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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the best of Coast to Coast podcasts.

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Speaker 1: Become a Coast Insider and you can hear this complete conversation,

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Speaker 1: as well as recent shows featuring guests discussing new cases

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Speaker 1: of the troubling cattle mutilation phenomenon, worries, some instances of

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Speaker 1: clandestine c I, a torture, and the evidence that the

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Speaker 1: Lost City of Atlantis may have really once existed. Check

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Speaker 1: out these programs and many other fascinating episodes waiting for

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Speaker 1: to Coast to Coast a m dot com and signing

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Speaker 1: up for Coast Insider. Now here's a highlight from Coast

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Speaker 1: to Coast AM on iHeart Radio, and we are back

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Speaker 1: with Ted Vanson, paranormal investigator, minister radio host author of

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Speaker 1: course the name of his book I just mentioned, Flashlight,

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Speaker 1: recorder and Comfortable Shoes. He's been researching and investigating back

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Speaker 1: since seven. A very strong believer that we must stop

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Speaker 1: thinking about fantasy creatures and concentrate on trying to approve

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Speaker 1: or disprove the unknown. He says, using some simple school

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Speaker 1: items and techniques can help us along the way. We'll

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Speaker 1: talk about all of that, Ted, welcome to the program. Hey,

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Speaker 1: how are you, sir? Good, I'm looking forward to this.

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Speaker 1: How about yourself? Are you doing all right? Same here yet?

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Speaker 1: How did you get involved in investigating on the paranormal side? Um?

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Speaker 1: I actually kind of stumbled on it. Um. Basically, when

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Speaker 1: I was a child. I just had that desire to

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Speaker 1: no more. I saw an apparation of my grandmother when

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Speaker 1: I was seven years old and wanted to know what

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Speaker 1: happens next. You know, you started thinking about you know,

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Speaker 1: death and stuff when you kind of grew up as

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Speaker 1: a teenager, and it just kind of developed from there.

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Speaker 1: And you sound like you have fun doing it at

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Speaker 1: the same time. I have a blast doing it, and

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Speaker 1: it's only because my desire and my passion for it

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Speaker 1: and commitment is is really strong. Well, good for you. Now,

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Speaker 1: when we label the paranormal, there's all kinds of subject matters,

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Speaker 1: there's all lines of possibilities. To you, what does paranormal mean? Ted, Well,

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Speaker 1: back back in the day, and I say back in

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Speaker 1: the day, I mean like the eighties, lady, eighties, early nineties. Um,

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Speaker 1: I wasn't used to the word paranormal. I was used

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Speaker 1: to the word unknown. And you know, you watch TV

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Speaker 1: shows like in Search of and stuff like that on TV,

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Speaker 1: and it was always called the unknown, you know, And

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Speaker 1: so that's that's the way I think about it. Is

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Speaker 1: the unknown more than paranormal, I guess. Now, we were

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Speaker 1: talking about simple techniques using old school items. What do

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Speaker 1: you mean by that? Well, if if you know what

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Speaker 1: items are used today, um, gadgetry new things that were developed, computers, everything, yeah,

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Speaker 1: between computers, tablets, even their cell phones today with apps,

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Speaker 1: um k two meters and melimeters and you know, just rampods,

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Speaker 1: just so many different gadgets. And here's the thing is

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Speaker 1: that you can spend three on one piece of equipment

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Speaker 1: if you're really interested in investigating and really doing this

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Speaker 1: for I guess the right reason, which would be, you know,

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Speaker 1: trying to discover the answer to life after death, you

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Speaker 1: don't have to go to the extremes of spending all

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Speaker 1: that money, um not to start out. I mean sure, eventually,

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Speaker 1: you know, you might want some of that stuff, but

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Speaker 1: in the beginning, you just use the stuff that it's

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Speaker 1: real simple stuff like a balloon or a couple of

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Speaker 1: magnets yourself. So it really doesn't have to be that

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Speaker 1: sophisticated or even that high tech right, No, it doesn't. No,

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Speaker 1: I learned that you can use the simple things that

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Speaker 1: you've already gotten your home instead of going out and

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Speaker 1: spending all that extra money. Will a recorder of one

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Speaker 1: of these old tape recorders then do just as well

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Speaker 1: to try to capture an e v P sound than

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Speaker 1: these you know, high end digital recorders these days. Well,

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Speaker 1: there are several um, new digital recorders that are fantastic,

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Speaker 1: but you know, the old um, most of the magnetic

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Speaker 1: tape that's in it. I mean that stuff is like

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Speaker 1: that's old school, and that stuff was just amazing back then.

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Speaker 1: And if you're used to using it, why change now? Um?

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Speaker 1: And it's kind of hard to find those recorders now.

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Speaker 1: But back in seven, no, you had was that big

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Speaker 1: flat tape recorder, remember, and you had to push the

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Speaker 1: buttons to record everything that's right, and really hold them

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Speaker 1: down to get them going. Yeah, I had. I had

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Speaker 1: an old Sony tape recorder that I used during my

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Speaker 1: radio reporting days and I just kept it. But you

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Speaker 1: know that was you know, it was about the almost

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Speaker 1: about the ten inches long by about six inches wide,

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Speaker 1: and you know you put the cassette in there and

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Speaker 1: off it go. But you're really if you wanted to

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Speaker 1: record it, you had to push the red button in

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Speaker 1: the play button at the same time and really click

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Speaker 1: it in. But it was a great sound. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's sounded fantastic. Yeah, but you only had what thirty

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Speaker 1: seconds or or thirty minutes minutes then you had to

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Speaker 1: flip it. Yeah, yeah, and you had to do that.

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Speaker 1: We are the new digital recorders. You don't have to

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Speaker 1: do that, which is amazing, which is great technology and

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Speaker 1: you know, it's great for what we're doing today. So

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Speaker 1: you know, my book is a flashlight recorder and comfortable shoes.

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Speaker 1: It's definitely you know, if you read the book, that's

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Speaker 1: what we're telling you is what you really need right

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Speaker 1: out there to do well. And it it seems like

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Speaker 1: a very inexpensive, simple way to get involved in paranormal investigating,

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Speaker 1: right you know, even just that you know, ghost shunning,

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Speaker 1: if that's what you want to do, you know, just

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Speaker 1: that you know, that's still a simple, you know, guideline

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Speaker 1: to use. You know, it's it's very basic. And that's

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Speaker 1: I think if if the way I think is that

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Speaker 1: sometimes the simple things um can get you more of

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Speaker 1: it an than going into the extremes and spending all

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Speaker 1: that extra money. Do you find that people are interested

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Speaker 1: in paranormal investigating more or less than ten twenty years ago? Oh,

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Speaker 1: it's definitely more. Um recently, what there's like ten ghost

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Speaker 1: hunting shows on these days, and you know, ten twenty

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Speaker 1: years ago there wasn't you were lucky if you know

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Speaker 1: you saw in search of or what was the other

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Speaker 1: one most Haunted which came out of Britain, you know,

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Speaker 1: and and so it was, Yes, definitely, UM, it's kind

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Speaker 1: of like a sad almost today now when somebody is

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Speaker 1: ghost hunting or being a paranormal investigator? Is there a

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Speaker 1: difference here between the two? I like to think there is. UM.

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Speaker 1: For me, it's there's a couple of things. One is,

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Speaker 1: if you're a ghost hunter um, which isn't a great

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Speaker 1: term but are a great title. If you're a ghost hunter,

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Speaker 1: then you're pretty much looking just you know, to go

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Speaker 1: out and find ghosts. UM. I believe that if you're

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Speaker 1: actually um, collecting data, taking it seriously, then you're on

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Speaker 1: the right path. But if you're doing it just for

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Speaker 1: the adrenaline and just you know, just to be scared

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Speaker 1: and stuff like that, I guess that's that's okay too,

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Speaker 1: that's ghost hunting. But paranormal investigation is a wider area.

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Speaker 1: It's not just ghost hunting. It's big foot, you know,

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Speaker 1: the cryptozoology, the psychic phenomenon, the UFOs, the it's all

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Speaker 1: of that. So yes, the separation would be paranormal investigator

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Speaker 1: would be investigating everything in the unknown, and the ghost

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Speaker 1: hunting or ghost hunters would be that of just you know,

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Speaker 1: hunting ghosts or hunted house. How many people take this

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Speaker 1: seriously though, because I would think that a lot of

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Speaker 1: younger people who want to get involved in doing this

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Speaker 1: are doing it because they think it's fun or you know,

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Speaker 1: it's it's the thing to do. I think the majority

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Speaker 1: of the generation that's out there now, I mean you

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Speaker 1: have to remember they were raised on you know, the

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Speaker 1: ghost Hunters series and stuff like that, and I think

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Speaker 1: they're doing it for the fun um there is. It

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Speaker 1: seems to be like with with my organization, it seems

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Speaker 1: that there's a much younger um, a bunch of people

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Speaker 1: coming into it. I would say between twenty twenty years old,

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Speaker 1: thirty years old. I mean, so, yes, it's become more

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Speaker 1: popular in that generation, and I think they're taking it serious,

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Speaker 1: and I would hope they would be. Um, the people

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Speaker 1: that are involved in my group are. But still I

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Speaker 1: find that I have investigators that are sixty six that

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Speaker 1: are still doing it and enjoying it. Yeah, completely enjoying

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Speaker 1: it and doing it for the right reasons, in which

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Speaker 1: when I say that, I mean they really want to

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Speaker 1: spend the time to go over the evidence and to

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Speaker 1: really try and find answers to these phenomena. Now, when

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Speaker 1: you've been on your own investigations, have you seen anything

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Speaker 1: strange that you would definitely call something ghostly? Mm hmm.

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Speaker 1: I can tell you that I've seen things that I

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Speaker 1: can't explain. Does that help? Yeah? What happened? Give us

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Speaker 1: the example. Well, UM, I'm doing a research project now

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Speaker 1: going on three years at a house that's up in

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Speaker 1: upstate New York. And UM, we were investigating the house. UM,

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Speaker 1: I was actually outside, we have a mobile unit, and

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Speaker 1: I was actually monitoring, UM the monitors and I had

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Speaker 1: two investigators in the house. And within that investigation, UM,

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Speaker 1: I saw something like a black shadow. I guess it's

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Speaker 1: the best way to describe it. But you couldn't see

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Speaker 1: through it. It was completely black. It crawled up the

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Speaker 1: wall and um to the steam of the ceiling and

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Speaker 1: the the wall where it comes together and kind of

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Speaker 1: crawled across there and kind of melted into the wall.

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Speaker 1: And I've never seen anything like that before in my

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Speaker 1: life over the thirty years i've been doing it. And

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Speaker 1: it's ah, that was probably the most shocking of anything

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Speaker 1: that I've seen, I should say. And it, uh, it

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Speaker 1: was really strange. It was you know, like a size

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Speaker 1: of an eight year old child, two legs, four arms,

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Speaker 1: and you couldn't see through it was completely black. Clearly

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Speaker 1: this happened to you. You weren't a hallucinating or dreaming

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Speaker 1: or anything like that. No, because we took the necessary

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Speaker 1: steps afterwards to try and improve or disprove what I

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Speaker 1: was saying, because you just can't, you know, go with

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Speaker 1: your your first thing, you know, your first instinct, and yes,

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Speaker 1: you think you see it, so you beat yourself up

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Speaker 1: on it. It's like, okay, wait, Matt, I was recording this,

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Speaker 1: and let's get the let's get some techniques and some

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Speaker 1: devices going, and let's see what we can find out.

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Speaker 1: Let's get some evidence if we can. And we went

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Speaker 1: in with some devices and we basically, you know, where

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Speaker 1: this thing went up the wall and into the ceiling.

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Speaker 1: We use like a K two meter basically any MS detector,

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Speaker 1: and we use two different types. We used them, and

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Speaker 1: these things were off the charts. They were pegged all

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Speaker 1: the way over in the red um to the highest

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Speaker 1: that you can go. And at the same time, while

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Speaker 1: they were doing that, we were reviewing the video to

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Speaker 1: make sure that I wasn't just you know, clearly seeing

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Speaker 1: this in the head or imagining it, and the video

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Speaker 1: did not record it, but the devices we had clearly

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Speaker 1: showed that something was there. And when we were done

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Speaker 1: with the readings, we waited for a little bit because

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Speaker 1: we called the owner to see if we could actually

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Speaker 1: take a part of a certain section of the wall

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Speaker 1: to see if there was any electrical wires or anything

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Speaker 1: in there that would make this happen, and she gave

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Speaker 1: us the permission, so we checked it out, and you

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Speaker 1: have to guess, it was about an hour. We went

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Speaker 1: back in, we cut the hole, we checked there was

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Speaker 1: no wires, no electricity in there whatsoever, and when we

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Speaker 1: did a second reading on the wall, it was zero

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Speaker 1: all the way across the board, so it went away.

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Speaker 1: So it went away. So from the time that we

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Speaker 1: that I saw it and it was there. We had

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Speaker 1: readings there was something there. I mean, but when we

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Speaker 1: went back into actually do the investigation some more and

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Speaker 1: and get into the wall and see what might be

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Speaker 1: making this happen, and then using the meters again, completely

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Speaker 1: nothing zero. And so now I'm kind of sitting here

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Speaker 1: like I've seen this, you know, was I imagining it?

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Speaker 1: But I can't believe I have. I've I've played this

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Speaker 1: over and over and over my head, and now I

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Speaker 1: know I've seen it. Listen to more Coast to Coast

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Speaker 1: a m. Every weeknight at one a m. Eastern and

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Speaker 1: go to Coast to Coast am dot com for more