Ep.80: Skeptic VS Believer

In this episode, the paranormal takes center stage as a true believer and a skeptic go head-to-head over the world’s most chilling mysteries. From ghost sightings and cryptid encounters to UFOs and unexplained phenomena, each side presents their case one driven by personal experiences and eyewitness accounts, the other grounded in logic, science, and rational explanations. As stories are shared and evidence is debated, the line between belief and disbelief begins to blur. Will the skeptic’s mind be changed, or will the believer be forced to question everything they thought they knew? You decide where you stand.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:02

We're just gonna rock this whole episode.

SPEAKER_04 0:04

I don't even care. I don't know what we're doing. So explain a little bit about what we're talking about here.

SPEAKER_03 0:16

We're talking about the paranormal and how I'm a believer and he's a skeptic.

Setting The Stage: Belief Vs. Skeptic

SPEAKER_04 0:22

Hold on. Now, before we go any further, I want to make a point to say that I'm not fully one way or the other. If you've been listening to our podcast up to this point, you would know that I kind of, you know, it depends on the situation. Like I really analyze things for what they could be, and then I make a decision based off of that. If I can't truly explain why it happened, then I lean more toward the believer side. But still, I don't go, I don't ever go 100%. I could I don't know that I ever could go 100% unless I had some crazy stuff happen.

SPEAKER_03 1:01

I could go 100%. I could do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:07

I I couldn't. I can't. I just I want to. I want to have something happen so bad that just may, but at the same time, I don't know. That might that might really damage me if I have something happen that breaks everything that I truly believe, which is maybe maybe it's out there, maybe it's happening. I don't know. I've not experienced like I've never had a demon appear in my room. You know what I mean? If I had that kind of experience, I would be 100%, yeah, all real.

SPEAKER_03 1:41

Okay, so explain the situations you've had after your house. When you were in your back room and you thought you had your name and the kids coming home, how is that how could you theorize that as not being like paranormal?

Debunking Noises And The Music Box

SPEAKER_04 2:02

I live close to the woods. There's animals, there's my neighbor, things can make noises that might sound like what you know I would be familiar with in a quick second. If so, you know, if maybe I hear a car pass or beep the horn to the neighbors as they're going by, it might sound like the kids, you know, giggling or playing or Renee saying something, you know, real quick. So because I wasn't in the room and it happened in the room with me, I'm more inclined to say it probably wasn't paranormal because there's a lot of other things outside of that that it could have been.

SPEAKER_03 2:45

Okay, what about the music box situation?

SPEAKER_04 2:49

Music have a spring. Whenever you wind them tight, they that's how they spin, that's how they were designed. They don't always completely unwind whenever you play them, so they they kind of retain some tension, and sometimes that tension is lessened because of temperature changes in the room. You know, metal will expand and contract as it gets cold and warm, so it's going to play at random times. I've seen I've had that happen before. Is it weird that it happened in that moment? And I had thought not long before that that we was probably gonna have some kind of experience like that. Yeah, that's a little strange. But I can explain why it moved.

SPEAKER_03 3:34

You got a point, you got a point with the whole metal contracting and combining it, but out of nowhere.

SPEAKER_04 3:45

That's kind of well, it's not like it's out of nowhere, though, because we were cleaning the room, so we were moving things around. Yeah, so maybe she bumped it. There was clothes laying on top of it that she was digging through to see if there was uh she was looking for something that was a part of that because it broke off, but maybe her moving the clothes bumped it enough just to be able to play a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 4:10

Okay, I I can get behind that. You can tell me that part, but yeah. So you really never had too many paranormal experiences that would be like that is paranormal. I'm trying to think of Tommy.

Museum Static, Orbs, And Odd Evidence

SPEAKER_04 4:30

I've had things happen that I couldn't explain or that was strange for one that's in particular is well, actually two. Sort of whenever we seen the ball in the museum, that was I found that to be strange, but also we was in a barn that was real. There could have been a draft, there was a lot of bugs around that was around our lights that could have bumped into it and rolled it. And the other thing is at the museum still is and my grandma experienced it as well, and it was the static. I don't know if you felt it at all, but it was there was a static that would kind of brush up against you in the middle of a room, and it almost felt like you walked through cobwebs or spider webs or things. So it was strange, it was weird to have that feeling in the middle of that room.

SPEAKER_03 5:27

Now, how would you explain that?

SPEAKER_04 5:31

That one's a little harder to explain unless I actually walked into something, and I don't think that I so I can't explain that one.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

No, I get that. So I've had a lot of weird paranormal experiences in my life, which makes me a believer or not. Yeah. Um, I've had the screen, I've seen things, I've witnessed the lot. So I'm a definite believer in the things I've witnessed.

SPEAKER_04 6:15

Yeah. And that's that's cool. I wish I could be, but there's something you've brought to my attention as well that you've believed that made me still go, I don't think so. Which is what well that voicemail that you got that one day we was at an end of the woods. Ah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:43

See, see, I still believe that. I still have to a bunch of people, and they're like, that's weird.

SPEAKER_04 6:54

Definitely weird, but I I've we've heard a lot of different paranormal evidence, right? And yeah, I've not heard anything that sounded as good and as clear as what was on that voicemail.

SPEAKER_03 7:16

I don't even have that fan with me, or I would play it right now. We I think we've played it before.

SPEAKER_04 7:32

Um I can hear Blippy in the background. Damn Blippy. No, see, I don't I don't think so. I don't think so. I think I think somebody was messing with you. But how? If I call your phone and I hit I don't know, star zero or something like that, it'll send me straight the voicemail, I'm pretty sure.

SPEAKER_03 8:40

Okay. I'm not sure how that works. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 8:51

Because you remember, I don't know if you remember a long time ago, you used to be able to call your phone number or something like that to check your voicemail. Yes. I think that that's the same way. It was like this to send yourself straight to voil.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

Hey you go! I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 9:18

I mean, I everybody's gonna have their own opinion on that one. And mine is that somebody was messing with you.

SPEAKER_03 9:31

Yeah, but I don't think anybody did it. I mean I've had weird stuff happening with my phone before. Unexplainable. Yeah, is it though unless someone hacked my phone somehow? I think it's hard to I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 10:15

I don't know. I go I go with my gut feeling a lot of the time, but it's telling me that's not that's not a paranormal thing.

SPEAKER_03 10:25

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:32

But I'm not saying I what I believe to an extent that there is I want to believe. I want to believe, I do, I really do, but my will not allow me unless I cannot explain it.

SPEAKER_03 10:46

Okay, so for an example, if that came through my phone like that, EVPs are the same thing, it's a recording of somebody's voice. It's an electronic voice phenomenon, yes, yes. So besides the phone call and that, and it comes through the phone like that, what's the difference between it EVP from a digital recorder and that?

EVP, Whistles, And Pattern Recognition

SPEAKER_04 11:26

Evp from a digital recorder, so my theory with that is that you're hearing mainly ambient noise, which is white noise. If you want to hear something, if you're looking for something specific, you're listening to the audio for weird noises, voices, and like that. If that audio recorder does anything weird with the audio that it's recording, as far as skips glitches or drops volume or changes anything within the frequency range that makes it sound like something could have possibly been said, the human brain will pick that up and analyze it as words, and then we go, Oh, it said leave.

SPEAKER_03 12:23

No, I got that. I mean, if I fixed something clear as day like that, then how do you explain that? That's that's something I well again.

SPEAKER_04 12:35

Did I record it or did somebody else record it? You recorded it. If I recorded it and I knew that I was the only person in that room and something came through that was as clear as day, I couldn't, I there's no way that I could really explain that. But for example, the whistle that was down at the water the one night. I'm a skeptical about that to an extent. I I feel like it was one of us breathing weird.

SPEAKER_05 13:11

And it just happened exactly like my whistle.

SPEAKER_03 13:21

You're muted. Yeah, I know. See, I didn't believe that whistle was something. That was not, I don't think it was me or you.

SPEAKER_04 13:37

From where I was standing, it sounded like it came from your direction, and it didn't have an echo, which means it was close, and it's close to the camera, which was you were the closest to the camera.

SPEAKER_03 13:55

Yeah, but we've heard whistles out there before, too. Is that the only whistle that we heard? I think that's the only whistle we've heard.

SPEAKER_04 14:05

We might have heard things that we've thought sounded like whistles.

SPEAKER_03 14:14

I see, I don't I think that was something. I think it was.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

Like it's a tiny car.

SPEAKER_04 14:20

I want to believe that it was, but I can't say for sure that it was. That's like why whenever we explain these experiences and stuff to people, I try to explain it in a way that is like I'm not saying it was Bigfoot, but it was definitely some activity that would fall in line with that.

SPEAKER_03 15:23

Yeah, no, I'd do the same thing. I'd be like, I might have tagged a bigfoot experience, but I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_04 15:29

Right. Like that night when we were out there at the cemetery and we had seen those weird lights, it was dark. We was out there a ways, we had walked a long ways to begin with. Could we been looking at something that was just in the eye? Maybe. I don't think that we were, because I think that they were lower on the hill, but I'd have to go back out there and really get a feel for how the land is laid out to be able to understand where those lights were coming from.

SPEAKER_03 16:00

Yeah, for sure. Um I can't focus with these things right here talking in my hat. God made me be marching a thought. What was I gonna say? So if you ever see a full body apparition, how would you feel about that?

SPEAKER_04 16:48

How would I feel about seeing a full body apparition? It would depend. It would depend on if I one, if I was by myself, two if you know there was any street activity, you know, anything happening outside the building, or I mean, I guess you could see it outside as well, but yeah, if you're like I said before, if you're looking for something, you're gonna find it.

SPEAKER_03 17:22

Yeah, no, you're right. But if you're just walking, say you're walking down your hallway, just not even like thinking about anything, and always starting to see a person standing right in your hallway. And you know your house bugger than anybody and you're just seeing someone standing there that's not there. How would you explain that?

SPEAKER_04 17:53

That I couldn't explain unless somebody broke into my house, which then we have a conversation to have. But if I was walking down the hallway and I had seen a random full-body apparition or something, yeah, that would probably freak out. First, I would probably think more so that somebody broke into my house, but then after you know, probably trying to battle or however that's gonna happen, hopefully I just you know tell them to leave and they just disappear. That would be scary if I was like, you need to get out of here, and then they just vanished. That'd be terrifying. I would probably leave the house, but I've not had any experiences like that, and you know, it's kind of sad in a way because I was just telling Renee, I feel like I've become so desensitized that even certain scary movies and stuff don't do like I enjoy it, you know, for what it is, but I don't know about you. There was a the feeling of being scared or paranoid, or just that that rush, that thrill of oh my gosh, you know, that ghost might be down the hallway in the bathroom, or it might be just around the corner in the bedroom. I I like that feeling, and maybe not in the moment whenever I was younger, but now that I'm older, I kind of missed that feeling, and I can't get it.

SPEAKER_03 19:35

Yeah, because like when you're watching a ski movie, like I know when I watch a ski movie, I'm like it's there, like I know it's right there, and mostly when I get I don't get scared of watching skiing movies, I get jump scared. If something pops out at me, that's when I jump.

SPEAKER_04 20:03

I mean, sometimes I almost expected. Like I I see I was just telling Renee this the other day. I've seen the pattern of how stories are told that I I can predict what's gonna happen next. And I told her, I said that I I can't enjoy certain shows and things like that anymore because I've seen it I've seen it before in some different way. You know, it's the same, it's the same story told with different characters, or maybe like details are slightly different. So and I'm worried that as time goes on, we're gonna run out of things to like everything that could be experienced is gonna be experienced. Everything that's you know, every story that has been told is gonna be told in some way, shape, or form. And I'm afraid that I'm gonna get bored. I'm gonna I'm not gonna have it. That's why I watch things about aliens and Bigfoot and and ghosts, because there's no definitive answer about it, and I can still be surprised, I can still be entertained by it because I can't necessarily predict what's going what the you know the people are gonna experience in the show or in the movie or the documentary or whatever. Yeah, you gotta know what's coming next. Yeah. But yeah, jump scares, that's one of the things. I can't, I don't really I can see it coming. I see how the content is is is you know structured to make you make you sit there and look at it and go, oh, what's about to happen? And then before you know it, you have this thing running out from underneath the couch couch with sharp teeth coming at the screen. It's like, well, I I I knew that something like that was gonna happen.

SPEAKER_03 21:50

I was ready to there are some movies of that I when we saw the I think it was a conjuring, the last conjuring movie. I'm not sure if you remember at all. But when the the dog is trying on dresses or something like that, and she's in the room with all the mirrors. It's it's been a minute since I've seen it, but I I kind of remember. I think something pops out, and I'm like, something is gonna happen here. Like I know it's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_04 22:27

Yeah, yeah. That's that's just it. And I see it, I see it with a lot of things, a lot of content that's on TikTok and Facebook and YouTube, and I see it in the movie. I see the patterns and you know just the structure of different types of stories in the story that's told. It's like, oh, it's a ghost story. Oh, I'm sure there's gonna be, you know, somebody that's either possessed or there's gonna be some kind of artifact that kind of brings it on, or you know, just those little things that make it go, oh, it's a just it's another ghost story.

SPEAKER_03 23:00

Yeah. No, I get that. Yeah, I've seen a lot of things to make me believe. I've seen football gap issues, I've tried weird shit, I've witnessed some weird shit. And it's just like that's not I mean the one thing my dad tried to scream is not but the screen that could be explainable if you want that like a bang a rabbit getting killed, yeah, but that doesn't sound like a rabbit, yeah.

Solo Investigations And Vulnerability

SPEAKER_04 23:47

Yeah, I think that's why I'm so antsy to like want to be able to regularly go and investigate something because I well, I mean I do, but I I don't like I feel like witnessing something would truly put me in a different kind of mindset that may be damaging, but at the same time, I'm I'm chasing that feeling of paranoia and thrill. And here's the thing you know what's funny? If this is stupid, you're gonna laugh. I I can't go out by myself. It is extremely different. Yeah. I went out to the cemetery at nighttime by myself once, and I was I was gonna film a video. I was like, ah, well, I think it was a night that you wasn't able to go, and I really wanted to go, so I was like, you know what? Screw it, I'm going by myself. And I got there and I shut the car off, and I sat there in the in the cemetery, and I just looked around and I thought that feel very vulnerable, extremely vulnerable. And I did, I got out and I walked around a little bit. I walked down the road and kind of back up, and I thought, I just felt like I just felt like something was with me. So I mean, I was getting that same feeling of paranoia and thrill, but at the same time, I think I wanna I want to share it with somebody. I want to share it with somebody. Yeah, and I can't if I'm with somebody else, I'm in I'm in more of a mindset of, and it's not that I do it on purpose, and I think it's because I'm with somebody, so I feel like I can let my guard down, and I'm not as vulnerable. And because I'm able to let my guard down and not be so vulnerable, I can I can think clearly a little bit better. So yeah, so whenever we do hear noises and stuff like that, my I can I can take a moment to be able to debunk it before the paranoia and thrill sets in that I kind of enjoy, so then I never feel it.

SPEAKER_03 26:05

Yeah, no, I I'm the same way because the it's eerie being out there by yourself in cemeteries and stuff like that, even down by the lake, it's eerie. Yeah. The dark is eerie. Yes, it is, no matter where you are. Wonder why that is in the dark, it's eerie.

SPEAKER_05 26:29

What why is that?

SPEAKER_03 26:31

I think it's just I think it's just a stake alive.

SPEAKER_04 26:38

So you know what? I think you're probably right, but I I don't know, that sucks because my I think about like whenever I go or whenever I used to go hunting with my pap at that age, walking around in the woods with him, I was still kind of like kind of like looking over my shoulder. Yeah, he'd always get on. He doesn't shut your light off. Oh, why we don't we don't need it, we're not walking through the woods. We would sit in the middle of the woods in the dark, complete dark, and just sit there and listen and wait for the dogs to start barking to go, you know, shoot the the coon or whatever. But I don't get that whenever I'm out in the woods with somebody now. Now, if I go out in the woods by myself, that's whenever I feel it.

SPEAKER_03 27:26

That's the being by yourself.

SPEAKER_04 27:29

So then that's what we that's the only way that we can investigate. We can only investigate by ourselves in order to truly understand what paranormal activity is.

SPEAKER_03 27:46

I wasn't when I was asked involved.

SPEAKER_04 27:52

Now that series of events that happened at Ross House went over with Fed that was there that night that I went, oh you still there? Can you hear me? Yeah, yeah. Internet's being moved. We're having a lot of wind. Oh no, we're still doing it. There we go. Can you hear me? You're froze. Yeah. It's gonna go out.

SPEAKER_03 28:25

No, I'm just staying rusty. Okay.

Chasing Thrill While Doubting Proof

Listener Stories, Hotline, And Merch

SPEAKER_04 28:32

That night that I went with Faye West out to the Ross house, he was working, I think, and we had a series of events that was strange in itself, but whenever you seen them play out in real time, it kind of makes you go, that's weird. Because and it's up on their on their YouTube page. I don't know if we'd be able to grab it and link it, but it was in the furniture room. I remember I was sitting on the far far corner of the room, and they were kind of doing uh in the middle of the room doing an Esther session, and then there was some stairs and another room on the at the top of the stairs. And I remember I thought I had seen a shadow, I thought I seen a shadow pass up by the up by the top of the steps. And about that time, Connie had said something from the spirit box about it's about time or something like that. And Chris was saying some things that was relative, and there was another lady there, but I can't remember her name, but her husband had passed away not long before going to on that investigation, and she went to go check. I told him, I said, I think I think I seen a shadow up in that other room. Well, she got up and she went to go check, and on her way back, she said, It's if there's nothing up there, but it feels like my husband's with me. Now, if you look back on the footage of her walking back to the table, you can see an orb following her from that room, and then she sits down. Connie says something through the to the spirit box, the orb floats down around her, goes over by the oh, what's the what's the the REM pod. REM pod both REM pods go off. Connie says something about see you later, and then the the orb just floats off and disappears. Like those that collection of events makes me go, that's weird, that's strange, because I had something that I experienced Connie and Chris were coming through, and it was relative to what you know what was happening. We didn't realize it at the time, I don't think. And then that lady saying about you know, feeling like her husband was there, and then I seen the shadow. It was just weird how everything kind of came together, but and yet I still sit here and go, I don't know about the paranormal. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 31:20

Yeah, I remember that.

SPEAKER_02 31:21

That was pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_03 31:25

It doesn't go down.

SPEAKER_02 31:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:31

Um have you ever been a skeptic? I don't know. You don't know that you if you've ever been a skeptic. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 31:58

No, because I got to the phone and I my dad used to show us a whole bunch of shit. Yeah. And I when he believed in it, like he believed in it, like which always made me believe like what he had to say. Yeah, I mean growing up with his dad got dangerous paranormal investigations and stuff like that. I'll I'll probably probably find out.

SPEAKER_04 32:37

I'm too inquisitive about things. I think curiosity kills the cat, right? The cat was my my enjoyment for the the thrill of it and the curiosity of the existence has killed it because I now believe that well I I don't know what I believe. I don't know. That's that's a sucky place to kind of be in, too, is I don't know what what to believe.

SPEAKER_03 33:15

No, I don't know, I got that feeling.

SPEAKER_04 33:18

I think that there I think that there are things that happen paranormally that are a lot rarer, more rare than you know what people already experience. I think I think some stories are just blown out of proportion. And maybe like I said, remember about being you know, being in the moment and having a clear mind whenever I'm with somebody else versus if I'm alone and I have that paranoia kind of setting in. That could be a lot of the situations where people share their stories. Maybe they were in that state of paranoia, that fight or flight mode, and they misidentified or misunderstood or misread whatever was happening, so they formed their own story from their perspective.

SPEAKER_03 34:09

I know definitely. I can see that happening. I think a lot of people that we've talked to is very jungle story. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:24

You know what sucks is that I kind of enjoy this conversation, but I kind of hate it at the same time. Because it's like it's making me realize that that I'm so unsure things. Like I lean, like I said, I lean mostly toward non-believer in most cases, but there's such a large part of me that wants to believe it, but I can't. I can't because I've not experienced anything that that can you know anchor me in that belief. Yeah, I'll be right back. All right. Knocking all stuff down on my desk. Luke's back.

SPEAKER_03 35:14

I'm back. He's back, he's back, Jesse's back.

SPEAKER_05 35:23

Luke is back with his friend. Luke is back. Luke is back, Luke is back. Okay, I'm done. See what you did. See what you started.

SPEAKER_04 35:40

Yeah, so if you guys have had an experience and would like to be on the show, reach out to us at exploring the unknown pod at outlook.com. Or you can call our hotline. It is 412-533-3483, and you can leave a voicemail with your story. Yes. I really hope somebody does that someday. Because like that would be that would be really cool, you know.

SPEAKER_03 36:09

Yeah, it would be.

SPEAKER_04 36:11

You know, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna just put this out there. If you call in and leave your story and it airs on the podcast, I'll give you a free t-shirt.

SPEAKER_03 36:23

I was gonna say that, but I won't step on your tears.

SPEAKER_04 36:30

Well, you know, speaking of t-shirts, we do have 10% off on all of our Exploring the Unknown merch at exploring the Unknown Pod.com. If you sign up, you can save 10% on your next purchase. And we need to uh we need to update some of those some of those graphic tees. I know we do have some designs that aren't on there yet, so keep an eye out for that and we'll we'll uh we'll get that up for you.

SPEAKER_03 36:57

Also, if you're on TikTok, you're gonna tick tock shop.

SPEAKER_05 37:01

Yes, tick tock shop. TikTok shop.

SPEAKER_04 37:07

But I ain't got nothing else for this. Neither do I. I like this episode, but I also didn't because it was like it was too real for me.

SPEAKER_03 37:19

I don't like it because it's too noisy.

SPEAKER_04 37:22

Oh, I didn't I didn't hear too much noise. It just made me like realize like you know, just how upsetting it is for me to just not be, you know, one way or the other and still be one day, one day, maybe, hopefully, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 37:40

I explain everything away, so that could that could be a good thing though, too.

SPEAKER_04 37:47

Yeah, but it might also be a bad thing. I don't know. I'll ask my therapist.

SPEAKER_03 37:52

It's always good to have a neuroskeptic.

SPEAKER_04 37:55

Yeah, I'm a yeah, I'm your skeptic.

SPEAKER_05 37:59

Alrighty, guys. Keeping lower the end note. We talk about that.