THC 120: Chad Lewis | UFOs, Crop Circles, Curses, Tulpas, & Cryptids

00:01 Greg Carlewood, you are like a brother from another mother. Keep up the great work! Podcast is amazing one of the best out there thanks again man In the 1930s President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed the nation through a series of radio broadcast known as The Fireside Chats His aim was to reassure the common man that our society would recover from its troubled times But we're far from 1930 and I deal with a different kind of fire For a new era of worldly frustration, we offer a fresh conversation. I'm Greg Carlwood. These are the Higher Side Shads

00:43 How's it going, Hireside Chatters? Drink a little drink. Smoking a little smoke! I'm Greg Carlwood just getting ready for the wild, wild week ahead of Comic-Con here in sunny Sandy and today on the show is a serious, serious plethora of paranormal goodness Chad Lewis joins me to talk about all the weirdness in his work that he has researched and sought out over the course of his career UFOs, crop circles, spook lights orbs curses tulpa slender man haunted places cryptids conjuring and consciousness It's all here baby And today we have another money bomb round ending and we had two winners again Brittany and Julie two lovely ladies I'm lucky to have listening in. We're gonna talk to Brittany for just a minute today and Julie on the next one

01:29 And we're also less than 10 days away from the launch of THC+, the new extended show for subscribers who are willing to support the show, to the tune of about $5 a month. I'm not trying to gouge you guys, i just really need some money coming in. I'm all-in on this ride and hope you're buying a ticket! Sign ups have been pretty low and im getting worried but i know alot of you are waiting until the first. If you like the show sign up over at thehighersidechatsplus.com for only 5 bucks it's less than a trip through the drive through its a box cereal that's a beer $5 is exactly what I tip my dispensary bud tender and they don't do shit so

02:09 I don't think it's a lot to ask. I have recorded the first two plus shows already and, I gotta say they are pretty damn good But enough of the support talk let's get weird Here is another little ditty that was sent in as a potential theme song We're gonna talk to Money Bomb winner Britney And then we're going to perform The Ritual Of All Rituals With Chad Lewis on the other side Make a little drink my friend, smack a little smack Hey, Brittany it's Greg from the Hireside Chats. How are ya? I'm doing good! Hey, I know you're busy and I'll make this quick but thanks a lot for listening and donating and congrats on winning the money bomb Hell yeah life is pretty cool sometimes Yeah So tell the people about yourself where are you from what do you do

03:19 I'm from LA and I'm an 8-5'er. Sounds kind of boring, but you know it's not too bad! We've all been there. Right on! What are some of your favorite topics or guests we have on THC? I always like to ask the Money Bomb Winners that Alright, well I really liked Stuart Swardlow. He was cool! I love the Holoworks stuff it's awesome. Um...I really like Dan Fogler that was cool too and um the flying humanoids you know? I love anything crypto zooey Yeah cryptozoology is definitely an area i like a lot It's a guilty pleasure I don't think the audience likes it quite as much all the time but there are some of that in the new one so And we'll keep it coming

04:03 Awesome. Are there any topics that I have yet to talk about that you think are important, that you'd like to hear about? Well, here's one that I always look around for but never really get too much material on is the McMartin preschool case. It fascinates me! I'm from the South Bay and the age of when it happened was like the most expensive case in US history but there isn't a lot to be said out there about it and I am totally curious about it Yeah, I know the cliff notes to this story but you're right. I don't know a whole lot of details so...I don't know maybe i'll look around for a book or an author somebody who's really covered it in depth but yeah that's uh pretty explosive case that should be talked about

04:50 Yeah, do that for me. For sure I will so since the money bomb is made up of the people's money We went over 500 so I always like to split it at that point and so you're gonna get 385 we're gonna work that out however we do it Do you have any plans for the people's money at all? Well, I do have my eyes on a conspiracy. I really like the professional sheep Oh, thank you. Yeah so I'm gonna go ahead and get that and then I am going to buy a gift for my husband he's a musician but he kind of put that aside to get a career in film so i always like to give him stuff to keep outside of them alive so I'm gonna give him a guitar pedal oh that's awesome! That is an incredibly important part of a partnership and not enough people really support their partners dreams and ambitions so...that's awesome

05:44 Oh, thank you. And I'll probably have some leftover that's going to go to me. I've recently been spending some money on a health journey eating clean and doing all this gnarly stuff and it's getting kind of expensive. So life is looking up for me and it was really cool to find out I won the Money Bomb. Thanks! Awesome. Well, it sounds like you're going to put it to good use so I'm happy! I hope the people are happy and glad that YOU'RE HAPPY! And thanks for taking the time to talk with me. I'll let you get back to it. Alright thank you! Enjoy the day! I will! When I find myself in times of trouble Mr. Carwood comes to me speaking words of wisdom THZ

06:31 THC, THC, THC, THC Speaking words of wisdom, THC Alright people, today is going to be the show of shows haunted places lake monsters UFOs and the whole grab bag a paranormal weirdness because if you want to understand and explore these oddities beneath the humdrum reality You really got little choice but to explore them yourself. Millions of people see hear and find themselves smack dab in the middle of life-changing experiences with things they can't explain and are left with few options In a world where the masses are well trained to scoff at the mysterious and just get back to work

07:13 Lucky for these marginalized strangeness experiencers, they have today's guest to talk to and today's guest has THC. His name is Chad Lewis and he has been researching lecturing and investigating tales of the paranormal in Downright Bizarre for over 20 years all around this crazy planet He also written several books about these stories and investigations including The Most Gruesome Hauntings in the Midwest Pepe the Lake Monster of Mississippi And over half a dozen state guides to strangeness and haunted sites I know i'm ready to get weird. Chad my man, how the hell are you? Hey! Thanks for having me Yeah this is great thanks for being here. This is going to be a good time man. I've heard you talk about a pretty wide range of paranormal stuff and the list of your investigations that you have on your website is even longer so with subject matter this wide reaching I am curious what drew into this stuff in the first place was there particular investigation where did were you find yourself going from enthusiast more professional

08:10 Yeah, I grew up in Wisconsin which has three UFO capitals of the world. Three different cities and I grew up near one of those called Elmwood and during high school I had heard about people seeing and in some cases encountering these UFOs so I went there to investigate and it was just about to study psychology at the university I really was interested in why people believe in the strange and unusual when other people do not. So, I started researching that through my undergraduate And I found a lot of different findings that I would present at research symposiums, really boring statistical stuff. You're glad you weren't there! But after the program people would come up and say, �I know this isn�t really what you are doing but I think my home is haunted or I saw something I can explain in the sky could you help me

09:09 Wow, pretty interesting thread to follow. And I mean man out of all the great stuff you've done... ...I do think UFO research is probably what's most interesting to me Maybe we could talk about a couple of those investigations further? I've seen you've done a decent amount of research into the big ones The ones that everyone would know I mean Roswell and Area 51 Did you find anything outside of the typical storyline for these topics or did you get any confirmation that the stories are true Yeah, that's the problem when you investigate Roswell Area 51 these things that have been really beaten to death. I don't know if there is anything more to come out from these stories and yes it's fun to go there and see where these events were alleged to have taken place and interview people around the area about certain things that may still be going on but in terms of turning up something new i don't know if it's possible on those cases which

10:03 It was one of the reasons I love doing these smaller cases that many people may not have heard of because there is often that possibility of something new and strange popping up. That's true, but those stories alone if they're true the implications are so huge and massive that i think thats why they're so iconic I think people are always looking for confirmation, but sadly the further we get away from the actual event. Most of that drifts away over time." So much has come out on so many different theories, not just from the government who changes their explanation every couple years but researchers as well that are every year a new book with the new theory seems to come out. And it's fascinating is it is I think sometimes all does this scramble for the people that are not diehard enthusiasts, the general public they don't know what to think. Yeah, I totally agree with you on that and

11:10 What about this other one you have listed? I hadn't heard of before, the Aztec crash site in New Mexico. That sounds kind of interesting Yeah, that's one of my favorite ones too and many people have investigated that one including Stanton Friedman. Obviously many people know him for the Roswell case but it is another claim that another saucer crashed in the desert near Aztec New Mexico and it was thought to be very similar to the Roswell crash but back in 48' and they even have out in the middle of a desert a little plaque where this

11:46 was said to have crashed and for many years the town had a UFO festival where they celebrated the town's history, they had a UFO gift shop but some of that is kind of gone by the wayside now as it has gotten further from time period. But yeah it was said to be a strange crash much like Roswell Interesting, and I mean just the term Aztec crash site got me thinking. Do you find in all these things that you investigate do you think that Native American cultures kind of have a more general acceptance of all these forms of weirdness? UFOs spirits haunted places crypto zoology...I mean they seem to be normalizing these things in their culture a little bit at least more than we do wouldn't you say

12:31 Exactly, yes. Many cultures in the Native tribes talk about everything you just listed from mysterious things in the sky to mysterious things in the woods and they believe it as part of their culture and what I found with my dealings with many Native tribes is that many of them I'm not going to go into that. So much that the mere thought of talking about it turns these things against you. Especially when it comes to things like the, you know, the Windigo or other beasts, the Sasquatch and type that if you talk about these things they will pick up on it and come after you so its best left to leave these things alone.

13:23 And that makes perfect sense. I mean, every time I talk to a cryptozoology researcher we get into the idea of how many people are really out there with stories they won't even talk about because it just sounds too crazy? I'm sure that the experiences are far more vast than even the researchers are ever really going to get to know And that's the thing with UFO research as well, that we know the majority of people who have something bizarre happen to them whether it is a sighting or an alleged abduction or experience. One they don't know who to report it too or they don't think anyone would believe them or they try to rationalize in a way that simply don't make that report so we can take the amount of reports we have and I think that only a fraction what really happening.

14:14 I agree man. And you've also done some looking into crop circles, any interesting insight from those investigations? Yes! I've researched about 12 crop circles starting in 1994 was my first and that was an interesting one because the newspapers that said that vandals had smashed down this cornfield. And I had spoken with the farmer and asked him if he noticed anything weird out of the ordinary before he found these formations in his crop, and he said nothing. You know, his livestock was fine—no lights, no people, nothing! So when I asked him why he told the newspaper that vandals did it, he told me well what else could have done it?

14:58 So I think that illustrates just what we're dealing with, with some of these formations. Farmers and ranchers aren't necessarily concerned with what's doing it they just wanted to stop because for them its a loss of not only their crop but possibly next years crop as well that is damaged I think that's one of the interesting things. Some of the cases I've investigated have left me baffled as to what caused it, some may believe it was a hoax and others believe wind created I had a farmer near Madison, Wisconsin who told me he was watching the wind move his field like waves in the ocean. He had the radio on listening to the weather report that talked about a big storm coming in and as you looked over his field within seven seconds it just went down into what we would consider formation with circles

15:54 attachments to them. If you drove by, you'd think that's a crop circle but he was adamant that the wind or the weather had created it." Now that's interesting I haven't heard that one before i mean there's obviously a lot of shows out there and people who make the case that they've shown plenty of times that people can do this in a night but some other stranger cases... It seems like the stocks have been dried out They're affected in some way other than just being broken down with a board, which is the way they've shown people doing it before. Have you ever found weirdness like that in any of these circles that you've investigated?

16:33 What I find interesting is that most people in the general public will think that crop formations are made by Doug and Dave, the two old British men. Well of course if they've been making them they've been making them since the 1600s in nearly every country on earth so their experienced travelers but yes we found really a lot of strange things when we've taken soil samples and sent them into Nancy Talbot at BLT Research there found that in the control samples, the samples that were not affected—the non-downed stuff is regular—was much different than the soil inside the affected formation. You know it's either devoid of water or there are metal filings in there or its been changed due to some high heat or radiation. The actual node of these plants

17:23 has been blown out, as it's called by high heat or some source of radiation. So there are a lot of differences that there should not be whether it is man-made or something else I don't know but if you're taking samples nearby one another you would think to get roughly the same type results but that's not the case with formations Yeah, some of them definitely seem real. And to really dive into crop circles man you kind of have to get into some deep level material because for the average person it makes no sense why an intelligent race of beings would want to make these patterns but if you get into

18:01 the Egyptian mystery schools and secret societies and Gnosticism, you start finding out that a lot of these crop circle symbols seem to jive with the shapes and symbols of what they call sacred geometry or the hidden sciences to these secret orders. So then you start to wonder if they're trying to hint at some lost natural science or energy systems? And it starts to make a little more sense as a motivation for why they would do that I know a lot of people have actually mapped out all these formations, made 3D renderings of them and have compared them to signs and symbols throughout the history of the world. And that's a fascinating research area for me looking into that. I love it! And I love when crop circles and crop formations have a little something different with it

18:48 I was researching one crop formation that appeared in a farmer's backyard in his field, and what he didn't know is the few days earlier. I was speaking to a neighbor a few miles down the road who reported seeing a mysterious ball of light hovering in the sky about 1130 at night as he took his trash out and as he watched this ball of light move in the direction where the formation would appear He said it was being followed by some helicopter. He thought it was military, but he couldn't make out any markings on it." So here we have a ball of light being either followed, accompanied or chased by this helicopter and then a formation appears in the very same area in the same time frame so those are the stories I love that have a little extra weirdness to them

19:40 Yeah, man. I mean when you get into this field for as long as you've been in it It takes a little something extra to really rally up. I'm getting in that same place myself But there is a really compelling video. It's hard to really look at videos these days and trust them but I've seen one of orbs kind of dancing around a field and then below them the crop circle kind of forms, and it's like completely bewildering. And doesn't make a lot of logical sense but I mean...I can see any elements of Photoshop in it It looks pretty interesting and a lot of people see these balls of light They're just they're weird they're hard to rationalize because it's not nuts-and-bolts craft, and it's not a biological looking person so it's like what the hell is it?

20:27 And some of the witnesses I've spoken with who have seen similar things say that these lights or whatever they are, seem to dart around as though they're intelligent control. That they have some intelligence to them and I was researching a formation in Minnesota where the farmer told me the night before, he noticed that all his cattle were acting really strange. All night he could hear them and he would pop his head out periodically just to check on them but they were just riled up by something and then of course the next day is when he discovered the formation in his backyard Weird man. And I am the inch on the subject of these orbs and when you look when you consider these in the field of More the paranormal or haunted things are ghosts a lot of people see these same things They just call them spook lights, and this was kind of new to me before I looked into your research And I actually grew up in Missouri, and I heard about this thing here and there But if you do a Google image search You can kind of see

21:31 that a lot of people have gotten pictures of this and it all seems to be happening at the same spot where they have a really high success rate of seeing it. I mean, have you ever been to the one in Missouri there? Can you tell me what's going on with that?" Yeah, many people call it the Joplin spooklight or the Hornet spook light outside of the small town there. And it's a series of hills going into the railroad tracks where you can see off in a distance this ball of light that seems to rise up on its own and hover about But those who get close to it can see it. People will be on walkie talkie and radio, and they'll say you're right in front of it. And yet the person closer can't find it.

22:16 And what I found is researching these, is that there are several locations around the US. There's another one up in my neck of the woods and the Paulding Light of Michigan it's called where if you were dumped there, you wouldn't know if you were in Joplin or Paulding because it's the same thing railroad lines with a big hill going down and it's almost identical to the Paulding light and this spook light that...and the stories are the same, these balls of light But witnesses claim that they've actually been chased by these balls of light again, as though they're under some type of intelligent control. Yeah man super strange I mean the language used in calling it a spook light seems to imply either something ghost related or the Midwest is just super racist or both but Orbs of Light seem to be happening all over the place It's almost like a whole nother section

23:09 of research, but I would be more inclined to think it had something to do with ET contact or maybe a biological intelligent entity that is multi-dimensional? Or something that is natural to the Earth that just on a different wavelength than we are. Huh... It's weird And a lot of these stories predate automobiles, so they go back generations. So I think it seems fitting that back at that time they would have counted as haunting or ghost light and a lot of the original stories are railroad men who lost their lives and that's why they're carrying the lantern out there you know your typical ghosts are haunted stories because at the time that's the only information they had to explain it

23:54 Whereas nowadays maybe more people are looking at it as, as you mentioned some type of other light rather than just that being a haunted story. Yeah I mean you have looked into a lot of haunted places which i've never really covered in almost three years of doing this show because when, I see the tv shows there just seems to be A lot of fraud and because you're dealing with the dead a lot of people get into religion Which i've had enough for one lifetime honestly but. I mean are there any haunted locations that stick out to You as particularly creepy and interesting

24:31 Yeah, many that are creepy and interesting but you're right that I've investigated thousands of these places around the world that have a haunted story to them. And oftentimes you start hearing this same type of thing happening over and over and over whether that's just part of the actual phenomenon or it's that people have been conditioned from all the TV shows that are on there that every noise now has to be a residual haunting. Or, you know every single thing that happens has to have a spirit with it and its amazing that when I do lectures how many people have a haunted story with them Now, I love haunted stories, I love watching the progression of these stories as they move throughout the years

25:20 There are many of these stories that if you talk to seniors in their 70s and 80s, they remember the story from their teenage years. And it may be one version and then you talk to teenagers currently and they have a completely different story of the same case so it's just moved and progressed over the years. It's like a weird game of telephone. You know? The story is definitely more but um... You know, if I was somewhat skeptical of ghosts and haunted places and I wanted to get some personal validation is there a certain location in modern times that you would send me to?

25:59 Yeah, I would think...I would personally go maybe stay away just like some of the UFO stuff. Maybe stay away from the big ones you can go to Alcatraz, you can go to the Villisca Axe Murder House in Iowa and some of these really well known hauntings But if you want to just find something right in your backyard, I recommend you go out into some of these rural places where you're not going to be bothered by other people visiting. You're not going to be bothered by traffic and all these disturbances where you can just go to these places and have something happen. Now the problem with the haunting is there's really no rhyme or reason to them

26:43 Some of them, yes will say you have to be there on a certain time at a certain night. But many of them are just sporadic we have no rhyme or reason as to when or why people have experiences so You can go to an alleged haunted place ten times in a row and nothing will happen, yet somebody just happens by there not even knowing it's haunted. And they have an experience but my advice is always hit the back roads get out to the places that are hard to get to and nobody is there and if you go in thinking something might happen You have a much greater chance of something happening that was one of the things i found working on my master's thesis looking at beliefs in the paranormal that when people went to these places expecting that something was going to happen it was this is this speaking much more likely that something would happened to them now whether really happened or they just imagine it thats a whole different question.

27:44 Well it is a really interesting one because that gets into the idea of manifesting reality, the power of consciousness. I mean i've been talking to a lot of occult magicians on some of these other shows members of the OTO and Follisters of Crowley and A lot of these guys, that's kind of their philosophy is that you can manifest reality in some way. It's more malleable than we think We're not victims of a universe that exists and were just part of it. We can actually...we're co-creators of it and That jives with that I wonder if there's not something there that people are bringing forth things out of their

28:24 Deeper recesses of their consciousness that they don't realize they're doing I wonder. I wonder what the relationship is there That's a great point and I think you're right on there that a lot of people that do go there, maybe they're opening themselves up or creating it. A lot of the intuitives are psychics I sometimes bring with me will report that you have to open yourself up or create this atmosphere for these things to change in that maybe its that positive intent follows the energy of it or energy follows intent of it And I think a lot of people that when they have to open it up, you start looking into Tulpas and other things that maybe these things have been created by our own belief systems. Tulpa's? I'm not familiar with that can you explain what those are?

29:15 Yeah, tulpas obviously they have a long history and what it is many researchers are now believing mini cryptids might be tulpas. And that is the belief that you can actually create these things out of thin air that if there's enough belief and enough storytelling in enough conjuring, if you will of these things. You actually manifest them and create them and there were many experiments years ago during seances where people seemed to be able to create actual spirits that they gave them a backstory and they gave them everything that they needed in these things took on a life of their own and that many researchers believe

30:02 you know, Bigfoot or other creatures may not actually be flesh and blood but they may be something that over generations have been created by our Conscious belief in them that is really interesting. I just recently had a guest and in the magic realm Phil Farber he brought up concept he talks about mimetic entities, which seems very similar to Tulpa's and It seems to be the case. I mean one big example is the work of HP Lovecraft you know legendary famous writer of strange fiction, horror fiction and his lore is so rich and fans are so into it that there are magical sects that are trying to invoke or conjure the beings of H.P Lovecraft and his material And if there's enough of a base there

30:59 of a consensus on what this archetype or idea represents and enough people concentrate on it, it seems to have in some extreme cases real third-dimensional reality effects. I have a hard time finding the science that can answer why that happens. And I think one of the most recent examples we have of this is that of The Slender Man that of course, you know it was created online but then spread and all the sudden people actually started seeing it out in their daily lives. And just recently my home state here in Wisconsin we had two girls try to murder her-their friend 12 year olds tried to murdered their friend stabbed her multiple times and left her for dead as a tribute to Slenderman that they were actually going to go visit him

31:55 And one of them said that Slenderman had been communicating telepathically with her. So I think this is a great case of one of those where something starts out as just almost a lark online and it creates its life on its own, and really people believe it's out there right now! You know, I guess skeptics would say that either the girl's crazy or has some need for self-importance or attention But it just kind of depends on the terms you use because you could also call that mild possession. Who knows where the real motivation to kill came from? That's pretty trippy stuff

32:34 It is and I think when it's done outside of you brought up religion earlier when it's done outside of Religion, it seemed as a mental illness that if this person's communicating with Slender Man Obviously she has some mental issues going on but yet when you get a calling from God or that You know your you find that God's communicating with you. That's quite quite different in the mass media anyway. Right, and it's really easy for people who've never had this type of experience to point to someone just label them as crazy but that might be easy to say if an entity has never targeted your consciousness you know? Yeah thankfully I mean knock on wood but these girls were adamant that this thing was alive and that it was controlling them and they had to do this

33:28 That's something we haven't seen in a while, especially with something that really has only been around since 2009. It is gaining such notoriety so quick that 10 years from now people may be seeing the Slenderman everywhere or it might evaporate overnight! Yeah I have no doubt that people have seen some weird stuff and had some super strange experiences in this area of hauntings and ghosts and entities like that But one of the big issues I have with ghost hunters as compared to say like UFO hunters or cryptid hunters is the EMF meters they use because they're supposed to detect changes in electromagnetic fields, or electrically charged objects. but if you look into the Electric Universe model or The Secret Sciences of The Elite... Or the suppressed work of Nikola Tesla

34:18 I'm not sure that we know enough about electric currents or electromagnetism in our world in general to use these types of devices reliably, you know what I mean? I wish I would have gotten into the EMF business aspect of it years ago, because you're exactly right. You turn on any television show or look at any of these thousands of ghost hunting groups that pop up they all run around with an EMF meter where that any spike is evidence of a ghost and i don't know where these things came from Many people started out using these things to try to explain rational or logical explanations, and then somehow it got turned into if you have an electrical disturbance. It's a ghost! And I don't know where that came from? Why isn't it in a leprechaun or unicorn?"

35:09 You know, we have no proof that it's a ghost yet when people get these spikes on their EMF meters or their K2 meters or their Franks box. All these things all of a sudden point to ghosts when there is really no evidence whatsoever for it." What is your take on ghost man? I mean have you seen...I'm sure you've seen enough in your research to think there's something going on there but do you think its some type of interaction with our reality from people who have died or is it something else?" Yeah that's a great question and I guess the simple answer is, i don't know. After twenty some years of doing this im left with more questions than answers. I really believe that after talking with thousands of witnesses that most of them are normal logical rational intelligent people who just had something bizarre happen to them they can explain

35:59 Yet, are they really seeing someone that's come back from the dead? Or are they seeing some type of environmental recording of an event that has already happened and it just keeps replaying over and over on a DVD-type loop. I don't know! Why are they hallucinating and seeing maybe into different dimensions? And you know, I still don't have a definitive answer. Every time I think I get a theory to explain some of these things I get a new case that puts me right back to square one. Yeah, like I don't rule anything out and i'm not really attached to any particular worldview but I vibe more with concepts of reincarnation and the idea that our bodies are just vessels that allow the universal consciousness to look at itself And within that framework I've had a hard time explaining ghosts to myself or more so than someone with a catholic view might you know what I mean?

36:57 Mm-hmm and a lot of people, you know think that ghosts are Deceives loved ones who have come back or in a place where they can communicate whereas other cultures and even here in the states other people see them as demons Or you know other entities that are not human And well Although most people think of them as someone who has once lived on earth and is now coming back That's not the universal belief in them. I Gotcha, yeah I would side more with those people too. That it's something other than a person that has died but I guess that is just kind of what Hollywood puts out there you know? It's what the mainstream

37:36 Ghost Hunter shows tend to be about so yeah, it seems like the conventional view But I mean nothing about these things has really a conventional view everybody's kind of figuring it out on their own but um You know we kind of mentioned the concepts of imposing your will in the universe and occult magic earlier Which I really like and it sort of touches on the idea of curses and cursed places which you've done some looking into too Do you know any compelling stories of curses that seem to hold up to you? Well, a lot of them are friends-of-friends stories. I've researched hundreds of these dares around the US and in the world. Dares are usually things you have to do at these haunted places that if you do them bad luck, misfortune or even death will follow you.

38:26 And it's always a friend of a friend that someone will contact me and say that they sat in the cursed chair in a cemetery, and their friend was involved in a car accident on the way home. So then you try to talk to that friend, and it turns out that was a co-worker of those. It is just a rabbit chase that never seems to end. But one of my favorite stories of curses that I think has some validity to it is the curse of Robert the doll down in Key West, Florida. And many say that was the inspiration for the movie Chucky and Child's Play and it's a hundred year old doll that is thought to be cursed for anybody who comes in contact with it and does not ask permission to take its photo or do other things if you go to the museum where it's housed

39:15 Several walls are filled with letters from people claiming that when they went to visit Robert, they were rude or they didn't ask permission and then bad luck seemed to approach them afterwards. And you know we have hundreds of these people that are claiming to have something happen bad while they were visiting Robert the doll And it was funny, just a couple years back I was in Florida doing a program on TV with the company doing a documentary on Robert the Doll. The news crew had just visited Robert the day before and they were all kind of skeptics and you know, just filmmakers. They didn't believe in the paranormal. And I was meeting them in Florida at this location down by a swamp to give good atmosphere

40:02 Right before I got there, they were in their rental car backing it up and smashed it into a tree and broke out the huge back window. They all started laughing when I got there saying that the curse of Robert had finally followed them. I love stories like that where maybe just nothing more than a coincidence but we attach some meaning to it that we normally wouldn't have. Yeah, it just makes life more fun. You know to have a little bit of a sense of humor with those kind of things and it does beg the question the psychological question you know Is it because you heard the story and then the seed was planted? And then they manifested some bad luck subconsciously Does it have to do with synchronicities I think there's a weird subconscious thought field or matrix that people can tap into and sometimes

40:56 Sometimes maybe these things that are considered paranormal involve that realm, that sector of the universe that we haven't yet defined in modern science. I agree with that completely and i think it's all about perspective. I visited a place called the Black Angel of Death in Iowa City, Iowa in a cemetery this black angel gravestone that is said to curse people and kill people and everything you can think of terrible and I'd been there half a dozen times never with without any ill effects to me and the last time I was there

41:31 The very next day after leaving the Black Angel, I received a speeding ticket. My first one in 20 some years and again was that just coincidence or you know was it something related to the statue? And that's part of the fun is making up your own mind Yeah man, weird stuff. And I'm always tempted to provoke something that's said to be cursed or haunted for the sake of validating it but it seems to me just a lose-lose either nothing happens and I lose a little piece of that magic in my life Or I get the proof I'm looking for and the curse ruins my life So maybe I'll just pass on those temptations Yeah, a lot of people actually that's a new trend in the legend tripping field of calling out these dares and doing them with the Idea that something bad will happen And I have so many people who tell me they want to you know sit on this cursed mausoleum in Wisconsin That you'll be shoved to the ground by the angry spirits and they go out seeking To do these things or they want to

42:29 go down to Collinsville, Illinois to the gates of hell where it is said if you pass through all seven of the bridges in one night that gates will open up and people actually want to try these things to do them but maybe your urine a better perspective thereof. It's a lose-lose either way yeah I wanna see someone else do it but um...I'd like this take a comfortably safe seat off on the sidelines Man, you know you've also looked a lot into cryptozoology creatures which the listeners know is a guilty pleasure of mine but one on your list that I hadn't heard of was the tataduni in Belize. I googled it and it seems to be some type of gnome or leprechaun type of thing what's the story with those little guys?

43:13 Yeah, the Tata Duwende in Central and South America. The variations change some talk of it as like a gnome or leprechaun or trickster whereas others that I spoke with said that it was more of a jungle protector of their resources over there and the majority of sightings come with this creature being you know a diminutive creature three-and-a-half to four feet tall wearing a sombrero walking through the forest And it seems to have supernatural powers, which we would put in the same category like the gnomes or the fairies, leprechauns little people, the hurdle folk all of those. Where I spoke with one gentleman who was working in what we would consider a natural forest here in the US down by the Blue Hole Forests in Belize and when he asked if you had ever heard of the Duende sightings

44:08 His face got white and he told us the story when he was a kid that Man appear at the edge of the woods and the man was singing and playing a song And the young boy fell into this spell and started walking towards the man, and then all of a sudden He heard his mother yelling for him to come back home for lunch or dinner. The spell was broken and he ran back fearful what would have happened? He looked at us and said why would you ever go looking for this creature You want to stay as far away from this thing as possible

44:46 So, I think I love these stories in other countries because it shows just the extent of their belief system that they believe in these creatures wholeheartedly. That is not something to trifle with, that's something you should really heed the warning of Yeah man, when cultures around the planet have similar stories of type legends or leprechauns or gnomes are these little guys it just makes it all the more interesting adds another layer a validity to it possibly I mean and even in these more remote areas is even more intriguing and I've had guests talk about these massive cavernous worlds that beneath the Earth's crust has got this massive cavern systems that

45:35 contain probably all types of life that we just don't even talk about or know about and maybe that's where Bigfoots truly reside, and then they just every once in a while one comes out and wanders around the town for a bit and goes back. I wonder if it's not the same with some of these leprechaun type little guys? They could just be beings from these cavernous worlds! They gotta live somewhere...somewhere less obvious you know And that would explain one of the skeptics' main criticisms of cryptozoology, why haven't we found the carcass of a Bigfoot or any type of evidence of little people? Or anything from The Beast of the Bray Road to chupacabras. Why haven't we found these? Well that may be one explanation as they don't actually reside here

46:25 I've also heard people on the other side give the argument, you know You see pigeons all over the city But have you ever really seen a baby pigeon? Because i haven't. I've seen thousands of adult ones or if your out in the woods Have you ever seen a bear carcass? You never seen a bigfoot carcass? Have you ever even seen a bear one because they don't generally you don't you may see alive one but there way more Abundant than say a Bigfoot. So some of these questions of like, well why don't we have the smoking gun evidence? I'm like You know Well There's a lot of things that we consider normal and everyday reality But if you try to get it in a certain framework, you can't find it so I don't know sometimes I think people are little too hard up for that smoking gun evidence because That doesn't necessarily mean just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it isn't there

47:12 I agree completely. Here in the Midwest, in the north woods of Wisconsin and Minnesota You know, we have a ton of bear wolves and moose. And I've been in the woods countless hours on end over the years and I've yet to encounter carcass of any of those animals. And we know there are hundreds upon hundreds of those creatures living that what if we're talking about creatures of just a couple or even one or two that the odds of finding them as you said might be very minuscule Man, wouldn't it be interesting if Bigfoots and leprechauns and these- and fairies actually resided in these cavernous worlds on the inside of the earth? And they had stories and myths and lore about a bright land with a blue sky and towering buildings. And legends of the weird human creatures that all love to kill each other and exchanged green paper Wouldn't that be trippy

48:10 Yeah no one would believe them down there they'd say that's just too weird. Right yeah and then everyone of them, one of them in your field ventures to the surface to try to get some pictures at the surface world and escape back down without being captured? I think you just wrote a movie right there! Yeah, man. It might be the other side of the coin who knows the world is a weird place But um you know we were talking a little bit about the van meter visitor through our email exchange Which I know You've got a book about and was a Batman Mothman type of winged creature that showed up in Iowa for a while but knowing I love a good conspiracy you mentioned that there were some things going on around those sightings it may have alluded to a cover-up or Something similar can you tell me more about that angle?

48:58 Yeah, well of course in 1903 we're looking at rural Iowa. Small town a van meter 800 people when the town started seeing mysterious balls of light that would be very similar to UFO sightings today and eventually it turned into people seeing and shooting this eight-foot giant bat like creature that they thought was coming out of an old abandoned coal mine on the outskirts of town. So, they started talking about this thing as being an anti-Diluvian monster from biblical times And what I found fascinating is that the newspaper accounts talk about them cornering this beast at the old mine, and then they stopped reporting about it. They didn't know more news articles whatsoever. It just abruptly stopped.

49:48 And we had no idea whether these people were, you know they killed it or they were harmed by it or what happened. Then it seemed like the town did everything they could to distance themselves from this story once it broke that they wrote editorials in newspapers saying do not come here there's nothing to see which of course even at that time had the reverse effect of people wanting to go there But it seemed as though it was nearly just kind of forgotten and they tried to brush it over in 1903. They tried to cover it up, if you will and it remained hidden for many decades even locals townsfolk in Van Meter didn't really know the story until we happened to start digging a little bit deeper

50:33 Seemed like there was some type of conspiracy back then to make sure more information about the case never got out That is interesting and again a coal mine. You know this this beast coming from a coal mine, that's These cavernous worlds in the inner earth could be. Maybe the higher ups found out about this situation, came to town and put the kibosh on this thing didn't want people asking questions or digging deeper getting wise to the idea that there might be otherworldly entities beneath our feet But yeah, I appreciate that. That's a good anecdotal story! And the creature itself seemed to be about 100 years in front of UFO research because it was exhibiting things that we now see in UFO literature and research but back then they had never heard of this thing was impervious to weapons

51:27 It had a light that was protruding out of the horn in its head, and this light was shining at brightness that nearly blinded people. And it had the ability to release some type of odor which erased the memory of certain witnesses that they remembered up until seeing this light hit them with an odor and then they forgot the rest of the evening. I mean all things of missing time, technology way above our own, things that we now consider staples of UFO abduction research but back then they'd never heard of.

52:05 That's interesting too, man. Amnesia by smelling an odor? I have never heard of that involved with a cryptid yet so that's pretty unique Yeah, that was one of the aspects I loved of the case is that this thing could just erase the memory of people and I wonder how many people were hit by this thing. The newspapers only talk about one person that was hit but it may have been dozens or hundreds for all we know. Weird stuff man. Also, we gotta take some time out for Pepe before we go. Pepe the Lake Monster of the Mississippi is actually your latest book and you were kind enough to share it with me and I thought it was great! What I really liked about it as opposed to many other cryptid books that I've read

52:53 is that it's got all the previous sightings that you'd expect, but it's also more of a tour diary from the two expeditions you've gone out on searching for Pepe and a taste to that $50,000 reward offered up by this Minnesota businessman. And I have to say man, it seems like he got a lot of good compelling pictures at Wood. Yeah, yeah. Warth lateral waves half submerged logs What I love about this is that there is a $50,000 reward offered for anyone who can capture proof that Pepe is either an undiscovered species or a species That has thought to be extinct and as of today that reward hasn't been claimed so any of your listeners can make their way up to the Mississippi River and visit Lake Pepin and capture this thing but

53:40 When I do books, a lot of the time i want to get the general public. It's not necessarily aimed for the diehard researchers And those are the people that would love for you to say, spend 20 pages talking about how you discovered one sighting took place three days before everybody else actually thought it took place. But for the general public they want the highlights and the fun and we really stole some of Nick Redfern's Three Men Seeking Monsters approach and that we decided to document our two expeditions in kind of a paranormal travel log, much like he did with his book. We thought that's going to be a lot of fun for people who may never visit the lake at least they can ride around on our expedition cruiser and get a feel for it. Yeah man is good way to write a book

54:34 Unfortunately, you didn't find the creature but I did think it was a little bit funny that the newspaper that DID apparently have a picture of the creature from years prior was so difficult to work with for ya. Yeah, talk about conspiracies. I contacted a paper that posted back in 1987 a picture of the alleged peppy claiming it was conclusive evidence of the creature's existence and they all but you know threatened to burn down my house that if i talked to them again they wanted nothing to do with this story The main desk operator told me that the editor wasn't available and they wanted nothing to do. It was almost as though they were afraid that somebody was going to sue them or something I had never in my entire research career encountered a newspaper that was so willing to just throw out everything they had done and just cover it up

55:27 Yeah, it definitely adds a little mystique to the story. Any plans for a third expedition or has Pepe worn you out with just the two? No, I would love to go back and a lot of people say you must have been disappointed when you haven't solved the mystery. But for me it's the exact opposite that if I would've determined that it was nothing more than a large sturgeon or a catfish or something like that for me that would have been just terrible that the mystery would've been dead forever then I hope generations from now kids stick their feet into Lake Pepin and wonder if Pepe is going to chomp them off

56:06 Man, awesome stuff. Is there anything else in your 20 years of research? Any mysteries or stories that stick out to you as being interesting that we haven't touched on? Yeah I love the the Windigo stories of course i'm from the north woods of Wisconsin and Minnesota and Canada have this story of this supernatural being that is thought to have been someone fell into a hard winter and resorted to cannibalism, and then forever cursed the walk of the earth as this windigo creature. And many believe that much like hearing the Irish Banshee that it's a harbinger of death. That if you see this creature it means you or someone that you know is going to die very shortly so I love stories like that where there some danger involved Right on! Yeah, that's kinda new me also but I think that's a compelling legend

57:00 Very cool, Chad. It has been a crazy all over the map plethora of paranormal weirdness just the way I like it and i'm sure you do too but before we really call it in would you like to tell people about your website or books? Sure! Best way to find me is unexplainedresearch.com Or just type my name and you'll be flooded with more stuff than you ever want or need But my main goal here is to not take my word for any of this. Go out on your own adventure and discover what's in your own backyard, and I think a lot of your listeners will find that there are some creepy

57:37 waiting out there for them. Yeah, I don't doubt that man it is everywhere just beyond the humdrum 9 to 5 life that we're all so tuned into but hey man it's been awesome great time keep doing what you do good luck finding the answers to some of these strange mysteries and take care yourself out there Hey thanks and keep an eye out! Will do a man take care There we have it folks, another one in the bag. If you have any stories of paranormal weirdness in your life please go to TheHigherSideChats.com and click on the microphone on the side and leave us a message I love playing those on the air and the submitted music so go ahead and write something about THC or the conspiracy and fringe topics we cover and I would love to play it as long as its good quality recording that is important

58:24 But big thanks to Chad Lewis today, I had a blast. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you enjoy all of them! Hell, i'll go one step further and say that I hope you enjoy life itself. It's tough though, there is a ton of bullshit to sift through and tough lessons to learn on the journey of finding your path why you showed up here. So let me end this with some positive ideas for ya because sometimes you just need to hear it but think ahead for a second call in tomorrow tell your boss that you're sick You've been working too damn hard and take a day to work on your passion project. And if you don't have one yet, goddammit meditate and listen to Alan Watts in Manly P Hall lectures until you find that passion and work for yourself for eight hours tomorrow do what you're gonna do to get to that happy place in life in a more sustainable way like I'm trying to do If you're someone who felt like I did like you just kinda spinning your wheels

59:21 Everyone says work hard. I say don't work hard for anyone but yourself because no one's gonna pay you what you're worth and You didn't manifest on this planet to work at CVS or to file reports for telecom or answer phones at AT&T? I think you had bigger plans when you came here Or take the advice of today's Money Bomb winner, Brittany. Buying something for her partner to keep the creative passion alive for him? God damn it! That someone is thinking on a higher level Does your partner do that for you? Better question really is... Do YOU do that for your partner? Who knows It's easy to get stuck in the 9-5 rut and stuck in the pattern of go to work, watch TV with a lover and start again tomorrow. But maybe today bring something home for your partner that supports their creative side Do they like photography? Do they want to get into learning another language? Do they want a garden? Do they want to be in music? Do they wanna write? Do they wanna paint?

1:00:22 Hopefully they have something that's keeping them going. Bring home something for your partner that supports their creative side or gives them a new tool of expression and help each other love life, not just live through it but really love it! Go on a goddamn ghost hunt or something Or give them a gift that never stops giving the higher side chats plus Only one more episode to go and then on August 1st we start the new two-hour extended show. Man, I really had to cheapen that with my bullshit didn't I? Well, I have to say that over the years you've gotten a sense of my character enough to trust me when i say that I have waited until the last second to implement this new plush show. So I really do need it to be successful like right away so im doing my best to make it valuable and holy shit guys I think they are both pretty damn good and I have to express this thoroughly My life is in your hands

1:01:19 My life is in your hands dudes. I've done my part this week people, keep fighting the good fight! Your move Tulpas...your fucking move. I got a little headache, why should today be any different? It just screams! Go home go home go home So i tried to find the subway And then someone tripped and unplugged Silent it's still out there Until she comes and turns me on Out here I'm a mess I'm a ghost who overslept on Halloween

1:02:45 I fixed it up twice and she seems so nice, i think her name was Destiny So let me wanna live It's an ugly beautiful doesn't mean much of anything In the waking world I wander around just wondering where to go In my dreams im running right into your door So let! Its an ugly old doesnt mean much if anything Let

1:03:57 Okay, what are we doing today? Yeah I say give me some that says I get up every morning at 530 and commute for an hour And a half to some bullshit job on my jag off boss expects me kisses balls all day Just so I can afford to keep my ungrateful screaming kids decked out in door the Explorer shit My wife after her fat ass and self-help videos until the day. I get up the courage to put a shotgun in my mouth Right here Yeah, that's it. That's the one.