CLASSICS: Dave Schrader!

That's how I know him, because you know, I don't watch a lot of TV and stuff in general, but I do know Dave from doing various gigs around town and whatnot. He's been on a couple panels with me and just I always have a great time speaking with him.

He's been on a number of television shows at The Holser Files The Ghost of Devil's Perch whe are two of the most recent ones, but I think he's been on countless ones really so I've never counted them, that's for sure, But right now I think he has a very popular podcast called Paranormal sixty and so Dave, Dave Schrader, welcome to Bigfoot and Beyond. I'm so glad you can join us.

The Paranormal sixty for the last three years. It's always amazing to me that I could come out with some of the most unbelievably amazing stories of reincarnation or demonic possession or hauntings that are making the Amityville look like kiddie play. But then I do an episode on Bigfoot and I get multiples of downloads, and I would get on any other episode, and it's great to see that

that interest in fascination continues. But it's kind of confounding, and I'd actually love to pick both of your brains. There's so much going on in the world, and the concept that, you know, alien disclosures kind of out there. Now. There's ghost shows everywhere, but there's always just one, maybe two big Foot style shows going on. Why do you think there's so much excitement that continues in the field of cryptozoology because it's real.

finished talking about it? It's like, No, there's always gonna be hunters, you know, They're always gonna there's gonna be outdoors people, and there are always gonna be sasquatches around because they're just here.

of like us. And I think we kind of see that and glom onto it in the same sort of way that back in the day, you know, like nineteen sixties, nineteen seventies, people got a kick out of, like watching it, seeing a chimpanzee in a suit or something like that, right, you know, I think that there's something akin to that. I'm not sure what that word would be, but I

think there's something akin to that. It's just unfortunately, I always find it unfortunate how the depiction that the media gives the subject and also the researchers, you know, the researcher are often depicted very very poorly, like gullible tinfoil hat wear and weirdos and mind you, some of us are, but the subject itself deserves such a higher level of respect than what I feel it gets on television and

the Internet and whatever else. But at the end of the day, the subject is here, It is real, and the animals are real, just perfectly normal animals out in the woods, and as long as they're walking around, the mystery of the subject will also be walking around, at least until Discovery Day whenever.

that you don't hear coming. But I like one of my favorite all time songs of any genre is Charlie Daniels band The Legend of Wooly Swamp and the ghostly Stories and just the concept of being deep out in the woods and not knowing your surroundings and just how dangerous it could be, and how dangerous it is for the three brothers that go and seek the fortune that is told to be out there. But I just love that ghost story. That's always been one of my favorites, and I love the fact that it was all in

a song format. But of course, Charlie Daniels also did the Double Nut in Georgia, so there seems to be a lot of spiritual or you know, songs along in his repertoire is book. Perhaps could it be, And I don't know, I'm assuming the fair number of ghost people listen to this. Maybe they don't they've had enough of me. I don't know, But perhaps could it be that ghost people don't sing very well, you know.

If you want to put that under the umbrella of unknown or supernatural or paranormal, I said, eh, okay, but sasquatch is a very very small slice of that pie, And that's a very very boring slice of that pie in some ways, because there isn't, in my opinion, anything paranormal about it. But I'm into all other weird things. How do you think I got into big foot in the first places?

you look online. As a matter of fact, they did that Celebrity ghost Stories or My ghost Stories a few years ago where they would take some of these celebrities back to the locations that you know that upset them, that they had these encounters with. And Reis talked very openly about his paranormal encounters at the Whaley House.

you know hey, we're aware of you. We're interested in having you lead on a ghost show. And I'm like, oh, I think i'm good. Thanks, and they were like, well, no, this is TV and I'm like, yeah, I think i'm good.

want to be a part of this. And I'm like, well, we're in an impact then, because I'm not going to be a part of something I don't know more about. So I signed some thick phone book style NDA and as soon as I signed it, they said, we're reopening the case files of doctor Hans Holzer, and that's all they got out of their mouths, and I'm like, I'm in, count me in. This will be amazing, So I was

willing to do that. They had all the original video, photographs, audio recordings, handwritten notes, everything he had done over his like forty five fifty year span of investigating the supernatural, and I was man. I grew up reading Hans Holzer's books, so to get a chance to follow in his footsteps. And another interesting tie I had to doctor Holzer was our radio show. We were the last radio show that he did before he sadly passed away.

I think they mis named it. You know, Holser Files is really cool if you are a triedent and true paranormal fan and know who doctor Hans Holzer was, but you know, he had passed away in two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine. He wasn't on any of the big paranormal TV series of our time here since you know, the relaunching about two thousand and one, with all of the different glut of paranormal style shows that came out, so he wasn't as familiar. And I kept telling him,

could we let's name the show Holzer's Ghost Files. I think if the audience knows what you know, what the files are that we're investigating. Otherwise it sounds like a seventies detective show. And they didn't change the name. We built, you know, a nice gathering, but just not enough to keep us on for a third season.

And we stayed there for a little over ninety days, just living and breathing and sweating in that same town with the people, and it was it was a great experience. But holy cow, what a bunch of weird paranormal things are going on in that town. And there's everything from UFO sightings to cryptid sidings, to ghosts and what they believe are demons. So that was another head trip to be a part of a program like that.

in Utah, or any of these number of things. You think it's a location deal or is it a people deal. I think it's a mixture of both. I think that like in the case of Butte Montana, here you've got this gorgeous land and it drew all these people because of the minerals that were in the earth, the silver of the gold and the copper, which is really what was so big there.

for everybody. And it was a town you know in violence, steeped in shootouts and fisticuffs and you know, sex and violence and money and greed. And I think that that taints the ground after a while. That kind of anxiety, that kind of stress can have an impact and an

effect on an area. And I don't know if people are drawn to a specific place because of the energy that's there, or do we create this rift, this vortex because of the way we treat a location, its history and the people that walk that place before we were there.

a hotbed of activity of many different styles. Interesting.

I often wonder though, if time is not linear, if it is like the string theory, and it's a big ball of timey wymy wibbly wobbly stuff, right, and it's could it be that the timeline of eighteen hundred to nineteen twenty twenty one happens to being, you know, laying over the timeline of two thousand to two thousand and thirty, And as time and space continue to change and underlate, well, will the next layer of time lay upon Native American spirits or ancient Rome will we see more of that

taking place. It also may have to do with the

belief systems of the locations. You know, the native people and indigenous tribes were so respectful of their dead and did everything they could to put these these people and beings and spirits to rest that I think that there's not that same dissension and even the brutal murders that took place and this enfranchising these these tribes people, which is heartbreaking to talk about, I think that they were on a different level of evolution in a mindset that

although the death was not something that they would have wanted or chosen, and I think they felt that in the battle that they did to try to save their people, save their culture, they move on because it was a heroic deed. So I think there's some elements of that.

I also think it also, you know, we see these cyclical moments when paranormal seems to be in resurgence, and there was that eighteen hundreds to early nineteen hundreds, famine, disease, pestilence, all of these horrible things that were taking place, and people were constantly calling out to the spirit realm and spiritualists, did we rupture something in doing that, that that's why we see that time era, and we don't see the

time era of other places. And maybe the places that do, say the Native American spirits, are places like Skinwalker Ranch or or you know, deep in the wilderness where we don't walk still, and that may be where the indigenous spirits and tribes people still gather. Now, that brings an interesting question to my mind. At least, at least I think it's interesting researchers, at least in Bigfoot. I don't

know if this is true in ghosts or not. Researchers are honestly seem to be kind of few and far between. Most of the people in the Bigfoot world tend to be like fans of the subject or ficionados, you know, but almost nobody has really taken notes, like using Excel sheets and you know that kind of stuff, looking for patterns,

and almost nobody really, very very few people. Are there people doing that in the ghost field or are they doing the equivalent of going out and banging on trees and listening for something and maybe bringing a recording home, you know, which is I guess, Like, I don't know. I've seen a few minutes of occasional ghost shows like I guess yelling at a wall or something and saying, are you there? I don't know.

The Ryan Institute UCLA used to have a huge parapsychological department. Doctor Barry Taff work there. Thelma, oh gosh, her last name is escaping me. But there have been a lot of different places and still some that continue to investigate these type of phenomenon to understand it or try to, and they take the time to corroborate evidence and what they find. You know, what are we able to tell?

My friend Bill Chappele, who is the engineer. He's created so many amazing, fun, interesting tools for the paranormal trade and investigating ghosts. He will tell you he's not necessarily a believer in ghosts. He can't tell you what's activating these pieces of equipment, but he'll take our theories and build equipment around it as an actual electrical engineer to see can these things be influenced by an outside source. And he had a tool called the Paranormal Puck and

it was not real flashy, it wasn't real pretty. You plugged it into your laptop, you ran the software, but it would calibrate and tell you what the temperature is, what the de point average was, what the geomagnetic principles of the area you were in. It gave you all of this background stuff that nobody really cared about because everybody just wants to see a ghost. And he had tons of data, but nobody would bother to look at

the data in correlation with what was taking place. It became more of a thrill in an entertainment industry than it did a scientific principle. And I know I'm going to take heat for saying that, because there are teams out there that claim they're scientific, but like you, where are their reports, where is their scientific work? And who have they peer reviewed with? And you know what's going on that just doesn't exist anymore, well so amongst the

data gatherers. So it sounds like there are some which is good to hear. Of course, you know amongst the data gatherers, has there ever been a study already publishing or what's the gist of the apparitions or whatever? For LAFE a better term that are observed? Are there are there a predominance of a certain time period, kind of going back to what we were talking about before, like our most ghosts, you know, Victorian for example, Victorian era

eighteen hundreds to the early nineteen hundreds. It's like, you know, usually in that roundhouse of about maybe eighteen seventies to nineteen twenty one, depending on the type of garb, the things that they do or say or have been witnessed doing. But being a fan of science as well, I'm not necessarily sure that we're seeing a dead person in the way that you think we.

that has always existed and always will exist. It's been in many different forms, but the spot you're sitting on has always existed and always will well after you're gone and well before you were here. And every person that treads that area is like a page in a book, and from time to time, I think those pages align and you can kind of see the text through one

page into another. And you know, like the movie The Others with Nicole Kidman where she's hearing these ghostly sounds and voices and she's being tormented and spoiler alert on a twenty year old movie, it turns out that they're the dead people and the voices she's here our people from the future that are living in that house. And I really do think that there are elements of that

that have occurred. You know, ghost Hunters did a TV episode when they went to I think it was Mount Washington uh and hotel, and they were engaging with the spirit and they you know, Princess, can you hear us?

there investigating, I was with two other fellow investigators. We rounded the corner and a nurse walked around, stopped and looked at us. Her eyes got huge, she turned and ran the other direction. It's an old, dilapidated building at that point, there aren't nurses working there. What did we just witness? And to her, did she tell somebody in her time era? I just saw three ghosts in the hall.

I just saw three men that were there. They came out of nowhere, And you know, that's what's so fascinating to me about this. I can't give you one specific answer to what this phenomenon is, how it happens, because I think there's many different layers to hauntings. And that's what keeps me so fascinated and intrigued by this.

some harmony. So it's interesting how there are commonalities and threads throughout all of the different levels of what's considered supernatural or paranormal. And it is funny to me that Bigfoot still falls under that umbrella for many people. Right, the cryptids are still in that realm of the supernatural, and you know, just like they're cryptozoological until we find one and now it becomes zoological and it will no longer be supernatural. A li itt'll be just part of

our natural world. But it's interesting to me that there are these different layers of the tapestry that still do seem to connect things like Bigfoot sightings, alien or UFO sightings and haunted hotspots.

ghosts are this, you know, aliens are this. I think there's many different possibilities to what these beings are, and if we limit ourselves, it might limit our ability to look at them more scientifically, to find a way to communicate, find ways to kind of circumvent the normalcy of communication of things that we'd say, this can't be real, this can't exist. So let's put our mindset in a different way.

If we examine it differently, Can we find something that will actually make sense and start to help us bridge that chasm and understand more about the spiritual realm. I think there's times that they knew more two hundred years ago about ghosts and the spiritual realm than we understand about it now. Same with creatures, right, And you know the reverence people had for the mountain gorillas, but everybody

thought that it was a lie. It wasn't until I think it's only been like one hundred and seventy years. One hundred and eighty years since gorillas were officially found.

superstition and mythology. Essentially, the science wasn't even a thing, you know, until probably, I don't know, eighteen thirty or something like that, eighteen fifty. Before that, they were called naturalists, and then science wasn't even a thing. And we think we're all advanced because we have, you know, iPhones in our pocket now now we're infants.

constantly changing. What we believed even ten years ago about death is radically different now, and we're realizing that there may be consciousness in a physical body once the heart stops for up to four hours.

to enjoy that ignorance. You know, ignorance is bliss. I'm going to be pretty happy about this for the moment, because I don't know much. This idea of like the grand unification theory of the paranormal where some people instead of ghosts and demons and this and that's and whatever, they just refer to it as the phenomenon. What do you think about that? Or is that boiling it down

too much? And maybe disrespecting certain aspects of these other phenomenon. Well, I can see that element of it, but I also see the fact that if we just accept it as one thing, that it becomes less ominous. Because look, I can sit here and talk to you about ghosts.

So if we normalize it and take away the stigma of well, this is weird, that's not is the Fay folk Is that any less weird than Bigfoot? I don't think so, because it's gone back in culture, Like the indigenous tribes have talked about bigfoot and have seen them as you know, a fellow race of Indigenous people to a creature, to something almost godlike in some instances, that aliens kind of fit that same realm. Ghosts fit that

same realm. So if we come together on one common ground and say this is phenomenon and this may all be tied together, it may be different, but at least we take the time to look at it. Because if you take out part of science, you take out you know, we're examining blood, but we don't want to look at platelets because platelets aren't our thing. We're all about, you know, white blood cells. Well, then you're missing a big part

of the full, you know, spectrum of the picture. So I think that by having this kind of universal approach to look at this, I think that could be a healthier way for us all to examine it. Take it a little bit more seriously, and you know, the pegs will fall out for the weak links, for the things that don't make any sense.

And I'm like, they're fairies, that's Disney stuff, and she goes, well, Dave, do you realize how many Disney movies have creatures and ghosts in them? Do you scoff at that because that's been represented in your shows? And I'm like, well, no, but that's different. How is that different? These stories predate

ghost stories in some instances. They will look at the Faye and these elements beings as something that predate even Christianity, the Gin and many things that are referred to and referenced in the Bible that predate known man in history. It's really kind of compelling. And she gave me another way to look at it. She said, you'll look at Bigfoot and say, yeah, that that could be real. You'll look at ghosts and say, oh sure, and aliens of course, but the Fay, No, that can't be possible. She said,

that's being ridiculous. There is something to that. People have this, you know, love and compassion and respect for it in

other countries. And then I started reading news stories in the two thousands, not meaning that there's been over two thousand news stories, but I mean since the two thousands began, I have found new stories where multiple countries and cultures have diverted major roadways to avoid troll houses or fairy rings or fairy mounds or giant mounds because they don't want to disturb that culture, that be or set of beings.

So there must be something to it that makes it much more real than we would give it credit to. So I I you know, I've learned to be open to all of it. I don't scoff at anything anymore, no matter how ludicrous it may sound to me, because just because it hasn't been my experience doesn't mean that

it isn't real. You know, there is a parallel of that in the Sasquatch world, even the flesh and blood Sasquatch world, you know where I tend to dwell, And it's that this idea of relati hominoids, you know, Harry hormanoids worldwide, because almost certainly like the iring Pendec, for example, is not the Sasquatch. It's a different species, but we don't know that jury's out about the yarn or the Yowie or even the Alma, that the alma has so

many different characteristics. And then there is actually footprint evidence of the alma and it doesn't seem to be a sasquatch, but still, and the discovery of any of those would benefit the all of the others in that people would be more open to their possibility.

Patterson Gmelin film. I was also born in nineteen sixty seven the same year, so that had a fascination for me right that that footage came out. So I always thought that was cool, But I didn't start taking notice of that until mid seventies when it was on TV all the time, and when I would go down to visit my grandparents in seventy four seventy five to Foley, Alabama. My grandparents owned forty acres of property and only about

ten acres was livable. The rest was just wildness, right, and there were snakes and water moccas and snakes and alligators in the back because they had ponds and water streams back there, so it was it was not a

safe place to be as a kid. But we used to go play in that area all the time, and one time my cousin and I were down by the pond, probably about nine ten o'clock in the morning fishing, and we just heard something big trumping around out there, and we kept looking at each other kind of like, well, you're here. I guess right, it's that safety in numbers. But it was big, whatever it was, and we could

hear it stomping around. And then finally at the back of the pond there were these tall shrubs and bushes that maybe eight nine feet tall, and I see this hand come up over the top of the bush and it pushes the bush down, and now I can see from about the tip of the nose up of this being that I believe was a sasquatch, but it had a darker inset face. It had this kind of blackish gray mane, and the hair came up over its fingers like Chewbacca's hair. Right, It wasn't just like you would

think of a gorilla. It was like long, drapy hair. And my cousin and I just literally my brain broke. We just stared at this thing and then looked at each other and turned back around and looked at this thing staring at us, and then we scooby dooded up the hill and half of the thing we're laughing about it is we're going to get up there and find out it's one of our idiot dads in a gorilla mask trying to freak us out. We get up to the house. Our dads are there, our cousins are there,

our grandpas are there, our uncles are there. Everybody's accounted for, and we were so spun out by it that they all grabbed their rifles and went out into the woods looking. And at that time, nobody was thinking, go to the area where it stood and look at the ground. Are their footprints. I'm sure that there was regret because my uncle grew to love bigfoot stories, and I'm sure he always kind of kicked himself for never having gone to

look at that space. But that was the perfect environment for something like this to live because ten acres is livable. It leaves you, you know, thirty acres of woodland area that nobody goes into really because of all of the other inherent dangers that are out there. So it's kind of a safety zone and safety buffer for whatever might be existing. And my grandparents saw UFO activity over their property. Again, here's a nexus point where here's a creature, here's alien UFO.

Things that have been seen over their property. It's kind of telling again that in some of these places it just aligns properly.

big and crunching around. My dad and uncle and grandfather used to go out hunting in part of the back of the woods and you could hear him walking and it was just a.

film and scientifically look at it. To me, it only gets better where I would have thought that with the abilities that we've got, it would have degraded the footage and made it look worse or made it so glaringly obvious that it was a costume. And I think that, And I don't know where you guys stand on this particularly, but that footage to me, still holds the test of time. Fifty six years later.

It was a prank put on by Bob Huronymous and I can't remember the name of the costumer off the Philip Morris, and I actually had both of those gentlemen on my radio show and I talked to them about it, and they, oh, it was awesome we created the costume, and I said, okay. So in nineteen sixty seven, the Planet of the Apes came out That was cutting edge technology makeup with millions of dollars put into the work.

There was two thousand and one, A Space Odyssey which opens with these bipedal Harry homitids that looked like crappy, long haired gorilla costumes.

So you mean to tell me that in nineteen sixty seven you created a costume out of an old gorilla costume and football pads that stands the test of time today that we can actually see muscle structure in the calves, the thighs, and the back as it's walking away. And when they gave you the opportunity to recreate this in the early two thousands, or maybe it was a late nineties, they gave them the ability to recreate a costume with the new technology that exists. Their costume looked junkier than

something my kids could have put together. And that was a professional costumer.

together and had heronomous walking around in. And they, you know, I was very polite throughout the conversation, but I pushed on these points and they couldn't give me an answer I felt was real. I felt it was all very disingenuous and to what end. I don't understand why disavow it unless they felt like they got cut out of something. And as far as I understand, there wasn't a lot of money that was made, and really the only one that really made the money was Patterson on the footage,

and I don't even know that that's a reality. Maybe you guys can answer that element for me.

sasquatch like creature in a in an Indonesian monastery. And he spent his money that he earned by taking it on tour and going to places like the Spokane Colisseum and the Portland Coliseum and whatever else. He spent all that money on a trip to Indonesia on a wild goose chase.

said they had a live sasquatch in a cage. And in fact, a number of years ago, a gentleman who at the time was an anthropology student in eastern Washington, I believe, contacted me and said that he was the guy that Roger kind of lined up to pull some shenanigans if they had to, because he was going to go try to buy the sasquatch from the monks at the monastery, but if things went sideways, he was willing to steal it, and he had an anthropologist on hand to help him with it if in case it ever

went that far. But it never did or anything, so there was no nothing illegal going on, but apparently he sure thought about it. So that seems like an awfully weird thing to do if you're if you you know, put somebody in a suit and filmed it. And he died in basically poverty, in like what seventy two, seventy three I think it was seventy three. I think, Yeah, he died thinking that with more money he could probably

cure himself of the Hodgskins disease that killed him. So yeah, it's unfortunate but weird behavior for someone who easily hoaxed such a great and compelling piece of footage.

Unfortunately because of it, you know, we have we had trouble with our TV show for the same reason. You know, it had to be you know, flashy and cool and had to hook people because you got to get them around for that commercial break. I mean, I I think Bobo go to to test to this. I've got I got hundreds of emails from people saying you're doing this all wrong, you're banging on trees making noise. Nope, your

guys are jackasses. You should go sit in a tree stand and blow descent and be quiet and thinking, well, that's horrible, horrible television. First of all, no one's ever going to watch that. But you know, at the same time, like I've been pretty successful the last couple of years of this bigfoot thing, gathering all sorts of interesting evidence

and information. But a walk on a road during the day where one out of five times, one out of eight times you go, you find something cool that's not sexy, that's just time spent in the woods, and the media just doesn't care. But they sure like when some jackass dresses up in a monkey suit and waves at a train, right. But again, even in those elements, there's something that's a good takeaway. Like I was just like everybody, I kind of bought into that, and I was like, that's cool footage.

But what I found even more compelling about it is here you've got something that people could say, there's no way a bigfoot could be there one second and gone the next. From that footage, when that guy crouches down into kind of the fetal position, he just becomes part of the bushes. If you weren't paying attention, you wouldn't have even noticed that there was a guy out there

dressed in a gorilla suit. So if that's possible, why couldn't an actual creature that's used to these areas and adaptable have evolved in a way that they could be standing right there and you never notice because of the way that they hide themselves and blend into their surroundings. Yeah, that suit is actually commercially available, and it's pretty yellow.

It's kind of a golden yellow brown color. And I know that that Colorado train footage thing that we're talking about, that like the dead grass and stuff that it was, that's kind of a similar color a Sasquatches, for the most part, are darker in color, you know, not not always,

but darker in color. They are the color of the woods, just like pretty much every other animal that lives in the woods of great interest, and certainly they are very very good at what they do, and most of the time when they are seen, the first thing they do is stand completely still. You can wear turquoise in the woods and at two hundred yards stand completely still and you're probably not going to be seen.

just how brilliant nature is. So if a snake can make itself look like a bug for you know, something to eat, and all of these other animals have got these ways of just adapting. The cuddlefish that becomes translucent, octopus that can change multiple colors and kind of fade into any kind of obscure background. That's really remarkable.

and it has been very disarming. Nothing like it ever when I've been to, you know, actual hauntings. I think it is so few and far between true demonic possession or demonic realm existing in some of these locations. I just think a lot of it is people's perceptions or fear levels. Like you guys have no problem tramping around in the woods even though there's bear and coyote and wildcats and mountain lions out there. You're out there protecting yourself,

but you're still putting yourself in harm's way. I wouldn't do that right. That to me sounds crazy. I'm more afraid of being eaten by something that we know exists in my search to find something we're kind of sure exists, So to me, that's a different deal. But like with the paranormal, I know ghosts exist. I can't tell you what they are, but I don't run into the demonic realm that often. That is such a very limited slice

of the pie. And I've talked to people that have been terrified, and I'll tell your audience this is one of my favorite stories. This woman reached out to me. She goes, I had this paranormal team come in. They were here fifteen minutes and left and they shared the EVP with me, and they told me on their way out, we have a demon and that they're not capable of

dealing with this. And I said, well, what was the EVP the electronic voice phenomenon recording, and she played it for me and you hear them talking in the background. They're like, yeah, we're going to shut up our equipment. And then you hear which sounds like somebody's stomach making a noise.

go break great grandma's plate. And she laughed, and I said, do you realize the absurdity of that? Do you think that? Is that like Satan's kind of off nephew, And that's the only job you can trust him with. And we talked about it, and I said, just out of curiosity, where did your great grandmother get it? She goes, she got it from her mother in law when they got married. And I said, oh, what was their relationship like? Oh,

they hated each other. I said, So could it be that great grandma came to visit you and saw that plate up there and knocked it off the wall once and for all to be done with it. And she laughed, She goes, That's exactly what my great grandmother would have been like.

Earth that's possible. That's that shtick. That's Hollywood nonsense. And when I got knocked on my ass in the Holser Files first episode at Whaleyhouse, you guys have been around camera guys in dark, right, They're trying to get around you to get a good shot, and they're tripping over logs or whatever. I just assumed that one of the camera guys had come around behind me in this pitch black and tripped on the carpet and fell into me. Because it was that heavy, it felt like something hit me,

like it was falling into me. And when you watch the episode and I turn around, my brain just can't figure out what I'm not seeing. There should have been something there. I got hit hard and I can't wrap my head around it.

of the grave while they were shot to death. So I think that we uncover the story of this ghost and why it's there, and give it a voice again and help people have a name to connect to the history. And sometimes it stops, it stops being that way it could have been. I could have jumped to the conclusion of demon very easily. And I was so lucky to have a great production team that never once asked us to say anything was a demon. They would ask, is

there any chance that's demonic? And then we would debate it on camera, and then when we would calm down and cooler heads would prevail, we'd often all, right, let's not assume it's a demon. Let's assume it's this ghost, and what can we do to help it. What's the next layer of this story? What do we have to do to help out? And so I come at it from a different point. I'm not walking in a place of fear all the time. That's something evil is trying

to do me harm. I understand ghosts might just be an unsettled spirit if I elect to stay here and watch over my family after I die in spirit form, I'm a wise ass as a human. Why wouldn't I be a wise ass as a ghost? If somebody's afraid, why wouldn't I poke them? Why wouldn't I moment freak them out? Right? I think once you get past that, that's when that's when you start to have really interesting experiences. And that's what I live for now.

of them right now? Or just like this is like some sort of autobiographical thing, or tell us about the book because it's brand new.

out of their house. And then I had it for a number of years and had some weird experiences, and somebody else wanted it and they now are the owner of that strange doll. So I just tell the story and how it affected me. There's a story in there about my experience in a haunted hospital when I was there having my gallbladder removed. That story they actually featured

on a TV show called Haunted Hospitals. They didn't tell the right story, but you know, it's a fun story to watch unfold on TV and then read the real story, which I think is creepier than what they they put out. But and then the rest of the stories are stories from people just like you and me that have been in the right place at the right time, or had

an experience that they can't wrap their head around. Some of the people just want to remain anonymous and do not want their story associated with them because they are military or law enforcement, or even moms that just don't want their kids who love the paranormal listening to these shows to hear what their mom saw or dealt with. So I've shared those stories in ways that whoever says

I can involve their names, I involve their names. For the people that ask me not to, I keep the names out of it, and I just clear up their punctuation, their grammar, flesh out the story a little bit, but it is exactly as they told me. And that's what we have to offer up for people. And this first book has I think fifteen or sixteen stories in it, everything from time slip phenomena to doppelgangers, changelings, this creature called the Bloody Bones Man that's terrifying the black eyed kids,

ghosts and UFOs and aliens. So I didn't want the book to be pigeonholed as a ghost story book. It is a book that tells many different stories from many different walks of life and many different belief systems, and it's just these are stories I don't think should just lay in somebody's drawer. So I'm happy to put them out there. And the people that shared the stories with me all gave me permission. As a matter of fact.

It's nice. I go on Amazon and look up my book Theater of the Mind Tales from the Darkness, and I've got, you know, over fifty reviews, and a few of those reviews are from the people whose story I represented in the book, and they were so pleased with the way the story came out and me telling their story in a respectful way and keeping their you know, sanctity.

friend of a friend, and it was passed along. Brian Bethel was the guy, and he tells you his story.

heard so many different variations of these stories. You know, if you'd like, I'll tell you when that happened here in Minnesota. That is one of my favorites.

was a few years ago. We had all that rain. Remember it just was like two weeks of rain. Dave. I'm like, yeah, she goes, well, we were diligent listeners. We would watch the news from nine to ten, turn off the news, go into bed, turn on the radio, and fall asleep listening to your radio show. And I'm like, well, that's great. And she goes in this one night we turn off the TV and we can hear what sounds like kids running around out in our front yard playing

in the puddles and playing in the rain. And my husband went over and he looked through the blinds and he's like, God, what's going on. Where are these screwy kids? And she said, honey, listen, it's been raining NonStop. The parents probably just let the kids run around to burn off some energy. We used to play in the rain. Okay, they go to bed, that's it. About three o'clock in the morning, she wakes up and her husband sleeps with

his back to the wall. She's sleeping closer to the door, and she wakes up and there are three children standing inside the room. There's a girl in the middle and two boys flanking her, and she can see them from the light that's in the room. They have jet black eyes. She says, Dave, I closed my eyes. I took a deep breath because I'm a good listener. I'm a good

student of the paranormal. And we know that in those moments that hypnagoga hypnopompic states of when we're going into sleep or coming out of them, we can have these hallucinatory moments where dreams and reality come together. And maybe I was dreaming about children and this is just a

layer of it. So I closed my eyes. I took a couple of cleansing breaths, and I opened my eyes and they were still standing there, and I started to reach to my husband and I opened my mouth to scream, and the little girl in the middle step forward, pressing her finger to her lips. She said, ssh, we just want to look at you. Oh right, she scream shakes

her husband. He gets up. They go through the entire house, turning on every light in the entire house and that's great, husband, right, He gets up with her to go find out what's going on. They cuddled in bed, lights burning in the house until morning time, and that's when they heard the sound of kids laughter outside again, and it just unnerved and freaked them out. But my favorite part of the story.

First of all, that was a weird, bone chilling tale, But my favorite part was a couple nights later after we share that story, I go down from our radio station into the parking ramp and there's a cop car park behind my car and he goes, are you Dave Schrader, And I'm like yeah, with Darkness Radio, I'm like yeah. He goes, yeah, we got to tell you big fans of the show all the night crews on EMTs, firefighters

and police love your stuff. We don't believe it. It's insane, but it's fun to listen to, and you know, you get great stories on there. But the other night you told that story about the three black eyed kids in that woman's room here in Minnesota, and it was about eleven forty five. You told the story and then went to commercial break, And you go to commercial break, and my partner and I start laughing about how absurd and

stupid this is. When we get a call over the radio that an elderly woman is calling to complain that there are three children in her front yard at eleven forty five at night that she doesn't know and they won't leave. And he said, and I looked at my partner and he looked at me, and we shook our head and turned the radio off and said, screw that, we're not going. So I love the fact that the cops were so unnerved by the story they wouldn't even go out to investigate what was happening.

me know if I can share your story. We might reach out to you in the future a share it on the radio show The Paranormal sixty, or it may be included an upcoming volume of one of the books that we put out. And again, my job is not to prove or disprove any of these stories. My job as a curator to share the stories that people have

had happen. And the reason that I've taken that tack is that there have been some of the stories I've heard that are easy to make you roll your eyes at, and then we've shared them on the air, and I've received emails and phone calls from listeners saying, Dave, I want you to know that I've had a very weird life and I had an experience identical to that with the exact same creature, and I thought I was insane.

Now that I know I'm not alone, I feel so much better that somebody else has seen what I saw. So I've removed all judgment and just share the stories as they're given to me because I think they're fascinating, interesting looks into the human psyche and belief system that is fantastic.

my friends Tresa and Jenny. Thursday you get the Paranormal sixty News and then Friday we've got True Hauntings, which is a show that comes out of Australia. These two amazing ladies that kind of look at at paranormal stories, de evolve them, try to understand them and weigh in on if they think that, after what they've read and the proof that's been presented, is it a real haunting or not. So we wanted to make a network where it was safe to come no matter what your beliefs

or interests are. And there are stories for everybody.

or an unsigned copy of the book. As soon as I get the order, I sign them and send them out that day, so that's available, and I hope that your listeners will come along on my journey and enjoy what we have to share as well.

and informative. So thank you guys for what you do and for doing this amazing show as well.