Richard Hatem's Paranormal Bookshelf

Astonishing Legends co-host Forrest Burgess makes his RHPB debut to kick off the Halloween Season and reveal his “Top 5 Favorite Paranormal Books”!

Of course, first we have to argue about the format of the episode, whether or not I explained it to him clearly, and how is he even supposed to narrow it down to five?!?  But rest assured, we “count ‘em down!”  – just like Casey Kasem and “America’s Top Forty”!  And along the way we talk about everything from “Summer-ween” to Alien Pool Parties to The Odessa File to Tarot Cards to Silence of the Lambs, astral travel, Scott Philbrook, Mike Tyson, the Lizard Man, Spooky Action at a Distance – and all of Forrest’s Girlfriends!  If you know Forrest, you know it’s gonna get weird.  And if you don’t, well… you have been warned.

PLUS: BONUS PATREON CONTENT!  For Patreon members at the Obsessed Fan Level -- Forrest Burgess joins me to reveal and discuss his FAVORITE BOOK OF ALL TIME!  Only on Patreon! 

LINKS:

Listen to Astonishing Legends here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/astonishing-legends/id923527373 

To buy all of the books Forrest recommends, please go to https://bookshop.org/

Visit the Raymond Restaurant and have your own Alien Pool Party! https://theraymond1886.com/

Support RHPB on Patreon and get extra AUDIO and VIDEO content 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/

Richard is back from the Light in the Dark Tour 2026!  Join Richard and his wife (and RHPB executive producer) Susan Lambert as they discuss everything from Richard’s yearlong scheme to finally appear on “Woo-Woo with Rachel Dratch”, to the last minute decision to embark on the tour alone, to Scott Philbrook’s shocking news about getting COVID which basically made Richard certain that he had COVID too just by talking about it, to all the performances of RHPB and all the beautiful, kind and amazing fans we met along the way!

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/

Welcome New Listeners! Revisit Episode 1: Ghosts & Specters

Show Description:  Hey Everybody!  I just had the pleasure of appearing on “Woo-Woo with Rachel Dratch”!  So, I’m re-broadcasting the very first episode of RHPB (“Ghosts & Specters”) for new listeners and anyone who wants to hear it again.  (And don’t worry, the episodes don’t run in chronological order, so you can actually start anywhere…) If you’re new here -- welcome aboard!  I’m so thrilled to have you here!

LINKS:

Listen to me on “Woo-Woo with Rachel Dratch” here:
Spotify • Apple Podcasts

Woo Woo website

Get tickets to Richard Hatem’s “Light in the Dark Tour 2026” LIVE!: https://www.richardhatemsparanormalbookshelf.com/events

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/

“I love the idea that if the house up the road is haunted, then I literally have a cosmic doorway to another way of being.  And that just turns all the colors up in life.”  – Peter Laws

My friend Peter Laws grew up like a lot of us.  As a kid he was obsessed with ghost stories, horror movies and all aspects of the paranormal.  In fact, his interest in the “big questions” was so great that he became an ordained minister.  But his interest in the macabre never went away.  So he returned to the creepier side of life by authoring a series of novels featuring Matt Hunter, an ex-church minister who’s lost his faith, dropped out, and now assists the police in solving religiously motivated crimes.  And now, Peter has an insanely popular YouTube channel called “Into the Fog” where he investigates and documents reports of the unexplained.  These are real, never before heard  cases -- and he talks to the people who lived through them.  Peter is the guy I want to be when I grow up.

In today’s show, Peter and I talk about everything from our favorite horror films to Ouija boards to Peter’s own supernatural encounters.  And along the way we grapple with the pressing questions: is there an afterlife?  Which religion believes in ghosts the most?  Should you take your grandfather to see “Friday the 13th: Part 4”?  Is Taylor Swift a witch?  Is E.T. a demon?  And just what does Peter mean when he says that his books are literally flying off the shelves?

LINKS:

Check out Peter’s YouTube Channel “Into The Fog” here https://www.youtube.com/@IntoTheFog

 Get tickets to Richard Hatem’s “Light in the Dark Tour 2026” LIVE!: https://www.richardhatemsparanormalbookshelf.com/events

 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/

Astonishing Legends co-host Scott Philbrook returns to chat with Richard about his upcoming “Light in the Dark Tour 2026” -- as well as answer such never-before-asked questions as: What scares our dogs?  Where will Scott & Forrest be appearing live in September?  Did Abbott & Costello get along?  Can anyone find Scott’s legendary “lost” appearance on “Portlandia”?  Did Richard schedule too many shows on this tour -- and will Susan ever forgive him??  Find out the answers to these and many more questions on today’s episode!

LINKS: 

Get tickets to Richard Hatem’s “Light in the Dark Tour 2026” LIVE!: https://www.richardhatemsparanormalbookshelf.com/events

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/

Notes:
Get the answer to ALL of your Abbott & Costello questions here:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/abbott-and-costello-meet-the-podcast/id1729032545

Is your dog afraid of hiccups, just like Luna? Learn about your dog’s weird fears here: https://www.redpointydog.com/post/understanding-your-dog-s-fear-what-to-look-for-and-how-to-help-them

“It is not more surprising to be born twice than once; everything in nature is resurrection.”  –- Voltaire

An entire branch of paranormal research involves documenting cases of children who claim to remember past lives.  Almost as soon as they can speak, these children ask desperately about their “other family”, their “other home” -- and will cry for months (sometimes years) begging to be reunited with people their parents have never met or even heard of.  And sometimes those people turn out to be 100% real.  Imagining the child’s pain is one thing -- but what about the parents?  The ones who brought their child into the world thinking they were at the very beginning of something special and beautiful and unique… Only to realize they’re entering at the middle of an ongoing story as their child mourns a life they know nothing about.  Jim B. Tucker’s book “Return to Life” is filled with such stories.  Becoming a parent is hard enough.  What do you do when your child is convinced they’re not even yours?

Richard became a father for the first time on June 21st, 1996.  And while Owen never claimed to have a past life, he claimed this one as all babies do – by screaming and crying and testing the very last nerve of both his parents.  As Richard struggles through those first few months of fatherhood, he asks the questions every young parent does: who is this person?  Who will they become? Is he giving them what they need to have the life they want?  And over the years, did he somehow begin mistaking their dreams for his own?

LINKS:

See Richard Hatem’s “Light in the Dark Tour 2026” LIVE!  Get tickets here: https://www.richardhatemsparanormalbookshelf.com/events

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/

Want to know more about near death experiences?  Attend the largest NDE gathering in the world!  Get tickets for IANDS 2026 Conference here https://iands.org/events/conference/

“That’s what was different about paranormal cases as opposed to my usual ones.  These cases made me wonder ‘What If?’  I wondered if Bigfoot had supernatural abilities.  Could it pass through dimensions the way we pass through air?  Could it make itself invisible?  Is that why it was so rarely seen?  Is that why I could smell it now –– but not see it?”
-- Stanley Milford, Jr., The Paranormal Ranger

In late 2002, Navajo Ranger Stanley Milford and his partner Jonathan Dover receive a strange and completely unprecedented assignment: they will be in charge of all reported cases involving UFOs, witches, Bigfoot, ghosts and any other paranormal activity.  They will be “The Paranormal Rangers.”  What starts out as a public relations maneuver soon evolves into a full-time, full-blown investigation into everything that people fear the most: the unknown.  And as Stanley Milford learns, you don’t take on an assignment like this and come out the other side unscathed – or unchanged.  Stanley prides himself on being able to live a life that straddles reality; with “a foot in two worlds”.  But what do you do when one world begins to pull you in deeper and deeper -- against your will –- and you start to lose your balance?

Meanwhile, it’s 1979.  Richard is in 8th grade and he’s on the verge of becoming a man.  That’s right:  he’s about to enter the world of organized sports.  With it comes an entré into a world he’s never been allowed into: male bonding with the sports guys.  Sure, he’d rather be at home eating mini-pizzas and watching “The Rockford Files”.  But when Sean Delgado – the most popular guy in school – allows you to hang out with him, what are you supposed to do?  So what if he punches you so hard you have permanent bruises – it’s worth it, right?  Hanging with the sports guys offers privileges Richard has never dreamed of.  But there are hidden dangers, too.  When the road gets rough, even Richard must decide which of his “two worlds” he really belongs in.

Links: 
Buy a copy of Stanley Milford’s “The Paranormal Ranger” HERE 

Support RHPB on Patreon HERE!
Celebrate 2026 with 26% off all RHPB merch with offer code RHPB26! CLICK HERE and the discount is pre-applied!
Need help with your personal writing projects?  Richard is here to help!  Get 20% off when you mention RHPB!
https://www.richardhatem.com/

Want to know more about near death experiences?  Attend the largest NDE gathering in the world!  Get tickets for IANDS 2026 Conference HERE.

“Please answer True or False to the following statements: ‘As a child, a lot of my time was spent in a world of self-created fantasy.’ ‘As a child, I felt that I had a guardian angel.’ ‘When I was a child, I was very psychic.’ ‘When I was a child, I nearly died’.”
-- Questions from Dr. Kenneth Ring’s Omega Project Childhood Experience Inventory

Listeners of this podcast know: near-death experiences are awesome -- and alien abductions suck.  One is rapturous; the other nightmarish.  But what if, at their core, they aren’t so different?  What if only certain kinds of people have these experiences?  And what if, behind their wildly different theatrical trappings, both experiences are imparting the same message: the earth is drifting toward doom, and there’s only so much time left to course-correct before everything goes up in flames?

Dr. Kenneth Ring’s ground-breaking 1992 work The Omega Project dives straight into these questions.  For the first time ever, a study is conducted to determine if there is an “experiencer type” – and an attempt is made to define who is prone to having these kinds of encounters.   And in true 1990’s fashion, the book anticipates the coming millennium with a mixture of chilling dread and paper-thin hope.  Thirty-four years later, we’re still here.  But does that mean the angels and aliens are wrong and we’re safe?  Or are they just working on a far longer timeline?

It’s January 1997, and Richard has been sent to Baltimore, Maryland with one task: convince Richard Gere to star in The Mothman Prophecies.  Writing the script was one thing -- but wooing a Hollywood star?  That’s not really in his wheelhouse.  How much say do you ever have in your own success – or failure?  And how do you know what moves to make when the result could make or break your career -- and the future remains stubbornly unclear?     

Notes & Links

Buy The Omega Project by Kennth Ring, PhD HERE.

Support RHPB on Patreon HERE!
Celebrate 2026 with 26% off all RHPB merch with offer code RHPB26! CLICK HERE and the discount is pre-applied! 

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/

“It appeared that in a single day Janet had levitated, traveled out of her physical body, made a book go through the wall from one room to another and caused a heavy cushion to travel from a closed room onto the roof. It did not sound possible, but five different people were certain it had all happened.” – Guy Lyon Playfair, This House Is Haunted
 
How can a thing be true and false at the same time?  Frightening and funny?  Scary and dull?   Real and unreal?  How can something be itself -- and its own opposite?  Easy: it’s a poltergeist.
 
For over two years the Hodgson family in Enfield, England were plagued with a poltergeist that simultaneously played by – and broke – all the rules of poltergeistery.  As usual, there were cries of fraud from the very beginning.  And as usual, there were dozens of witnesses to phenomena that could have no earthly explanation.  Psychic investigators Guy Lyon Playfair and Maurice Grosse spent hundreds of hours living with the Hodgson’s and documented everything that went on in their house.  But what happens when an avalanche of evidence breeds nothing but more skepticism?  And what do you do when the very word “poltergeist” seems suddenly too small to describe a display of supernatural effects so vast that the case has been called the greatest haunting in history?
 
In 2009, Richard, his wife Susan, and their three children moved into a house in Pasadena, California that promises to be the culmination of all of Richard’s dreams.  But that’s not exactly how it works out.  They say haunted houses are fueled by the stress and anxiety of the families who live inside them.  But if that’s true, isn’t every house a haunted house?  For Richard, beyond the dark charm of the bookshelf lined office, the eternal glow of the private wet-bar – and the strange melancholy allure of the swimming pool hidden behind the black, vine-covered fence… lies the truth of every house, every family and every dream that stays hauntingly just out of reach.

Buy This House Is Haunted By Guy Lyon Playfair from Bookshop.org HERE.

Support RHPB on Patreon HERE!

Celebrate 2026 with 26% off all RHPB merch with offer code RHPB26! CLICK HERE and the discount is pre-applied!

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/

“This is not going to be edited.  It's just me and a microphone talking about my journey with this (UFO) topic and where I'm at. There are many of you who have asked: ‘When's the show coming back?’ I just kind of want this to be the end of it all. This podcast is never coming back.”  –- Rob Kristoffersen, on the final episode of “Our Strange Skies”

On February 28th, 2026, UFO expert Rob Kristoffersen abruptly ended his extremely popular podcast “Our Strange Skies.”  In a candid, intimate and largely improvised 21-minute monologue, he explains why.  When I heard it, I was so blown away I knew I had to talk to him – and then I decided to bring all of you in on the conversation.

Most podcasts don’t end – they just stop. But Rob decided to address his reasons for leaving podcasting by talking frankly about the rarely discussed challenges and demands of the medium. For anyone who has ever tried podcasting, you’ll hear your own story here. For those of you who are podcast fans, you’ll get a rare and surprising look behind the curtain at what makes podcasting so alluring –– and so heartbreaking.

In our conversation, Rob and I discuss “paranormal fatigue”; how COVID changed podcasting for the better -- and worse; the end of the “little guy podcast” and the rise of celebrity-casts; paranormal “comfort food” podcasts – and the biggest question facing podcasters: are we all just “Patreon whores”? Finally, Rob gives us a peek at what he’s up to now and what’s next for him in terms of exploring even newer avenues for creative expression.

NOTES & LINKS

Follow rob on Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/yerguyrob/

Check out Rob’s Substack “Foolology” here
https://foolology.substack.com/

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://promocode.to/the-cumin-club/rhpb-92t