I were if I die tragically, the idea of like some paranormal show putting me on blast, especially if I'm.

Not the ghost. Wow, that's interesting. I've never, you know. never really thought about that of like, do you, if it's a private citizen, even though they're deceased, do you do that? Not putting their name. Yeah. You blur their name out. Yeah. That feels great. I mean, Yeah. They haven't signed anything. I mean, that's amazing.

You're actually somehow more ethical than, like, most murder podcast hosts.

No. So, I mean, yeah, we'll go from where we started. You know, I don't even.

I don't want to out this person as a ghost if they're not. It just feels really not my place. Like, that's such an interesting thing to kind of have to contend with. Well, it's similar to me, too, because it's just, like, I think about... And not to get too serious right off the rip, even though I'm not a very serious person, but, like, with the murder podcast, same with, like, the ghost stuff, imagine.

something horrible.

Happened to your loved one sure and then there's these like dumb ass youtube shows being made about it or like right you know and after you speculating crazy shit like i mean just like the whole economy of uh true crime like trial-based podcasts like sure just imagining like your your wife gets horribly murdered and then like the country randomly decides you did it Right.

That must suck. Yeah, for no reason. It usually is the husband.

But yeah, bad example there, statistically speaking.

But yeah, same with the ghost. Like, I don't know.

I just feel like we should respect the dead.

Well, and I feel like actually that, in a way, it becomes a more flippant, sensationalized version of a thing when you're like, and it's.

Like this haunted place. Like, you know, people just jackass. That's a really good impression of Otherworld, by the way. It's this haunted place.

I'm talking about like those YouTube, like YouTube people that are like, this is like this spooky place.

Oh yeah, there are. That is the whole genre. No way! You know? A cute boy goes to a haunted place and is like, what was that? And then they like give like this like really studied like model look over there. Yeah.

And they're trying to like, talk to the it's one of those things where it's like if you believe in ghosts you should not be doing that you're like being extremely rude to a murder victim who's stuck right right in this place for eternity yeah that's you're harassing them if you believe in ghosts yeah and if you don't believe in ghosts then you know you're just an idiot like what are you doing you're.

A liar yeah right like why are you there uh reviews reviews We've talked before about like aliens and I've said that I want to believe, but I don't have I have some things that I'm like, I don't understand how that happened, but I don't have like the the thing that is like that. There it is solved. And I think I'd love ghosts in that category as well. Like, I would love to be presented with evidence. of hauntings or just like any afterlife, I'll take something over nothing, you know, even though many ghosts seem to be acutely uncomfortable based on, based on, uh, the noises they're making. But, uh, you know, I, I'll also say like, I, in terms of ghosts and the afterlife, like I went to church

every Sunday and, When I was a kid. And I have no clear idea of how the Catholic afterlife works. Oh, you're Catholic? Yeah, yeah. I'm more fascinated with theirs, yeah. Yeah, there's like a purgatory, brutal thing where you go if you aren't great, but aren't specifically evil. And you're supposed to be praying.

Well, this might be more for Orthodox, but people pray for the souls.

That are in purgatory.

Yeah and i think some orthodox denominations of catholicism believe that you can like ask the souls in purgatory to help you and then like them helping you get those deeds uh give them points towards like getting into heaven eventually right i.

Don't my point is i i don't know i don't know how it works i don't know what gets you there i don't know what gets you out i do know like how I would end up in the ghost or the sixth sense afterlife, you know, like those are like the crispest clearest image that I have of an afterlife is from ghost movies. I think, you know, I think for most people. Yeah.

Yeah.

I will also say, just going back to the Chapman survey thing of people just kind of believing in ghosts, like most people, I guess, believing in ghosts and hauntings. I was going through the all-time adjusted box office of like in the history of American films, like what movies have made the most money based on, you know, uh, adjusted box office. So like number one for that is still, uh, gone with the wind because it like sold the most tickets ever of any movie. Um, but like when you're going down, I was, I was looking for like ghostbusters and sixth sense and like where they are on the list. Like, as I was going down, I was realizing that there's like a bunch of huge blockbusters that have like just

incidental ghost appearances and Like Empire Strikes Back, like all the Star Wars movies have ghosts. Yeah, that's true. The Lion King has ghosts. Raiders of the Lost Ark has ghosts. Pirates of the Caribbean has ghosts. Passion of the Christ ends with a ghost. One of the holy ghosts. Harry Potter has ghosts. Like movies that aren't explicitly ghost movies still just have ghosts. It's such an ancient plot device.

No other paranormal character could just show up in an otherwise sci-fi movie or children's cartoon. If Mufasa spoke to his son from an alien spacecraft in the sky or like if obi-wan was a vampire like that would not work at all but we just kind of allow for ghosts.

Well because it's so culturally universal right we all have to contend with death and thinking of the afterlife or what happens after no matter where you are on the planet or religion or culture so it's like an accepted kind of texture i feel like for all of us because right yeah right yeah like what Of course, we're going to ask it.

What happens after that? Oh, yeah, it's a ghost. I think I would have assumed that aliens were more believed in than ghosts. Oh, no way. Ghosts have to be number one. Yeah, ghosts are number one with a bullet. And it also like if you look at the Indiana Jones movies, it makes sense because in Raiders of the Lost Ark, It just ends like it's a, you know, pretty secular movie. And then it ends with like ghosts coming out. And everyone's like, yep, that's that's the best one.

That makes sense to me. But then Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, they were like, and now aliens come out and people are like, the fuck? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.

You know, speak to most people and dig like you can find that they've had some sort of weird ghost story. adjacent experience, even if it's small, you know, whether or not they believe it. Like, I think most people would be like, well, there's probably some kind of explanation for that, but.

It was weird. Sure. Yeah, exactly. But it is extremely common. As you know, as you've shown. The other thing I would just say about like our kind of trying to map how people think about ghosts using our pop culture is like when you actually look at the movies that have done the best that are explicitly about ghosts, it's Generally, like, I think people want them to be friendly, or, like, they tend to be friendly, you know? Like, even the sixth sense, which, like, is, you know, spooky when you first see the ghost, because they have Beetlejuice ghost rules where you, like, still have whatever injury killed you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which seems fucked up. A little, yeah, could do with better vibes. You just, like, show up at someone's window with, like, half your head hanging off. But generally, it's just people... You know, Ghost is another... Like, the Patrick Swayze Ghost movie was a massive hit, and it's, like, scary idea at first, but, you know, they are just people who are, like... Or, yeah, like, dead people who are looking to, like, move through, you know? Yes.

I'm glad you guys did the research on this, because.

I am no expert on this subject.

On the pop culture stuff?

No, actually, I know a lot more on the pop culture stuff, but historically speaking, I guess I know a cursory amount, but it's interesting to hear this data that you've brought forward.

And like, Force ghosts are nice. Mufasa ghost is nice. Raiders of the Lost Ark ghosts are... not nice but like they have just a very they're like ellen degeneres you just can't look at them or they'll fucking melt your face off that's their that's their one rule yeah they're like j-lo yeah yeah sure they're not super nice but um i don't know or maybe they would have just melted the nazis face off either either way i think good.

Yeah ghosts or like communication with some sort of supernatural force is such a part of the hero's journey. And like, uh, the mythological framework of, you know, the plots that kind of like all stories are now based on, you know?

So I think that's why we see so much of it. If I had to guess. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. I think so. Like that, you know, it goes back to Hamlet and like, I later on, I'll talk about, you know, there, there are ghost stories, like ghost encounters with like Pliny, the elder. And it sounds very similar to the things that, the stories that, you know, your subjects tell on your show, Jack, like, you know, a ghost who's like throwing things and, you know, doing things and is like in someone's house. So it seems like that's another thing. We did an episode about the gray alien, you know, the iconic gray alien face and like how we got there. And one of the things we found is like it, kind of kicked off

in the seventies or, you know, it kicked off at a certain point and then began, like, you can like see it kind of being designed by the collective unconsciousness and like everything starts going in that direction. but they're for a long time, like the design of alien sightings were really stupid. Like didn't, didn't look like that. They were like hairy or like one was like a giant light switch with legs, you know? And so the fact that ghosts have like always kind of had this similar description from people who encounter them is, is interesting to me.

It is interesting and cross cultural. And also, um, I'm totally blanking on the name of this tribe, but, there have been uncontacted tribes who were eventually contacted like within the last century that had very strong beliefs in ghosts, which is interesting to me that I'm, that it's like not just culture spreading across.

It's like self-generating. Yeah.

It's like trying to tap into something that I think we just, we feel innately as part of being alive. Like the sensation of being alive is already kind of surreal. If you bother to like examine that, like to exist. And then to then go on, it's like ghosts are also kind of like a way for us to make, I think also it's a way for us to make sense of what can happen, what energies we leave behind.

If we are sensitive to something that's slightly more intangible than sort of what's empirically known. So all of those things, I think they all connect with something just so basic or so essential to our lived experience that But, yeah, like, it's, like, kind of just found this very simple way to kind of manifest itself in, like, this sort of paranormal afterlife.

Yeah. Let's put our cards on the table, boys. Have you seen or experienced a ghost? So, I have... When I was a kid, I found this thing... of gold coins in like the dirt outside of this. So I remember this from, uh, listening to one of your shows where like somebody was, had like kind of a spirit guide, imaginary friend when they were exploring this Creek area by their house. And, um, I did always have like this memory of this experience where, uh, I found these like gold coins, uh, and then like heard this like drum that was like deep in the ocean or deep in the forest that like, huh. I, it was like this weird, uncanny experience. And I just like chose not to go into the forest. And yeah, It was like at this

time I lived, so I had a creek going by my house and that was this creek that like went into the forest. And there was like the house right next to our house was a guy who had like killed himself a couple of years before he we moved in and like, there was all this lore about like the last person to see him alive. And then like, I was telling that story to my friend while we were playing basketball on the side of our, uh, uh, like of my house. And like the light started flickering, like whenever we would talk about it and it like fucking, I've never run inside like faster. So those are two experiences that I had when I was young that were like kind of adjacent to, Um, that I've always, that like hearing it from anyone else, I'd be like, okay,

that's not, that's not evidence of a haunting. Um, but it did have kind of this weird feeling to me at the time that like, no, this, this seems weird. This seems like something is coming from, uh, elsewhere. Yeah. Uh, not personally.

I mean, like the closest was one time when I was in Japan, like, at night I was walking with my cousins and like a, like a family friend. We were like on our way to get like ice cream at a convenience store or something and like fireworks. So like, you know, I was like a little kid with like my older cousins. And so the thing, the reason I'm dubious, cause I'm not sure if they were fucking with me, but I also know them. They weren't the kind of cousins that would fuck with me. Like I had cousins that would, I knew like they were going to tease the shit out of me because that's just, that was like sort of, you know how it was. But these weren't like, these were like my very like, nurturing, like

older cousins who like, you know, really saw me as like a kid they looked out for. And I remember walking down the, the, like just the street, like just in like this neighborhood and like a suburb of Tokyo. And they kept saying like, like they kept looking behind them and saying they thought someone was like following us, but there really wasn't. And they couldn't quite like, every time we looked, there was no one there, but there was just like this energy. that we all just kind of felt and we had to just keep like we just started running home. And it wasn't like a thing that, again, didn't feel truly like we anyone saw something or just it was the feeling. But as a kid, I could just tap into something that felt off about it.

Something was off. Yeah. Yeah. And so that was the closest. I wouldn't say like that.

That felt like something that can be generated by a bunch of kids being like, oh, shit, you know, and I'm like five years old. But then also my family, though, too, like my uncle and my aunt have had similar things where like a presence has like held them down and they were unable to move. And in one instance, like my step cousin, like warned my uncle about like not going on a trip and he didn't listen. And the thing held him down on his trip. Oh, and he went to the hospital because he thought he was having some kind of medical thing and they did a full body scan, neurological, everything and like nothing was wrong.

And I'm like, for me, I go, ah, it's probably psychosomatic or whatever.

But there's also, there's something too, like when I listened to like the episodes of your show too, where I also do believe that like, for me, I almost see the paranormal stuff as almost being like when lightning strikes, it's like you actually need a collection of the right things for this moment of like paranormal expression to occur in front of you.

Yeah.

And I mean, sleep paralysis, that is one of those things where like, there is this explanation for that, but there are, it's one of those things that like entry level skeptic, easy to write off. Cause you're like, Oh, it's sleep paralysis. But then when you kind of dig further into that and, um, and look at some very strange cases through history, it becomes a little more muddy.

And then, then you kind of come back and you're like, maybe this is, uh, yeah. Like, And there's a, that is one of those things where there's so many records of it. Like there are, cause there's, there's common sightings people have in sleep paralysis. Uh, there's of course the hat man, a lot of people see, um, that's kind of like a more recent thing, but I think people have seen versions of them throughout history. Um, but then the old hag is the other ones like this old woman.

Yeah.

And that one is very old nightmare describes this woman. Like she was called the nightmare. So when you would have a nightmare, it's referring to that.

This is very old.

But basically, almost all cultures across the world have some version of that. Seeing this woman and being held down, which I think is so strange. There's all of these records, anthropological records of woodsmen in Canada who were like, I think it was in the 1800s, early 1800s, who came over from Sweden. Sorry, I'm going off the dome, but These European immigrants to Canada that were there for logging.

And it was happening to all of them. And they were coming into the infirmary at the log camp. That's why these records exist. And they were reporting of getting hagged, they're calling it.

And it was happening to all of them. Encountering that same figure. And then.

After the Vietnam War, we let in all of these Hmong refugees from Laos and Cambodia. Because the Hmong people were helping... United States during the war. We gave them refugee status. Anyway, when they arrived, they started dying mysteriously in their sleep, like hundreds of them. And when people would interview the family members or people who survived these close calls in their sleep, they would say that this was because of this spirit called Dacho, I believe was the name.

And it basically....

The same thing as, uh, the old hag, like this, this female spirit that comes at night, but because they're in America in a way from like their original village, they, they weren't able to do these rituals that would normally protect themselves from the spirit.

And that's what they were saying was happening.

Um, But these people, I believe it was like 125 people died from this. And that went on to inspire a lot of different movies. There was like a big article about this. And to me, this is one of those things where like it was investigated. There wasn't a I didn't think there was a satisfying explanation. Granted, I'm not a doctor, but it was one of those things.

Where they didn't find the nightmare on the CAT scan.

Well, they said that these people were dying of like basically a heart attack. something close to it and then they called it like unexplained nocturnal death phenomena or some shit yes unexpected nocturnal death syndrome yes yes yes where we're like that's the explanation um i think that's so strange you know it's like like where you just get something like an all-encompassing term but you don't really even know why that happens.

And it just allows you to just like Put it away. You know? It allows you to be like, yeah, we had doctors look at this. It's a thing that happens. And just make it clinical and dry and, like, under the lights of a hospital. Why do these people suddenly die at night? It's because it has suddenly died at night syndrome. Exactly. Exactly. Let's just stop. I think the thing that, like, happens a lot in your show is, like, people will say, I didn't tell anyone because... right like before if someone told me that story like i even feel self-conscious about like talking about that i actually have a thing that happened more recently that i like i'm just not talking about because like i don't talk about

my shit on this show yeah yeah like i i would have thought that person had like mental health issues or something if they told me the story that i had happened to me that relationship between hauntings and like mental like pathologies. Um, it's in a lot of movies. First of all, it's kind of the central theme of the shining, uh, according to Kubrick, he's like, no, it's just, what if ghosts drove you crazy? Yeah. What, what the shining is about. But, uh, I think everyone's like had that thought when you go back through history and see like religious miracles and witch burnings and ghost sightings. It's like, well, some of those people were probably hungry to the point of hallucination or like accidentally tripping on ergot or like

mentally ill and they just didn't know what mental illness is. But listening to the stories on your show, you kind of like force a further question of like, what if what we describe as mental illness is actually just our way of dismissing people or experiences that we don't want to deal with or don't want to be real. You know what I'm saying? Because they'll, like, fuck up our day.

It could be a mix of both sometimes, too, you know?

Sure.

Or we think we have something figured out, but there might be an element of it that we don't quite understand, you know? And yeah, a lot of stuff through history, there is some sort of explanation for it. I think a statistic, this is about something else, but a statistic I just saw is, I think it was like a cardinal in Mexico City or something. Somebody in the Catholic Church said that one in 10,000 cases of supposed exorcisms are valid. So, like, only one in 10,000. The rest are cases of mental illness.

Right.

Which is a very small percentage. I thought that was surprising coming from a Catholic priest. But I find that interesting and it's like, okay, so most, pretty much all of the time, people think there's a demon or possession, it's mental illness or some other explanation. But even just like that tiny, tiny fraction of a percent being real, it's very unsettling, you know?

And it's so small.

That you could just as easily write the whole thing off because so small you might not even know when it is real.

Right.

Do you think there's like an, like, What the subtleties are between people who see more.

benevolent kind ghosts.

Versus like the freaky demon type ghosts. Because like in your show, it's so interesting, like where there is like, you know, that ghost box episode where, you know, the, the woman like her, her former father-in-law was like speaking directly through this ghost box thing and like connecting her. And that felt more of like a, you know, you're talking to a loved one or the, uh, what was the one, uh, with the tree house or the kid in San Diego who had like a ghost homie that he, that was.

Like an imaginary friend, but like more, yeah, real. And like, but very benevolent. And like, there was just these, these spirits that it used to be a hunting lodge, their house. And like, there were just these like spirits who would like come in and look in on them. And everybody seemed pretty chill other than they would like open all the cabinets every once in a while. Yeah.

So it's like, I'm always curious, like, cause I feel like they're each manifestation also kind of, I think speaks to sort of a vision of the afterlife that kind of rests with the person experiencing or just, or the way it maybe expresses itself. Like on one side you see, like, I understand how a plantation could be spooky because a lot of dark should be feel like there's a karmic debt there that's waiting to just ooze out somehow into any dimension possible. But then these other ones that are more about, feel like wisdom, like attained wisdom from an ancestor or something that just comes through in the form of like this nice person who's like, oh, don't eat those berries.

Let's be careful over here as we like frolic. It's just interesting to see.

I guess that's why I'm like, to me, it feels like these paranormal moments really happen just like in these very specific ways based on kind of the context and sort of how we're choosing to see things.

The afterlife here. Let's take a quick break and we'll come back. And we, I, yeah, I want to just like kind of do a, a ghost survey. of like the all the ghosts that you've encountered like what how what's the breakdown of like nice versus not nice urban versus rural like what what they look like versus agrarian yeah yeah uh we'll be right back And we're back.

So yeah, you've talked to, you've probably heard more stories from seemingly sane people who have encountered ghosts and hauntings than anyone I'm aware of. So I feel like on this episode where we're looking at the icon, the diva that is ghosts, we should probably... talk about, you know, what, just, like, take a survey from your experience of, like, what the breakdown is, because, yeah, like, movies are actually more of a even split than I would have thought between, like, Mean Ghost versus Nice Ghosts, when you, like, kind of take a look back, even movies like Ghostbusters have, you know...

fun ghosts like Slimer and stuff like that. So in your experience, first of all, have you encountered people who've had encounters with Slimer? But second of all, what would you say that breakdown is with nice versus hostile? What would you say that breakdown is?

That, I'm trying to think of an actual breakdown of that. But here's the thing, is that part of the reason I don't delineate between the various paranormal characters and categories on the show is because I'm not sure what is what. And like, I personally think the lines could be blurry sometimes. And I think often if multiple people look at the same story, they might have different explanations for both for the same story rather. With, like, ghosts, you mentioned the ghost box. Like, that guy was a medium. When I hear stories like that, I wonder, like, my instinct is that he's contacting something on, like, a completely different plane, whereas I think a ghost is something that exists here on our physical plane, you know? Yeah.

Like, they're trapped in a place almost, like, on loop, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah. That story, just really quickly for people who haven't listened, is you interviewed somebody who was like a professional ghost skeptic, essentially. Yeah. And she quit the industry at one point and people were wondering why and you finally like had the conversation. Yeah. about the event that made her quit. And it was like encountering this guy who again, like would have, it would have been the sort of person I would just dismiss as like somebody who like, you know, goes around to ghost conventions and like has this box.

I think Jack described every photo of him as having some kind of smoky, hazy back. He was really like, he was like, bro, I'm always in the fucking, in the mist.

No, that was an episode where it was like intentionally diving into the world of the paranormal that I, typically avoid or like Otherworld was created as an antidote to.

Yeah, exactly. But yeah, that guy was a hilarious character. But he had this device and talked to it and it would bring back voices or answers from some other dimension.

It was like an advanced spirit box. You'll see those on TikTok where it's basically a radio scanner. I mean, I think those are kind of stupid where it's just like zipping between channels and people are finding you can kind of like trick.

Yourself into hearing the noise or interpreting it. Those are just funny.

But this was, like, a more advanced version of it, at least the way the lady described it. It was, like, working in a much more precise and different way than those. But I think, like, honestly, most of the time, when I think of a ghost and the ones I encounter on my podcast, most of them are mischievous at the worst. And, like, borderline benevolent or neutral. I think the scary stuff, at least me, this is just me speaking, when it gets to stuff that is frightening, actively trying to harm somebody, I think of that as more, I guess, demonic. Not necessarily saying that I believe in demons, but Like, I don't think of that as like a human being, the soul of a human being, right? It doesn't seem, and

it's never, in those stories, it's never seemed like a person, right? It's more of a thing doing it. Does that make sense?

Yeah. That's, that's the thing. That's also what the conjuring, the conjuring universe. Yeah. Like the, the, uh, evil ghosts, the conjuring movies are the number one. That's like purely evil ghost movies in terms of box office. And like they, yeah, I guess, you know, we do have one coming out soon that you're joking before the show. Uh, it's a, it's a ghost that had chains. Um, really? Yeah.

And he, I don't want to spoil it, but like he, chokes a lady, um, that I interviewed. And it was like this brief, really frightening encounter.

Damn.

So that was, it's interesting. I don't want to spoil this episode. She sees another one later. She sees another one later, uh, that wasn't him. But to me, it was almost like she was tapping in and witnessing like an event that happened and seeing both sides of it, like seeing from two different perspectives. Yeah. which is, it gets into another thing where it's like, it all depends on how you even think of ghosts.

Right. Right. Right.

Like, like, and sometimes I, I think maybe are we just tapping in and being able to pick up on something that's like on loop, you know, like, right.

Right. Experience. And that's just always there. Right.

Cause I think that was interesting in the ghost box episode, even the subject of your episode was talking about how like, even in thinking about the paranormal, there's already a discussion about like quantum mechanics and time. And if like, if these spirits are even experiencing a form of linear time that human, like the living don't. So it's, again, it's so interesting to just even think of like what all of the sort of ramifications are. But I think, yeah, to your point, it's hard to know sort of like what the intent is or if like, if, if all ghosts are good or if there's one way to define it, because I think the one thing I just keep coming back to over and over is that it's usually a, like a collection of these things come together and somehow

a person has access to a sensation that they previously did not. And I think about that, like my dad, you know, my grandmother passed away like, you know, a few years ago, but like in, he wasn't really like the grief the grieving process wasn't really happening until like in this one very specific moment where like he felt her say something to him like at this event and he just broke down on the spot but he said is very surreal that where i'm also like part of me is like well i felt like you had a lot of pent-up emotion or these other things but i also feel like it was a collection of a lot of like, he was searching for something psychoemotionally and then being kind of open to receiving something, whether that was

to allow himself to grieve in.

A way that he didn't know.

But it, but to him, it was very much connected to this moment where like he was like sort of visited.

And I think that's extremely common. Yeah.

And like, that's where I'm like, that's where I'm like, I've really, and to me, like, I'm like, that is believable because I do, I do feel that there is something energetically, um, It's probably not the thing of Casper or whatever, but we do have these moments where we're clearly, our senses are adapting to something not quite what we're used to.

And that's gotta be the number one submission we get is people who are sending things from immediately after a loved one died and believing that they're contacted through signs or something like that. Oftentimes, and it's very complicated for me because I'm like, you feel really bad A lot of times I'll read a story back. I don't know if that was paranormal, but yeah, I'm glad that you found peace.

Exactly. Sure. Sure.

Like your confirmation bias really helped out.

You know, because like I've seen that with my own loved ones when somebody has passed.

Right.

But then occasionally it's occasionally there are really, really big ones. We have another story coming up. I'll spoil this a little bit. Just as a treat for your audience. I don't know when this will come out, but this one was really cool. This guy whose dad died showed up like full form apparition while he was awake and held out a blue drink and had him and he's like, drink this. You're going to feel better. And gives him this blue drink. Wait, does somebody give a drink in Star Wars?

No, but they drink blue milk. Yeah, they drink blue milk. At the cantina.

Yeah.

Oh, oh, I thought you meant like a ghost. There's a ghost scene that I forgot. Oh, thank God.

This guy's just describing a scene from Star Wars. He had big pointy ears and he's like, drink this, you will. It's crazy. And then he gave him a piggyback ride through the swamp.

No, but his dad gives him this like electric blue drink and was like, drink this. And he drinks it and he does feel better. It's a really trippy story. I love this one.

It'll eventually come out. Sure.

But yeah, and it literally did help him grieve. He's not sure if it was the drink or being able to talk to his dad again. But like occasionally you'll get one that's like a big standout. Normally it's not that extreme.

It's just very common for people going through grief to have like some connection with the loved one that they've just lost. Yeah. Yeah.

I know a common thing is like receiving like a communication through dreams which i i don't write off i actually think it's kind of cool yeah and uh from like immediately after death and um i mean i could go on and on with that.

Well, I will ask, I mean, because you have said that like you kind of came into this podcast sort of wanting to believe, but it sounds like your description of how the process worked for you is like you, each one you're like hoping that this is going to be the one that proves to you or, you know, not necessarily hoping, but like interested to see if it's going to be like, where are you in your kind of overall belief of like, you know, what's real? And like, have you seen and heard things that have made you believer where are you at.

I think i've like gone post belief where it's just like it's not even a belief or disbelief anymore i've just like i encounter this so often i don't know if the pendulum even swings anymore does that make sense this most recent episode like it's more proof than i've ever had for anything um like i watch a lot of law and order classic and uh It's enough evidence that we could probably take it to court and find somebody guilty in the.

Court of law.

If the district attorney is on point, at least. They would at least take it to trial. But I'm so used to not getting that that I sometimes feel silly even trying. And then when we finally got it, it's almost like I'm surprised at my lack of reaction. I feel like I it hasn't quite sunk in with me. Does that make sense?

You know, like, encountering something that should really.

Alter my views, but I think there's almost, like, something inside of me that's like, surely there's something I'm missing. Even though I've gone through many steps of that where I'm like, ah, but this, you know, and then I check and it's true, you know? And what about this? I've tried ruling a few things out, but I don't know.

It's really interesting. So I think at a certain point you just get like calloused over, not necessarily in a bad way, but you kind of have to, to do this every single day.

Right.

But I guess on some level you also, because it's so frequent, you're like, well, this is clearly part of the human experience also. Like it's not that like every person you're talking to is like, you're like, all right, let's see if this person, like how off they are.

It's like, well, okay.

A lot of people are experiencing these things. And I think just because of that, I think That's what interests me, right? Is that because I can't deny the sensations that these people are experiencing on some level, and then people want to explain away how that happens. But because of that, I think that's what keeps me open to this idea because I also feel that I've experienced that same thing too.

You've had a family member pass and then these things happen. Whether or not that's coincidence, it just feels like there's such an intensity of energy left over from a person who you've had a relationship with while they're alive that that energy, it has some other quality to it.

And I think it maybe just manifests in these other ways. I actually, I'm probably a lot more of a believer than I realize. I'm also extremely skeptical, but when I encounter somebody that is like, and this is not so often these days, but like somebody who's just like, I don't believe in anything.

It's all not real. A hundred percent. I'm like, you're an idiot.

Like, how could you possibly believe that? You know, I'm not saying that like, what we think of an alien or a ghost or whatever is literally true, exactly how we think of it.

Right.

But if you, if you look at like all of the things that people experience right now that we consider supernatural paranormal, like some of this will probably be figured out one day. Um, there's definitely things we don't understand yet, you know? And like that stat you mentioned early on 58% believe in ghosts. I actually haven't seen that one, but I did see recently 60% of people who have had a paranormal experience, which is more than the percent of people who have broken a bone under the age of 65, which I thought was really significant. Like more people have had a paranormal experience than have broken a bone.

Yeah. Under the age of 65. Right.

Hilarious asterisk because old people fall all the time. I'm like, why the 65? Like, oh, Yeah, because after a certain age, it's just, they're breaking bones.

Jack, do you look at it as ghost or no ghost or just.

It's my favorite game show, by the way.

Hey, ghost or no ghost, or are you giving it up to the vast ignorance of the collective human intelligence?

I think I believe in ghosts. There's something, you know? Yeah. I guess that's the thing.

It's like, yeah, I acknowledge we don't know enough about so many things that for that reason alone, I can't.

Just be unequivocal and be like, dude, guys, it's all bullshit.

I'm just using ghost as the term, but there is something, and I think the ones that trip me out the most is when I talk to people who vividly see a crystal clear apparition, and what's interesting to me is that when I talk to somebody who describes the clothing of a different era, and the shock of seeing... the the quality and construction of certain garments right like like that always works me out where somebody will it confuses them at first like they'll see like leather shoes and um the stitching it's like at first they know something's wrong with these shoes but then later on upon reflection they're like oh those are like i was seeing handmade.

Leather shoes right The quality. Yeah. I was seeing quality for the first time. You should have seen the hem. It didn't fall apart after one wash. No, literally. And everybody reports.

Like heavy linen garments, like heavy pants, like the weave on things being really thick. And you could tell, you know, you could usually tell when somebody's making something up. It's very easy for me to tell, but You could tell when somebody's really experienced something, the fascination with things like that, I always like hearing, you know, somebody who's really baffled by seeing something like that. And it's usually so sudden and quick, which is interesting to me.

Right.

There are a couple of times in, uh, episodes of your show where the people who witnessed something were like, I do not have time for this right now. Oh, you know, I gotta go to work or something. Like literally one of them was like a person who worked at a movie theater who was like, I like, sorry, man, I just like, don't have time. I feel like this is a really busy night at work, which I think is, Like to your point, Miles, about how it's like these various things that need to all come together for there to be a moment. I do feel like in America, like, you know, where everything is so objective based. and like we're you know just trying to not starve and like have our job and like keep food on the on

the table that like that might be a thing that makes us like not good at noticing things and in the moment you know what i mean.

And you mentioned noticing and you also mentioned urban versus rural ghosts i don't get a lot of stories from cities um or at least not from new york and part of that might be just we have like a huge california audience but Something I think about a lot is, like, you know, I've lived in big cities before.

I mean, L.A. is very quiet. It's different.

But in New York, I feel like you could live in New York and have a completely haunted apartment.

And never notice. Yeah. Right.

Because, like, if you heard somebody speak your name, you'd be like, oh, I have some crazy neighbor talking and, like, you know.

Yeah. The walls are so thin in this place. Yeah.

You would never notice, like, the stuff that people would normally view as a haunting. But, you know, if you're in an isolated cabin where there's no other possible explanations and stuff is happening, it's completely different. So I always wonder, like, how many places in New York are extremely haunted and people just don't even notice this is happening around them?

Yeah. I mean, my explanation for why movies tend to, like, happen and, like, scary movies tend to happen in rural or suburban, you know, locations as opposed to urban is I feel like a lot of the bad shit that has been done in the country has been in rural settings. And so there's like this, you know, system of like guilt and, you know, fear that's all like tied together.

And so, you know, that's why Jason stocks camp crystal Lake and like, it doesn't make sense for Jason to be in Manhattan for more than one movie. Um, Jason goes to Manhattan. Yeah. Yeah. But I do, I do also wonder, I do wonder if there, if that's also part of like, you know, people noticing and people being like, well, this is a place where it's spooky because this is like a place where like evil has been done like a lot in this country. And so you're like in this, it's just because because it's kind of coded in our unconscious as like a place of that evil has been done then you're like more awake to that sort of thing the uh whether it's actually happening or not like that that feels like the sort of thing that would

make it more likely and then yeah the quiet probably helps um i have heard people say like okay if ghosts are real like why aren't hospitals just full of them since that's where everybody dies yeah i feel like i've heard people talk about yeah.

Yeah if you talk to nurses like all of them have crazy stories but it's such a fast-paced environment that like usually uh they move on really quickly or same thing as i was mentioning with the city like There's usually room for some sort of explanation. You know, you hear a weird noise, you hear a voice or like something moves. You're like, oh, could have been like any number of people who are here happening.

But yeah, it's so constantly beeps and hums and like machines that sound like they're breathing. So how are you going to notice that the room is breathing? Of course, though.

But like all the other thing is, I would say somebody like that. It's like, well, ghosts aren't don't necessarily exist like where they died.

Yeah, exactly. I also don't necessarily think of ghosts.

As a spirit roaming around, necessarily. Like I said, it could be an echo, or it could just be us able to detect something that happened from before. I have no idea. A lot of the explanations that exist to write ghosts and paranormal haunting or the supernatural in general don't really make much sense when you pick at them. Like, uh, I've probably brought up infrasound before when I've been on the podcast. That's, that's something you've seen tossed, tossed around a lot to explain haunted houses infrasound, like a, like a, a sound wave, um, or like machine noise resonating at a certain frequency that like could make the brain hallucinate.

Right. Um, doesn't make any sense. Like, yeah, it gives you a feeling of dread. Yeah. I can, I can understand that. Like, it's like, Oh, this is like a spooky feeling. Um, but I don't think it's going to make your brain see shit. Like, yeah. Yeah. Brian, the editor points out that the myth busters tried to make themselves see stuff with infrasound. It didn't work out.

So I, I often like a thought experiment I do with, with things like that. It's like, okay, we live in the most capitalist society in the world. uh, in history, if that existed, somebody would be able to replicate it and charging money to make you see ghosts. Like if, if infrasound could make you see a ghost, if anything could make you see a ghost, it would be able to be replicated and somebody would be using it to make money.

And I think I use that for like a lot.

Of the paranormal, um, explanations people, people have, you know, the other thing I, um, I see is like black mold or like mold, that could do a lot of crazy stuff, but it's certainly not an explanation for like everything that I encounter on my show. Um, what are the other explanations for ghosts? Did you encounter any on your, in your research?

Yeah. I mean like, uh, you know, I, I think like mental illness is like probably the one that you hear them. That, that's the one that I, I feel like is just everybody's default, right? It's just like, well, like they're going through something. Are you under a lot of stress right now? You know, stuff like that.

And it's just, And I will say stress can definitely make you more prone to thinking something, small.

Things are happening around you.

I noticed that myself, like when I'm stressed, I see things out of the corner of my eye or everybody's had that thing where like the laundry sitting on your chair, like everybody has like the laundry chair in their room or like the shit where you put stuff that you don't want to put away. Like out of the corner of your eye, you see somebody like... what looks like a person standing there. And then you realize it's a lamp with a jacket on it. Yeah.

Our brain is designed to like find faces and like patterns and things. So like I, I do, um, here, let's take one more break. We'll come back. Absolutely. And we're back. We're back. And yeah, I do, because something that comes up in a couple of your episodes is this idea that people who are going through grief or, you know, going through something very difficult, difficult emotions, you know, the Under the Bayou story is about somebody who has just, like, had their significant other, like, try to kill them. And then they move out of that situation into this house and suddenly are experiencing all these hauntings. And that, yeah, I think that like ties into this idea of like, rather than just using the, oh, they're going through something

as a means to dismiss it. It's like, or that makes them able to. And like, Miles, I really liked what you were saying about like grief and being connected with a loved one. Like it, it reminds me of like how the body started, like during childbirth, the body can do like all these amazing things that would seem like science fiction in any other circumstance. But it's at this moment of like the craziest, like part, the beginning of life. And like, I feel like the connection that we have to like people when they pass away is like another thing where if you're not actively experiencing it and witnessing it, it like doesn't, make sense that you could have that, but it's like these very specific circumstances

and conditions that people can be going through that make them, that open them up to these experiences. Yeah.

And I think of it a little bit like there is the pattern. It's not always the case, but, you know, people who are going through a lot or have gone through a lot that experience things and In those cases, I kind of think of it as, like, everybody has a certain amount of life force, you know?

Or, like, your aura. Yeah. Right?

And, like, there are times where you have a lot of it in your life. And that aura might be, like, huge and beaming out of you when you're crushing it. But then there's... I think everybody has times where there's, like, nothing there. And they have very low life force. I think that's, like, maybe a time where you're, like, vulnerable for bad things to happen. happen or to witness the the darker side of this um this is just like my anecdotal yeah observations of based on stories and obviously there are so many different sets of belief that beliefs that exist similar to that it's not like something i came up with like amalgamation of a lot of existing beliefs.

Yeah this is like the foundational experience of humanity is like having a loved one who or you know having the experience of someone who once had life and there is no more life. And it just like, doesn't make sense, you know, and having to explain that.

And that's why I, uh, am not personally scared. I thought when I started making this show, I was like, uh, like this, I feel like I'm inviting this into my life. Um, and that I would open myself up to like darkness or whatever. My grandma definitely thought that, but.

To me, I'm like, Oh yeah, don't, don't mess around with that.

Like, I don't let this stuff kind of like break my barrier, uh, And I always try to, like, maintain, take care of myself and maintain, like, I guess, like, a strong life.

Force, right?

Like, that sounds kind of corny saying that, but.

Right. And you're doing that with Simple Greens, right? Yeah, right. Exactly. That's G1. We've got to shut up the sponsors. We're doing that ad break. Yes, exactly. And it's a factor for you. Keeps me regular.

But, and for that reason, like, To an extent, I, like, genuinely don't believe this stuff can mess with me. I don't know if that's, like, corny, but, like, we moved into, we last year lived part-time in a place that, like, all the neighbors said were haunted, was haunted. And I, like, literally laughed when they told me that. I'm like, that's not haunted. And I just kind of, like, stuck with that the entire time. And I'm like, I don't feel it.

I don't think it's haunted. Apparently, the people who lived there before us moved out because of the haunting, and they had mediums come to get rid of the haunting, and the mediums left, having not completed it, because they got in, like, a blowout fight. And it's funny, I was like, when the people would tell me about this, I was, like, completely writing it off, just like, okay, like, you guys are silly, acting as if I'm not the host of a paranormal podcast. My entire livelihood exists on this stuff. But, for my personal life, it was a mix of like, I think just brushing it away from my own sanity, but also genuinely believing, uh, that I can't be harmed by it. I think that's like an important thing that everybody should, uh, should remind themselves of

or practice. Right. Um, I'm telling you all this. I'm giving you an answer to a question you did not ask.

How do you protect yourself from the ghost? RIP to everyone killed by the gods for their hubris. But I'm different. And better. Maybe even better than the gods. I don't know.

I think it is like... I guess we are starting to talk about people who are going through.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Who are going through shit. Going through stuff. And like.

That's people who often experience scary stuff. It almost seems like that attracts... negative entities to them right yeah yeah people experiencing grief um i mean that's a lot of crazy ouija board stuff yeah.

A lot of that's what we talked about the last time you were on was a lot of ouija board stuff and how like this parker brothers game that like it is actually like you talk to people who are experiencing this and they're like do not fuck with me it's sold next to monopoly and yet uh it's a thing that like people who have experienced this are just like yeah yeah no that's really like do not fuck with me no i know and uh i'm.

I know the number one and number two, they would debate who is, which is which, but, uh, collectors of the boards and planchettes in it, in the world. So I know the, the top collectors of these things. And, um, both of them are like, yeah, it's not real. Like these aren't real. Uh, this is just, uh, the, the ideomotor effect, like your hands, like moving subtly, like subconsciously.

Which I think is so interesting anyway. Like, I think that's super interesting anyways. that our unconscious can write out a sentence without us realizing it.

Sure, yeah. And maybe that's the case. Maybe there's some of that, right? I'm open to that.

I'm not going to say that's not the case, but I have encountered so many people who have had their lives ruined after using this, and stuff happening afterwards not related to the board.

That is the main thing.

It's like, sure, Go ahead and explain how the hands are moving and the way they are on the board. That isn't really the part that freaks me out. It's usually after somebody uses it that everything goes to shit.

That's what freaks me out. I would never use one.

That feels like the kind of thing my Lutheran school teacher should have played for us because we were scolded in Lutheran school about Ouija.

Boards because that was against the second commandment.

But I feel like that's the kind of thing I feel like my teacher would have been like, and you know, it's not even about playing with it it's that once you do you're opening yourself.

Up for damnation crazy and also the other reason i kind of just don't i'm not satisfied with the explanation presented is like sure the average person isn't very creative and some of the stuff reported like that i've encountered like that these entities are saying is like very complex and elaborate and like um beyond what like a person could make up.

Right.

And, um, a lot of the, the stuff that freaks me out is that like, oftentimes it's for a while at somebody, uh, the board is like pretending to be the spirit of a loved one. And then we'll usually like start to act bizarre and like reveal itself to be tricking the person and like taunting them.

Right. Is so weird. Like posing as somebody's dead grandpa.

And then not just like, changing or getting stuff wrong, but like slowly winking at them.

Yeah.

It happens a lot. And really, that really freaks me out. Um, and, and also people who have asked the board things that even they don't know and like would go check. It's very strange to me. And I guess that's where I land on a lot of stuff is, um, most people aren't very creative. So, common explanation is, like, oh, the person's just making it up, or imagining it. It's like, damn, they just wrote, like, one of the best horror stories of all time. Yeah, literally, read, like, amateur novels.

Go on Amazon.

I'm ruining this, but I would otherwise say, go on Amazon and, like, look at, like, one-star review books and see the quality of story these people are coming up with.

Right.

Most people aren't very creative. So, and their imaginations aren't that strong. So, like, that's the other thing that puzzles me is some of these things are, are so strange.

Um, yeah. Yeah. It's, um, it's hard to completely write off. Is there a movie ghost afterlife that resonates particularly with you? Like, uh, that, that scene, like a ghost is afterlife by way of like, you have to like do a training montage to be able to like, move things um and but i think they can kind of roam free although they have like there's the subway ghost who is like obsessed with the subway because that's where he died and so like there there's some of that beetle juice everybody's like stuck in specific locations and they are stuck with whatever killed them being like the injury that they had ghostbusters is like kind of all over the map.

Well i'll point out this is an answer this does not answer the question but You know, the Ghostbusters was actually based on the diaries of Dan Aykroyd's family. He's like a fourth-generation spiritualist.

He's huge into that shit, yeah.

Yeah, he's... His whole family, that's, like, their entire thing. It just so happens he became an actor and comedian.

Oh, is that why he's, like, so into Crystal Skull vodka? Like, that's why the vodka's even, like, Crystal Skull? That, like, now makes sense. That might just be bag chasing. Well, even, like, to make it the thing, right? Because everyone, like, the woo-woo world loves the Crystal Skulls and things like that.

So part of me was, like, I wonder if it's, like, it's just, like, every part of him is always kind of thinking about the supernatural. I, uh, I was actually supposed to interview him this month, but, um, yeah, his family is like full of so many like rules and like esoteric things that like, it's kind of hard to keep straight.

Um, and maybe that's, those are the spiritualists.

And that's like a lot of what we think of, um, in America comes from like the spiritualists in the 1800s. Um, that's like the Ouija board kind of comes from that. Like, I think it was originally the talking board was the first version of that. There's roots of different cultures using similar things even before that. But a lot of our modern version of ghosts come from the spiritualists. I don't know any movie that I could think of that I think accurately... captures it i haven't seen like uh the full conjuring series or um what's the insidious that's like the astral projection movie right right i haven't seen i haven't seen that in a long time i just might be worth a watch for this episode and first of

all i was shocked by how conservative it is and this is that might be a good place to close out because i like they're going into the explanation for the ghost in the house in the first conjuring movie.

And they're like, she's the sister of one of the Salem witches in the universe. The people who burned the witches were correct. Yeah. And that is funny. And like also Catholic church is correct. And so like, I think, um, what I like about other world is that it makes room for people who aren't conservatives to like believe and like be interested in ghosts. Whereas I think for so long, like the whole world of like paranormal and stuff like that was like, well, you're going to have to call, you're going to have to call your Catholic priest or, you know what I mean? And so that, that, that is what I like. It's like, Oh, people, like me who are experiencing this and be like, yeah, man, I'd usually be like, this is crazy or like, I don't

believe in this stuff. I believe in science. Uh, but then it happened to me, you know?

Um, so I'm trying to think of good movie examples for you guys, but, um, I feel like a lot of the movies don't get into like the lore of like how the ghosts work, you know?

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah. Yeah. It's just, you're purely dealing with the scary side of it. Um, accepted as is. Yeah.

But yeah, I think if, if it, My personal beliefs, I feel like if I were to try to make sense of it, I feel like the world we're in is small in comparison to like the larger universe that they exist within, if that makes sense. You know, it's not like necessarily they're momentarily coming into ours. It's that we're momentarily able to see into theirs.

Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. There's more of them than us. I mean, there's been more, there's more dead people than alive people.

Yeah.

So, well, let's fact check that. I don't want to, I don't want to make that big of a claim. We don't know that for sure, but it sounds right. It sounds right. All right. Well, I have a bunch of like pop culture stuff and like the history of the bed sheet ghost, but I'm going to say one of those.

I would love to see a classic bed sheet. I would love to get a story submission of that is like a classic bed sheet ghost.

Is there an explanation? yeah it so it was burial shrouds basically it started with like people used to be buried in sheets and then the way to be like i'm a dead person who's risen from the dead was to have i got that sheet on yeah yeah cool goes.

Classic i would love that i would love to see i would love to get the email of somebody seeing that i would love to see um just like a skeleton like walking walking skeleton smoking a cigar yeah like um Like, like basically I would love people to see the real version of Halloween decorations. Oh, one that I've wanted for a long time is somebody seeing a disembodied laughing jack-o'-lantern, like a jack-o'-lantern.

Yeah.

Imagine if that happened to you. We're talking about being embarrassed by a ghost. Imagine being chased by a laughing jack-o'-lantern.

Yeah, yeah. You definitely don't tell anybody about that because it sounds so goofy. That might be happening to everyone and nobody's telling anybody about that shit.

Talking about if we had the technology to replicate some of this, that's what I would end up doing. Figuring out how to project a laughing jack-o'-lantern in a convincing way to mess with people. They would never tell anybody about it.

That's yeah. I think boomer old, our boomer parents probably really good for that one.

Frankenstein would be good to see just like the classic.

Frankenstein's so funny to me as like a scary character. And he just like kind of bonks people on the head. He's just like, Whoa, I was just like an idiot. Exactly. I will. Yeah.

Like I will say the one thing I never hear about is anything vampire adjacent. I've never even gotten, I don't think I've gotten a single email. Anything close to it.

Yeah, I think we just created that out of sheer horniness. More than anything.

And I've heard so many weird things. Uncategorizable things. Never anything Dracula related. There might be a werewolf.

Dog men.

That's a very common thing. The Michigan dog man. I have an episode about this. A lot of people who see dog or wolf-human hybrids. Not necessarily, like, a person changing into one, but that is something that I have enough that it's, like, too many. Like, people are kind of sending them in. I'm like, man, we did an episode about this. Like, I don't know if we can do another for a while. I have a folder of dogman or, like, wolfman stories, but it's very common, and I don't think it's silly.

I've seen.

I've heard a lot of stories of people seeing a huge wolf standing on its hind legs or running on its hind legs.

It's really weird. Okay, two quick questions that tie into what I'll be talking about in the notebook dump. Do people describe the ghosts as being transparent or kind of see-through? It's a range.

I'd say the most common is people seeing a static, almost like a TV static.

Black outline of a person.

Um, or a lot of times that happens where it's like, it's already dark and they see something darker than the darkness in the room.

And it's like TV static. That is very common.

A lot of people refer to that as like shadow people. Um, but I'd say that's the number one. And then there are some where it's like, um, they can make out most of the person, but not the face. Um, and then there are some that's like transparent. And then in rare cases, it's just like a straight up person. That's what I find the most interesting. Um, and going back to the New York thing too, like, uh, how often, I mean, dude, so many people that you don't, that you never talk to. And you just assume like, oh, that person's doing some weird shit. Like for me, I won't get into my own story's, because they're not good, but like my mom lived in a, a house that was haunted. Um, she, she experienced a lot of stuff.

I was there sometimes this was when I was like a, in college. Right. And she was dating somebody I didn't like. So I didn't like being there, but, um, I experienced what I later learned was paranormal stuff. But at the time you don't know that it's paranormal. Like I, um, I would hear somebody in the kitchen at night, every night making food. And, um, later on learned that it was like a thing that happens in this house and everybody's so scared of it that nobody goes into the kitchen at night. Um, there was a few other things, but it's like one of those, I have a reference point to understanding it because I've experienced that where it's like, Oh, when it happened, it wasn't spooky. Um, it was really

normal and it happened all the time. And, uh, I would have never, uh, thought that it was paranormal whatsoever until later when i realized there wasn't an explanation for it and that nobody was in there the same with people who see a full apparition they just at first think like oh my god there's a fucking weird guy in my apartment right and then like in the split second after they're like wait why do his clothes look like that um and then then usually the person will like disappear or they'll run out of the room that's when they realize something else had taken place but at first they think it's an intruder right because it's so clear um and and so similar to waking life that is really interesting to me right like like these things

that we could possibly have missed you know right One.

Thing that, uh, last question is I feel like people usually see them walking on the ground, like that they don't float as much as like ghosts in movies always float. And when I was looking into the history of like where that came from, it's just this like one very popular special effect called Pepper's Ghost. A lot of like what we know of ghosts is like from stage plays that had ghosts. That's why like, they used to put Hamlet's ghost dad, uh, not to be confused with the Bill Cosby one in, uh, like military regalia. And people were like, well, who's that alive guy. And so then they put the like white sheet over his head and they were like, ah, it's a fucking ghost. But one of the ways, like they had this kind of, it's

the same technology that they use to like make Tupac come back and like do the Coachella concert. Um, but it's really hard to project it exactly onto the same like level as the other actors who are on stage. And so that's where the ghost floating came from, which makes sense. Like when you hear all the ghost encounters, people are usually like, uh, it was like walking along or like I heard footsteps and stuff like that. So like, the floating-ness was just kind of a figment of the special effects that were used.

Now that you mention it, I can't recall a story we've gotten of a floating ghost. They're usually standing or sitting somewhere, and somewhere that makes sense for them to be. I mean, there's obviously exceptions to that, but those usually aren't like ghosts that people are seeing. Um, but yeah, usually, usually when people are seeing like a human ghost, it's, um, standing, sitting, doing something that makes sense.

Right.

Um, freaky weird. It's fun talking about this. I, what's weird is I'm, I'm normally listening. I'm rare, rarely talking about it.

So I know. Yeah. Uh, it's good to talk to you about it. Any other, any other final things in your notebook? I'm, I'm happy to hear. Um, not really anything that's like pertains to actual ghost experiences. A lot of young people had their sexual experience, uh, sexual awakening to the Devin Siwa Casper, but that probably doesn't, doesn't really tie into, I'm trying to remember this. I was like when Casper became a boy for momentarily in the live action Casper. Yeah. That is really funny. Yeah, everyone was like, God damn! I haven't seen that movie in a long time. Shout out to Casper. Yeah. Shout out to Casper. Again, another friendly ghost. We love a friendly ghost.

Also, that's something you don't hear about ever, is like a Casper-style cartoon ghost.

Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just a blob. Did you find in your research the origin of that? Like the... Of the cartoon. Yeah. Like the Ghostbusters, the guy who's behind the no smoking sign and the Ghostbusters thing. Yeah. I think it's just, I think it comes from like one of the early ones was this 1937 Disney short in which Mickey and his pals are like ghost exterminators. And like, they just did ghosts as like white blobs and it's sort of evolved from there. But that cartoon actually basically goes, created the premise of Ghostbusters they like it shows them as it like under a sign that says ghost exterminators and they're like slackers they're like sleeping on the job and Goofy at one point says I ain't scared of

no ghosts so like they basically stole the whole Ghostbusters from from that short also ends with them with like white gooey stuff all over them but I think it might be also marshmallow goo so Or ectoplasm, perhaps. That's right. You never know.

I will say this also pertains to the sleep paralysis thing. We're talking all these various depictions in media where all these things come from. I have noticed that like that doesn't seem to impact the stories that I receive. And I think I'll be a lot more cartoon ghost, just like.

Media in general.

You know, I and I, you know, most of my education, like you know, I was like a film major, like TV criticism and stuff. Like, like my brain works to like notice those patterns and I would immediately be clocking it in stories. Um, unless of course it was a missing scene from star Wars involving a dude, blue drink.

I rarely see, um, like media influencing people's experiences. They normally exist like in a vacuum. Um, so like the floating ghost and stuff like that. I know there's a lot of, evidence that exists supposed evidence of like you know through history things changing people using that's like right off um experiences especially with ufos but i don't see it too often in ghosts um or in people's actual experiences in general and um i just think.

That's really interesting yeah right gives it a little more a little more credence to it when it's not a thing where it's like.

Yeah and he had a smooth head and he sounded like a teenage boy and uh yeah he was really nice and he had uncle ghosts that were really mean.

I don't really see like an uptick when like there's new movies or anything like that you.

Know right that's like a haunted everyone's suddenly talking about a haunted doll they have or something yeah yeah Yeah.

Pliny the Elder reported a story where somebody had an old man with a long beard and rattling chains haunting his house in Athens. Like during. Yeah. So like that. I mean, that feels. And then centuries later, there are accounts of like poltergeist, a ghost that causes physical disturbance, such as loud noises or objects following or being thrown around.

was uh reported at a farmhouse in germany in 856 so yeah it's like basically the same shit all along.

I will i'll leave you with this another thing that i think is really interesting is people who see a loved one as a ghost not realizing they're a ghost like right before they or when they pass away right right somebody is like sees their grandpa in their kitchen um like across town or in a different state that doesn't make any sense. And then they find out later that he died like 20 minutes before that.

That's like a common thing. And I, I find that to be really, really strange.

Right.

Damn. Grandpa, why are you wearing all those chains? Very influenced by Michael Jackson's bad. We got a suit suit on. What the fuck is that? Uh, Jack Wagner. I feel like I could talk to you for, uh, three days about, about all this stuff. But, uh, Where can people find you, follow you, hear more from you?

Otherworld is the name of the show. Our Instagram is at Otherworldpod. And you can find the show wherever you listen to your podcasts, of course.

Otherworld is a man jumping through a void on the cover. Please check it out. Leave a five-star review. Yeah, go check it out. Guaranteed to get, like, goosebumps. I get, like, goosebumps once an episode at least. It's a good show. It's a lot better than hearing me talk, I can tell you that.

We were saying before you got on, Jack, that, like, both Jack and I were like, I was like, dude, this is like the one show and I listened to like where I regularly go.

Fuck.

We know the name that only her dad called her though.

I mean, we, the amount of interviews we do that don't make it on like, like it's at least 10 to one. Like we do 10, at least 10 interviews for every episode that actually comes out. Maybe it might even be 20 to one. I've never counted, but like, We do a lot. We do a lot because we try to hold ourselves to a high standard.

Right, right, right. People still complain no matter what. Sure. But we try to make a good show. Yeah. Go check it out. All right. Thanks for doing this. I will be right back with the notebook. Thank you guys for having me. All right. That was G-G-G-G-Ghosts. G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-Ghosts. Thanks to Jack Wagner for joining. A little different than what we normally do on Icon episodes or TDZ in general.

When Jack's on, I like to, you know, suspend the skepticism. I like to believe. I've said before, I want to believe in aliens. I also want to believe in ghosts. And sometimes I do. Never more than when I'm listening to Otherworld, I will say. Between the two, because we have done an Icon episode about gray aliens, and the more research I did on gray aliens and human encounters with aliens, the harder it was for me to believe this episode and mainlining episodes of Otherworld. had the opposite effect, perhaps predictably. Also, more in it for us, there just being something beyond just this, whereas Aliens, it's like, eh, I guess we exist at the will of aliens that they could kill us anytime they want. But yeah, I

mentioned that ghosts hadn't evolved the same way. You can see like pop culture and the shared consciousness sort of circling and zooming in on the final design of the iconic aliens we have today. Like early alien sightings include little hairy teddy bears and a light switch with legs in one case. And it was, it was kind of like guess and check and sort of natural selection that eventually got us to the best alien design, which is the one that when you close your eyes and I say aliens, usually people are picturing the face of the grave.

Ghosts are sort of similar. Like there are a few features of pop culture ghosts that you can see evolve and Actually influenced by special effects. So these days, ghosts are frequently depicted as see-through, translucent, but that actually didn't start until around the time of Dickens. One of the earliest examples of an explicitly transparent, I should have said, ghost in fiction was Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol.

Dickens wrote that his body was transparent, adding that Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he had never believed it until now. So again, similar to Dracula, 19th century author evoking poop at an important dramatic meeting. Obviously, I think he was more saying he had heard he didn't have guts. But it's funny how shit-tinged everything was back then, possibly because Everything smelled shit-tinged, so it was just never far from their minds. But Dickens was, according to our research, according to JM's research, drawing on a convention that had only relatively recently been established due to new optical shows like phantasmagoria lantern shows which projected luminous images uh so that's where we first

start seeing transparent uh ghosts and then as i mentioned at the end there uh the idea that these uh kind of see-through ghosts would be floating off the ground was because of pepper's ghosts uh which is a stage effect where the ghost is projected onto a piece of glass that's in between the audience and the stage, but kind of invisible to them. They still use it at the Haunted Mansion, but it's really hard to make it look like the thing being projected onto the glasses, standing on the same floor as the actors standing on the stage.

So they were just like, well, these ghosts of course float. I will just say in my brief survey of ghost sightings, On Otherworld, they're rarely transparent and they're rarely floating. In fact, I was struck by how commonly people are referring to the ghosts walking. One ghost sighting beneath the bayou talks about the ghost kind of coming from behind them and taking big, loping steps. like that, that make them be like, well, it's going to catch me because those are some big steps, which, uh, tangentially that's actually, uh, I remember hearing that be a explanation for why Usain Bolt was so much faster than other people is his legs were moving as fast as the other sprinters, but his, uh, the, the length of

his steps, his gate was covering, like, you know, he was covering a hundred meters in like three steps. All right. I wanted to talk about how ghost movie afterlife, like I talked in the episode, how they are kind of the clearest image I have in my mind of any afterlife. Um, And so that made me want to go through the thought exercise of which ghost movie afterlives I would choose to be real if I had to choose. And I ended up leaning towards the Swayze movie Ghost being my best case scenario. There are some things that a lot of these ghost movies tend to have in common. The ghost is usually stuck in some sort of in-between realm until they can resolve something from their life in Swayze Ghost.

That's the name of the movie, right? Swayze Ghost. He has to like catch the bad guys who murdered him and tell his wife he loved her or something. The subway ghost that we meet is stuck in the subway until he can admit that he jumped in front of the train. instead of being pushed. I think he's like, no, I was pushed, not junk. That ghost, terrifying. Definitely one of the most terrifying ghosts in movies, in my experience, and in my opinion. And then you either get pulled down to hell by scary shadow demons, or you get to go to heaven, which just seems bright enough It seems like it's a early Apple commercial up there. Uh, but I like this one because it's basically a video game that you get to like practice and perfect and

like move up to the next level. Um, and you can interact with people and like jump into their bodies and stuff. Once you learn like all the rules, um, but jumping into their bodies, like, Also makes you wasted for like 30 minutes. So it's just like there's I like the clarity of the rules um, in the, in the movie ghost beetle juice. Uh, there are a couple of things I don't like about beetle juice. I think it's a similar, like stuck in between trying to move on to the next thing. Um, but I don't like that you're stuck As a... Like, there's a person who's, like, a flat Stanley-style pancake person because they just happen to die by, like, being run over by what looks to be a heavy machine. But, like, Elon Musk drowns and

he's good. He just, like, has a good... Like, it just seems somewhat random. That seems to be the same with the Sixth Sense. Like, a lot of the ghosts are... Still displaying the injury that killed them. So it's just like too much riding on the happenstance of like whatever happens to kill you. Also, I'd say Beetlejuice seems to involve too much real estate law, like Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis die in. like a river in town on that covered bridge, but then they kind of walk into their house and don't remember how they got there. And, uh, they're basically on eternal house arrest. Another thing, by the way, that would favor Elon Musk and the wealthy, which I don't think doesn't seem fair. It doesn't seem quite fair

to me that everyone's on, on a house arrest. Uh, I like the Rome ability of the Swayze ghost afterlife. Uh, and also, uh, You seem like you have a pretty good grasp of time. That's another thing. Like Beetlejuice seems like sometimes they're like, oh, my God, a whole month has passed. And like things just when you, I think, walk outside of the bounds of the house, you know, Field of Dreams, another one where they don't seem to realize that time has passed. Um, sixth sense, obviously it seems like he doesn't realize time has passed and is missing big chunks of the past year. Um, and when you skip big chunks of reality, you'd end up being kind of out of place, like confused by what people are wearing, what they're saying, like just seems confusing. Uh,

ghosts must hate Gen Z slang. Imagine if Bruce Willis's character had to talk to Haley Joel Osment through a veil of just like impenetrable Gen Z slang. Uh, that's actually something I meant to ask Jack about literally is like, I feel like ghosts have to be on average way less progressive, like way more, uh, racist and regressive than the average person just around us like one of his episodes actually uh that same one with the big big step in ghosts uh under the bayou is about a woman who moves into her grandpa's house in the south and you know she's queer and uh you know has parties with like you know, young queer people. And the ghost is like attacking people at these parties so much so that she eventually moves out. And a few weeks later,

her dad moves in and he's like, yeah, I hear whispering and like doors closing and stuff, but the ghosts are actually pretty chill. So I don't know. I'm not, I'm not here to say that that ghost is, you know, racist and anti queer people. It just, Just interesting ghosts. Something about these parties full of young queer people. Very interesting.

But knowing old people that that makes sense, right? Like ghosts must be pound for pound. You know, the most problematic sentient beings on the planet based on just being from past generations. All right. Taking through other ghost movie afterlives that, you know, might challenge the Swayze ghost for the best ghost movie afterlife. Scrooge slash A Christmas Carol.

I feel like they seem pretty miserable. They seem actually like. miserable teachers who are just here to like impart a lesson but they're also there's like a heavy undercurrent of them being very unhappy that they fucked up their own chance at doing the thing they're teaching about um in this case being alive so i mean to varying degrees right like marley does not seem to be a happy camper I think the Ghost of Christmas Present is a little bit more of a good time. But, you know, I'd say this is not the worst, but definitely not as much fun as like Afterlife as video game. And then I was thinking hard about the Ghostbusters Afterlife. And I think the reason I don't fuck with the Ghostbusters Afterlife is because of the Ghostbusters. because it just feels

way too easy to just be, like, minding your own business at a ghost party, being a well-meaning, undead person who, like, died on the Titanic. The entire, you know, group of people who died on the Titanic wash up or sail up in the second Ghostbusters. And, you know, like, you could be totally fine, and the next thing you know, you're, like, dramatically...

sucked into, like, vacuum cleaner ghost jail forever. A lot of dramatic sucking happening in the Ghostbusters universe, as I referenced in my intro to Miles. But yeah, I do feel like ACAB does, in fact, include the Ghostbusters. So yeah, I don't know. I'm sticking with the Swayze ghost as my favorite ghost afterlife. Happy to hear alts. One little piece of research that I didn't get to is that Ghost, that was almost not Swayze Ghost, that was almost Bruce Willis Ghost, as I've talked about before, Bruce Willis movies being my favorite genre of movies when I was like eight to ten. 12 years old. Um, but yeah, that movie was supposed to be a real couple plays movie couple, Mr.

And Mrs. Smith type situation with Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, uh, when they were kind of the Hollywood it couple. And, uh, he got the script and he was like, yeah, I don't get it. Ghost, ghost can't fuck was, it was basically his, uh, problem with it. Literally his quote is, I just didn't get it. I said, Hey, the guy's dead.

How are you going to have a romance? Um, Didn't read the third act, apparently. It's romance via Whoopi Goldberg lesbian surrogacy. They have an answer to that question in the script, Bruce. But yeah. And then the most successful movie Bruce Willis is in is a ghost romance. A guy who's been ghost divorced, basically. A few more things about some iconic ghosts that we didn't have time to get to. Maybe the most depraved ghost sighting in pop culture is in The Shining when we see a room full A guy is about to, you know, it appears to be get blown by a man in a bear costume.

But like, it just seemed like the vibe seems very strange, you know, happy to let them do what they're going to do. But like the guy sitting on the bed seems weird. I don't know. Anyways, I was not wrong to think the vibes were off in that room, because in the book, I'll just read. This is from a Screen Rant article. In the book, the man dressed in a suit is actually Horace Derwent, who's the mysterious owner of the Overlook Hotel, and the man in the costume, which is a dog in the book, is named Roger, and he's a one-time lover of Horace Derwent. Like there's a backstory where Horace instructed Roger to attend one of the hotel balls in costume as a dog and behave like a dog for the other guests, which very rude.

How rude. Anyways, maybe the most iconic ghost form in popular culture is, is the, uh, bed sheet ghost, which are, you know, everywhere from, uh, it's the great pumpkin, Charlie Brown, the intro to Scooby-Doo ET trick or treat scene. Um, it's the official Lego ghost character appears to be, uh, bed sheet ghosts. There's also legitimately creepy appearances of bed sheet ghosts. Michael Myers steals a bed sheet ghost costume from a boyfriend he's just murdered and wears it, goes undercover as a bed sheet ghost at one point. In The Conjuring, a sheet that is hanging on a dryer line at one point blows off and reveals a human form.

A very effective moment of scariness. So in terms of where it came from, As I touched on briefly at the end, I was first introduced because of burial shrouds, as mentioned. And it's another example, like with Dracula and Sherlock, where these iconic characters get designed and redesigned and being on stage, like being characters in stage plays really helps them lock in what their sort of central iconic images, uh, tread in the boards. When you, uh, have to project a ghost to the back of the room, there's something very, uh, simple and effective about a sheet, you know, a sheet with eye holes is tough to beat. And it made sense to people at the time because of the burial shrouds. Uh, so I think when Hamlet first went up, Hamlet's dad

was wearing armor. Um, but, it was eventually a, you know, they put a sheet over him. Uh, most, most famous ghost dad, uh, apologies to Bill Cosby. Actually, no apologies to Bill Cosby here on this podcast. Uh, maybe the most iconic sheet ghost is the Pac-Man ghost, uh, who at one point do have their sheet removed. I did not realize this because I was not very good at Pac-Man, but If you get to, like, one of the higher levels of Pac-Man, the ghost characters, like, sheet gets pulled off, and you see what they look like underneath, and it kind of looks like a little pink penis with eyes on the top of it. You can look it up online.

Maybe I'm wrong. That's kind of what it looks like to me. But as for whether belief in ghosts are connected to, you know, our desire for an afterlife and fading of religion, I will just say I'm not the only one making that connection. Movies with ghosts are often banned by the Chinese government, and they tend to ask that their movies present if a movie is going to have A ghost, the movie has to like go back and explain that it wasn't really a ghost like Scooby-Doo style because they want a sort of secular worldview in their movies. And even when a ghost sneaks through, like with Star Wars, I remember that being an explanation for why the Star Wars movies don't resonate with Chinese audiences.

Star Wars comparatively flops in China. And one theory for why is that they're allergic to force ghosts. All right, that's plenty. That's going to do it for ghosts. Thanks again to Jack Wagner for joining us, allowing us to believe in ghosts for a week each year. Thanks to Miles, as always, to J.M. McNabb for the research, and to Brian, the editor, for putting it all together. We are back next week with our most surprisingly powerful horror icon. On the surface, they seem like they shouldn't be scary at all.

I can confidently say... that when they appear in movies, I feel like I could... beat them up and yet they are probably the number one ingredient to make your horror movie scary time and time again horror directors turn to them it's a mystery why are they so scary and we're going to have one of the best possible people on to help us get to the bottom of it next week our final horror icon with Jason Pargin we will talk to you then and a bunch of times before then bye The Daily Zeitgeist is executive produced by Catherine Law. Co-produced by Victor Wright. Co-written by J.M. McNabb.

And edited and engineered by Brian Jeffries.

Fright-con #42 - Ghosts: Is It Swayze Or Slimer?

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