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Podcast

218 – Ghosts of the Shooting Star – Stories from Minnesota ParaCon 2018

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And I would drive 500 miles and I would drive 500 more…

So, we hopped in the Sunspot van and Wendy, Scott from WhatsYourGhostStory.com, and I drove a thousand miles this weekend to the Shooting Star Casino in Mahnomen, Minnesota for their 2018 Paracon. It was a fun-filled three days where we made dozens of new friends, talked about hundreds of paranormal experiences, and even got to play some Blackjack (Wendy has a system, in case you were wondering!)

Mike, Wendy, and Scott manning the booth!

Now, we’ve had vendor tables at several different paranormal conventions before and it is hard to stand out. You’re competing with celebrities (we had two lovely actresses right next to us and Chip frickin’ Coffey right across the way), paranormal presentations, a bar open all day, and gambling. How are we going to get people’s attention with our little podcast? Well, we decided to create a paranormal quest where people could enter to win a sweet prize package of ghost tour tickets, Sunspot CDs, books on Chicago ghost stories, and a haunted Gingerbread house.

Chuck Woolery, eat your heart out!

So, how were we going to get everyone to come on by and get weird with us? Well, we tried to do a little “paranormal quest” game where we had three sections:

The eyeball test tubes we used to conduct our “favorite paranormal topic” poll

Once people answered our questions, then we entered them into the drawing! So, what did we discover about the Paracon attendees?

  • “Purple Rain” is their favorite Prince song by a huge margin
  • There’s not as many Vikings fans as you’d think, most of them couldn’t even name a player
  • Ghosts are the most popular topic, followed by demons, then UFOs (I know, right? Unexpected.). Cryptids came in last, which broke Bigfoot’s heart.
  • More than three-quarters of the people we met had a personal ghostly encounter and a majority of them were about their family and loved ones. That was really nice. They were mainly positive and comforting experiences. 
Daniel, the winner of the paranormal prize pack! He shared several of his paranormal experiences with us as well…
Here’s a compilation of ghost stories you guys told at our booth!

So, since ghosts were the topic that most people were interested in, we decided to interview a few of the presenters  about some of their most memorable ghostly encounters. In this episode, we have personal ghost stories from:

Darkness Radio‘s Dave Schrader interviewing Jael De Pardo and Erin Ryder from Destination Truth
Mike talking with cryptozoology author, Nick Redfern
Scott and Mike talking to actress, Erin Marie Hogan

For the song this week, we used the name of the place, the Shooting Star Casino, as the initial inspiration. Time flies like a shooting star and as John Lennon said on Double Fantasy:

Before you cross the street take my hand.
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.

John Lennon, “Beautiful Boy”

When we’re young and we think about the future, there’s a sense of wonder. I saw a lot of that this weekend. There were psychics making predictions and mediums who say they can talk to the dead. We dream about what might happen and wish for something better. Some nights seem like they’ll last forever, but they don’t, before we know it the future is here, whether we’re ready or not and the important part is to try and not lose that sense of wonder that makes the whole thing worthwhile. That’s the idea behind this quick rock track, “Best-Laid Plans”.

Staring at the sky til dawn
laid out in front of your piece of crap car
this getaway could not go wrong
so we made a wish on every single star

And all those summer nights
that weren’t meant to last
like a shooting star
they just burn so fast
Yeah, we ran away
but the best-laid plans
are fantasies
So if you make that wish, I will believe.

And then we tried to tell the future
We looked at our palms and studied all the lines
When every kiss was an adventure
and we laughed at all the hearts we’d leave behind

And all those summer nights
that weren’t meant to last
like a shooting star
they just burn so fast
Yeah, we ran away
but the best-laid plans
are fantasies
So if you make that wish, I will believe.

Podcast

205 – Adventure Town Communiqué: An Intrepid Interview with Scotty Roberts

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The first time we met Scotty Roberts was at the amazing 2016 Paradigm Symposium (you can listen to our recap of the entire event right here). It was kind of a life-changing experience for us as it was four days fully immersed in the paranormal and tackling everything from alternate history to alien coverups to the president of the Star Trek fan club to Travis Walton himself retelling his famous abduction experience. It still remains one of my all-time favorite strange weekends. Scotty was the driving force behind that conference when he announced that he was relaunching his YouTube channel with the various escapades from pontificating about family to exploring Egypt to his battle against political correctness, well we wanted to make sure to bring him on the show.

As the former Editor-In-Chief of The Atlantic Paranormal Society magazine (those are the Ghost Hunters from the SyFy Show) as well as the publisher of Intrepid, Scotty has plenty of paranormal bonafides. He’s written several books including The Exodus Reality: Unearthing the Real History of Moses, Identifying the Pharaohs, and Examining the Exodus from Egypt and The Secret History of the Reptilians. And as a former theological seminary student, you can rely on his work being fully saturated with history and research.

scotty roberts
Wendy and Allison hanging out with Scotty!

He even got Erich von Daniken from Chariots of the Gods? to write a blurb for one of his books. In my universe, that’s called makin’ it, baby.

In this episode we cover:

  • What made Scotty Roberts into the weirdo he is today!
  • Why he left the Baptist Seminary
  • Strange EVPs he recorded with Rocci Stucci and Dr. John Ward
  • Who does Scotty think is the historical Moses?
  • Scotty’s strange visions in Egypt with Phillip Coppens
  • What you can find on his YouTube channel

You can subscribe to Scotty Roberts’ Adventure Town Communiqué on YouTube right here.

scotty roberts
Mike partying with Scotty Roberts at Haunted America 2016

Now, one thing about Scotty is that he never shies away from an argument or a discussion. He’s willing to take on any topic and listen to every side of the story. That being said, he’s well-known for his conservative bent and isn’t afraid to share it. I’ve heard him say that “being offended a choice” and one that he chooses against so that he can engage in any kind of conversation. Scotty isn’t afraid to be the Devil’s Advocate and isn’t afraid to defend his position. This track is inspired by Scotty and dedicated to his willingness to rise to the challenge and be anyone’s debate partner (when you go from the seminary to writing about reptilians, you know you’re willing to make intellectual leaps!) Here is “Cry Wolf”.

Goddamn you love to be offended
goddamn I think you love to cry
you’re so addicted to your outrage
and you just love to roll your eyes roll your eyes

when the sky is finally falling
the Devil comes a calling
there’s no one left to cry wolf
there’s no one left to cry wolf

when we’re going down in flames
is there someone we’ll find to blame
there’s no one left to cry wolf
there’s no one left to cry wolf to

Oh man, I just can’t comprehend it
Oh man, I just keep wondering why
you’re so addicted to your outrage
and every word’s a hangin crime so hang me

when the sky is finally falling
the Devil comes a calling
there’s no one left to cry wolf
there’s no one left to cry wolf

when we’re going down in flames
is there someone we’ll find to blame
there’s no one left to cry wolf
there’s no one left to cry wolf to

Podcast

92 – Bridging the Gap: 2016 Paradigm Symposium Recap

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What a fantastic weekend as Wendy and I attended the Paradigm Symposium in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The mission of the event is to bridge the gap between academic thinking and alternative studies  and you could see it in action because the speakers treated each presentation like it was a college lecture.

john ward scotty roberts
Mike, Scotty Roberts, John Ward, and Wendy Lynn

The guys behind the event were Scotty Roberts and John Ward from Intrepid Magazine, which is a publication after my own heart, dealing with everything from science fiction to alternative history and archaeology. It was a massive undertaking, but completely worth it, because it provided us with a ton of inspiration for new episodes, new friends, and of course, lots of new things to ponder.

In the episode, Wendy Lynn and I cover all of the speakers that we got to see during the convention and tell a little bit about the topics that they covered.

Micah Hanks and Mike Huberty
Me and Peter Capaldi, I mean the brilliant Micah Hanks!

Here are some links to the speakers so that if you hear about something you like during the podcast, you can come back and click on the link to learn more (and of course, we’re going to be asking all of these fascinating people to come on the podcast sometime soon!)

Micah Hanks – Secret societies, Yale’s Skull and Bones and its connection to America’s foreign policy think tanks. This dude can speak! And he’s got one of the best paranormal podcasts out there, The Gralien Report.

Jeffrey Daugherty (The Christian Whistleblower) – Was Jesus an alien? He doesn’t answer that for you, but his literal translation of the books of the New Testament certainly makes you think and it’s delivered in a helluva style!

Laird Scranton – Connecting the ancient abandoned site of Skara Brae on Scotland’s Orkney Islands with Africa’s Dogon Tribe and ancient Egypt. Heavy on the symbolism and linguistics, he’s obviously done his homework.

Dr. Rita Louise – Did aliens mess with our DNA early in our history? Could humanity be a lot older than we suspect? Lots of alternative history here!

Lon Milo Duquette – Revelations about King David and Solomon and their possible connections to the Knights Templar and Freemasonry.

Peter Robbins – The Rendlesham UFO Incident – it’s the United Kingdom’s very own Roswell and he can deliver the case for it as convincingly as they come.

Paranormal Sarah – Sarah Soderlund is a Twin Cities-based parapsychologist and author who also goes by the online name Paranormal Sarah.

Rocci Stucci – Political talk radio host and paranormal investigator, his EVP from an investigation with Scotty and John almost made me lose voluntary bladder control.

Travis Walton – The world’s most famous alien abductee and the man behind the classic Fire In The Sky, which was very influential on me when I was younger, watching the new documentary, Travis The Movie, which gave the non-Hollywood perspective of his incredible experience.

Listening to him talk was really one of the major highlights for us because there are few people on Earth who have been more affected by the UFO phenomenon than him. Most of us who love aliens and the paranormal choose this field. He did not. He was thrust into the situation out of his control and it’s affected the course of his entire life. But forty years later, plenty of polygraph examinations, and six men whose story hasn’t changed a bit mean that he’s part of the lore forever now and has one of the most convincing cases out there.

And he’s a guitar player too, so that makes him extra awesome.

Mike and Wendy Lynn with Travis Walton
Holy cow, it’s Mike and Wendy Lynn with Travis Walton!

Dan Madsen – Star Trek fan club president with an inspiring story of how the vision of Gene Roddenberry forever changed the life of a young man.

John Ward – Real deal archaeology and adventure into ancient Egypt. Some of it was above my head, but it looked like a lot of fun!

Richard Dolan – Fantastic UFO researcher who gives an outline of the possible alien agenda. Will we ever see disclosure? What do the aliens want? Why won’t the government tell us. He connects all the dots and gives a plausible case of the reasons behind the secrecy.

Scott Wolter – Forensic Geologist behind the TV series, America Unearthed. His research into a Minnesota artifact known as the Kensington Rhinestone discovered in 1898 leads him on a search for Norse expeditions into North America in the 14th Century (the original Minnesota Vikings – were they still a losing team even back then? Ha!) or maybe  he suggests, the Knights Templar tried to claim the continent for themselves after being banned from Europe. Lots of symbolism, history, and fun.

Paradigm Symposium Final Panel
All the guests for the final panel

Overall, what really made the event was the incredible access to these great researchers, the open minds of every one, and the absolute friendliness of the group. Wendy and I felt tremendously welcome by people we’d never met before and by the end we were looking forward to the next time we could see them and share more stories, adventures, and just discussions about all the things that we don’t quite understand in this universe, but love to explore. That’s the kind of atmosphere of positivity and a judgement-free zone that we all hope to find ourselves in every once in awhile, to be free to find our own truths.

Since we were quite affected by hearing the real story of Travis Walton, for this weeks’s song decided to use a cover we recorded awhile back where we actually used a little bit of Fire In The Sky in the video we made. Since we borrow footage from that movie, Communion, Close Encounters, and A Trip To The Moon we thought it would be the perfect time to introduce the Sunspot version of one of the The Killers’ best tracks, “Spaceman”, their song about UFO abduction, into our podcast.