Weird Club: The Colin Browen

[00:00:00] Hi there, and welcome to Out There: A Cryptid Podcast. I'm Josh, and today we have a very special edition of Weird Club. Joining us is Colin, creator of The Paranormal Files, co-host of Murder in America, and host of The Conspiracy Files. For years, Colin has traveled the country investigating haunted locations, exploring strange mysteries, and diving deep into conspiracy theories that may actually be true.

[00:00:28] Today, we're talking about his work, his investigations, and some of the experiences that have stayed with him. Let's dive in. We'll get into the Weird Club with Colin right after this.

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[00:02:11] All right, guys. We've got a really special guest today. We've got Colin from shows such as Paranormal Files, Murder in America, Conspiracy Files. The work that you do and your wife and your whole team is so incredible and awesome. So we're so glad to welcome you to the Weird Club and induct you as a member finally. Thank you so much for being here. Yeah, man. Thank you guys for having me.

[00:02:38] I'm a now proud member of the Weird Club. I love that name, dude. Yeah. So it's all the stuff we like. You know, we here and out there are obsessed with everything that's weird and everything that makes absolutely no sense. And obviously, who better to talk about the paranormal and the weird than someone who has probably been to every single haunted location at this point and investigated?

[00:03:07] Yeah, we've done a lot. You know, if you actually look at it, it's about I don't want to give an exact number, but it's getting close to 500 investigations over the last 11 years, which is just it's a lot of time. It's a lot of nights. You know? Yeah. Oh, yeah. So many hours up at night when you could be asleep, but instead hanging out with the ghosts. It used to be a lot easier when I was younger, like in my 20s.

[00:03:36] But now that I'm like turning 30 this year, I can. I'm definitely starting to feel like the exhaustion. Yeah. Crazy, dude. It's like 10 o'clock and you're like, all right, we good. Can we back up now? Yeah. No, I mean, like my wife and I are Courtney and I are in bed every night at like nine o'clock because I got sober about three years ago. And so now I when I'm at home, I'm just kind of chilling like I get into bed early on a Friday night. So when I go out ghost hunting now, it's like, holy shit, it hits 10 o'clock.

[00:04:05] I'm like, I need my fourth coffee, dude. Like I'm dying right now. Oh, 100%. So how did you get into the the paranormal escape? Did you did you grow up with the ghosts? Did you have you always been interested? How'd that all work? Well, my parents, mainly my mom, she always loved Halloween and kind of spooky stuff, but they would always take my sister and I on ghost tours whenever we traveled.

[00:04:32] So like, I remember going to the East Coast a bunch and doing like Salem, Salem ghost tour, Martha's Vineyard, all these different little islands and kind of coastal areas. And so I grew up with an appreciation of the paranormal and reading books and, you know, kind of diving into it on my own. And of course, like everybody else watching the shows like Ghost Adventures and stuff, which was my childhood.

[00:04:57] Like my mom and I would actually DVR the episodes of Ghost Adventures and then we would watch them. You know, that's like ancient tech now, like the DVR. Yeah. Yeah. I was so excited. And eventually it was crazy because my family built a house in South Dakota because that's where I'm from. And no one had ever developed the land before. It was like just a new house built on kind of fresh land.

[00:05:26] And the very first day that we moved in there, my sister had something paranormal happen to her. Like essentially my parents and I went and we were grabbing boxes from our old house. We left my sister there. And by the time we came back, she was trying to crawl out of her window and like tear the screen off of her window because she heard men in the kitchen moving around and making noise.

[00:05:52] And that is like something straight out of a movie because we came back and obviously we all believe in ghosts and everything. Yeah. But, you know, I was like, I want to say 14 or so at the time. My sister's about 10 and my parents are like, there's nobody here. Like we thought for a second she's like going crazy or something.

[00:06:10] And yeah, as we finish the move in process and then started living there, I had so many really, really terrifying things happen to me that at one point we actually decided as a family, we need to have the house cleansed because something was like on us. Yeah. So we had three psychics come in, do this whole cleansing thing. It was crazy, but it didn't work.

[00:06:39] And it kind of, I believe, pissed off whatever was there. Yeah. And the activity got less frequent, but more like powerful. Like it was really, really scary when it happened to the point where like one night my dad was home alone and he heard someone run across the kitchen living room area from my bedroom all the way to his door. And he was so freaked.

[00:07:03] He jumped out of bed, went and got his pistol from his closet, called me, woke me up in the middle of the night because I was in college at the time. And he like told me on the phone, dude, I'm walking through the house with the gun in case anything happens. I just want you to know that there's someone in here. Like it was, it was really scary. Yeah. And to get that cold call in the middle of the night down here in Texas was like, what the hell? And of course no one was in the house, but yeah.

[00:07:29] So I was telling people about my haunted house and my friends were coming over and experiencing all this. It was, it was actually, it sounds like a movie because looking back at it like 15 or so years later, it, uh, it really was like the plot of some sort of horror film, you know, like brand new house. You move in so much stuff happens. Like I'm hearing my mom's voice in the other room when she isn't home. There's things crawling around on my carpet.

[00:07:54] I saw, and it's interesting cause I, I saw a man in my bedroom one night. It was the clearest thing I've ever seen. And it was like straight up a dude with a huge brimmed hat on just to shadow, uh, through my window that you can see like moonlight coming in. And he was right there, crystal clear. And it just slowly moved towards me. And at the very last second I was able to kind of break out of that paralysis state and turn the light on and he was gone.

[00:08:23] And so years later, you know, when the hat man kind of mythos becomes a thing, I was like, dude, I literally like my story that I've been telling for years. And the hat man, it was literally the hat man. It was so crazy when I first read that stuff, but, um, yeah, push, push came to shove. And eventually the high school newspaper at my high school invited me to do a ghost hunt at my high school for like a Halloween edition of the newspaper. And we went and holy shit, we had so much stuff happen.

[00:08:52] And I was floored and I was also really pissed. I didn't bring my camera. So then I went back and I asked, I practically begged my principal. I was like, can I please come back and do this one more time with the camera? And her answer changed my life because she said yes. So then we went back and filmed the whole thing and we caught even more activity on camera.

[00:09:15] The second time that we went in there, my school was like built on a subterranean, like sub level of floor. So like it wasn't like a basement. It was like the entire floor plan of the school essentially was mirrored underneath it with these like cavernous rooms with pillars and old chairs from the sixties, like super creepy down there. And then I started interviewing staff that had quit, that had seen stuff and I interviewed teachers that had experienced things.

[00:09:43] And it kind of grew into this whole thing where like, holy shit, this place, you know, I had heard from like other kids at the school is supposed to be haunted. But like I didn't know that teachers had experienced things and people literally quit their jobs because of what they had seen. So yeah, I made the movie. They did the newspaper. Then we had a premiere of the movie in the haunted auditorium in the school. And like it was crazy. We had like, cause I come from a kind of smaller town.

[00:10:12] So we had like the local news out there. I was on like the front page of the newspaper as like the ghost busting senior at my high school. Yeah. I guess somebody saw that I had done that and reached out to me from a production company and about five or six months after that, I graduated high school, moved to Texas.

[00:10:34] And then I got a show with Verizon called teen spirit, which was like me as a teenager ghost hunting with other teenagers all across Texas. Yeah. And yeah, that, that episode of my high school became the first video on my channel. And like I said, I, I would never have expected back then to still be here doing this 11 years later.

[00:11:00] Well, about 12 years cause we filmed that in 2014. So it's like, that's crazy. Life is a crazy way of just like working out, dude. And now I've been ghost hunting a couple of times a month for the last 11 years or so. And I've seen, seen a lot of stuff. Yeah. Oh my gosh. That's awesome. Now because you've, you've seen all of this stuff.

[00:11:26] And so like for us, TJ and I talk about this a lot, having researching, having done all this research for cryptids and everything, you do start to get a little more analytical about things and you do start to, you know, second guess things. Like, I mean, I just did a whole episode about hot takes of cryptids and stuff. And my listeners were, we're not pleased with some of the answers, but you know, listen, I've, I've seen the evidence of the Loch Ness monster and I don't know.

[00:11:55] I just don't know. But that being said, now that you've been investigating for, you know, upwards of 11 years, are there things about the paranormal that you have, you sort of change your opinion on or, or has it just gotten like stronger? Well, I'm kind of all over the place where, you know, when I started, I was very anti demon, anti anything that's non human.

[00:12:23] Uh, I was like actually a kind of an asshole. Like I would shit talk people who believed in kind of these like in human energies. And I made like debunking videos of my own, uh, which did really well on YouTube. Like, uh, it was during like the Dybbuk box craze when everybody in there fucking grandma bought a Dybbuk box, like open it. And then, oh my God, the door behind them would open and they'd hear like a scream. Like it was so cheesy.

[00:12:51] So I ordered, I think like four or five of them and opened them all in my apartment. And lo and behold, nothing happened. Um, so a lot of that stuff I really didn't believe in, um, until I started digging a little bit deeper and focusing more on some of these like quote demonic hauntings.

[00:13:10] And then me getting sober and experiencing like a total spiritual, like rebirth through the process of sobriety, uh, completely changed how I viewed a lot of different things that I had experienced in the past. Like, for example, my house being haunted, like I used to think that this was like an angry, like human spirit, but looking back on it, I mean like a regular, let's just call it a ghost.

[00:13:37] Isn't going to mimic my mom's voice and chase my dad around the house. And like, there were so many really, really scary things that happened. It was very oppressive. It wasn't just like, you know, a Casper type haunting where things would go missing. This thing was like really trying to get at us. And then on top of that, even after we moved out of the house, stuff has followed each of my family members.

[00:14:00] Um, and this is like stuff we don't, you know, make videos about, but like my parents have, for example, uh, they thought someone broke into their house. This was like six months ago because they heard somebody talking like in their kitchen and they heard movement, like literally somebody in the house. Yeah. And they went out there middle of the night, no one's there. Uh, and that's just one thing that's happened out of like hundreds and hundreds of things since we moved out of the house.

[00:14:26] So I think more now that that's like a, uh, some sort of non-human energy, whatever you'd want to call that. Uh, some people call it demon. I call them demons just because people kind of know the term, uh, even though I don't believe in like traditional demons really. And then, so that changed a lot for me. And also, uh, I don't know how much I necessarily believe in conscious, like human ghosts anymore.

[00:14:53] Uh, after doing so many investigations, I, it's just so weird. Like, yeah, sometimes we do these investigations and it's like, everything makes perfect sense. It seems like we're talking to this person. Sometimes it'll even say the person's name, like very crystal clear. Other times we're getting a lot of responses and you can see the energy on all the meters and, you know, we've caught anomalies and whatnot, but none of it really makes sense.

[00:15:19] And looking back at all my work, it, it's almost more like we're just sitting, hearing the echoes and interpreting that stuff and trying to piece it together into a story of like what this thing's trying to tell us versus like, you know, me sitting in a chair and a ghost sitting in this chair. Uh, what's your name? Mark. How'd you die? Uh, blood force trauma. You know, it's not like that really. Yeah. Um, and a lot of TV lean more towards like residual hauntings aside from like intellectual. Yeah.

[00:15:49] Yeah. I'd, I'd say most of the stuff is residual, but then, yeah, that's where my other kind of train of thought comes in because whenever we have had those intelligent conversations, um, I'd say a lot of them seem to be angry or negative feeling. More on the weird club with Colin right after this. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. You know, those friends who support your preference for podcasts over music on road trips.

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[00:16:46] Because the more you do with Venmo, the more you get. Like earning up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash on a bundle of brands. So, order more pizza. The math demands it. Get the Venmo debit card. Venmo Stash bundle terms and exclusions apply. See terms at Venmo.me slash stash terms. Venmo checkout not available at all merchants. Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancor Bank NEC. I mean, I've had shit happen in this house. Like, I used to have a huge collection of haunted objects and just like crazy stuff.

[00:17:14] And I used to keep it in this room and I had display cases up in here. And my wife, Courtney, would be here when I travel. And she would hear things moving around up here. We heard things in the attic. One night I got this one object in that's crazy. And she said that in the middle of the night, both of our dogs that were on the bed started growling at the door. Like the doorway to the bedroom. Just like out of nowhere she woke up. And they were both on all fours. Like something was there.

[00:17:43] And this is the spookiest thing. Then she said in my sleep, I turned around and said, oh, hey, it's the ghost with the horns. And I don't remember saying that at all. Like I didn't. I was completely dead asleep. Like I sleep talk all the time. And so like, yeah, that was a little a little freaky. So we moved out of the house. It's in a storage unit now. Now this is my like haunted mansion studio. Oh, nice.

[00:18:09] It's literally like all haunted mansion themed where I record all my stuff. But yeah. Yeah. So there's just I'm always hesitant also to offer, you know, my my thoughts on the paranormal, like concrete thoughts, because if someone acts like they know what's going on, that's a sign that you should turn around and run the other way.

[00:18:32] Because there are a lot of fucking people in this field that think they know everything, whether it's, you know, that everything's legit or everything's fake. And, you know, we're all really in it to just find answers for ourselves. Like for me, it's a very personal journey. I'm also type one diabetic. So when I was younger, I grappled with like, dude, I'm going to die like way earlier than most people. And that has always freaked me out. So that was another major reason why I wanted to get into this field.

[00:18:59] And I feel like I've gotten some of the answers. But yeah, at times I'm also like, Jesus, I'm like more confused now than when I started. 100%. Yeah, I feel like because we cover a good amount of paranormal cases. And and a lot of them, like we just did a two parter on the Tower of London, for instance. Nice.

[00:19:23] And you look at something like that, a place that, you know, has so much not only history, but so much tragic history that you can't help but think like there is no way that walls and and the atmosphere isn't soaking up. The harrowing experiences that are happening. Right. And, you know, the energy of these people sitting there knowing they are going to die, not knowing when until they're right there and the axe is about to come down.

[00:19:52] So, of course, how how would your energy not be able to stay there and just replay those final moments over and over again? Right. And and, you know, we've done a lot about the hat man. You know, I've had I've seen that man and he tortured my sisters growing up that not even just growing up. He tortured my sisters even, you know, as they were adults. Like I grew up in a haunted house, too, and he was one of the entities.

[00:20:22] And then we had this other lady who was pretty harmless. But, you know, he was able to give my sister when my nephew, who's now almost 10 or is 10. I should probably know that. You know, he is 10. He's 10. Just turned 10, though. So it's OK, everybody. But, you know, he gave her a vision of him when he was two, like lying dead on the bottom of the stairs at my parents house.

[00:20:49] She wakes up, hears him crying and looks down the stairs and he's standing at the bottom of the stairs. Oh, my God. He shouldn't have been there. There were like things in front of the steps that he couldn't have passed. And if that wasn't scary enough, the creepiest part was that when she was asking him about it, he said that he heard grandma's voice downstairs. And then he heard people talking.

[00:21:17] So he woke up and thought that everybody was still downstairs. And he said when he got downstairs, he just kept seeing black shadows everywhere. So that's why he screamed. Well, that's not creepy at all. Yeah, right. Like no goosebumps here or whatever. But yeah. So, you know, the hat man is one of those guys that one of those entities I feel is is different than any normal spirit. Yeah.

[00:21:46] I think that he is some sort of leader or I don't know. I don't know what he is. But all I know is that I feel that he feeds off of fear and he's able to to continue his work and continue scaring people because it's it's whatever. You know, if he's a demon, if he's just some sort of energy force that that's specifically how he survives.

[00:22:16] You know, it's but you can't make up the fact that all of us who have never met before, who have very different circumstances are all like, oh, yeah. Yeah. The man with the hat. Yeah. I've seen him. Well, that's the thing with like, you know, cryptids, the paranormal, all of that that I always kind of tell people if they if they don't really believe in all this stuff.

[00:22:38] It's like, especially when it comes to the paranormal, you have millions and millions and millions of people that have experienced things that have told their stories publicly, whether it's in books, comments on social media, movies and shows. And then you have the millions and millions and millions and probably billions of people throughout history that have had experiences that never told anyone about them.

[00:23:03] So it's like it's it's ignorant to say that something isn't happening. I think it's also ignorant to say, you know, what's happening. But, you know, it for people to say that, like, it's just complete bullshit and none of it's real. That answer has never tracked with me because it's clearly not like this. The stuff is happening. And with Hat Man specifically, man, it's really crazy because I had that when I was in that haunted house of ours.

[00:23:33] And then years later, when I was in the midst of my alcoholism, like really, really struggling with drug use, alcohol use, I started to have these experiences again where something was coming to me. And I actually made a video about this years ago.

[00:23:54] I had I had these like sleep paralysis moments once again, like I did in high school, except this time there would be like a group of people in the room. And I can sometimes I would have my eyes open and I would actually see like shadows moving around the room and like the bathroom and hear voices. And the very last time I had sleep paralysis, which was in 2022, I believe, or three.

[00:24:19] I can't remember the year, but it was so, so frightening. I was in bed with Courtney and just to sleep. And I woke up and it was morning time. So the light, the light was the sun was out. The whole room was lit up and I could see those shadow people moving around and hear voices. And all of a sudden it felt like Courtney got up out of bed and just like wrapped her fingers around like my side. And I could still feel that feeling. It was like this.

[00:24:49] And I was sleeping on my side and it felt like she went like this and pushed me down into the mattress and I sunk. And like, you know, when you put your hand up to your face, you can feel your hand. Like you can feel when you're close to the surface. Something came right up to my face and it just said right in my ear, I'm the demon. Just like that. And I woke up immediately, except I had already been up screaming and Courtney was screaming.

[00:25:16] And I was like, I snapped from that to, ah, and I'm looking around and she was like, what, what? You've been screaming for like 20 seconds. And I was like, what the fuck? Like, it was so crazy. Oh God. And to me, that was like one of those things that showed me for sure. Like there's something out there that I don't understand that is definitely malignant. You know, it's not, it's just not a friendly energy, but it's conscious.

[00:25:43] And that's, I'm always, I'm always more intrigued in the dark stuff because it's more powerful. And I also have done a lot of deep dives into the occult and worked with a number of people that are like really enmeshed and immersed in that world. And I totally believe in all that stuff, like magic, witchcraft, like dude, energy work. Like I've seen some crazy shit and heard some crazy stories. It's legit.

[00:26:11] Like, you know, whether you want to believe in it or not, that doesn't matter. It's very real. Yeah. That's crazy. I mean, you did say that you had some experience with cryptids and I mean, would love to hear what they were. Dude, that meant a bunch. So I can go kind of rapid fire on a couple of them. I did a video on the falc monster in Arkansas, like back in 2018.

[00:26:38] And we went out there to the swamp middle of winter. It was really late at night. You know, it's very creepy out there. Super tall trees, pitch black. We went by one of the locations where the monster had been seen. And then we just drove into the into the kind of swamp area where the monster is supposed to be. And I caught on camera when I was back there, almost like screaming or vocalizations echoing from the swamp.

[00:27:06] And the guy I was with, his name is Dan Bell. He's on YouTube. He's done some cryptid stuff. And he's like the most hardcore skeptic you can imagine, like really doesn't even believe in ghosts or anything. But we were friends. And he was terrified by what we were hearing. So to see a guy who's like a really hardcore skeptic start to shake and get scared was for me freaky. And I've never been able to explain the noises.

[00:27:31] It was like this weird like fucking echoing from just the swamp, dude. Like you're looking at the fucking trees and it's pitch black and it just goes on and on. Like, God, that was creepy. Then we did a we went to the Freetown State Forest in Massachusetts and tons of stories about that place. Pukwudgie's, you know, Bigfoot, Ronald Reagan seeing a UFO.

[00:28:01] And we were walking in the middle of the day to go to the kind of like cliffs where Ronald Reagan saw the UFO. It's a famous part of the forest. And we heard a vocalization that was similar to that one, but it sounded very metallic. It like cut through the air. I wasn't filming, but it was so bizarre sounding like it was unlike anything any of us had ever heard. I was with my parents and my sister and my girlfriend at the time.

[00:28:27] And we all just stopped and looked at each other like, what the hell was that? You know, it was like so it was I've never heard something like it. It was like like that. And it just echoed once again through the woods, which was creepy. So then we just a little. There was it's I hiked actually way back to that rock area a few years ago.

[00:28:57] So funny. My buddy Tyler took us out there and we were doing a different video. This was in 2024. And I don't know if you're familiar with that area, but this rock is like 45 minutes into the woods. Like you got to hike like through rain. And so we finally got there. And dude, I'm not kidding. We get up to the top of the rock. And this was in my video. It's so crazy. We get all the way up there and we get our shit out.

[00:29:26] And like, I'm not even kidding, like 15 seconds after we started recording, all of a sudden I feel a raindrop. And I'm like, oh, my God, is it about to rain? And Tyler had told us earlier that day that we had clear skies and we looked at the report on the phone. And it was like 100 percent thunderstorm starting now. We were like, yo, what the fuck? Like cracking up laughing like, oh, man. And yeah, almost immediately it started pouring.

[00:29:55] So then we had to pack everything up and make our way all the way back down this fucking cliff. And it's like Connor, my brother in law, slipped and like almost injured himself. It was like crazy. But yeah, it was it was hilarious because he checked and then like this huge thunderstorm came out of nowhere. So that was crazy. We did a I did a Mothman video back in 2022.

[00:30:21] I want to say with my dad, he came with me and we went out to the old TNT, whatever it is, area where, you know, was that all those little bunkers. And we recorded a ton of weird EMF spikes in and around those buildings, like crazy fluctuations that we couldn't explain because it's like, you know, it's just it's an old abandoned bunker. There's no power. There's nothing in the woods.

[00:30:50] So that was crazy. And when we were out there, too, someone has put like two little reflectors on a tree out there. Oh, my God. When you shine your light through the woods, you see like two red eyes like staring at you from the dark. Scared the shit out of me before I figured out it was someone playing a prank. And then I'd say, yeah, I've done I've done a bunch of like cryptid stuff. I mean, I could tell you little stories about things that happened.

[00:31:18] But the one main deep dive that we did was back in the end of 2024. We did a Bigfoot investigation in Reamer, Minnesota, like Bigfoot capital. They call themselves of whatever. I don't know if it's America or the Midwest. But we had a Bigfoot tracker, like a guy who's like really, you know, he has a group and they go out searching for Bigfoots. He had a crazy story.

[00:31:46] We went out there and we were doing the tree knocking test with the little wooden bat. And I mean, you got to watch the footage if you guys haven't seen the episode. We did it and nothing was happening. This is like dead of winter. It was actually snowing throughout the video. So like you guys probably know how quiet it is when it snows. Like 100 percent. It was silent. And we did the knocking and then we heard this vocalization that I've never been able to figure out.

[00:32:15] It was like, like it sounded like a literal monkey, like. And it was also hilarious once again, because it was so fucking cold. Our guide, he had a hat on with muffs, like earmuffs on. So he did the test and we heard the noise. And my mom and dad and Connor, we were all there together and we're looking at each other behind him like, what the fuck?

[00:32:45] Like, what is that noise? And then he turns around. He's like, oh, you guys hear something? Oh, my gosh. You didn't hear that? No, I had these earmuffs on, dude. So he took them off. We were like, God damn it. You didn't hear it? It was funny as hell. But yeah, that was that and the Falk monster. Those were the two kind of clearest kind of crazy things that I've heard. And it's so interesting, you know, with Bigfoot.

[00:33:12] I don't know if it's, you know, if it's an actual creature or if it's, as some people claim, like some sort of interdimensional being. Yeah. I was also in India last year. And there's you guys should look into this to do an episode. Have you ever done an episode on like the Yeti stone? Not the Yeti stone. I've done the Yeti. Dude, you should look into this story. It's in Darjeeling province, kind of near Nepal. And I was kind of in the area.

[00:33:41] So that's how I heard of this story. There's like a stone out there in the woods that is like highly revered. And apparently it was like a stone that was placed there by humans and a Yeti who were like making a deal that this area, this is like the boundary. So beyond this is like the Yeti's woods. You can find pictures of it online. It's like a straight up little shrine to the Yeti that's out in the forest.

[00:34:07] And I immediately, when I heard that, I was like, dude, I got to go see this Yeti stone, man. But we were there shooting the non-maranormal projects. So we didn't have time. But yeah, dude, that's like one of my now on my bucket list locations because it just like Expedition Everest, you know, at Disney World, you know, they got the flags up. And it looks like from that ride queue because it's like the flags and little tributes.

[00:34:36] And then the big Yeti stone in the woods. Like, that's crazy. It's crazy. It's a crazy story to talk about a war between, I believe, Yetis and humans or something. I can't remember the intricacies of the story. But yeah, yeah, dude. So I haven't really dug into cryptids as much as I would like to have. But this year, I've done a number of UFO investigations that I haven't aired yet because that's where my interests kind of are nowadays.

[00:35:05] It's like UAPs, energy, whatever the hell that is. And we saw some crazy shit, dude. We saw some insane shit just a few months ago in New Mexico and California. That'll do it. Yeah. More on The Weird Club with Colin right after this. Study and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the Unreal College deal.

[00:35:35] Everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn more at windows.com slash student offer. While supplies last. Ends June 30th. Terms at aka.ms slash college PC. Sierra has all the best active and outdoor brands for the super athletic stuff. Like running gear for cruising up the trail. Woo! And the super athletic-ish stuff.

[00:36:04] Like fishing gear for chilling by the creek. Nice cast. Fitness apparel to push for higher reps. You got this. And golf balls priced so you can afford to lose one. Or a few. Head to Sierra or Sierra.com for the brands you want at the prices that let you do it all. From athletic to athletic-ish, Sierra's got it. Yeah, those are the areas, man. Yeah. The only UFO I've ever seen was in downtown San Diego when I lived there. And, you know. Really?

[00:36:34] Oh, yeah. My partner at the time who was, I mean, I am always with someone who's a skeptic apparently. But my partner at that time was very much of a skeptic. And I was out with my dog, Penny. And, you know, for her last potty, like nothing new. The crazy thing about San Diego is that the downtown area has a noise ordinance for the airplanes. So they stopped flying at like 11 p.m., I think. Or maybe midnight. Right.

[00:37:01] So from that point on until like the morning, the skies are like crystal clear. There's nothing up there. And I was out taking her to the bathroom. And I looked up. And it was like a couple lights just like in a row. And I was like, oh, I guess that's weird. I've never seen like I thought Orion's belt only had three. You know, I was like. But my brain is just like, okay, yeah. Well, cool. New stars. All right.

[00:37:29] Anyway, and I just happened to be like looking back at it. And there were more stars, stars on the other side of it. And I was like, what the fuck? And then I don't know if my mind was playing tricks on me. But it looked like it was like a light would disappear on this side. And another light would appear on this side. And it just kept going like a circle. And it's very possible that it was a satellite or something like that.

[00:37:59] But I pulled my partner out. And he was even like, okay, wait, what the fuck is that? And I was like, aha, fucking got you. I knew it. See? UFOs are real. Stop that. It's a good feeling. I need to start experiencing some stuff. Y'all got all these cool experiences. And I'm like, I saw it. Like a hand reached through a closed window one time. And that's about the spookiest thing. I mean, that's pretty fucking spooky. Crazy. I didn't want to see that. Yeah, I was in a little shed at my family's.

[00:38:28] I was just on the computer. I think I was doing podcast work at the time. And I'd heard like my mom or someone outside like walking the dog. So I turned. And there's just one window in that shed. Blind was closed. Curtains were covering it. And I just turned. And I just saw this like translucent hand just go straight through and brush the curtain. And that was gone. I immediately opened the door because I thought, okay, maybe the window got up. Like maybe my brother came in here, opened the window, messing with me. No.

[00:38:58] Dude. No one was out there. What the fuck? That's crazy. Dude. Yeah. I saw a hand actually one time similar to your thing. We were in an abandoned asylum on the East Coast. This was also back in 24. And I don't know if I actually saw it or not. It's one of those things where, you know, it's a dark building.

[00:39:23] But I'm like 99% sure when I pan my light at one of these pillars that was down this hallway. I swear to God, it freaked me out so bad. I jumped and screamed and like decided we should leave the building because I didn't know if someone was in there or not. What I had seen. But it looked like a hand was on the pillar and just went like that. And just like disappeared like that, which was there are things that, you know, even for me, I'm like, you know, I think I'm good on this man.

[00:39:54] It's a little too much right now. I also have done. I don't know if you guys counted as like a cryptid necessarily or a spirit, but I've done a bunch of skinwalker stuff. Oh, yeah. Which, yeah, dude, I had some really wild experiences out in the deserts. We did last year. I did an investigation at this old kind of village that's abandoned in the desert in Nevada.

[00:40:22] And we so I filmed with the guy who he's like a skinwalker expert a few years ago. And his name is Sean Glenn. He's a good dude. And he was like telling us about how to kind of get a skinwalker to appear if it's in the area. And basically, you know, one of the main things a lot of people say is to repeat the name of skinwalker and just call out for it.

[00:40:47] And this is not to like trample on anyone's beliefs, because I know that it's very like taboo to even try to speak with the skinwalker. But we went out there to this property and nothing was happening. It's pitch black. We're in the middle of nowhere in the desert. And we're like, all right, let's try do what kind of he told us. And let's say the name of the skinwalker 10 times. And so we did.

[00:41:15] And we said the actual Navajo name, not like skinwalker. And dude, like this is like one of those things where you're like, I don't know if this is something or not, but it was too perfect to not be. We said the name. We sat there in silence. And then like literally 10 or 15 seconds later on camera, this huge one I can think was huge because we could hear it. Pack of coyotes just started howling like right next to us.

[00:41:44] And you could hear it like, oh, and we were like, no fucking way, like freaking out, you know, thinking, did we just actually call one of these things in here? Like, what did we just do? Yeah. And yeah, it's it's frequently, you know, the connotation of, you know, coyotes, especially with within skinwalker. Right.

[00:42:06] And I've done a number of those videos where we've had like weird, weird animal encounters, like a huge owl that was like following us after I did one skinwalker video that just kept going. Like we had to walk up to a cave and then walk down all the way to the car. And the owl just kept following us like it was at the top going, whoo, whoo. That's Josh's worst nightmare. Dude, my literal worst fear. All the way down all the way to the car.

[00:42:35] We caught the noise of it going, whoo, whoo. And once again, that then owls are tied into a skinwalker lore. So, yeah, I don't know. To me, a lot of the paranormal is like encrypted, really, you know, it's more like what I love about it is I love the experiences that aren't like technology driven.

[00:42:59] Like I've had so many paranormal things that were just like weird, whether they were synchronicities or things that I heard or saw that, you know, you're not going to capture on a camera or on equipment. And to me, that's kind of where like the paranormal lives within people's stories and their own personal experiences, because I can sit here all day and I can fucking film a ghost and have it on camera waving at the camera saying, hey, I'm Phil Baker. I died in 19 whatever.

[00:43:27] And still, people wouldn't believe it. You know, people would just say that it's all fake because either they don't want to believe they're a little dismal about their their views. And so to me, it's like the experiences are where it's at. And you get those experiences, you hear those experiences from people. And dude, you just you can't not believe once you hear so many of these stories and meet these people like it's very real.

[00:43:55] So we've talked a lot about what you have experienced, what you have believed. I've run into this problem in my research. Is there a place you've either gone to a research that is famously haunted, but you like didn't find anything or nothing to research? Tons of them. I actually just talked about this in my video I released last night.

[00:44:19] Back when I started back in like because I really started going at this in like 2017, late 2016. All the places that I was visiting back then were like straight up abandoned, untouched, like creepy as fuck. Like in Texas, there was like this huge hospital that, you know, nobody had really done a ghost hunt inside. But we were for some reason allowed in because we knew the right people.

[00:44:47] And it was like this crumbling monolith of just spookiness out in this small town. Like nobody had been there. All the original shit was still in the building. Like it was so creepy. And I did. There's a famous one in Texas called the Yorktown Memorial Hospital. And I did that. I've done that place, I think, six times now. But in each time I've been, and this is exactly aligning with your point or question.

[00:45:15] Each time I've been back to the Yorktown Hospital, it's been less and less active. Like the first time I was there, I got scratched. I got scratched. Someone else got scratched. We had things like flying across the room, like the craziest shit you can imagine. We were so terrified when we left after filming. Second time, we had a ton of the same kind of stuff happen. But then I came back a few years later. It was very, very quiet.

[00:45:42] And as I continued coming back, the vibe was just completely gone. And that's because back when I first went, the place was like literally just abandoned. Like somebody owned it. I had to get the old groundskeeper Mike to come out and unlock the place with like a fucking padlock. Like it was crazy. And nowadays, you know, there's, I believe, a tour group or company that just bought it in San Antonio. And now they do tours all the time. There's tons of people in there. It's cleaned up.

[00:46:11] It's really put together versus, you know, when it used to be just like a ruin. And that guy actually, Mike, that was, he was crazy, man. He, the second time I went, he was like happy to see, see that I was coming back. And he had me come into his apartment. He lived in this like abandoned department store on the second floor above it in this whole suite that he had like renovated.

[00:46:40] He had like a Harley Davidson themed bedroom with like skulls everywhere and shit. He had the whole building to himself. And before we went in, he was like, you guys want to hit this before you go in? And he had like a pipe with like some sort of grayish, like floral something. I don't know what the fuck it was. And I was like, no, I think I'm good, man. He's like, I actually make these bongs out of the old pipes from the hospital. Like, let me know if you want one.

[00:47:06] And I was like, why don't we get back to that one too? It was crazy. So, yeah, that's, that, that for me is very personal because I saw that location go from being like utterly horrifying to the point where I wouldn't even go in there alone to like, you know, now it's, it's still creepy. And that's, I'm not trying to demean the location, but when you have thousands of people every year going through a place, it's totally different than if you have like 15 or 20.

[00:47:34] And I've done a ton of locations that were like, oh, we're the most haunted asylum on planet earth. And it's like, you have nothing to happen. I've had tons of videos where like literally nothing crazy happens. And then, you know, I've, I've had these videos also where it's like, ah, nothing's going to happen here. This is just a normal location. And we've had like insane shit.

[00:47:56] So I do think that there's something to like, when they, when they have a lot of people going through a place, I feel like that depletes the paranormal battery in, in a way. Not to, you know, say that about people's locations, but it's just, just my feeling. Cause you know, I've been very disappointed in, on a lot of these investigations over the past where it's like, you know, this place is, I've hyped it up for years in my mind.

[00:48:24] And then it's like, you go there and it's kind of like, eh, you know, compared to like the random spot that like somebody just told me about. And I'm like, okay, I'll go check it out. And it's like, boom, in your face, crazy. Yeah. And it definitely has to do with the energy. I mean, you have these places that are untouched. So that energy is just sitting in that building waiting.

[00:48:47] And when you've got hundreds of tours coming through and, and people creating their own experiences there, the whole energy of the place completely shifts. You know, we talk about a lot with the Winchester mystery house, how you have this, this location that seems perfect for hauntings, the story and everything. And then, um, you know, I've been there twice and, and both times I felt nothing. And you, you, you listen to some of the stories and some people catch things and other people don't.

[00:49:14] Um, and I think that's a lot what happens with the paranormal, but it's also subjective. I mean, you and I can walk in a place and feel nothing. And then someone else walks in and, and it's, uh, completely triggering for them. So it's, it's crazy nights too. You know, it's like some nights or days, there's a lot of stuff that's going on. And what I like to kind of tell people too, is like, you know, when, when I interview someone

[00:49:38] for paranormal files, let's say, and I'm doing the walk and talk tour, it's like, this person usually has been working here for like eight years, you know, 10 years, even a year, two years, spending almost every single day, eight or so hours a day inside of this building or house or location. And they usually have like four, three or four stories.

[00:50:04] So it's like most of the time that they're in that building, nothing's happening. But then you have that like 1 0.01% of days when they're in there and something crazy happens. And that's what, you know, I've been lucky enough to be at some locations for, for days like that, where things are really crazy. But just cause you don't have anything happen, it also doesn't mean necessarily that there's nothing there. Cause that's also, I feel like a lot of skeptics go in.

[00:50:33] First of all, I think if you're like extremely skeptical and you're making fun of everything that's going on, like you're not going to have anything happen to you. Like you're, you're closed minded. Like that's a whole core principle of spirituality and, you know, going to the basics of like religion and the cult. Like if you're closed off, nothing's going to come to you. You're not going to see anything or hear anything or feel anything because you're going into it with that energy that you're putting out there. Um, it's crazy.

[00:50:59] I've taken some skeptics, ghost hunting, and some of them, we had nothing happen because it was just the vibe that I felt from the person that, you know, they were questioning themselves and what they were doing and kind of debunking every little thing possible that happened while we were there. Um, the vibe just wasn't like good. And I was actually, I did an episode of a show that I did with the New York post with, um, a skeptic guy and they never heard the episode because he was just like kind of standoffish

[00:51:29] and rude to not only me, but to the spirits and nothing happened. It was like, it was really cringy, a cringy situation for me. Um, but then I've also had open-minded skeptics come with and like, we have had some crazy shit happen to the point where they walked away kind of questioning like everything that they thought, you know, or questioning their own conclusions. Um, which to me was like, it's really funny because, you know, you have a skeptic and when

[00:51:57] they have something like that happen, like you with your UFO story, you're kind of like, dude, I was telling you, you know, like, yeah, I gotcha. But yeah, it's, uh, it's, it's really interesting. I think people play a, a huge role in the paranormal and really cryptids too, in so many of these cases, you know, if you, if you go out there looking for answers, you might find an answer. But if you go out there and not looking for answers or not wanting to even find an answer

[00:52:24] or acknowledging an answer might potentially be out there. It's like, I can guarantee you, you're not going to really find anything. Yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Oh my gosh. Well, Colin, it's been so awesome talking to you. I, we will have to have you back and, and talk about every single paranormal experience you've had because the wealth of knowledge in there is crazy. Here's a lot, man. I can, I can literally talk for, uh, for days, especially with paranormal because, you know,

[00:52:53] I just, I think that it's, uh, so it's a field that it's constantly changing and I'm sure you guys get this too, with people who don't believe in cryptids and everything. I think the biggest thing people need to, to have when they kind of step into the field is an open mind because like, I've heard lots of classic ghost stories.

[00:53:16] And then I've heard lots of like batshit insane stories where like UFOs are like beaming ghosts down to the ground or people are seeing like tentacled things and floating heads. And like, at first you're, you're thinking like, there's no way that this person saw this. But for me years later, now I tend to believe almost everything because of the crazy shit I've seen. And I'm like, right. This person seems legit.

[00:53:44] You know, I have no reason to not believe what they're telling me if I believe in this stuff. So it's like, if you really have an open mind, like the world can be, can be like a literal horror movie, you know, depending on where you're at. A hundred percent, a hundred percent. Oh my gosh. Well, you got to come back and, and good luck on, on all your stuff and, uh, tell the people where they can find you and, and, and listen to all your, and watch all your videos. Yeah. If, uh, people want to check out the stuff that we've done, it would be the paranormal

[00:54:14] files on YouTube. And that's my handle on all my social media. And then also I've got the conspiracy files on YouTube and, you know, on Spotify and Apple podcasts. And my wife and I's true crime show is murder in America, which is also on all streaming platforms. So, so if people want to dive a lot of different places where you can start.

[00:54:38] Today, we also didn't even touch on conspiracies and Epstein and like, I would love to have you and Courtney both for just, just true crime. Oh yeah. Courtney, we're actually going to be on, um, an episode of a show on HBO in June called up. I can't remember. I can't remember the name of the show. It's about a case that we covered a few years ago where we got involved with the victim's family, like pretty closely.

[00:55:05] Um, I'll have to get back to you guys on the name of the show. It's, uh, yeah, we filmed it last like March and it's finally being released by HBO discovery. So yeah. Exciting couple of months up ahead. That's awesome. Thanks so much for being here. Seriously. Yeah. Thank you guys. So what do you think? Are ghosts really out there?

[00:55:34] Be sure to follow us on Instagram at out there cryptids for episode posts, updates, and more join our community on discord, where we dive even deeper into the mysteries we explore here on the podcast. The link can be found on our Instagram. And if you're loving the show, consider supporting us on Patreon as a patron, you'll get exclusive perks like bonus episodes, early access, and even surprises. See you next week. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome.

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