Some Other Sphere

Episode 90 - David Booher - The Gerry Irwin Story

My guest for this episode is author David Booher, who joined me to talk about his 2017 book, No Return: The Gerry Irwin Story – UFO Abduction or Covert Operation.
The book explores the interesting case of Gerry Irwin, a young soldier in the US Army who whilst driving back to his base on a cold February evening in 1959, witnessed an unusual light in the sky. Stopping to investigate, he left a message on his car to make other motorists aware and walked through the undergrowth towards the spot where he thought something had crashed, or landed.  He would later be found unconscious, and from that point on would be beset by inexplicable blackouts and bizarre behaviour, which threatened to derail his promising Army career. Then one day early in August 1959 he suddenly deserted his Army post in Texas and seemingly disappeared without a trace.
What happened to Gerry in those months is one of Ufology’s less famous mysteries, but a fascinating one nonetheless. Was this an alien abduction case, two years before something similar happened to Betty and Barney Hill? Or, as has been suggested with those events, could it be something more terrestrial and nefarious?
No one knew what became of Gerry until David decided to research the mystery and the book details the results of those investigations. We begin the interview by laying out the established timeline for the case and then talk further about how David uncovered more about what happened to Gerry.
No Return: The Gerry Irwin Story – UFO Abduction or Covert Operation is available to purchase online and from your local bookshop. David can be contacted by email at noreturnufo@gmail.com if you have any questions for him.
If you'd like to support the upkeep of Some Other Sphere with a donation, you can do so via Ko-fi. To buy the podcast a coffee go to https://ko-fi.com/someotherspherepodcast. Thank you!
 
The Some Other Sphere theme is from Purple Planet Music - 'Hubbub' by Geoff Harvey and Chris Martyn.
 

Episode 89 - Duncan Barford - Magick, Psychology and the Paranormal

Joining me as my guest for this episode is Duncan Barford. Duncan is the creative force behind Occult Experiments in the Home, a project which began as a blog but has expanded beyond that into a number of books and a podcast. These have all explored magick, occulture and the paranormal and focus in particular on how those areas intersect with personal experience, psychology, and spiritual practice.
Duncan is also a qualified counsellor and suspended the blog when beginning the training for this, concerned that a conspicuous interest in the occult might prove professionally unhelpful. Having now qualified and worked for several years in various therapeutic contexts, he is able to enjoy discussing openly his deep and lifelong interest in these subjects.
In the interview we begin by talking about how Occult Experiments in the Home got started, which leads to a wide-ranging discussion about magic, psychology, the nature of being, the value of experience in understanding the paranormal, and much more.
Further details about Duncan and OEITH can be found at https://oeith.co.uk/.
You can support the upkeep of Some Other Sphere with a donation via Ko-fi. To buy the podcast a coffee go to https://ko-fi.com/someotherspherepodcast. Thank you!
 
The Some Other Sphere theme is from Purple Planet Music - 'Hubbub' by Geoff Harvey and Chris Martyn.
 

Episode 88 - Michele Eve - Spiritualism, Mediumship and Ghostly Gloucestershire

In this episode my guest is paranormal investigator Michele Eve. Michele, who is based in the English county of Gloucestershire in the UK is the creator of the Mystical Times blog, where she writes about a wide range of paranormal phenomena, from time slips, to ghostly monks, past lives, strange deaths, local folklore and much more.
 
Michele grew up in a Spiritualist household and we talk about that early in the interview, before moving on to her time working as a psychic medium, and what that faculty can tell us about the nature of the supernatural. After that we talk about a local legend that was born out of a tragic rail disaster in the 1920's and then return to discussing some of the unusual happenings Michele has experienced and written about, as well some of the haunted places that are dotted throughout the county of Gloucestershire. 
To visit the Mystical Times blog go to https://mysticaltimesblog.com/.
You can support Some Other Sphere with a donation via Ko-fi. To buy the podcast a coffee go to https://ko-fi.com/someotherspherepodcast. Thank you!
 
The Some Other Sphere theme is from Purple Planet Music - 'Hubbub' by Geoff Harvey and Chris Martyn.
 

Episode 87 - Ailsa Clarke & Bethan Briggs-Miller - Eerie Essex

Joining me for this episode are paranormal researchers Ailsa Clarke and Bethan Briggs-Miller, who are the hosts of the Eerie Essex podcast.
In their podcast, they explore the folklore, macabre history and supernatural happenings of Essex, an ancient county in the east of England. There have been episodes on witches, cryptids, ghosts, exorcisms, gnomes, and much more.
In the interview I begin by talking with Ailsa and Bethan about how Eerie Essex got started, after which we discuss some of the unusual subjects they’ve covered in the podcast, as well as a few of their own weird experiences.
In Essex, as in most places, the supernatural permeates the landscape, communities and legends of the area and we also talked about the high strangeness that can arise from personal interaction with those things.
To find out more about Eerie Essex, please go to the podcast Twitter account (@Eerie_Essex). Ailsa and Bethan can also be contacted by email at eerieessexpodcast@gmail.com.
You can support Some Other Sphere with a donation via Ko-fi. To buy the podcast a coffee go to https://ko-fi.com/someotherspherepodcast. Thank you!
 
The Some Other Sphere theme is from Purple Planet Music - 'Hubbub' by Geoff Harvey and Chris Martyn.
 

Episode 86 - Emma Woods - Glimpses of Magonia

My guest for this episode is Emma Woods, author of Glimpses of Magonia, a memoir of the disconcerting yet transformative anomalous events that she has experienced all through her life.
The book provides a unique insight into what motivates people like her to seek answers in areas of paranormal research, to help better understand the meaning of those experiences.
In the interview, I start by talking with Emma about the title of the book and what that means to her. From there we talk more about the experiences themselves, the way that Emma recollected them, and how she learned to understand what they might mean. Some of these happened at very difficult times in Emma life and as I’m sure you can imagine, it was a privilege to talk with her about such personal matters.
We end the interview by talking about some mysterious files sent to her by a Ufologist friend, which seemed to indicate the existence of a very unusual project at NASA – and whether these were genuine, or another example of disinformation being spread among the Ufology community.
For more information on Emma's book got to https://emmawoodsbooks.com/.
You can support Some Other Sphere with a donation via Ko-fi. To buy the podcast a coffee go to https://ko-fi.com/someotherspherepodcast. Thank you!
 
The Some Other Sphere theme is from Purple Planet Music - 'Hubbub' by Geoff Harvey and Chris Martyn.
 

Episode 85 - Jo Hickey-Hall - Modern Fairy Sightings

Joining me for this episode is Jo Hickey-Hall. Jo is a folklorist, researcher and social historian with a long-held interest in the relationship between supernatural experience, local landscape and oral tradition. 
In 2015 she gained a Masters in History from the University of Bristol, supervised by Professor Ronald Hutton, with her research focused on the portrayal in Medieval Irish literature of a mythic race of beings known as the Sidhe. 
Later, Jo began the Modern Fairy Sightings Project, which set out to record peoples personal encounters with strange beings whose identity might best be examined through the lens of folklore and legend. This then lead in 2020 to the start of the Modern Fairy Sightings podcast, an excellent show where she talks to people who have had these type of experiences with a wide and weird range of entities. 
In the interview I talk with Jo about the origins of her interest in fairies, how best to understand what that term means and the beings that it is most useful in describing. We discuss the often-found relationship between fairies and nature, and the more playful, trickster like behaviour they exhibit which at times seems akin to poltergeist activity and which we have both experienced recently
For more information on Jo's research into Fairy encounters (including the Modern Fairy Sightings project and podcast), go to https://www.scarlettofthefae.com/
You can support Some Other Sphere with a donation via Ko-fi. To buy the podcast a coffee go to https://ko-fi.com/someotherspherepodcast. Thank you!
 
The podcast theme is from Purple Planet Music - 'Hubbub' by Chris Martyn and Geoff Harvey.
 

Episode 84 - The Reverend Peter Laws - Horror Movies, Religion and the Supernatural

My guest for this episode is the Reverend Peter Laws. Peter is not only a church minister but also an author, journalist, public speaker and podcaster. He has written articles for the Fortean Times and has a regular film review column there. In 2018 he wrote his acclaimed non-fiction book The Frighteners , which sought to understand and defend why humans have a morbid streak and saw him investigate the human fascination with death, murder and the supernatural. 
Our conversation is a wide ranging one, starting with Peter’s love of horror movies and the juxtaposition of that with his religious vocation. We also discuss his own podcast projects, along with subjects such as the nature of good and evil, demonic possession, Padre Pio and the mystical elements of Christianity, Vampires and much more. 
LISTENER DISCRETION ADVISED: Our conversation does contain some gruesome subject matter, which you may wish to avoid if you're not a fan of that sort of thing.
More information on Peter and his books, podcasts and writing can be found on his website https://www.peterlaws.co.uk/.
You can support the upkeep of Some Other Sphere with a donation via Ko-fi. To buy the podcast a coffee, go to https://ko-fi.com/someotherspherepodcast. Thank you!
 
The podcast theme is from Purple Planet Music - 'Hubbub' by Geoff Harvey and Chris Martyn.
 

Episode 83 - Morgan Knudsen - Embracing the Unknown and The Gift of Instinct

Joining me for this episode is paranormal researcher and investigator Morgan Knudsen. Morgan is the founder of the award-winning Entity Seeker Paranormal Research and teachings, which developed a number of educational programs to help people better understand and appreciate supernatural phenomena, the best known being Teaching the Living, which was also developed into a book based on the program.
Morgan’s latest book is The Gift of Instinct: Paranormal Lessons for an Extraordinary World, in which she shares some practical ideas on how the paranormal can teach people about who we really are and the instinct that calls us to a greater connection with what we call spirit.
In the interview I begin by talking about how her interest in the paranormal started off, and developed into a career researching and investigating this field. We talked about some of the places she has investigated in Canada, and the legacy of the arrival of Europeans settlers in the country, which had a drastic effect on the indigenous cultures who lived there, both literally and spiritually, which led us to talk about the Wendigo phenomena. Later on our conversation leads to us talking about the mysterious Van Meter Visitor, a bizarre cryptid reported to terrorise an town in Iowa in the early 20th Century.
LISTENER DISCRETION ADVISED: Our conversation does include the details of a gruesome murder associated with the Wendigo, which you may wish to avoid if you are not a fan of that sort of subject matter.
More details on Morgan's books, research, teaching programs and podcast can be found at https://www.entityseeker.ca/.
You can support the upkeep of Some Other Sphere with a donation via Ko-fi. To buy the podcast a coffee, go to https://ko-fi.com/someotherspherepodcast. Thank you!
 
The Some Other Sphere is from Purple Planet Music - 'Hubbub' by Geoff Harvey and Chris Martyn.
 

Episode 82 - Melissa Seims - The Coven of Atho

My guest for this episode is author and magical practitioner Melissa Seims, who joined me talk about her new book Here be Magick: The People and Practices of the Coven of Atho, which tells an unusual story set in the early post-war years of the UK, a period that was an interesting time in the history of witchcraft in the country as changes in legislation had allowed people to explore their interest in the occult more freely. Some began searching for evidence of pagan traditions that had survived into modern times and this would ultimately lead to the emergence of 'Wicca' in 1954, a movement championed by a retired civil servant named Gerald Gardner.
Here be Magick however focuses on the lives of Charles Cardell, the son of an internationally famous Victorian stage magician and Ray Howard, an unusual character who claimed to have been bequeathed a mysterious artefact called the ‘Head of Atho’ a striking wooden altarpiece featuring an array of occult symbols and purported be thousands of years old.
The idea of the coven itself has a somewhat confusing origin but seems to have been born out of the relationship between Cardell and Howard, which started well but ended acrimoniously with accusations of witchcraft and a messy High Court libel case.
In the interview I talk with Melissa about how her own interest in magic and witchcraft began, and then we move on to discuss how she progressed from first writing about the Coven in a 2007 article onto researching and writing about the people and events who together make up the story of the Coven of Atho in much more detail.
For more of Melissa's writing and to get a copy of Here be Magick, go to https://www.thewica.co.uk/.
If you would like to support the upkeep of Some Other Sphere, you can do so via Ko-fi. To buy the podcast a coffee go to https://ko-fi.com/someotherspherepodcast. Thank you!
 
The Some Other Sphere theme is from Purple Planet Music - 'Hubbub' by Geoff Harvey and Chris Martyn.
 

Episode 81 - Evelyn Hollow - The Psychology of the Paranormal

Joining me for this episode is paranormal psychologist and writer, Evelyn Hollow. Evelyn is a former psychology lecturer and holds a Master of Research degree in Paranormal Psychology.
She was a resident author at Esoterica Zine for more than four years, the occult columnist for the Corvid Culture website and gives guest talks on paranormal history and the quantum physics of anomalous phenomena.
She now also consults as an expert for a variety of TV shows and podcasts — most recently the smash-hit BBC shows The Battersea Poltergeist and Uncanny. She is also one quarter of the team on the new TV show Spooked Scotland, which began airing on the Discovery Channel in May 2022.
I start the interview with Evelyn by asking about how her career investigating the paranormal began and her approach to this from a psychological and scientific perspective. We also discuss the role and importance of consciousness in understanding the nature of happenings such as hauntings and poltergeists. As you might expect, the Battersea Poltergeist made its way into the conversation, as well as some of the theories about what might be the cause of cases such as that, and other types of paranormal activity.
To find out more about Evelyn and her work go to https://evelynhollow.com/.
If you would like to support the upkeep of Some Other Sphere you can make a donation via Ko-fi. To buy the podcast a coffee please visit https://ko-fi.com/someotherspherepodcast. Thank you!
 
The Some Other Sphere theme is 'Hubbub' by Geoff Harvey and Chris Martyn of Purple Planet Music.