You know Shane Pittman from Netflix’s 28 Days Haunted and The Holzer Files. Shane shares his inner thoughts on paranormal investigation, tech in ghost hunting, and his continued search for answers.

You can find his Paranormal Mind project and Searchers YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@searchersbelieve

Thanks Shane!

TRANSCRIPT

This is the Paranormal Podcast with Jim Harold.

JIM HAROLD: Welcome to the Paranormal Podcast. I am Jim Harold, and so glad to be with you once again. We have a star of paranormal television with us. He does much more as well, and we’re going to talk all about that. I’m talking about Shane Pittman. You will know him from 28 Days Haunted on Netflix and Travel Channel’s The Holzer Files, and he is a paranormal investigator who has had profound personal unexplained experiences since he was a child.

He’s become determined to learn as much as he can and learn as much about the technology of investigating the paranormal as possible in hopes of finding out the truth about what’s going on. He strives to use his passion for modern technology to advance the field of paranormal study, and we’re so glad to have him with us today. Shane Pittman, welcome to the program. And I should’ve mentioned you have a big project going on over at YouTube, and we’ll talk about that as well, The Paranormal Mind. Welcome to the show today.

SHANE PITTMAN: Thank you so much, Jim. I appreciate you having me.

JIM HAROLD: In that bio, we touched on the childhood experiences. Talk to us about that, because I think that all of us – a great part of what we are is made up of our origin story. What was that origin story for you?

SHANE PITTMAN: That’s a very good question, a very involved question. I’ll try to keep it a little short. My first paranormal experience was when I was six years old. It was basically a dream or vision that I had that I won’t go into detail; it was pretty personal. But it resonated. When I went and told my mother about it, she said it was very relevant, and it was something that I shouldn’t have known.

Then from there, my childhood was kind of strained. I had some struggles, very intense ones. There was some abuse going on. There was a lot of things going on. And through all of that mess, I was still having these paranormal experiences that I would be having, and those experiences would always give me a flicker of hope, like, “Okay, there’s something more than my mess that I’m in. There’s something more than the crap that I’m going through.”

So it would be these little glimmers of light, little glimmers of hope that always kept me going day to day, because there would be sometimes where it’s like, “I don’t know if I can go through another day. Life is too tough right now.” But I would always, right in the nick of time, have these experiences that would keep me going a little bit more.

From there, once I got into my teenage years and started having more and more of these experiences, I realized that there were authors out there, there were people that I can learn from. The Holzers, some of the stuff with the Warrens, the Prices. I would try to get my hands on any of the books that I could get some more knowledge from, and that’s what I did. I would research some of the things that were going on in my life. Then I found out that there were people out there that were engineers that were making equipment that could test the atmosphere around me. If I experiencing cold spots in my room or whatever and they were unexplained and they weren’t from my A/C or anything else going on, there was equipment out there that I could test that and see it in real time and see what was going on.

Once I knew there was equipment out there that I could test and validate some of the experiences I was having, I was hooked at that point. So here we are, fast forward to now, and that’s where I’m at.

JIM HAROLD: How young were you when you started taking equipment and saying, “Okay, what can we find out here?” When did that start for you? How old were you?

SHANE PITTMAN: I think the first time I started doing that I was 17. This is just basic equipment. I think there were EMF detectors and people would talk about stuff like electromagnetic fields. I would start taking things like that and using it. Temperature gauges. Different things like that. Some of them were in their infancy stages, but some of them were there that I could use. The earliest, I think I was around 17 years old.

JIM HAROLD: In regard to the equipment itself, I’ve always been on the fence about it. I’m very interested in EVP; I think that’s a fascinating field. I’m fascinated by something like the Spirit Box or the Frank’s Box, but then I’m a little skeptical because I worked in radio, and I think about all those nights when I was a kid – I was a weird kid, which continued to be a weird adult. But I used to listen to AM radio, and I would what they call “DX” and try to get in distant stations. [makes radio tuning noises] And I know there’s so many signals there. The little bit I know about science, you want to clear out intervening variables, and it seems like almost, am I hearing something that is a spirit, or am I hearing WBZ in Boston? I always wondered that.

So I kind of sit on the fence with the equipment. Is it your belief, after all of your experience, that some of this equipment – I assume it is, but you tell us – really does tap in and show us a glimpse of the other side?

SHANE PITTMAN: Through personal experiences, a lot of it – this is why this field is called the paranormal. It’s outside of the range of normal things that we can understand. Some of the equipment that I have used before has yielded results that I couldn’t explain. Again, you were reading my bio a little bit; I like to go on a scientific angle as well. I know how these older recorders, the internal mechanics of them sometimes can give you false positives because sometimes you’re hearing a lot of the internal mechanics of it and it’s not necessarily a spirit or a ghost, but it’s just the equipment itself. So I always try to go about it at that angle. But yeah, I’ve had experiences where I couldn’t explain it.

But after doing this for a lot of years, things have shifted a little bit for me. I know whenever I was at Waverly Hills – I was at Waverly Hills probably two or three years ago, was my first experience where I saw a full shadow figure walking down. And my whole group that was with me saw the same figure, and we couldn’t explain. Nobody else was there, but we saw this figure clear as day.

If we were looking down at a piece of equipment or we were looking down at a camera, we would’ve missed that. So now, in my professional – I guess you can call it career – I’ve shifted a little bit from the technology because I feel that in order for us to experience and to be in the moment in a lot of these places and a lot of the things that we’re doing, we have to be in tune with ourselves. Listen to what’s going on around us. Pay attention to what’s going on around us. Don’t be so immersed in the technology side because you could be missing out on an experience.

I tell people this all the time. We are great conduits as well. We are great tools, if you will, to just feeling. I can walk into a room after somebody got done arguing and fighting, and they don’t say a word at all, but I can feel, you can cut that tension with a knife. That expression is always there. But that’s powerful if you really think about it, Jim. If you think about that we can pick up on something that’s not tangible, something we can’t touch – we can pick up on something like that. That is a powerful thing. And that’s something I think we really need to pay attention to and something that we need to not ignore. This equipment and everything is great, but we don’t need to ignore that part of us as well.

JIM HAROLD: Excellent point. I want to mention one other thing about the equipment, and then I want to talk about some experiences. You kind of hinted at this, but I want to be clear on this because I think this is true in any form of human endeavor. We see this all the time with podcasting. People think they’re going to go get the mic that Joe Rogan uses, the Shure SM7B, the podcasting mic of choice, because of Joe Rogan. They think, “I’m going to get that mic and I’m going to be just like Joe Rogan!” It’s like, well, he was a standup comedian for 20 years, he was on television, he’s been working at podcasting since almost the very beginning. The mic is not going to make you Joe Rogan.

And buying the same piece of equipment Shane Pittman has will not make you Shane Pittman because you have that experience. Can you speak to the fact that it’s not only about having the right equipment?

SHANE PITTMAN: You’re exactly right. There’s some equipment that I have vetted – it’s a good point that you bring up – that is made by engineers, and sometimes it’s passed down to me to test. This equipment is high-level gear. Your average enthusiast or investigator may not be able to get their hands on something like that.

My main thing, and I tell people this a lot, is if you’re wanting to get into this field seriously, research and study as much as you can, not only about what you’re diving into, but the equipment that you’re using. You can’t just go in and blindly do this because you see it on TV. And I get it, because a lot of people are that way and I understand. A lot of people get excited and they want to experience what they see on maybe the TV side, or they see what we do.

But I think it’s really important to research and study if you’re going to be serious about something. There’s a difference between an enthusiast, somebody that just likes it for the thrills and because they’re fascinated by it and they get an adrenaline rush – there’s a difference between them and those that want to take it seriously, want to contribute to the field, want to make a difference in the field. And if you’re that person, you need to study, you need to research, you need to be serious about it. Not just somebody going in and using anything and not really paying attention to what you’re doing.

JIM HAROLD: I want to talk to you about your experiences, but I want to talk to you about something that disturbs me more than anything else about the paranormal, and I want to get your take on it. When I talk to someone who I respect and who I know has put a lot of work and thought into this, whether it’s an investigator or a psychic, I always ask this question.

The one thing that bothers me is this idea of “stuck” spirits. Not spirits that are just visiting or not residual hauntings, but hauntings where the thought is the spirit is stuck. They don’t know that they’re dead, they’re afraid of moving to the other side because of fear of punishment because of upbringing or whatever it might be. That really bothers me because I like to think, and I do believe, in the end we live in a just universe. And you hope – maybe people get a raw deal on this side sometimes; unfortunately they might – but in the end, good people are going to win out and they’re going to have some kind of reward, or there’s going to be something better on the other side for them. Or another chance if you believe in reincarnation.

I hate to think that someone, especially a little kid, sometimes people talk, or somebody that died in an accident or, sadly, suicide – they get “stuck.” Do you buy into this idea of stuck spirits?

SHANE PITTMAN: That’s a very involved question, too. Hans Holzer, for instance, believed in stay-behinds. He believed they had unfinished business, all of this stuff. I don’t believe that a spirit would necessarily be stuck, but I do believe that something could be holding them here or holding them in a certain frequency for a reason.

There’s a lot of cases I’ve done, Jim, that have been very emotional cases. On our end, we always look at time as being something that’s manmade, but when we think about somebody being stuck or they’re staying behind, we think of the time period. “Oh man, they’ve been stuck for a period of time.” Maybe it’s not that at all. Maybe there’s something more that needs to be worked out with their energy. Something needs to be worked out within themselves that is keeping them to a certain vibration or to a certain frequency. There’s something that needs to be worked out.

Again, I say that because the cases that I’ve done before have given evidence of that. There’s something that’s unfinished that needs to be taken care of. We always talk about ghosts and spirits like we really know what we’re talking about, but –

JIM HAROLD: You were anticipating my next question, but go ahead.

SHANE PITTMAN: We really don’t know. We don’t know, truly, what we’re talking to or who we’re talking to. We just know that there’s strange and unusual stuff going on. So I’m very careful now – like in the beginning stages I would always say “ghosts” and “spirits.” But now, we really don’t know, Jim. We can say all day long that we know, but we don’t. We don’t know what we’re communicating with. We don’t know who’s communicating back with us. We don’t know if it’s not a version of ourselves, just in a different wavelength or a different time. There are so many variables, and the more that I immerse myself in this field, the more questions I have and the more I’m scratching my head trying to figure it out.

JIM HAROLD: Exactly. You just totally hit right on my next question. I’m older than you, but I grew up – I mean, I wasn’t old, but I was a little kid, like five, six years old, watching In Search Of… with Leonard Nimoy. They had everything very siloed – UFOs, ghosts. And coming into this, when I came into it, I thought, “Oh, UFOs are space aliens and ghosts are dead people.” I was very certain of what the explanations were. And as each passing year goes away, I become less certain. But I’m more certain that something’s really going on, if that makes sense.

I guess that’s what I would ask. I’ll give you an example real quick. So many stories – I’ve heard them on the Campfire, I’ve heard them other places – people will see what they perceive as a ghost, and the ghost will see them, and the ghost will seem as frightened or taken aback by them – it’s like a two-way street. It’s like, who’s the ghost? I’ve had a time slip, and I think our mutual friend, Dave Schrader, tells a story like this. A different one.

But this one was about a young man – this was on Campfire – he was six years old. He was in the family home, going down the hall. He looks in the kitchen and he sees a hooded figure looking to be making a peanut butter sandwich. He thought “Oh my God” and he runs away. A few years later, he’s a teenager, minding his own business. He has his hoodie on. He’s in the kitchen, making himself a peanut butter sandwich. He looks out in the hall – what does he see? What looks to be the figure of a little boy running down the hall. How do you explain that?

So I guess the question here in my ramblings is, what is the range of possibilities? In addition to dead people, what are some of the other things you brought into the pool that you think some of these things might represent? You mentioned one – could it be us on a different plane? But what are some of the different possibilities, you think?

SHANE PITTMAN: I know this is something that’s been entertained by a few investigators now, but it could be people from the future, or from the past, that we’re communicating with them, but it’s in their time. They’re not passed. It’s them doing a séance or an investigation, and they’re tapping in, and we’re tapping in to them, but it’s people either from the future or from the past.

We could also be communicating with extraterrestrials in a lot of ways. You mentioned the Spirit Box sessions. I know the Frank’s Box, that was one of the reasons, when he was making those, he felt like he was communicating with extraterrestrials. That’s why the whole Frank’s Box thing was going on.

The possibilities are endless. You said what’s the range of possibilities? They’re endless. Because right now we have no clue, so anything plausible – anything’s possible. There’s this one investigator, or a couple of them I’ve heard of, that ask what year somebody is speaking from, and they’ve gotten responses “2060,” “2080.” In the future. So who are we to say that that’s not going on? And they’re communicating with us, they’re thinking we’re haunting them, and we think they’re haunting us, but they’re just investigating in a different time altogether. Which will blow your mind.

JIM HAROLD: Right. At some point your head just goes poof!

SHANE PITTMAN: It’s hard to fathom that, but it’s definitely a possibility, especially in this field.

JIM HAROLD: We’ll be back with Shane Pittman after this. I’ve got another question I want to ask, but I want to get this break out of the way so we can get right back to the content. We’ll be back with Shane Pittman on the Paranormal Podcast right after this.

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If you love the Paranormal Podcast, be sure to check out Jim Harold’s Campfire, where ordinary people share their extraordinary stories of ghosts, UFOs, cryptids, and terrifying encounters. Find it for free wherever you listen to this podcast. Tune in to Jim Harold’s Campfire today. Now, we return to the Paranormal Podcast.

JIM HAROLD: We’re back on the Paranormal Podcast. Our guest is paranormal investigator, television personality, media star Shane Pittman. Also, he has his recent project on YouTube, The Paranormal Mind. We’re going to talk about that more as well. But I wanted to get back to a little bit of want we talked about before the break.

Now, let me ask you this. I want to see if you have the same reaction. I think by opening those doors, as we said, instead of just saying what we’re seeing are ghosts and dead people and that’s it, we’re opening our “doors of perception” – the original name of the band Doors – our doors of perception, we’re opening our minds, and saying, hey, it could be a lot broader. It could be ET. We didn’t even talk about the trickster element, which I definitely think is a part of all this, at least some of it. But I know when I start talking like that – and I’ve got to be honest, when I start saying it could be ET or it could be time travelers or it could be the trickster, it could be the Djinn, I start to feel a little loony. [laughs]

SHANE PITTMAN: Yeah.

JIM HAROLD: It’s almost uncomfortable because I consider myself a relatively intelligent guy. I cut my grass every week. I pay my mortgage. I’ve got my feet on the ground – and my head in the stars. But my point is that when I start talking like that, I feel a little loony, but I somehow think it’s right. What are your thoughts about that?

SHANE PITTMAN: I’m sure for the longest time the people that said the Earth is round felt a little bit loony at times, too.

JIM HAROLD: Yeah, “Am I right?”

SHANE PITTMAN: Everybody else was telling them, “No, it’s flat.” I think whenever we’re making claims or making certain theories about certain things, it’s normal to feel that way. Why? Because to us, there’s nothing normal about it. We have all these theories that there’s extraterrestrials, there’s different beings outside of our scope, outside of our reality. We have these theories, but at the same time, in the back of your mind you always doubt.

I’ll give you an example. I grew up in a very religious background. I was always told things like this were demonic. It was something you needed to stay away from. I think a lot of it has to do with our foundation, kind of our program that we’re programmed from an early age. We’re told a certain set of ideals and certain things that we need to follow. It’s a framework. We all have a framework. So whenever something is introduced outside of that framework, we’re going to feel a little loony, as you put it. It’s because it’s not in our framework.

So I think whenever we say something like “you need to be open-minded,” that’s a lot of what has to do with it. It’s allowing to have a reprogramming of your thought process, allowing certain ideals to enter that framework and be like, “This could be a possibility. Let’s dig deeper into it.” So yeah, a lot of times I feel crazy. I feel like this can’t be. But the more that I do this, the more I lean towards certain ideals and certain theories, because the evidence that’s presenting itself at the time leads me to that conclusion.

So my advice to anybody that is feeling a little loony at times with what they believe and certain things they’re thinking, as long as you are trying to learn and grow and trying to move forward, and you’re searching with good intentions, then it’s okay to feel a little bit loony at times. As long as you are still going after the search, you’re still trying to learn, you’re still trying to grow, then I think you’re on the right path.

JIM HAROLD: I agree. I think the people who entertain these topics – many times the hardcore scientific materialist – and again, I appreciate our scientists and science.

SHANE PITTMAN: Me too.

JIM HAROLD: I mean, I’d be dead if it weren’t for science [laughs]. Preemie baby here back many, many years ago. And a lot of different instances. We couldn’t do what we’re doing now without science. I can’t believe that we’re able to do this. If people have grown up with it, they’re like, “Oh, no big deal.” It’s like, it’s a big deal. You used to need a satellite for this. So I am a great respecter of science.

But the idea that we are somehow less-than because we entertain these ideas, and we’re somehow not serious people,” to quote Logan Roy from Succession – I think that’s shortsighted, because I think sometimes the most intelligent people will be cognizant that they don’t understand the nature of things, and they’re open-minded enough. That doesn’t mean that you believe in every single thing that comes down the pike, but you have an open mind. I think an open mind is a sign of a great intellect.

SHANE PITTMAN: I completely agree. And even from the scientific world, Jim – at the time, Tesla. All of these great minds. If we just discarded them and said, “You’re crazy, all of your ideas are crazy,” we wouldn’t be where we are today. I think it’s the same in our field. It’s okay to listen and it’s okay to, once you get enough information, say, “Okay, no, I don’t think this is legitimate. I don’t think this is the right approach.” Once you have the information, I think that’s fine. But to completely disregard them without at least listening to what they have to say I think is the wrong approach, because then you could be missing out on an advancement that we wouldn’t have unless those people spoke up and said, “This is something that we need to entertain.”

JIM HAROLD: Absolutely. In terms of your own experiences – and then we can talk about your projects and get to that – can you share with us one instance – I’m not going to say your favorite, but one incident, one experience in your investigation career that has stuck with you, that you just can’t get out of your mind?

SHANE PITTMAN: Yes. Right away it jumps to – it was while I was filming The Holzer Files. I was at this place called the Barnstable House. I was in a basement, of course, because Dave Schrader loved to put me in the creepy dark basements or the creepiest places. I was doing a lot of experiments. I had this weird gadget on my head that could record in 4K. It was hands-free. It was really cool, but it looked weird on me. I was trying all these different communication techniques and stuff, and I see a shadow dart from around the corner and come at me.

My first inclination was I jumped and got out of there, because I didn’t know what it was. So instead of just sitting there to get pounced on, I jumped up and got out. Then I realized that I left my digital recorder down on the steps. I was like, “Ugh.” So I went back down and I finished the investigation, which I’m really glad I did now. Later on, I took the recorder that I left down there back and started reviewing it. Anybody that reviews any type of audio knows how grueling and taxing that is, so it was not something I wanted to do by any means, but I did, and I captured an EVP that has stuck with me since.

It was of a little girl, and the backstory is a little girl drowned in the well down in the basement there. She was young. But I got an EVP of a little girl’s voice, and it says, “Does no one hear me?”

JIM HAROLD: That’s heartbreaking.

SHANE PITTMAN: That has stuck with me ever since because what if I ran out and never went back? Another thing is we always go in with these gadgets and all these things and we ask all the questions and then we pack up and leave, but if there’s somebody that’s staying behind because they want something, they need something accomplished, or if they’re stuck – and I’m not saying that I necessarily agree with that, but what if they are? We still don’t know. What if they are, and we are talking more than we’re listening? It’s something that has stuck with me ever since. I think we need to listen more, pay attention more than just blurt out things and be there just for our own selfish motives or because we want to be there to investigate and experience something cool and then leave.

That experience there has changed my whole approach with investigating. I listen a lot more than I talk now. So yeah, that was one that really stuck with me.

JIM HAROLD: Does it ever get frustrating that you can’t come up with final answers or some kind of final help for whatever is crying out in some cases? Does it ever get like you feel like you’re a hamster on a wheel, ever?

SHANE PITTMAN: All the time. It’s one of the most frustrating things for me because we say, “Hey, we’re here to help,” but how are we going to help? Maybe listening helps, but how are we truly going to help if there’s someone there that is trying to move on to the next phase or whatever? How are we truly going to help in that instance? I rack my brain about it all the time because I’ve had a lot of instances where there’s a lot of crying out, a lot of “helps,” a lot of “Help me,” and there’s, to me, no true resolution. Maybe listening does help, but to me it’s really frustrating because I don’t feel like in some cases we are helping. I just feel like we’re knowing that they’re there and we’re getting some evidence that they’re there, but beyond that, it’s really hard to wrap my head around it. I don’t know the best approach to help them.

JIM HAROLD: Lightening it up a little bit, I’m curious in terms of equipment, because you’re known for your expertise with equipment. What’s your favorite piece of ghost hunting equipment, paranormal investigation equipment, and why?

SHANE PITTMAN: That’s a good question. I’ve got two.

JIM HAROLD: Okay, that’s fine. We’ve got plenty of space.

SHANE PITTMAN: I really love a good old-fashioned digital recorder because I have captured so much electronic voice phenomenon through those. Some mind-blowing things that I could not explain. Knew that there was nobody else around me. I was not in a space where it would tap into any rogue radio frequencies or anything like that. Really clear EVP. So a good old-fashioned digital recorder is one.

The second one for me is a thermal imaging camera. The reason why is because there’s a lot of times where it’s not just paranormal. A lot of times, with those thermal imaging cameras, you can find where there’s drafts, and it shows you in real time the different temperature changes on the screen so you know exactly where a draft is. So if somebody’s saying, “I’ve got a cold breeze coming through here,” you can basically debunk that and say, “It’s nothing other than there’s a breeze coming from this window here.” But also, it can help validate things when somebody says, “I’m feeling cold on a certain part of my body,” and in real time you can have that thermal imaging camera with that screen show you exactly what’s going on in real time. So it’s something that you can evaluate the atmosphere in real time and see temperature changes and things like that.

Again, I would say the digital recorder and the thermal imaging camera.

JIM HAROLD: Let’s talk about your current projects. I know when we talked offline, you’re very excited about your YouTube channel and The Paranormal Mind. Can you talk to us about that project? And in the context of that, you’re known for big-budget productions, 28 Days Haunted with Netflix and The Holzer Files with Travel Channel – and those are great, but I’ve got to imagine that it’s exciting to be the chief cook and bottlewasher and call the shots, no?

SHANE PITTMAN: Yeah. The project is called The Paranormal Mind, and I have a team called The Searchers. This has been a brainchild of mine probably 11 years now, so before the TV stuff, before any of that. It’s all about the search. We’re all on a journey, we’re all searching for something. It’s basically documenting me and my team on that search. Any strange and unusual thing going on, we like to go and try to research it and see if we can get more information on what’s going on.

We started documenting that and putting it on YouTube, and we’ve got two episodes up there now and we’re putting a third one out pretty soon and we’re filming more this year. But to your point, yeah, it’s good to be in control of that because you get to show a lot of things that maybe get cut on the network side, just for time restraints and things like that. Putting it on YouTube, you’re in control of how long that episode will be, you’re in control on what experiments get to be aired and people get to see.

And I want people to really see the true investigative side because a lot of times on TV – what I’ve been a part of thankfully is legitimate things, but there’s so many things cut that you’re not able to see because of the time restraints. I want people to see more of what goes into the investigating portion. A lot of times we go to a lot of these places and hardly anything happens or nothing happens at all. But we want you to see the journey to that place. We want you to see the history. It’s not all about the investigating. I think history is super important too, and I think people need to understand the history of a lot of these places.

And also preservation of a lot of these locations and their history. Us being able to go and contribute and help these places stay open and stay where the historic side is still being taught, it’s very important for us to keep that history alive. So I’m very excited, man. I’m so excited to be able to bring this to people can do it for free, where people don’t have to pay anything, can just log in to YouTube and check it out. Really excited about it.

JIM HAROLD: That’s great. And we’ll mention it at the end of the interview, but give people your username on YouTube so people can find it. We’ll mention it again at the end.

SHANE PITTMAN: It’s youtube.com/@searchersbelieve. They have the weird “@” symbol on YouTube now. But it’s @searchersbelieve. You can find us that way.

JIM HAROLD: Yes, that’s a new thing they just introduced, which I find highly confusing. [laughs] You don’t think of @ signs in a URL, but that’s okay. I wanted to just mention our mutual acquaintance – I had to laugh. I was watching one of your episodes over at YouTube, and one of your cohorts there referred to him as “Daddy Dave Schrader.” Talk to us a little bit about Dave.

SHANE PITTMAN: [laughs] Dave Schrader. What can I say about Dave Schrader? He’s one of my best friends. He’s a really good guy. They call him that because on The Holzer Files, if you haven’t seen The Holzer Files, he’s always the one saying, “Shane, you need to go to this place. We need to get to the bottom of what’s going on.” He would always send me to the creepy places, the basements, the creepy attics, the creepy wells that are like 20 feet deep. A lot of people give him a lot of flak for that, but he did that – a lot of times the places he put me in, he wouldn’t be able to fit. He’s like 6’3” and he’s a bigger guy. I was a smaller framed guy that can get into some of these places.

The other reason he would put me in these places was because a lot of times I would go in and we would get activity because I’m a very skittish, jumpy guy, so that energy being elevated like that, we would get a lot of evidence that way. But they call him Daddy Dave because he’s always the one that leads me in different directions, and he’s helped me a lot, and he’s like a father figure. Yeah, but they always joke around about that big time with him.

JIM HAROLD: I like that. I was laughing with that because I’ve known Dave a long time. He’s a great guy. Obviously a great podcaster, great radio guy, and a great TV guy, so he’s the triple threat, so to speak.

SHANE PITTMAN: That’s right.

JIM HAROLD: Now, people starting out. I have a theory. People used to, in the ’70s and maybe the ’80s, join a bowling league. They would get the matching shirts and they would join a bowling league. I feel like paranormal investigation has kind of come like that. It’s like, “I watch it on TV; let’s all get the matching shirts and the team name, and let’s all put on shirts and go paranormal investigating.” And maybe sometimes – just maybe – jumping in without doing any research or anything, just saying, “Hey, we’re going to mimic what we see on TV.” First of all, do you see some of that? And if so, what would be your recommendation to people that want to start out?

SHANE PITTMAN: I see it a lot. I see it maybe a little too much than I’d like to. And it’s okay; there’s a lot of people out there that, like I said earlier, really want to do this just because they like the thrill of it and they love the adrenaline rush of getting scared or being in a dark place. To those people, I recommend don’t get into the field just for solely that reason. Go ride rollercoasters and get your thrill that way, because sometimes going into this, like I said, you could be opening yourself up to things that you don’t truly understand that could have some lasting effects on you.

And I don’t think it’s wise to go about it that way unless, like I said before, you research and investigate and you’re serious about an objective, an end goal as part of your journey. If that’s the case, then go into this field, but with a lot of trepidation, a lot of hesitation, and make sure you research and investigate thoroughly before you get into it. Like I said, we’re diving into the unknown, which means there’s a lot of unknown variables. There’s a lot of things that could happen that you could open yourself up to, and you’ve got to be mindful of that. You’ve got to take it seriously.

JIM HAROLD: Are there any techniques or technology that really have you excited going forward? Like something that makes you feel we can all take the next step in this?

SHANE PITTMAN: Oh yeah. I know Brandon Alvis, they used the photon camera that was showing different signatures, different things that they couldn’t explain. I think that is a cool advancement. I also think that we need to really do a deeper dive into ITC and EVP and things like that because I think there’s a lot we haven’t even scratched the surface on. And there’s different devices and stuff now that you can use that you can actually tap into different frequencies and you can set the frequencies. It’s right at the tip of my tongue now. I’m trying to think of this one recorder. I can’t think of it right now, but it’s where you can adjust the frequencies and listen through that.

I’m actually working with Bill Chapel on something with that that we may be doing in the near future to do an experiment on The Searchers on The Paranormal Mind where we do a dive into different frequencies and how we can possibly get results.

JIM HAROLD: This might sound kind of out there, but I wonder at some point, once it becomes more propagated and more people have access to it, if somebody will come up with a way to utilize AI. It’s a new technology. And in what way I don’t know, whether it’s analyzation of audio files, enhancement, or whatever it might be.

SHANE PITTMAN: I’m sorry, I don’t mean to cut you off – I can’t say much, but that’s already being done.

JIM HAROLD: Aha.

SHANE PITTMAN: So you’re ahead of the curve there, Jim.

JIM HAROLD: There you go. Not quite. Somebody’s ahead of me there.

SHANE PITTMAN: It’s already being done in some capacities, which is exciting and scary at the same time, because of how quickly AI is getting a jump on things. It’s scary.

JIM HAROLD: Absolutely. It is. I’ve been playing around with ChatGPT and Midjourney for image generation, and I’m amazed at what it can do now, and it’s just at the baby stages.

SHANE PITTMAN: It’s so amazing what it’s capable of already, I agree.

JIM HAROLD: Absolutely. And it’s amazing what Shane Pittman is capable of. He does a lot. Shane, where can people go to find everything you do, and specifically, remind folks about that YouTube channel and anything else you’d like to get out there.

SHANE PITTMAN: I appreciate you giving me that opportunity. The first thing I want to let people know – I don’t know when this episode will air, but in mid-June, June 15th through the 17th –

JIM HAROLD: It’ll be out before then.

SHANE PITTMAN: Okay, so June 15th through the 17th, I’m going to be with “Daddy Dave,” Dave Schrader, at the Palmer House.

JIM HAROLD: Now I’m going to have to call him Daddy Dave.

SHANE PITTMAN: I will never call him that after this podcast. [laughs] So we are going to be at the Palmer House in Sauk Centre, Minnesota. You can go get ticket info at darknessevents.com. If you want to join us there, we’re doing an investigation for two days. We’re going to have Bill Chapel there, who’s been on Ghost Adventures. He’s a very brilliant mind. So we will have him there doing some workshops and things like that. We’ll be doing two nights of investigating. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

Then you can find out everything with me at officialshanepittman.com or searchersbelieve.com, so my Searchers stuff. And then you can find me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Just type in my name and you’ll find me there.

JIM HAROLD: And one more plug for that YouTube channel, youtube.com/@searchersbelieve.

SHANE PITTMAN: That’s it.

JIM HAROLD: Shane, thank you so much. It’s been a lot of fun. I don’t know why I haven’t asked you sooner, so I apologize, but hopefully you’ll come back and talk to us more. I’ve really enjoyed this.

SHANE PITTMAN: It’s an honor, and I really appreciate you having me on, Jim. Thank you so much.

JIM HAROLD: That was great to talk with Shane. So interesting and a good guy. I hope that you will check everything out that he does.

Just a quick note: most of this podcast was recorded before the Small Town Monsters Monster Fest, which just happened June 2nd and June 3rd. A huge shoutout to Seth and everybody of the Small Town Monsters team for a fabulous job. Just fantastic. And if they do it next year – and I hope they do – I highly recommend it. It looked to me like it was a great success. People raved. Really impressive, particularly for a first-time event. Got to catch up with a lot of great people I knew over there and some new friends, and many listeners. If you were there and you stopped to say hi or come to our live Campfire recording, thank you so much. It was really very heartwarming and did my soul good, so thank you so much.

We’ll talk to you next time. Have a great week, everybody. Stay safe and stay spooky! Bye-bye.

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