“This huge thing was standing in the road. It had to be at least seven or 8 feet tall, and the arms were so long they were down to its knees.  You couldn’t see the face because there was hair all over it. It was actually running toward our car. It was awful.” – from Terrifying Encounters by Lyle Blackburn

No one knows more about the strange creatures that lurk the backroads, swamps and forests of America than Lyle Blackburn. You probably know him from his appearances on “Astonishing Legends”, “Finding Bigfoot” and “The UnXplained with William Shatner”. Ever since seeing The Legend of Boggy Creek as a small child, Lyle has been obsessed with unknown creatures -- and he grew up to be the world’s foremost expert on the Fouke Monster, the beast featured in the movie.

Lyle has written numerous books about monsters in America and “Terrifying Encounters” is his latest. It’s the first in a series and it features fascinating and truly terrifying first-hand accounts of encounters with creatures that shouldn’t exist -- but somehow do.

Our conversation covers everything from Dogmen to Goatmen, to the differences between a Devil Monkey and an Anomalous Ape, to his own terrifying encounter in the backwoods of Arkansas -- to whether Bigfoot will ever finally be captured.

Notes & Links:

Buy Terrifying Encounters and all of Lyle Blackburn’s books here http://www.lyleblackburn.com/bio.htm

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!

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

“Ghost hunting is fun – until the ghosts show up.”  -- Dan Zetterstrom, podcast host, What It Means To Be Human

A lot of strange things happen to Dan Zetterstrom.  And lucky for us, they almost always have something to do with a book featured on our show!  First, he underwent spiritual healing with Michael Chapman, the son of George Chapman, who was featured in the RHPB episode Surgeon From Another World (S2, EP6).  And today he shares a weird, wonderful, creepy and heart-warming story about an after-death communication he experienced while practicing self-administered EMDR – a method that was featured on our recent episode Induced After Death Communication (S4, EP1).  Meanwhile, he and his wife Alaina are criss-crossing the country in what they call their “Mobile UFO Hunting Unit” – and Dan is producing his own podcast, What It Means To Be Human.  The guy keeps busy.

 In today’s conversation we talk about the astounding results of his spiritual healing, his experiments with astral projection, his meditation experiences using a “Muse 2” headband to track his brainwaves – and what happens when you reach into the dark… and something licks your hand.

Dan Zetterstrom is a passionate researcher of the anomalous, artist, storyteller and host of the podcast What It Means to Be Human. Known for his work as co-host and producer of That UFO Podcast, creator of the viral Tom Was Right campaign from To The Stars, and guest star on Ancient Aliens and Phenomenology, Dan brings a thoughtful and curious approach to exploring humanity, consciousness and the anomalous.  With a talent for uncovering profound insights through engaging conversations, Dan invites listeners to journey into the mysteries that connect us all.

Notes & Links: 

Listen to Dan’s podcast What It Means To Be Human here https://www.tobehumanshow.com/

Discover more about the “Muse 2 Headband” here https://choosemuse.com/products/muse-2?srsltid=AfmBOopdcPbVjwWbRHlhMQH8k2oc00caozp0LNbeoIkJ9_QI4dEp20Qy

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/

“My grandfather always taught me that 3:00 AM was the Devil’s hour.  At 3:15 Liz started screaming that her face was on fire.  My grandfather turned his flashlight on her face and, as we all watched, three claw marks raked down her cheek and blood dripped onto her chest.”  – Chris McKinnell, The Warren Legacy

What would it be like to have grandparents that were also world-famous ghost hunters?  Author Chris McKinnell (The Warren Legacy) knows because he is the grandson of Ed & Lorraine Warren, two of the most controversial paranormal investigators in history.  In fact, they often referred to themselves as “demonologists”.

In this wide-ranging interview, Richard and Chris discuss the Warren’s early cases, how their approach was shaped by their religious beliefs, his terrifying first night as a “ghost hunter” – and the contact he has had with his grandparents following their deaths.

Chris McKinnell grew up inside the cases that inspired The Conjuring universe. He was the first investigator on the ground in the Smurl haunting, which became the basis for Conjuring: Last Rites. He lived in the haunted funeral home featured in The Haunting in Connecticut.  He is the only living witness to some of the most famous cases Ed and Lorraine Warren ever worked.

Chris began his own unique journey of investigating the unknown at just sixteen, assisting his grandfather on a violent poltergeist case.  Since then, he has worked on over 10,000 cases across six continents, helping families and communities confront the unexplained.

Notes & Links: 

Buy The Warren Legacy by Chris McKinnell here https://www.chrismckinnell.com/book/

 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/

“The strangest thing just happened. Your mother came through the wall of my apartment and said, ‘I have always loved you and I always will.’ Then she left.”  No one had told Rose that my mother had just died.  This encounter happened before she received any news of my mom’s death.” – from Hello From Heaven!
 
In 1988, Bill & Judy Guggenheim began collecting thousands of first-hand reports from people who experienced spontaneous visits from their deceased loved ones.  Hello From Heaven! is jam-packed with over 300 stories – everything from phantom odors to mysterious voices to full body apparitions.  After the first 200 reports you no longer question that something real is happening, and by the end you begin to wonder why it isn’t happening to everybody.  It’s the perfect book for spring and the Easter season.  Hello From Heaven! is a manifesto of hope.
 
For Richard, hope has always been a little hard to come by.  But for a magical 10-month period in 2010/2011, it seems like hope is a given more than something strived for.  As he shepherds a TV pilot (called “Heavenly”, if you must know) from pitch to script to set, it seems like all the angels are on his side.  But how long can hope live in your heart?  And in the cut-throat world of show business, do the angels ever really stand a chance?   
 
Notes & 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 “Hello From Heaven” here https://bookshop.org/p/books/hello-from-heaven-a-new-field-of-research-after-death-communication-confirms-that-life-and-love-are-eternal-bill-guggenheim/476bce0083dd4c62?ean=9780553576344&next=t

Listen to Christopher Wynn’s podcast “Strange” here https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/strange/id1107060442 

“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/