Tag Archives: paranormal

The Top Ten Best Fictional Paranormal Shows of All Time

Posted on May 9, 2023 | 14 comments

This isn’t a list of reality shows. Feel like watching something scary this week but don’t want to sit through a two hour movie? I’ve got your back. There’s nothing I enjoy more than being on the edge of my seat. I’m not talking horror or gore. I’m talking pure, can’t take your eyes off the screen, I can’t believe this is happening suspense. Since it’s National Paranormal Month, I got to thinking about the best paranormal TV shows I’ve watched. I’ve watched 8 of the 10 on the list and included the two others on reputation. This is a very subjective list, so if you have other suggestions I’d love to hear them.

Twilight Zone: This may be the original classic suspense paranormal show. I didn’t see it in it’s first run, but saw it later in re-runs. I fly fairly regularly for my job and I’m always tempted to yell ‘There’s a man on the wing!” If you get the reference, in the comments tell me what actor screamed it.

The X-Files: A 90’s classic that returned to the small screen for a limited run a few years ago. It was great in it’s time and improved as it grew in popularity. Not every episode was the perfect cocktail of suspense and disbelief, but it was often enough to make my list.

American Gothic: Maybe I just like this because I have the painting on a tie. Which is more famous, the painting or the show? Who heard of one but not the other? I didn’t see this show, but loved the title and heard others give it high praise. You win 50 points to spend in The Phil Factor gift shop if you can tell me, without looking it up, what artist did the famous painting.

Twilight Zone: This may be the original classic suspense show. I didn’t see it in it’s first run, but saw it later in re-runs. I fly fairly regularly for my job and I’m always tempted to yell ‘There’s a man on the wing!” If you get the reference, in the comments tell me what actor screamed it.

LOST: Apparently I’m stuck in the 90’s. For one glorious season LOST was awesomely suspenseful and mysterious. Then the writers all seemed to lose their minds.

The Walking Dead: There’s just so many. So many zombies. Just the tiniest scratch. Any moment you could become one of them. Your group is getting picked off one by one. There could be one or one hundred around any corner. You just never know.

American Horror Story: I haven’t watched this one. Yet. I plan to, No one else in my family wants to see it, so I have to find some time to watch when no one is around. That’s the best time to watch scary stuff anyway, right? In the picture on the right, that’s the original American Horror Story house that my son and I tracked down while I was in California a few weeks ago.

In Search Of… Leonard Nimoy rest in peace. This was a late 70’s-early 80’s show that was part documentary, part reality show where they tried to debunk paranormal phenomena. As a kid I wanted to watch but it always freaked me out.

Kingdom Hospital: Also known as Stephen King’s Kingdom Hospital. This was a one season series that was based on a Danish show. Look it up on Netflix or Hulu. Completely creepy, suspenseful and weird. I loved it.

Stranger Things: It was a new series in 2016. Season 4 was out this past summer and there will be a season 5. This show set out to capture the aura of those cool, creepy 80’s Stephen King based movies and it succeeded brilliantly.

Twin Peaks: As I said, I recently began re-watching the original series and it stands the test of time. It’s still awesomely creepy and weird. If you were a fan of the show and want to see a funny, hour-long spoof featuring many of the actors and actresses from the original look up the show Psych on Netflix and find the Dual Spires episode in 2010/5th season of the show. After you do that, go back and watch the entire Psych series from season 1. It’s brilliantly funny with a little suspense.

So what did I miss? What would you add to the list and what would you take away? Please give opinions and suggestions. I’d love some good, new or old shows to watch. Have a great Tuesday! ~Phil

14 Comments

Posted in Humor, paranormal

Tagged paranormal, paranormal tv shows, The Phil Factor

An Interview with Real Ghostbusters Part 2

Posted on May 7, 2023 | 5 comments

Who remembers what movie those ghosts are from? It’s one of my favorite paranormal movies. If you haven’t read Part 1 of my interview with the paranormal investigators from the Monroe County Paranormal Investigations, scroll back and read that too. These guys are interesting and funny.

Me: What was the funniest thing that ever happened during an investigation?

Rob: “The bed” is probably the funniest. So we’re investigating this house in the city. I am not a little person.

Brian: Neither am I.

Rob: Brian and I together; not little people. We’re investigating this home. We have two brand new investigators working together downstairs. We’re upstairs. I’m sitting on a bed, and I say, “Brian, come over here and look at this. You’ll see how the light is reflecting.” He sits on the bed and the bed collapses.

Brian: Not quietly! Baboom!

Rob: There’s a huge crash and between the two of us there’s 140 pounds of humanity. It lands on the floor. The two brand new investigators were downstairs and the homeowner says, “What was that?”

Brian: I was on the floor crying, laughing thinking “Oh my God. What are we gonna do?” One of the new investigators yells up the stairs “Are you ok?”

Rob: Do you know how hard it is to yell “We’re ok” while you’re laughing?

Later the whole team talked a lot about feeling evil in the air when they enter some haunted places. All four of them indicated that at one time or another they had felt something, an energy upon entering a structure or room that had made them emotionally upset or fearful.

Rob: It was an explosion of energy in that one location. It was such an emotional intense event that I didn’t sleep for a week. I slept maybe ten minutes at a stretch and every time I closed my eyes I would wake up and I would swear my hands were covered in blood and there were police cars in my driveway coming to get me. I texted Stacey and I said “I don’t know what any of this means, but there’s a rose colored heart, there’s an egg, somebody painted the word love, and there’s a motorcycle. I don’t know what any of that means.”

Stacey: So I was doing research on the case Rob is referring to. I wanted to know more and know where the person was buried. I went to the cemetery. The stone was rose colored, and there was her face.

Rob: It was an old picture and it had faded so it was just an oval egg. The guy behind her stone was a biker so he had put a Harley Davidson little thing on top of his gravestone.

Stacey: Then there was a little plaque that said “love” in white.

Brian: The only kind of advice that I’ll typically give to people, if you have activity in your home is this. Imagine, if you’re dead and don’t know, if somebody comes into their home, you’re going to be like “Hey! Hello? What are you doing here?” And they’re not hearing or responding to you, you’re going to make noise, Smack, bang bang bang, right?

What if instead, when you get home you said, “Hey, thanks for watching the house for us today”? You just acknowledge them. It is amazing how many times that when we tell people to do that, everything quiets down.”

Me: I agree with that last piece of advice. It’s what I did in my last house. After moving in there were often sounds of footsteps upstairs when no one was there. Other times there were unidentifiable noises. A couple times I smelled cigarette smoke when no one had smoked in the house. So I began greeting the spirits each time I returned, and the mysterious noises eventually disappeared.

There’s so much more they said that I could go on a few more pages. I sincerely want to thank everyone at M.C.P.I. for enduring my questions and allowing me to accompany them on a ghost hunt two days later. If you want to hear how that went, come back on Tuesday!

Have a great Sunday! ~Phil

5 Comments

Posted in ghosts, paranormal

Tagged ghost, paranormal, paranormal interview, The Phil Factor

An Interview with Real Ghostbusters: Part 1

Posted on May 6, 2023 | 2 comments

Happy Paranormal Month! Here’s Part 1 of my interview with some real ghost hunters. To be fair, I’ll say that they are not ghostbusters or ghost hunters. They are Paranormal Investigators, and I was fortunate to spend some time with them.

The gentlemen in question are not all gentlemen. There are some ladies that like to get spooky too. About a week and a half ago I went to a presentation by the members of the Monroe County Paranormal Investigations. The MCPI is a not-for-profit organization. When a home or business owner calls them to request an investigation they will not be charged a penny. To me, that gives this organization credibility. They do what they do for the mystery and science of it. As an organization, they have done investigations in over one thousand homes and businesses. Below are my questions and their answers edited for length.

Me: Do you ever disagree about what you’ve seen, heard, or experienced?

Rob: “Every. Single. Investigation.”

Brian: Yep. The one with the football thing; we almost had a knock-down, drag-out over that. I’m just like Nope. Nope.”

Rob: “He was convinced that because it was only moving, the little lights on the wall were only moving that much, that it wasn’t movement. But that much is movement! If it moves that much it’s moving!”

Brian: But I was arguing that the thing is this big and it’s only moving such a…”

Rob: Movement is movement! It moved Jerry! (Seinfeld reference. If you get it, you win 50 Phil Factor dollars to spend in the gift shop on the way out)

Picture courtesy of Live Science

Me: Has there ever been a time when you were emotionally moved by an encounter?

Rob: Brian and I were called to a case. Healthy 27 year old people die. It sucks. We went out, we sat down for over three hours. We investigated for maybe 20 minutes. For the other two hours and forty minutes we listened to this woman’s story. Her 27 y.o. daughter went to a doctors appointment on Thursday, was given a clean bill of health. She was dead on Saturday. The only thing that happened was on Friday, her husband, who was in the military had come home. They knew that the husband was both verbally and physically abusive. So they attributed that to what happened.

Brian: The girls mother was insistent, obsessed.

Rob: Because of this, she had lost her job, alienated her husband, and basically made her other younger daughter feel like she was completely invisible because she became obsessed. There was an autopsy done. Natural causes. There was nothing founded. There was a second autopsy, same result. The state reviewed the autopsy and found nothing different. She got so obsessed that she was collecting cans and bottles to come up with $5000 for a renowned expert to do another autopsy. We got so emotionally involved in that case that Brian has actually been to the cemetery with flowers for the young ladies grave.

Brian: The mother, I think we’re kind of painting her in a negative light. She was a sweetheart. Her grief had driven her to do all this stuff. As paranormal investigators, there’s a lot of grief that we deal with. A lot of times what we do ends up being counseling. Sometimes there may not be anything going on in their home. They just want there to be.

Rob: Do you think people want to be haunted? Of course. You had an argument with someone and they pass away and you didn’t get a chance to resolve the argument.

Phil speaking to my readers: There is plenty more to the interview. Part 2 will post on tomorrow. I found that last story about the grieving woman surprising and fascinating. You never see that side of paranormal investigations on the ghost hunting TV shows. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments. In the coming week I will post my story about going on a ghost hunt with these guys.

Thanks for reading! ~Phil

2 Comments

Posted in ghosts

Tagged ghosts, paranormal, The Phil Factor

Paranormal Day? Not on My Watch!

Posted on May 1, 2023 | 9 comments

I’d spend the night here. Would you?

Based on my poll from last week, most of my readers are interested in reading more about the paranormal. The paranormal is a wide ranging subject that includes witchcraft, tarot reading, ghosts, psychic skills and UFO’s/aliens. If there are other things that you’d qualify as paranormal, please add them in the comments and I’ll make sure to hit on them this month.

I know that May 3rd is the official government sanctioned Paranormal Day in the United States, but dammit, one day to celebrate all of the weird, spooky, and unexplainable things in our world is not enough. So, although I am not yet elected President or Sexiest Man Alive, I, Phil, do hereby declare the month of May to be Paranormal Month, and shall be celebrated as such to the end of time.

So, to start the awesome month of May off, I’ll tell you about a paranormal themed holiday that you’ve probably never heard of. Last night, the last day of April going into May, the eve of May Day is known as Walpurgis Night, Walpurgis Nacht in Germany (Sprechen sie Deutsch?). The eve of May Day is the night on which witches are believed to be riding to an appointed rendezvous. (To me, anyone who can confidently spell rendezvous without spellchecking is paranormal). It’s like a girls trip for witches! Although, lets not get too gender specific because dudes can also be witches, except witchy dudes are called Warlocks, which is a pretty damn cool title, right?

This is not at all super creepy, right?

It is not a singular holiday. In other parts of the world it is called Beltane and is celebrated with massive bonfires. Beltane and other festivals are celebrating the coming of Spring. The celebrations however have a certain wiccan-witch type vibe, especially when they’re burning a giant effigy of a person like that pic above. Or maybe dancing around like the couple below:

Yep, this isn’t creepy at all, right?

If you’ve been to one of these celebrations, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below. Suffice it to say, if you and I have woken up this Monday morning and haven’t found ourselves cursed in any way, then we have survived one of the world’s most interesting holidays and we can go ahead and enjoy the April rain that we have in much of the northeast. Stay tuned, more and even weirder/interesting blog posts are on their way through the rest of Paranormal Month!

Thanks for reading me today! ~Phil

9 Comments

Posted in paranormal

Tagged Beltane, May Day, paranormal, The Phil Factor, The Phil Factor #ThePhilFactor, Walpurgis Nacht, Walpurgis Night, witches

Is Walled Lake, Michigan Cursed?

Posted on March 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

Four children were murdered in Oakland County, Michigan in 1976-1977. The small rural county was paralyzed with fear as a killer preyed upon their children. Folklore has it that in the 1970’s The Walled Lake Killer would kidnap children from the Walled Lake Amusement park pictured above.

He or she then allegedly took the children to the tree at night, where he murdered them, tossed their shoes up in the tree, and buried them in a nearby field. The tale is purportedly an urban legend, but the fact remains that there was a shoe tree and the four deaths have never been solved. The killer was never captured. Perhaps he or she moved on to another town.

The previous two paragraphs above were written by me in November of 2013 as I teased the upcoming release of my fictional book The Sneaker Tree.

If you like Stranger Things, you’ll love this weekend beach read book.

The book isn’t about the deaths in Michigan, but the history of Walled Lake, Michigan had some eerie similarities with the plot of my book.

Walled Lake looks like a beautiful place doesn’t it?

Walled Lake was founded in 1825. The sleepy, little town is a western suburb of big city Detroit. In 2010 it’s census revealed less than 7,000 residents and the crime rates are relatively low.

This past September another tragedy rocked this lake town. A Walled Lake man shot his wife, daughter and dog before being shot to death by police. His daughter was the only survivor. Since that day I’ve noticed a fair amount of traffic coming to The Phil Factor to read my 2013 post about sneaker trees and The Walled Lake Killer. That got me to wondering if other people were thinking the same thing as me?

With these two horrific tragedies having occurred in the same small town, I started to wonder if it’s possible that Walled Lake Michigan is cursed just like Hawkins, Indiana in Netflix’s Stranger Things? What do you think? Can a place be cursed or forever haunted?

Have a great Fri-Yay! ~Phil

#PHIL2024

Interview with the Real Ghostbusters: Part 2

Posted on May 5, 2022 | Leave a comment

Me: What was the funniest thing that ever happened during an investigation?

Rob: “The bed” is probably the funniest. So we’re investigating this house in the city. I am not a little person.

Brian: Neither am I.

Brian: Not quietly! Baboom!

Brian: I was on the floor crying, laughing thinking “Oh my God. What are we gonna do?” One of the new investigators yells up the stairs “Are you ok?”

Rob: Do you know how hard it is to yell “We’re ok” while you’re laughing?

Rob: It was an old picture and it had faded so it was just an oval egg. The guy behind her stone was a biker so he had put a Harley Davidson little thing on top of his gravestone.

Stacey: Then there was a little plaque that said “love” in white.

Me: I agree with that last piece of advice. It’s what I did in my house. There’s so much more they said that I could go on a few more pages. I sincerely want to thank everyone at M.C.P.I. for enduring my questions and allowing me to accompany them on a ghost hunt two days later. If you want to hear how that went, come back Saturday morning!

Have a great Thursday! ~Phil

Do Tarot Cards Really Tell The Future? Interview with an Expert!

Posted on April 19, 2022 | Leave a comment

Picture Courtesy Parade.com

In keeping with my paranormal theme this month, I thought it would be interesting to hear from a soothsayer. The popularity of tarot cards and tarot reading seems to have exploded over the last decade. More people are doing it and more are looking for skilled tarot readers to answer their questions and give them a glance into their future. Not understanding how a deck of cards with spooky pictures could give us information about our lives, I found an expert on Instagram who was willing to volunteer her wisdom and experience.

Andrea -Tarot reader extraordinaire

Hi Andrea, and thank you for visiting The Phil Factor. How did you first become attracted to reading tarot and oracle cards? Curiosity mostly. Since childhood, I have been interested in esoteric or metaphysical subjects. I was particularly interested in Witches since I have an ancestor who was burned in the Salem Trials.

Does a person have to be psychic to read cards? Anyone who wants to learn the basic meanings of the cards can do simple readings. However, I believe it is very beneficial if you are a very empathetic person and understand human emotions/relationships. That way you aren’t just reading the definition of each card to the querent (client.) There can be a lot of nuances in the cards. Like symbols and how each card interacts, not only with the other cards, but also with what the querent may have asked originally.

Should someone be worried if the Death card comes up in a reading?Death is like a transformation in your life or emotions. Example meanings for the Death card could be: a birth, a divorce, a new job, the beginning or ending of relationships. Or even a catalyst in thinking. It’s about change and a possible transition or regeneration.

Picture Fine Art America

Does it really mean someone is going to die? I’ve flipped the Death card over many times and that has never been the outcome.

Are predictions in a card reading absolutely going to come true? I don’t typically do ‘predictive’ or ‘yes/no’ readings. Everyone has free will and can change the course of their day by one simple alteration. Maybe they typically go to Starbuck’s on the corner, but that day, they decide to turn left instead of right and end up at Tim Horton’s. In my opinion, absolute predictions need to be taken as fluid thoughts. You continually have the ability to change how your life is directed. ((free will)) And you can’t assume your will can change someone else’s.

What advice do you have for someone going to their first reading? Be open and willing to hear what is being said without too many preconceived ideas or desires. Take a pen/notepad and jot down your own thoughts on the cards. Write down anything your reader says that captures your attention. What may not make sense now, may come back to you later. Or you may notice similar messages being repeated to you in different manners, by different people or situations.

As a final thought: I absolutely love reading tarot and oracle cards. I do it almost daily. It’s so interesting to see what thoughts the cards have on the questions that are asked and how pertinent they are to the person. Reading tarot makes me realize how connected everything and everyone is to each other. Everyone lives an interdependent life, and we all affect each other, just like the ripple a stone makes in a pond.

Andrea, thank you for visiting The Phil Factor. Hopefully the cards will tell us that this interview will get lots of views in the future! If you’re interested in learning more about the tarot readings from Andrea you can follow her on Instagram as TarotWytch.

I hope it’s in the cards for you to have a great day! ~Phil

That Time A Ghost Saw Me

Posted on April 16, 2022 | 6 comments

That’s right. I didn’t see a ghost but apparently a ghost saw me. He probably went back to his ghost blog and told all his friends.

The picture above was taken of me five years ago as I was putting a pergola together. See that cloud to the left of me? The photographer didn’t see that when she took the picture. The picture was a “Live” picture on an iPhone7 that has about 3 seconds of movement. In the live version that cloud moved from one side of the picture to the other. If you look very closely at the top of the cloud you can see what, to me, looks like a face. Where I was is only about 15 yards from where the ashes of the former owner of the house is buried.

In addition to this we often had nights where would wake up to find that the television or gas fire place turned on in the middle of the night.

So what do you think? Was a ghost keeping an eye on me?

Happy Saturday! ~ Phil

6 Comments

Posted in ghosts, paranormal

Tagged ghost, paranormal, paranormal activity, The Phil Factor, The Phil Factor #ThePhilFactor

Thoughts on Paranormal Phenomena? Respond To The Polls!

Posted on April 10, 2022 | 2 comments

As I mentioned in my last post, May 3 is National Paranormal Day here in the states. Admittedly, I enjoy a little paranormal activity as much as anyone. Wouldn’t the world would be so much more fun and interesting if paranormal things were actually true? Like Fox Mulder, I want to believe. Most of the rest of this post is three polls that I’d love your responses to because in my next few blog posts I’m going to explore people’s beliefs in the paranormal, have some interesting interviews, and occasionally make jokes.

10
Do You Believe in Ghosts?

Yes

No

I'm not sure

11
Do You Believe that People Can Be Psychic?

Maybe

Yes

No

11
Do You Believe There Are Aliens/UFO's That Visit Earth?

Yes

No

Maybe

After answering and seeing the poll results, is there anything that surprises you about what people believe? If you’re a believer in any of those subjects, could you comment why?

Have a great Sunday! ~Phil

2 Comments

Posted in paranormal, Uncategorized

Tagged paranormal, paranormal activity, paranormal humor, paranormal polls, The Phil Factor, The Phil Factor #ThePhilFactor

I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghost!

Posted on April 7, 2022 | 7 comments

Picture credit Collider.com & Sony Pictures

I just recently discovered that May 3rd is National Paranormal Day and I’m going to lean in hard here at The Phil Factor.

There’s two things I’m not sure if I believe in, ghosts and death. Well, I’m sure I don’t believe in my own death, and if by chance it does happen, I plan to overcome it by becoming a ghost. I’m sure you’re thinking to yourself What a weirdo! Hey, relax on the judgement there. I’m contractually bound to comeback after death, if I have one, a death that is.

Contractually bound? Yup. Nothing I can do about it now. It was many years ago in college. One night myself and two friends were drinking some adult beverages. You know how when you’re young, like 20 or so and you think you’re really deep thinkers even though you’re really idiots who don’t know anything? We had imbibed a few beverages and got to talking about death and the afterlife.

We all were curious to know if there really was life after death, so right then and there we Googled and then re-enacted a centuries old Druid ceremony complete with a circle of salt, candles under a full moon and signing a pact with our own blood, which was flowing easily because of the alcohol we had been drinking. Ok, no we didn’t. I had you going there for a second, didn’t I?

There was also no Google when I was in college, but we did make a promise to each other that whoever died first would come back and haunt the other two so we would know that there’s life after death.

I don’t know where those two college friends are now and don’t even remember ones last name. Hopefully, because of our vow, some sort of afterlife mojo will help us find each other and keep our promise. As far as I know, none of us has ever shown up to haunt the others. With May 3rd being National Paranormal Day I got to thinking of this and what else I might do if I were to be a ghost.

I know this may be hard for you to believe, but in my life I’ve been a bit of a practical joker at times. I’m pretty sure that if I ever come back as a ghost I’m not going to take off my shirt and help anyone with pottery. Jeez, what a waste of an afterlife. I’ll probably be what we all know as a poltergeist. I’ll move a lot of peoples car keys just before they have to leave for work.

During live televised events I’ll show up invisibly and give the President or the Pope a wet willie. I’ll be on the field at all my favorite live sporting events, helping out a little to ensure my favorite teams win.

You know that feeling you get when you feel like someone’s behind you but you turn around and no one’s there? That’ll be me. Who knows? Ghost Phil may even zip into the internet and follow the connection to your computer and cause embarrassing typos when you’re posting pictures.

So do you believe in life after death? Do you think there are real ghosts? Have you ever had an experience with what you think was a ghost? What would you do if you were a ghost?

Have a great Thursday, and yes, I do think we should celebrate National Paranormal Day by pulling out the Halloween decorations! ~Phil

7 Comments

Posted in ghosts, Humor, paranormal

Tagged ghost, ghost humor, ghosts, paranormal, paranormal humor, The Phil Factor, The Phil Factor #ThePhilFactor

Tag Archives: paranormal

The Top Ten Best Fictional Paranormal Shows of All Time

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An Interview with Real Ghostbusters Part 2

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An Interview with Real Ghostbusters: Part 1

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Paranormal Day? Not on My Watch!

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Is Walled Lake, Michigan Cursed?

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Interview with the Real Ghostbusters: Part 2

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Do Tarot Cards Really Tell The Future? Interview with an Expert!

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That Time A Ghost Saw Me

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Thoughts on Paranormal Phenomena? Respond To The Polls!

Do You Believe in Ghosts?

Do You Believe that People Can Be Psychic?

Do You Believe There Are Aliens/UFO's That Visit Earth?

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I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghost!

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