We’ve interviewed plenty of television ghost hunters on the show before, but it’s not every day you get to talk to the original. When Ghost Hunters premiered on the Sci-Fi Channel in 2004 (even before they’d changed the name for corporate trademark purposes to SyFy), there were talk shows with psychic mediums, there were shows that used the Night Vision camera like MTV’s Fear , but there was nothing that showed the modern ghost hunting experience. Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson founded the core of the team and Jason stayed with the show through all 232 episodes.

In 1990 after having his own paranormal experience, Jason Hawes formed the group that would become The Atlantic Paranormal Society. The acronym T.A.P.S. would launch a thousand paranormal teams across the country, but it was a 2002 New York Times article that would eventually lead to their deal with Pilgrim Films and turn a Rhode Island paranormal investigation team into international celebrities and create the phenomenon that would become “paranormal reality television”.

Ghost Hunters ended after 11 seasons in 2016 (with a new revival on A&E with Grant Wilson starting this season), but Jason Hawes has returned to television with Ghost Nation , starring longtime TAPS members, Dave Tango and Steve Gonsalves. Ghost Nation is centered around what Jason feels is the most important part of paranormal investigation and that’s working in private residences with families who are having haunted experiences that they need help with.

Dave Tango, Jason Hawes, and Steve Gonsalves

Jason has his own radio show, Beyond Reality and he spent 11 years on television, so he’s a great talker and our discussion is wonderfully candid. He’s got a really disarming manner and even if I hadn’t seen him hunt ghosts so many times, it felt like I’d known him for years. You can see how people who’ve never met him can open up about their paranormal experiences. If he brings that kind of easy charisma to Ghost Nation , it will be a fun season indeed. Here are some of the topics that we cover:

• Why Jason decided to get back into TV ghost hunting after several years off
• Tips for a new ghost hunting team
• The difference between an intelligent haunting and a “recording”
• Why Jason misses some of the real-life drama that fueled the first few seasons of Ghost Hunters
• What’s the difference between ghost hunting in the 90s and today
• Is there some kind of feud between him and Grant Wilson now that they have competing shows?

Ghost Nation premieres on Travel Channel October 11th, 2019 at 9pm Central/10pm Eastern and Pacific Time!

So much of life is dedicated to pondering its brevity. In fact, the Roman Stoics used to carry Momento Mori s around, which were little reminders that they were going to die. The idea is that its supposed to urge you into action realizing that you have a finite time on this earth, so make the most of it. My conversation with Jason Hawes who has been to so many haunted sites and has seen so many things that he cannot explain made me posit just the opposite. What if we had all the time in the world?

Welcome to See You on the Other Mike, where the world of

the mysterious collides with the world of entertainment.

A discussion of art, music, movies, spirituality,

the weird and self discovery. And

now, your hosts, musicians and entertainers

who have their own weakness for the weird, Mike and

Wendy from the band, Sunspot. Episode

265, Ghost Nation. We're talking

with Jason Hawes from the new TV show

Ghost Nation. You guys all know him as the founder of the

Atlantic Paranormal Society and the original ghost

hunter. Talking to Jason, how are you doing today? Good.

Good. How are you? Fantastic. Excited about your new show

premiering October 11th, 10 PM EST, 9

PM CST on the Travel Channel. And

this is part of the Ghosttober event. Right? Well, this is. This is. And we're

really excited too because we're able to honestly get back to the

basics and the roots of, why we do what we

we've always done, and I think that's important. So we're able to get in there

and and help out families, but, also, this show is very different

from the shows we've done in the past because you're able to see the

investigation from the beginning all the way through where we're going in. We're

trying to do the historical research. We're trying to figure out fact or what

what's actually fact that the the homeowner knows about the property and what's

incorrect information, and we're trying to help them out just

100%. And, it's great, honestly. We're we've been having a blast.

Fantastic. And it's it's you and Dave Tango

and Steve Gonzales. Right? That's correct. Yeah. And and

Steve's been with me for a long, long time. I mean, jeez, I've known

Steve Steve longer than I've known Grant. So, it it

and and we've still even when I stopped doing my my other

show, we still investigated the claims of the paranormal. We did it long before

TV. We'll do it long after, and we took a couple years off. My kids

were still young at that point and everything else, and now now I

felt that it was time for us to, to get back into it. Well, I

tell you. So I I saw Steve and Dave at the Michigan Para Con this

year, and we've seen them out in Minnesota and other places

in the Midwest. But, Jason, we haven't seen you at a Midwest

Paragon. Yeah. Well, it you know, for me, it's a little

tough to get to the convention and stuff. I used to do them, quite a

bit long time ago, but my kid my sons have

whether it's wrestling matches on the weekends or their football games on the

Wendy. That's usually when that stuff's going on. So

I, I would love to get out to conventions and hang out with everybody, but

I'd prefer to actually be at be at their games and and their wrestling matches

just because I'll never get that that chance back. Alright. I'm not gonna

guilt you for being a good dad. Well, it's good because I don't feel the

least bit guilty. Alright. Well, you know, there is over

200 episodes of Ghost Hunters. I mean so and and

everybody out there has seen at least 1, and I wanna get into a little

bit about because it's not every day you get to talk with

someone who created the genre. I mean, it's not just in

the, Mike, you know, you didn't come late

to the game. You guys basically invented the game. And before we

get a little bit of talking about that and then what has changed and where

you are with the new show Ghost Nation, for people that may not

understand or know your personal connection to the paranormal

and may have, you know, started watching a 100 episodes in and

not known what got you interested in the first place, it's a big

step to tell the world that, hey. I'm into this stuff.

There's something out there. I wanna find out about it. And what kind

of led you into this world in the first place? Well, I had my own

personal experience a long time ago when I was, about 18,

19 years old, and it's just a personal experience that sort

of took took a person who never really thought about the paranormal and

led me down a path of trying to understand how these things were real. And

to be honest with you, at that time, there really wasn't much

information out there. And, the web and the the Internet was

really just starting to to come to age. And even when that was at

its, even though when the all those stuff were popping up out

there, so much information was just a piece of dust as a

ghost and Right. And a bug a bug on a camera is a ghost. And

so it drove me crazy, and I've always been 1 of those people where I'm

a problem solver. I like to get in and truly figure out what

what's going on. So from there, I just started

investigating Mike, getting out and looking for the real answers.

Because it's not that I don't wanna take anybody's word on something, but I

wanna be able to find my own path and and figure things out for myself

because I I think that's just I think that's the way everybody should be. And,

so what what was your personal experience? Like, what you know, did you see did

you see a ghost? Did you hear something? Did someone come to you in a

dream? Like, what this is, I mean, besides

your family and stuff like that, I think most people think of a lot of

this as your life's work, and so that's a big step.

So what was that thing that happened that moved you towards this whole

thing? Well, my own personal experience was that I did I did see

something. I I gotten sick for a while, and and I don't wanna get into

all the details of that, but I did see something off of that. And,

and I just I something that I never thought

would have really been possible. I did see what I believed to be an

apparition. And, again, it was 1 of those things where you you Wendy,

are you going crazy or did you really really just have this experience?

So you start looking for those answers. And that really thrusted me into the

field. And to be honest, from there, it just it became a thing

where we're looking so much for answers, but and we

created this little website which perfect at the time because it

became the top hit, paranormal website in the world. But so many

other people out there were looking for answers as well. And so we

would go and try to help them out in hopes of also figuring

out our experiences. And so it just led to 1 thing after

another. And next thing you know, we were we were investigating pretty much

nonstop. I mean, last year alone, the TAPS website hit somewhere

around the vicinity of 70 +1000000 visitors. So you guys,

based on the East Coast, you have the,

advantage of houses that might be 250 years old or 300

years old. And, you know, so you have that extra layer of history that a

lot of us, like in the Midwest, maybe we have a house that's a 100

years old. Like, oh, that's a really old place. Or in California, it might be

60 years old, and, like, that's really stretching it. But you guys have stuff

and go back to the, oh, you know, the 18th century when people

built places. And do you think that some of your

maybe proximity to that kind of history has helped the

amount of cases or paranormal activity

in the area? Well, of course, a place with more history has more

potential to have paranormal activity. In a place like New England

where we had everything from the the Salem witch trials

down to, the massacre well, the Indian

massacres and things of things like that, let alone New

Englanders. I mean, people first came here, they weren't prepared for the winters.

And, so you have people freezing and starving to death, and and it was a

very common thing, especially back then. So, of course,

there's much more potential to have some sort of paranormal

activity around around these areas, and it's definitely kept us

busy. I mean, we've when we started off, we were originally Rhode Island

Paranormal Society, and it was a small little group. But quickly, we

realized that we are handling cases that would go from,

Maine all the way down, to Florida. And,

so we tried to start well, then we changed our name to the Atlantic Paranormal

Society. And then from there, we started handling cases all over the

world, and that's how we created the the Atlantic the

TAPS family, which is an extension of the Atlantic Paranormal Society, which is

groups that pretty much follow our protocol all

over the world. We've got 72, other groups in the United States and

14 other countries that work hand in hand with us, and they're just like

us. They don't charge. There's no fee, to help people out because, you

know, the rich, the poor, everybody in between has problems. And if you charge, you

can only help those who can afford your services. But also on top of that,

how can you charge for something scientifically you can't even prove exist? So we're

that's just not what we've ever been about. It's not about profiting from, you know,

somebody else's turmoil turmoil in their life. You You know, as you say, as

you expanded and and that you you started just in Rhode Island, and then all

of a sudden, you're you're hunting all over the East Coast. And then comes

a point when, you know did you get

contacted by a television production company, or did you guys, like, start making your

own videos? We're like, oh, we should totally have a TV show kinda thing.

Because when I think about the early 2000, we had, like, MTV's Fear.

And Yeah. I don't I don't that show. Yeah. People with the night vision and

stuff like that running around. That's pretty fun. And then you have John Edward

with a medium talking to dead people or whatever. So his medium shows is

most haunted out of England, and there's but there's nothing that focuses on

modern paranormal investigation. And all of a sudden, you guys

come on and becomes the, I mean, the first show

up now, you know, a 100, that have I mean,

it's a whole genre based on what you guys started called paranormal reality

TV. What was the pitch? I mean, how did you were you approached,

or, did you guys seek it out? That's a great question. Honestly so

we had helped out. I I had helped out behind the scenes in scenes,

scenes. Let's try that again. With MTV Sphere, I had

worked on a couple episodes with them. I had helped out, a couple times with

the scariest places on Earth. I'd helped out with, Fox I mean, Real

Scary Stories for Fox Kids and all these shows. I had been asked to do

a television show numerous times. We turned it down. We didn't wanna be

on TV. It was more about just looking for answers. We did a

newspaper article, John Leland from the New York Times had

flown out, met us, and met up with us, wanted to investigate with us, around

the year 2000. And, so, you know, he came

on an investigation with us, and we were able to, over the course of a

few days, figure out what was truly going on. It was a mixture of prescription

medications that was creating a problem for this this homeowner. And

he was there through this whole thing, wrote up a very, very great article on

us, that went out on the wire. I went out on, like,

Halloween day and, went out in, like, a 140 other

papers. So, from there, the phone started ringing

nonstop again, people wanting me to do television shows. We

met up with a ton of different producers who had all these pitches about, you

know, being on television, and we kept on turning them down. It was,

excuse Mike. It wasn't until we met up with Craig Polygyan, owner of Pilgrim

Films, which was a really tiny little company at that time, that,

he said, well, you know, if you're not if you don't do it, somebody's going

to, and how are they gonna represent the field? And that really stuck with me.

That was that was true because that was everything we were trying to

get away from was, you know, dust being a ghost and all these

other things. So we agreed to, you know, to,

do 10 episodes with him. They went

out. They talked to a bunch of different networks, and we decided to go with

sci fi. And, the rest is history. I mean, we never

thought that the show would would last more than 1 season. We wanted to watch

me as a plumber, Steve as a police officer, and and stuff like that

investigating, you know, walking around in the dark. So it was amazing to us that

it it really took off like it did to the point where it was airing

in a 170 other countries. Well, you know, what I think is interesting too

is that, you know, the first few seasons are also very reality

TV style. It's that, like you said, the plumber kinda thing.

Like, alright. Here's the ghost hunting plumbers or whatever. And so here's your day

job and your regular Mike. And then they show the Bruce Wayne, and they show

the Batman kinda thing. Yeah. And,

eventually, it seems like people were like, okay. The Bruce

Wayne stuff's fine, but or the little drama they tried to do, you know, they

try to big brother it up and stuff like that in the beginning. And then

eventually most of the drama stuff gets dropped, and then it all becomes about the

investigation. Well and but the drama was real drama. I

mean, we we had problems with a couple investigators, which,

were serious issues. And and honestly, I I was a

plumber. I'm I still am a plumber by trade. I mean, it's recession free. We're

not going back to the outhouse, so I'll always have a job. But, but

so and I liked I liked the first

many well, most of the, first few years of the show because everything

was just they were just following us around 247 and they were getting everything

and they were getting us going out and screwing around. And I thought that was

important to show people that it's not all about the investigation. We're a big

family and, families have problems, but, you know, families are

families And, you know, and that went on. But, I think

later on, it was, for whatever reason, we I had final

say on where we investigated, where we went, all this other stuff. But sci fi,

of course, it being their network, had final say on what aired. So

it was yeah. If they wanted to cut out all the fun beats, if they

wanted to cut out any of the drama, they wanted to cut, you know, just

only show these big locations, they could because it's their network, which would

drive us crazy. But, you know, and again, it's their network.

But I think that's what really made the show was showing people who we

really are even outside the investigation, and I think

that's why people fell in love with the show. You know, I've talked with

endless fans and, you know, they most of them all talk about how they

missed that, how they missed us getting out there and and screwing around, how they

missed us getting out and jumping on go karts or or going out and, you

know, beating up each other in a bounce house. That was some of their favorite

parts before we actually started investigating. So,

you enjoyed that some of that that character study and the idea of

people getting to know you. Yeah. Exactly. I enjoyed the realness. Whether

I had a problem with Brian and I blew off on him or not. People

were seeing it because it really happened, and it wasn't it

wasn't being set up. And I thought that was important because that's the 1 thing

we would never I would never allow was my show to be set up.

It was we we always told the camera people, roll tape because if you

miss it, I mean, you can explain to Craig Pellegion why you didn't get it.

Because that's how that's how we're not gonna set up and and do do this

thing over and over again for for filming purposes because we're not

we're not, we're not actors. We're just doing our doing

our things. And that was the initial pitch that Craig Polygyny had always given to

us was, I don't care if you catch a ghost or not. I just wanna

send cameras with you and record what you do. Okay. And so we always

we always stuck to that mentality. Since you guys were there, I mean, starting

out in 2004, going for, you know, 12 seasons,

or 11 seasons. Like but either way, I mean, 200 Some

season's doing 26 episodes a season. I was gonna say, dude, 2 over

200 episodes. 6 hour live shows and everything else. Yeah. And doing all

that, you had a chance to see

other ghost shows, other ghost teams, like,

Evolve, Change. So just not even talking about

the 19 nineties stuff. I wanna get to that in a second. Like, you know,

starting, research and and investigation in the 19 nineties

as compared to now in 2019. But even

going from 2004 to 2016 and

seeing everyone you influenced around you, what do you

think is, maybe of the shows that were created in your

aftermath that you influenced, did any of

them come back then and have an influence on how you guys investigated or how

you guys put the show together so that you saw the like, a

little you know, in the in your proteges, maybe, you know, at

least spiritually, genre Mike, did anything come back and you're

like, hey. That was a great idea. I wish we thought of that. Honestly, I

would love to tell you yes, but I'd be lying because I never

watched paranormal television. I never did because it was

it was tough. When we went out and we filmed a case, we were we

were at this location for for, you know, a week if not

Mike. It could be up to 2 weeks depending on the location, and it was

all cut down to 43 minutes. So there were so there was so

much that wasn't in the show. It used to drive me

crazy. So I never watched I would watch our cuts and

sign off on our cuts and everything, but I really wouldn't watch other paranormal

television because it was because I knew that. And also, I never wanted to

get contaminated. I never wanted to look at

somebody else's idea and and try to run with it. I just wanted

to do my own thing the way I've always done it. And it it's great

to know that Ghost Hunters was such an influence on many, and

so many so many shows came out and really helped whether

people Mike the shows or not, other shows. I mean, they help propel the

field forward. They may they helped us with our with our main goal of doing

the show to allow people to feel comfortable talking about this

stuff. So every show had a positive Mike. Every show every show had a dark

side. But all those shows have my

respect. But you were able to watch a ton of shows come, a ton of

shows just disappear. And I think the fans would sit

there and watch some of those other shows and and realize, well, all these people

were casted together by a production company to to make up this team, or

this group never really existed prior to the show. And and they understood

that there's the real side, which is tabs,

which what we what we've always done, and there's the side

where a production company comes in and and designs a team for TV

purposes. So a lot of those shows seem to fall fall apart and

just disappear, which I think was great because it it helped really

solidify the field and and what we're all about. That's a good way to put

it because you didn't wanna have to try to compare yourself to other people or

see what everybody else is doing. And that's it exactly. The main the main thing

was that we existed prior to a show. We weren't casted

to make a show. Production company sat down with us, asked us if we wanted

to do a show. Initially, they wanted to do a show with with just me

me and another person. And I said, it's not about just me and me and

another person. It's about me and the whole team. And they they

never had a say on who was on my team. They never had a say

on who we let go. It was always our team.

Whether production felt that they were good on camera or not didn't matter to us

because it wasn't about being on camera. It was about us just doing what

we've always done, and I thought that was important where a lot of

production companies now will go out and they'll be like, oh, this person will be

great drama. This person interacting with this person will be great.

The, Pilgrim films never had that with us. It was pretty much it's the

team or it's none of us. You know, as you were saying that you guys

existed before, the TV show. I was wondering if

any kind of investigations that you'd done during the 19 nineties where

something happened or an experience or you

had got such great evidence or even just something happened while you were doing

it that you're like, oh my god. I wish you you know, you said to

the camera people, you should have been here at 1997 when we were in this

basement, and, you know, the shadow walked out and slapped me in the

butt. Oh, absolutely. We had we had a ton of that stuff. The thing is

that all of our cases, they especially

the cases that aren't televised, they fall under confidentiality agreements because we do

cases for everybody from stay at home mom and dads to,

congressmen. And, so we go in and we investigate, and

that evidence is always there. And we we are totally

under a confidentiality thing that we we push on the client

because we don't want we'd never wanna be those people who go

into a case just for the purpose of writing a book and trying to sell

it. Because that that's not what it's about. You're there trying to help these people

and also figure out how how these things are truly possible. But we had

cases, we had a case in Maine where, a well

known author, New York Times bestselling author, Jodi Picoult was on with us.

And, I mean, in that case was it was insane. We had, it

was we these cases now remember, over 80% of all claims can

be disproved. And when you go to cases that we believe that we get

sent in by the church, to write up preliminary reports on so called possessions

or demonic type pawns, 99% of those cases have nothing to do

with the paranormal. But this 1 case that we Wendy on had everything to do

with it. We had doors closing. The door closed and removed a

father's finger right in front of us, and because he had his his hand on

the door jam. We had a lot of negative stuff going on in this house.

We were stuck in this house for 4 days because we got there and a

blizzard hit us. So it was Mike right out of a horror movie.

But, you know, we stayed there. We stayed there. We ended up, you know, getting

a priest in and everything else and helping out the family. But there's a lot

of those cases that that we have had and a lot of

them are can be extremely scary, to the point where

you you're scared for your own safety to go back. But no matter what,

you need to keep you need to keep a professional attitude on that and

never really show that because these people are calling you in as

they're they're not not so much they're professionals, but they're

protectors. They're because they're scared. They're scared of their own home. And if you

go in and you act scared or you go running out, well, then, first off,

they're traumatized even Mike. And and what are they gonna do

after that? It's like calling the police to your house and having a police officer

come in and say, oh, the hell with this. I'm out. And Mike it off

on you. You you don't you don't want that. You you gotta go in with

that professional attitude and with the whole mindset

of I'm here to help no matter what happens, and I'm here for you

through all of it. And I think that's the most important thing. What you know,

1 thing you said in there is that you mentioned that sometimes it sounds

like you said that the church would call you somebody from the church would call

you in and be like, hey. Can you guys check this out first? What what's

that about? Well, we do a lot of cases, again, that fall under confidentiality agreements

that we get sent in by certain religious organizations to

write up preliminary reports on possible possession or

demonic type haunting cases. And we go in, and we look for all

explanations. I mean, when we're called into a house to do that, we're going

through your book collection, your movie collection, your medications,

your mindset, your honestly, doctor records and

things like that. Because if you need us, if if you're having a problem like

that and you need us, well, then you're opening your life up to us to

try to truly figure out what's happening, whether it's paranormal, medical,

or or some other issue. So, we need full

disclosure on everything. And so, that's why a lot of those cases are very

they fall under that whole confidentiality because a lot of times these

people don't want this information to get out. And it could have everything right down

to drug abuse, alcohol abuse, sexual or verbal abuse,

physical abuse, things of that nature, which, of course, when

we when we deal with situations like that, we're still getting this family

some sort of help. But that's why those fall under

confidentiality agreements. Just like when we work with law enforcement, we get sent in,

I'm listed as an occult specialist. Well, okay. But you you

get sent in to try to help out help out law enforcement, and that case

is law enforcement. So there has to be that that whole

veil of confidentiality where you're not gonna go to the press. You're not going to

go talk about it. You're not gonna go write a book on somebody else's,

on somebody else's sorrows. Well, you know, that's interesting because,

I think about 1 of my friends that was in a paranormal group in Wisconsin

in the nineties, and he graduated in police science. And the lead guy in his

team was a police officer. And, like, 1 day, he comes to me and

says, you know, I don't believe in ghosts. And he's like, I used to be

really into it, man, but I just don't believe in ghosts anymore. I'm like, what

do you mean? And he goes, just all these cases we investigate,

it's usually just some kind of, like, abuse. And he

goes, like, I don't even wanna go anymore to the kind of things.

But, you know, and you deal with a lot of that. You will deal with

a lot of that, a 100%. But, also, there's those,

you know, diamonds in the rough that show up that do have

crazy sort of paranormal activity that you you need to figure out. Now the paranormal

people automatically when they hear the word paranormal, they think of ghosts and

hauntings. Well, but that's just 1 small part of the paranormal. The

paranormal is is a veil. Para means is just a Latin word for

beyond. So beyond the normal of what we're used to. I mean, an object moving

on the counter by itself is paranormal, until

you figure out what's moving that. I mean, it could be high high

magnetic fields condensing enough to move small objects, which is scientifically

proving it happens. It could be some other explanation.

But it's just so anything that's beyond the normal of what we're used to at

this time would fall within the realm of paranormal. Ghost and hauntings fall

within that, but so do many other things. You you need to think that years

ago, high magnetic fields or or Mike,

radiation, things of that nature would also have fallen within that because we didn't understand

it at that time. It was beyond our comprehension. So when you started

investigating in the beginning, like, what was you know, when somebody say I have

a ghost in my house and this is before I mean, think about even the

like, in the early nineties, like, maybe you could get a super 8 video camera.

And, you know, and nobody's gonna have a thermal camera. They're not the

predator or whatever. Oh, that's right. And you're not gonna like, an

EMF did they have EMF meters at the time, or, was it

just Mike you going in there with a video camera and maybe

a audiotape and be like, let's see if we can record something? Like, how is

the investigation different in 1990 now when you come

to 2019 and you've got the Travel Channel to work with?

Well, let me tell you. In the 19 nineties, if you could get a super

8, you were doing pretty good. Because I honestly we our

first camcorders were the big VHS camcorders, the things that were

you were sitting on your shoulder, and after 20 minutes, you were exhausted holding that

thing. So you'd be showing up with these big camcorders. You'd be showing

up with things like, cassette recorders, full Mike cassette recorders.

I think it was in the somewhere in the early nineties where finally,

they started having the small little cassette recorders that initially came out

on, like, people's answering machines. So it was

great when things started really getting smaller and stuff like that because we were able

to to get that much more equipment and, use that much more

equipment without being exhausted. But we'd show up with a big VHS

camcorder, 1 or 2 of those. We'd be showing up with cassette

recorders. We'd be showing up with with other things. We'd be showing

up with voltage meters to try to see if if a voltage was coming

out, you know, shooting out of the sockets in any any of these

locations as well. And it also helped out that I was I I

was a master tech. I worked for, Subaru in Mitsubishi at the Mike. So

I was I was very aware of electronics. I was very aware

aware of certain issues like that. I also

had, you know, a background in construction and plumbing,

so and electrician. So I could look into those those

issues. And so you you'd go in the I

think the best tools, even back then, even today,

is common sense. You're really getting in there and trying to trying

to figure out what's truly going on, whether it's paranormal or not.

Is there anything that specifically, like, in your beliefs,

that there is something that in 1990, let's say because you saw an apparition. Alright?

And that's that's gonna convince everybody that there's something going

on. Well, it it it not that it convinced me everything, that something was

it it made me try to try well, it made me want to

understand how these things were possible, and I think that was

the, that was the biggest thing there. It's Mike, if these things are possible, how

are they possible? So let's try to figure that out. Let's try to figure

out what's allowing these things to to happen, But go

on. Well, it just so when from the initial point

of opening yourself up to these possibilities, and you're like,

okay. I saw something weird. How is this even possible? 2, you

know, 29 years later, Is there anything

specific that, Mike, a belief you didn't have back then

that you do now or open to a different aspect of the

paranormal now that you weren't back then? Well, yeah and

no. I I think that there's I think that over the years,

I've found that where I had come to a belief system

of you have your human hauntings, you have your inhuman hauntings, you have your

in your human type haunts, you have your intelligent, which, Mike, you and I, after

we pass and we're trying to communicate, and then you have your residual, which is

just, like, energy trapped as an object, like a tape player rewinding and playing

itself over and over again. You have your poltergeist activity, which was nothing like the

movie. It was more always seemed to center around a young girl who seemed

to be manifesting the activity themselves. I've realized that there's a lot

more types of hauntings out there, and I and I don't even know if you

can classify them as hauntings because you'll you'll make

contact or you'll you'll catch voices of something that seems to be

living a normal day in its life whenever it it

existed. It could have been, you know, 50 years ago. And

so they're almost so it opens up the possibility of hauntings

that you really can't even call hauntings, but time overlapping,

as if they're still there doing their own thing, living a normal day in

their lives and we're living a normal day in our lives. And for whatever reason,

time time seems to overlap in certain areas.

And that opens up a whole other type of haunting, which we

call haunting, but it's probably has nothing to do with a haunting. It has

more to do with, jeez, I mean, we could start getting into parallel

universes. We could start getting into, quantum physics and all those things. Right.

The stone tape theory and record Exactly. Well, exactly. And

so, definitely, through the years, my thoughts, my

beliefs, the way I view things have changed. They've changed

drastic drastically. But I think it's more that it's

just more and more things are becoming present. Now I'm hoping that

that's a trend that keeps on going and, you know, there's

just endless things that keep on popping up. But, yeah, of

course, my my thought process and my belief system has changed. Now have you ever

encountered a case, Mike, yeah, like we just opened up to there? Because you

kinda described the difference between an intelligent haunting, the idea

that it's a ghost in there that's trying to communicate with us, the spirit of

someone's passed on. And then there's the idea of just the the

haunting recording that something something in time just kinda

saved it. It's replaying like a record or a video. Have you ever

encountered something where you saw a bunch of activity that you

couldn't explain and then the,

what seemed to be causing the activity though was something beyond,

you're Mike, I've never encountered anything that's Mike stand out to your thing that's not

just a dead guy or not just a recording or,

not just a poltergeist that might attach itself to a, you know,

a teenager or whatever with the hormones and emotions and craziness.

Is there a specific case that stands out to you where something's

going on here and it's not even, like, anything like we've ever seen

before? Absolutely. We had we had a case, I can't get into too much

detail, but we've had cases where 1 case we had furniture

moving and moving around in the house by itself, couldn't get any cameras to work,

couldn't get any electronics to work, which was mind blowing

to us. We had a case where a family had actually

leveled out this area in in a highly wooded section.

Steve and I jeez, I still remember this 1 to the day. We were investigating

and we were in the living room and all of a sudden

we heard rattling, banging, clanging from coming from the

kitchen. We headed in there and all the pots and pans,

everything that were in the cabinets were taken out and laid in the kitchen floor.

Through further investigation and weird things that we did

catch on camera for the family, it took us down a path of

and I never thought I would have ever believed in these things, but it took

us down a path of elemental type activity. Now,

these little nature spirit type things, we're not talking about,

you know, these, where people are out praying to

tree gods and everything, but we're it would seem to be these

little black shadow type things which there you

could where their eyes are, you could see right through. So there were,

like, no eyes that we could see, but these things were raising

all kinds kinds of hell because this family and to us, it appeared that

this family had built their house in the woods and bothered these

things. So that opened up a whole other belief system

that I never even thought was possible. I'd hear people talk about these nature

spirits and elementals, and I'd just blow it off because I had never experienced

anything like that. But when that happened, it was it was 1

of those things where you're just, like, this this is insane. This can't be.

And it was. And I love that. The fact

that, you know, Wendy have an actual experience that opens your mind to

something completely different and also something that you might think is before you might

have thought as ridiculous or whatever. Well, yeah. Every case is a

learning experience. Every single case. Every every single case,

whether there's paranormal or not, you learn something new. Whether it's

about people, whether it's about the homeowner, whether it's about the client, you

never know. And, and people always ask, you know, what's the scariest thing you've

ever encountered? Well, it has nothing to do with the paranormal. It has to do

with the living because I never know who's on the other side of that door.

We've walked into a little old lady's house who 20 minutes after inviting

us in because she was having activity going on, she came after us with a

frying pan because she forgot she invited us in. So her problem had

nothing to do with the paranormal. It had to do with with medical.

We've had other situations where we've we've gone we've been sent in to investigate a

location, and you walk in, you're investigating, and you find somebody

living in, you know, squatting in the back room who tries to attack you.

So you're holding them down with your foot on their head until the police arrive.

So the living are what scares me. The dead, I I can deal with.

You know, you are the organization that launched a 1,000

others. Really. I mean, think about I mean, just just having the

acronym alone of TAPS, of the Atlantic Paranormal Society, has created

paranormal groups, societies, teams, everything

across the country. Well, that's a that's a great thing. I mean, there's such

positive aspects to that, but there's also negative aspects to that we need to remember.

I mean, there's some some great groups that have have come out there

since the show, since, sent well, and a lot of people had followed

Taps Taps long before the show. We're the top hit paranormal website long

before TV. I mean, at that point, we're averaging 30, 40000

visitors per day. But with that, also,

there there's a negative side that comes to that. There's groups that get together

that get involved in cases that are way beyond their

their understanding or their abilities, and it puts them and the

homeowners in in jeopardy. So, and thank

God a lot of them reach out to us, find us, and we're able to

get in and assist. Well, you know, that that's a that's a my next question

is, so for a local paranormal society or somebody

who's just starting out, what are a couple of things that you would

recommend to them if they're trying to help other people out or, you know, they

go to investigate a case? What are a couple of

things that you know now that you wished you'd known then

and you can pass that on to, the newbies

giving it a shot? Well, I think first off, when I when I started in

this field, there that you really there was nowhere nowhere for you

to find other paranormal groups. But now we have the TAPS family

network, which are a bunch of groups that are like minded with us, that we

work hand in hand with. So if somebody's looking to get involved in the paranormal,

don't go automatically starting your own group. Connect go to the TAPS

family website. Just go to TAPS family dot com and look for a

local group in your area where you can at least get together with, work

with for a while. Get get to understanding, you know, what's

going on and build your investigation method. And then from

there, you know, a year, 2 years, 3 years down the road, then

branch off and start your own your own network or your own

group. I think that's important. Don't just throw yourself into the mix

and and, you know, just run with it because

a lot of times that's it's just not gonna benefit you. And if your

first case is something that really is beyond your

ability or your comprehension, I mean, it could, first off,

devastate your reputation, devastate your group, and destroy everything

that you're trying to build. Now do you remember any cases maybe

back when you were starting out where you think you know, you think about how

you do things now, and you obviously have your system down

now. You had somebody watching you for 100 of

those cases, you know, for double checking. But when you think

about early cases and early investigations, is there any specific

ones where you look back and think Mike, oh, man. If I'd have known

this, or if I'd have acted like this, or if we'd have said

this instead of that, it would have changed the entire outcome?

A 100%. Right down to,

alright. So the Tapps family. The Tapps family group was created because I

was contacted by a a lady who was dealing with what she had claimed at

that point was a demonic entity that was that was attacking her

every time she went and used her bathroom, used her shower, and so

forth. And I was in contact with this lady back and forth. I

was trying to find a local group in her area, but, again, at that time,

it was near impossible to try to find other investigators in

an area in Washington state. So, you know,

it had taken a while. I hadn't heard from her in a couple weeks.

And I finally called over there, and a lady answered the phone. I

thought it was initially her, and it wasn't there. It was her sister.

And I was trying to explain who I was and that her sister had reached

out to Mike. And come to find out her sister had passed away a

week prior, they found her in the bathtub, and,

she was deceased. And, she had drowned in the

bathtub. And the fact of the matter is I sit I sat there Wendy I

thought, to this end, that was where she was experiencing all this activity

that she was terrified of. It's truly something was going on.

Was it the lack of was it the lack of me being able to get

her help which led to led to her

demise? And that was that was 1 of those things that I still

I still sit there and it tear it tears me apart today.

And that was 1 of the big factors why we wanted that's 1 of the

that's the main factor on why I wanted to create the TAPS family

network because I never wanted a situation like that. I never wanted somebody

to to be fearful of something and me not be able to get them

help. So it was, it was a very

crucial point in, the development of of

everything we built. And and you certainly built a lot,

where we're now coming on a brand new season of,

Ghost Nation, the first season of it. And, you

know, what brought you back to television? Like, what after I

mean, you've already done it. You know what I mean? And you've done a

lot of it. So what was compelling in bringing you back to

say, okay. I'm ready to get back on the horse? Well, initially, I was

asked to, take the reboot of Ghost Hunters, and

and I I had I had been talking with Craig, but, Craig Poligian, the

owner, but when I found out that A&E

and, and then they wanted to recast a team around

me, I decided that it just wasn't wasn't the right step

for me because, Steve has been with me forever. He's somebody I I

have full faith and trust in, and I can rely on him, as

well as Dave. And, it just didn't seem like the right fit.

So with that, I had been contacted in the past by by

Discovery, Destination America, Travel Channel, and a a

bunch of other networks. I had probably turned down 40 shows from when

I decided to stop doing Ghost Hunters

and, up to the point where I decided to come back.

And I just I just kept on turning on the shows because it just didn't

seem I just didn't wanna go back at that point. I was I was

busy. I still do nationally syndicated radio, beyond

reality radio and everything else. I was having fun. I mean, go down, do the

radio show in in my pajamas and and wake up in the morning every

day under the same roof as my kids. But, honestly, after talking with,

the the folks over at Discovery and Travel, they were

just they were incredible. They especially Matt Butler and

and, Jane who who, has just moved over to HGTV.

When I sat down with them and I told them, yeah, I'm I'm thinking about

coming back. And if so, I I just I wanna do a show like this

and get back to basics where it's all about me going to

just residential homes and helping out families again.

They got it. They understood it. They said, you know what? What you

you've really done well for this field. You you've helped out this

field greatly, and we would love to be able to

to record you guys doing that and not change anything.

And I thought that was important. So after talking with them a few

times, decided that we were going to do a new show, which

was still the team. It was still us together. And because a

show the name of a show is just that. It's the name of show. 1

person doesn't make up a show. Ghost Ghost Hunters was

important because of the team. People love the show because the team, the

interaction, the people behind it, and and we always wanted to

keep that. So we decided that we were going to do a new show, decided

to, name it Ghost Nation for the fact that so

Ghost Hunters, it we yeah. It followed Taps. It followed us. But there's

so many other great people involved in this field throughout the entire

world. It's really even just in the US, it's a nation of

investigators, a nation nation of researchers and explorers,

and we wanted to we wanted to show that. So this show, yeah, it's

me, Steve, and Dave, but it also shows investigators from

all over the world that are are trying to figure these things out as well.

And we are assisting a lot of them Mike cases that seem a little

over their heads or ones that they might be stumped on. We go out and,

work hand in hand with them and try to get try to get to the

answers, try to use our resources, which a lot of times can extend further than

most groups, and and get out there and, just assist the

best we can. So you're bringing in you're working with a lot of local teams

or you did in this in this new season? Yeah. We're working with teams all

over the country that, needed extra sets of hands or

or sometimes an outside look on investigation because we've had that as well where we've

been investigating something and, you know, you're looking at it through

your eyes for a long period of Mike, you can't figure it out. And then

you call somebody who's never been there in, and they they're

looking at it from an outside view, and they they have their own thoughts and

ideas, which all of a sudden you realize, wow, you know, this might be the

path that we can we can go down. And you start exploring that, and it

does open up more answers for you. So it's more about just trying to

help out other teams throughout the country because they help us out as well.

And there's so many great people out there involved in this field,

that make up the whole paranormal community that we wanted to also

feature them as well. Well and as far as the

episodes, are there any specific cities or places you went to

where you feel like you learned something new for this specific

season in Ghost Nation, where you're like, okay. You go out there. You meet

some new people, or you investigated something. You're like, okay. I've been

a lot of these, and this is a little bit new. Yeah. Honestly. Well, this

first case, that we'll be airing, just a great, great family out in

White Pine, Tennessee. And Corey was, was

a military vet with, PTSD and just getting out there

helping him out. And we did. I can't get into too much detail, but

there was a lot that we learned, that was definitely

different than what we'd experienced in the past. But we

we have some phenomenal cases like that. 1 of the cases that you you'll see,

we the nice thing, we've always been lucky enough that where most

groups out there aren't able to work with, the

nations, the Native American Indian nations,

we've always had a very good relationship with them, whether it's the Cherokee Nation

in North Carolina where Steve and I have actually investigated on the

reservation with other members, or whether it's the Mohawk Nation out

of Canada, which I have a very close relationship with and some of the some

of the members up there are very very close friends of Mike. We we were

able to also bring bring, some some of our

friends from the Mohawk Nation and so forth into an investigation to

help us out on information or pull up information that

people really aren't able to get because it's held in secrecy

with with, with the nation. So just being able

to explore those resources and also bring in friends

like that to help out with with things that most

people would never be able to get the information on is a huge

benefit. But there's a lot of great things that that we've learned this

season, and, I think it's really going to help us for future, future

seasons and just future investigations on and off camera. So are there

any new places that you got to go to this year that you hadn't been

before, maybe investigating in certain states or certain

areas that you were like, oh, this is cool. Like, I haven't had a chance

to visit this place before. Well, I'd love to tell you yes. But after 250

some odd episodes of, my Mike show, I've pretty much been to every state.

But, no. Honestly, just getting out there and,

just getting out to these areas and, meeting these people and hearing

some of the stories and also the stories that they might have heard of

their home, and you go in and find out

that this is inaccurate, and take that to the homeowner and show them

the actual real information. I mean, a lot of people hear so and so died

in the house, so and so passed away this way, this happened,

and it can make a fearful situation for that homeowner thinking that

somebody might have fallen here and and died and laid or laid there

for 4 hours in in pain before they died. That can be traumatizing for a

homeowner to think that that happened in their in their home. When you're able to

go in and find out the real information or or somebody who

believe or who's been told that, you know, 20 people have passed away in their

home and you're able to go in and find out that that's not accurate and

you bring that to the homeowner, it you can just see such a weight off

their shoulders that's, that's relieved. And it's

it's so nice being able to to do that and help out these people like

like we've been doing. Now when you talk about the you're talking to the people

as as part of the investigation, when they come to you or, when they, you

know, describe the experiences to you, do you find that people are different now that

we've had over a decade of paranormal reality television? And they may have seen

how homeowners react or seen how teams investigate,

at least according to TV, have you found that the people who have had

experiences happen to them, they come to you in a different manner, or they

describe what's happening to them in a different manner? Well, yeah. I yes and

no. I think, there you're always gonna get the fact that people's

perceptions of something may be very different than how it

actually happened. And the best way to explain this is I've dealt with a case

in the past where where we went to quickly because the lady

had filled us in that she was stabbed by a ghost. We went out

there. We trying to find out what's going on, and it wasn't until we got

out there and we really sat down and discussed everything that happened and

tried to recreate everything that happened that we found that it wasn't that she was

stabbed by a ghost. It was that she walked around the corner, saw somebody

standing in our hallway, jumped back, hit the fridge, and she kept her butcher

block with her knives on top of the fridge. That fell over, 1 came down,

went into her shoulder. Now, yes, it it

it sucks that that happened to her, but she wasn't stabbed by a ghost.

It was, just unfortunate circumstances that led up

to to what had happened for her. So people's perceptions of

things are always going to be different than how

others might see it or and so forth. But, I mean, getting out there

and just truly talking with them, finding out what's going on,

I think is what matters the most. Well and we encourage

everybody to check out, Ghost Nation. It's gonna be on the travel

channel for their Ghosttober event, October

11th at 10 EST, 9 CST. Jason, I wanna

thank you very much for spending, some time to talk to us on See You

on the Other Side today. And, you know, maybe the last question

is, you know, something we've been hearing at the, the conventions lately is

now that you and Grant have

competing shows. Do you feel some Mike healthy competition there or

anything, or is that something that doesn't cross your mind? No. Honestly, it doesn't even

cross my mind. I don't think it's competing. You know, Grant's doing what

what he's doing with with a new bunch of people. Yeah. And

we're just, we're doing what we're doing, and, I think that's the way it

is. And you know what? Ghost Hunters, I'm I'm

still connected to it. I always will be connected to it.

So to each their own. No. But I I don't ever look at

Mike it. I don't ever look at it like competition. I mean, even when we

were out there doing the show initially, we were the highest rated paranormal

show out there. And but it it was never competition.

It was always about everybody's doing their own thing. People do it

differently, and it helps, propel the field forward. People are gonna find

something they love and dislike in in every show. Alright. That's perfect.

Jason, I wanna thank you for your time today, man. I really enjoyed it.

I'm looking forward to checking out Ghost Nation. I'm not even a huge ghost

TV show guy, but I did enjoy Ghost Hunters, for a long time. And

thank you very much for creating the genre for us,

because even, I think it has, made it

acceptable to talk about a lot of these things where 20 years

ago, people would have looked at you funny. And I agree with you a 100%,

Mike. And thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to

talk with Mike. And, yeah, yeah, tune in and check it out. I think you're

gonna like Mike. I because you're able to watch the investigation from really how it

starts to really how we dig into the research and get the

accurate information and and help out the, the homeowners. But I appreciate you

taking the Mike. And if you ever need anything, give me a shout.

So much of life is dedicated to pondering its brevity. In

fact, the Roman Stoics used to carry memento moris around, which were

little reminders that they were going to die. The idea is that it's supposed to

urge you into action realizing that you finite time on this earth, so make

the most of it. My conversation with Jason Hawes, who has been to so many

haunted sites and has seen so many things that he cannot explain, made me

posit just the opposite. What if we had all the time in the

world? That immediately made me think of Andrew Marvell's lovely poem,

To His Coy Mistress, which famously starts, had we

but world enough and Mike. The idea being that life is

short, so let's get to the fun parts. In the poem, the speaker is trying

to get his girlfriend to make some sweet, sweet love, but this song is just

the opposite. It's about how love never dies. And when faced with the possibility

that our spirits are eternal, instead of a 1 night stand, it

just might be the long game.

Thank you for listening to today's episode. You can find us

online at othersidepodcast.com. Until next

Mike, see you on the other side.

Yes, indeed. Thank you so much for listening. This is Wendy and I'm

here to extend an extra special thanks to our Patreon community members,

the folks who make it possible for us to keep doing what we do. We're

creating new songs, making new episodes, going on paranormal

adventures and investigations, and sharing all that with you.

So thank you so much community members and extra special,

extra, extra special thanks to doctor Ned,

who is at the level in our community where he gets this customized shout

out every single week. Ned, thanks for all of your support, all of your enthusiasm.

We appreciate it so much, and we really do value your friendship. Now there's a

quick reminder that next Wednesday, October 2nd, we will be

having our monthly Patreon hangout. And so we're all

gonna get together on Skype and chat about our favorite things that happened in the

past month. That'll be our September hangout, so we'll have another 1 to look forward

to at the end of October. Hope you'll make it there, and it's not too

late. If you're not a member already, you can sign up now. Just visit

othersidepodcast.com/donate, and we can get you right

in there into that hangout next week. Hope to see you there.

Thanks again, everyone, and have a wonderful week.