The Paranormal Podcast

Jason Offutt returns to The Paranormal Podcast to take us around the world in search of strange creatures, cryptids, and legends from his new book, Chasing the World's Monsters. We dig into something especially fascinating: why remarkably similar monster traditions turn up in widely separated cultures and across thousands of years. From Bigfoot-like creatures and mysterious little people to Thunde...

What happens when the people reporting UFO encounters are trained observers whose careers depend on getting the details right? British police inspector Roy Teague joins me to discuss his book Close Encounters of the Police Kind and the remarkable accounts he has collected from hundreds of police officers. We talk about why serving officers are often reluctant to come forward, the stigma that still...

Can anyone develop psychic ability, or is it something you’re simply born with? Professional tarot reader, deck creator and author Kerry Ward returns to The Paranormal Podcast to talk about her new book, This Book Will Make You Psychic, and her belief that psychic ability may be far more common than we realize. Kerry explains the idea of a personal “psychic fingerprint,” why our intuitive abilitie...

What if UFOs are about something much stranger than visitors flying here in advanced spacecraft? Dr. Jonathan Kendall, physician and author of The Metaphysics of UFOs, joins me to explore the possibility that the UFO phenomenon may have a spiritual or metaphysical side that challenges the usual nuts-and-bolts explanation. We get into alien abduction reports, the difficulty of separating genuine my...

Jeff Belanger returns to The Paranormal Podcast to talk about the newly revised and updated edition of his classic book, The World’s Most Haunted Places. Jeff shares how more than two decades of investigating hauntings have changed the way he thinks about ghosts, from something he once believed he could define fairly neatly to a mystery that now seems far more complicated. We explore what makes a...

John Seer joins Jim to share the unusual experiences that he says have shaped his life and changed the way he understands reality. From encounters he still struggles to explain to messages he believes come from a consciousness greater than our own, his story raises some very big questions. What is consciousness? Are we more connected than we realize? And could some of the strange things people exp...

Jacques Vallée joins us for a wide-ranging conversation about where UFO and UAP research stands today, and why he believes the subject demands far more than simple answers about visitors from another planet. We talk about his new book, Forbidden Science 7: Final Report, the growing willingness of scientists and universities to take the phenomenon seriously, and the challenge of studying something...

What happens when a veteran criminal investigator turns his attention to the paranormal? Lawrence Lawson joins me to talk about the experiences that took him from a long career in law enforcement into serious paranormal research, beginning with a full-bodied apparition he witnessed as a young correctional officer in Miami. We get into how his detective background shapes the way he approaches stran...

Paranormal investigator, television personality, podcaster and bestselling author Amy Bruni returns to The Paranormal Podcast to discuss her new book, Cuisine to Kill For: Recipes and True Crime Stories from the World’s Most Haunted Places. Amy explains how the success of Food to Die For led to this follow-up, which features 60 recipes connected to haunted locations with true crime histories, incl...

For the 21st anniversary of The Paranormal Podcast, Jim welcomes Bridget Marquardt, host of Ghost Bunny and longtime paranormal aficionado, for a special conversation recorded at Spotify Studios. Bridget traces her fascination with the unexplained back to a frightening childhood experience with the supernatural. She also shares stories from her time at the Playboy Mansion, including the apparition...

What happens when neuroscience, psychology, and the paranormal meet? Dr. Melissa Maffeo, author of Science of the Supernatural: Critical Thinking for the Mind and Brain, joins Jim to explore how fear, expectation, sleep paralysis, infrasound, and the quirks of human memory can shape experiences that feel unmistakably supernatural. They also dig into near-death experiences, alien abductions, psychi...

What would it mean to believe you had lived a past life connected to one of history’s darkest chapters? Author Benjamin Carraud shares the story behind Goodbye, Fields of Prokhorovka: Past Life Memories of a Waffen-SS Officer, including the spontaneous memories that began while he was living in China, his efforts to rule out conventional explanations, and the research that eventually led him to th...

Was Roswell really the first major American UFO crash story? Author Paul Blake Smith joins Jim to discuss a case he believes deserves far more attention than it gets: the reported 1941 crash near Cape Girardeau, Missouri. His book, The UFO Bombshell Before Roswell: Missouri’s 1941 Crash and Cover-Up, explores claims of a downed craft, strange bodies, military involvement, and a local minister alle...

Artificial intelligence is not a ghost, a UFO, or a cryptid, but it may be one of the strangest and most unsettling mysteries of our time. On this episode of The Paranormal Podcast, Jim talks with A. G. G. Liu, co-author of The Handy Artificial Intelligence Answer Book, about the rise of AI and the big questions it raises about consciousness, control, creativity, and what it means to be human. Cou...

Before Amityville, before the Warrens, and long before famous hauntings became part of pop culture, there was the Wizard Clip haunting. Dr. Stan Williams joins Jim to dig into this strange and deeply historic case from the 1790s, where a farmer named Adam Livingston found himself at the center of unexplained poltergeist activity, mysterious fabrics cut into crescent shapes, and a haunting that sho...

Rock and roll has always had a shadow side, and Richard Syrett joins Jim to explore some of its strangest stories from his new book, Tales from the Rock and Roll Twilight Zone. From the roots of blues folklore and Robert Johnson’s legendary crossroads tale to theories about the Beatles, “Paul is Dead,” and the eerie staying power of rock’s greatest mysteries, Richard looks at why music history see...

Can astrology help us better understand love, attraction, compatibility, and the patterns we keep repeating in relationships? On this episode of The Paranormal Podcast, Jim talks with Canadian astrologer, and author Tracy Quinlan about her book Charting Love with Astrology. Tracy explains how the birth chart can offer insight into romance, marriage, friendship, sexuality, timing, and the deeper dy...

David Alderton joins Jim to explore the strange and enduring world of mysterious creatures, from unicorns and mermaids to Thunderbirds, dragons, werewolves, vampires and Sasquatch. Drawing from his book Mysterious Creatures: The Truth Behind the Legends, Alderton looks at how folklore, natural history, fear, misunderstanding and real animals may have combined to create some of the world’s most fam...

Darnella Ford joins us to discuss her extraordinary journeys into the hereafter and the out-of-body experiences that changed the course of her life. After years of meditation, breathwork, and studying ideas connected to consciousness, neuroscience, and quantum theory, Darnella says she discovered that the physical world is only one small part of a much larger reality. She shares how these experien...

Veteran television producer and investigative journalist Miguel Sancho joins Jim for a fascinating deep dive into the unexplained through the lens of mainstream journalism. Drawing on his years at ABC’s 20/20 and CBS’s 48 Hours, Sancho explains how a skeptic found himself confronting cases that resisted easy debunking. From UFO whistleblowers and military footage to near-death experiences and stra...

What did the one of the first private astronauts really see during the dawn of commercial spaceflight? In this fascinating conversation, filmmaker Kevin Curran joins Jim to discuss Beyond Blue Sky: The Untold Story of the First Private Astronauts and the extraordinary experiences of astronaut Brian Binnie during the historic SpaceShipOne program. From high-risk experimental flights to mysterious g...

Najah Lightfoot joins us to explore the fascinating and often misunderstood world of dolls through the lens of her book The Spiritual Magic of Dolls. We dig into why dolls have such a powerful presence across cultures and history, and how they’ve gone from cherished companions to objects of fear in modern times. Najah shares her personal connection to dolls, how Hollywood has shaped our perception...

Jim sits down with astrologer, therapist, and author Carmen Turner-Schott to explore how astrology, past lives, and psychology may be more connected than we realize. Carmen shares the remarkable paranormal experience that first set her on this path, then breaks down how birth charts act as a “map of the soul,” revealing patterns that shape personality, relationships, and life direction. The conver...

John J. Davis was clinically dead for SEVEN minutes and came back! He shares extraordinary account that began with a devastating accident and a medical emergency. What he describes is a vivid journey into what he believes is the afterlife, not darkness, but a place of purpose, connection, and overwhelming clarity. From the very start, his story challenges the idea that death is something to fear a...

Jim welcomes author Brad Ricca to explore the surprising intersection of Harry Houdini, Abraham Lincoln, and the explosive rise of spiritualism in America. Brad paints a vivid portrait of Houdini not just as a master illusionist, but as a relentless crusader determined to expose mediums he believed were exploiting grief for profit. From dramatic jail escapes to deeply personal attempts to contact...