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And welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nori with you. Let me tell you about. Nicole Strickland is an afterlife and paranormal researcher, best selling author, podcaster, speaker from San Diego, California. She's the founder and director of the San Diego Paranormal Research Society and the California coordinator to the Ghost Research Society. Nicole has been featured in a number of media outlets and is known for her research of the legendary RMS
Queen Mary in Long Beach, California. She obtained a BA from the University of Arizona and an MS degree from National University. Her book is called The Afterlife Chronicles.
Nicole Welcome, Welcome, Yeah, thank you so much. Oh my gosh, this is such an honor to be on this show. So thank you so much for having me.
I'm glad we've got you here. I've been on the Queen Mary a couple of times. That ship is haunted.
Oh my god. I know some people don't believe it. I do, right, and then you do.
But absolutely there's a little girl down there near the engine room. What is she doing down there? You know?
I think I'm sure you're referring to Jackie.
Yeah.
And it's interesting because in my research and even some of my colleagues, there's really no origins to really let us know where she came from. There's this I don't know where this who put this out on the internet that her last name may be Torin. I've tried to look into that. I can't find any verifiable information that would support that. So we don't really know who she is or where she comes from. But she seems to be very intelligent, very interactive, seems to be drawn to
certain people. I've seen her myself. She almost looks very similar to like a Shirley Temple, around six or seven years old. Likes to play and sing, responds a lot to nursery rhymes and songs like London Bridges or Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star. And she's seen often in the former first and third class pool, but she's also been seen and interacted with on other areas of the show.
And during World War Two, that ship was loaded with soldiers, wasn't it absolutely?
In fact? On its July twenty fifth, nineteen forty three, voyage. It hit a record and it still holds that record today of sixteen thousand, six hundred and eighty three souls including servicemen and crew. So it's pretty incredible.
Wow, what a ship. How did n Carl Strickland get involved in the paranormal?
Oh?
My goodness.
Let me try to summarize this. I've always, even from a child, I've always had this interest in the unknown, specifically ghosts and spirits. I have always, like I said, been a tra to studying the unknown and would pretty much read or watch anything I could about the paranormal. And so that interest stayed with me throughout my elementary,
middle and high school years. And it almost culminated after I had a very profound experience with my maternal grandmother, Helen low Pinto, and she called me the night before she passed, and then the following day, my mom, of course, her daughter called me and I knew from the tone of her voice that something was wrong, and she told me that she had passed on and transitioned, and so I after a few days, I went back to San
Diego to attend her services. I was going to the University of Arizona at the time, and so when I came back to the University of Arizona, I started having odd experiences in my apartment that I couldn't explain. So I thought, am I projecting this? Is this some sort of bereavement hallucination on my part? Don't Now that I think about it, I don't think so. I think she truly visited me. But that was such a profound experience and that's really what catapulted me into active investigation of
the paranormal. And so that's kind of how it all started for me.
And you jumped in in a big way because you are very heavily involved in all these things, aren't you. Yeah.
I've been doing this for about twenty years, give or take, and I've had the pleasure of working with different teams in Southern California and seeing how different people approach investigation and different methodologies. And so in two thousand and nine, that's when I founded the San Diego Paranormal Research Society, and so we've been going strong. We've obviously investigated historical landmarks and businesses, even some private residences, but we like
to educate. You know, we're not experts or anything, but we like to educate the public on how to invest gate the paranormal. We even did tours at the Rancho Buenavista Adobe, which is a known historical landmark in Vista, California. We did fundraising paranormal tours there for about ten years and so, and I do a lot of presentations on the paranormal, different topics and whatnot. So it's really it's a passion of mine and I take my work quite seriously.
Nicole, what do you views on the paranormal? Just what do you think it is?
Well, there's so many you know, there's different facets. You know, you have the study of you know, ghosts and hauntings and spirit communication, you have ufology, cryptozoology, you have the study of a cult, you know, paranormal. Some people think that it is more of a pseudoscience. Other people think that it can legitimately be a science. I'm kind of in between that. I think that it obviously entails experiences that we can't necessar fairly explain one hundred percent by science.
But I'm of the belief that there's almost a connection, or almost a matrix between different energies. And I don't know if that has to do with a collective consciousness or a greater consciousness of the metaverse or different universities.
But I just feel that it's there's information out there, and I think that when we pass on, speaking of humans, even animals, when we pass on from or when physical death occurs in our soul lives on, I think that we have access to a lot of greater knowledge that can be bestowed on the living.
So what are your thoughts of the paranormal research teams and some of the equipment they use and things like that.
Yeah, it's some teams are are a mix that utilise a mix of science based methodology, some teams and metaphysics employing psychic mediums, and other people use one or the other, they use both. There's so many different types of teams, and I really wish that there could be more of a framework whereby all teams can almost utilize to have more of the control set in place. So again, I know, the San Diego Paranormal Research Society we like to concentrate on and I know a lot of people cringe at
the word science or scientific, but I'll use it. But more science based like methodologies, so spirit photography, audio experimentation, different types of environmental monitoring, but also mixing in some of metaphysical techniques as well, like employing divining rods or pendulums, even employing psychic mediums. Of course that needs to be done of course with cat is to avoid bias and all that. So there's so many now with social media, I think, and more interest in the paranormal. There are
so many teams out there. But I also think too that there's a difference between a group of people that want to go thrill seek. Now there's nothing wrong with that, but there is a difference between the thrill seeking mentality and those that actually utilize and employee paranormal research because there's so many different aspects of that. You have what
I call adjunct type of research. So you're doing client interviews, you're doing historical research, you're doing property research, even sometimes genealogical or geological research, so you have all those components. Then you have the investigation or sometimes if you have tenure out of property and you're doing more of a case study, you have all this stuff that you have to review and it takes time and it's tedious, and so there's a difference between thrill seeking and more of
a legitimate paranormal research approach to it. So I think that that's, in my opinion, can almost delineate, not delinea but kind of convolute the research process because there's so many different types of teams and different personalities and whatnot going into it. So I really do think that in the future, I hope that we can have more of a standard framework whereby all teams can employ. That way, there's more control set in place, and we can test more theories and hypotheses.
Well with fair normal investigator Nicole Strickland. Our website is her name linked up at coast tocosdam dot com and her book is called The Afterlife Chronicles. Tell us a little bit about the book.
Oh yeah, you know. I tell people that really it took less than a year to write, but really it took my entire life span so far, pretty much because I.
Had I was going to say, less than year is not bad, not bad.
Yeah, I think it was about a year. But I've had people tell me that it's almost like an encyclopedia. I never thought about that. And it's interesting because after I wrote it, I was going through and I said to myself, oh my goodness, there's so much information in here. Are people going to be turned off by that, but
that's the one thing that people really like. So I talk about different aspects the afterlife, so the distinction between ghosts and spirits, spirit communication with the living, recognizing the signs of spirit communication, the role of intuition and mind, body and spirit, and connecting with the afterlife. I have
a chapter on there. I think it's chapter four, where examine the profound or what I think is the profound connectedness between the living world and the afterlife, misconceptions, communicating with the spirit realm, both standard techniques and more metaphysical technique, spirit guides, and even also talking a little bit about grief and loss and how connecting with the other side
can help in the grief and loss process. And what's interesting is I have I think I had about seventeen contributors, and they each opted to share a story, and those stories help to support the topics that are addressed in the book. So it was really a passion to write very cathartic as well.
What do you think the afterlife really is, Nicole? I mean, what does it function for I?
Oh my gosh, this is let me try to condense this. I do think that when we pass on that our soul or our true essence does survive physical death. There's a lot of science or basically in the form of a near death experiences, there isn't really there's no proof of the afterlife. Some people believe that consciousness and the soul are the same thing. Others may believe that the afterlife is dependent on our beliefs. Does it exist regardless, Some say there's no scientific evidence of the afterlife.
Others do.
I do feel that it's a place of where we can where our soul does mature and goes through the ranks of spiritthood. So and with NDEs, even near death experiences, people of all different ages, different cultural backgrounds, and this has been going on for years. They describe these same traits or similar traits that people go through during an NDE, and they often say that where they go, they've encountered departed loved ones. They've recalled their animals running up to
them and greeting them. And they've often said that where they go it's so utterly beautiful, more vivid, with colors that we don't even see on earth. They can even some people have even said that the environment where they go almost matches similarities that were known to them, cultural similarities that were known to them when they were of bodies. So I do think it's a place that we evolve. I think it's a beautiful place. I'm not going to say it's heaven, right, but it's I do think it exists,
but we just can't. We're not yet at that point to scientifically prove it.
Have you ever had a situation that just scared the living daylights out of you?
Scared? You know, that's a good question. I haven't. I've done a lot of research, a lot of investigations, even at asylums, sanitariums like Waverley Hills. Let's see what else, abandoned hospitals, you name it, prisons. I haven't really ever been scared, per se. I've had a couple of experiences.
There was one, oh gosh, I think this was around twenty ten, and that we were investigating an abandoned mental asylum here in southern California, and there was a part in one of our in one of the rooms, we were setting up a static I think it was an infrared camera tripoted it and everything, and I remember this humanoid black figure, almost darker than black, just appeared appeared to be like seven or eight feet pall just charged at us. And so that's one of the times where
I actually truly exited the building. So I don't really get scared really a lot, but that's one encounter that I can recall where I was like, oh, maybe.
A little bit, just a little bit, just a little bit. What have been some of the weirdest stories some of your investigators have told you.
On my investigations are just people on other people telling.
Me people in general, Oh my goodness.
I've had a lot of experience or people telling me where they've well after life paranormal, let's see, I've from starting with me, I've had a lot of experiences where profound experiences like with the part of loved ones, dream visitations with loved ones. But I think shadow figure. A lot of investigators that I've talked to have had a
lot of interesting experiences with shadow figures. And we don't you know, there's the classic shadow figure that is thought to be maybe related to the MiB or men in black or alien species or whatnot. It's thought to maybe observe the living. It's either really tall or really short. I've had a lot of investigators share some unique stories about about shadow figures and how they just seemed to like be here to observe the living. I'm trying to think of like really really odd stories. I have one.
It's not really paranormal per se, but it really does support the idea that all investigators should have some sort of emergency plan in place. And this was we were actually investigating let's see, I'm not going to say the name of the restaurant, but it was up in Ocean side. It's actually built on top of a Native American burial ground, and so we were there. We were about an hour into the investigation. We were broken up into two teams, and the other team radioed me and said, stay where
you are. This place has just been robbed. And so what happened is two men actually came right through the kitchen door armed with a gun and they were, I guess going to steal or whatnot. And so we had to stay on the premises and talk to the police and everything. So that's something that you don't really think you'll encounter, but you could as well. So that's but there's so many to so many different types of experiences.
Listen a lot. I had one a couple days ago, this is weird. Two days ago, I have not thought of the actor James Earl Jones in five or ten years. Oh right, But a couple of days ago it just hit me, is he still with us? What's he up to?
Oh? My god?
It was weird. And then the next day he dies at the age of ninety three, and it's big news all over the place, and I'm going, I haven't thought of him in five or ten years. I think of him, and the next day he dies. What's that all about?
That? You know? That's those types of things have happened to me as well, and I've heard stories like that from others. It's I think we can just sometimes tap into things. And I wonder if it has to do with this idea of collective consciousness or being able to tap into knowledge that we don't necessarily know at the time, but we can sense it ahead of time. Is it a premonition? I don't know, but I just I think it has to do with this idea that we're all connected.
I mean, clearly, I asked myself the question, is he still alive? I didn't know. I just didn't know. And then I checked and he was alive except the next day. The big story is he dies at the age of ninety three.
That is incredible, absolutely incredible. My grandmother actually had this ability to where she would know certain things. I don't want to say it's an ability. It may have been coincidental. I don't know if I believe in coincidences.
There are no coincidences.
Yeah, yeah, I say that I kind of I guess in a safety sort of way because I agree with that as well. I don't think that. I don't believe in any coincidences. I think everything happens for a reason. But my grandmother sometimes would envision things or say, oh, this is going to happen, and then it does. So it's really bizarre how that happens.
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