Scott Philbrook and Forrest Burgess of Astonishing Legends join me for a wide ranging conversation. We talk about Charles Fort, remote viewing, the reality or non reality of Bigfoot, In Search Of, The Night Stalkerā¦and that’s just a sample. Check it out!
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TRANSCRIPT
JIM HAROLD: We talk about some astonishing mysteries today. In fact, weāre talking with the two gentlemen from Astonishing Legends next on the Paranormal Podcast.
[intro music]
This is the Paranormal Podcast with Jim Harold.
JIM HAROLD: Jim Harold here. Welcome to the Paranormal Podcast. So glad to be with you once again. If you like what we do, please rate, review, and follow in your favorite app. That means so much.
One thing we love to do on this show and have done since the early days is catch up with other podcasters and talk to them about their thoughts on the supernatural. Two of my favorites are Scott and Forrest from Astonishing Legends, so weāre catching up with those gentlemen today. We actually did a livestream last week with them; weāre going to try to do more of those in the future. I canāt promise when theyāre coming out or how often, but weāre going to do more livestreams where we incorporate your questions and so forth. So, with no further ado, youāre really going to enjoy this.
Two fantastic guests who are joining us today. Of course, Iām talking ā
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Where? Somebody besides us? [laughs]
JIM HAROLD: [laughs] Oh, too modest, too modest, Scott. Weāre talking about Scott āSallie Houseā Philbrook, as he says on the screen there, and Forrest Burgess. They of course are the chief cooks and bottlewashers at the great Astonishing Legends, and weāre going to talk all about supernatural podcasting and some of the topics theyāve been covering and just have a general, frankly, bull session about the things weāre interested in these days. Again, one of the top supernatural and paranormal podcasts on the internet. Somebody said āthe three best paranormal podcasters together,ā and I couldnāt agree more.
FORREST BURGESS: I agree with one-third of that, yes. Jim is the greatest and the most inspiring.
JIM HAROLD: Aww, well thatās very kind of you. You guys are awesome, and you do great work. You know I feel that way, and I know all the people watching today feel the same way as well. Gentlemen, how goes it? What is new in the world of the supernatural in your lives?
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Well, after seven years, we just finished a series on Charles Fort, finally, who Iām sure youāve probably talked about a billion times with all your shows. But it was fun to really dive into his past. I found myself reinspired by getting to know him and what motivated him and all that stuff. So that was a lot of fun.
JIM HAROLD: Letās talk about that a little bit. People hear the term āForteanā and theyāre like, where did that come from? And maybe everybody whoās listening doesnāt necessarily know because a lot of people think the supernatural started with the ghost hunting shows in the 2000s, and it goes way back than that. I love the Fortean approach because itās not just ghosts; itās weird stuff, which I love. So maybe both of you guys can educate us a little bit about Charles Fort and why heās so important to what weāre doing right here today.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Itās interesting. He started out ā gosh, a long time ago, at the turn of the century, really, right Forrest? He was a writer, and initially he was just a journalist trying to find his way and find his road as a writer. He got caught up in the literati of the movement and was adjacent to royalty in the New York area, in that scene. He wanted to explore ā Iāll try to keep this short because we did hours and hours on him, but he started out trying to explore what kind of writing he wanted to do, and over time and a collection of experiences, he started really casting his gaze upon strange and unusual things.
For folks that donāt know who he is or what āForteanā means or why Forrest and I call our studio āBlanket Forteana,ā itās all about this guy and him categorizing or classifying this group of stories ā which is funny because he would say, verbally and written, that he was against categorizing or classifying things. But thatās what he did, almost obsessively.
When you look at all the folklore, like when you watch Paul Thomas Andersonās Magnolia and it has all those segments about the frogs falling from the sky, or you think about spontaneous human combustion, he was the first guy to say, āWhatās going on over here?ā The other thing that he was the first guy to do was to look for really valid sources for that material and not to just discard it. He said itās important not to just discard this because science canāt figure it out. Thatās the part of it that I think really draws us to it, that we love.
FORREST BURGESS: That goes back to us mentioning on the show, it struck a chord with me ever since I first heard it, and this is years ago, when Jim first interviewed Michael Shermer. I use this quote quite a bit because it does tie in with Fortās philosophy. People think he was anti-science and he hated skeptics. No, he was very skeptical.
The first time Iād ever heard Michael Shermer in an interview ā by the way, great guy. I follow his writing and really like his viewpoints ā it was something very profound. He said, okay, if weāre going to look at this scientifically, all this weird phenomena, obviously thereās some stuff weāre not going to have answers for. And frankly, thatās Fortās point, too. Thereās no interest from mainstream scientists because possibly you canāt get any answers from it, and also it canāt be proven in a lab. āItās ridiculous, so letās forget about it.ā
Shermerās point was weāre going to study this stuff; maybe 10% of it is just unknowable. Itās so weird and wild and youāre not sure about the sources and the people who claim to be eyewitnesses, so letās take that and put that 10% on a shelf and we set it aside. Now letās look at the 90% we can actually maybe get some inroad in with scientific study. I think it was your point, and also mine ā you said this later in another interview when you were talking about your interview with Michael Shermer: Wait, what about that 10%? Why not look at that?
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Yeah, you canāt just put it on a shelf. Weāre not going to look at that.
JIM HAROLD: Yeah, āthat stuff doesnāt count.ā
FORREST BURGESS: But I get it. I get that point of view that youāre just not going to get any answers, so thatās disinteresting. So when you look at cases like KellyāHopkinsville or the one weāre studying now about a monster in the Midwest, āThatās so outrageous, and that canāt possibly exist, so letās look at how more likely what the person saw was a kangaroo, or letās look at how more likely what the two families at KellyāHopkinsville saw ā itās got to be an owl because it canāt be a goblin, right? Or it canāt be anything we donāt know about. So letās look at the possible options on the table that are mundane, that we do know about, and how does that fit in?ā
What I find to be humorous is that that is that square peg that is trying to fit into that round hole. Itās like, āIt doesnāt fit, but weāre going to jam it in there.ā When you look at the kidsā playboard with the wood and the colored pegs, you can see it doesnāt exactly fit, but youāve taken a mallet and youāve jammed it in there. āGood enough, letās move on.ā
Thatās kind of Fortās thing. As he said, the data will march. He said, āThe stuff Iām going to say is outrageous. I think itās outrageous. Itās damned to be discarded and ignored by science, but the data itself doesnāt go away.ā There is still the Kentucky meat shower. Frogs still fall from the sky. And thatās the thing; he points out things that are uncomfortable facts about it. These arenāt tadpoles ā he said, okay, maybe a whirlwind swooped them up from some farmerās pond, they hatched or developed in the air from tadpoles⦠but they came down as mature frogs.
Hereās the other thing. If they fell from a great height, none of the frogs were injured. So he said, maybe they didnāt fall from hundreds of feet in the sky, swept up. Maybe some tear happened. His theory is the Great Sargasso Sea or genesisterin, which was a smaller section of a large body in space or time where weird stuff happens, and the genesisterin is where the weird stuff comes down. Itās like maybe the ether is an organism, and when we see blood raining from the sky, this thingās actually hurt, whatever it is.
So heās postulating these things, but you have to realize during the course of his writings, he changed his own mind even within the same book. He starts off with postulating a theory early on in Book of the Damned, and then towards the end of it heās also like, āMaybe thatās wrong. Maybe we look at it this way.ā
Thatās another thing we like about Fort. Heās very adaptable. Heās willing to say, āI donāt know. Iām just throwing stuff out here. What I do know is that hundreds of people saw this,ā and whether itās weird planetary airships from all over the world or itās spontaneous human combustion, these things are happening whether you believe them or not.
JIM HAROLD: Thatās a question I have. When we think about writings back in the day and newspaper articles and things, a lot of people say, āAh, that stuff was written for sensationalism. That was to sell newspapers or sell booksā or whatever it is. Why do we feel assured that Fort was an honest broker in all of this?
SCOTT PHILBROOK: You want to take that, Forrest? Go ahead.
FORREST BURGESS: Iāll just say simply he didnāt take all of his news from the weekly world news at the time, the tabloids. He looked at scientific journals from around the world. He spent a lot of time ā most of his time, probably ā in the libraries of London and New York, looking over every possible piece of information. Thatās newspaper accounts to eyewitness testimonies, but also a lot of scientific material.
Again, this stuff would be brought up, and itās like what we find today. You might have a cryptid sighting. What weāre studying now is the flap of 1972 that occurred in southern Illinois with a bunch of people seeing a bunch of different weird cryptids. Thatās been studied. However, the scientific angle and wording at the time, from the ā70s, is that itās a bit of mass hysteria. Theyāre not saying that people didnāt see weird stuff; theyāre counting exactly as they repeated it, but theyāre saying itās from a different cause. āItās not actually monsters, but maybe people did see a 10-foot-tall, white-haired biped ape-like creature that had pink glowing eyes, but thatās not real. The sightings we believe. Yeah, we believe that people are genuinely recounting these stories. But whatās going on here? Is it more psychological?ā Of course, itās got to be psychological. You canāt have 10-foot-tall white bigfoots running around and it being real.
My point is that those cases are documented, and I think thatās what Fort was studying. People did know stuff was going on. When itās raining down meat and the whole town knows it, itās hard to ignore. [laughs] Thatās the thing. People want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Itās like, āWell, what one person said was bologna, so it all must be bologna.ā Itās like, well, thereās 50 other people who testified that this happened. Are they all suffering from mass hysteria, or did something weird happen and theyāre seeing it with slightly different personal lenses? Then you wonder, at the base of this, you canāt deny that something weird did happen.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: I was going to say one thing. The Shag Harbour incident, which is the UFOs that crashed in the harbor in Nova Scotia, the whole freaking town saw it. The whole town. The police, the mayor, everybody. Such a great story. I want to cover it at some point. Our good friend Jordan Bonaparte, who lives right there, did a series on it. His show is called the Nighttime Podcast.
But that is such a great story. Thereās a book called The Shag Harbour Incident, which is a great read. Those are the kinds of stories we love, where all these folks saw it. It doesnāt really matter if science is able to say āthat couldnāt have happened,ā because now youāre talking about a whole town. What, youāre telling them that theyāre all crazy? It doesnāt make sense. The mass hysteria thing, I have a hard time with that in general.
But listen, we can talk about this as long as you want, but before we leave Fort, I have two items for show and tell.
JIM HAROLD: Absolutely. Please.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: For folks that are listening to this on audio later, you wonāt be able to see this, but come back to the video that Iām sure Jim will share. I have a first edition of Lo!, which is considered Fortās most successful book, that I got. Itās funny because our friend Richard Hatem, whoās been on our show several times ā heās the screenwriter that wrote The Mothman Prophecies and other stuff ā was after this copy, but he sat too long and I swooped in. Heād been looking at it for like two months and then I bought it. I didnāt know he wanted it. When I sent him pictures, he sent me some angry emojis.
But the illustrations in it are just stunning. I just love this stuff. Itās really cool. But itās also crumbling. I set it on a table the other day and part of the cover came off. Itās probably in the worst shape of any rare book Iāve bought.
JIM HAROLD: Oh my gosh.
FORREST BURGESS: Get it to a book binder and have them fortify it.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: I know about cars, but not books. Like now youāre not supposed to do anything to the car. Youāre supposed to leave the original patina. If you fix this, am I ruining it? I donāt know.
FORREST BURGESS: Hereās my thinking about both rare old cars and rare books, both of which I love. At some point ā Scott will know about this. Somebody gets a collector car, they drain the oil, drain the fluids, condition all the rubber and plastic pieces, and then seal it away in some vault.Ā
JIM HAROLD: Hermetically sealed vault.
FORREST BURGESS: Yes. Iām of the mind, take good care of it, but this stuff is meant to be enjoyed. Drive the car around. Thatās why I love Jay Leno taking Stanley Steamer out and driving it around.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Iāve seen him driving his Stanley Steamer in LA.
FORREST BURGESS: Oh, by the way, quick update, not anything paranormal. On the drive here, I saw a 1:1 perfect replica of the Back to the Future DeLorean. I was right behind it. But hereās the thing: it had all the gear on it.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Thereās a club in LA, and Iāve seen them. At Radford Studios thereās a thing they do every year. It might be Fourth of July they all show up in Knight Rider cars and those. Thereās a couple of those DeLoreans, and one is the newer one that has Mr. Fusion and then the other one is older, but theyāre both fully decked out. But theyāre from different movies.
FORREST BURGESS: Yeah, this was decked out. I think this was the first movie. Doc Brown has got the refrigerators on the back hatchback. So it was fully decked out. But thatās meant to be seen, not just at the Peterson Museum. But my point about the book ā yes, get it ā the bindingās cracked.
JIM HAROLD: What is the date on that book?
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Itās 18 ā let me take a look here.
FORREST BURGESS: To answer your question earlier, Fort was born on August 6th, 1874.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Yeah, I didnāt want to get the years wrong. Thank you for looking that up. Oh, no, this is copyright 1931. I have a much older book thatās in much better shape, so I donāt know. This one has I think spent some time in the sun.
FORREST BURGESS: I canāt remember when he passed away, but it was around that time. The mid to late ā30s.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: I want to show my other show and tell thing real quick.
JIM HAROLD: Okay, go ahead.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: This requires some backstory. I got it for like $5 because nobody cared about it. Fortās grandfather was a grocer in Albany, and he wanted his kids and everyone to go into the business. Fortās brother, Charles Nelson Fort, did. So there was a grocery business in Albany, and they would relabel canned goods ā this was big business back then ā and they would put the Fort label on it. So immediately when we started doing the show, Iām on eBay, looking for old P.V. Fort & Son canned goods, and I couldnāt find any.
FORREST BURGESS: When he should be researching, heās checking lineages.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: I know. I get caught up in these things. But I found this bill of sale from P.V. Fort & Son. Itās selling some groceries to somebody. Itās so cool. It just came today in the mail, so you can see here.
JIM HAROLD: Oh man.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Isnāt that cool? It says āBought of P.V. Fort & Son,ā and over here it says āP.V. Fort & C.N. Fort,ā Charles Nelson Fort. Whatās really cool, too, is right here in the middle, itās signed ā I canāt do backwards with my hands; Iām doing it wrong ā but itās signed by P.V. Fort right across the middle, which is cool. So thatās signed by Charles Fortās grandfather.
JIM HAROLD: Wow.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Iām so excited about this. I mean, Fort hasnāt written on it. This is the place he didnāt want to go in to work at. [laughs]
FORREST BURGESS: That was his son.
JIM HAROLD: Raining frogs sound a lot more fun, a lot more exciting.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Yeah. But the person that had this was selling it for a typical old random grocery receipt.
JIM HAROLD: Yeah, didnāt get the connection.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Yeah, so I got it for like five bucks, which I was thrilled about.
JIM HAROLD: Didnāt know the value of what they had. We have so much more to cover, but weāll be back after this very important message.
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JIM HAROLD: For you individually, going back to your earliest fascination with this kind of stuff, where did it start for you respectively? For me, itās In Search Of⦠What was it for you guys?
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Well, right here. Iād say you and I are in the same camp.
JIM HAROLD: Iāve got that too. Iāve got it right on my DVD shelf, absolutely.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Yeah. I loved In Search Of⦠growing up. That was a big thing for me. I was pretty young when it was on, but man, I was just enthralled with it. My mom and I would watch it. Itās funny; I look back ā I bought this set a few years ago whenever it came out, probably same time you got it, and I was watching them. I donāt even have a working DVD player anymore, and then my son was like, āDad, the Xbox plays DVDs.ā I said, āOh yeah, duh.ā So I got it in the Xbox and weāre watching a couple and my wife was like, āI donāt think I can do this. Itās creeping me out.ā [laughs]
JIM HAROLD: Yeah. You look back and it wasnāt probably the most expensive filmstock and those kind of things, but that music, and then of course, the masterful narration of Leonard Nimoy. He probably went in and knocked it out in like an hour, but just that mix and that ā I can hear the music in the background right now playing in my head. Nobody could do it better.
Interestingly enough ā Iām sure you both knew this ā originally the host of that show was going to be Rod Serling.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Thatās right, yes. I only learned that a few years ago, though. I mightāve learned it from you. Iāve only known that like two years.
JIM HAROLD: Serling had the bad taste to die on my sixth birthday.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Oh, wow, right on your birthday.
FORREST BURGESS: Jim, do you remember ā the one that creeped me out was ā of course, Twilight Zone was on and that was fun. āBack in my day, we didnāt have Leonard Nimoy, we hadā¦ā
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Forrest is older. [laughs]
FORREST BURGESS: Yeah, I had Rod Serling. The show that creeped me out, though, had a totally different tone and vibe and it changed with the times ā I believe with sociology on it ā was Night Gallery. The vibe of that spooked me out as a youngster. I remember having to go to bed ā I think my parents did the thing which would probably be frowned on now.
JIM HAROLD: [sings theme]
FORREST BURGESS: Yeah, exactly. They let me watch half of it, and I think that was my bedtime and theyāre like, āOkay, now youāve got to go to bed.ā I had half of that creepy story in my head. I remember lying in my bed as a kid, listening to the audio from the TV because the show went on ā I think it was probably an hour, or however long it was. But I listened to the other half because I wanted to know the story, but I was also frightened. But I listened for the commercials because that snapped me back to reality. When you hear a commercial for Alpo or Chuck Wagon and the little dog is chasing it into the cabinet, all those things ā
JIM HAROLD: Weāre showing our age, but I know exactly what youāre talking about.
FORREST BURGESS: Yeah. The point was that made me feel comfortable. That was reality, soap commercials and food commercials and local car dealerships. It brought me back out of that scary world to show you that āNo, no, everythingās fine, itās all a commercial world, youāre safe.ā So I looked at those commercials like, āOh, thank goodness. Madge is doing her Palmolive thing.ā
JIM HAROLD: Youāre soaking in it. [laughs]
FORREST BURGESS: Yes. The Calgon lady is getting relaxed, and the guyās taking the stain out of his collar with Wisk.
JIM HAROLD: All the favorites, yes.
FORREST BURGESS: Yeah, those were the commercial things. But from my point ā sorry, go ahead.
JIM HAROLD: No, no, go ahead.
FORREST BURGESS: Before those shows, though, for me ā because Iām about four years older than Scott ā I would sometimes find it in print, but it wasnāt very easy. I remember this, much like ā I think itās Marty. One of the two brothers on the Oak Island show. He first got inspired about it when he was probably ā heās a little older than me, so he understood it more. Maybe he was 11 or 12, seeing that story in Readerās Digest ā and thatās also where I saw it.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Oh, right. Readerās Digest.
FORREST BURGESS: Yeah, because my grandparents had it.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Yes, my great-grandmother had it. We would read it, my great-grandmother and I. And she, by the way, would make me practice ESP. She had the cards from Kreskinās and we would practice, and then we would practice with regular cards.
Also, she would read the spooky stories to me from her Readerās Digest stuff, which is where I heard the original āThereās Room for One Moreā elevator story about the woman staying in the country and the carriage comes around in the middle of the night, and āThereās room for one moreā and she keeps seeing this in the middle of the night, and then the next day she goes shopping ā we told this on the show at some point. Sheās supposed to get on an elevator and they say, āThereās room for one more,ā and then she doesnāt get on it and the elevator cable snaps and everybody dies. We looked that up; it turned out to be apocryphal or something. But it was still such a great story.
JIM HAROLD: I was just going to say, there was another show that actually predated The Twilight Zone by a year that supposedly was based on real stories.Ā
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Oh really? What was it called?
JIM HAROLD: It was called One Step Beyond.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Oh my God.
FORREST BURGESS: Oh yeah, Iām vaguely familiar with that.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: I donāt think Iāve heard of that.
JIM HAROLD: I have to say this ā I know my lips are out of sync, but Forrest has this thing where his head is coming in and out, so it has an ethereal ā
FORREST BURGESS: Oh, itās the key.
JIM HAROLD: Yeah, I know, but it has this ethereal quality that really makes this extra spooky. [laughs]
SCOTT PHILBROOK: He gets lost in his library.
FORREST BURGESS: Itās unintentionally spooky. Iām actually at a WeWork.
JIM HAROLD: Hey, I love it.
FORREST BURGESS: The appropriate correlation here would be what takes us out of our spooky conversation is people walking by. Iām in a glass booth.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Zoom has made bad keys okay, so itās all right.
FORREST BURGESS: Iām basically in a phone booth, so I was going to put up the green screen which I have, but itās huge. Iād have to cover the whole thing, so if I do, then basically Iāve got it right against my back.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Yeah, weāre going to remedy all this soon.
FORREST BURGESS: We have the dirty mat, as Scott calls it.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: A garbage mat. I also have to mention Unsolved Mysteries, of course, which I was obsessed with. And Iām still watching them. Later on, but even when they came out the first time with Robert Stack, I was watching every single episode. I would skip through or take a break during Lost Loves, as Forrest knows, but then all the other segments.
JIM HAROLD: [laughs] And so many of those ā think about that. The internet has changed the world so much that some of those wouldnāt even be ā youād be like, āWhy donāt you just google it?ā The world has changed so much through the internet. Weāre similar age, and itās kind of a weird age to be because weāve seen it fully both ways, the way it used to be and the way it is now, and weāre all very techie and stuff. Probably more so than really most of our peer group, I would say. I always joke Iām 50 in age and Iām like 29 in tech. [laughs] I like to think that, at least.
FORREST BURGESS: Itās good to keep up with it.
JIM HAROLD: Except Iām not on TikTok. Thatās a bridge too far, for me at least. Nobody wants to see me dancing, believe me. That would be scary.
But yeah, I loved Unsolved Mysteries. Theyāve done a nice job on the new one with Netflix, but itās not the same.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Itās not the same. It doesnāt have the same vibe.
JIM HAROLD: First of all, Robert Stack was the man. And apparently some of the producers didnāt like the paranormal stories, but the problem was when they put the paranormal stories in, those were the ones that got the best ratings. I think Stack may have been a little ambivalent about the supernatural aspect, but thatās what people remember.
And then you also get into the true crime piece, which is my feeling ā and Iāve done 192 episodes of a true crime show, which I may bring back at some point ā but I think true crime and the paranormal are like a Venn diagram in that there is crossover. There is some crossover in terms of peopleās interest in those kinds of things.
But what a fantastic show. For me, first was In Search Ofā¦, and then I discovered The Twilight Zone when I was 12 or 13. I was like six when In Search Of⦠was on. And then Unsolved Mysteries more like my teenage years. But the interesting thing, Forrest, you were talking about Twilight Zone and Night Gallery ā fantastic, love them so much ā but the difficult between that and an Unsolved Mysteries or In Search Of⦠that opened my mind to the paranormal and the supernatural was the fact that you knew those were fiction, right? But with In Search Of⦠and Unsolved Mysteries, this stuff can be real.
FORREST BURGESS: Yeah. And you can find it in books. As we were talking about at the top of the show, Jim, people think this stuff originates ā and naturally so; I get it. A lot of these stories are like, āThatās a Creepypasta story that came up in the ā80s.ā If you actually did some digging, you would find that no, there are threads of this stuff that of course happened much before this. Everybody thinks they invented everything that happened in their era. But my point is that thatās how Fort did it. He went to libraries. It takes a lot of effort. He spent years doing this. But you can find it if youāre diligent. He didnāt find this stuff on Creepypasta, trust me.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Yeah, he does the stuff that itās easy for us to try to emulate him now.
FORREST BURGESS: Itās easier, yeah.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: He was really doing the work and traveling and all of that kind of stuff. Hats off to him.
FORREST BURGESS: Where it was easier ā I was going to say another influence for me was the set of Time-Life Books that we all looked at.
JIM HAROLD: Oh yes, and the commercial with the fortune teller.
FORREST BURGESS: Yeah, that was awesome.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Thatās how you found out about the Old West stories, and they had one on ghosts. And they still had creepy stuff.
FORREST BURGESS: āJohn Wesley Hardin once shot a man just for snoring.ā
SCOTT PHILBROOK: You find out about these stories ā
FORREST BURGESS: He really did, by the way. I looked that up once.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: My favorite Old West story ā I actually want to cover this ā itās not talked about much, but itās in those books. Like I said, if you dig you can find interesting things that even arenāt much on the internet nowadays. Itās of a sheriff in town. The town was overrun by desperados, and heās one man against eight, so heās going to get gunned down.
FORREST BURGESS: Is this Cobra?
SCOTT PHILBROOK: No.
FORREST BURGESS: Iām making a joke. [laughs]
SCOTT PHILBROOK: They all went to the same saloon every day, they all hung out there, drank all day, whooped it up at night. So what he did was he would go in there and observe. He wouldnāt bother them, so they really wouldnāt bother him as long as they could do their crimes. But what he did one day is went out to the back of the saloon and calculated where everyone was sitting, and from the outside he shot everybody, hitting them all in one shot. Got them all in one swoop.
FORREST BURGESS: Those are stories like that. But also, what creeped me out ā when I was a kid, this gave me nightmares ā was the moving coffins of Barbados. We did a little short brief talk for Halloween with Jerry and Tracy over at Hillbilly Horror Stories because they wanted a quick thing. That story stuck with me. It creeped me out as a kid. Itās like, wait a minute, they can move on their own? This thing was sealed, and you go in there and some of the bodies are out of the coffins. Itās a short blip. Itās nightmare fuel. And then when youāre older and you can research this stuff on the internet, you realize, okay, some of that is unknown. Some of it is folklore. But Jim, as you know, thereās always a kernel, usually, of something weird that actually really happened.
JIM HAROLD: Absolutely. No question about it. Iām going to ask you this, and then I have another thing, and then we still want to get some questions here. Weāve only got till the top of the hour. These gentlemen are super busy. I want to get them on their way to new vistas. Donāt want to take too much of their time. So if you have a question, put a āQā ā this is for our listeners and viewers ā put a āQā in the chat box and put your question. That way I can easily find them and elevate them when we get to the Q&A section.
But I guess Iāll ask you, and I think, Scott, I know the answer for you ā thus your name ā
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Yeah. [laughs]
JIM HAROLD: What is your favorite thing or freakiest thing that youāve covered on the podcast now over ā what has it been, seven or eight years? Or am I underestimating?
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Yeah, weāre just over seven. Actually, for me, I always make a joke about the Sallie House because apparently with our listeners thereās a drinking game associated with it, as Trish referenced in the comments here. And yes, Trish, I watched Thatās Incredible!. That was a great show.
JIM HAROLD: Me too.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Yeah. But I was going to say, for me, one of my favorite things we covered was the Betz Sphere, which is just this silver ball that drove around by itself. On the surface, the elevator pitch for it is horrible. Nobody would ever make it into anything. But the story itself and the way it unfolded and us getting in touch with an eyewitness from the family and getting x-rays that nobody had seen and all that stuff, that was a real thrill for me. There was a scoop and it was really fascinating and the details all held up for me. I still have a lot of questions about what that whole thing was. That one really stands out to me.
The Sallie House, obviously ā that shifted my whole paradigm, but itās so far behind us now and other things have come along. As I said in the Sallie House series, the person that went into that house did not come out of that house, and that personās long gone. But as a result ā
FORREST BURGESS: Ooh, thatās spooky.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Yeah. But as a result, the things that weāve covered since then ā the Betz Sphere, thatās one of my favorite series that weāve done. So thatās for me.
FORREST BURGESS: For me, I love that one because itās one of the most ā of course, you probably get this all the time, too, Jim ā Scott and I can do it for each other, but when a listener says, āYou know what? I thought that was going to be the dumbest thing ever. It was a big steely, who cares?ā And then he said, āI didnāt know any of the stuff you talked about. This is fascinating.ā It was in the papers at the time. It was talked about. It was a national ā actually a global thing, because if you believe the family, strange Eastern European officials showed up at their house wanting to buy steel ball for undisclosed stuff. That was a big deal at the time, but people said, āI thought that was going to be really stupid and I ended up loving it.ā Thatās what we love.
But before I forget, obviously, duh, on my part, one of the shows that also influenced me the most and inspired me to wear this t-shirt today was this. Do you remember this gentleman?
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Oh yes. Iām not going to say.
JIM HAROLD: Oh yes, [00:35:33] guy. Yes, of course. The great [00:35:36].
FORREST BURGESS: Yep, and that was another show when I was a kid ā these were fictional but also based on real things. Again, I went back ā itās not recently, where you would look at some of these things and thereās a kernel of truth, of real folklore.
JIM HAROLD: Itās kind of like The X-Files before The X-Files.
FORREST BURGESS: Exactly. You had a character here who was really inspiring because he didnāt have all the answers but he was brave enough to ignore the work he was supposed to be doing for the independent news service and chase down these monster stories, or it was a story of a zombie or a haunting or a Sumerian demon coming back to life. He was armed with curiosity, but also, pre-internet. He was looking at old books. Youāve always got to get out the stack of books in the TV show and start pilling through stuff. Itās all there. But anyway, that was another inspiring show for me.
JIM HAROLD: Such a great show. I have that on DVD too. I do have a DVD player because Iām old school. [laughter]
SCOTT PHILBROOK: I still had it. It just wasnāt hooked up. And then my son was like, āDuh, Dad, the Xbox.ā Itās like, āOh yeah, itāll do that.ā
JIM HAROLD: One thing I wanted to ask you about in our limited time was something you worked on this year: remote viewing. I did an interview years ago with Lyn Buchanan, who had worked on the government program. Thereās a tendency to make a joke out of The Men Who Stare at Goats, and āHa ha, isnāt that funnyā ā but this is real stuff. What are your thoughts on the idea that I could sit here, and if I have the skill and the talent and the ability, I can tap into something and I could remote view Scott in the Carolinas? Or whatever it might be.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Itās absolutely uncanny. My personal jury was out on it, even though weāre friends with one of the instructors whose mentor is Lyn. We actually regularly attend seminars that she and Lyn do together. We just went to one a few days ago. Heās a legend, obviously. Part of Project Stargate and all of that stuff. And heās still teaching it, which is great.
Iāll just quickly come back and then let Forrest go, but for me, my jury was out on it until we took the first class we took. Weāve taken a few since then ā not a ton, because weāre busy doing the show, but weāve taken a few. When I took that first class and what happened and the things I was able to ascertain with the test target that we had ā which I canāt talk about because itās part of a permanent free class that Lori has on our website, so you donāt want to give away the target.
But the experience that I had identifying a lot of things about that target threw me for a loop, and I came away from it going, this is real, and if I can do it, truly anybody can do it. The weirdest thing about it, though, is even the best instructors donāt really know how it works. You just have to get past that. You donāt worry about how it works; you just apply the methodology and you get better and better at it until hopefully your accuracy improves.
FORREST BURGESS: I will say first of all, a little preamble here, Iāve learned more about human nature and human behavior than I have about the paranormal. Iāve learned a lot about the paranormal and how it works, but Iāve learned more about how people react to it. And weirdly, unexpectedly ā but maybe not ā remote viewing is one of our most controversial shows. Itās the strangest thing. [laughs] As youāll know, some topics really get people stirred up, riled up in a fluster there. Anything having to do with psy, telepathic powers, psychics, that seems to really boil peopleās blood.
Weirdly, with this, like I said, when I first heard about it, probably way back when it was first being discussed ā of course, I would pay attention to these kind of things, so probably the early ā90s is when I first started hearing about remote viewing. My thought was, well, if itās being studied at the Stanford Research Institute by physicists who are now more interested in consciousness studies and psy and mental powers, and it was sanctioned by the CIA for 20 years, along with the military, and they were still doing it, that to me has some basis for this stuff sounds like it works, like itās real. They werenāt just being fooled for 20 years.
But what you find is that you can bring out all of that ā thereās some declassified CIA reports on remote viewing sessions. All of thatās been made public and declassified now. Doesnāt matter. People will still say āThis is bologna.ā
SCOTT PHILBROOK: I was reading one yesterday.
FORREST BURGESS: āThis is total garbage.ā And hereās the weird thing. It did get a little personal for us because hereās the thing. We have a Facebook group and we have a lot of lovely people in there. And I get people getting riled up, but basically it turned into an ad hominem attack on our good friend Lori, who weāve known for many years now, talked with a bunch. People were basically accusing her of being a charlatan, that this was all just a show to plug books and this is all a scam and sheās running a scam, and by association, we must be criminals too because weāre endorsing this scam.
You can say whatever you want about us, but sheās a friend of ours. Imagine somebody saying that about a good friend of yours. āTheyāre a shyster.ā Itās like, wait a second. I might be okay with that or would understand that more if you took the class and you said, āI took the free class. This is bologna. None of this worked. I donāt get it. This is all a sham. These people put one over on the CIA and the Pentagon for 20 years because theyāre idiots, and they gave them $11 million or $20 million spent over that amount of time, and theyāre just dumb because this is all bologna.ā I might understand that if you had some experience with that. But it wasnāt that. It was āI just donāt think this works. Mental powers are bologna. This womanās essentially a crook.ā
It’s like, is that based on any personal experience? Did you do any reading about remote viewing and you decided then that none of this makes sense? No. It turned personal. And again, the human nature part of that is that when you donāt understand it and it blows your mind, you donāt look to the phenomenon; you look to bring down the person. Thatās whoās opposing us.
JIM HAROLD: Again, I hate these ad hominem attacks where youāre just saying, āYouāre a bad person!ā or āYouāre a crook!ā or whatever, rather than ā we see it all the time with UFO cases. Or when you read a case and then the traditional media tries to give balance, and then theyāll have Ben Radford or somebody like that ā Iāve actually had Ben on the show. Iāve had skeptics on the show. I have no problem having skeptics on the show.
But a lot of times itāll just be not commenting on the specific case. Just general. āSo-and-so says that many times when thereās a UFO case, the person is mistaking this for thatā or whatever, just these general blanket statements that are not at all related to that specific case. In fact, when the reporter reaches out to the person, I highly doubt they give them any specifics about the case.
I donāt know why my phone is dinging. I hate when that happens. But it is happening, so weāll stop that now.
But the point being, I hate these ad hominem attacks where youāre attacking the person or youāre talking about the phenomenon, whatever it is, in general terms, not that specific case. Itās maddening, and in many ways it seems to me to be intellectual dishonesty.
FORREST BURGESS: I agree. Couldnāt agree more.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Itās the easier option. Like I said, you donāt know how it works and it doesnāt matter ā we thought, here you go, how many bits of phenomena that you come across actually were studied by physicists and psychologists and the government and our intelligence agencies, the DIA, the CIA? And they seem to think it was okay. But somehow you know better and that it is bologna.
So we thought that bolsters our claim. No, it doesnāt matter. None of that matters. Your very best friend in the world, your parent that you love may tell you something happened and itās like, āI think you saw a kangaroo.ā It doesnāt mater. Youāre still going to have your doubts. Itās very personal, and I get that, but yeah, itās what people do. It is maddening, but like I said, the phenomenon does not care if you believe in it or not. It just continues to exist.
JIM HAROLD: One thing that Iāve found ā and then weāre going to get to some Q&A from the audience; this time has flown by ā we were talking before about what weāre going to talk about and I said, āNot to worry. This time is going to fly. Itās no problem.ā Just stream of consciousness. I think itās a lot of fun to get your perspective.
But people say, āWhat do you think about after 17 years of doing these shows? What conclusions have you come to?ā Iāve come to two conclusions. Not each and every story, but the phenomena are real. Things happen. Does that mean that every phenomenon that has been described over the litany of the shows that Iāve done is real? I donāt know about that. But a lot of it does exist. I firmly believe it exists.
The second thing would be that I believe that the nature of reality itself is far more complex than we can grasp. Itās just way beyond our ability. And when we see these phenomena, that in many ways I think is a reflection of us getting a slight glimpse into that alternate reality. What do you guys think?
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Itās funny; Iāve had to do a lot of driving this past week or two because my mom is downsizing from a house to an apartment, but the apartment is hundreds of miles away, down at the beach. So Iām driving, a lot of time in my car, and I have a tendency to speed sometimes, so I have a radar detector. I had the radar detector on the windshield, and it senses everything, and it would go off for lasers sometimes. Iām like, I know the police in my state donāt have laser detectors. Almost none of them do. Why does this keep going off?
And then eventually, I realized my iPhone is one of the newer ones that has LIDAR. What would happen is the phone would be up on the other side of the windshield and it would open up, and Iād be driving ā because I had a mount. I donāt do the holding the phone and driving thing. Iām very much against that. So itās on a thing, and I would look over at it and when it would try to unlock, the LIDAR would shoot out laser beams, I guess. Then the radar detector would go off. So finally I figured this out. Thereās a setting in there where I can turn off its sensitivity to laser. Thatās over my head. I need to figure that out too.
But what I was thinking is, thereās laser beams shooting all over the cabin of my car right now. I canāt see them at all. Thatās just one thing. I happen to have a sensor, I have a thing thatās shooting them out, and I have a thing that tells me when theyāre shooting out, but I canāt see them. And thatās just one thing. Thatās one part of reality that Iām not sensing. So when you think about the full spectrum of light, the full spectrum of radio waves, all the things that we canāt see that are around us all the time ā when Iām driving along, itās a beautiful sunny day, I wouldnāt even know that stuff was there.
So when I think about the reality, beyond the ethereal idea of multiple planes of existence and different dimensions and all that, even in the basic scientific one, thereās all kinds of stuff weāre not seeing and arenāt aware of. I think that does permeate beyond the really mundane spectrums of light to much deeper things. It was a weird thing for me to think about. Iām like, oh yeah, what other sensors could I drive around with where I could tell that frogs were about to fall from the sky or whatever?
JIM HAROLD: Forrest?
FORREST BURGESS: What was the question? [laughter]
JIM HAROLD: The nature of reality being way weirder than we think.
FORREST BURGESS: Yeah, I think thatās obvious. Iāll put it this way: itās obvious to everyone whoās experienced it. I feel genuinely bad for the people that have experienced a lot of weird stuff and very much struggle to accept it. Not what it was, because we may never find that out, but that it happened at all, or they think that theyāre going crazy, or they think that other people are going to think theyāve gone crazy. Thatās one of the biggest deals.
When we get an email, itās like, āI just wanted to share this story. I donāt know if Iām nuts, and I didnāt want to be judged.ā Youāre going to send your story to us and weāre not going to judge you because I believe that these things do happen that are totally not explainable, but they do seem to happen. On the other hand, I also feel bad for the people that are very much in denial of everything, like, āNope, we understand everything. Everythingās explainable by science. Nothing strange happens.ā Not that I feel bad about their state of mind; only that that world seems kind of boring to me. [laughs] āThereās nothing weird that happens, itās all bologna, everyoneās crazy.Ā Itās just everything that we can experience. Thatās it. Yes, science doesnāt know everything, of course, and thereās some phenomena we may find out about, but none of itās extraordinary.ā
It’s like, all right, thatās fine. Thatās not the world I choose to live in. I choose to consider everything. I donāt believe everything that people tell us, believe it or not, but also, I have a larger table to put stuff on when I consider everything. I believe my world is much more expanded and a lot more fun. At least to me.
And like I said, youāre one step away from being a believer in something. Youāre one experience away. When it happens, youāre like, āOkay, I canāt deny that happened. Now what?ā Going to have to change your thinking. And thatās very scary to a lot of people.
JIM HAROLD: Indeed. We have questions. I want to get some of these in from our great viewers, our spooktators. āLoved ALās āThe Vertical Planeā episodes. Is there any chance of an interview with the author, Ken Webster? Just finished the book but Iād like to know more.ā Uncanny Lassie asks this.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Yes, we would love to have Ken on. He reached out to us after we finished the series, and itās funny; we must have finished it just as he was going to press with a new edition of his book, a second edition. He emailed us and said, āHey, Iām about to print this. I hope itās okay if I mentioned you guys.ā I was like, āWait a minute, youāre alive? Youāre real? Yeah, of course you can mention us.ā [laughs]
So he put a link to the series in the book, and then it went to press and thatās out there now on Amazon. Anybody can get it. He specifically said in his emails that he did it because he was mad about all the people speculating on the first edition, which is very, very expensive. Of course, the very next thing I did, Uncanny Lassie, was email him and say, āYou want to come on the show? Because we would love to talk to you.ā He was reluctant to do that. He did say we could submit questions to him via email, which I havenāt done yet, and he would respond to those.
He’s very, very nice. Very kind. Really forthright person. It had to do mostly with his current professional career and not wanting to necessarily get connected with whatever his day job is at this point. Iām not convinced that we wonāt be able to talk him into it in the future; he seems to like us and trust us. But heās just not ready to appear on a mic yet, as far as I know. Of course, cut to him being on the BBC tomorrow or something.
Also, Uncanny Lassie, I saw your other question about Scotland. We do want to travel. Weād love to travel now that COVID is winding down. Weāre trying to get those kinds of things figured out in the next few years. I would love to come to Scotland because all my ancestors came down through there. So weāll see about that.
JIM HAROLD: Weāll be back with Scott and Forrest right after this.
The Paranormal Podcast is brought to you by ParaBox. ParaBox is your source for amazing, one-of-a-kind paranormal t-shirts that are not only great t-shirts, but theyāll actually lead you into online mysteries. Weāre joined today by the mastermind and the founder of ParaBox, Jim Hamilton. Jim, tell us a little bit about ParaBox.
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JIM HAROLD: I want to mention youāre a graphic designer, and a great one. You do a lot of work for me, and I appreciate it, and you do a great job. Weāve worked together for years. But the thing I want to say is that this is such a great idea ā ParaBox, that is. Iāve got to believe youāve had a great response from your members.
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JIM HAROLD: And those designs are really something, Iāve got to say. My daughters absolutely love them and they wear the shirts all the time. They kind of fight over them. [laughs] Itās kind of funny here in the Harold household. So where do you get the ideas for these designs?
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JIM HAROLD: Thatās so cool, Jim. Thank you so much for doing that. I appreciate it, and I know our listeners out there appreciate it, too. You heard the man; go to paraboxmonthly.com/jim. Thatās paraboxmonthly.com/jim, and get that deal, 25% off a ParaBox monthly subscription. I highly recommend it. Thanks, ParaBox.
Youāre listening to the Paranormal Podcast with Jim Harold.
JIM HAROLD: Android Purity, who I know is a big fan of the livestream ā so weāre back with them, AP, so thank you ā āWhat is one interview or show that was mind-blowing that you find yourselves frequently thinking about in your daily life?ā
SCOTT PHILBROOK: What do you think, Forrest? You take that one.
FORREST BURGESS: Hmm, one interview that weāve done with somebody? Probably more recently would be Terry Lovelace.Ā
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Yeah, I would agree with that. [laughs]
FORREST BURGESS: Again, that was also surprising. I have to say, Scott was a little bit reluctant, and rightfully so, when I first mentioned it because Iād heard excerpts from an interview with him on Coast to Coast, and the story was so outrageous. The biggest hook was, wait a second, he claims that he saw military personnel ā humans ā onboard the spaceship that had abducted him and his friend. Itās like, okay, thatās an interesting angle in that he remembered a lot of his experience.
Again, you can do UFO stories ā and thatās another interesting human aspect. People will allow you to talk about UFOs or little beings coming out, waving, doing funny things, giving you space pancakes. Thatās one thing. Itās another thing to have on an experiencer, an abductee, to talk about their stories. Thatās like, āNo, thatās all crazy. That didnāt happen. I believe thereās things flying around; I just donāt believe theyāre landing and picking people up.ā Thatās another scary thing for people to have to consider.
So we were a little cautious about that. I said, āOkay, letās read the book. Letās reach out to him. Weāll do an interview and see how he comes across.ā And he couldnāt be more trustworthy, down to earth, friendly, welcoming, accepting, and credible. He was a former ā it doesnāt matter really what job he had, but the guy was a former assistant prosecutor for American Samoa for a number of years. Heās used to interviewing people, used to getting crazy stories, and then he has this story of his own.
I wonāt say if everything he said is true. I believe that he believes itās true. If everything that he says is accurate, thatās the one thatās pretty mind-bending, in that this stuff is going on and now youāre getting little hints that there is something going on, at least with the government.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Another thing I will say quickly, and itās not one particular interview, is when these common threads turn up in lots of different stories of people who have doubtfully exposed each other to the stories. Youāre so much more prolific than us, Jim, so Iām sure youāve seen this. Terry talks about a praying mantis thing on the ship he was on, and then you read this other story and a guy was fishing and saw a praying mantis on the other side of the river, he looked at it and it looked at him, and it was like, āYou can see me?ā Itās like, wait, why is everyone seeing giant praying mantises?
Then when you start seeing all of these things and thereās these cross-threads and everything, and then you get to a place like Skinwalker Ranch, which was another series that definitely made an impact on us, where itās all happening in one place and all of these things are bleeding over ā that affects me as well. I do think about that kind of stuff at night.
JIM HAROLD: Easy question. Debala Demala asks, āIs Bigfoot real? Please be honest.ā
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Well, first of all ā
FORREST BURGESS: Yes. [laughs]
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Weāre not in charge. Is Bigfoot real? I donāt know at large ā Iāve heard and seen a lot of evidence that would suggest that something is out there. I donāt know exactly what it is, but it would suggest that somethingās out there. I also believe very much Bob Gimlinās story about what happened, and we did a huge series on the PattersonāGimlin film a while back. Having met him and talked to him and looked at that story, I believe that he at least thought he saw something very real. And the story, the more you look into it, seems real.
I canāt say for sure whether itās real or not, but I believe that there is an unidentified thing that folks are interacting with regularly. Thatās my assessment there.
FORREST BURGESS: But once again, itās another interesting human behavior aspect. I always point to John E.L. Tenney, the paranormal researcher and occultist, giving a lot of talks and a lot of live lectures. I would love to attend one, one day. He did a poll ā he usually does this at his talks and he has people just raise their hand. Itās like, āOut of the three major paranormal topics, UFOs, how many people believe in those?ā A bunch of hands go up, certainly. āHow many people here believe in ghosts?ā Probably more raise their hand because thatās a lot more accessible. A lot of people have seen ghosts, people that I trust, my own mom included. Then he says, āHow many people believe in Bigfoot?ā and like four hands go up.
JIM HAROLD: Thereās a continuum, yeah.Ā
FORREST BURGESS: Yeah. To me, and to him apparently, thatās the easiest thing to believe in. That thereās some kind of ape, like a coelacanth or a thylacine. Something is out there that we just havenāt discovered yet or continues to exist, and itās very elusive. And no, you havenāt seen any scat or any of its dead. Maybe it buries its dead. Maybe it buries its scat. Thereās all these different things. Thatās the easiest thing, is that itās just a big old ape running around in the woods. But people are like, āNope, no way. That is ridiculous.ā
But what Iāll also say ā and weāre going to cover it in this weekendās show ā itās not just one type of Bigfoot. There seem to be, if you believe a lot of these stories, all different kinds of large bipedal, hairy, weird things running around. But yeah, to me thereās been plenty of stories, and I know family friends of friends whoāve come across their own encounters and have heard things. Just screams in the woods and all that. Thereās got to be something to it. Something is running around, and when people say, āWhat do they look like?ā, I think if you look at the PGF, thatās at least what one of them looks like.
JIM HAROLD: Interesting. One last question. Sherlet wants to know, āWhat is the most profound belief-changing thing youāve come to believe via paranormal?ā I donāt ā belief-changing thing youāve come to believe, okay. I got it.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: I get this question. For me, I would say when we started the show I was agnostic from a religious standpoint. I did believe in Higher Power, but it was very nonspecific. Everything was kind of vague. And then, after we went to⦠the Sallie House, which people were waiting for me to say, I decided that evil was real. Intangible, non-terrestrial evil was real, and that if it was real, then the balance, the good, non-terrestrial good must also be real. I came out of a dark experience with a much more positive view of what light is.
JIM HAROLD: Forrest?
FORREST BURGESS: I didnāt have anything that I staunchly didnāt believe in. There are certain people that have come up in the paranormal that I donāt really believe their stories much. Or it could be an event that I think is misinterpreted. But I would say overall, as Scott said, my needle has not moved that much. There wasnāt anything that I thought āitās impossible.ā I think as I got to this spot ā if youād asked me when I was younger, itās like, āOh yeah, of course thereās things that are impossible. They certainly canāt happen. You canāt jump into hot lava and live. Thatās impossible.ā
Now, though, itās a big outlet. The things that seem impossible yet still seem to pop up ā whatās going on here? My thinking about it has changed in that if everything exists as frequency, as matter exists as frequency, itās like doing that long road trip and going through the hills and suddenly your jazz station fades out and now the Spanish religion channel comes on for just a moment. And then you get out of the hills and then it comes back to your station. Itās like, did that just happen? Yes, it happened. You heard it. How is that possible? Well, itās frequency and vibration. Itās radio waves going through the air. Thereās an explanation to it, but you play that for somebody in the 1700s and thatās magic. āVoices coming out of a magic box!ā
Like Ken Websterās book, the magic light box that had the words on it is now just called a computer or word processor. Back then, one of our protagonists, Thomas, from the 16th century, didnāt know how this was happening, but itās a magic light box. But he knows it works because he can talk to people. He just doesnāt know whatās going on.
So my thing is that, okay, maybe it has more now to do with interdimensionality ā which, again, we get fought on. Itās like, hey look, thereās Michio Kaku and some very smart people, smarter than you, I, or the people responding all put together. These gentlemen are theoretical physicists and they are close to working on an 11-dimension mathematical model. And again, it doesnāt prove it; what it does is prove itās possible. Thatās my whole thing.
Again, one of my favorite new quotes in studying the psychic D.D. Home is ā jeez, Iām blanking on his name ā oh, Wilkes. Iām sorry, not the thermometer ā anyway. I know this guyās name pretty well, but his quote was āI didnāt say it was possible. I said it happened.ā Which is a great quote. Itās like, Iām not telling you how it works or that this is even something ā
SCOTT PHILBROOK: William Crookes.
FORREST BURGESS: Thatās right, William Crookes.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Sorry, I had to look it up for you.
FORREST BURGESS: Yes. Brilliant guy. Invented a lot of stuff. But itās a great statement that sums up my point of view. Iām just telling you I saw this thing. It happened. Iām not going to tell you that you need to change your belief so that fits and itās possible for you. So there you go. Anyway, thatās my thing. If itās something thatās interdimensional, that maybe solves a lot of problems for people.
JIM HAROLD: I think thatās a great way to sum it up. We donāt know whatās behind the mystery, but the mystery is real. Scott and Forrest, there may be some small chance that thereās one person listening to this or viewing the livestream or the archive ā there might be one person who has not heard Astonishing Legends. First of all, thatās a big mistake. And secondly, then I would ask you, where can you find everything you guys do?
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Well folks, first of all, we wouldnāt be here if it wasnāt for Jim Harold, who is, Godās honest truth, the reason that we got inspired to start. So hats off to you, Jim.
JIM HAROLD: Thank you.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Thank you so much for blazing the path. You can find Astonishing Legends, as they say, anywhere you get your podcasts. Weāre on Spotify, weāre on iTunes or now Apple Podcasts, Spreaker, Stitchr, all of those formats. Or you can ask your smart speaker to play the latest episode of Astonishing Legends and that should work. We also now have a Discord server.
FORREST BURGESS: And we are getting on TikTok. Weāll do dancing lip syncs.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Yeah, but thereās only one video. [laughs] But yeah, weāre pretty much everywhere. Also astonishinglegends.com. You can just old-fashioned hear our show there. And we have a YouTube channel with all our old shows and some video content like this.
JIM HAROLD: Excellent. Gentlemen, thank you for joining us today. After we end the broadcast, weāll do a little quick postmortem. Thank you both again.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Thanks for having us, Jim.
FORREST BURGESS: Thank you.
SCOTT PHILBROOK: Weāll come on any time. We love talking to you.
JIM HAROLD: Thank you for joining us today, and we thank Scott and Forrest. They are tremendous. Always enjoy speaking with them and catching up with everything that theyāre doing. Please do check them out as well.
If you like what we do here at the Paranormal Podcast, please rate, review, and follow. Very important that you follow us in the podcast app of your choice. That helps us and it helps you, so you never miss an interview with great people like we had today. Weāll talk to you next time. Thank you for tuning in, and have a great week, everybody. Bye bye.
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