In this issue, I welcome Wes Forsythe, investigator and radio host to The Malliard Report.
By Jim Malliard, The Malliard Report
This should be an interesting time. Wes has a lot of great knowledge to share with us.
Jim: How did you become interested in the paranormal in the first place?
Wes: I wish I had some great story about my “imaginary friends” as a child or a visitation from some deceased relative. The truth is that, for a long as I can remember, stories of the paranormal fascinated me, whether they were about ghosts, UFOs, or Bigfoot. When the recent “paranormal reality” TV boom caught on, I was engrossed by it.
Eventually, an opportunity to go on an actual ghost hunt in my home town popped up and I went. I had a night vision camera that had never been used in the dark, a digital recorder that had only been used to score hunting dogs, and a point-and-shoot Kodak camera that logged most of its usage on vacations. That single excursion hooked me instantly and started me on the path that I now travel.
Jim: Do you have a special skill you use on investigations?
Wes: I’m not sure if it’s a skill or a condition, but psychics tell me that I have an unusual ability to get the attention of ghosts and have them listen to me. We coined the term “the voice” to describe how I seem to be able to draw the attention of spirits just by talking to them.
On the technical side, this seems to have resulted in some fairly impressive audio and video evidence. On the metaphysical side…well all I have to go on is what the psychics tell me, but it makes for some neat ghost stories.
I am also a dowser. I seem to be able to create or attract strong communication channels through dowsing rods that we work to transfer over to our technical research. We consider the rods a way to get the spirits involved in the conversation and interested in what we are doing.
Jim: How did you learn that?
Wes: I had used dowsing rods on the farm for other things over the years, but one night I was on a small ghost hunt and the activity was off the charts, at least as far as personal experiences go. When we realized that no one had bothered to bring an EMF meter to see if we could make any correlations between the experiences and the environment, I had the bright idea of running out to my car and tearing up a couple of coat hangers. I was amazed at the interactions we seemed to be getting on the rods that night. It took me in a new direction and the rest is history.
I am now regularly invited to give seminars and demonstrations on spirit dowsing. Last year, I was invited to speak at Scarefest which looks good on the resume.
Jim: Being a radio host as well, who do you want to interview?
Wes: I want to interview everyone. I enjoy talking to just about anyone that can form a complete sentence and describe their experiences, beliefs, and ideas in a coherent way. I try to get a broad mix on my show (PARANORMAL FILLER, 8PM EASTERN, SUNDAYS ON LIVEPARANORMAL.COM to squeeze an extra plug in). I talk to representatives from paranormal teams, authors, psychics, and para-celebs. I just try to give my guests a fun environment to share their stories and knowledge and hope that my genuine passion for knowledge comes across to the listener.
Now, if I had to pick a new direction to take the show, I would like to get celebrities from outside the actual paranormal field on the show to talk about their experiences, interests, and beliefs. It’s still a numbers game that I am playing and bigger names tend to expose bigger numbers to my chosen forum.
Jim: Where do you see the paranormal field moving to in 5 years?
Wes: Honestly, I see a decline coming in quantity, if not quality. The “ghost story” shows may continue and prosper on television, but the “stomp around in the dark with blinky lights” shows seem to be on the decline from their peak. If hunting for ghosts goes out of vogue, then I can’t imagine the flood of interest we’ve seen over the past several years continuing.
The attention to the field has made some people think for the first time about how to apply science and physics to it, not that the approach is common despite the claims people make and that excites me. The wild-card in this is the internet. As internet based networks figure out how to monetize their offerings we might merely see a shift away from the SyFy channel to the web.
Unfortunately, the freedom of internet broadcasting also enables a lot of bad information and “research” to flourish. There are a lot of people in the field that are sheep looking to be herded to forums that comfortably support their narrow and often simplistic view of their experiences. Personally, I don’t care what a person believes as long as they are open to learning new, even conflicting, information that may challenge, expand or even reshape their views.
Jim: And finally, tell people where to find you and when to listen to your Radio Show.
Wes: My website is www.iHuntGhosts.com. From there you can find some of my articles, research, data and evidence, the occasional personal blog, my Twitter and Facebook links, and of course links to websites that carry my shows. My flagship show is Paranormal Filler. It is hosted by LiveParanormal.com, Sunday nights at 8PM Eastern time. I also currently do a Friday night show for them at 9PM called the Paranormal i-Con and occasionally do “Spotlight” episodes if we have an overflow of guests that we can’t get scheduled otherwise.
I have been very fortunate that enough people enjoy my approach to learning about the paranormal to keep the show growing and finding new outlets. I keep showing up and so do the listeners, so I plan on doing this for a long time.
About the Author:
Jim Malliard grew up with the paranormal practically woven into his DNA. When he was as young as 3 years old, he would spend time in cemeteries with his family talking to his friends who where unseen; and to this day, those experiences have left him wondering and fueled his drive to seek out the truth. Jim now lives in northwestern Pennsylvania with his family. He runs Meadville Paranormal and his radio show, The Malliard Report, from there. You can hear his show on Tuesdays at 9 pm Eastern time via the many internet radio networks. Find out more at www.malliard.com.
