You're listening to the Paranormal UK Radio Network, the best in paranormal talk radio
in the UK and around the world. Hello world, You're listening to Eleanor
Wagner's Strange and Scary world here on the Paranormal UK Radio Network, where we're
always creeping it real. I'm your host, Eleanor Wagner. Welcome all to
my paranormal Closet, where the stories in magic take place. Today's guest currently
runs two shows, Inquiries of Our Reality and Bizarre Encounters. He's founded Open
Minds Media, which is the production company that covers both shows. He's a
fourteen researcher and a part of the Phantoms and Monstrous team who has what he
considers to possibly have been a Wendigo encounter. Please join me in welcoming.
Shane Jones Welcome, Hi, how are you? Thanks for inviting me on
this show. Thanks coming on. I appreciate it so A when DIGO encounter,
huh, at least what I believe is one. I mean, I
hadn't told the story for a long time because I didn't really know what I
saw. But once I started kind of digging into it myself and doing some
of the research, it's at least what I assume that it is, but
I'm not saying it is, but it's what at least I've collaborated to believe
that it was well for the listeners tuning in Whendigo or when Digo is a
cannibalistic giant or person who has been transformed into a monster by the consumption of
human flesh. Ew do tell your story please? So I guess kind of
breaking it down into the beginning because there's a there's a shadow person encounter that
I kind of get them coompanied into all of it. But back probably about
seven or so years ago, my girlfriend and I used to do urban exploring,
so we used to go and like explore abandoned places. We used to
try to look for like haunted places specifically. But we found this place called
Northfille Psychiatric Hospital, which was really cool because it wasn't just one building.
It was like a full campus with dorms and a gym and just a bunch
of different buildings. So we started getting to the point where we go like
almost every weekend and we had the whole place mapped out. You know,
we're taking really cool like board photos and stuff, but nothing like super crazy
happened at that point, so we just got really really comfortable with going there
and not really having anything super crazy happened like along the way, like one
of the crazy is not even crazy. But one of the most memorable things
before the Wind to Go encounter was this door slamming shut when we're up on
like the seventh floor. It was kind of weird because it was like a
blue it was painted blue, and it had like a smiley face on it,
and we there wasn't any busted windows or anything like that on that level,
so we opened the door back up after it slam shut, because it
slammed like super hard, like loud slam, but there wasn't any wind or
anything like kind of pushed it shut, So we kind of were like,
all right, that's that's a little weird. So a couple of weeks later,
we're still exploring this place, and uh, at the time, I
wasn't super familiar with like the dues and don'ts as far as the paranormal goes,
so I thought it'd be cool to take this no smoking sign. And
I also found this little like foam teeky head and what I kind of assumed
that it was later on, was that normally at like mental hospitals, they
won't give people like a piece of wood and a knife to like carve something
for arts and crafts, to give them like foam and like a plastic knife.
So it seemed kind of weird because it was in somebody's office and it
looked like it was like handpaigned and looked like it was machine made. So
I kind of assumed, do you see that you took these as souvenirs at
the time? Yet, y way, No, it only lasted in my
house at night. I'm sure that's yeah. Oh mg, yeah, no,
no, no, no, I'm sorry. I just was like,
oh my god, I can't believe you just said he took these things from
this place. Okay, go ahead. Yeah. I wasn't familiar with all
the dues and don'ts at the time of this happening, so I ended up
bringing them home and that night was one of the knights that we saw like
a shadow person in the house. So we got home, we started unloading
everything, went up to the bedroom, and the way the house was set
up, there was like a flood of stairs right up the door where you
first walk in and then there was the front room and then like the kitchen,
but it had the two doorways, so it was like a full loop
around circle. So we go and drop stuff up upstairs, we come back
down. I'm standing at the base of the stairs by the door, and
my girlfriend goes to walk into the kitchen, and as she walks into the
kitchen, both of us catch eyes on this black human shaped thing sitting on
the couch and it was pitch black in the room, so it was darker
than dark. And she had that moment of fear where she just kept going
and didn't really like react to it right away. Yeah, she walked right
past it, looped around in the kitchen, and I'm staying at the base
of the stairs, still staring at this thing, and I turned to look
at her, and she goes, you saw that, right, And I
was like, yeah, I saw that, And we turned back and it
wasn't there anymore. So after that, I ended up bringing those out projects
back to the psychiatric hospital and that again in that house. But yeah,
I got to tell you the same thing kind of happened. We were doing
an investigation in a private residence which was actually the former manor house of an
Italian mafia guy. And so now it's been restructured into separate apartments for people
to rent out. And everybody in all the apartments were having major activity going
on, I mean affecting their moods and their health and everything like that.
But this one couple that lived in this one apartment was kind of elevated what
they were experiencing. And I mean even the animals were affected. They were
all frazzled, and the electricity was going crazy. And when we went in
there, stuff was happening. The doors were opening and closed, and it
was just a really really crazy atmosphere. And we got to talking to the
two women. They were like, oh, you were really into the paranormal
too, just like you guys. Like Okay, I'm real sensitive blah blah
blah. And we go on these investigations here and there, and we went
to this psychiatric place and I got these things that I brought home with me,
and we were like, oh no, because you bring home this stuff
from this psychiatric mental facility and you're bring it into the residence of a mafia
boss. Just think of the ramifications, right, So we were like,
no, the first thing you got to do is bring this stuff back,
get that out of here, because you're dealing with enough as it is,
living in this place that's already quanted with this stuff. So they agreed to
bring them back. Whether they did or not, I don't know, but
it was really very active in that place. I can't even get to tell
you. Hopefully they brought this stuff back, because that's one of those things
that it's like, not just about getting it away from you, but it's
actually about returning it to the location that you founded at. Sure the otherwise
the activity will possible pass on to somebody else, it might still follow you,
but it's about returning it to its exact location. I'm glad you realized
that, really, because to not know and then have that experience, it's
crazy. It's a learning curve though, because I mean, I've gotten heavy
into it now where it's like I understand all of these things, but it
ast embarrassing now as a researcher and investigator saying like the previous mistakes I've done
for a good story, though, I guess that happened. So, yes,
you've learned your lesson. Is that what inspired you to pursue the avenue
that you have with your shows part of it. Yeah, originally, I
mean at least for me, and then I can hop back into whole like
getting to the wind to go part of it. But I mean, I've
always kind of been interested in other weird things happening, and there's like a
whole back, long, extensive story that kind of goes along with it.
But as a kid, I used to astro travel and I didn't really realize
what I was doing at the time, but I used to see shadow people
regularly, and I particularly saw this one with like green eyes that used to
follow me. But that's kind of like where the interest in it started.
But it was kind of like I rejected it at the same time because it
was I was kind of stuck in it and then kind of just running quick
through it. I lived in a house that it had this like heavy presence
to it where the longer you stayed in it, the more like bad parts
of your personality would start to come out. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
it was like it was kind of weird. It was it was a foreclosed
house and whoever lived there previously tried to flood the house out, and the
basement, like all the floors in the house were destroyed. But in the
basement in particular, there was like pages of the Bible torn out all over
the basement, and nobody really thought anything of it at the time. So
just something weird with that house. And then as when I was a teenager,
my step brother and I realized that if you're in the basement alone at
night, you'd hear screaming, but nobody else would hear it in the house,
and it would just be off in the distance, just really really weird.
And and that same house, it would be one of those things where
you'd see like shadow people and these like apparitions behind you all the time,
Like when you're in the bathroom in the mirror, you'd see these things moving
around behind you. Like it was just a really weird, uncomfortable house.
And I ended up getting out of the house, so did my stepbrother.
I think that my mom and her boyfriend still at there, but we haven't
talked in years, so I'm not one hundred percent sure, but pull all
the bad parts out of their personality, So like that also kind of started
to spark up some of the interest in it. And then I was kind
of into conspiracies and just kind of weird off the wall things the research into
kind of going forward off that. But after I had this particular encounter with
Northfill Psychiatric Hospital was when I started kind of taking the research a little bit
more seriously. And then it led into me listening to a lot of podcasts
with people theorizing about, you know, the paranormal, cryptids, aliens,
all of that, and I just kind of noticed a lot of the time
that most of the time people weren't really saying what I would say or throw
in the theories that I would throw into it. So that's kind of what
rooted me to start my podcast, was hearing these conversations and being interested in
the topics and not hearing people ask the questions that I would ask, And
so it kind of led me into saying, I want to have conversations with
these people. I want to start kind of throwing my theories and ideas into
it. And here I am going on almost two years later with Inquiries,
and then the year after that I started Bizarre Encounters. But Inquiries was kind
of like my open minded talk show where I would just talk to people about
bizarre phenomenon, be it from like an author's perspective, researcher, investigator,
answer and then Bizarre Encounters is more so the like deep dive show that my
co host and I are, and we both research into different things and we
do deep dive topics on that, so it's a little bit different format,
ones like our research and the other ones like an open minded talk show is
probably kind of the best way to describe it. Have you ever thought about
delving more and learning more about those astral travel sessions that you had, because
I know I've done that too myself, and I've always thought about maybe learning
more about how to do it and not be so afraid of it or stop
it ahead of where it would take me, because I've gotten as far as
well, from what I can remember anyway, I've gotten as far as above
the roof of my house and staying there and feeling the wind in my hair
and looking at the stars and all the lights around me, and then I
kind of go back down. So I've never gotten any further than that that
I know of, because I've spoken to a couple of experts and they say,
oh, you've gone further probably and you just don't remember it, which
is maybe the case. I don't know, but they do have studies out
there that you could learn how to remember and how to do it even more.
And I'm actually still afraid of that. So see, I've like dug
into it. There's so many different like philosophies on it, you don't necessarily
always know which one to follow. But at least when I would ask your
travel, I'd always get sleep paralysis after so I even like if I stopped
remembering my dreams, if I got sleep paralysis, I would just that I
astra traveled somewhere. Because it was, like, you know, most people
experienced sleep prolysis a couple of times in their life. I've experienced sting to
at least like once or twice every six months, So I mean I've probably
experienced it a good like twenty thirty times by now. Yeah, me too,
me too. It was it was with me. It was it was
a spirit that would be doing in some sort of apparition trying to get my
attention. They'd be waking me up with that sleep paralysis. And it's scary
when you go through that, for sure, and I was able to deal
with it, but then when it started happening to my kids, then I
had to really like stage the house and sold the house because I'm doing all
this paranormal investigating now, and I'm sure that things, even though we tell
them they can't come home with us and we do the whole process, I'm
sure that some of them still try. And because I have like all sorts
of protection on my body and in my mind they don't bother me, but
my kid they will. So she'll wake up and shock a mom, I
had sleep paralysis. Hit freak me out, and I'll be like, oh
god, I got a stage to a See. It's one of those things
too that I feel like there's a lot of beans that maybe don't necessarily like
fit in, you know, the lens that you're kind of looking at them
through, so you know, you'll try to do something and say, oh,
stay away, and they'll go haha, yeah, I'll stay away,
and they just kind of sit in the back quietly waiting for opportunity. Yet
And it's not that they're like vanished so that they're gone. It's just that
they kind of let you believe that what you did worked, and they're they're
just sitting there waiting. They're just like, all right, I'll stop for
now, but I'm here. Oh my god, that's creepy. When you
think of it that way, you know, Oh my god, Well tell
us about increase about our reality? What's that all about? So actually,
let me finish up the Windo story first and then I'll then I'll dive into
that part because I want to make sure I don't leave a listeners hanging for
two too. I wouldn't leave you. That was going to be a big
highlight at the show. So don't worry about it. Oh do you want?
If you want, I can just wait to come back around to it
all about you, goodhead, you can go ahead. So as far as
like the rest of the encounter goes. So when we were regularly going to
this place, we would just like I said, we had everything kind of
mapped out, and we just regularly explored this place. And we got to
a point where we had seen just about everything. And there's these tunnels that
go underneath the building. They call them the Northville Tunnels, and they go
through the city into like different places. They are like access tunnels for something
at all. Yeah, we have them. We have them in Sussex County
where I lived too, with the underground tunnels, and they go throughout the
county that I live in, and then surrounding counties too, and back in
the day, from what I understand, they use them for all sorts of
things. It's even storage for refrigeration because it's cooler down there, and deliveries
and stuff like that. Underground tunnels were used for the underground Railroad. I
mean, they had many purposes over the years. But a lot of those
outlets that are to the world now have been blocked off because of people getting
hurt or not coming out alive and stuff like that. So there are there
are branches that are unsafe and so they've blocked everything. But I would love
to kick down into those tunnels if I could. I mean, I've spoken
to firemen and my interviews who say that it's almost kind of like initiation when
they become a firefighter. They say, come, oh, we'll take you
down to the tunnels, and they bring them down to see what it's all
like, and I'm like, I want to go take me. So it
sounds like very similar to what we have here in Sussex County. Yeah,
it's probably about the same thing. I think it was intended they said,
for like moving patients different spots, but it went throughout the county, so
I'm sure it had multiple uses and got repracticed throughout the years. But I'm
glad that you brought up the refrigeration part because that'll actually kind of come in
a little bit further on as far as like me trying to figure out what
exactly this thing was, But I guess before that, I don't know if
it's necessarily linked or not. But we're up on the third story and there's
like a wooded area behind this place, and I'm in Michigan, so it's
not like this animal is necessarily like native to Michigan. But we were up
on the floor looking down and it was me and my girlfriend and one of
her friends, and I saw this cougar walk out of the woodline and it
looked up at us on like the seventh floor, which I thought was kind
of weird because we weren't really making any noise or anything, and it made
like direct eye contact with us. And my girlfriend's friend saw it, and
I was like, that's my scene when I think I'm seeing she goes,
yeah, it looks like a cougar. So I ended up looking into it,
and apparently there was like there was a cougar sighting in Northville but it
was never the body was never found, the animal was never recovered. So
it's just it was just one of those things that kind of got left in
the air, and it might link into the windyg aspect of it, but
I'm not one hundred percent sury. I just thought it was weird that it
looked up directly at us when we weren't really making any noise. But like
the following I think it was the following weekend or the weekend after. It
was right after that we ended up deciding that we wanted to go into these
tunnels. And our biggest fear with these tunnels was the fact that, you
know, you were on a out of light, you know, you run
out of batteries, anything like that, and you're pretty much feeling your wall,
the wall your whole way back for miles, and these things are old,
decrepit, you know, moist, wet, just you know, tunnels
underground realistically, So we make it. We go start going down into the
basement and in the basement there's to the right there's this big cutout in the
wall, but it looks like not like Sony knocks a piece out, but
rather that they purposely removed it because it was a bricked wall with the pieces
removed into the into like a circle walkway. So I go to turn into
there. This is the first time we've decided to go down this far and
actually start looking into the basement and into the tunnels because there's an access point
into the tunnels from there. And as soon as I turn into this room,
there's this metal like dirdy like cart, like you know, like the
hospital carts, and it's up against the wall, and I'm staring at that,
and I hear this voice in my right ear that says in like a
whisper. And as I heard that, I saw this thing start to stand
up. And the best way to described this thing is tall, lanky,
It had like decaying looking flesh color to it, and it had this long,
greasy, long, greasy black hair that was like slicked back on the
top of its head. And as soon as I saw that, I just
took off running. And I had my girlfriend and her friend with me,
so they took off running behind this behind me or because I want to go
take off, And as we're going to leave, she my girlfriend was actually
taking some picture, so I'll have to send you it after the show.
But it didn't come out as something like solid or physical, but it almost
looks like an apparition picture. But I didn't know what I had seen for
a long time, like I just assumed that. I honestly didn't really know
what to assume because you look up Windigoes and most people's depiction of him is
like the deer headed creature. But that's kind of where I left it on
retainer for a while that I started digging in and found like the rake for
example, pale crawler, so I was like, maybe I saw one of
these things. And once I started digging more into windog because everything kept coming
back to it when I started explaining like the characteristics. I actually did a
show with Justin from Phipps of the Corn. He started kind of connecting pieces
for this one with me too. But as far as like the folklore goes
for Windigoes, they're not the depiction that people think they are. They're more
like a zombie. That's kind of the best way to describe it. Like
a fleshy, lanky, gross looking creature that is so hungry that it eats
its lips off, as they describe it. But it gets that deerheaded view
from like other people basically retelling the story from like white settlers coming through and
picking up the windy go culture or the wind Togo story and then kind of
mixing it with like Christian beliefs and trying to make everything that's pagan as they
would see it as demonic. So it just took on like a whole other
viewpoint from white settlers hearing these stories instead of it actually coming straight from the
natives telling the story. So then the whole idea of like what a wind
to go completely got misconscrewed through time. So like I mean, even now,
like I said, everybody thinks that a windigo is this deer headed creature,
but the natives never described it that way at any point. And I'm
pretty convinced that the people that are talking about rake encounters or pale Coroller encounters
are actually seeing these wind Togo creatures, but they just don't have a good
level of context for it, because everybody thinks that the wind to go is
something totally different than what it was. But as far as like the cougar
goes, I mean assumably that there's always the whole animalistic like shape shifting ide
and perspective that comes in especially when you start getting into like like skin walkers
for example, which seemed to be just like the best way to kind of
describe it as the difference between the two is that they seem to always like
there's when it comes to the skin walker, you have a medicine man that
basically like sells his soul in a way to be able to become this creature,
versus like the wind to Go, where it seems to have a lot
of the same abilities, but it's not that the person chose to go down
that path, but rather that somebody they resorted to cannibalism or they were too
had too much pride in other different beliefs as far as when it go goes
like the wachuwga for example, and then they end up becoming this creature based
on the fact of them having to do some type of awful act, where
like the skin walker, they're intentionally doing an awful act. So like,
as I started digging into a lot of the folklore, it seemed like there's
a lot that's like comparable between the two. So then I started taking out
of the things into consideration, like the possibility being able to shift into other
animals or at least making people perceive them as other animals, except for I
would assume that as far as like the wind Togo goes versus like a skin
walker for example, like the one is able to choose or the other one
is at the will and bay of this evil, evil spirit or force that's
occupying their vessel or their body at the time. But it was just super
weird encounter. I started digging into bunch of stuff. I still don't know
when one hundred percent of what I saw. All I can really say is
that I've made a lot of different theories on it, and it definitely wasn't
a person. Because of the shape of this thing, being super tall and
just decrectit lanky like, it definitely wasn't a person. But the best that
I can kind of describe this thing as is possibly a wind to go or
what people call like a paill crawler or a rape Very interesting. I mean,
I've never even heard of this before. This is all news to me,
and I'm really curious to learn about these different types of creatures because there's
so much more out there that I wasn't even aware of. I mean,
I had this this square box of things that fit in it, this is
what I was interested in, and like, okay, I want to learn
more about it. And then all of a sudden, the box just fool
larger and larger. I hear all this stuff and I'm like, oh my
god, and you try and wrap your head around it, and then you
talk to all these people that are professionals in the field and you hear about
this, and you're like, oh my god, is it real or isn't
it? You know, so I've never even heard about the windigo until you've
mentioned it. So it's pretty interesting stuff for sure. And now my boxes
then it's always can cost expanding every time I hear about something new, and
I of course got a research and dive into it. So like i have
a wide array of different creatures and different types of beings that things could possibly
be. But I've heard so many different stories of people encountering so many different
things. I love theorizing what they could be. And I mean, I
mean you think about like I've been hearing about other dimensions, and I'm starting
to really be open minded about the possibility that these things can go in and
out of dimensions and the possibility that they are real, that they exist,
that you know, as crazy as it sounds, that there is this huge
possibility that these things do come from other dimensions into our world, whether it
be just spontaneously for certain periods of time or whatever makes it happen. I
have no explanation for it, really, but it's just very intriguing. Nonetheless,
and you mentioned about the tunnels and stuff, So do you think this
thing just resuildes there, hides there or yeah, Because you say, well,
you went into the tunnels first of all, I guess my question is
it's open to the public, can you just go? If you want to
go, you have to sneak into the place, at least the hospital.
It was like right now to a police station. So I saw a lot
of people get arrested trying to get into this place. But we were kind
of smart about where we parts and everything. But part of like the windy
goo lore, which is why I mentioned the refrigeration thing, is that they
say that you're not safe from the wind to go from the first no fall
to the last now fall. And these creatures are known for coming out during
like the winter months. They're more of like a northern folklore type of creature.
But the reason for that being that they're decaying flesh essentially, So the
theory behind it is that these things would go into caves, they would bury
themselves in the dirt, they would do different things in order to maintain a
cooler temperature. So if you dig into the native folklore as far as like
how these things preserve themselves during the warmer months, which this was I believe
like fall, end of summer kind of area, that makes sense why I
would be down in the tunnels because it was like a good thirty twenty to
thirty degree drop going into the tunnels, So it kind of fit even more
so that narrative of it possibly being a wind to go, considering like the
actions in which you know, I didn't see this thing ever leave the tunnel.
I don't think it made it up past outside of the hospital and outside
or anything like that. Like we only basically heard it moving behind us as
we're coming up out of the basement, so assumably it was just trying to
stay down there and not be seen by people. But this whole place was
kind of weird in general. That you know, like any abandoned hospital,
there's people that are always making different markings on the walls, and they don't
necessarily know what they mean different schigules, So I mean, it definitely could
have been a wind to go, or maybe it could have theoretically been something
else that somebody summoned without realizing it from producing writing different signals and sigils on
the walls and maybe even trying to do some type of practice that they read
about in a book, for example, and not realizing what happened. But
they ended up shutting this hospital down soon after. Because so when I went
there a few times, like the elevator doors were you'd have to cram yourself
into it in order to be able to look down the elevator shafts, and
there was two people that had fallen down the elevator shafts and had died.
So they completely like box this place off, shut everything down, and me
spending as much time as I spent there, I realized that, like I
think there was some kind of foul play involves, and maybe they were aware
that there was some kind of weird thing in this building that it was doing
this, because they explain it, Yeah, you could, you just couldn't
have fallen down these elevator shafts, Like the doors are pretty much like welded,
but most of the doors are welded shut, and then the couple of
floors that were open, it was like maybe an eight inch gap. So
I think the only way I could see that somebody could fall down those is
if they were trying to get away from something possibly or they were pushed through
it, one of the two. Yeah, well that's that's crazy. Huh.
Oh my god. You think about that, and it's just a weird
encounter because I still don't quite know how to place it. I didn't.
I didn't. I went like a good four or five years without telling anybody
about any part of that story because I didn't even know how to like place
it in my own mind, let alone try to describe what I saw to
somebody else. Crazy. You don't want them to say, Ellie or you're
all crazy in the head. Dude. You don't want to hear that because
you saw what you saw and you can't explain it. But you know what,
I think people are more openly receptive to talk about this sort of stuff
now, which makes it easy to talk about it, right. You know,
there's so many of us out there. We can't all be crazy,
at least with in the community I think that was partly what it was is
that even in like even all the stuff that I dive into regularly, as
far as like aliens currently working on a different couple different shows too, anything
that I'm diving into, it's not like I go around and talk to people
about it in like my normal life. Like it's kind of sectioned off to
people in the community because you know, I'm Sasquatched. Isn't like that out
there in the community by any means. It's like the entry level into the
community, but it's still a stereotype. But if you go around telling people
you full on belief even Taskquatch in your normal everyday life, you are going
to look at you like you're crazy. So it's like, I'm open about
my research for the people that want to come help them look about it,
but I'm not going around and telling everybody about, you know, the squash
trips I go on or anything like that, because it's just like, you
don't want the normal world looking at you like you're crazy, even though I
guess they could just publicly go online and listen to all the different stuff you
talk about, but it's a matter of themselves so much. I got to
tell you, when I was writing my books on true account hauntings, which
would ghost stories, in my community in the county where I live, people
were just reaching out to me with different stories about things that they had encountered.
And then all of a sudden, I was getting all these stories from
people about Bigfoot in Sussex County, along with UFO sidings as well, and
they were such good story shame that I could not leave them out of the
books, and thinking, well, how am I going to fit them into
a book good ghost stories? So I created the title Sussex County Hauntings and
Other Strange Phenomena, so this way I could talk about those Bigfoot stories and
talk about those UFO stories because they were so good and there were so many
of them. So I'm actually glad that I ended up dealing that with the
books too, because it actually opened up a whole array of opportunity to write
about different things that would normally fit under that ghost theme, like near death
experiences and reincarnation stuff like that. But that first book is filled with Bigfoot
stories. Got to tell you, you know, stories from rangers, park
rangers, cops, teachers, people that you wouldn't call crazy. I mean,
they call them, you know, a normal joke crazy, but they
wouldn't really necessarily call a cop crazy, right, I mean, at least
for all that stuff too. I'm glad that you accompanied everything all into your
one book because I feel like a lot of it's has a lot of connecting
factors. But the communities have stayed divided for so long that there's like paranormal
people, crypted people, UFO people. That is not until relatively recently that
I feel like there's people that are just researchers of all the phenomenon all as
a whole. And it's only been like maybe the last like five ten years
that people have started looking at things through all lenses. Because even before that,
people that were starting to connect stuff, it was like kind of vaguely
connecting stuff. They still kind of picked the camp. But now you have
people that aren't necessarily a paranormal investigator or a cryptid investigator or anything. They're
just a forty in researcher that looks into all the phenomenon all at once exactly
exactly do you buy any chance and that this is just a north question,
but do you think that they're inner dimensional at all? As far as what
exactly elementals or the windygo any of that stuff coming through. Do you think
it's interdimensional? Do you think they're coming from other dimensions, or do you
think you're in this reality or or do you really know how to go out
on it at all. I think it's like a different mix of things.
I don't. I think that there's different things that come from different places,
and there's some that are kind of like a mix of holes. Like just
as an example, as far as like the dog man phenomenon goes, like
you hear different variations of dog men. So even within that, I think
that there's things that are natural that are kind of fitting the category, there's
things that are interdimensional that are fitting the category, and then there's also man
created things that are fitting that category. Even as far as like sasquatch goes,
I know a lot of people have physical encounters and a lot of people
have these interdimensional encounters with them. So I've even kind of theorized that,
you know, there could be like time split phenomenon that's happening, and that
could be The connecting factor with a lot of this stuff is that it's not
necessarily that it's physical or spiritual it's just that it's there's like a veil thing,
or these things are going through time splits, and then sometimes the timeline
corrects itself, which would be like the random footprints that just stop and go
away. And then there's other times when you know, they get to end
up getting stuck here, and then it becomes more of like thing. But
I mean, everything that I kind of based around it's it's all theories.
Like I'm not one hundred percent sure on it, and my camp regularly changes
on it. But I was had somebody on the show a week or two
ago actually, and we kind of got into this whole idea about negative dimensions,
and everybody kind of thinks of something as being like a parallel dimension that's
like next to us or something that's existing within the place that we're in currently.
But what we kind of started diving into is he started talking about like
molecular structures and how like everybody kind of had this idea of like how a
proton and how an electron kind of sit together. But they started doing some
research into I think it was being used for some type of like nuclear testing,
but they figure out that you can create different variations of it where they
end up basically chaining off of each other, and when you get them so
close to each other, they end up basically like creating this like negative where
they'll keep sucking everything into it. And so we kind of got into this
whole theory about negative dimensions being where these things could potentially be coming from and
not necessarily a parallel to mention, because you get into the whole idea about
when people have like battery loss when they're dealing with the para normal or dealing
with sasquatch or aliens. And if something was creating this structure that he was
talking about, it would basically be pulling all energy into this thing all at
once in order for it to be able to react and basically be able to
create itself. So the reason why people could be having these experiences where they
completely lose battery could be because there's some type of portal that's being opened and
it's sucking all the energy out of everything around it in order for it to
have energy to be able to function. So, I mean, that's that's
like a totally different concept that I'm kind of pretty fascinating that it's not again
like a parallel dimension, but rather a negative dimension. That's kind of hard
to describe that it's like almost like a microscopic place that's existing like negative of
our dimension. Just a different, different insight of thinking about it. But
I definitely think that there are things that are something physical. I think that
there's stuff that could potentially be coming from different planets. But I also throw
into the interdimensional theory and it's kind of hard to place it. It kind
of depends on the encounter. But I do also as a side note of
all of this, I think that you know, there's like the orbs that
are the connecting factor as far as aliens, cryptids, and the paranormal go.
And actually I was just talking about it on the show that I actually
just wrapped up before this. But basically the idea is that maybe these things
are fully conscious and that they're able to pick what form they want to present
themselves as in order to like scare people away, for example. So all
this phenomenon can be linked to these orbs, and these orbs just choose that
if you're they know you're scared of aliens, they're going to be an alien
in order to scare you away from them, or they know to scare you
away, But they could essentially be like either elemental beings that are just existing
as white orbs and they can just choose their shape, or they could potentially
be just like a whole other life form that we're not aware of that we
just perceive them as whatever we're scared of because we know we're supposed to get
away from him. But there's just there's so many theories that will kind of
dive into different aspects of the phenomenon. But I guess to bring it all
back around, I definitely take into consideration the whole idea of they're being interdimensional
beings just as much as I take into consideration they're actually being physical beings that
exist within our reality, which brings me to the question inquiries of our reality?
What's that all about? H So, actually, as far as that
name goes, it was just one of those perfect names that, like I
said, when I was hearing a lot of different other shows and a lot
of different other researchers talk, it was just a matter of them not necessarily
always asking the same questions that I would ask, or the just theories that
I would throw in on things. So I said, decide I want to
start a podcast but I feel like it's gonna sound weird, But one of
the first things you kind of need to do is pick like a name to
be able to put everything behind, because you can have great episodes, but
you almost I feel like if you needed to have a name just to like
place yourself as far as things go. But that came to me as like
a shower idea, and I just felt like it was perfect because all I
really do is question our reality. So increase of our reality is questions of
our trying to accompany everybody reality, because I'm trying to view it from the
standpoint of not everybody necessarily having their own reality, but we're all existing in
a reality together, so we have to inquire into what should be happening in
our reality. So it's one of those things that the name kind of fell
into place, and then it all kind of fell into place because I had
a totally different idea for the show and what I originally wanted to start with
versus what it turned into. But like most shows, it starts incompanying like
your personality, and as your personality changes through time and your perspective changes through
time, it kind of your show kind of warps and transforms with you,
but increase of our reality seems like it's just that perfect name that no matter
how much my views and everything change, it's still just gonna be one of
those perfect names because it's at the root of all of it. All of
our try to do is answer and question things within our reality. So then
it turned into this open minded talk show essentially about just that I'll have people
on, like I said, that are experiencers, researchers, authors, investigators,
philosophers. I guess you could say, to people that just make series
and everything based on everything, and then it's just pretty much I'll have people
come on. Uh they'll start with just basically roughly who they are, and
then we'll get into this vast deep conversation about inquiries into our reality essentially,
and uh, it's just it's a really really cool show, is as far
as like from my perspective of me getting to do it because it was one
of those things that in your normal life you don't always get to have these
like deep conversations, and a lot of people that are on podcasts, you
know, they'll just do They'll have somebody on for like something in particular,
and every show that that person goes on. You know, it's kind of
like they're going over the same thing that they go on on any other show.
But where I kind of try to tear it away is that I don't
go into any of its scripted whatsoever. It kind of just organically develops itself
as the episode goes on, and if I noticed that the guest is really
interested in something, or if they bring something up that connects in with my
research, gives me the room an opportunity to be able to dive into that
and not necessarily keep it to a specific script or view of things. So
it's just it's been going on almost two years now and haven't stopped, and
I have no plans on stopping by any means. But I have honestly just
developed more inquiries into our reality as I've progressed through it, instead of actually
answering inquiries of our reality. So still putting in I guess that probably answers
my next question where you mentioned you're a fourteen researcher, is that how it's
pronounced for fourteen? Yeah? Forty in, which is just it kind of
in companies, just everything all into one. It's not like I mean,
I specialize in cryptozoology, but I definitely die into extraterrestrial's paranormal just beings as
a whole, like I like digging into folklore. So I just forty in
kind of incompanies all of it into one place. I feel it feel like
it's just kind of a good name for that, because there's not the colid
name yet for all of them yet. The listeners forty in Phenomena are events
which seem to challenge the boundaries of accepted scientific knowledge, which is pretty much
what you've just said and described in overall about the inquiries of reality show What
about Bizarre Encounters? What's that all about? So bizarre encounters. Originally it
was going to be, I guess, basically just diving into people's bizarre encounters.
It was pretty straightforward as far as the NAD goes. But I purposely
picked the word bizarre because it's supposed to be something unusual or odd that sparks
amusement. So it's like something you're entertained by, but it's something that's strange
or weird or off. So it started to become It originally started off as
an interview show that I was doing with another podcaster at the time, named
Ghosts, who's on my third eye. He didn't. He ended up leaving
at one point because he was just focusing on his podcast. So it's just
one of those mutual things you end up leaving. So then after that,
I ended up having this guy named Oran, who I had had as a
guest on my show, kind of show a little bit of interest, like
I was interested in doing some episodes with him, just because the way we
bounce back and forth just worked really really well. Uh So I ended up
putting on an ad after ghost left the show, saying that I wanted a
new co host, and I had a bunch of people end up hitting me
up and everything. I was gonna start kind of like scheduling interviews with people
just to see how the flow went back and forth. And then I was
like, hey, no, already, I already had somebody in mind that
I want to do for this. So I ended up hitting up Orrin.
Uh he said he'd be interested in doing it, and the first couple episodes
were basically just you know, us interviewing people about their bizarre encounters. And
soon after that you kind of realized that Orn likes to write and research.
I like to write and research. So Ghosts was more of like an interview
guy, and I was kind of doing the same thing on Inquiries, but
I also had this researcher side of me that wasn't really coming out in Inquiries
because it's just doesn't really fit the show format. So we ended up kind
of just three sixteen the show itself and made it our research deep dive show.
So the name originally was Bizarre Encounters in order to have people on to
talk about their bizarre encounters, but then it started being compassing into it just
a deep dive of bizarre encounters in general, with you know, people experiencing
this, people experiencing that, And yeah, it turned into like we like
we cover topics from every perspective that we possibly can, but in turn we
create theories on it. We don't just you know, read the story off
and just call it a day. Like both of us at the end of
the day are researchers and investigators. Uh so we throw in our ideas,
our perspectives, so we think it could possibly be different things that connect into
the same folklore stuff. Like just another example, like we were talking for
a while about you know, alien phenomenon, alien abduction, not necessarily always
being as it's perceived that it is. Like, I definitely think there's interdimensional
beings. I think there's extraterrestrial beings, but I do think that there's a
good amount of abduction cases that are actually government experiments that they're running on people,
and they just hide behind this facade of extraterrestrials. And because you can't
just take people and just run these kind of weird futuristic experiments on them to
begin with, so a lot of that happened around the same time that they
started kind of digging into like psychedelic research. So I've been theorizing for a
while that a lot of these abduction encounters were some type of psychedelic drugs that
the government had worked on, something that they probably synthesized, it was lab
created that would just blast you off into just another whole mindset of thinking.
And so I think I was thinking for a while that they might just wear
like alien masks, get people on these things, and then run experiments on
them. So then when they get thrown act, you know, they don't
really have anybody to go after. They can't say the government did it,
They can't say anybody did it. They can't say this, did it.
So I've been talking about that on the show for a while, and we
covered the Pascagoula alien abduction and part of that story the guy because we started
reading the transcripts on the show, the guy mentioned that there was a woman
that was checking him out and it looked like she was wearing a mask,
and so we started connecting that in with all the other research that we'd been
doing. So we just have we have a different way of covering stuff.
I guess everybody kind of has their own spin in their own way of covering
stuff. But originally it started off as an encounter show and then it kind
of just turned into our forty in research and our deep dives kind of all
in one place. We still do interviews here and there, but the majority
of the show after Orn joined is us doing deep guys. Now. I
love that. Now, what about phantoms and monsters? The team? So
as far as nantems and monsters go, this is still like a relatively new
thing that I joined that team. But I had lots of circular on increases
of our reality and he started his blog back in two thousand and five,
back when I was a teenager. I used to read about all these different
monster encounters because I was interested in the stuff at the time, but I
wasn't like heavy researching into it like I do now, really like picking up
and understanding everything. So, you know, he just saw somebody that's been
in the back of my mind for a long time. When I originally started
the show. He was one of the main people that I wanted to have
on the show just because you know, I had been following his work since
I was a teenager, and I had him on the show probably about a
month and a half or so ago around that, and he's heavy dig He
heavy digged into the Chicago moth Man, and we started getting into different theories
on that. We started deep diving into that a bit. We talked about
black guyed kids, just our different theories on like what we possibly think things
could be. So right after the show, he ends up asking me if
I'd be interested in joining his forty and research team. So he ended up
taking a vote and everything and everybody decided they were rich in me being on
the team, which was a huge genre for me considering that I'd been looking
into this guy's work since I was a teenager and as far as like being
part of that team goes Lon takes in any weird encrypt any weird encounter,
be it aliens, extraterrestrials, time slips, cryptids, just literally any weird
thing, and the stuff that he has for the areas that we're in.
Uh he sends to us and like a message and stuff, and basically we
get the opportunity to investigate it. Uh So, technically I'm the cryptid and
paranormal investigator for Michigan and Indiana and whenever there's stuff that's available that needs to
get investigated, you know, not just like oh I had this encounter twenty
years ago, but something that happened recently. Basically, what it is is
that we would go and check out the area and if he comes across anything
really really weird. It's also partly like a like a group where we can
all kind of discuss our different theories on what it could be and kind of
like all of us throw in what we believe. So at the root of
it, it's essentially that he takes in all these bizarre encounters and the forteen
research team investigates and researches and theorizes about the encounters that he takes in this
through phantoms and monsters, and a lot of other podcasters use phantoms and monsters
for doing their own show research, which makes it even bigger than an honor
to be part of it because he has documentation of any type of crazy creature
he could possibly imagine on there, So he kind of set like a template
i'd say for you know, like this is what this creature is. This
is what this creature is. He's kind of been one of those people that
have kind of helped to categorize, like there's a dictionary of phantoms and monsters
exactly. Yep. That's that's a good way to describe it. It takes
some encounters and Interney ends up categorizing because of all the encounters that he takes
in. It actually starts creating like an archetype for these different beings because of
how many encounters he takes in. That's great, That's that's great. Do
you have a story of something that you've heard that was so fascinating writing that
you'd like to share with the listeners? But there's like, oh, I've
got to tell you this story did cool. Let's see here. As far
as I'm trying to think of like a really really interesting one that I've heard
recently. Because I have so many people that come on my show, I'm
trying to think if I have one that's straight from the horse's mouth, because
I have a lot that come from other people's third hand here preak, yeah,
yeah, yeah, but it's you know, other people's like stories that
they've kind of taken in. But I guess a good one that I could
talk about as far as just being a Michigander and me not giving it enough
love, as far as like dog Man for Michigan goes, because everybody talks
about the beats of Great Road for example. One of my personal favorite encounter
stories that I've heard, This one goes back to I think nineteen forties or
fifties, but this was one of the main focal points as far as the
Michigan dog Man goes. There was a man who was working nice security for
a factory. I don't know exactly what city was in off Pannis moment.
I do have munch of notes on it that I I probably should have brought
up beforehand. But so he was doing nightwatch for this factory, and he
lived on a house that was in the property and there was this fenced off
area where it went into the woods and everything, and as he's watching,
he starts noticing this thing that's moving around off in the distance, and he
ends up like calling to his son to kind of like point out to try
to figure out what it was, and he ends up catching this thing on
his camera as he's watching this thing move around, and it ends up being
this dog like creature that's hiding behind a pole. And it's one of those
like infinite infamous pictures that you can actually probably look up on the internet and
find it. But it was just one of the most fascinating dog man encounters
because at least back then, I don't feel like it was one of those
things that you can just photo edit as easy. This thing definitely looks like
it has some body to it too, which definitely makes this fascinating. And
then kind of digging into a little bit farther on as far as like Michigan
dog man lore goes, Uh, there was also a videotape that somebody had
found that a lot of people try to stay at the hoax. But it's
called the uh what is it called. It's not gimblin. It's try trying
to remember the name of it offhand, But there's just this random tape.
If you look up Michigan dog Man tape, I'm sure people will find it.
But it was supposedly this tape that was found in storage of these people
that were going snowmobiling back in the seventies. And the end of the video
ends up being this wolf like human humanoid creature that takes off towards him and
you see him like drop the camera and run away. But that thing looks
a lot like the guy the picture that the other guy had gotten back in
the day, and kind of connecting even farther into like the Michigan dog Man
stuff, there's all these like chains of attacking counters that happened near the Manistee
Forest. And one of the most fascinating ones that I was digging into as
far as that goes, was with this trucker who he had an issue with
like the aeronest tire, so he went to pull over and stop for a
second, and when he did, he saw this creature that ended up jumping
up on his cab and trying to get into his cab, and he ended
up putting three shots into this thing and watching it full and roll into the
woods on the side, and then he left Loups's truck around and came back
and saw that there was like a fit like another car that was sitting there,
and they were like, oh, we saw like a bear or something,
and he was like, yeah, it's cool, get away from it.
And he ended up having like government interaction where they're basically saying like,
hey, you've damaged some of our some of our property, and you know
you're gonna deal with this kind of a thing. Yeah, But yep,
there's there's so much with the man stee with people having encounters like that.
Like there was another investigator that I had that was talking about he was coming
up to Michigan to start looking into like the Michigan dog Man stuff, and
he got stopped by an unmarked vehicle that basically said, we know what you're
doing here and you need to leave now before you know, you get yourself
to some trouble. So there's definitely something weird to the man of sc I
think that's why it doesn't get as much top It doesn't get talked about as
much in the dog Man lore as a lot of other stuff, but at
least being from Michigan, Like, I hear these different stories all the time,
and I feel like it's one of it's just a really it's it's heavily
covered up in comparison to the other dog Man stuff because I think that there's
something really heavy to it, and I mean, maybe there's a possibility of
it costibing government created and that's why they are so on top of this versus
it being some type of natural phenomenon where they can just kind of play it
off. But I've been digging into the Michigan dog Man stuff for a while
and it's just accompanied all these just just weird stories as far as like all
based around the Man of Stee, people having these like full on a tac
account encounters. Like there was another one that wasn't even necessarily close to the
Man of Spee, but it was in Troy, Michigan. And when I
first found this call, I found it in like one spot and then it
went it disappeared off the internet for a while, but luckily I I had
recorded it, so I ended up saving it. But essentially it was these
people that called on Star after something darted across the road and ended up going
off the side of the road and hitting a tree, and in the turn
of them talking to this on Star person, they're basically talking about how they're
seeing this like dog man creature, and then it takes off for the car
and new here all this like blood curdling screaming, and then the phone line
goes that and the on Star person is like trying to get their attention,
like hello, Hello. And the part that I thought was really really weird
after that was that right after that original call had come out, which was
supposed to be from Troy Michigan on started some prank Halloween were Wolf attack phone
call and it was like super cheesy, super spoofy, and I was just
thinking in my head, like, so there, I can't find this specific
call on the internet. I look around everywhere. It disappears here and there,
and like I said, I keep a recording of it on my computer
because it's just one of those things that disappears here and there. And as
soon as they that had come out, they had done this fake on Star
call and it seems like they're trying to pull away from the phenomenon, yeah,
make it look like a joke. So there's just so much for the
Michigan Dog man backstory, and it just seems like it's all massively covered up
on purpose, which is why it fascinating. So wow, wow film so
interesting. Wow, that's crazy. I could see that happen in that way
for sure, covering up. Wow, that's good. I like that one.
Thanks for sharing it. Yeah. I could got on the Michigan dog
Man stuff for a while, but at least a lot of that is like
Michigan stories in general. So it's like, I've taken a lot of ultra
fascinating stories, but people use them to write in their own books and stuff,
and I just don't want to take somebody else's story that's like their story.
But at least for that one, that's just like common knowledge that's out
there and stuff that I've dug into. But you know, I could go
on for days about different stories, but I just have to make sure that
whoever story it is, I give credit for being that first that collected that
story, because I don't want to take credit for anybody else's work in research.
So sure, I understand, I understand. I appreciate that well.
When I write my stories and true account ghost wanting, it's the same thing.
I always want a first hand account from somebody when I write about it,
and I like to give them credit if they don't want to remain anonymous,
if they want me to mention their name, I make sure that I
do so. I totally get that. Hey, can you let everybody know
how they can find you and what your website is and all that stuff.
Absolutely, So if everybody wants to come and find me, the quickest way
to do it is through Open Minds Media, which is my production company for
both things that I do. You guys can always look up Increase of Our
Reality or Bizarre Encounters, you know, any podcatcher so you know, Spotify,
iTunes, podcast Addict, any of those Amazon, but also on YouTube
you can look up open Minds Media, and I do have a YouTube channel
and TikTok. But if everybody wants to just find one link that can accompany
all of this and you can find everything that I you, the easiest way
to do it is through my Open Minds Media website, which is lamk p
R, period ee Slash, Open Underscore, Minds Underscore Media, and there
is like a link tree that just connects to all my different work, all
my different shows. So that's just quick at the easiest place to give it
to everybody, all in one place. Perfect, perfect, And thank you
so much for joining me today. I really enjoyed our discussion in you opening
up all this stuff for me. This was fun. Yeah, thanks for
inviting me. I had a lot of fun and hopefully I didn't talk to
you too much. It's great to be on the other side of the microphone
and be the one that's the majority of the talking. That's you know what.
That's so it's supposed to be. We have you on here for a
reason. So and if the listeners like listening to this week's episode and you're
into all things paranormal, check out my other show, Eleanor Wagner's Creeping,
a Real podcast out of the Coast Coast Entertainment Network, which is available wherever
you get your podcast stream directly through my Eleanor Wagner web page. And if
you are interested in reading any of my books, you can find them on
Amazon or you can get signed copies directly through me at author Eleanor Wagner at
gmail dot com. I write about the history of the town and location,
add the paranormal story to the mix, and finish it all off with photos
and evidence. Everybody loves a good ghost story, but there's nothing better than
a true ghost story. So check it out and I hope you'll stay awhile
and listen as Silent Crafter Stranger Part two takes us out of the show.
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Thank you, paranormal enthusiasts for tuning in today. I hope you'll come back
again. Remember to tap into your own gifts. Everyone has them, and
in the meantime, make sure you're creeping it young