An In-Depth Interview with The Ghost Adventures Crew

We had the privilege of speaking with the cast of Ghost Adventures, a series following Zak Bagans, Nick Groff, and Aaron Goodwin as they encounter the paranormal. Among various anecdotes about the paranormal experiences in upcoming episodes, it was very neat to hear the trio as they are in a natural state so to speak. Zak is very candid during interviews, whereas Nick and Aaron are a bit more casual. The whole thing was fun and each Press outlet was allowed one question. While we weren’t allowed to ask the one we all want to know (what hair gel Zak uses), instead we opted for one aimed at us, the fans!

Rick Gomes: Welcome everyone, I’m Rick Gomes, the Communication’s Director at Travel Channel. It’s my pleasure to introduce the guys from the popular series Ghost Adventures, lead investigator Zak Bagans along with fellow investigators Nick Groff and Aaron Goodwin. Ghost Adventures premiered its Seventh Season on Friday, September 14 with new episodes continuing Friday nights at 9:00 pm.

This season features all new haunted destinations and unforgettable lockdowns – Zak, Nick and Aaron investigate each location by first researching and exploring its history. They then confront the reported haunting directly during their dusk to dawn lockdowns by coaxing them and using a combination of electronic devices and trigger objects.

Each episode takes viewers on a journey to different haunted sites, including the Point Sur Lighthouse in Big Sur California, the Black Moon Manor in Greenville, Indiana and the Palmer House Hotel in Sauk Centre, Minneapolis – just to name a few. You know, we’re going to start things off with some comments from Zak, Nick and Aaron about the new season – you want to take it Zak?

Zak Bagans: Sure, hello everybody, I’m just going to talk real quick about some of these upcoming episodes, Point Sur Lighthouse, the Sedamsville Rectory, and the Palmer House. The Point Sur Lighthouse was really awesome, it was just south of Monterrey in California and there was about eight different buildings perched upon this rock that looked like Dracula’s castle – it was insane.

And there was about two dozen shipwrecks right there on those rocks and about half of those saw mass tragedies. And this is one of the only locations that we ever investigated where these people are obtaining Class A EVPs as clear as I’m talking to you right now, that is how good the EVPs are that they are getting. And the voices that they’re getting are talking in Swedish – or Scandinavian accents, it’s really crazy and some of the accents are from some of the people that were documented that stayed there from that country.

So they’re matching those voices up to the people that actually stayed there and were the lighthouse keepers. When we investigated there, not only did we capture EVPs of a little girl who we think is a little girl that we found out died in the Los Angeles ship wreck right there on shore. And she told us that’s she sick, we heard her singing and we also captured an apparition on our thermal imaging camera at Point Sur Lighthouse.

We tried to debunk it and we couldn’t. There was nobody else out there but us and later after we showed this thermal imaging apparition to the lady in charge there, she told us that that apparition was captured in an area now that you can’t even stand – it was on a side of a rock about a frickin’ 90 degree grade and that’s where they used to bring supplies up back in the late 1800’s early 1900’s and now you can’t even stand in that area where this apparition was captured.

Not only that, but we captured a voice that said “Admiral” after I saw a man that looked like – in uniform. Then we also found out from her that an Admiral type person of that ranking retired there with his family that watched those buildings. And so it was one of the most impressive lockdowns we’ve done in awhile.

Nick Groff: Should I go on to talk about other episodes?

RG: Yes, Nick if you want to go on, that would be great.

NG: As investigators we go into locations, we learn the background, the history, we talk to the eye witnesses, we listen to them prior to us investigating, but there’s certain locations like the Sedamsville Rectory in Cincinnati, and the Palmer House Hotel which is going to be airing very soon.

We go in there and we listen to these owners, these owners are crying out for help – they sit there, they talk to Zak during interviews. You know, they listen – Aaron and I are listening to this as it’s going on and they’re telling us how they’re being harmed, how they’re being tormented by these spirits – this evil presence at these locations. And they’re very harmful, you know, they’re harmful for their lives, so our jobs as investigators, we listen to them, then we dig deep on the history, what the building was.

You know, taunting is a dangerous tool to use, but we use it for our tactics besides using other paranormal equipment and stuff when we go into these locations – because what’s haunting it, this evil presence that’s there, to try to validate to the owner what’s actually happening so we’ll entice these spirits with taunting.

ZB: The Sedamsville Rectory and I’ll talk about this real quick, about the details of that one – at the Sedamsville Rectory these two people – this – I think they’re boyfriend/girlfriend, I don’t know – they’re trying to renovate this rectory right next to an abandoned church. And this rectory is where they sent priests that get in trouble and it is documented that at the Sedamsville Rectory they sent a priest that was convicted of child molestation and there was also dog fighting – illegal dog fighting that took place at the rectory or so claimed.

And, you know, God, he says that some of the most defenseless things that He’s created, children and animals, you know, if you harm those two things, you are a man of evil. And so that rectory has been cursed by some kind of demonic curse and a demonic presence and these two people that we go to help, they were being harmed. The lady’s father is 70-years-old, retired Air Force and received scratches that drew blood on his back – they’ve been attacked. There’s been over a dozen cases of attacks with scratches on their backs and instead of doing a regular investigation, this turned into an exorcism.

And we called upon a priest, Father Ashcraft who was trained by the Exorcists, you know, the actual Exorcists themselves, we had to call this exorcist to come in and exorcise the location and while that happened, the guy was overtaken by a dark energy and it became very, very scary as he wanted to do harm to the priest and it just flipped everything in a different gear. And while that was happening, even the priest saw a dark shadow moving. A lot of unexplained events started going on, and we captured them all on camera.

Then in our lockdown investigation we did capture an EVP and what appears to be some very creepy thing captured on full-spectrum camera – what we think may be the actual demonic entity that is responsible for this.

RG: Nick, Aaron, you want to talk about Palmer House – the details?

NG: Yes, the Palmer House – Aaron, you had a craze experience in the basement there while Zak and I were upstairs. That was a literally interesting location because the – what was her name Zak? The owner there, she was basically crying for help.

ZB: Kelly.

NG: Yes Kelly, she was crying out for help to us, I mean we’re interviewing – she had tears in her eyes, she’s like this is tormenting my life. She goes home and living her everyday job at this location and I mean that’s a scary thing.

So we’re sitting there listening to her and not only that, but we’re actually capturing evidence during the day while we’re talking to her on our equipment. So that just started off the location and, you know, that’s a good tactic that we’re talking about when we go in there and we’re taunting these, you know, evil entities. But not even – we’re not going in full-blast just disrupting that – all spirits there, I mean there are good and there are bad.

We’re going after both and we actually document some amazing evidence, I mean it was so mind-blowing the stuff that we captured at Palmer House that we were just like, wow this location is fantastic for us – I mean the evidence that we captured is amazing.

RG: Aaron do you want to talk about what happened to you in Palmer House in the basement when…

AG: Yes that was pretty scary. They left – well, this is kind of like – she was having all these experiences – one of these people we interviewed down there, and so we kind of went down there and I kind – they left me down there and I kind of – I don’t know, I was kind of provoking and trying to get some evidence and then the atmosphere just changed and you could just feel this crazy, like, dark cloud vibe coming through and it was just like a foam.

And then all of a sudden this broom that had been sitting in the hallway for like – I don’t know, we captured our cameras sitting there still and then we heard some BAM! It hit the ground and like,  something just took this thing and moved it over and threw it across the hall. And it landed right – like probably like three, four feet away from where it was originally and that’s like a poltergeist activity.

And so when you’re down there alone and all hell’s breaking loose and stuff like that’s happening, it’s just kind of scary – real scary.

ZB: She was in tears – Kelly was in tears and, you know, when she started – when we were interviewing in the basement she started crying and at the same time she cried, we documented spikes on her (the meter) to validate that there was an energy around her and at the same exact time we captured two Class A EVPs, very chilling telling her personal information and you could see that – just like her and those two people at Sedamsville Rectory, people can get – they can be owned by spirits.

They can be dominated by them and they can be puppeteered by them, you know, their energy consumes them and they can manipulate them and that’s – they’re victims. So these two cases are us helping, you know, these people, so it was pretty crazy.

AG: Yes.

RG: All right thanks guys, I think we can open it up for questions now, unless you guys have anything else you want to add now.

AG: No. Cool, questions!

ZB: If they could just ask us who they want us to answer – me, Nick or Aaron.

RG: Absolutely, absolutely.

American Profile: Good morning, this is for all three of you and it’s a reader question. One of our readers wrote in and wanted to know if you guys are able to do this full-time and making a living doing it or if you also have to have a day job?

ZB: No this is a full-time job.

American Profile: For all three of you?

ZB: Yes, we live it, breathe it, be it.

NG: We live it, breathe it – we’re in it 24/7 – it’s full time for us.

ZB: We wouldn’t have time to work another job if we wanted to.

NG: Yes, I know, seriously.

American Profile: Do you think, that as – I mean technology has come so far, but do you think as it improves that you’ll actually be able to make people not be disbelievers?

ZB: Well, that’s not our jobs – yes, that’s not our job, you know what I mean – Aaron, was that you?

AG: Yes, my bad, go ahead, guy – no, go ahead.

ZB: It’s not our job to really convince people. That’s not why we’re doing this. We do this for our own sake, you know, we were doing this before the TV show so that, you know, it’s very important to understand that. We know, we believe there’s going to be people out there that, you know, will not believe – if we do convince them through our evidence, then hey, that’s great, you know, join – you can join us now in the believing box.

It’s – those are two such diverse groups of people, but our non-believers you have to respect them because, you really do – I think a majority of them, they want to have that experience for themselves and you have to have that experience for yourselves to believe. So, you know, all of us that have had those experiences, very profound experiences with ghosts and that’s why we’re believers so, you know, some of this evidence that we’re capturing we’re just – we’re not really that surprised anymore because we already know these ghosts exist.

And with the innovation or the evolution rather of technology, we are now able to obtain evidence that’s never been able to be, you know, recorded or captured in the past. You know, you look at cell phones and iPhones and constant software updates, constant – oh, the new iPhone 5’s out, okay cool, the iPhone 6 is going to come out next year and now it’s going to be able to drive your car. You know, technology’s insane right now, so we’re taking advantage of the technology and implementing it in our investigations.

In our lifetime, we would love to go up against any of the top scientists in the world – we will welcome them, any skeptic, anybody – come out, watch us investigate, we’ll show you the evidence and if you can’t explain it, then you need to give us credit for validating that the existence of ghosts is 100% real because you cannot tell us an explanation – a logical, debunking explanation as to why we just captured a full-bodied apparition right in front of our faces and there was not a living person in front of us – explain to us that.

And explain to us how some THING is answering our questions that only they would know 100 years ago – explain to us that. So that’s what we will say to any non-believers, any skeptics, we are open to have you witness these investigations, you can watch us, you can come out and that’s how confident we are as to use the level of evidence that we are obtaining.

Culture Mom: I’ve been with you guys since you appeared on Maury Povich, so my readers are way past the whole debunking and needing to believe, they’re with you 100% and with that and with respect to all the technology and the gadgets and the formula that’s worked so well for you through these many seasons, can you talk to me a little bit about how you are – besides validating the spirit, what you’re doing to work and help these people who are crying out for help as described in these few episodes you just talked about?

ZB: Okay. I think that by helping them, they know that they’re being traumatized by something they’re unable to explain. If you’re physically being affected by something and you can’t explain it or you don’t understand it, you live in a dark cloud, you think that you’re alone. And to feel alone in society, to feel alone in life, that is depression, that is oppression and you want answers. And we understand with these people, we connect with them because we’ve had it happen to us, Nick has had it happen, Aaron has suffered through it, I have suffered through it.

And we know that when you’re under the wrath of dark, demonic-type spirits, they want you to feel like that. They want you to feel scared and by getting answers and documenting evidence that you are being affected – it’s like being diagnosed with something. It’s like when you’re sick and you don’t know what’s wrong with you, so you go on the computer, you’re trying to self-diagnose yourself, you’re all that – you’re not in a good state of mind, okay?

You’re in a bad – you need closure, you need to find out what’s wrong with you – it’s the same thing when you’re affected by oppression on the other side – you don’t understand what’s going on. And as soon as you tell these people look, I’ve been there before, I know what you’re going through, I have felt what you have felt – immediately right there there’s a sense of relief because you’re now not alone, you’re now telling them ‘you’re not alone, I have felt this too” – they’re immediately affected by that and relieved.

We take it to the next step by telling them to step aside, let us come in, let us bring in Father Ashcraft, the doctor, let us try and remedy this situation. Let us try and document evidence that this stuff is really affecting you so that you can see it, so that you can hear it. And once we are, you know, able to provide that – if we can, there’s no guarantee, then they can actually see what is affecting them, like an x-ray at the doctor’s office.

They can see what’s affecting them so now we can give them our treatment plan, we can tell them “look we can give you the services of Father Ashcraft. If you choose to stay, here’s what we recommend; if you choose to leave here’s what we recommend” – so that’s how we go through the process of helping.

Culture Mom: Oh I love it, so tell me what you guys got going on for Halloween this year?

AG: Traveling to New York to do some press tour.

Culture Mom: Okay exciting, is there a show or something that fans are – a 24-hour lockdown, anything cool like that going on?

AG: We have more episodes coming up, premiering all through Halloween, I mean the Palmer House, we’ve been basically living in real haunted locations, investigating them. So for Halloween this is just like another week for us, you know, every other week we’re in a haunted location and so I guess you could say…

NG: And we’ve added a…

AG: …the whole year is Halloween for us, you guys have…

ZB: Yes we’ve added the – yes and then we’ve got the Weekends to Die For which will be every weekend on the Travel Channel as well, so you’ll see episodes that goes to ventures as well, so.

Military Press: We had a question for each of you – Zak, how do you feel when you keep hearing your name being called?

Zak Bagans: I love it, you know, it’s like going to a club and the girls already know your name. You know, it’s cool, you know, I mean that’s what we’re looking for – we’re looking for ghosts so if they know you by name, they already know what’s up. You know, it’s a lot more personal and now you see how either good or bad you’re going to be messing with.

You know, it’s just always interesting – in the paranormal you can’t physically see a person in front of you, so you can feel their energy but just by feeling their energy, you don’t always know if they’re good or bad or if they’re just messing with you. If they’re bad thinking they’re good, so it’s just such a mysterious veil and once we, you know, part that veil and look inside – I call it the spirit bubble.

When we’re interacting with those spirits and you feel it, you know, you feel that charge, you loose track of time, you don’t even know that you’re really alive because you’re so deep into their world. It’s kind of like a out-of-body experience, it’s just your energy connecting with their energy and it’s just – it’s an awesome feeling, it’s a rush – it’s what we do.

Military Press: Okay Aaron, you jump up a lot, are you still surprised after all these years of doing this that you still can, you know, be electrified like that?

AG: Well yes I mean like every spot’s scary, I mean I don’t care who you are, when it happens you get spooked. I was a lot more spooked back in the day, but since the Winchester Mystery House and Hell Bar Dam and everything’s kind of changed now. I still get really scared but I’m ready to like, face it upfront now. Like back in the day, get me out of there, but now since we’ve been doing it for so long, you get thrown in a lion’s den then you fight lion – you become a lion in a way, you know. So now I kind of dig it and so… bring it! (laughs)

I still get scared, don’t get me wrong – I mean when something like that happens, you’re just like scared for your life for that moment and we do this job for a living, so hey, go for it and at it, you know, there’s no running away on this job.

Military Press: Right. Nick, do you prefer – do you prefer the spirit box or the voice data box?

NG: I like both of them – I like both of them because the spirit box is happening to some, you know, the frequencies and I like the PX too because it’s getting – it’s based off of energy so it’s really interesting what both devices can actually capture and they both are – have been really awesome for us in the past.

The PX devices work great with us, we figured out this weird identity of an individual based of the PX when I was given those evidence at – where was it, Hill View Manor there, that was really interesting. And then the spirit box has been unbelievably amazing for us with spirits coming through talking to us and what we’ve captured in the past. So they’re both awesome – I like them both.

Military Press: Do you guys plan to go visit Clovis again?

NG: Wolfe Manor in Clovis?

That was a bizarre location, just because of the history and everything – we have been to California several times lately – I mean we have Point Sur Lighthouse coming up – that’s an amazing location. And we actually captured some unbelievable thermal image footage that will air this Friday.

But I don’t know we may, you know, I always – we always talk about going back to locations and stuff and sometimes we’ll go like we’re never going back there and then all of a sudden we’ll go back there, so you never know with us -you just got to see where we’re going to come through next.

Yahoo! Contributor Network: Good afternoon guys. I’m a relatively newcomer to the show, but I was watching the episode with the Excalibur Club and the Bachelor Graveyard and I – well first of all I, you know, if I was doing the show it would be like a five minute show because all you would get would be footage of me running for my life.

And I guess I wanted to touch on something I also like – how do you bite back, I mean have you ever felt real hard apprehension going into a place like Excalibur?

AG: Yes, but I think like the reason people investigate the paranormal is because we’re trying to overcome the mystery of death and that in and of itself is something that lives within every living person – everybody. We all experience death, we experience those who pass around us and we are forced to find out if that is just the end – which it is not.

So what we do is when we’re experiencing a situation that’s maybe, you know, scary, it’s almost now a sense of relief because now we’re getting validation that there’s something beyond this living world that we’re now experiencing that’s making us scared. So, that emotion of fear, which is scary because you can get attacked, you can get, you know, attacked and naturally, you know, that is scary. But now it’s turned into kind of a sick smile, you know, where we’re just like, oh wow this is great.

So we were scared at first but now instead of running and screaming, we hold our ground and we get spooked, you know, in the moment, you know, but it sets in and it’s a sense of relief, that thank you. You know, even though you’re scary, thank you for validating to me right now that you just gave me some type of closure for death – that you are intelligently interacting with me right now and you have no living body. You are using your energy to interact with me, the energy that was in your living body, you’re giving us validation right now of life after death, thank you.

So we thank the ones who scare the shit out of us.

Yahoo! Contributor Network: And you even push it even further because I couldn’t believe that you were standing there at Excalibur and saying, okay well if you’re here, you know, come and get me basically.

ZB: Well Nick’s a super hero so he would of just flown down and calmed it all down.

I couldn’t see in the dark, but then I see him up on the railing and I’m like, what the heck is he doing. And then I kind of zoomed out and I look the image and I’m like, holy crap he’s on the edge of the railing.

AG: Yes, you know, I watched the footing because I wasn’t there and I was like when I saw it, I was like dude – I was like dude, that’s crazy man, stop.

NG: Yes. That’s what we do though.

ZB: You know, we keep it, you know, we didn’t walk away with any credible evidence from that investigation, you know, a lot of people are like, oh did you ever do investigation and other stuff? You know, we’ll always find some unexplained stuff, you know, that we still present to the audience and a lot of people think that we’re calling it a ghost. No if you look at the word unexplained, that doesn’t say paranormal, it say unexplained – we were unable to determine what made the noise.

So we’ll always find stuff but, you know, at Excalibur we were really unable to document any, you know, concrete visual audio evidence – it’s haunting. So it just shows you how real we are and we just present with whatever we get.

ReadCentral.com: Question for all of you actually and then I have one other – in seven seasons you guys have been to some pretty psychotic locations to say the least and you’ve kept at it and you’ve always kept your, you know, oars firmly in the water no matter how choppy it became and I was wondering what – in all the seven seasons of doing this, what has been the most profound thing that has happened to each of you personally and how has it affected you?

ZB: Goldfield Hotel, one of the very first investigations – for me, when we saw everything take flight – when Nick and I were in the basement ,and that scared the shit out of us and that’s what really got us going in this. You know, after we saw that and the little voice that I heard short, you know, after that happened that was captured on the camera’s audio.

And to know that we just saw what looked like a brick took flight and then when Nick and I had that footage, you remember Nick we thought that was the only thing and then…

NG: Yes.

ZB: …we had someone clean up the graininess of the camera – night vision camera and then we noticed that there was all different kinds of objects taking flight in like a vortex – like a twister, you know. A board levitated itself back up and hit the concrete wall, the opposite trajectory as the brick thing and it was – that’s what really got me man when I saw that – that was it for me, so you guys go ahead.

NG: Yes, but not only that, what Zak’s saying, it was more or less like, that was amazing to look back on, on video evidence but the energy – the shockwave that went through our bodies…

Zak Bagans: Right.

NG: …at that exact moment, that scared the ever-living daylights out of us and we took off sprinting down the hall, that shook us to the core, you know. And as we went on with investigating, throughout our journey – through ghost adventures, I’ve seen – we realized what scared me the most later in my life was the darker energies, the negative energy that can really have an affect on your own well being.

Your own inner self and being able to, you know, having this negative energy take over your body and stuff and loose self control, loose self conciousness – that’s when it gets really scary I think. And that happened to me recently at Central Unit State – Central Unit Prison in Texas – I hated every second of that because of what happened there.

And I don’t know, I just look at things differently now, I’m just more cautious and everything – and we all are, I would imagine, going into a location with the way we conduct our investigations, especially with the negative energies and stuff, you just got to know the dangerous side to things.

ZB: I want to add real quick if you don’t mind, when Nick and I experienced that in Goldfield, I want to add that there was more to it – when two years later there was a husband and wife that came forward and contacted us, telling us that they didn’t believe what happened down there. It was the most amazing thing they’ve ever seen, they’ve never seen a spirit have that much energy.

And so they went down there with a news crew and they were doing EVP and they’ve captured hundreds of thousands of EVPs. And to this day, the EVP that answered them in reference to what we experienced when they said, if you guys are in the basement can you tell me if you did this to Zak and Nick – they didn’t know us yet.

And they received that Class A response that said, thank you but we’ve done it – and it was the clearest EVP that they had ever captured, witnessed by a live news crew and even the news reporter was speechless. And that to us just was just – it was amazing, you know, it wasn’t a surprise to us, but it was just – it was amazing. It was like validation for us.

NG: I remember Zak and I looking at each other and going holy crap, that’s – that gives us some validation that, you know, what’s happened to us, these other people are going down there and they’re capturing the voice responding to what happened to us – I mean it was just mind-blowing.

ZB: And then we – and then real quick, we took – we did an event there. Nick, we, brought 100 people, because if we captured this then we want to show people – other people, you know, to further validate it. And that’s when we brought in 100 people and we did an event and that’s when we all witnessed rocks about two inches in diameter levitating off of the ground, straight up and then flying horizontally – and a guy documented this on his cameras. And that was very cool to have people actually witness what we witnessed, just third party people. So it was the perfect event – it was awesome.

ReadCentral.com: Aaron what’s affected you?

AG: Well I’ve always been like real scared, when I had my first experience with a documentary with the guys, it’s kind of like wild things, I just didn’t want to do it no more and then, you know, after you have experience, you kind of get more involved so I kind of liked it, then I got involved. And then everything got crazy after Matthews followed me home, started affecting my life, started doing all kinds of stuff.

And then that was the first step and then now it’s like several episodes, I’m like I’ve been bringing other things home sometimes and so I can’t really say any experience, but that was the beginning experience of stuff that’s happened on the show and I kind of sparked me to – is that the question, I kind of forgot the question. (laughs)

Red Glean: Which real-life experience on the road sticks with you, because I know there’s a huge fan following and what kind of things stand out to you while you’re out there?

NG: I think just hearing people’s story, you know? We’ve traveled all over the world and what stands out is connecting with people. Every place we go there’s a new story, there’s a new background, a historical location, you know. People’s stories that just stand out to us and connecting in that fashion and then going in and capturing evidence is what kind of gives us a thrill, you know, at these locations – for me, personally.

But, I mean, I just like talking to people and hearing where they’re coming from and their background more than anything.

AG: I love the horror – I can’t wait for the horror.

Red Glean: Okay, what experience that you took the longest to get over? I mean obviously Aaron, you’ve had some experiences that you’ve, you know, keep coming back to you.

AG: Well, I don’t really get over them, I just kind of deal with them and then like soak it in and move on. Because I used to like cleanse my place and do all this stuff and it just got worse, so now I just kind of like sense it and move on to the next one, you know – does that answer the question?

Red Glean: Well do you have a particular experience that take you a long time to get over?

AG: Well I’m not really trying to get over it, and the experience is still happening pretty much from Season One – I mean you can ask the guys, this stuff just like, oh cool, go on. I mean it lingers sometimes, you know, and so it’s like sometimes it’s not as easy to get rid of, if that makes sense – I think I’m doing the question all wrong, damn it.

NG: For me, honestly for me like lately – this is Nick, at Central Unit Prison – this is the most recent event I can think of that really had an affect on me, I just got so violently ill to the point I couldn’t even hold a night vision camera up anymore. I came up with a high fever and we were documenting internal evidence all around this event happening with me and I absolutely had to leave the location early in the morning when we were done.

And, you know, I got to the point where I wanted to walk into a walk-in clinic and get antibiotics because I was so just out of it, I was just destroyed by whatever energy took effect on me. And then when I got home, I took antibiotics and it took two weeks to shake what actually attached itself to me.

And knowing what evidence we were capturing at the same time I was coming down with a high fever, I mean it just gave me validation that there was some dark energy lingering and it had a bad effect on me and that was probably one of the most disturbing locations for me personally that it took a very long time to shake. I mean two weeks – I hated it, but it’s what we do, you know.

We know the dangerous sides of these type of things and we know the effects and we’ll keep doing it, we’re just a little more cautious now.

Gaming Game: I believe you’ve all been possessed or under the influence of dark energy at least once on the show, do you have a contingency plan in case one of these goes all crazy on the others during a lockdown?

NG: Film it.

(laughter)

ZB: If one of the guys came at me and started beating me up, I would beat him up.

AG: Thanks for the heads-up Zak.

(More laughter)

ZB: No I think that, you know, we’ve come close, you know, as we’ve laughed at, you know, it is a very serious thing. You know, the most energies that have overtaken me was at Poveglia in Italy and, you know, Aaron and Nick are like family to me and we know – we know when dark energy is affecting us. There’s times when I looked at Nick and Aaron and I don’t recognize them, I don’t know who they are – all I want to do is kill them.

And that most extreme sensation was at Poveglia, Italy and after watching some of the footage, I don’t even remember some of it – and all I want to do is harm Aaron, you know, from what I can remember and breaking equipment and punching a concrete wall and it was just – it was amazing that how you just wanted to push that energy out of you. It was just – it wanted to overtake you – it wanted to use your body to do what it only knows, you know, what the current only knows and that flows violence.

And so if that does happen I think that we’ve all been through it now to where we know the indicators and, you know, as you can see in that moment Nick did help me get out of there. But we know that if that happens, the first thing you do is get out of the area – go outside – the out of the area and go outside.

And it’s the Sedansville Rectory that’s airing in a couple of weeks – a few weeks, that episode is the same thing that happened to not us, but some other guy as soon as he – we got him out of the building, it gets lifted immediately. It doesn’t mean it goes away, it’s just that spirit stays in there – it’s like the spirits in the corner (feel) the dreams, they stay where they know they can manifest. You know, but they can still attach themselves to you – that energy can still be residual, that oppression but that’s what we do.

Paranormal Research Association of Colorado: Being part of cancer research and leading a science space team, I’m really interested in the tech gear that you guys are going to be using – can you guys give us a little sneak-peek of some of the new equipment you’re using on the upcoming episodes?

NG: Yes, Bill Chapel, he’s advanced all the PXs and he’s made it even better, so those are pretty cool. We also got a 3-D map image where you can like, scan an area and like if a spirit does show up, it will show an outline of it, which actually we have got an awesome experiment evidence within – what is it, Cripple Creek. And then we got a bunch of new stuff coming out in – well I don’t know, what can we say, Zak – can we say all of this?

ZB: Yes, you can say all that stuff, the 3-D Kinect system is really cool, the 3-D motion tracking system.

NG: And we’ve got some awesome new shadow detectors and go ahead, Zak. I mean sorry…

ZB: Yes new shadow box, we got full-spectrum cameras, we’ve got all kinds of new stuff, so we’re constantly evolving just like as technology is, we’re trying to keep up with all these new awesome technology and cell phones and iPads and everything like that, you know, they’re not the only ones benefiting from the evolution of technology.

We are also updating ourselves constantly and doing this as it’s connecting us closer with the paranormal as a lot of the paranormal has to do with energy – electricity, energy, which is also having a lot to do with technology. So I think back in the day we weren’t advanced enough in the technology department to tap into those frequencies. You know, you think about a cell phone, you can send an image, a video, a picture, you know, through space – to your friend, you know, in Kentucky.

You know, how does that – where does that go to? You know, different radio waves and these different radio waves, these frequencies are similar to how, you know, we believe spirits travel, how spirits speak, how they manifest. You know, we’ve seen their shadows, how fast they travel – these orbs of lights that are not dust, that are not bugs – these orbs of light, orbs of energy we believe are visual presentation of their energy that makes those goose bumps stand up, that speaks to us.

They can manipulate the environment in different ways, to make words and the technology we’re using, we’re able to capture these balls of energy. We’re able to now, you know, see these images like Cripple Creek, Colorado – an upcoming investigation, where we captured an apparition with the help of a skeptic, a scientist. You know, Bill Chapel, he captured it – he was speechless – we’ve never seen Bill Chapel speechless – ever, so that investigation in Cripple Creek will really challenge any scientist – anybody.

You know, a level of his background, you know, I can’t say his background per se because of where he’s worked which is confidential where he’s worked, just showing you the level of skill that this guy has and what companies he’s worked for, to make him speechless from something he captured, is really – we’re going up into that level where we really want to, you know, take credit and challenge any scientist out there to prove that those exist. And that $1 million challenge that (James Randy) had, you know, is a bunch of BS.

DownRight Creepy: Hey guys! All of you can answer this, I was just wondering like since you guys deal with the paranormal a lot more than the average person, can you guys even watch paranormal or horror movies anymore, or do all the inaccuracies and fictionalizations just drive you nuts?

AG: I watched Paranormal Activity and I mean yes, you know, its funny – it’s okay. There’s things in there, not all of it but there’s moments in there that I’ve had something happen in my house and obviously that scared me. Scary movies don’t really scare me too much because I, you know, I know there’s some blood and shit and they do it again, you know, so it’s kind of like I put myself through them. I’ve been doing films for awhile so it’s like I know but that movie kind of spooked the crap out of me – just moments of it, not all of it.

NG: For me personally, it’s stuff like Exorcist that actually got under my skin. Now, that, I didn’t think was that scary when I was little, but obviously not the, you know, all the stuff that’s fictional – just half the stuff, like possession and, you know, just stuff that can take dramatic effects in your lives.

I mean, we’ve experienced some of the lighter side effects to that, you know, but the Paranormal Activity series and – I’ve been where you remember what was in the movie and it was a fictional movie, but they’re based on actual events and some of these events that are creating these movies actually happen with us in real life – with real evidence that we’re capturing, so…

ZB: Yes, people take our real events and then they make fake movies about them – like Crazy Encounters, you know. It’s like, you know, you’re seeing the real stuff go down with us and then people want to make these movies about us and stuff and, you know, it’s quite funny actually – it’s flattering, so whatever.

DownRight Creepy: Just one more thing that I was wondering on the logistical level that I’ve never really seen explained and I was always curious about is why – what’s the benefit logistically of holding an investigation in complete darkness?

Zak Bagans: You got to understand there’s different spectrums of light and that a lot of things that people just don’t understand because they don’t know about it and if you don’t know about something then you scrutinize it. So the thing is let’s talk about the visible light spectrum – our eyes see a fraction of that spectrum. You go to the left, you’ve got your infrared light spectrum, you go to your right – or you go to your left you’ve got your UV spectrum, you go to your right, you’ve got your infrared spectrum.

The infrared spectrum of light is a very important spectrum of light, because – why – Why can’t we see ghosts all the time, why can’t we see the thing that causes us, gives us the goose bumps? Why can’t we see the entity that’s speaking to us – why can’t we see that energy that makes our body react that way? If our body can react to it, why can’t we see it – why, why, why, why?

Infrared light can only be seen in total darkness by using a infrared camera and when using infrared cameras, there’s a lot of things within that spectrum that are hidden to us – shadows that we wouldn’t be able to see with our own eyes because it’s too dark. These different balls of energy that we know are made up of energy because we’ve documented some lights on our millimeters – our electromagnetic detectors, when these balls appear.

When these balls appear with Nick in particularly, just like on the Colorado Central Unit investigation, is it just coincidence that when Nick started feeling like this and I can only count really one other investigation in the last six years that he’s felt like this, that a ball of light appears in front of his face, does a really weird movement and disappears in his head – at the same exact time he’s feeling sick and emotional? No, it’s not a coincidence because that is what was causing him to feel that way.

And again in a world where so much is unexplained and unproven, we make our stand and we really don’t care what other people think because we know that our beliefs are based upon fact, experiences and evidence and chain of events and chains of events are very important. So using, you know, investigating in the nighttime, you know, we’re able to document a lot of that visual type evidence and at nighttime a lot of things happen at night – a lot of tragic events.

You know, the Valisca murders just came out in the morning time so, you know, a lot of stuff happened in and around the immediate time of night and dusk and down because that energy can really show itself. At night and the rest of the world sleeps at night – it’s a lot more quieter, there’s birds not chirping, there’s construction crews not out there working, there’s cars – not as many during the daytime, so at that time we reduce a lot of the contamination elements.

Sub Cultured: Hey guys! First up, thanks for always putting on a good show for all of us to enjoy! My question is: you guys do really, really well in interacting with your fans whether it’s on your Facebook pages or on your Twitters, so what I want to know is, how important is it for you guys to maintain that relationship?

NG: Well, very important – it’s huge, it’s awesome, it’s like we want to be out there and talk with them, you know. Like, how manyopportunities do you get with like people on TV to be able to talk to their fans? It’s so, so much better when we do, it’s awesome.

ZB: Yes, I think we really show that we do it and I think it’s very visible of how established our fanbase is and, you know, we are known for how much we interact with our fanbase. You know, we have one of the biggest social media following from a network – for our show, you know, and it’s just because that we have that personality.

We are just regular people, we weren’t casted for a TV show and our families aren’t from some, you know, we’re just regular guys that like to connect with, you know, our fans. We have a heart and so they’re very important to us, they keep us going – their comments, their constant Twitter comments, it’s rejuvenating – I just said rejuvenating. It’s really good, it’s uplifting and it keeps the drive going for us to keep doing this – they make it for us.

AG: Right, it’s good to wake up in the morning and look at your Twitter feed and see all these good comments, you know, like we don’t reply to everything but reading it, it’s good to hear, you know, and it’s good to know.

Eccentric Daddy: I wanted to follow-up on something that you mentioned earlier, you were saying that a lot of the investigations that you’re doing are to uncover the mysteries of death, I wanted to follow-up on that. So how is all the work that you’ve done really changed your own perception of what happens after you die and the afterlife?

Zak Bagans: You guys want me to answer this?

Aaron Goodwin: I mean personally, I think that I had – in 2009, I had a face-to-face, you know, interaction with a spirit – I turned around and I saw a lady standing in there that shouldn’t have been there and that opened up my mind to, okay, there is something after we just die – like the body just dies – I just thought that we were living right now.

I think energies eventually will kick everybody to move on to the other side, but when we get out of this body, that energy lingers and at times we’re coming in contact with these different energies that haven’t moved onto that next place yet. So I think there IS life after death if you think of it more in the energy-type form of just leaving this body – what do you think, Zak?

Zak Bagans: Yes, it’s changed me, you know, I’m a very unique person now and I see the change in Nick and Aaron as well, you know, since I’ve met them. It’s given us a lot of confidence and I see that confidence now in Nick, I see it in Aaron and I see it in myself. Not just because we’ve been on camera for such a long time and we’ve had success in this presentation of our passion, but the confidence is because we believe in what we’re doing, we believe in the spirits we’re coming into contact with.

And it’s a very powerful thing, you know, before it’s almost like we were two dimensional, you know, our personalities, our bodies – everything, it just seemed to be we were stuck in this current of society and this time and in this day and age. But now that we’ve been through what we’ve been through, I believe we were chosen to do this. But because what we’ve been through together, what we’ve experienced, we’re now in a four-dimensional world and you can tell – you can see that, you can feel that from us now.

And it’s a powerful thing to really know that there is an afterlife, you look at people differently – you almost want to just talk to people now. It’s easier to talk to people now because you know something that they really don’t know. It’s not you have a ego, or you’re better than them – you just have a complete understanding now of how valuable everything in life is and by this evidence that we’re retrieving daily, these investigations, being able to time travel and go back into time and communicate with people that have died, it’s the most amazing experience that you can have in life – it truly is.

Young Folks: I just had a couple of questions. First one is after an investigation, is it common for some of the entities maybe to follow you around for a little bit?

AG: It depends on what we do or if they want to, you know, I don’t know, it just happens.

ZB: Yes, you’ll…

AG: You don’t know until it does.  Does that make sense – it’s still just like that or, you know, (they just hunt an old man) and he’s coming through my house like, you know, something like that – I mean no. GAH. I’m mixed up.

ZB: Yes, it’s kind of like a lockdown hangover I call it, you know, like if we go on an investigation and there’s different levels of when we feel we’re in interaction with them, but if we start getting that feeling – that chill, that’s our bodies’, you know, alarm that hey guys, there’s spirits here, get ready. But when you feel that hard when your hair stands up on and you get those goose bumps and you start feeling weird, that is a release of your own energy and a transmission of theirs.

So from within that your body goes into kind of a shock and that shock is felt typically a couple days after – that’s an in-the-moment thing, but yes you can have attachments as well. I’ve had some crazy shit happen in my house, you know, typically after intense lockdowns. Like I just woke up today and I have this huge scratch on my stomach, like going like – it’s like a five inch scratch on my stomach, I just took a picture of it before we started this.

NG: Oh, really.

ZB: You know, but it’s just like whatever, you know. It’ real so you just shake it off now, it’s part of the job.

Young Folks: All right, and I had another question for all three of you too – are there any locations you’d like to investigate but haven’t had the chance to yet?

AG: Yes!

NG: Of course.

AG: There’s the Egyptian pyramids and of course, Dracula’s castle, Zak and I talk about that all the time – he definitely wants to go there.

ZB: Yes I’d love to, I just don’t want to climb that, climb up the rock because I heard it’s a hell of a climb.

NG: No, no we’ll hire a bunch of people to carry you on donkeys.

ZB: Yes, I’ll do that then – donkey climbing or on a donkey. I want to do that – I also want Nick and Aaron to investigate my house, you know, when the timing’s right, I’d love for these guys to come over and kind of see what’s going on…

NG: Yes, like the other day?

ZB: Yes, this really cool like mist going by one of my – I put a whole surveillance camera system in my house because of 16 people being attacked in my house and me being dragged out of my bed. So I caught this really cool mist going by one of my cameras and I’ve never seen that before, it was a really thick mist and it just passed in front of the camera and it was at the same time that some other stuff was going on so it was pretty cool.

NG: Just all over the world I think, you know, week after week we’re just finding new locations that just amaze us. We’re going on another location coming up in another week or so from now that’s absolutely amazing. I’ve been just looking forward to going to this place for the last year or so – there’s another place, we have our team call them every year, we have a researcher call them every year at the Psychiatric Buffalo Mental Hospital in New York, where I mean it’s just absolute amazing.

But every year we get turned down because it’s condemned – it’s owned by the government, so one of these days hopefully we can get into some of these places.

Rick Gomes: Great, thank you guys for joining us today and, be sure, Ghost Adventures airs Friday nights, 9:00 pm Eastern on the Travel Channel!

Looking for other ways to show off your spooky side? Try our DIY Glowing Beast Eyes or Halloween Countdown Garland! When you’re done, wind down with Ten Family Friendly Halloween Movies to help lull the kiddos into a candy coma! Afterward, you can set the mood with Five Albums to Flesh Out Your Halloween Playlist and huddle under the covers with Netflix and Chilling – Halloween Movie Edition. Let us know about your DIY Decor on Twitter @SubCultured or come party like its 1599 in our Discord server!