“I am a professional cliffhanger.  Peddling adventure is my business, and at times it’s a mighty lean one.  But the leanness is a part of it.  Going hungry and thirsty and weird places that aren’t even marked on the map is part of it.  My specialty is magic, the forbidden arts.  Jadoo is my stock in trade.” – John A. Keel, Jadoo

Long before ‘The Mothman Prophecies’ there was ‘Jadoo’.  Barely out of his teens, John Keel set out across the world in search of magic: both fake -- and real.  He traveled alone through Egypt, Iraq and India, fighting off bandits, breaking bread with mystical holy men and dodging deadly cobras.  He was Indiana Jones before there was an Indiana Jones.  But instead of a whip, his iconic sidearm was his portable typewriter.  All of his adventuring was in service of his one true dream – becoming a writer.

Richard shares this dream.  And in the summer of 1987, he too sets off on an adventure – armed only with a tattered copy of ‘Lonesome Dove’ and a cassette tape of the Sex Pistols.  He’s on the run – but whether it’s toward something or away, he’s not quite sure.  And after a life-changing weekend in Chicago, he wonders if the road he’s been on his whole life might be about to change forever.

Links:
Buy Jadoo by John A. Keel here https://bookshop.org/p/books/jadoo-john-a-keel/3523f4b3dba9e0a9?ean=9781933665733&next=t

Support RHPB on Patreon here! https://patreon.com/RichardHatem?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink

Celebrate 2026 with 26% off all RHPB merch with offer code RHPB26! CLICK HERE and the discount is pre-applied! https://richardhatem-shop.fourthwall.com/promo/RHPB26

Need help with your personal writing projects?  Richard is here to help!  Get 20% off when you mention RHPB!  https://www.richardhatem.com/

The Cumin Club – delicious, easy, authentic Indian cuisine delivered right to your door.  Use offer code RHPB to get 30% off on EVERY ORDER! https://www.thecuminclub.com/

Remember In Search of Noah’s Ark?  Chariots of the Gods?  The Mysterious Monters?  The Outer Space Connection?  In the mid-1970s, these odd movies from Sunn Classic or American International Pictures would suddenly appear in your neighborhood theater – and it usually meant that your next Saturday afternoon was spoken for. Bigfoot, psychic powers, UFOS – finally there were films devoted to the scientific study of the things I cared about.  Were they scientific?  As it turns out, not so much.  But were they entertaining?  Oh, hell yes.  I’d see these things with my cousins or school friends, and we would all get completely freaked out and terrified.   In other words, a perfect day at the movies.

Author and film historian Gary D. Rhodes remembers these films as fondly as I do and he’s written a beautiful book about them called Weirdumentary.  In our conversation we cover everything from the Bermuda Triangle to William Shatner to the Loch Ness Monster to Orson Wells to the iconography of the Patterson-Gimlin film to the legendary “Office of Knowledge”!

SEE dramatic recreations of Bigfoot attacks!  HEAR bizarre synthesizer music!  LEARN questionable “facts”!  SMELL buttered popcorn and Red Vines!  Now sit back and get ready for your… WEIRDUMENTARY!

LINKS:
Support RHPB on Patreon here! https://patreon.com/RichardHatem?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink

Get the BRAND-SPANKING NEW “RHPB SPIRAL BOUND NOTEBOOK JOURNAL!” Plus all our other stuff.  Celebrate 2026 with 26% off all RHPB merch with offer code RHPB26! CLICK HERE and the discount is pre-applied! https://richardhatem-shop.fourthwall.com/promo/RHPB26

Need help with your personal writing projects?  Richard is here to help!  Get 20% off when you mention RHPB!   https://www.richardhatem.com/

The Cumin Club – delicious, easy, authentic Indian cuisine delivered right to your door.  Use offer code RHPB to get 30% off on EVERY ORDER! https://www.thecuminclub.com/

Buy Weirdumentary here https://feralhouse.com/weirdumentary-book/

For our 2nd anniversary, we bring you the “Miracles MEGA-MIX!” We’ve combined all 3-parts of the Season 1 Miracles series into one easy-to-play episode.  Perfect listening for long road trips, recovering from knee surgery and endless lines at the DMV! Now YOU don’t have to decide if you want to hear “Part 2’s” anymore – we’ve decided for you!  You’re going to!  You’re welcome!  And Happy Anniversary!

LINKS:

Support RHPB on Patreon here! https://patreon.com/RichardHatem?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink

Get the ALL NEW RHPB Spiral Bound Notebook Journal! Celebrate 2026 with 26% off all RHPB merch with offer code RHPB26! CLICK HERE and the discount is pre-applied! https://richardhatem-shop.fourthwall.com/promo/RHPB26

Need help with your personal writing projects?  Richard is here to help!  Get 20% off when you mention RHPB!   https://www.richardhatem.com/

The Cumin Club – delicious, easy, authentic Indian cuisine delivered right to your door.  Use offer code RHPB to get 30% off on EVERY ORDER! https://www.thecuminclub.com/

Buy Miracles by D. Scott Rogo here https://bookshop.org/p/books/miracles-a-parascientific-inquiry-into-wondrous-phenomena-d-scott-rogo/96cfee5389668dd9?ean=9781933665092&next=t

“Compared to most people in Lily Dale, I was a raging skeptic.  Compared to most of my journalistic colleagues, I was a soft-headed sap.  I didn’t believe Lily Dale’s people could chat with the dead, but I was willing to concede that I might be wrong.  I never intended for any of it to change me.  But it did.” – Christine Wicker, Lily Dale

 Lily Dale is a small community of spiritualists in upstate New York.  It is known as “The town that talks to the dead”.  People come here from all over the world hoping to connect with loved ones who have passed on.  Everyone who comes here thinks they will find “the truth” -- and know it when they see it.  Up or down, true or false, real or fake.  They’ll know.  Christine Wicker, religion reporter for the Dallas Morning News, comes to Lily Dale convinced she’ll find out the “truth”.  But the longer she stays, the harder it is to find…

In the summer of 2009, Richard and Susan find themselves on opposite sides of an issue for which there can be no compromise: having a second child.  All Richard wants is another TV show. A year later he’s in Shreveport, Louisiana producing ABC’s summer series The Gates.  But the dream job is rapidly turning into a nightmare.  What happens when the thing you thought would save you turns into something you can barely survive?  And what if embracing the thing you’re most afraid of might be the only path to happiness?

Links:

Support RHPB on Patreon here! https://patreon.com/RichardHatem?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink

Celebrate 2026 with 26% off all RHPB merch with offer code RHPB26! CLICK HERE and the discount is pre-applied! https://richardhatem-shop.fourthwall.com/promo/RHPB26

Need help with your personal writing projects?  Richard is here to help!  Get 20% off when you mention RHPB!  https://www.richardhatem.com/

The Cumin Club – delicious, easy, authentic Indian cuisine delivered right to your door.  Use offer code RHPB to get 30% off on EVERY ORDER! https://www.thecuminclub.com/

Buy Lily Dale by Christine Wicker here https://bookshop.org/p/books/lily-dale-the-town-that-talks-to-the-dead-christine-wicker/40f0955a03d76fe0?ean=9780061153747&next=t

Learn more about the real town of Lily Dale, NY here https://www.lilydaleassembly.org/

“SOMETHING is making those goddamn footprints and I’m going to find out what it is!” – René Dahinden, Sasquatch

The 1970’s were prime “flesh-and-blood” Sasquatch years.  It seemed like everyone who was looking for Bigfoot was sure they were gonna find him (or her) any minute now.  Don Hunter and René Dahinden were no different.  After all, if something exists in the real world, it’s just a matter of time before you’re holding it in your arms – right?

In 1977 Richard was in search of a girl he barely knew.  She drifted through his school, his neighborhood, his dreams – always glimpsed in motion, in the corner of his eye -- but when would she become real?  As Don Hunter and René Dahinden scour the Pacific Northwest in their search for Sasquatch, will Richard’s hunt bring him any closer to his mystery girl?

Links:

Support RHPB on Patreon here! https://patreon.com/RichardHatem?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink

Celebrate 2026 with 26% off all RHPB merch with offer code RHPB26! CLICK HERE and the discount is pre-applied! https://richardhatem-shop.fourthwall.com/promo/RHPB26

Need help with your personal writing projects?  Richard is here to help!  Get 20% off when you mention RHPB!  https://www.richardhatem.com/

Buy Sasquatch by Don Hunter and René Dahinden here https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=don%20hunter&ch_sort=t&cm_sp=sort-_-SRP-_-Results&ds=30&dym=on&rollup=on&sortby=1&tn=sasquatch

Buy Joshua Cutchins and Timothy Renner’s book Where The Footprints End, Volumes 1 & 2  here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/where-the-footprints-end-high-strangeness-and-the-bigfoot-phenomenon-volume-i-folklore-joshua-cutchin/09962a8798ca581c?ean=9798634992617&next=t

Today I am thrilled to bring you an episode of an all-new podcast by RHPB guest, fan and my good friend Dan Zetterstrom!  PATREON members will remember him from the episode where he shared his experience visiting spirit healer Michael Chapman – the son of George Chapman who was featured in the RHPB episode “Surgeon From Another World”.  Dan is a kind, intelligent and relentlessly curious guy and his show “What It Means To Be Human” dives deep into the mysteries of consciousness, humanity and the anomalous.  This episode features a fascinating conversation with comedian, actor and writer Michael Ian Black (Reno 911!, Wet Hot American Summer).  Their talk touches on everything from John Keel to orb sightings to near death experiences to the collective unconscious – to Michael’s growing discomfort with the politics and personalities orbiting “official disclosure”.  This is a fun and fast-moving interview that I think you guys will love.

You can find “What It Means To Be Human” on Spotify, Apple podcasts, YouTube and everywhere you get your Podcasts

Follow “What It Means to Be Human” here: https://www.tobehumanshow.com/

“A flight attendant was in the lower galley when she happened to glance into the glass window of one of the meal heating units. There was the face of Don Repo, the flight engineer who died in the Everglades crash. He said, “Watch out for fire on this airplane.” – from The Ghost of Flight 401

We’ve all heard of haunted houses -- but a haunted jumbo jet?  For over two years, author and journalist John G. Fuller investigated claims that the ghosts of Captain Bob Loft and Flight Engineer Don Repo were appearing to Eastern Airlines flight crews and warning them of mechanical problems on their L-1011s.  But how do you prove a story when the airline's top executive’s close ranks -- and employees are threatened with termination for even talking about the supernatural sightings?

Richard never had a problem with airplanes until a particularly terrifying flight on the night of July 12th, 2002.  Just when his life should have been opening up, this new crippling fear of flying was shutting it down.  How do you overcome fear when you’ve spent a lifetime holding it deep inside?  And how does Richard navigate a landscape of paranoia, anger, desire and rebellion when everything in his life seems to be changing all at once – and way too fast?

Links:

Support RHPB on Patreon here! https://patreon.com/RichardHatem?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink

Celebrate 2026 with 26% off all RHPB merch with offer code RHPB26! CLICK HERE and the discount is pre-applied! https://richardhatem-shop.fourthwall.com/promo/RHPB26

Need help with your personal writing projects?  Richard is here to help!  Get 20% off when you mention RHPB!  https://www.richardhatem.com/

Buy The Ghost of Flight 401 by John G. Fuller here: https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=fuller&ch_sort=t&cm_sp=sort-_-SRP-_-Results&ds=30&dym=on&rollup=on&sortby=2&tn=ghost%20of%20flight%20401

“Nothing in my formal training prepared me for the events described in this book.  What I discovered defied everything I knew about treating patients suffering from grief and trauma, and it took me into an unfamiliar realm of human experience.  I and about 200 other trained psychotherapists have induced thousands of after death communications.  It appears to work with nearly everyone, nearly all of the time.” – Dr. Allan L. Botkin, author of Induced After Death Communication

What if communication with the dead was no longer a spontaneous occurrence but rather something anyone could access any time they liked?  In 1995, Dr. Allan Botkin chanced upon a treatment for grief and loss that appeared to deliver exactly that.  Botkin’s method is called “Induced After Death Communication” – and it is currently being practiced all over the world.  But is it true communication with the spirits of the dead -- or something else entirely?

Richard grapples with this question as he reads Dr. Botkin’s book in the aftermath of his mother’s death.  How does one process grief when the relationship being grieved is “complicated” at best?  And how can you trust a supernatural event that can be accessed as easily as a visit to a therapist’s office?

Links:

Support RHPB on Patreon here! https://patreon.com/RichardHatem?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink

Celebrate 2026 with 26% off all RHPB merch with offer code RHPB26! CLICK HERE and the discount is pre-applied! https://richardhatem-shop.fourthwall.com/promo/RHPB26

Need help with your personal writing projects?  Richard is here to help!  Get 20% off when you mention RHPB!  https://www.richardhatem.com/

Buy Dr. Allan Botkin’s Induced After Death Communication here https://bookshop.org/p/books/induced-after-death-communication-a-miraculous-therapy-for-grief-and-loss-allan-l-botkin-psyd/7d367a8ec38ec68c?ean=9781571747129&next=t

“It was Christmas time.  It was supposed to be a time of happiness, but we had funerals in town.  We couldn’t put off the funerals until after Christmas.  They said later, they found a hairline crack in an eyebolt, and once one part went down, the whole bridge went down.” – from the book Bridging The Tragedy by Bill & Jaci Kousoulas

When the Silver Bridge collapsed on December 15, 1967, the tragedy touched the lives of everyone in Point Pleasant, West Virginia.  In the months leading up to the disaster, hundreds of people in the Ohio River Valley reported UFO sightings, psychic events, poltergeist activity, Men in Black and encounters with a flying humanoid that became known as Mothman.  What happens to a community that undergoes this kind of trauma?  Bill & Jaci Kousoulas decided to find out.

Richard was fortunate enough to meet Bill & Jaci at the 2025 Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant.  In this interview, Richard talks with them about their initial interest in the case (sparked by the movie The Mothman Prophecies), their paranormal investigations, the concept of “Post Traumatic Growth”, and the people they met in Point Pleasant – many of them first-hand witnesses to the bridge collapse and the Mothman himself – all of which led to the publication of their book Bridging the Tragedy -- Silver Linings In The Mysterious Ohio River Valley.     

LINKS:  

Buy Bill & Jaci’s book “Bridging the Tragedy” here https://www.amazon.com/Bridging-Tragedy-Silver-Linings-Mysterious/dp/B0CGKK5KTC/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2UISTYHW9O71R&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.JGFkN_m1TGe7bsB-M4g1NV0X-SsmyxkAfqfydVAkI4z6qQIdI1EhVVj1HxqXLrXm.elAVktCytqkj6YX87VPcYvE9F4C_LnqmyBHd4r6AhBI&dib_tag=se&keywords=bridging+the+tragedy&qid=1769029017&s=books&sprefix=bridging+the+tragedy%2Cstripbooks%2C168&sr=1-1

“He was seen with this guy… Two days later a neighbor said his lawn sprinkler had been running continuously. They called the police.  A lieutenant was sent out – they found the back door ajar.  So he went through and discovered Scott -- slain in a pool of blood.”  -- parapsychologist Dr. Callum Cooper on the death of D. Scott Rogo.

Today I’m thrilled to be talking with Dr. Callum Cooper about his personal research into the life and tragic death of fellow parapsychologist D. Scott Rogo.  Rogo was the driving force behind one of the strangest and most fascinating books ever written – Phone Calls From The Dead.  Cooper followed up on this research and published his own book 30 years later: Telephone Calls From The Dead.

In our conversation, Cooper discusses his investigation into the murder of D. Scott Rogo, his role in getting Phone Calls From The Dead republished in a new affordable volume – and his ongoing fascination with electronic communication with the dead.

LINKS:
Learn more about Dr. Callum Cooper and purchase his books at his personal website https://www.callumecooper.com/

Buy a brand new – and affordable! – copy of D. Scott Rogo and Raymond Bayless’s classic book Phone Calls From The Dead here https://bookshop.org/p/books/phone-calls-from-the-dead-the-results-of-a-two-year-investigation-into-an-incredible-phenomenon-d-scott-rogo/27684604309b6445?ean=9781786772725&next=t

Watch this amazing vintage theatrical promo trailer for the movie Poltergeist -- featuring D. Scott Rogo himself!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIQDw3mJlAg