0:04

and people

0:23

Oh, oh, oh, oh Riley

0:27

Auto Parts Oh,

0:53

oh, oh, oh Riley Auto

0:59

Parts Oh, oh, oh Riley

1:07

Auto Parts Oh,

1:12

oh, oh Riley Auto

1:19

Parts Oh,

1:23

oh, oh Riley Auto

1:28

Parts Oh,

1:33

oh, oh Riley Auto

1:38

Parts Oh,

1:43

oh Riley Auto

1:48

Parts Oh,

1:53

oh Riley Auto

1:58

Parts One

2:00

of our sister podcasts, Conspira

2:03

Normal, they've been doing it since 2012. It

2:07

was just called the radio back then, wasn't it? In

2:09

the interview Adam mentions, like, yeah, I thought I was late to the

2:11

game in 2012. Like, wow.

2:14

So they've been doing it quite a bit longer than

2:16

we have. Well, the other thing is that there are

2:18

a lot of shows that really were just radio shows

2:20

that now call themselves podcasts. Yeah. Yeah.

2:23

I feel like podcasts are, I mean, we'd go through this rant a lot,

2:25

but I feel like podcasts are for the people. Yeah. Yeah.

2:29

We talk about podcasting. We talk about strange realities,

2:31

of course, but we talk about gold prospecting, which

2:33

is interesting. The Coddingly fairy photos came

2:35

up. We did a show on those. Yeah.

2:39

And a little bit about hoaxing and stuff as it relates.

2:42

There was a fairy mentioned. Did you mention Josh?

2:44

He got a mention in the conversation, but I

2:46

don't think specifically... Because of the fairies. ...in the

2:48

Coddingly fairies part of it. He

2:51

will be there as well, right? Josh will

2:53

be there in person at strange realities. But

2:55

before we get to Adam and Cerf, we've

2:58

got some business we need to handle here. And

3:02

that is, Albatwitched

3:04

Day is this coming Saturday.

3:07

We haven't talked about it very much on the show this

3:09

year. We'll need to

3:12

let everybody know, as I am,

3:15

Albatwitched Day royalty. Is that right? We've

3:17

established that I am the princess of Albatwitched

3:19

Day. Somebody doesn't need to make you a

3:21

crown, I think. I

3:23

would not be speaking this year, but Stan Gordon is speaking.

3:25

I believe he's the first speaker of the day. So

3:28

I think it's rated at 11am. Does

3:31

this not work like bands? Yeah, you would think they'd

3:33

put Stan later in the day. Yeah. Yeah,

3:36

they should. Because some people come from far enough away where it takes

3:38

a while. It's not starting until 11am

3:40

this year, right? The speakers started at 11. I

3:44

think the whole event starts at 11am, but... But

3:47

further up the way, they're having another event that starts at

3:49

9am. Yeah, the thing in the graveyard that we

3:51

did earlier in the year. There's

3:53

a lot to do in Columbia over the weekend. Oh

3:56

yeah, yeah. Yeah, they have speakers

3:58

all day. I forget who else. but

4:00

Stan Gordon's definitely one of them and definitely

4:02

worth checking out. Stan always for

4:05

a great Pennsylvania paranormal

4:07

and other weirdness. The

4:09

OG. There'll be bands.

4:13

There'll be us. There

4:15

are a lot of vendors. Yeah, a lot of vendors,

4:17

but most importantly us. I

4:20

will have books. Come get them signed and

4:23

we will have t-shirts galore.

4:26

We got restocks of the classic

4:28

strange familiar's a woken tree in

4:31

the strange familiar's blue, the classic

4:33

one should have those in all sizes,

4:35

small through three X so you

4:37

can get those. We haven't restocked those in a while

4:39

and we've had some in like, we

4:41

might have had some mediums left, maybe a larger too,

4:44

but most of the sizes have been sold out in

4:46

that, so it's good to restock

4:48

the classic strange familiar's logo shirt

4:51

that'll be there. And the eyes

4:53

of night shirt now in

4:55

blue. It's printed in strange,

4:57

similar as blue. We printed it in white

5:00

last year and I have to say this

5:02

thing pops in blue. It looks so good

5:05

and the ink is somewhat, it's not

5:07

glow in the dark, but it is somewhat UV reactive.

5:09

Yeah, put a black light on it and it does

5:11

kind of glow. It does kind of pop. Yes, we

5:13

can't really say it's glow in the dark, but it

5:16

does look like it's like UV reactive. It was really

5:18

cool. Sage said he mixed in some, I guess some

5:20

of the whatever makes it glow in the dark with

5:22

the blue to kind of do that. So I want

5:24

to thank Sage at Forest Passage Printing for printing our

5:26

shirts. He always does an amazing job. So

5:29

thank you so much, Sage. That'll be

5:31

it out, but to which day I'll also have prints there. Like

5:34

I said, books, strange familiar's t-shirts,

5:36

patches and stickers. Some friends

5:38

of the show will be there. Some friends of the

5:40

show will be there. I don't know

5:42

if we should announce them because they won't

5:44

necessarily be there at our table all day,

5:47

but stop by. It'll

5:49

be worth your time. That's in

5:51

Columbia, Pennsylvania this Saturday, October 5th.

5:55

It's right along the river. I feel like it's, um, it's

5:58

nice just to be, it's like just a scene. location like

6:00

you couldn't kind of ask for a more beautiful

6:02

location to be vending too because you just get

6:04

to stare out the water all day and yeah

6:06

yeah it's Columbia Riverfront

6:09

it's always just such a fun day and as

6:11

of now the weather looks

6:13

good I looked at the weather we've had two weeks

6:15

of solid rain we have not seen the Sun in

6:18

a while yeah it's been it was I think it

6:20

was the day of the equinox was the last day

6:23

we had any light looks like

6:25

it's gonna be a nice day please come out I

6:27

know strange familiar listeners are coming from afar like

6:30

for at least one from the west coast we

6:32

got up coming down from New England I believe maybe

6:36

from Alaska no

6:38

maybe maybe we'll have to

6:40

see I'm not I'm not quite sure I know

6:43

this person was in Alaska but I'm not sure

6:45

if that's where they reside but definitely people come

6:47

from from the west coast coming from all over

6:49

so a lot of strange familiar listeners will be

6:51

there it's such a fun day there's stuff to

6:53

do in town and if you it's such a

6:56

walkable town and if you find parking anywhere in

6:58

town that you can you can get to all

7:00

the events yeah cool antiques shops and I will

7:02

say this though like download the app and make

7:05

sure you have the parking paid for because

7:07

they are on it if you miss it

7:09

by a minute there are

7:11

places to park for free but if you're parking

7:13

at the street yeah it's cheap if I get

7:15

the app but it's easier just put on the

7:18

app and then they also I think they have

7:20

canoe tours they've got the trolley tours for Albert

7:22

which day which are kind

7:24

of like haunted trolley tours they tell ghost stories

7:26

on the trolley and stuff but you get to

7:28

go up to chickies rock where there's a lot

7:30

of like actual albatwich sightings have been right where

7:32

some albatwich sightings have been yes they throw apples

7:34

I think out for the albatwich up in jiggy's

7:36

rock and so forth such a

7:38

great time come on out that's albatwich

7:40

day this Saturday October

7:43

5th in Columbia Pennsylvania at the Columbia

7:45

Riverfront right by the old bridge another

7:48

thing I need to mention yeah and I didn't

7:50

mention this on last week's show because I hadn't

7:52

come up with the idea yet when we recorded

7:54

last week's show but heading towards

7:56

October I thought wouldn't

7:59

it be cool If I

8:01

did an original Bigfoot illustration every single day

8:03

in October and call it Squatchtober. So

8:06

Squatchtober has begun. And the first two

8:08

drawings out and sold within

8:10

minutes. Both of them. I'm

8:12

going to be issuing a drawing every day. I

8:14

put them up on Patreon first because

8:17

patrons should get first shot at this stuff.

8:19

Then they go on Discord, which is all patrons anyway.

8:22

Then Instagram and Facebook. So keep your eyes

8:24

on those places. Or if you want, just

8:26

keep hitting refresh on our Etsy shop because

8:28

they have to go there first of all

8:30

to get the link. And it's not going

8:32

to, just because of life, it's not going

8:34

to be any designated time. No. The

8:36

first two days it was around the same time just because.

8:38

Morningish time. That's the way it worked out.

8:41

But yeah, it'll be whenever we

8:44

get to them each day basically. You know there's 31 days

8:46

in the month. Yeah. Did I say

8:48

30? No, I was just saying that's a lot of drawings. Oh yeah.

8:51

Yeah. Each one is signed and numbered. One

8:53

out of 31, two out of 31, etc. So

8:55

awesome way to support the show and

8:58

get some original art and some of

9:00

these. You like them. Yeah.

9:03

I've been having fun doing these. So

9:05

go ahead and check out my Squatchtober

9:07

illustrations. They're priced according to

9:09

how much I like the illustration basically.

9:11

But none of them are going to

9:13

be crazy expensive because they're not huge.

9:16

Yeah. Dealable. Yeah, pretty good way

9:18

to get some original artwork. I

9:20

think just based on what sells, I

9:22

think my original Bigfoot

9:25

illustrations are probably the most desired things

9:27

I do. It's a good way

9:29

to pick up some Bigfoot art by me and

9:31

help the show as you're doing it. Got

9:34

some thank yous. Zoe wrote us a

9:36

nice letter. Well, wrote me a nice letter. You weren't

9:38

included in this one. I talked to Zoe all the

9:40

time. Although she did wish you well. Thank

9:43

you Zoe. She sent a little pamphlet

9:45

from a Catholic church out in, was

9:47

it Wisconsin? Somewhere out that way. And

9:51

Greg Kay from Indiana sent me a

9:53

bunch of Holy Cards and a Padre

9:55

Pio metal, Saint metal that he picked

9:57

up. So thank you so much. much

10:00

Greg for that. Much

10:02

appreciated. Alright, let's go ahead

10:04

and talk to Adam and Surf about

10:07

Conspirinormal, strange

10:10

realities, and more. Adam

10:26

and Surfeel, welcome to Strange Familiars. How

10:28

are you guys doing? Good,

10:30

it's great to be here, Tim. I'm

10:33

guessing it's been about a year since you've been on. I

10:36

would say, yeah. I think

10:38

I made a brief appearance when

10:40

you interviewed Nivea. Right. I think

10:42

I spoke like two sentences. A

10:44

surprise from the background. Around

10:47

the same time last year, I'm guessing. Yeah,

10:50

I think it was. What's

10:52

new with you guys, other than

10:55

strange realities, what we will talk about

10:57

in length shortly. Yes,

10:59

well, doing pretty well. Been

11:02

doing Conspirinormal now for a

11:06

long, long, long time. And,

11:08

just kind of keeping up with that.

11:10

And we've been doing strange

11:12

realities. I've been working on, you know,

11:14

you had Nivea on that long ago.

11:18

On Nivea's Nightmare on that YouTube channel,

11:20

that project, so staying pretty busy. You're

11:22

kind of like the production guy for

11:24

that. Yeah. Strange

11:26

realities, which we will talk about in

11:28

length shortly. Yes,

11:31

well, doing pretty well.

11:33

Been doing Conspirinormal now

11:35

for a

11:37

long, long, long time. And

11:39

just kind of keeping up. Still squatching

11:41

too much yet, but definitely

11:45

on the legend hunt

11:47

and starting

11:49

to take my little baby steps towards

11:51

some gold prospecting mixed with

11:54

some history. Really? Yeah.

11:57

So, every now and then I'll watch some of this gold prospecting.

12:00

videos and I'm like, I

12:02

think I like that. I think I could

12:04

do that. Robert Leonard It's fun and it's

12:06

cool to approach it from some

12:09

of the interests that we

12:11

share in mysteries and supernatural and

12:13

things like that. Things like dowsing

12:15

are really common and of course

12:18

there's all kinds of legends and even

12:20

conspiracy theory tied up in all of

12:22

it too. So it's

12:24

cool to come at it from this weird perspective,

12:26

you know, folks like us already have. Robert Leonard

12:28

So are there places where just anyone can go

12:30

or do you have to have a claim or,

12:32

you know, it's permission to be on someone else's

12:35

claim? How does that work? Robert Leonard

12:37

It's a little complex, but basically

12:41

different jurisdictions, whether BLM, Forest

12:43

Service, state parks have

12:46

their own kind of thing, but all

12:48

waters are considered state

12:51

property unless there's some other kind of

12:53

regulation. So it's a

12:56

lot easier to pan even

12:58

though those are kind of like seasonal too

13:00

for actually getting in the water. You could

13:02

pan a lot of places outside the water

13:05

and like the flooded,

13:08

previously flooded area. But

13:10

then for actual like load mining,

13:13

which is, you know, digging in the

13:15

earth significantly, you definitely need the

13:18

claims for that. Still a lot out there.

13:21

I was talking recently about the

13:24

Ape Canyon incident and

13:27

people found that the remnants of the

13:30

cabin, I think maybe a

13:32

decade or so back, but somewhat recently,

13:34

I want to say in the past few years, they

13:36

found the gold mine, which according

13:39

to the guys that were

13:41

there, they said there was still plenty of gold in

13:44

that mine. They left because of the attack,

13:46

because of the incident with

13:48

the Bigfoot. But they

13:51

said that there's still gold in that mine. Cool.

13:54

Yeah, I'm kind of on the hunt for some of

13:56

these weird stories. I'm sure I'll

13:58

come across personalities too, just

14:01

cause so many different weird people came

14:03

out to the West in general to do

14:06

that. So yeah, so it's fun. Yeah. But

14:08

it's about to get rainy for a while.

14:10

So that'll be mitigated a little

14:12

bit. So you're

14:14

going to try to go out and do

14:16

some, some pan in town or are you

14:18

inspired? Well, there's actually Cadouris Creek right here

14:21

in New York County. There is one particular

14:23

part of it that is known

14:25

for gold where people have gotten. They

14:27

allow, I think once a year, they allow panning

14:30

in there. It's in the park

14:32

service does. Okay. So you

14:34

can go in there and pan, you know,

14:36

with their permission once a year, but maybe

14:38

I don't need their permission. I

14:41

think Sergio is going to disappear into

14:43

the woods with his pan and just

14:45

live out there in a

14:47

little shack and pan for gold. Oh man.

14:51

That's going to be the life. I mean, look,

14:54

right in this book on hermits, you know, part of me

14:57

is like, it doesn't

14:59

sound that bad. It

15:03

doesn't sound that bad at all. Maybe

15:05

a little cabin in the woods and that's

15:08

maybe that's my mean look right

15:11

in this book on hermits, you know, part

15:13

of me is like, I've done sound that

15:15

bad. It

15:19

doesn't sound that bad at all. Maybe

15:21

a little cabin in the woods and

15:23

that's maybe that's my retirement. We'll see.

15:25

I can tell you Tim that I

15:28

think I'm really looking forward to this

15:30

book the most. It's in the park

15:32

service does. Okay. So you

15:34

can go in there and pan, you know,

15:36

with their permission once a year, but maybe

15:39

I don't need their permission. I

15:41

think Sergio is going to disappear into

15:43

the woods with his pan and just

15:45

live out there in a

15:48

little shack and pan for gold. Oh man.

15:51

That's going to be the life. I mean, look

15:55

right in this book on hermits, you know, part of me

15:57

is like, it doesn't

15:59

sound that bad. It

16:03

doesn't sound that bad at all. Maybe

16:05

a little cabin in the

16:07

woods and maybe that's my retirement. We'll

16:09

see. I can tell you, Tim, that I think

16:12

I'm really looking forward to this book

16:14

the most. Just

16:16

from listening to a lot

16:19

of what you talked about on Strange

16:21

Familiars about the about hermits. Mm-hmm. It's

16:24

really some of the best stuff. It's

16:26

a really sad kind of emotional

16:28

stories, but I'm really looking

16:31

forward to this book. That's why I think every

16:33

time I have you on or I'm on here,

16:35

I ask you about it. Well, it's

16:37

all the writing's done. I'm

16:39

literally finishing up the illustrations. Cool.

16:42

I probably have four

16:44

or five more chapters worth of illustrations to

16:47

do, which sounds like a lot, but it's

16:49

not really because they're spot illustrations. They're just

16:51

the end of chapter kind of things.

16:54

Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully this

16:56

month I can finish it up.

16:58

I'm going out of town in the early part of

17:01

the month, but I should have

17:03

time when I get back to hopefully finish this

17:05

up and get it out before

17:07

the end of the year, which is really the

17:09

goal. I was hoping to get it out by September and

17:12

then it keeps getting pushed. Well,

17:14

you know what it's like doing a weekly show. It's just... Right.

17:18

Takes a lot that has to

17:20

come first. Then I needed

17:22

life beyond making

17:24

podcasts and writing books too. I

17:27

started hiking a lot more again, which is good

17:30

for my head. I cannot

17:32

give up hiking. That's given up a

17:35

part of myself. I make time to

17:37

hike and get out there

17:40

and do that, but I want it

17:42

to come out too because I'm super interested in

17:44

how it's going to do. It's my first not

17:47

paranormal book. Josh

17:49

keeps saying it's paranormal adjacent, but is

17:52

it? I don't know. Only because I cover

17:54

hermits on Strange Familiars, maybe. There

17:56

is some paranormal stuff in there. There's one hermit

17:59

with me. mistaken for a big foot.

18:01

A couple of them

18:03

do like card readings and

18:05

claim to have psychic abilities and stuff,

18:07

but generally it's not a paranormal book.

18:09

It's a book about hermits. So

18:13

I'm really interested to see how it's going to do. I

18:15

want to know if I can make a

18:17

dent in the world of books outside of

18:19

the paranormal. We'll see. I've

18:21

done okay in the paranormal world. We'll see what I

18:23

can do with the outside of it here.

18:26

And it does do good too. That'll be interesting to

18:28

see your readers first

18:31

encounter all of your

18:34

other stuff and see what they think after that too. Yeah.

18:38

It'll be neat to see those two worlds cross

18:41

over and collide there. I keep

18:44

saying, and as

18:46

far as illustrations, this is my

18:48

best illustrated book. I think I'm really, really

18:50

happy with the way it looks. Every

18:53

book I make, I get better at making books

18:55

and I understand more like what I can do

18:58

creatively with books

19:00

and I get more excited about designing

19:02

books. I absolutely love doing it. So

19:05

this one is my best yet, I think,

19:08

as far as illustrations and design and stuff. And

19:10

got some other plans going forward. Got a

19:13

lot of ideas for books. So we'll

19:15

see what happens. I know we're

19:17

going to talk about the conference, but what

19:19

started the fascination with hermits? Alison

19:23

bought me a postcard, photo postcard of

19:25

one. And she simply said, this looks

19:27

like a wild man. You'll probably like

19:29

this guy. And I left it on my

19:31

desk and that was William Woodruff. That

19:33

was the first one we did a story

19:35

about on Strange Familiars. I remember that one.

19:37

Yeah. And I just left it there for

19:39

months. And one day I

19:42

was cleaning up and shuffling some papers

19:44

around and this photo postcard pops up

19:46

and I had a few minutes and I was

19:48

like, oh, let me figure out who this guy

19:51

was. See if I can find any information on

19:53

him. And these newspaper articles started

19:55

popping up. I was like, oh man, this guy

19:57

is interesting. So then I did a show

19:59

on it. I was like, well, I want

20:01

to start collecting hermit photos then. And then I

20:04

started collecting them. So the book is based on my

20:06

photo collection. So every hermit in the book, you actually

20:08

get to see a photo of him, almost every hermit.

20:10

There's a couple in there that don't have photos, but

20:13

almost every hermit, you see a photo

20:16

of what he or she looked like. Sometimes

20:19

more than one, some of these hermits I have many,

20:22

many photos of. And some

20:24

of them I'm pretty sure I have the only photo in

20:26

existence of some of these hermits. Yeah.

20:29

Yeah, it's pretty cool. Alison

20:31

is such a, like she isn't,

20:34

she's like an archivist. So she

20:36

finds all these old photos and

20:38

like, that's, she's such an expert

20:40

in all this stuff. She's the

20:42

photography curator for a museum. So

20:45

she, yeah, she knows her stuff

20:47

and she's a fabulous

20:49

researcher as well. It's something

20:52

we share a love of research for sure. I

20:55

would say our shared kink is

20:57

research. Yay, that's

20:59

cool. So on

21:01

the Veyas nightmare, we're doing the

21:03

Cottingley fairy photos. And

21:08

that's, that was a more interesting

21:10

story than I actually thought it was just

21:13

specifically because

21:16

I didn't know that the Theosophical

21:18

Society was involved in promoting all

21:20

that. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

21:23

I did like a little segment on them at some

21:25

point, like a half a show or something. Yeah.

21:28

One of those photos. That's one of

21:30

the greatest paranormal hoaxes of all time,

21:32

which honestly really was only meant to

21:34

have been a practical joke that the

21:36

girls were playing on their parents, but

21:38

it got way out of hand once

21:41

the Theosophical Society and Arthur Conan

21:43

Doyle get involved. It's

21:45

amazing that, you know, because, I mean,

21:48

it worked at the time

21:50

because photography was this new

21:52

medium that it shows how

21:55

things really are, right? And

21:57

people, like we look at those photos now, we

22:00

go like that's. so goofy, of course, like, it's

22:02

not real. Yeah, it's goofy. Yeah. But

22:04

back then... All the ectoplasm stuff and seance stuff.

22:06

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, back then, like, this is the

22:09

new medium and it shows things as they really

22:11

are. So people were just like, oh, if it's

22:13

in a photograph, it must be real, you know?

22:16

So... Well, the interesting

22:18

thing about the story too is that they

22:20

were trying to figure out, is this a

22:22

real photograph? Well, they are

22:24

real photographs. Right, yeah. But

22:26

they're photographs of little paper

22:29

cutouts. So

22:31

that was always like, was there a

22:33

photographic trickery? No, there wasn't. The girls

22:35

set it up, but that

22:37

was the big debate at the time. And

22:40

it was quite simple as to what... And

22:42

a lot of people knew, like,

22:45

Houdini, you know, was also one

22:47

of... You know, he was a great debunker

22:49

of a lot of the spiritualist claims and

22:51

he came out against

22:53

it, you know? Oh, yeah. He

22:56

said it was from this particular, like,

22:59

catalog or something. Well,

23:01

it wasn't. It was from a different thing. But

23:04

then that was used to say, see, the girls

23:06

actually... What's also interesting though is

23:08

too, is that the girls kept

23:10

it, I mean, into their 70s and 80s. Like

23:15

1983, I think, was when they finally fessed

23:17

up that it was a hoax.

23:21

And so they just kept it going for essentially,

23:24

like, you know, 60 years,

23:27

essentially. I thought I remember

23:29

coming across some story, and I could

23:31

be wrong about this, where they said

23:33

like, yeah, we hoaxed them, but we

23:35

also saw real fairies. Yeah,

23:38

so the younger girl, she

23:41

fell into the

23:44

creek and she came home

23:46

and she was soaking wet. And

23:50

when her mother asked her, why are

23:52

you soaking wet? She said, well, I

23:54

saw the fairies in

23:56

the Beck, which is the name for the creek.

24:00

the mother obviously didn't believe her. And

24:03

so she had this old, the older cousin. And

24:06

so she came, well, since they don't believe us, we're going

24:08

to prove that the fairies were real as a joke.

24:12

But Francis, who was the younger

24:14

girl, she maintained

24:17

into her dying day that

24:20

she did see fairies. So

24:23

it's an interesting story. What

24:27

was interesting too, was just how the

24:30

Theosophical Society, they

24:32

were really promoting fairy folklore.

24:34

And Evans Wintz was in

24:36

the Theosophical Society. And it's

24:38

interesting how the influence, Theosophy

24:41

has a ton of influence,

24:44

which by the way, when I was

24:46

in Seattle, Surfield took me over to the Seattle

24:49

Theosophical Society, which was really cool. I

24:53

have some very early publications from

24:55

them, I believe. Like

24:57

little magazines. We

25:00

call them zines today. Little things from

25:02

the 20s and 30s. I'll

25:06

have to dig them out and show you guys. But

25:08

the thing where she claimed

25:10

to see fairies, it reminds me, you get

25:13

that so much with people who

25:15

are hoaxing them. My favorite example is the people

25:17

who admitted to making the crop circles. And

25:19

they said, yeah, we made them. But while we're

25:22

out there making them, then we're surrounded by weird lights.

25:24

And if you see these orbs and all this weird

25:26

stuff is popping off around us, it's

25:28

like, hmm. Right, right. Like the

25:30

act of engaging in this stuff, even

25:32

as a hoax sort of brings

25:35

out the elements a little bit. Yeah,

25:39

the famous poltergeist case in the

25:41

70s, also in

25:43

Britain, the girls there

25:46

would fake activity. And

25:49

it was a way to prime the

25:51

pump and that would

25:53

cause activity to pop off. It's

25:57

interesting the relationship between hoaxing and

25:59

actual pair of Yeah, yeah. Well,

26:01

even the Sears at Garabondal, that

26:03

Marian operation site, at

26:06

least once, they faked and

26:09

they got caught. And the priest pulled them aside and said,

26:11

I know you were faking, don't ever do it again. But

26:14

they said there was a crowd there and they were so

26:16

afraid the crowd would be disappointed

26:18

if nothing happened, that they faked it.

26:20

So it's like

26:22

woven into this stuff. It's

26:24

weird, that whole hoaxing trickster

26:26

thing. Well,

26:29

how long has Conspira normal been going on?

26:31

You guys started before Strange Familiar is a

26:34

good bid, I believe. Started

26:36

five years before. You started in 2017.

26:40

I started in 2012. Amazing. Wow. Yeah,

26:44

I guess we're going to be pretty

26:46

much at this point, it's like 12 and

26:48

a half years that we've

26:50

been doing this. Wow. I mean,

26:52

Surfiel's been doing it with me for

26:55

nearly six years. Yeah, yeah. I remember

26:57

when he came. It's been a while.

27:01

You had other co-hosts before,

27:03

right? Yeah, we did. We

27:05

had Rob, who we

27:08

called the producer, who really

27:10

produced the show. And we

27:12

had Luke, who's been my

27:14

current roommate. And a

27:17

few people kind of in and out in the

27:19

early days of Conspira normal. He's

27:22

not your current roommate. He ascended to the

27:24

next. He ascended to

27:26

the next level, yeah. He just

27:28

ascended one day on the show.

27:33

What's that like 12 years of

27:35

Conspira normal? Man, you

27:37

know what? I mean, it's

27:39

been a real journey, man. I mean, I've made... I

27:43

think really the best part of it

27:45

has been making friends and

27:47

contacts and being able to hang

27:51

out with people like yourself and Josh

27:54

and Tim Bernal,

27:56

Sariah, all these

27:58

people that I've and

38:01

time and like I got recently I've

38:03

gotten this like kind of renewed excitement for it like

38:05

and I have the all these ideas like I want

38:07

to do this I'm gonna do that I want to

38:09

do this and that's exciting but

38:11

do you go through periods like that where you're

38:13

like more excited about it and other times we're

38:15

like yeah definitely definitely

38:19

there's definitely been those periods where

38:22

I've been less excited

38:24

and then more excited I think

38:26

really like I mean we're living in this

38:29

kind of like you know surf you'll mention

38:31

this as far as the

38:34

absolute plethora of podcasts now I mean if

38:36

you think about when

38:38

I started this in 2012 I thought I

38:40

thought I was late to the game but

38:43

now if you're so I really feel if you're

38:45

starting a podcast you are late to the game

38:48

oh yeah it's really

38:50

that there's just

38:52

so much and you're

38:55

gonna be pretty much I think pigeonhole

38:59

are niched into you know

39:02

who's gonna listen to you I'm

39:04

really not seeing how some of the newer

39:06

shows are able to

39:09

get as many listeners as they do

39:11

just because of just the sheer amount

39:13

yeah and plus you you've

39:17

got podcasts now has

39:20

become you know it has become

39:23

an advertising platform but it's also become you

39:26

know these media

39:29

organizations or like a newspaper or whatever

39:32

they can start their own podcast they

39:34

like a true crime podcast or something

39:36

and they can get millions of listeners

39:38

because the subject matter but only but

39:40

also because they have an organization behind

39:42

them right also you

39:44

know what what is podcasting

39:46

now is also YouTube and

39:49

watching videos really yeah yeah

39:51

and so you

39:53

know most people think of something like You

40:00

know, Jill Rogan or, you know,

40:02

Lex Friedman or, you

40:04

know, these guys, that type of that, they

40:06

say that's a podcast, but, you know,

40:09

the, these kind of like our conversational style

40:11

podcasts that we have, and we've been doing

40:13

in the past, you know, it

40:15

just isn't as much anymore.

40:17

And it's, it's easier, it's

40:19

getting harder and harder, I think, for just like

40:21

people, even though you can, you can do it,

40:24

it's cheap to do it, right? The

40:26

barrier to entry is low, but I think it's,

40:29

it's harder for people to gain

40:32

listeners because you've got just so much

40:34

more, oh yeah, you know, more popular

40:36

people doing it again, more

40:39

and more now. Yeah. Well, once these

40:41

big media companies realized there was money

40:43

in it, then they started these podcast

40:45

factories and they just pump

40:48

them out and they

40:50

have whole teams editing, you know, they have whole

40:52

teams doing this, you know, where

40:54

we're doing, we're

40:56

doing what we do ourselves, you know, and

40:59

I'm not complaining. Like I said, I'm lucky to do

41:01

it, but I'm just saying like these

41:03

bigger media companies that are

41:05

just pumping out podcasts, I call them podcast factories,

41:08

you know, they just pump them out left and

41:10

right. And they have research teams,

41:12

they have, you know, the people, the hosts, if

41:15

they're doing a paranormal one, the host probably doesn't

41:17

even care about the paranormal. They were chosen because

41:19

they had a good voice and they could read

41:21

well, you know. Yeah, we know a few people

41:23

who, who get paid to research for large

41:26

podcasts and stuff. Oh

41:28

yeah. Yeah. So

41:30

yeah, it's hard to get an

41:32

audience for these that are just

41:34

starting that, like you said, the YouTube thing is huge

41:36

that we get requests all the time. Why don't you

41:38

guys video yourself? Well, that's

41:41

not how we started and that's not

41:43

what we want to do. And half

41:45

the time I'm going to places where

41:47

I don't really

41:49

want video of these places.

41:52

And it, you know, that it's just,

41:54

so this is going to be an audio show and

41:56

I may do some video things in

41:58

the future, but strange familiar. Well,

46:00

I've yet to, I think they brought it

46:02

down for me once, but haven't really plugged

46:04

it in. I'll play anything on the

46:06

screen. I wonder how much that gets rented. I'll

46:08

have to ask. I don't know, it's always there. So,

46:14

what's the lineup this year? Okay,

46:16

well, so this

46:19

year in the past,

46:22

we've, so we've been splitting these things

46:24

up and the last year we decided

46:26

that we were going to do two

46:29

days on site at

46:31

SAR and then a day online

46:35

only. So that's how we're doing

46:37

it this year. Again, November 1st

46:39

through the 2nd. That's

46:42

going to be at SAR. So it's Friday

46:44

and then most of the

46:46

day on Saturday, although we'll be starting a

46:48

little bit later this year. And

46:51

then on Sunday the 3rd, we

46:54

will have the online only speakers

46:56

of which you are one. We

46:59

wanted to try to get you to Nashville, Tim, but... It

47:01

was looking like it was going to happen and then my

47:04

life got complicated. I've done

47:06

a bunch of travel this year already and

47:09

going back to Indiana in October, so probably

47:12

should chill out on the traveling. Yeah,

47:14

I think the gods were like, the gods were

47:16

playing it. We're playing with us on that one.

47:20

One day we'll

47:22

get you back to Nashville. Walktavian was going to drive

47:24

and I was just going to go with him, but

47:26

then his life got complicated as well.

47:28

So I didn't want to put it all on him.

47:31

I think he would have done it if I

47:33

kind of leaned on him, but also I'm

47:36

not sure if it would have been a

47:38

good thing for him either. So

47:41

this year we've got at SAR,

47:45

so Steve Berg is

47:47

going to be back as the MC this year. He

47:50

spoke in 2022 and he MC'd

47:53

last year and now he's going to

47:56

be back being the master of ceremonies.

47:58

Which has been really great.