Why Most Haunted Legends Get the History Wrong w/ Troy Taylor | Ghost City Podcast

Ghost stories are easy to sell. The truth is harder, and way more interesting.

We’re joined by Troy Taylor, prolific author of nearly 160 books and the force behind American Hauntings, to talk about what happens when you stop chasing viral legends and start chasing sources. We get into why history is the only solid foundation for haunted locations, how bad ghost tour folklore spreads like a telephone game, and why cities like New Orleans can end up preserving the loudest story instead of the documented one. Along the way, we unpack what the records actually suggest about figures like Delphine LaLaurie and Marie Laveau, and why “tourist-friendly” doesn’t have to mean “made up.” 

From Alton, Illinois and its Underground Railroad sites to prisons, epidemics, and river-town tragedies, Troy explains how real events create the conditions for hauntings without inventing demons on demand. We also talk paranormal investigation: why “using science to prove ghosts” misunderstands what science is, why TV ghost hunting pushed gadgets over context, and why history-backed patterns across multiple witnesses can be more compelling than any blinking device. 

We wrap with Troy’s American Oddities Museum, collecting artifacts that keep stories from being lost, plus a detour into Bigfoot without the UFO baggage and how AI makes future “evidence” harder to trust. If you care about haunted history, ghost tours, true crime, and responsible paranormal storytelling, this conversation is your roadmap. 

Subscribe, share the show with a fellow history nerd, and leave a review if you want more guests like Troy. What’s the most famous ghost story you think needs a fact-check?

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Transcript

Why Ghost Proof Rarely Works

Troy Taylor 0:00

You're never going to be able to convince someone who does not believe in ghosts until they've had an experience themselves. You can't just convince people by telling them about it. It doesn't work that way.

Meet Author Troy Taylor

Tim Nealon 0:15

All right, guys. Welcome back to another episode of the Ghost City Podcast. And today I'm being joined by Troy Taylor from Illinois, Alton, Illinois. As soon as I said the name, I bet half you guys out there instantly recognize the name. This guy has written so many books. I was talking to him before we started. What do you say? Troy, you're up to 157, uh 58 next month.

Troy Taylor 0:37

Which is uh I got a new one coming out. Which is insane. That is a lot of books. Like I'm running a little behind, actually. So I'm I'm actually a project behind what I planned. Um it's you know, it's my full-time job anyway, but I uh I also own a museum and we moved uh in December, and it turned out to be a lot more work than I had. So uh I lost about a month of uh of sanity uh in there somewhere. So I'm a little running a little behind.

Tim Nealon 1:07

Moving moving is always the worst. Right now I'm living down in Louisiana and uh I can't wait to get out. And uh really, really, yeah. You know, it's just it's just too damn hot down here. I think that's what really what it is.

Troy Taylor 1:20

You know, and uh it's it's pretty hot about nine months out of the year. You're right.

Tim Nealon 1:25

Yeah. So my wife and I, we've been, we've been, you know, hey, like where where are we gonna move? And you know, right now we're kind of got our eyes on like the Pacific Northwest, you know, Washington, Oregon, Oregon, you know, maybe Idaho, something like that. But I'll be honest, the one thing that holds me back more than anything is like, goddamn, like I've bought a lot of shit over the years, and I'm gonna have to box all this up and like so. I keep telling them, like, I think we're just gonna hire a moving company.

Troy Taylor 1:51

Oh, for sure. Yeah, definitely. Because, you know, when you get to a certain age, you can't pay your friends with beer and pizza anymore. And they're just not gonna do it because none of our backs are good. So I learned a few years ago that I'm not moving these books. And when my son finally told me, and dad, I'm not helping you anymore. Um, I started hiring movers, and that's definitely the way to go. So with the amount of books I've got, yeah.

Tim Nealon 2:16

Yeah, I I I think at last count I have some and I buy new ones all the time. I probably have between 8,000 and 8,500 books in my book. Oh, yeah. Well, you can never have you never have too many books. Yeah, tell that's a that's a life rule. Tell that to my wife. She's always like, When are you gonna read these things? I was like, You don't understand. It's not about I don't have to read all of them, I just want all of them. Right, right, exactly.

Troy Taylor 2:37

I'll get to them eventually, you know. You probably won't, but you know, the narrator breaks in and says he never will. But you know, the idea is there to read them all.

Tim Nealon 2:46

So every every time I got a guest over their house, you know, they walk in, see the library, and of course the first question is, Hey Tim, how many of these have you read? And I've come up with I've come up with the best answer that just always works. More than you think, not as many as I'd like. And then like there you go. All right, perfect. Yeah, but uh but I a lot of them are like you know, history books and and you know, all that kind of stuff. And and and you're big into the history too, right? The oh yeah, yeah.

Troy Taylor 3:10

Yeah, history, history, true crime, and and the supernatural. Those are my top three, those are my only three things, really. I shouldn't say top three things, they're my only three things. Uh, but they're the that's the stuff I love. But you'd be surprised at how many books have been printed about all of those subjects, you know, over the last hundred and some years.

Tim Nealon 3:30

Yeah, I was I was gonna say Yeah, I was gonna say they all kind of go together there, you know, they do like in a way. They do. And they do,

History Makes Hauntings Believable

Tim Nealon 3:37

absolutely. Yeah, but and and and as an author, um, you know, I don't know how to phrase this without sounding dumb, but then again, I gotta sound dumb at least once every podcast. Um, you know, like you know, as being an author, you know, I I imagine myself, you know, in the writing process and and you're probably doing a lot of research and a lot of you know looking into things, even if you're writing about ghosts. Um yeah. So I I imagine pr history is probably an important pretty important part of your life.

Troy Taylor 4:04

Well, yeah, because I mean you can't have a you can't have a good ghost story or a good story about a haunted place without the history. Because if you don't have the history, it's it's nothing but I woke up and saw my grandma at the end of the bed, and that's your whole story. You know, that's not a story. I I want, you know, I want to know why a place is said to be haunted or you know what occurred there. And then nine times out of ten, that gets me into true crime too, because it's usually something horrific that has happened that has caused that place to become haunted. It's it's very rare when it's just something fun, you know, or just repetitive, you know, it's mostly just something awesome. And so um, you know, that stuff goes hand in hand. And, you know, I I started, let's see, my my first book came out in 1994. So I started getting into research and all this kind of stuff before that, because I I put together my first ghost tour in '93. And so all of that had to be researched too. So um, you know, back then it was going down to the library, to the local history room, to prowling through, you know, years and years and years of newspapers on the microfiche, you know, that you sit and spin that thing till you want to puke, you know, trying to get to the right dates. And even then, it's a cap shoot. So, you know, things have changed so much. I mean, I still libraries are still great, archives are still great. These are still places that I try to use as much as I can. But on the other hand, I can also access every newspaper in the country going back 150 years from my desktop now. So, and while I still end up with piles and piles, because I got I'm one of those people like, no, I gotta print it out, gotta have it in my hands, you know, because I'm of a certain age. Um, so you know, I've still have piles and piles and piles of paper everywhere while I'm trying to research something, trying to get it in some semblance of order. But boy, it's sure a lot easier than it used to be, man. I mean, now there's just no excuse. There's no excuse for dumb stories or for, you know, fake history that people tell that, you know, there's no excuse for that anymore because we have this stuff pretty much at our fingertips, you know. But bad stories take a long time to die, as you know.

Tim Nealon 6:19

Oh, yeah.

The Ghost Tour Lie Problem

Tim Nealon 6:20

Yeah, I was gonna say you mentioned that you do ghost tours, we do ghost tours. So uh tell out to the rest of the ghost tour industry. Holy shit. Oh god, I know, man. Yeah, I always gotta preface this because I'm like the most hated. Well, actually, I'm not the most hated man in ghost tour industry anymore. It's that dipshit over at that other company who's always stealing from everybody.

Troy Taylor 6:38

Well, yeah, but that's a different kind of hate. Yeah. That's you're you're you're hated by because you correct people, you're not hated because you steal everyone's stuff. So yeah, big difference.

Tim Nealon 6:51

One of the things, so ghost city tours, we started back in 2012 in Savannah, Georgia. And one of the biggest reasons I wanted to start Ghost City Tours was because prior to having any interest in ghosts, I was a huge history buff. I grew up about an hour and a half from Gettysburg, and I was always going to Gettysburg. And to this day, I'm completely if there's a show about the Gettysburg on TV or a new book that comes out, like I have to have it. I have to have it. I always want to know more and more and more. And uh, you know, it just drove me insane. I so I ended up moving to Santa, Georgia, and I took a couple ghost tours because it would always interest me. And it's a you know, ghost tours are a really good way to learn about the history of the city, but the only thing that I learned were that the only thing that I learned were that uh the devil was everywhere, zombies were eating babies in graveyards, um, you know, the mare sometimes developed wings and steals things from the candy store. And I'm like, this the this is completely ridiculous. And and the worst part is is that the guides were telling this with a straight face. Like, no, I like this is the real story, this is the real history, and it always drove me insane. So when I started Ghost City Tours, you know, my my focus is on the truth. We're gonna like you just said, we're gonna spend time in the libraries and the historical societies, and we're really gonna figure out what's going on here. And the moment, you know, I I'm not always the most uh non-confrontational guy, but uh I do it in a nice professional way, and and I started putting out articles that was like, hey, like here's a story that's being told in Savannah all the time, and it's complete bullshit, by the way. And I backed it up with you know, census records and newspaper articles and all this stuff, and all of a sudden, like you know, we I joked about a minute ago, I was like the most hated guy in the ghost tour industry, essentially because I was blowing up all this nonsense and saying, no, then none of this is true anymore. Um, but it it it you you don't have ghosts without history. So I I've always not really understood why people are more interested in embellishing the ghost side of things instead of taking the time to get the the the stories right, whether you're a ghost tour company, an author, or just even paranormal investigators, you know.

Troy Taylor 8:54

I think a lot of that comes with it, a lot of that the bad material is rooted in a certain time in in in our contemporary history of where this stuff springs from. Because, you know, a lot of the the the ghost tours, I mean, I started in I started in '93, but and there was nothing to compare it to. I mean, I didn't know, I've never been on a ghost tour. I didn't know what a ghost tour was supposed to be. I just thought it was, hey, I want to take these people so they can experience these places that maybe they've only heard about. And then I've just kind of kept it with that instead of, you know, trying to hear the other stories, you know, and things. But I think a lot of times with the stories, they get started by somebody who has a little bit of knowledge and decided that they needed to embellish it in some way. And then it's like a game of telephone. And the same guides are just telling to other guides, and then it spins on and it spins on and spins on, and it gets wilder and wilder as it goes. And then, and you know, it gets so entrenched that people don't want to change it because they think they've got this great sensational, lurid story, and it's a load of crap, but that's how it's always been told. So then somebody comes along and says, Hey, well, wait a minute, you know, um, what the the true story is better than the one you've made up. Here's the true story, and that makes them very unhappy. Um, you know, I mean, I know you've run into it.

New Orleans Legends Versus Records

Troy Taylor 10:24

I mean, the prime place I've run into it probably more than anywhere else, of course, is in New Orleans, because those stories, you know, are were based on nothing more than local folklore that they just decided to make better and modernize and, you know, turn, you know, uh Delphine Lallerie into this mad scientist who's operating on all her slaves and all, and it's just nonsense. It's complete nonsense. And they know it because it's all right there in black and white. So many people have corrected this stuff, but they ignore it because they keep telling it for the tourists. Um, and and they think, oh, the tourists don't care. But the tourists do care. That's the thing. People do care, and they will come if you promise to tell them the right thing. Um, I did a documentary for Netflix, oh Jesus, um, a couple of years ago, where we went to the Myrtles plantation and talk about a crock of shit, what they tell there, that story. And they know it. They know it's not true. I mean, the records are all there. They know that Chloe didn't exist, she didn't poison the family, they didn't die during a birthday party, they died from yellow fever, like two years apart from each other. I mean, and there's just so many flaws. Yeah. So we went to tell this, you know, thing, and they're interviewing people from the Myrtles for the plantation story in the in the show, and they're interviewing them, and they're telling the same exact story that they've been telling since the 50s. And then they bring me on and go, yeah, none of that's true. So I definitely got to be the villain for the story, which was a blast, because I just kept saying, I'm not saying the house isn't haunted, right? I'm just saying it's not haunted for the reasons they say, because here's all these other things that happened here that certainly could have made the house haunted. So why why plantation tourism when we don't need it?

Tim Nealon 12:18

Yeah, if you want to talk about New Orleans, you're not far off. I mean, the the second you brought up the second you brought up blollery, I was like, Yeah, like because you know, you can go there on any given night, and there's you know, a hundred ghost tours that'll pass that house, and they all tell the same all at that corner at the same time, yeah. And they all tell the same bullshit story, you know, like oh, there was a slave, and like at the top of his skull was his head, uh head was cut off, and there was a spoon in there.

Troy Taylor 12:42

Stir his brains, yeah. That's always one of my favorites, too.

Tim Nealon 12:45

I think my favorite is the human caterpillar one, though, like where the locked in the cage. Yeah, like the one's mouth is sewed to the other one's uh butthole in like in a line of mic.

Troy Taylor 12:57

See, that's a that's a newer edition. Yeah, that's a post-human centipede film edition. Yeah, it just gets wilder and wilder all the time.

Tim Nealon 13:06

Yeah, and and and you know what I think what bothers me the most about this, and I probably shouldn't be that bothered about it, but like, you know, I think like, you know, I'm gonna die one day, probably. You know, uh Carter and Paul are like, God, please let it happen soon. Um, but like, you know, I I would like to think that, you know, when that happens, you know, my memory, my legacy will carry on in like a positive manner. I'd like to think so. And, you know, taking Lawtery, for example, I don't know if she was a good person or not. I wasn't alive in the early 1800s. Like, I I, you know, yeah, she was a slave owner, and through today's eyes, you could say, well, that automatically makes her a bad person.

Troy Taylor 13:43

But it, and this might give me some shit, but like, well, no, you're you can't judge, you can't judge the past by the standards of today. Slave ownership at that time period was legal in this country. And while, you know, we could look at it and say, Oh, slavery's awful, and it is, um, it was part of life. The only good thing that you could say, and it's not good, but you know what I mean, um, slavery in New Orleans was different than slavery in other places. There were actual laws to protect enslaved people, mostly because everyone was related in some way. And so you were very careful about how you did things. And she was someone who went against the norm. That's what got her into trouble, is that she was crueler than other slave owners and she broke the black codes, as they were called. And that's what got her into trouble. She wasn't feeding her slaves properly, she wasn't caring for them properly. People were outraged because, well, some of them were probably family members. And that's what got her into trouble. And somehow we've taken this, and I'm telling you, it's because she's a woman. They've taken this evil woman out of history, and they have turned her into, you know, this, I mean, Cruella Deville practically here. She's this evil woman who's doing evil because she wants to, you know, and stuff. And so we don't, like you said, we don't know. We weren't alive then. We don't know how she personally was, but I mean, she had a husband who, you know, whatever, but she had kids who loved her, you know, she had friends, she had, you know, so she wasn't bad all the time. She was just not a great, you wouldn't say she was a great person. By standards of today, she was one of our billionaire tech people. Oh, yeah. So, you know, in New Orleans, you know, that's how they looked at her, as someone who, you know, broke the broke the rules. And yet now we've turned her into this evil witch who's done all these terrible things. And I don't know, man. Um, yeah, we know how the stories get started.

Tim Nealon 15:43

Well, she's not the only one, you know. Oh you know, even here in New Orleans, I mean, everybody knows who Marie Laveau is. And when we started doing some deep dives into Marie Laveau, we started uncovering things that that were really interesting. And and some of it, you know, we can't verify because you know, even newspaper articles will only tell you so much, and you kind of have to infer from there. But one of the things that I thought was really interesting is that we could not find any mention of her being a voodoo practitioner, priest, anything like that until after her death. And, you know, even uh who is it? George Cable, I think it was, wrote that book. Yeah. And he went on that book tour, and at one of the stops, you know, Marie Laveau's daughter, I think it might actually have been Marie the Second. I mean, she got kicked out of that book reading because she stood up and she was like, How dare you talk about my mom this way? You know, she never did any of these things, and you know, voodoo, all this other stuff. And sure, she you know, it's it's one of those things. It's it I don't know what really happened other than than what I'm reading, but in my head, it sounds like another one of those situations where history's kind of taken a woman who you know had a prominent place in society and has done everything it could to shit all over her. Because at the time, being a voodoo practitioner was not like today, it's like, oh, that's cool. But back then it was like that's not cool, you know.

Troy Taylor 16:55

And yeah, well, and and also with her, is it's what's so interesting about her, and that what everyone ignores because they want to turn her into this evil voodoo queen, is that most people saw her as uh a real benefactor to the community because she worked tirelessly during as many smallpox epidemics as she was alive for and yellow fever epidemics. I mean, she was treating the sick, she was nursing people in jails. I mean, she did all these good work. So even if she was, and again, even if she was practicing voodoo, big deal. It's a religion. I mean, it is a religion. And, you know, the fact that it brought so many people to New Orleans at the time, um, you know, what you're talking about in the late 1800s, early, you know, into the 1890s and things. If it was her, if it wasn't her daughter, whoever it was, they should have been named to the top of the New Orleans Visitors Bureau because she was bringing so many people to town. People were interested, they were fascinated, and it was exotic. It wasn't seen as evil at the time. And, you know, I don't think she was ever an evil person. There were all these legends that sprung up around her, but the things to remember is her feeding the poor, caring for the sick, and all the things that she did for people. You know, that's the stuff that gets forgotten. Yeah.

Tim Nealon 18:12

And we can go on for another hour just on New Orleans. Like it's crazy. Um you know, one of the more interesting Laveau stories I came up with, and and not came up with is in road it. I found it was the did you ever find the story of her grandson, the one that was trying to be a doctor? I don't think so. No, I don't think I've seen that one. Yeah, I had to dig for this one, but it it I I can even I think I found it on like newspapers.com or something, you know, like you know, how you can go back. But essentially what happened was Marie Laveau's grandson was studying to become a doctor, and there was uh, and I'm gonna make this part up slightly because I don't remember the official titles or anything, but there's a prominent person within the city, and his son became sick. He lived over in the Marini area, you know, to the east of the French quarter. And they the word got out like, oh, I this this guy is studying to become a doctor, and he's also Marie Laveau's grandson. He must know that voodoo stuff, you know. So they brought him in as the doctor, you know, to to heal the the son. Long story short, the son died. Nobody ever heard from Marie Laveau's grandson again. No idea where he went, nothing.

Troy Taylor 19:19

That sleeps bad. Yeah.

Tim Nealon 19:20

Like, and that was one of those stories. I'm like, Jesus, like, because I I mean, I don't know what happened, but like I kind of know what happened. You can kind of, yeah.

Troy Taylor 19:28

So you get a pretty good idea about what happened. Yeah.

Tim Nealon 19:30

I was like, isn't it funny how, you know, I mean, once again, you you right at the beginning you said history, paranormal, you know, true crime, you know. Yeah, yeah. Here we are, right back again. All three of those elements, right, mixed in together, you know, because the guy was probably murdered and dumped in a swamp somewhere. Uh probably, yeah, would be my guess. Yeah. So,

Alton Illinois Built On Dark History

Tim Nealon 19:49

so, you know, getting back to you know, your hometown a little a little bit, you know, Alton, Illinois, it's it's it's one of those small towns that once you hear about it, you're like, oh, oh, okay, like I can see why it's well known. But until you hear about it, it's one of those towns not a lot of people know about. Because uh, yeah. But you guys got some you guys got some really interesting stuff going up in the in in your neck of the woods as well.

Troy Taylor 20:09

Yeah, yeah. We uh we've got a the the town is is old. I mean, for especially for Illinois, you know. Um, so in and on the Mississippi River, you know, we had the French here, you know, coming up the river to St. Louis and to the Illinois side early on. And so when there was a ferry boat started in in uh Alton to get across the Missouri in like 1814, and that's what started our town. But um, yeah, it's just it's a Mississippi River town, it's an old town. There's a lot of a lot of cool buildings here, there's a lot of history here. Uh, we have a number of buildings that that are like verified underground railroad stations. We had the very first penitentiary in the state of Illinois, it was located in Alton down by the river. Uh, when it closed, uh, right before the Civil War, they reopened it, turned it into a Confederate POW camp. Um, so it's a horrific place. I mean, there are thousands of deaths that took place, you know, not to mention the fires and the floods and the epidemics and things we've had. So, all the history, uh, we end up with uh, yeah, quite a few ghost stories connected to the town. And, you know, it's been one of those things where I've spent years and years trying to get to the bottom of a lot of these stories because, you know, some of them were floating around before I ever, you know, long before I was born. Um, but you find them in the newspapers. They used to love to report ghost stories here. I don't know what the kick was, but uh, so it's kind of cool to find a lot of the old stuff, you know, and then be able to tie it in to places that are, you know, I say newer and that, you know, they maybe were built a hundred years ago instead of 150. Uh, but they, you know, have the same story still going on after all this time. That's uh that's pretty cool. So, but yeah, I I I love coming here. I love doing here, doing stuff here. And so yeah, we've been doing tours here since uh, I guess about 99.

Tim Nealon 22:00

So yeah, so how going so what does the town itself think of the ghost stories? Because I know different towns, different cities, you know, think of these things differently. You know, New Orleans embraces them, you know, there's but not all cities do.

Troy Taylor 22:10

Yeah, it's um it's you know, it's always been sort of hit and miss depending on who's in charge. Um, the the visitors bureau people here uh welcome it because you know we do with the tours and things we do, and we open the museum and we do uh uh ghost conference and for 29 years here. So we bring a lot of people to town. So we kind of force them to pay attention to us, you know. Um, we're like, hey, uh these pay your salary, so you need to post this. Uh, but no, they're they're pretty good about it. So it's um they're they they realize that because of its reputation, you can either, you know, if you can't beat them, join them kind of thing. And so people have just sort of embraced it around here. I mean, we'll get some that, you know, are not not into it or don't think it's the right thing for the town. But you know, it what used to be a river town with a lot of big industries and steel plants and stuff, all that stuff is gone now. So tourism is what we got, so that's what we need to embrace. And and for the most part, they do.

Tim Nealon 23:15

So one of the cities we actually have the opposite problem in in a lot of people might not believe me at first, but is Savannah, Georgia. Um, yeah. So, you know, we're the I think we're the well, we are the biggest tour company in Savannah, Georgia. Um and what it is now, so if if you uh have been to Savannah maybe in the last 10 years, one of the things that you'll notice is that they're trying to make it almost like a mini Hollywood feel, like a mini, like you know, New York City, instead of embracing Savannah's you know, history and why people come there, like they turn the entire Broughton Street, which used to be a you know a street full of small businesses, locally owned businesses, and those are the businesses that really exude this the town, the city's sure you know, personality. But now you walk down Broughton Street and it's Abercrombie and Fitch and Victoria's Secret and all this nonsense right there in the middle of the historic district. And uh, you know, the city of Savannah, they're more concerned with putting up new hell hotels than they are about you know preservation anymore. And it's really sad. Wow, that is wild. But one of the things that we run into is Savannah. It seems like once a year, the people who live within the historic district try to start a petition to now they can't eliminate ghost tours, but what they do is they try to curtail our activity to essentially make them impossible. Like one of the things the city was trying to do in all its infinite wisdom last year was like all ghost tours have to be off the street by like 8 p.m. or something ridiculous like that. And like, and what this is, it's you know, and I'm not trying to stir up a controversy because at the end of the day, I I would really like to have the locals on my side and all other ghost tour companies as well. But what it is is they move to these areas and then they're like, Well, now that we're here, we don't actually like all these tourists. But you know, kind of what you were describing in Alton, you know, the the factories and stuff, before the tourism industry really picked up in Savannah, the historic district was really a shithole. I mean, it really was. Like, yeah, you know, and you know, I I think last year in Savannah alone, we ran over 200,000 people on our ghost tours in Savannah. Yeah, and uh, and when we put out a survey, we said, like, hey, when you were coming to Savannah, planning, you know, deciding Savannah's where I want to go. Did ghost tours, the the paranormal, that type of history play any part into your decision at all? But the number blew me away. It was 67% of people who took our tour and also visited Savannah said, Hey, your tours, the you know, the the ghosts, you know, all these stories, the folklore, the history. That was the big reason I wanted to come to Savannah. And then Savannah here is like, nah, we don't need that shit. You know, it it it it it's really frustrating.

Troy Taylor 25:44

That's yeah, that's the kind of thinking that always just floors me because I mean, you know, people aren't coming to Savannah. People come to Savannah for the history and for the ghost stories. I mean, that's just it. Everyone knows this. I mean, they don't come to visit the Abercrombie store, you know. I mean, that's not why they come to Savannah, you know. That doesn't even make any sense to me. Uh, but yeah, I get it though. I mean, I I get how it how it happens.

Tim Nealon 26:09

So Alton,

When Places Make History Feel Real

Tim Nealon 26:10

I I told you a little bit before we start airing that I had actually driven through that area at one point. I was staying in St. Louis and we went up to Springfield because I'm a big Lincoln fan. And we started talking about it. I'm like, hold on, hold on, hold on. Let's let's talk about this later. Um, but you know, and uh for the for those of people out there in Ghost City World that don't know, Abraham Lincoln is probably like the number one historical figure in my book. Like even a couple months ago, believe it or not, I'm I'm 45. I mean, that part's pretty believable. That's not what I'm talking about. Um, but I finally made my way to Ford's Theater and uh up in Washington, DC, a couple months ago. And that was that was another one of those emotional moments for me. So it was uh I want to say we went in the December and you know, there wasn't a lot of people there. I mean, you know, you you go to the theater, you hear the presentation, you get to look around a little bit, but then of course you go across the street to the house. And and I ended up spending about 20 minutes in in the Lincoln bedroom, the the bedroom where he died in, just by myself, by myself. Like, and that was just like incredible. But when I was passing through here, I was actually on my way up to Lincoln's house. And one of the things that I told you was that it was actually a very emotional experience for me. And we we started to talk about that a little bit, and I'm like, hold on, hold on, hold on. Um, because it it it it being in those places, and ghost tours do this too to an extent. You know, being in these places where the history actually happened and these people actually lived can really open your eyes up to who they were, and you know, it kind of sets the mood a little bit and makes you a little bit more appreciative of you know everything that our country and the people or the world or anything in general went through to get us to where we are today. And you said uh something to the effect of you know, being able to walk where Lincoln walked. You know, how cool is that? But what did it for me? So this is gonna sound really corny and everybody's gonna be like, Tim, you're a big puss. Um so we we we were that one Lincoln's house is a lot smaller than you think it is. Like when I first when I first got there, I was like, this is it. But but what happened? We were actually walking up the stairs, you know. Uh, and when you get to the top of the stairs, like there on the right was Lincoln's bedroom. But as we're walking up the stairs, you know, I'm using the handrail, and it kind of clicked in my mind. And I asked the tour guide, I was like, hey, is this handrail original to the house? And she said, Yeah. And that's when it was like, holy shit. Like Lincoln would have used this same, like his hand would have been right where my hand is, and his feet would have been right where, like, and I don't know what it was by the time that I got to the top of the stairs, I actually had tears forming in my eyes. It was just a very emotional moment. Um, yeah, yeah, to be somewhere like that. And I'm kind of curious, you know, in all your research and stuff, if you've ever had moments like that where you're just you're just overwhelmed by what you're where you are and what you're seeing, you know.

Troy Taylor 28:52

Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, even you know, even with um, you know, with Lincoln. I mean, I grew up in central Illinois where I grew up. So Lincoln was that's Lincoln, right? I mean, it's you know, it's everywhere, you know. Um, so you know, there were lots of places that I was able to visit. And uh, I've got a friend who is uh uh runs the security at uh the Lincoln Home, as a matter of fact, he takes care of all the maintenance and security and stuff. So I've been to places there that that they don't take the public, you know, and so it's kind of cool to get to see all that. And like I mentioned to you, I mean, we're we're we're literally walking where Lincoln walked. I mean, just there is no, you know, there's no border between where he was and where we are, you know, and so that has always been one of those things that anytime I go anywhere, whether it's uh maybe it's a famous house or a building or something, and I think about that, you know, there was a person I'm here to study, you know. I'm I'm in Key West and I'm sitting out by the pool at Hemingway's house. I I'm sitting where Hemingway sat, you know, where I'm standing where he stood. You know, um, we have a uh kind of a local guy here in Alton, uh his name is Robert Wadlow, and he was the tallest man who ever lived.

Tim Nealon 30:07

Yeah, I was gonna say, why does that name sound familiar to me?

Troy Taylor 30:09

Yeah, he's Alton native, grew up here, you know, toured all over the country because he was eight feet and 11 and a half inches tall and still growing when he died. But he died at he was only 22. He died in 1940. But the building that I have my American Oddities Museum in is where Robert used to buy his shoes.

Tim Nealon 30:29

Okay.

Troy Taylor 30:30

So it was a department store at one time. And so for us, I mean, I tell everybody that. I mean, I'm like, this is where Robert Wadlow bought his shoes. You know, it's uh, and we've got a big life size Robert Wadlow statue there. And it's like, this is the dude that made me buy bought his shoes here. And it's a big deal. Every time I walk in there and I look up and I see his, you know, statue standing there. I think, you know, wow, the where I'm in the same place he was in. And yeah, that is, I think, what uh one of the things I always try to remind people when we're doing a tour, or we're doing an event and we go somewhere and we take them there, and we're we're literally in that spot. I'm like, listen, this isn't this isn't just some guy telling you a story about this place. You're experiencing the same place that person did. You know, when they said they saw this ghost or this is the where the ghost stood, you're standing there right now. You know, this is where they died on this spot, you know. Um, and I think that's what brings this stuff to life for people. And I think that's what makes a tour better than just standing on an opposite street corner and going, oh, look at this building. You know, if you can stand right there with the doorway where people went in and out, that's pretty cool.

Tim Nealon 31:45

So Ghost City, I think it was our second office that we had, was down on Magazine Street in New Orleans. And after doing some research, it turned out that the building that our office was in was right across the street from what used to be a department store, talking about department stores. And it was the department store that Lee Harvey Oswald worked in.

Troy Taylor 32:01

Oh, no kidding. Yeah. So wow, that's wild.

Tim Nealon 32:05

So I I had a test on how I knew if I was gonna like you or not when I hired you at Ghost City Tourist. So they would come in for their first day and I'd point out the window and I'd be like, hey, just so you know, Lee Harvey Oswald used to work at the department store that used to be in there. And one of three things would happen, and I know right away whether or not I was gonna go along with along with this person. One, they'd be like, Who's that? And I'd be like, Oh my god. Yeah, two, they two, they would just kind of go like, Oh, that's cool. And I'm like, All right, I'm not gonna like this person. And then the third was like, oh, that's really cool. Like, like, you know, right, and that person I would like latch on to, I'm like, all right, I'm gonna enjoy working with this person, uh, you know, that kind of stuff. But well, you mentioned the Oddities Museum. So

Inside The American Oddities Museum

Tim Nealon 32:45

and and you know, we talked a little bit about moving it, you know, you moving it. Uh so for people who don't know or haven't been there, what what what is this oddities museum?

Troy Taylor 32:55

Uh well, it's it's 90% of it, okay, 80% of it probably is just the stuff I've collected over the years. You know, I have picked up a lot of weird things traveling around, you know, a lot of things that are supposed to be haunted or just, you know, odds and ends, just odd things. Um, I had a couple of uncles who were in the circus and carnival business. So they kind of wet my whistle for it. So I've got some of their stuff. Uh, but you know, for the most part, it's just things I collected. And I'd always wanted someplace to put it. And there had been this old torture museum in town, which was, you know, the fake, yeah, you've seen those, you know, the like the replica torture stuff. But they were closing it up and going out of business. What's that?

Tim Nealon 33:42

I was gonna say that's a weird museum to open up in old Illinois.

Troy Taylor 33:45

Like well, I know that's kind of what I thought too. But um, but they were gonna close it up, and so they wanted to know if I wanted to buy it. And I said, Well, sure, I bought it. Uh, but I bought it for all the cases and and you know, all the stuff because the the torture stuff just didn't really do anything for me. So most of that stuff ended up in like, you know, local people who do haunted houses and stuff here, need some stocks, you know, that kind of stuff. You know, how about a guillotine, you know? Um, so um or like there's like so probably uh what was that?

Tim Nealon 34:18

What was that gray book about the guy that was like the weirdo sex guy? I don't know what that was. Shades of gray or something. Oh 50 Shades of Grey.

Troy Taylor 34:27

Yeah, we had some of that kind of stuff too. Yeah, yeah, the ones to buy some handcuffs and whips. They went first, yeah. People took those first, but um, but yeah, so you know, I had all this stuff, so I moved it all in there, and then uh we've now moved it to a new building. So we're right downtown, right on the highway. And it's just um it's a collection of everything from you know, um, Ouija boards to items that are supposed to be haunted to uh funeral history items, uh true crime stuff, prohibition, medical quackery stuff, um, a huge tattoo section, circuses inside shows. Um we have a you know a human skeleton. He used to be a um Knights Epitheus member, and his skeleton got left behind in an old Knights Epitheist lodge. They found his skeleton in the closet. That's not that's a real story. Um that's a hell of a way to go.

Tim Nealon 35:23

Like it is, yeah.

Troy Taylor 35:25

They used to use them for they donate their bodies and they'd use them for initiation. Like, you know, you're you're walked into a room. Yeah. Has anybody seen Bob for a while? Like, yeah, where did we leave Bob? The the Knights of Pythia kind of faded away and then the he just sort of got abandoned. So um they found him in that closet and they ask a friend of mine, they said, Well, what are we gonna do with this thing? And he goes, I know a guy.

Tim Nealon 35:49

Um, so yeah, so yeah, we took him over. So some of the best stories always start with, I know a guy.

Troy Taylor 35:55

Uh huh. Yeah. And I'm you and around here, I'm usually that guy. So we've had a lot of stuff donated to us and things that are, you know, some real oddball stuff. But so it's it's just fun. It's a fun place. It's um it's it's got a lot of cool stuff you're not gonna find anywhere else, you know. And so that's probably what made the move so, you know, so difficult was that, you know, this stuff is you can't replace, you know, it's it's not, it's like a Ripley's believe it or not, museum if the displays were real instead of mostly, you know, just the replicas of what it was, right? Um, so it's it's it's a lot of that kind of stuff, but it's it's a lot of fun, big place. Um, but yeah, I do, you know, we do events there and stuff in the same building and things. So it's it's cool. Yeah, it's it's a lot of fun to have.

Tim Nealon 36:46

Well, I'm I imagine, you know, on top of the fun and you know, if the the business aspect of it just incredibly meaningful. It's almost like you have your own shrine to everything that you that yeah, like you know to weird stuff.

Troy Taylor 36:58

And it's you know, and again, it's it's kind of like, you know, I I talk about coming in and I say, Oh, this is where Robert Waddle lot walks, but you know, I've got like uh you know John Wayne B. Gacy's business cards, and I've got you know stuff that belong to some of these people, and that's you know, that's weird in a bad way, usually, but still weird. Uh, I do have some of uh Lizzie Borden's silverware, uh, came out of her cousin's estate. Um, and it's it's the real thing. I mean, it's authenticated. It's even got her uh L. Borden uh engravings on it. So when I got the silverware, um, I wiped it off and then ate a piece of cake with it because I'm gonna eat with Lizzie Borden's silverware. And then I cleaned it up and I put it in a case. But, you know, and that's I think what makes it cool, you know, is that again, it's this tangible piece of something from the past, you know, that someone has had, has handled, has touched, and um, it's just cool to say that you can do the same.

Tim Nealon 37:57

So yeah, I you know, I I I wish there were actually more places like yours, you know, across the country because some of that stuff it just gets lost forever. Oh, it gets lost forever. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I don't know if it's the hoarder in me. I mean, I I like you said I'm a guy with like 8,000 books. I think I have like 3,000 reptiles, like for real. I have a whole reptile conservation center. I think I have a problem. I think that's what it is. I think I just hoard stuff. Um, but like like you know, that that stuff, it it has meaning. You know, it's not just like a thing in a case that people can go and see. Like there's there's the the story behind it. Um and one of the things that I always find enjoyable, like that trip to DC I was talking about a little bit ago, you know, walking through the the history museum, and you see an object, but then if if you're in the right place, like your mind starts going to this place where it's like envisioning that time and envisioning the person using it or wearing it or whatever the case may be. And then all of a sudden, like you're there. You know, like you're you're you're there. Like, you know, um, you know, going back to Lincoln, uh, you know, seeing his top hat, you know, then all of a sudden it's like I like that's the top hat he wore. And all of a sudden I'm I'm imagining him walking down the the dirt streets of Washington, DC, um you know, with his top hat on and all these things. And you know, if somebody didn't take the time, I mean Lincoln's a little bit different than you know Lizzie Borden. I mean, but at the same time, those things are still those things are important and and and they get lost for forever. And then it's it's not just the objects gone, but then the story's gone too. You know, and uh, you know, I I know that we can't possibly preserve every story, but like, wouldn't that be really cool at the same time if we could?

Troy Taylor 39:36

Yeah, it's it's worth a try, that's for sure, you know. Um, because so many of the things like I mean, I I grew up, I mean, I got into this. The reason I started writing is because uh my great-grandfather used to fill my head full of his stories. You know, he was a cop and grew up, I mean, grew up or you know, didn't grow up, but he was a cop who had immigrated to the country, lived in Decatur, Illinois, uh, which was at the time was a pretty wide open town in the 1920s and 30s when he was a cop. And when I was a kid, he'd tell me his stories. You know, he'd tell me things I was probably too young to hear about. But it was, you know, when he didn't come and tell me this stuff saying, Hey, I want you to remember this. I want you to, you know, to for this is a story for posterity. Let me tell you about these two hookers that got that beat each other up one night. You know, I mean, it's not a story, you're gonna preserve it. Yeah, what's that?

Tim Nealon 40:28

I said those are the best stories, by the way.

Troy Taylor 40:29

I mean, we're in New Orleans. The number of hooker stories we have down here, like you know, yeah, but that's where it would all boiled down to for me is you know what, I am gonna save these stories because I mean, here's all these ghost stories. I mean, you know, we sat down at the train station one night and he told me about uh a guy that haunted the train station that he knew. I mean, a guy he knew, he was there when he was murdered out in the railroad yards. And after he was murdered, he and his other cop buddies and guys who worked with this guy, you know, in the rail yard used to talk about seeing his ghost. I mean, you can't get a better firsthand account than something like that. A story that's just told offhanded that I was there and here's what happened. You know, so I I I my goal was to try to preserve that stuff, and then I've just since continued to try to do so, you know.

Tim Nealon 41:21

Well, you know, that that also, you know, talking about ghosts and preserving history and all that kind of stuff. I

Paranormal Tools And The Science Myth

Tim Nealon 41:26

I one of the reasons I really enjoy paranormal investigating, I don't get a chance to do it as much as I used to. Like when I lived near Gettysburg, I mean, that was my life. Oh, sure. You know, uh, but that is of course before the government ruined it, and now you have to be off the battlefield when the sun goes down and stuff. Before dark and all that kind of nonsense. Um but interesting enough, when done correctly, paranormal investigation is a way to kind of look into history and you know, kind of find out what happened there. You know, people, you know, especially skeptics, they look at me like I'm crazy. But I'm like, there's sometimes where like we've found pieces of a story by getting ghosts to talk to us and and tell us things.

Troy Taylor 42:03

And I know that you've been able to confirm. Yeah.

Tim Nealon 42:06

And I know that you've done you know, your share of paranormal investigating as well. But um, you know, how does that how does that work its way into your life? Do you do you find time to do that now? Or are you?

Troy Taylor 42:17

I don't do it much anymore. Um, I used to uh for probably the first um probably 10, 15 years of of getting into the business, I was doing a lot of investigating, but I kept finding that really all I wanted to investigate was the history.

Tim Nealon 42:33

Yeah.

Troy Taylor 42:34

So I'm like, okay, why why you know that all the gadgets and gizmos and things don't really do much for me. Um, because you know, after 15 years of using them, what do we know? Well, same thing we knew 15 years ago. So, you know, unless you can get like 10 things, you know, corresponding at the same time, it it's just seems a little silly, you know. Um, I I I always have a fascination with, you know, the communication aspects of it, as far as, you know, the recordings and some of that type of stuff I find more interesting than just waving around an EMF meter that doesn't do anything for me.

Tim Nealon 43:09

Literally, they do not think.

Troy Taylor 43:11

But yeah, because I guess the things about that when it comes to that kind of stuff is you know, that that's science. And you'll hear people say, Oh, I'm gonna use science to prove the paranormal. No, you're not, because that's impossible. You can't, you can't prove it scientifically because you're not gonna be able to capture a ghost and get them to perform on command and do a repeated experiment. That's science. This is not science, you know.

Tim Nealon 43:35

And and that's the key word there that you just said repeatability, or you said repeated. Yeah, like because when people when people say that to me, like, hey, we we use a scientific approach, and I'm like, Okay, well, how do you do this scientifically? Well, I have this app on my phone.

Troy Taylor 43:49

Like, like yeah, right, exactly. Yeah, I'm like, you know, that's again, that's not science.

Tim Nealon 43:55

Yeah, and I don't want to, you know, m make fun of the person or make them feel bad, but in my head, I'm gonna mock. But I'm like, you that's not science at all. Science is a science is a process. Science isn't I have this device that detects electromagnetic energy from, by the way, all sources of electromagnetic energy, and I'm going to use that to prove ghosts are real. That's not a real thing. You know, as somebody who I I think you and I are absolutely on the same page with this stuff. So I'm kind of curious to hear what you think. Like, you know, over the last, you know, 15, 20 years, where do you think paranormal investigations really kind of went off the rails a little bit from like where it should be?

Troy Taylor 44:33

Uh probably when TV shows started. And um, when the when the TV, when the ghost hunting TV shows became popular, when they first started, it wasn't so bad. But once they became popular, they were driven by the need for the producers to show something happening. Otherwise, no one's gonna watch the show. So then it just became every device that blinks or beeps or or makes a noise, then it must be a ghost. And I think that's when people started to see this and think, oh, hey, man, that's the way to hunt ghosts. Just run around with all this equipment and whatever it makes noises, I've got ghosts there. And I think that's where it went off the rails. And when people forgot that you can't prove scientifically, if they ever knew at all, that some place is haunted, not by science. Now, what you can do is you can prove a place is haunted using the history. Because if you can confirm your sources and you let's say, even just on a just off the top of your head, say, I've got 10 people who lived in this house who all had the same experience and they didn't know each other. That's compelling. Is it proof? Not necessarily proof, but it's definitely compelling. Um, I had a years and years ago, uh, I think when this first came to me is that this is the way to go using history, is I had a woman whose house was haunted. Um, and she invited me over, told me all about it, you know, described what was happening. Um, and you know, then said, Well, what do you think it is? Well, let me go do some research. So I did. Uh back then, still had to use uh microfish of the newspaper, and went and I found out all the history of her house that I could. Found out that there had been the guy who built it, had lived there, had worked at a bank, he'd embezzled a bunch of money, big audit at the bank, knew he was going to get caught, committed suicide in the house. So I clipped out several of his photographs, along with photographs of other business guys all in their suits and things. Uh, this was from the early 30s, and brought it back to her. And I said, Well, I got some stuff about the house, but you keep describing this man that you're seeing. Is it any of these guys? Immediately she points to the guy who built the house and said, That's the ghost that we see in our bedroom. Yeah. I mean, that's that's kind of how do you dispute that? Right. How do you dispute it? You can't. She had no idea, she had absolutely no idea. And then I found out there were other, I talked to other people who'd lived in the house before her. They told the same story. They all pointed to the same guy.

Tim Nealon 46:53

Yeah.

Troy Taylor 46:53

Historically speaking, we just proved our houses on it. Can't do that with science. I could not have done that with science. I could not have asked that guy to show up there and so that we could, you know, record him, film him, and you know, uh make contact with him each night when he'd show up, and yet he just kept coming back. That's what that require. Not gonna happen.

Tim Nealon 47:15

So I mean, on one hand, the the answer to my question, if if there even is one, might be kind of obvious, but on the other hand, not so much. Why do you think we're obsessed with proving that this stuff is real? Like, why do you think that that all like all like I have to, I you know, we we're gonna prove that they're real. We have to prove ghosts are real. Like, why do we care?

Troy Taylor 47:32

Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I because I that's not it, that's one of those things that I I I don't I know the experiences I've had. Can I prove them to anybody? No. Um, but I don't feel like I need to, you know. Um, I like to write about them, but yeah, it is one of those things where people are desperate to prove that they're real because they're trying to make they're trying to make it so that their hobby uh is worthwhile, I think. If I can prove that it's real, then I haven't wasted all this time. Well, it's not a waste of time because think of the experiences that you've had, you know. But my goal is to prove it. Well, I know, but that's not that shouldn't be your main goal. Your main goal should be prove it to yourself. And if you've already done that, you've answered your own questions, you know. Um, you're never gonna be able to convince someone who does not believe in ghosts until they've had an experience themselves. You can't just convince people by telling them about it. It doesn't work that way.

Tim Nealon 48:29

Well, the other thing to me, it's like, okay, let's say, let's say we do one day prove that they're real, which I actually agree with you. I don't think we're going to. Um, what is what does that actually change? In my mind, it's like it doesn't change anything, right?

Troy Taylor 48:41

Yeah. I mean, why can't we why can't we look at ghosts the same way that we look at um our our own, I soul is too a religious of a word to use, but uh our own personalities. You know, we say that that ghosts are personalities of people who died, and now that personality is floating out there. And yet people go, oh, that can't be real. You know, we oh, we just go here when we die. Okay, but you you kind of prove my point because you believe there's no tangible scientific proof that we have a personality or a soul. There's nothing that makes us, scientifically speaking, different from everyone else. It's just some kind of energy that's in us. Everybody has it, but everyone's is different. So if that's real and we've never proved it, why can't ghosts be real? We don't need to prove it. We don't need to prove it. You know, there's no need to prove it if we don't have to prove we all have our own personality. And I think we accept that we all do. Even scientists who are skeptics will say, okay, yeah, that's you know, sure, we're all different. It's not that hard. Yeah, you know, why do we have to make it so complicated?

Tim Nealon 49:52

Yeah, I I gave up on the, you know, because I'll be honest when I first got into you know paranormal investigating and ghosts, like I had that mindset, like, how do we prove these are real? Um, but over the years, I just realized like I don't give a shit. Like, I I just I enjoyed, you know, like I just enjoy, you know, and like I said, I don't get to do it very often anymore. Just just going out and you know, it's almost for me anymore, it's almost like making a connection with something. It's not about proving anything anymore.

Troy Taylor 50:16

It's just, you know, it's going to the place and experiencing the place for me. It really is. And you know, if I have some kind of ghostly experience while I'm there, great, but I'm not gonna have it carrying around some kind of meter that beeps. That's to me, that just puts that between me and the experience. That's just one more thing I've got to deal with, you know.

Tim Nealon 50:38

Oh, that's yeah, that's absolutely true. So years ago, Ghost City used to do these ghost hunts. We would rent famous haunted locations across the country, people would fly in and and and I understood why. So I I wasn't gonna give these people any shit. But one of the first things they would ask when they got there, it wasn't the history, it wasn't you know this stuff. It's like, hey, what kind of gear did you guys bring for us to use? Right. And like inside, I died a little bit every time somebody asked that question because and we did have lots of gear too, by the way, because at the end of the day, we were there to provide an experience and oh yeah, no, I get it.

Troy Taylor 51:09

No, I I'm with you.

Tim Nealon 51:10

Yeah, but but what was funny is that you know, without going into like super logistics, we didn't just let these people roam around the user band in prisons by themselves. We had people with them. There were so many times where we were in, you know, let's say um the reformatory in Mansfield or some really awesome haunted location. I don't have any devices on me, and I'll see a shadow person just walk right in front of us, and nobody else saw it because what are they doing? They're looking down at the end. Yeah, yeah, and I'm like, you just miss the entire experience. I know. Like it and I to so now if I ever you know go out and and do this, the only thing I have with me anymore is just a voice recorder and headphones. That way I can listen. That that's it. Like, that's all I do.

Troy Taylor 51:53

Yeah, that's enough. I I think because I'll I'll get people who'll say, Well, we're gonna go do this, but you know, what kind of stuff should we bring? And I said, Well, you should bring a camera because you're gonna want to have cool memories of it, you know, and you can use your phone if you want. But yeah, I would bring a recorder, you know, a microphone and some headphones, maybe, because you might pick something up. But otherwise, just be yourself, just juice yourself. You're you're gonna have your own experience. And you know, you being able to record it is gonna be you remembering what happened to you. You know, it's gonna be from those pictures that you take and the things that you do when you're there that's gonna create your experience. It's not gonna be gadgets and gizmos, it's just not, you know. So yeah, I'm I'm with you on that.

Tim Nealon 52:38

Well, I I think you know, most people over time they kind of evolve, you know, from the time that they got into it, you know, to you know, I've I've been going out for shit, 25 years now? Has it really been that long? Holy fuck. Um, you know, and and um uh but with you, like so what are some beliefs that you have now about ghosts that that maybe you didn't have when you first started? Like all

Residual Hauntings And Smart Spirits

Tim Nealon 52:59

these years of experience, like what have you kind of come up with that maybe or your even opinions that have changed of yours from when you started until now?

Troy Taylor 53:06

Um my my opinions have probably changed some. I I do think that the majority of places that are haunted, and I don't think this is anything new and or groundbreaking by any means. It's just that I came up with it in like 1995, where I decided that, you know, I think that most of the hauntings that we hear about are is just energy left behind. It's just a residual thing, you know. It's just, you know, it's it's history that's taken place that's left an impression on that atmosphere. And it's more, it's more atmospheric and physical, you know, to that location, whether it's the rocks or the water under the ground or whatever, that's left an impression behind. You know, when you go to Gettysburg, you know, I mean, out of the hundreds and hundreds of ghost stories there are there, most of them don't involve a lot of people interacting with the ghosts, you know, with with the ghosts, you know, saying, Hey, how are you? You know, uh, you know, that kind of thing, or, you know, whatever, or they just seem to acknowledge them. It's mostly just like watching an old movie. And I think that's kind of one of the things that has, you know, really stuck with me a lot is that that's that makes up it's it's is it supernatural? No, definitely paranormal because we don't understand how that works, but I do think it is more that than anything. Now, do I think there are ghosts that that have a conscience that have stayed behind? Yeah, because I think there have been enough reliable things that have happened um for myself and for others, you know, who are legit people, you know, who have had, you know, encounters with something that have interacted with them. You know, do I think that a lot of spirit communications that come through are active? Yeah. Do I think a lot of them are still that residual stuff? Yes. But when people are asking direct questions, you know, um, when they, you know, that that Estes method thing is one of those things that really sold me on the spirit community because I got out of that because I thought, well, there's too many, too many things. I mean, somebody just plays something for me. How do I know where they recorded that? You know what I mean? I mean, you could record it anywhere and then just play it. But remember in the back in the day, and you're not as old as I am, but back in the day where there were websites that were nothing but people's EVPs. Oh, yeah. And I'm thinking, they can remember that. What if I just recorded this in their bathroom? I don't what is the point here? You know, what is the point to this? But you know, when you're actually there and somebody's got a blindfolded headphones on and can't hear a word that you're saying, they can only hear what's coming through the spirit box, and you're asking questions and they're answering them, that'll give you a chill, man. It does because, and I've seen it uh repeatedly happen. Um, that's that's impressive to me. You know, that's that's the kind of ghost hunting that I I still have an interest in. And it's not just, you know, I love to go to the places and experience them, but to me, that's that's really trying to come up with an experience because I don't have a good explanation for that one. I can give you one for most things, but that's a tough one, you know. That's a tough one for me.

Tim Nealon 56:14

We should actually do that here in the office.

Troy Taylor 56:15

Like, because there's there's a yeah, there's supposed to be ghosts in the fun to experiment with, you know, even if even if nothing happens, it's kind of fun to try it out.

Tim Nealon 56:24

You know, the the idea of the almost being different versions of ghosts has always intrigued me. You know, like you mentioned the idea of like residual energy, but then the ones that have a seem to have a conscious and an intelligence, like those are the interesting ones to me. And those are the ones that are answering, you know, direct questions in those EVP sessions and stuff like that. But but you know, one of the one of the biggest signs that I've seen over the past like maybe four years that I really do think uh ghosts are intelligent. So I I'm married, and you know, when my wife moved in with me, at first she was really freaked out by the ghost thing, and now she's not so much anymore, because you know, we we have ghosts there too. But to me, one of the biggest signs that ghosts are intelligent is that they're always grabbing her ass. And and like like like I'm I know that sounds funny, but it like really a ghost stories that's you pretending like it's a ghost.

Troy Taylor 57:13

No, no, no.

Tim Nealon 57:14

Like, I mean, I I I grab her ass every now and then too. But like, but every once in a while she'll be like, something just grab you know, she's in the kitchen, something just grab my ass. Then I'm like, I'm like, that's how I know that they know what they're doing. Because if I was a ghost, that's what I'd be doing. Exactly. Yeah, I'd be like, that's a nice ass.

Troy Taylor 57:28

I mean, that's the kind of thing I've got planned before the afterlife.

Tim Nealon 57:31

That just made me sound like I'm a guy that runs around and grabbing nice asses. I only do that with my wife. Like it's like it's just my wife, I swear. Um but yeah, I'd be like, oh, that that ghost really thought that out. Like, you know. Yeah, yeah. I get it. Um right. So you know, turning toward turning your uh attention or turning our attention to you know what you're working on now. You said that you're you're getting ready to release book number, what was it, 158 or something?

Troy Taylor 57:56

Or yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's coming out next month. So yeah, it's um the the next book is is one of those books where um I, you know, I I've I've spent a lot of my writing career uh for the last probably 25 years or so. I ended up researching one, well, I mean more than one story, but there was one that I really stuck with. And that was the Exorcism in St. Louis in 1949 that would inspire the Exorcist, the film, and the movie. And I spent years and years on this thing. I mean, interviewed everybody who was still alive, you know, trying to get to the bottom of the story because it heard so many things. And I mean, I even interviewed the the guy who was, you know, the the possessed boy who was under a pseudonym for, you know, 70 years, you know. Um, so I really just wanted to get to the bottom of the story. And I wanted to decide if I really thought that there were a lot of these hauntings that could be mistaken for demonic possession and you know, all of these things that people talk about demons, demons, demons, demons, I get tired of hearing about demons.

Tim Nealon 59:06

Yeah, me too.

Troy Taylor 59:06

Um, and I I think that I think that the whole concept of it is is silly. Um, only because I just I don't think, you know, we we've got you know churches telling us what demons are when we've got stories of things that date back thousands of years before these churches existed. So they your demons, right? You know, it's just something's already been around. It's a nasty spirit of sin. They're dead. So I put together a book of um the it's sinister hauntings and poltergeists and things that have all been blamed on demons. And um, it was really stories breaking down the ones that I thought were legitimate and the ones that weren't, uh, ones that were mistakes, the ones that weren't, you know. Um, there's uh, you know, a whole chapter that debunks a lot of stories, and then there's an awful lot of stories that I don't have easy explanations for, you know, and um it was a fun book to write.

Tim Nealon 1:00:06

Yeah, I was

Demons TV Ratings And Fake Evidence

Tim Nealon 1:00:07

the whole demon thing bothers me too. We I actually just I think the podcast released just yesterday or something. We we went into demons with uh Angela. Um and what one of the points that I was making, it's like I I I believe that there's something out there that you know we don't understand and it seems to be a little bit more negative. You know, in all my years of uh paranormal investigation, I I I ran into one and one alone that where I'm like, okay, this is not like a normal that was a nasty thing, but yeah, yeah, but like like I was bringing up in that you want to hear they're you'll hear they're everywhere, you know.

Troy Taylor 1:00:40

And I I swear that's all people who come from New England, right? They love their demons up, and so it's just sort of spread by those people, they've carried it like a plague. Um, you know, we we can go back, blame the Puritans, and then blame it on all their descendants, uh, because that's where all the demon stories come from. So I've that I've learned.

Tim Nealon 1:01:02

Well, the problem that I have with them, and and you know, uh I think this goes back to or this really illustrates just how egotistical human beings really can be. And you know, it was one of the things I brought up in the previous podcast was people say, like, you know, this is a demon, you know, they're very powerful, they can do all these things, they can ruin your life. Oh, but we're gonna put a ring of salt around a box and it can't get out. I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? Like, like right, like you're kidding. I know you're telling me that this is like this, you know, next to God and angels, it's the most powerful thing. And and but you know, some Morton's salt will take care of it. Like, yeah, really, like, come on. Um, I know, but but I do believe that there's something out there that or things out there that are that are negative. Because this one that I that that I had an encounter with, it was definitely it was definitely neutral. You know, too. But do I think that they come from hell and they're sent here to destroy humanity? I mean, one, I don't think humanity needs demons' help. Um uh no, I think we're doing just fine on our own. So go ahead. But uh but that goes back to what we were talking about earlier, the uh the idea of these ghost hunting shows, and you know, I don't want to you know uh make fun of any of them, but everybody knows who I'm talking about, like proliferated this idea that you know there's like everywhere there's a demon. Yeah, it's always a demon, and you know, I'm on the verge of being possessed and you know, all these other things. Yeah.

Troy Taylor 1:02:21

I mean, I I think that in some ways uh people use it as a shorthand kind of thing for, you know, oh it's a you know, it's a malicious, it's a malicious ghost, it's just the malevolent haunting, but stop using demons because they're not demons, you know. Um, but I think that that's again, that just goes back right back to what I said about TV shows. You gotta dumb that stuff down because it's gotta get through to people. And so they've got to see something happening at every location and at every time they do something because otherwise the audience is not gonna watch. And that's what it all depends on.

Tim Nealon 1:02:54

Well, we we've had a number of you know, people who've been on TV shows, whether it was ghost hunting or you know, other TV shows that are, you know, in this uh genre. And you know, after we hit record or after we stop recording, you know, sometimes we'll talk to them a little bit more. And um, quite a few of them are quite open, though, like, you know, and of course, and and I do believe them when they say this, by the way, because the we try to interview only reputable good people, but they'll be like, you know, the number the number of times that the network tried to force us to fake this or fake that, you know, whether it was ghosts or yeah, you know, big photos.

Troy Taylor 1:03:27

Oh, yeah, I hear that all the time too. Yeah, and I have had the same experience. Yeah. I mean, I I've done uh numerous documentaries on it, including on that St. Louis exorcism. And um I did I did one show that they did for that uh shock docs, and they were talking about this um part of the story that I know for a fact isn't true, and I have all the details and the records that say it isn't true. And I told them, listen, I I'm not gonna, I'm not saying this, I'm not gonna do it because I know it's not true, and I'm telling you, here's the documentation. Well, the network wants it in. And I said, Well, somebody else is gonna have to talk about it because it's not gonna be me. So you don't see me at all during that segment. And I did um a show that I'm not allowed to talk about yet, but it will be coming out, and it's a decent show. Um, and it's hosted by a guy who um played a very famous ghost bustering type guy. Okay. Um anyway, yeah. Anyway, so they did a segment on that story and they sent it to me, the talking points with all the wrong stuff. And I said, Okay, you're gonna have to find somebody else to do this one. Because if this is what you guys want in, I'm not doing it. And they said, No, no, no, no. If this is wrong, you need to tell us what's wrong. So I sent them a copy of the book and they completely rewrote all the talking points. And I said, I will work with you guys forever. So will you you call me, I'll be there. Uh, because that's the first time that I've ever had this happen. So I think that maybe things are starting to turn around. That maybe some well, look at it this way. How many ghost hunting shows are there on TV right now? Almost none. Like one. Because people are sick. Yeah. People are sick and tired of the nonsense. And so, you know, I don't, I've always said I'm not, I'm not gonna even gonna be in any of those shows where I've got to wander around in the dark going dude, what is that? I'm not doing any of that stuff. I will do your history shows, I'll do your true crime shows, I'll do your paranormal stuff, but it's got to be the history part of it. So I think people are starting to come around, I really do. Um, to uh, you know, audiences even are are now more open to the idea of wanting something real. So that's my opinion. And I may be giving TV people way too much credit, but the producers I work with are cool.

Tim Nealon 1:05:52

So yeah, yeah, even about 10 years ago, and I'm not gonna name the show because it's still in the air. Um it and it's not even a good Ghost haunting show necessarily. It's it's one more about you know exploring the world and and all this kind of stuff. Okay. And and they reached out to Ghost City Tours, and then eventually me, they were gonna film an episode in Savannah. And they wanted to focus on the ghosts and the hauntings and the history. And what they really wanted to focus on was the revolutionary war history of Savannah. And honestly, this was uh I mean, up until this that point, this might have been one of the most disappointing things that happened to me because one, I had a lot of respect for the show and the the person that was the host, and the the idea of you know revolutionary war history in Savannah meant a lot to me. I it's not just the Civil War I'm into, I love revolutionary war history too. So I got excited. I'm like, holy crap, not only am I being you know invited to be a part of this show that's that's very well known, but it's right up my alley, it's all these things. Yeah. I worked with the producers for probably about four months to help put like you know, because they're coming to you for ideas almost like a fixer, like, hey, like you're the you're the guy on the ground, help us do this. We put a lot of work into it, and very similar to what you just described a minute ago, at the very last minute they came back and said, Hey, all this is great, but here's what we really need you to do. And it was not based in reality anymore. And that's when it was like I was conflicted, I'll be honest. There was a part of me that, you know, 10 years ago, you know, I was like, fuck it. Like maybe I should just go along with it, and you know, because I, you know, it might be fun and all this other stuff, but I ended up not doing it. And I don't want to pretend that I'm like some uh hero for doing so, because I'll be honest, at the time I was I almost went along with it. Yeah, like yeah, I was like, you know, this would be great for the company and all this stuff, but at the end of the day, yeah, yeah, that's that's the thing, you weigh it out.

Troy Taylor 1:07:39

Yeah, you know, do I go along with this and and know that it's good notoriety, it's good for business, or do I, you know, not go along with it? And then when it comes around, people can say, Oh, well, you know, at least he didn't fake it, you know, at least he didn't lie, you know. Um, so you gotta wonder, you know, what is it worth to you? Is it you know, is it worth selling your soul for, so to speak? You know, just to be on TV kind of things. And you know, I my decision has been over the years, no, it's not. And so while I still do stuff, you know, I'm sure I could have done a lot more if I had just sold your soul out, yeah, you know, but I just didn't want to. Yeah, you know, I just didn't want to. Yeah, yeah, and the most disappointing is just not worth it.

Tim Nealon 1:08:24

The most disappointing part for me actually was I found um not that I like found them, they were already found. I just found the references to them and the maps and stuff, but shipwrecks from the Revolutionary War that were around the Savannah area. Oh and uh I used to be a certified paddy diver. And part of the show was I was gonna get to go scuba diving with this guy down to the shipwrecks. And for me, that was almost like holy shit, like this is gonna be so awesome. And then that's worth yeah, and then they came back with this totally different thing. I'm like, well, fuck, like I can't like and then obviously that's not what we were supposed to do. Yeah, it was so disappointing at the time. But well, well, going back back to to what you're doing today and all the books and

Favorite Books And Writing For Decades

Tim Nealon 1:09:05

stuff. One of the things I'm always curious when I talk to authors, we talked to a good many here. Um God, I know it's like picking your favorite child, but like, do you have a favorite book that of yours that you that you've read or or wrote?

Troy Taylor 1:09:17

I mean, I you know, I I I have to I always have to list uh the devil came to St. Louis because that's about the exorcism, and I spent so much time on it, and it's been through like five editions because I keep adding stuff over time. Um, so I mean, I always have to say it's it's is one of my favorites, and it is one of my favorites. I I loved working on it, it's been a long-term project and I I've enjoyed it. Um, it's not one I want to sit down and reread because I've done it so many times. Right. Um, but yeah, I mean, I've I've got a few that I liked more than others. Um, you know, I I've written, I grew up, you know, I grew up on a farm. So I did a book a few years ago about ghost stories and murders on farms. Um, and that was kind of cool because it was kind of touching back to, you know, growing up. Um, I did one on circuses and carnivals and sideshow history. Uh, not a lot of ghost stories, only a couple, but it was, you know, it's something that I've just been obsessively, you know, in love with my whole life, you know, everything about the carnival and the sideshows and all that stuff. And so those are probably some of my favorites. I mean, I've got others, but you know, uh gosh, I mean, I've just, you know, I just have so many things that I enjoy writing about from Lizzie Borden to Houdini to, you know, and so I just I I write about whatever, whatever I want to write about, but I've got a list that's you know this long of future projects. I'll never run out of things to write about.

Tim Nealon 1:10:49

Oh no, there there's plenty of strange and weird things in the world right now. Yeah. Well, I'm just curious because uh like I'm a be I'm a huge fan of the topic, and and actually the this phenomena, if you want to call it that, occurs in your area of the uh woods as well. Have

Bigfoot Without The UFO Baggage

Tim Nealon 1:11:03

you ever dived into like Bigfoot or cryptids or anything like that?

Troy Taylor 1:11:06

Or not a whole lot. Um, I the problem here's the problem. Um I love that stuff. Yeah, I love it. I love Bigfoot, Mothman, all that stuff, but I don't ever really take it seriously. It's not that I think it's not it couldn't be real, right? It's just that all the fun got sucked out of it when it became, you know, Bigfoot driving a UFO and you know, being so coming from different dimensions and all that. I'm like, why can't he just be this big hairy dude, some part of history left behind, living out in the forest somewhere, and people encounter him sometimes. That's to me, that's Bigfoot.

Tim Nealon 1:11:47

First of all, Troy, thank you. Thank you. Like thank you.

Troy Taylor 1:11:52

Because like I mean, I just it's like not for me.

Tim Nealon 1:11:56

So uh I I'm actually a Bigfoot believer. We're actually, you know, we're getting Yeah, no, me too. Me too. We're getting ready to to actually go out to Oregon in a first in a couple weeks and we're gonna start filming our first documentary, and it's actually about Bigfoot, but we're approaching it from we're approaching it from a very different perspective than at least any Bigfoot documentary I'm aware of, you know, because yeah, like this, like you said, the and I and I want to be respectful because at the end of the day, people's experiences are their experiences. And I wasn't there. Yeah, but when I hear stuff like, you know, well, I saw a Bigfoot walking across a field and all of a sudden it turned on its visibility cloaked and got sucked into another dimension. Like in my head, I'm like, I know, like, I don't want to make fun of them because once again I wasn't there, but I'm like, are you fucking why?

Troy Taylor 1:12:40

Like, like, I know come on. But see, yeah, and then you you try to sell that to somebody and say, you know, it's just like, you know, well, do I have to prove that ghosts exist? But you don't have to prove that Bigfoot exists, but you can at least, you know, tell people about it and not sound like, you know, you need to be locked up, you know, um, because that that that's the kind of stuff that I just don't get um with all of these kinds of things, you know, with all of these out-of-place creatures that show up in places they shouldn't, and you know, these cryptids that look, I mean, I am totally on board with the idea that there is a hell of a lot of stuff out there that we have never seen. And no matter how much we think we've explored, there's still an awful lot of open space out there. And, you know, I always laugh when I see like a t-shirt that has Bigfoot on it says hide and go seek champ, you know, for since 1957 or something. It's that's hilarious and and and accurate in my book. That's accurate, you know. I think that's what we're talking about here. And so I do love this stuff, but I don't get into it because I don't really write about it much, just because I can't take it, you know. I want to have fun with it. You know, I don't want it to be this dry scientific thing, I want it to be cool. So I'm looking at it as a guy who's like a carnival sideshow barker, and I want Bigfoot so I can, you know, get him to hang out and, you know, and and talk to people or just whatever, you know. It it's just, I just I don't know. I I do love that stuff, but I don't take it very seriously. I just have fun with it. So yeah, but it is fun, I have to admit. Maybe, maybe it would be a fresh change of pace if I did a book about how much fun I think these things are instead of scientific, you know.

Tim Nealon 1:14:26

Well, I so actually that that might actually be a very interesting read because kind of what we were talking about a little bit ago, it's you know, a lot of people think they're being scientific and think they're you know making scientific progress or whatever. I mean, unless there's something that I'm unaware of, there has been exactly zero scientific progress made in the world of ghost hunting, for example. Yeah, like Bigfootery. Yeah, none. I mean, well, well, well, Bigfoot, I think that uh I don't I don't want to use the word science because that that that's crossing a boundary. But I do think with Bigfoot, there's been more uh evidence coming out that strongly suggests that this creature could be real. And I and I do think it's real. You know, in that world, yeah, could be real. Yeah, me too. Um yeah, and and I actually think when it comes to science, science is is what is needed to to prove that Bigfoot's real.

Troy Taylor 1:15:14

But until but until you catch one or actually find the body of one, science is never gonna take it seriously. They're just not.

Tim Nealon 1:15:21

Yeah, we yeah, my um just not. My wife and I were watching a show last night, and you know, in preparation for our going up there and filming the documentary, like I've been consuming all kind of Bigfoot material because mostly because I want to not do whatever the hell's already been done. So, you know, like because you know, and there's been some good ones, but you know, and one of them was this guy that was like, you know, oh I had Bigfoot in the in my rifle scope, and you know, I almost shot it, you know. And of course they were in Louisiana, um go Louisiana. Um, but you know, like but she asked me, she's like, you know, if if you had one in in your scope, would you be able to shoot it? I'm like, I don't think I could. But then I but then I but then I also said, but but the unfortunate side of the this is that I do believe that's the only thing that's gonna convince anybody that doesn't already believe they're real, they're real, because we can go collect you know a thousand more footprints or hair samples or maybe even DNA. Sure. Which by the way, there's DNA out there that you gotta be careful because some people say we found Bigfoot DNA, but that can't be true because we don't have well, it's not true because we don't have anything to compare it to. Like you can get you can get rhino DNA. Yeah, and we can say we know that's a rhino because we already have rhino DNA. But there's rhinos, but there has been DNA collected where they're like, like, we don't really know what this is. Like, could it be Sasquatch Bigfoot? Like, we don't know because we don't have anything to compare it to. Yeah, um, yeah, I think in a way that that that's also why I've been putting a lot more time behind Bigfoot instead of ghosts recently, too, because it feels a little bit more tangible. Like it feels like something that, you know, it's gonna take a lot of work and a lot of luck, but I think that that's something that could actually be proven. Whereas ghosts are always gonna be this ambiguous, like we don't really understand.

Troy Taylor 1:17:07

Right, they're always gonna be this ethereal, you know, non-tangible thing. Yeah, right. Where hey, Bigfoot just might show up at your camp someday, you know, and decide to sit down for breakfast. You never know. So, you know, if he's like Harry and the Henderson's or something, though, but that's that's the Bigfoot I want.

Tim Nealon 1:17:28

Me too, because I don't have any friends. So I'm like, I can't. I have a hard time making friends. So in my head, I'm like, man.

Troy Taylor 1:17:34

Somebody you can hang out with.

Tim Nealon 1:17:35

Yeah, like these guys don't know, but really what we're doing to going to Oregon for is I'm gonna trap one, I'm gonna make him like me, and then he's gonna come back and like help me with chores and like be my friend. We we do need another editor, so if Oh yeah, we could train we could totally train train him up, yeah. Um but we're it but it it's a pretty exciting topic. But yeah, I I know they're up in your neck of the woods a little bit too. You hear stories from Illinois and Missouri and all that kind of stuff.

What Troy Does Next

Tim Nealon 1:17:59

But um, so so what's the future hold for you, Troy? I mean, you wrote 158 books, which by the way, I did the math in my head. So you've been writing books for roughly 30 years, and 150 books. That's like that's like a book every other month for the past 30 years.

Troy Taylor 1:18:14

Um, yeah, some some months, some years are heavier than others. Um, I wrote a lot during the pandemic because what else was I gonna do? So, you know, I got a lot of books in those, so that kind of made a jump in my numbers, but uh I'm gonna keep doing what I'm doing, um, you know, making tweaks here and there as things, you know, change as far as you know, business plans do change sometimes. People are looking for something different, so I come up with something new or you know, or go back to something old. It's varies, but you know, my basics are gonna stay the same. I'll keep running the museum, I will keep uh writing books, and I will keep um, you know, uh doing some tours and and doing some presentations and running the conference. And so I don't expect any big changes in my life anytime soon. So the uh the knock on wood.

Tim Nealon 1:19:04

I mean, once once you get to a certain age, no major changes is the best life you can do. Yeah, it's a good thing. Yeah, I don't need major changes.

Troy Taylor 1:19:10

Yeah.

Tim Nealon 1:19:11

So like earlier I was talking about moving, and the way I envision my life is you know, like I love Go City Tours, you know, the company, but like I'll be honest, like I'm fucking tired. Like I've been running this company for a long time, not as long as you've been running yours, but like I know it gets to a point where yeah, I mean, I think we have somewhere between like 500 and 550 employees.

Troy Taylor 1:19:32

Like it's actually like a big company, and it gets to the point where I'm like, God, like Yeah, now yeah, now you're a big company, you're not a small business anymore. That's a big company, yeah.

Tim Nealon 1:19:40

And and and most days I'm like, man, I just want to wake up in the morning, sit on a porch, have my energy drink, watch an elk in my backyard. Like, I don't like I'm getting tired. So like I want to get to a point where, like, you know, the less changes the better. Like, yeah, but then my luck, I'll live to be a hundred and then like, yeah.

Troy Taylor 1:20:01

See, that's the thing. People ask, you know, what do you know, what are you gonna do? Well, it's not like I can retire. Right. So, I mean, you know, there is no retirement in my future. Not that I'd want to anyway, because the hell would I do with myself? I mean, uh, I would be writing books whether I was publishing them or not. I'd still be writing them, so might as well put them out there, you know, um, because it's what I'll always be doing. And that's something I can do, you know, no matter within reason, no matter how old I get, I guess.

Tim Nealon 1:20:27

Well, you're you're also probably one of those guys, the moment you retire, you're gonna die. And I hate to say that. Yes, I that's why I'm not gonna retire. Yeah. Yeah, like because I because I hear those stories all the time, you know. Like, I know me too.

Troy Taylor 1:20:38

You know, I have an uncle who lived it. Yeah, man, that dude worked for the railroad for like 50 years, and all I kept hearing when he was ready, you know, was he was retiring and was moving out to Idaho where his brother lived, couldn't wait, you know, because the rodeos and the the horses and the outdoors and everything. He retired. And I I'm not joking, he was out there in Idaho for a month and a half and dropped dead.

Tim Nealon 1:21:01

Yeah, I hear that.

Troy Taylor 1:21:02

And I thought, man, you know, what kept him alive all those years for the railroad was his plan for retirement. And then once he got it, that was it. And I thought, that's not gonna be me. That's I'm not doing that. So yeah.

Tim Nealon 1:21:16

That's that's how I retain my best employees, by the way. Um guys, like, do you really want to die in two months? Yeah, I think you better keep working for me. Yeah, like you know, I you're you have a family, think about them. Do you really want to like not work for me anymore? Um so the you with all the stuff that you have going on, um, I think the one thing we didn't touch on at all was this conference that you have going

Building A Ghost Conference Community

Tim Nealon 1:21:42

on. So yeah, like like I I know a little bit about it. I you know, because I you know looked it up, you know, years ago. I've I've heard about it off and now, but often often often now. Now and then, Jesus. Now and then, there you go. But so what's the deal with this conference? What are you what are you doing?

Troy Taylor 1:21:58

Well, we we started it in 1997, and at the time there were no other ghost conferences. It's kind of like when I started a tour, I'm like, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I'm just gonna do a tour.

Tim Nealon 1:22:07

Yeah, well, I was gonna say, like you said, as I was gonna say, yeah, you started the ghost tours in like '93, I think you said. And in my mind, as you were saying that, I was like, well, shit, like you might have been one of the first ghost tour companies in existence.

Troy Taylor 1:22:19

Pretty early on. I mean, I think there were a couple of others, but yeah, there wasn't much. Nowhere, nothing in our area at all. But yeah, we were pretty early on. But then we decided to do the ghost conference, and um, and it was just the idea was to get together some. I mean, it was the dawn of the internet, you know. So I had finally been able to communicate with people outside the area, and there were enough people who were interested in what we were doing that we got people to come. And I was shocked that we got people there the first year. And so then I just kept doing it. Um, you know, and we've we've moved into bigger locations, but otherwise, it's pretty much the same conference, the same basic conference. It's not a we don't do a convention, people don't come there, sit at tables, and sign autographs because they were on TV. We don't do any of that kind of stuff. It's a speaker-based event. So everything is built around our speakers and then our our workshops and the after hour, the the contact with the people. We want it to be not just a convention. It's got to be like a nice and like a tagline, but it's got to be like an experience. And so this is our 29th year, uh, would be our 30th, but then, you know, 2020. Um, but it's our 29th year. And um, you know, I've had I've got people who've been coming all 29 years, uh, a couple that passed away, but we have some who've been coming from the very beginning. And it's it's almost like summer camp. I mean, it's people you only see once a year, you know, it's and you know, it's it's 300 people that you always see and 200 people that are maybe coming for the first or second time on top of that. So it's usually around 500 people. Um, and that's that's pretty standard. And, you know, it's um, you know, it's a weekend for everybody to get together and hang out with people with not maybe the same beliefs as you, but similar anyway. You can at least talk about weird stuff without your relatives thinking you're nuts or you know, uh your work your co-workers thinking you're crazy or whatever. Um, so yeah, it's a lot of fun. And um, yeah, I'm looking forward to it coming up at the end end of June again. That's we do it the same time every year. So uh yeah, we'll um, you know, and then when it's over, I get to start working on year 30 because it takes that long to get it all together. But it is fun. Yeah, it's a lot of fun.

Tim Nealon 1:24:38

Every time I hear stories like that, you know, I'm like, you know, I remember my beginning with the internet, you know, like you know, you used it to help build a conference, and like when the internet first came out, you know, I was like 14 and I was just like naked women. Like really right, right, right. And I'm like, man, if I would have just been that 14-year-old who like was productive instead of like, oh, I can see tits from around the world now, um like I would be so far ahead than where I would be right now.

Troy Taylor 1:25:04

Well, no, I wasn't I wasn't 14. Um, so yeah, that's the bad news. But I mean, the good news though is that when I did start, I had a a ghost website, and it was probably like one of like eight on the internet at the time because there was just nothing out there, you know. And so uh that I mean it did change everything as far as everything about the business, you know. And so it it did open up a whole world, you know. I look back sometimes at those. You can get on the way back machine and look at your early, early websites, and you're thinking, oh wow, you know, what in the world, you know? And then, but then you also remember that it was the wild west and how much fun it was, too, you know, where now it's just uh it's all corporate, you know. It's but man, back then it was crazy. It was like the internet was crazy.

Tim Nealon 1:25:54

Yeah, there's what are they Angel Fire websites or what were they called? I don't even remember.

Troy Taylor 1:25:58

Oh, yeah, like Angel Fire. Is that what those were?

Tim Nealon 1:26:00

Yeah, that's what they're called. Yeah. Well, funny enough, my my first company I started when I was 19 and I taught myself web design. And uh everyone, every once in a while, like I'll you know, have a memory, like, oh, like, or somebody will ask me, like, hey, like, you know, when you first start building websites, like uh what were they? And I'll you know, hop on Wayback Machine or whatever, and they're all they're all so fucking embarrassing.

Troy Taylor 1:26:21

Like compared to what I build now, I'm like, God, I can't believe flashing purple things and yeah, yeah green, and yeah, or the music that autoplayed on every creepy website where it's like you know it's like asking people about your MySpace page, you know. So, ooh, what songs did you have on your MySpace page? You know, it's like, oh man.

Tim Nealon 1:26:42

I was I was one of those geeks that figured out how to create a flash, which doesn't even exist anymore, like a flash uh right, and then replace my whole MySpace page with the flash module so that actually the first one I did look like a spaceship dashboard, like you're looking out on space, so you can press the buttons and you know there's things about me and like yeah, yeah.

Troy Taylor 1:27:02

We were all like doing coding and stuff back then, and now you don't need to know anything.

Tim Nealon 1:27:08

So yeah, you don't, yeah, you don't need to know shit. We got AI thinking for us.

AI Images And Trust Problems

Tim Nealon 1:27:12

Yep.

Troy Taylor 1:27:12

Oh yeah, oh god, don't remind me.

Tim Nealon 1:27:14

Yeah, well, AI, I actually think I think um in some ways, you know, for what we do, like the paranormal investigation, I'm sure you use it you know with history and stuff too, because there might be times where you're just like asking Claude or whoever. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Troy Taylor 1:27:27

It's easy, and then but then you got to double check it. Um it does come in handy for things, or what it comes in handy for me for is like I'm doing a presentation and it's about you know some famous, you know, haunting or a murder that happened, and there's literally no images that exist. So you create one and then you tell everybody, hey, listen, this is a real thing, but it looks cool, right? Oh my god.

Tim Nealon 1:27:51

So so you know, we we run you know advertising for Ghost Street Course, and every time we'll, you know, or we'll create an article or something. Yeah. And there There's always that one dick that always has to comment. Oh, you're using AI images. You must be a scam company. And I'm sitting there thinking, motherfucker, we just wrote an article about something that happened in the 1790s. Like I really tried, I really tried to find a photographer to capture the moment, but it turns out we were like 230 years too late. Like yeah, like be a dick.

Troy Taylor 1:28:21

I know. Um yeah, I think for that kind of stuff, I think it's great. I mean, yeah, it was I think as long as it's used responsibly, you know.

Tim Nealon 1:28:29

I don't know, they're just dicks. That's the only way. I and it's always like some pretentious guy from Seattle. Like when you were like somewhere. Yeah, I know. Yeah. But uh no, I I think I think AI is gonna do a lot of good for us. But at the same time, like when it comes to this whole ghost hunting, you know, paranormal investigation world, I actually think it's gonna ruin it because I think that going forward you can't trust anything anymore.

Troy Taylor 1:28:51

No, you can't. That's that's the thing. You can't, you know.

Tim Nealon 1:28:54

Like I've I've seen videos that um and by the way, maybe they're legit. I mean, not that any of these people know who are that I'm talking about them because I don't sure, but um, but in my head, I'm like, you know, like okay, I could see how that could be legit, but I just have to call everything AI going forward. Like even the Bigfoot thing we're talking about. We were talking with uh I think it was Cliff Berrickman. And it was just one of those things. It's like unfortunately, like anything that comes out now is just gonna be anything new. I know that's AI. That's AI, and some of them might be legit. Um just gotta throw it all out now, which kind of sucks. Yeah, um, but at least we got our pretty pictures of the Salem witch trials we can use now. Actually, that's what it was. It was the picture of the Salem Witch trials, and some guy was like, You guys use AI, you suck. I'm like, you fucking idiot. Like, like, how was I supposed to get a picture of that? That right. Like, you guys suck. Stupid. He that's one of those guys he got way too many hugs from his mom growing up. Um like, like, you know, I got a hug when I deserved it, not you know, after every meal. And uh, you know, anyways, it does something to you. Well, well, I don't want to keep you forever, Troy.

Where To Find Troy And Closing

Tim Nealon 1:30:02

We always keep trying to keep these things about an hour and a half, and I think we're some somewhere in there.

Troy Taylor 1:30:06

Just um, yeah, we're right around there. So that's cool.

Tim Nealon 1:30:08

So if people wanted to, you know, I I I'm very certain, you know, finding your books is not gonna be a problem. I imagine they're probably on Amazon, uh, you know, all that kind of stuff as well. But if they wanted to get them directly from you or find out more about what you have going on, your museum, your conference, where could they find Americanhauntings.net.

Troy Taylor 1:30:24

That's the kind of uh will take you to everywhere else because we can't just have one website. So it's gotta be, you know, a half dozen or more. But um, if you go to AmericanHuntings.net, it takes you everywhere. So that's what I recommend.

Tim Nealon 1:30:38

AmericanHuntings.net. Actually, that that site's been around for a while, hasn't it?

Troy Taylor 1:30:43

Yeah, it it originally was prairie ghosts.com. That was yeah, yep. That was the original thing because when I started, it was ghosts of the prairie and I just did the Midwest. And then as it got bigger, I changed it and kept that. Uh, but then so if you still go to that, it'll still direct you to Americanaudience.net. But yeah, that was the name, it was around for a very long time.

Tim Nealon 1:31:05

Yeah, I was gonna say, I I don't want to make up any numbers, but I I remember a long time ago, like I remember that website. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, it's been around a long time. And I'm just guessing, and I could totally be wrong, but did it have did it have like a tan background at one point, maybe?

Troy Taylor 1:31:19

Oh yeah, and it's had lots of stuff over at one point, but it had tan for a long time.

Tim Nealon 1:31:23

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's like that's like kind of like a legend. Like it's it's just been around so long and you know, accumulated so much. So all right. Well, you know, I really appreciate you taking the time to join us today, Troy. And and you know, the audience doesn't know this, but I actually had to cancel on Troy a couple months ago and I felt really bad. But uh, so I'm glad that we were able to finally get you back. No, me too. Me too. Actually, it was a really good conversation. I have a feeling this is gonna be one of those ones where the guy's like, hey Tim, you didn't totally suck this time. Um, like but but I I I really do appreciate you taking the time with us today. And you know, I would love to have you back on the future. Maybe there's you know, if you have something cool come, you know, maybe your next book. Let's bring you back and talk about that book whenever it comes out. Yeah, sounds good. And then every other month, we'll every other month we'll just have you back every time you write a new book. Like I'll look another book. Troy's back. Um, we'll just call it, you know, book book hour uh with with Troy, you know. But anyways, well no, I really do thank you. And uh go enjoy the rest of your day.

Producer 1:32:28

This episode was brought to you by Ghost City Tours, your guide to the haunted side of history in over 25 cities nationwide. From restless spirits to unsolved mysteries, our tours bring the dead back to life. Book now for a haunted city near you at ghostcityurs.com. Be sure to subscribe to the Ghost City Podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, and wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, stay spooky.