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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast am on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: And welcome back George Noriy with you. Andy Thomas one

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Speaker 2: of the most respected researchers of paranormal mysteries and cover

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Speaker 2: ups in the world. Author of a number of books,

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Speaker 2: including This Current Ones Strange. He writes on history and

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Speaker 2: folklore and regularly contributes to the journal Nexus magazine. Andy

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Speaker 2: is the key contributor of the Glastonbury Symposium, one of

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Speaker 2: the UK's best known truth and mysteries events, which has

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Speaker 2: been running since nineteen ninety. His website Truthagenda dot org

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Speaker 2: linked up at Coast Tocoast dan dot com.

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Speaker 3: Andy, welcome back. Have you been.

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Speaker 4: Oh It's lovely to be back. Thank you. Yeah.

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Speaker 5: I've been busy, very busy, and working on the book Strange.

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Speaker 5: I mean you could argue at thirty four years as well,

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Speaker 5: but you know, at least a couple of years compiling

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Speaker 5: all of this to try to show the world that

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Speaker 5: really is something.

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Speaker 4: Going on here that we should be talking about.

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Speaker 3: I love the title. By the way, how'd you get it?

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Speaker 5: Bus I mean, you know, you want to try to

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Speaker 5: portray the paranormal in a way that isn't necessarily spooky,

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Speaker 5: because you know this, you always get that attached to

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Speaker 5: it in the mainstream.

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Speaker 4: And I thought, what's a word that might sum it up.

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Speaker 5: That's quite sure, that looks striking, And I've thought, actually,

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Speaker 5: this is strange. It's not bad strange or necessarily dark strange.

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Speaker 5: It's just strange. And they can be all of these things.

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Speaker 5: And it seemed like the perfect title. And it was

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Speaker 5: one of those titles where as soon as it fell

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Speaker 5: into place, everything fell into place around it. We do

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Speaker 5: live in a strange world. Let's submit it, let's enjoy it,

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Speaker 5: let's explore it. And that's really where the book's coming from.

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Speaker 3: That's a great title. Indeed, tell us a little bit

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Speaker 3: more about the title.

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Speaker 5: So I mean, what we're trying to do was strange

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Speaker 5: is show the world that it isn't just people interested

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Speaker 5: in the paranormal that have in paranormal experiences. And I've

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Speaker 5: been really lucky because over the years I've been giving

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Speaker 5: lectures to a lot of very everyday normal people, not

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Speaker 5: just people interested in the kinds of things that we

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Speaker 5: would be interested in. I address a lot of community

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Speaker 5: groups people like that, and you know, they don't know

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Speaker 5: who's going to show up that day to give them

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Speaker 5: a talk.

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Speaker 4: I could be anyone talking.

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Speaker 5: About anything, and there I am, and I start talking

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Speaker 5: about strange things. And what I've discovered is that when

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Speaker 5: you do that, people really open up very quickly with

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Speaker 5: their own tales of the strange, and you begin to

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Speaker 5: realize that a lot of people sit on these experiences

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Speaker 5: that they don't share them because they're afraid they don't

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Speaker 5: want people to make fun of them. When they see

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Speaker 5: somebody like me standing up there talking about it, they

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Speaker 5: open up and you suddenly.

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Speaker 4: Realize there's a world of.

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Speaker 5: Paranormal experiences here that doesn't normally get talked about. And

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Speaker 5: so that's why the subtitle of the book is Paranormal

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Speaker 5: Realities in the Everyday World, because it is happening in

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Speaker 5: the everyday world in many different ways and in many

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Speaker 5: different forms of the paranormal. But it's going on, and

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Speaker 5: it really would do everyone a lot of good to

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Speaker 5: talk about this a lot more andy.

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Speaker 2: How many strange stories did you come across over the years.

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Speaker 5: I mean literally, I've spoke to thousands and thousands of people,

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Speaker 5: and I mean often you know, you've just come off

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Speaker 5: the stage and they'll come up and they'll say, oh,

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Speaker 5: I've got to tell you my story, and they'll often

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Speaker 5: begin with the phrase, well, I've never told anybody this before,

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Speaker 5: but or the other phrase I often here is well,

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Speaker 5: I'm a bit skeptical about these things. But then they'll

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Speaker 5: tell you some incredible story that clearly they're not skeptical.

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Speaker 5: And this happens so many times. I'm had a competent

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Speaker 5: number on it. But this book could have been like

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Speaker 5: ten times longer. It could have been the size of

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Speaker 5: a phone directory if I'd have included all the different

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Speaker 5: stories that I would have liked to have done. And

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Speaker 5: people emailing me as well with their accounts, and some

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Speaker 5: are written accounts from people who've around the world share

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Speaker 5: you know what's happened to them, and where the comfort

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Speaker 5: comes in is learning that they are not alone. And again,

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Speaker 5: what strange does is show you you're really not alone.

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Speaker 5: This is happening to a lot of people.

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Speaker 3: Andy, how did you accumulate the stories?

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Speaker 5: Okay, So, I mean one of the interesting things is,

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Speaker 5: of course when people come up and you've got three

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Speaker 5: or four people, often you know, throwing ideas that you

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Speaker 5: have to learn to memorize me in an accurate way. Now,

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Speaker 5: if something's really important, I will say to them, could

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Speaker 5: you please email me later and tell me.

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Speaker 4: More, And often of course they will. So that's one way.

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Speaker 5: But sometimes, you know, I've learned to memorize what it

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Speaker 5: is they're saying. I'll put keywords into my mind as

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Speaker 5: they're speaking. So like if somebody, for instance, you know,

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Speaker 5: once saw a ghost in Santa Fe in a shop,

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Speaker 5: I immediately lash in my own mind while they're talking, right,

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Speaker 5: ghost shop, Santa Fe.

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Speaker 4: You know, you the key words.

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Speaker 5: And then as soon as I've left the building and

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Speaker 5: I get back into the car, I get my phone

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Speaker 5: and I dictate that story into the phone, and the

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Speaker 5: key words help me stay accurate, because I'm very aware.

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Speaker 5: I don't want to get accused of being very wooly

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Speaker 5: in the way that this is being put down. And

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Speaker 5: what I'm pleased about is often then when people do

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Speaker 5: then email me later on that nine times out of

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Speaker 5: ten it's ninety nine percent accurate. So I've got a

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Speaker 5: way of doing that. And then you start to accumulate it,

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Speaker 5: and then I'll write them up, and I've been keeping

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Speaker 5: documents now for years, putting all these together.

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Speaker 4: And then you stand back from it.

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Speaker 5: And you think there really are recurring patterns here, and

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Speaker 5: it's happening to so many different kinds of people, and

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Speaker 5: that makes it really exciting because it isn't just one

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Speaker 5: block of people over there, it's everyone having these experiences.

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Speaker 2: What is it about the paranormal in the United Kingdom

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Speaker 2: that makes it so special?

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Speaker 5: So, I mean, I should stress that the book Strange

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Speaker 5: has actually a lot of American material in it, because

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Speaker 5: of course I've been in America many times, chatted to

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Speaker 5: many people there, have spoken there many times, So there's

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Speaker 5: actually a lot of American material in the book. But

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Speaker 5: there is something interesting about the United Kingdom and certainly England,

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Speaker 5: which is you know where I've spent most of my time,

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Speaker 5: because of course it's so ancient. You've got cultures going

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Speaker 5: back there. Well, if you want to go back to

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Speaker 5: the Roman times, you know, two thousand years and of

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Speaker 5: course there's many tribal traditions before then. But there's a

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Speaker 5: lot of buildings here that are very old, and there's

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Speaker 5: no question, especially when it comes to ghosts, and the

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Speaker 5: book opens with looking at ghosts, because it is one

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Speaker 5: of the most reported things that you know, I hear

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Speaker 5: you old buildings for whatever reason, seemed to the energies

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Speaker 5: of the past more. Now, what is fascinating is that,

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Speaker 5: and I address this in the book, is that.

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Speaker 4: Ghosts don't always last for that long.

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Speaker 5: You do get occasionally roaman ghosts or a more ancient

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Speaker 5: looking one. The majority when people see them, seem to

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Speaker 5: be dressed in what some people call period dress or

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Speaker 5: often Victorian dress, like from the last two hundred three

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Speaker 5: hundred years, and then it seems to fade away, even

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Speaker 5: if the house is older than that, which is really fascinating.

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Speaker 5: So I think ghosts, a lot of them have.

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Speaker 4: A time limit.

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Speaker 5: But nonetheless, I think the older buildings that we have here,

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Speaker 5: they seem to retain whatever it is that powers up

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Speaker 5: a ghost. And the way I look at it is

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Speaker 5: it's almost like a battery. A battery runs down after

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Speaker 5: a while, but somebody that might be in that vicinity

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Speaker 5: that is very psychically energized, and some people are more

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Speaker 5: than others, it's almost like they reactivate it and then

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Speaker 5: it's like that site, it sort of finds new power

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Speaker 5: and you then get more manifestations again of a ghost

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Speaker 5: that perhaps might not have been seen for a while.

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Speaker 5: So there were so many aspects to this and yes,

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Speaker 5: for some reason, especially in the United Kingdom. But I

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Speaker 5: think it is because there are so many old buildings,

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Speaker 5: it seems to hold it more here than in many

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Speaker 5: other places.

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Speaker 2: Andy, I keep thinking of Charles dickens Christmas Carol. Oh.

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Speaker 5: I mean The Christmas Carol is one of my favorite books.

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Speaker 5: And I don't really mean that just because, of course

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Speaker 5: it is basically dealing with the paranormal. It was a

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Speaker 5: story that was read to me many times by my

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Speaker 5: father when I was very young, every Christmas, and it

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Speaker 5: did leave a big impression on me. And yes it's fictional.

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Speaker 5: Dickens himself, interestingly, it wasn't really that open to the paranormal.

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Speaker 5: He used it in his books as a way of

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Speaker 5: telling a parable But nonetheless, some of what he describes

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Speaker 5: it does tap in to classic ghost phenomena, and you know,

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Speaker 5: the strange sounds and claimking of Chains and all of this,

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Speaker 5: whatever that means. It is something that does get reported,

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Speaker 5: and he incorporates all of that into this very beautifully

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Speaker 5: written book. I mean, if anybody out there hasn't ever

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Speaker 5: read the book, forget all the adaptations, some of which

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Speaker 5: are not bad, but you know, go to the book

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Speaker 5: because that's where the real magic is, and certainly Dickens,

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Speaker 5: whatever his personal view, he knew how to tap in

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Speaker 5: to this idea of other world's other realms intersecting with ours.

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Speaker 2: The original black and white movie was one of the classics.

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Speaker 2: Though you can't replace that.

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Speaker 5: Oh yeah, this does sim Yeah, I mean, that's still

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Speaker 5: very good. Not entirely accurate to the book, I would say,

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Speaker 5: but nonetheless, yeah, that's still one of the best adaptations.

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Speaker 3: How did you get your stories for the book strange?

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Speaker 5: Well, we kind of covered this in a way because

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Speaker 5: it's me seeing all these people. So let me give

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Speaker 5: you a bit of background because I got involved in George.

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Speaker 5: You and I have chatted about this here in years past.

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Speaker 5: I got involved with the paranormal directly when right back

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Speaker 5: in nineteen ninety one, I was down in the West

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Speaker 5: Country of England and there were crop circles everywhere, Virtually

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Speaker 5: every other field it looked like it seemed to have

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Speaker 5: a crop circle in it, and I had been aware

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Speaker 5: of them, but didn't know that much about them.

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Speaker 4: I then started to explore them.

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Speaker 5: I started to walk around these things, and I was

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Speaker 5: amazed because I couldn't find a single person that could

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Speaker 5: actually tell me what was going on, and that trick

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Speaker 5: of something in me, It did something in the pit

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Speaker 5: of my stomach where I felt, I've got to know more.

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Speaker 5: I need to find out what's happening here. And so

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Speaker 5: then I found out there were people researching them, and

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Speaker 5: I joined the research teams and what was back then

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Speaker 5: in the old center for crop circle studies, And of

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Speaker 5: course then before you know you're sucked into a world

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Speaker 5: not only of looking at crop circles, but then UFOs,

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Speaker 5: which strange covers to a large degree as well.

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Speaker 4: And then you meet.

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Speaker 5: People that are investigating psychic phenomena and ghosts and out

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Speaker 5: of body experiences. And as the years roll by, you

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Speaker 5: get exposed to this more and more, and then more

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Speaker 5: and more people you know that you meet will recount

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Speaker 5: their experiences. And through that world I started to give lectures.

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Speaker 5: People found out that I was interested in this, and

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Speaker 5: they would say, hey, will you come along and speak

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Speaker 5: to our community group or whatever it might be, and

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Speaker 5: I would say yes, lovely. I mean, it wasn't anything

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Speaker 5: I ever planned to do. And before you know it,

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Speaker 5: of course, then that builds up and you're meeting more

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Speaker 5: and more people, and how strange it's why, I say,

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Speaker 5: in a way, it's a culmination of thirty four years

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Speaker 5: of work. You realize I need to capture what's going

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Speaker 5: on here, because it turns out that having had that

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Speaker 5: exposure to so many people, it's one of the broadest

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Speaker 5: assessments of paranormal phenomena I think that's yet been published,

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Speaker 5: because it encompasses so many different people, so many different kinds,

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Speaker 5: and says very clearly that it isn't just one demographic

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Speaker 5: that's being affected here. It's everyone in some of the

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Speaker 5: most unusual places you could imagine. And when I mean unusual,

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Speaker 5: I mean very normal places, which of course makes it

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Speaker 5: all the more fascinating.

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Speaker 2: Andy, what was your criteria for picking the stories you picked.

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Speaker 4: So early on in the book. I put together a list.

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Speaker 5: Of kind of the top ten paranormal phenomena that I

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Speaker 5: hear about. So when you do that, it gives you

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Speaker 5: a structure to follow, and I followed that very much

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Speaker 5: with the book. So I mean, out of interest, let's

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Speaker 5: have a look at the list. So ghosts and poltergeists,

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Speaker 5: I would say, are probably the most reported thing that

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Speaker 5: that's what I hear about the most. Then UFOs So

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Speaker 5: and I have met so many people over the years

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Speaker 5: who were pilots, soldier, sailors, police, you know, professional sensible

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Speaker 5: people that wouldn't just make this up, and indeed they

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Speaker 5: endangered their careers by doing that. That's perhaps changing now,

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Speaker 5: but you know, and I've been hearing this stuff for

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Speaker 5: many years, long before sort of the UFO phenomenon that's

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Speaker 5: now being talked about. All UAP in a large way,

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Speaker 5: really went big. This has been around as any UFO

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Speaker 5: research and those for a really long time. Then you

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Speaker 5: get out of body experiences, near death experiences, and I

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Speaker 5: do think there is a crossover sometimes there between that

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Speaker 5: kind of thing. Then you get into psychic phenomena of

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Speaker 5: all kinds, premonitions, incredible synchronicities, coincidences that really can't be coincidences,

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Speaker 5: whatever's going on. And then you get a category and

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Speaker 5: there's a whole chapter of the book about and what

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Speaker 5: I just called bizarre happenings that are almost so bizarre

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Speaker 5: you don't know what box to put them in. And

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Speaker 5: just to give you one example of that, there's a

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Speaker 5: tale that I recount in the book of a lady

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Speaker 5: who seemed perfectly saying perfectly normal to me, and she said,

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Speaker 5: I know this sounds mad, but she was driving out

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Speaker 5: one evening only a few years ago, not so long ago,

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Speaker 5: to meet some friends in a restaurant, and suddenly her

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Speaker 5: car was lifted up off the ground and into the air,

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Speaker 5: and she found herself flying through the air, and the

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Speaker 5: car was finally deposited a few miles away somewhere where

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Speaker 5: she didn't know, and it then came down, not with

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Speaker 5: a bumper, very gently. Now, what is going on there?

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Speaker 5: I mean, was she was this a UFO doing it?

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Speaker 5: Was she having some strained psychic experience? But she said,

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Speaker 5: but the car had definitely moved because her husband had

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Speaker 5: to go out and then find her later on because

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Speaker 5: she didn't know where she was. So you get stories

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Speaker 5: like that and you think, well, I don't know what

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Speaker 5: category that's in, but let's just tell it as it is,

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Speaker 5: and people have to make their own minds up as

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Speaker 5: to whether they want to believe it or not. But

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Speaker 5: I have not included anything that I felt wasn't quite right,

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Speaker 5: or if I felt the person wasn't stable. I haven't

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Speaker 5: included that. I've been very careful to include the ones

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Speaker 5: that I believe do have credibility, and in the end,

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Speaker 5: people will have to make up their own minds.

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Speaker 4: As to how they feel about it. What was it.

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Speaker 2: About these stories that goud you convinced that it's worthy

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Speaker 2: of the book.

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Speaker 5: So I mean, I'm trying to sort of tell a

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Speaker 5: tale in a way. It's these are stories, and if

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Speaker 5: you want to be a storyteller, you have to make

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Speaker 5: it compelling, but you don't want to sensationalize it. And

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Speaker 5: I hope that what I've done is managed to share

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Speaker 5: these stories in a certain way that tells a narrative.

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Speaker 5: So the book opens with looking at ghosts, and it

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Speaker 5: starts with again one of the most common ones, which

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Speaker 5: is people seeing relatives that have passed away recently.

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Speaker 4: And that is so common.

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Speaker 5: Now I know what the medical world says, and I

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Speaker 5: should say the book begins by addressing the skeptic view.

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Speaker 5: I'm well aware there are certain things that can explain

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Speaker 5: certain phenomena, and the book addresses that, but equally there's

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Speaker 5: a lot of things that really can't explain and when

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Speaker 5: people meet dead relatives. So yeah, the medical explanation is

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Speaker 5: where you wanted to see it. So your brain gave

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Speaker 5: you an impression of that person you hallucinated because you

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Speaker 5: miss them so much. Well, forgive me, but there's people

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Speaker 5: that I've lost in my life that I would have

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Speaker 5: loved to have seen. Why I didn't see them? And

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Speaker 5: you know, I try to wish it to happen that

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Speaker 5: didn't happen to me. When you hear people describing entire

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Speaker 5: conversations with people who have appeared in the kitchen or whatever,

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Speaker 5: that what you find is there's normally a tale of comfort.

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Speaker 5: The person that has passed on is saying, listen, you

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Speaker 5: don't need to worry about me.

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Speaker 4: It's okay. Although it doesn't always work like that.

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Speaker 5: I heard of one lady recently who brought the old

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Speaker 5: rocking chair that her mother used to sit in into

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Speaker 5: her house from the care home where her mother had died.

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Speaker 5: And the one day she came in and she saw

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Speaker 5: a mother sitting in a rocking chair, looking very cross, saying.

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Speaker 4: Why did you move this chair?

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Speaker 5: This chair should have been left where it was, And

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Speaker 5: she actually got admonished and had to take the chair

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Speaker 5: back to the care home. So it's not always a

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Speaker 5: beautiful experience. Sometimes, if you've got a certain relationship with

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Speaker 5: a certain relative, it's going to be the same even

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Speaker 5: when they plassed over anyway, but I'm just giving that

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Speaker 5: as an example.

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Speaker 4: Then you move on to other kinds.

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Speaker 5: Of ghosts, and of course there are many and the

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Speaker 5: more common types where you don't know who they are,

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Speaker 5: perhaps or saying more common, maybe it's less common, but

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Speaker 5: you know, those are the ones you hear about ghosts

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Speaker 5: coming through walls and the ones that reallyite me. And

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Speaker 5: again this raises a really important point is when you

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Speaker 5: get groups of people that have witnessed it all at

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Speaker 5: the same time, or couples very often, because again you

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Speaker 5: can't just say that's one hallucination in one person's mind.

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Speaker 5: How are groups having hallucinations? And indeed, then you've got

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Speaker 5: CCTV footage of ghosts and you've got all that aspect

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Speaker 5: that is not a trick of the mind. That is

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Speaker 5: something that is happening, you know, in our world, that

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Speaker 5: is visible and tangible wherever it may be coming from.

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