# United States of Ghosts - Best of Coast to Coast AM - 10/27/26

An episode of [The Best of Coast to Coast AM](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1206175991), 28 Oct 2026, 21 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/61c1535a-56bb-431a-ad6b-ae2b00350f5c/7db8e5e9-b7dc-406d-88d5-b4f100a00003/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=b95f0c24-c199-4939-b52c-ae2b00350f65

George Noory and paranormal investigator Richard Estep discuss ghost stories from throughout the history of the United States, what causes spirits to haunt a location, and tales of haunted battlefields, Hollywood and sightings of the ghost of Abraham Lincoln in the White House. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
[0:05] Speaker 2: Well, we've got a great, exciting couple hours for you. Richard,
[0:07] Speaker 2: a step back with us, author, paranormal researcher, and paramedic
[0:11] Speaker 2: who has written more than 40 books covering the paranormal,
[0:15] Speaker 2: true crime, history, and emergency medicine. With more than 30
[0:19] Speaker 2: years of experience investigating reports of ghosts, and Richard continues
[0:24] Speaker 2: to work as a paramedic. Richard, welcome back. How are you?
[0:27] Speaker 3: Yeah. Good morning, George. It's a pleasure to be back.
[0:30] Speaker 3: I'm doing very well, and I hope you are too.
[0:32] Speaker 2: I am too. You're looking forward to Halloween?
[0:35] Speaker 3: Oh, best holiday of the year, isn't it?
[0:37] Speaker 2: Oh, it's one of the best. And I just love
[0:39] Speaker 2: these last three months, October, November, December. It doesn't get
[0:44] Speaker 2: any better than that, does it?
[0:46] Speaker 3: No, those leaves falling from the trees, those beautiful orange
[0:49] Speaker 3: colors crunching under your feet everywhere you walk, and that
[0:52] Speaker 3: chill in the air is just perfection.
[0:54] Speaker 2: And you're still a paramedic, so thank you for what
[0:56] Speaker 2: you do for us.
[0:58] Speaker 3: My pleasure. It's a calling and a big shout out
[1:00] Speaker 3: to everybody that's staffing an ambulance tonight.
[1:03] Speaker 2: Do you find that during full moons, you get more
[1:06] Speaker 2: EMT type calls?
[1:08] Speaker 3: You know, I've looked at the data for this, George,
[1:10] Speaker 3: because it's a superstition that we have that full moons
[1:14] Speaker 3: bring weirder calls and that they bring more calls. And
[1:17] Speaker 3: the sad truth is, even though we'll all tell you
[1:19] Speaker 3: in medicine that that's true, the data does not bear
[1:22] Speaker 3: that out. There are more burglaries. In fact, full moon
[1:26] Speaker 3: is known as a burglar's moon because there's more light
[1:28] Speaker 3: for criminals to see by, but, uh, no, the truth
[1:32] Speaker 3: is we don't.
[1:34] Speaker 2: Interesting. I would, I would think that strange things happen,
[1:37] Speaker 2: but you never know, huh?
[1:39] Speaker 3: You know, everybody in medicine disagrees with this, but, uh, the,
[1:42] Speaker 3: the data is the data. Indeed it is.
[1:46] Speaker 2: How did you get involved in paranormal research?
[1:49] Speaker 3: I grew up in a haunted house, George, my grandparents'
[1:51] Speaker 3: house back in the UK was haunted by the ghost
[1:53] Speaker 3: of an old lady that had lived there before they
[1:56] Speaker 3: hadn't had died in the house. And, uh, while my
[1:58] Speaker 3: grandfather was off fighting in the Second World War, her
[2:02] Speaker 3: apparition dropped in to keep an eye on the kids
[2:04] Speaker 3: and lend a hand until he returned. And nobody realized
[2:07] Speaker 3: that she was not a flesh and blood human until
[2:11] Speaker 3: the kids all started comparing stories and were describing the
[2:13] Speaker 3: same lady.
[2:15] Speaker 2: We're really going to get into your book, The United
[2:17] Speaker 2: States of Ghosts, A History of America's Hauntings. But tell me,
[2:20] Speaker 2: how did you come across this title, United States of Ghosts?
[2:25] Speaker 3: You know, I just kind of love the idea of
[2:27] Speaker 3: fusing U.S. history with the paranormal. So it just seemed
[2:32] Speaker 3: like a natural fit. I was talking about 250 years
[2:36] Speaker 3: of American history as my playground and the ghost stories
[2:40] Speaker 3: which form that canvas. So it just seemed like a
[2:43] Speaker 3: natural title, honestly.
[2:45] Speaker 2: As a relatively younger country than, let's say, countries in Europe,
[2:50] Speaker 2: would you say we still have our share of ghost
[2:53] Speaker 2: stories here in the United States?
[2:55] Speaker 3: Absolutely. Excuse me. Absolutely, we do. There is this kind
[2:58] Speaker 3: of misconception that, you know, Europe tends to have is
[3:02] Speaker 3: more haunted or anything like that. It's not true. The
[3:05] Speaker 3: United States holds its head up high with the best
[3:08] Speaker 3: of them when it comes to ghost stories.
[3:10] Speaker 2: You've got some incredible ghost stories here. How did you
[3:13] Speaker 2: come upon them?
[3:15] Speaker 3: The real challenge with writing a book like this, George,
[3:17] Speaker 3: is not what to put in, but it's what to
[3:19] Speaker 3: leave out. So I wanted to put in a cross
[3:21] Speaker 3: section beginning with the very first well, the origins of
[3:25] Speaker 3: the nation, you know, the Revolutionary War, and then hit
[3:28] Speaker 3: some of the milestones throughout, like the Second World War,
[3:31] Speaker 3: like the rise of spiritualism, the Old West, Houdini, things
[3:35] Speaker 3: of that nature. So finding those major beats and then
[3:38] Speaker 3: kind of stringing those pearls along, choosing stories from various eras.
[3:43] Speaker 3: I wanted to look at Hollywood, for example, as well,
[3:46] Speaker 3: the silver screen and the Great Depression and things like that.
[3:49] Speaker 3: So anything that you saw in your U.S. history class,
[3:53] Speaker 3: those kind of major arcs represented within this book.
[3:56] Speaker 2: We'll get into it later, but I noticed you have
[3:58] Speaker 2: a major series of stories about John Belushi and his tragedy.
[4:04] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's hard to talk about Hollywood, isn't it, really,
[4:07] Speaker 3: without talking about the ghosts and the hauntings, which go
[4:11] Speaker 3: hand in hand with the silver screen.
[4:13] Speaker 2: I can't believe he's been gone 44 years already.
[4:17] Speaker 3: And such a tragic waste at such a young age.
[4:20] Speaker 3: It really was. It really was.
[4:23] Speaker 2: How many stories did you not put in the book?
[4:27] Speaker 3: Oh, you know, George, honestly, this could be a 10, 20,
[4:29] Speaker 3: or 50-book series.
[4:31] Speaker 2: I thought so, yeah.
[4:32] Speaker 3: Yeah, so I picked some of my perennial favorites, but
[4:36] Speaker 3: there are plenty waiting for me to revisit this theme
[4:39] Speaker 3: a little bit further down the line. It's hard to
[4:43] Speaker 3: visit any town, I think, in the United States and
[4:45] Speaker 3: not find at least one ghost story, I would say.
[4:49] Speaker 2: Richard, what is it about battlefields that somehow seem to
[4:54] Speaker 2: be haunted after the fact. Lexington, Concord, places like that.
[5:00] Speaker 3: I've often said that where you get strong emotion, you
[5:03] Speaker 3: find ghosts. Strong emotions can be positive, but also very negative.
[5:07] Speaker 3: And there are few places where emotions run stronger than
[5:10] Speaker 3: on a field where men are trying to kill one another,
[5:12] Speaker 3: where they are literally fighting for their lives. We are
[5:16] Speaker 3: a country that was born in blood. The first shots
[5:18] Speaker 3: of the Revolutionary War were fired in Lexington and Concord.
[5:23] Speaker 3: And the emotion that went along just in the country
[5:27] Speaker 3: at that time was absolutely incredible. You add in the
[5:30] Speaker 3: pain that comes with the wounds that were suffered, the
[5:33] Speaker 3: various emotional torment. And then let's not also forget the
[5:36] Speaker 3: grief that was a consequence of each and every one
[5:40] Speaker 3: of those battlefields. And you have the perfect recipe for
[5:43] Speaker 3: a haunting.
[5:44] Speaker 2: You write about Mark Twain, you write about Harry Houdini.
[5:47] Speaker 2: Are they still haunting?
[5:49] Speaker 3: Yeah, there are some larger than life characters in this book.
[5:52] Speaker 3: And of course, they're real. Mark Twain, I would argue,
[5:55] Speaker 3: is probably the quintessential American author, George. And so he
[5:59] Speaker 3: casts a long shadow in more than one location, not
[6:02] Speaker 3: just the Mark Twain house, but the Virginia City, you know, famous,
[6:07] Speaker 3: of course, for made famous by the TV show Bonanza.
[6:11] Speaker 3: This is one of those old Western mining towns where
[6:13] Speaker 3: entire fortunes were dug out of the ground. but usually
[6:16] Speaker 3: at the cost of human toil, suffering, and no small
[6:19] Speaker 3: number of cases, death. And not everybody knows that Mark
[6:23] Speaker 3: Twain kind of got a start as a cub reporter
[6:26] Speaker 3: working in Virginia City and wrote some of his first
[6:29] Speaker 3: stuff under assumed names there. So he casts a long
[6:32] Speaker 3: shadow over that town.
[6:34] Speaker 2: Truly remarkable. Were there some stories you wanted to put
[6:37] Speaker 2: in the book you just didn't have any room for?
[6:39] Speaker 3: Oh, you know, there were hundreds, George. I mean, just
[6:42] Speaker 3: writing about the Civil War alone, I ended up having
[6:47] Speaker 3: to pick and choose so very carefully. And everybody loves
[6:51] Speaker 3: to talk about Gettysburg. I've talked about that incredibly in
[6:53] Speaker 3: the past. I had ended up talking about the bloodiest
[6:56] Speaker 3: day in American history, the Battle of Antietam in my book.
[7:01] Speaker 3: And that and Lexington and Concord gave me my two
[7:04] Speaker 3: big battlefields, the White House and the presidency. There are
[7:08] Speaker 3: so many ghost stories that spring from the lives of
[7:11] Speaker 3: our president's And so I had to really focus my
[7:15] Speaker 3: attention just on the building itself, that famous address at
[7:19] Speaker 3: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
[7:21] Speaker 2: Richard, give us your definition of a haunting.
[7:25] Speaker 3: That's a great question because I think we use it
[7:27] Speaker 3: as an umbrella term for things we don't understand, George.
[7:31] Speaker 3: On the one hand, a haunting can be a form
[7:32] Speaker 3: of natural recording, a playback mechanism that's paranormal in nature,
[7:37] Speaker 3: no more capable of interactivity than the people you and
[7:40] Speaker 3: I see on our TV screens. On the other hand,
[7:43] Speaker 3: we have intelligences that appear to be disembodied, that are
[7:47] Speaker 3: disincarnate and are able and willing to interact with the
[7:51] Speaker 3: living in certain ways. Then we have poltergeist phenomena, you know,
[7:54] Speaker 3: where a very specific subset of a haunting, which appears
[7:57] Speaker 3: to be powered by psychokinesis. The list of haunting subtypes
[8:03] Speaker 3: is incredibly long and is still debated by parapsychologists and
[8:07] Speaker 3: paranormal enthusiasts to this day.
[8:10] Speaker 2: Truly remarkable, isn't it? How it happens and just, it
[8:14] Speaker 2: just seems to unfold.
[8:16] Speaker 3: Well, we aren't that much nearer to figuring this all out.
[8:21] Speaker 3: I've always thought that we would be, but since the
[8:24] Speaker 3: onset of organized paranormal research with the Victorian era, we
[8:28] Speaker 3: haven't really come all that far in figuring out what
[8:31] Speaker 3: is really the ultimate mystery.
[8:33] Speaker 4: And I know you're going to want some after hearing this.
[8:35] Speaker 4: This is an amazing story. We've got Stephen and Malachi
[8:38] Speaker 4: Gregory in Nelson, New Zealand. I understand that Malachi, who's eight,
[8:43] Speaker 4: almost nine years old now, was suffering with Not just
[8:46] Speaker 4: one or two warts, but I mean a significant outbreak
[8:49] Speaker 4: of warts all over his body. So significant it impacted
[8:51] Speaker 4: his ability to really function.
[8:54] Speaker 5: Yeah, he was having trouble even holding a pencil to write.
[8:57] Speaker 5: It was Ty's book actually that got me thinking about it.
[9:00] Speaker 1: I'm not surprised. It is an amazing immunomodulator. And so
[9:04] Speaker 1: I can see that it would work.
[9:06] Speaker 4: And so at what point did you see that there
[9:09] Speaker 4: was actually improvement? It was really going to work?
[9:11] Speaker 5: Well, look, we really started to notice it around 12
[9:13] Speaker 5: weeks later. You can see these things actually getting smaller
[9:17] Speaker 5: and smaller and then going down to where they're just
[9:20] Speaker 5: little red marks. The whole things are gone. And we're
[9:22] Speaker 5: talking about one the size of a walnut. I thought,
[9:25] Speaker 5: no way that's going to.
[9:26] Speaker 3: Wow.
[9:27] Speaker 5: It's just been miraculous to see him get into a
[9:30] Speaker 5: pair of shoes.
[9:30] Speaker 1: Yes.
[9:32] Speaker 3: How wonderful.
[9:33] Speaker 5: It's great to see him so happy and confident.
[9:35] Speaker 4: Absolutely wonderful.
[9:37] Speaker 5: Our friends that have seen it, they're just blown away.
[9:39] Speaker 3: Ty, this is awesome. Yeah, this is awesome.
[9:41] Speaker 2: Another amazing story.
[9:42] Speaker 4: Why?
[9:43] Speaker 2: We're talking about Carnivora. Call them to awaken your immune
[9:46] Speaker 2: system and protect yourself now. Call 1-866-836-8735. That's 1-866-836-8735. Or
[9:49] Speaker 2: visit Carnivora.com.
[9:49] Speaker 1: C-A-R-N-I-V-O-R. That's 1-866-836-8735.
[9:50] Speaker 2: Or visit carnivora.com.
[9:51] Speaker 1: C-A-R-N-I-V-O-R-A. Carnivora.com.
[9:51] Speaker 2: What do you think causes or creates a haunting?
[10:08] Speaker 3: Well, I think there are positive and negative kind of hauntings, George,
[10:11] Speaker 3: but it always comes back to energy at the end
[10:13] Speaker 3: of the day, as literally everything does. So on the
[10:16] Speaker 3: one hand, there are many cases I've been fortunate to
[10:19] Speaker 3: investigate where these weren't dark and negative cases at all.
[10:23] Speaker 3: You had an ordinary house, perhaps a couple moved in there.
[10:27] Speaker 3: It was their first home. They got married. They had kids.
[10:29] Speaker 3: They raised their kids there. They became grandparents. They loved
[10:32] Speaker 3: this place. And over the years, they seem to have
[10:35] Speaker 3: left some psychic residue, some part of them remains attached
[10:39] Speaker 3: to the place even after they die. Somebody else buys
[10:42] Speaker 3: the house after they move in, and perhaps they smell
[10:44] Speaker 3: his pipe smoke, you know? Perhaps they hear the sound
[10:47] Speaker 3: of her footsteps walking across the floorboards upstairs in the
[10:52] Speaker 3: dead of night. And it doesn't mean you necessarily have
[10:55] Speaker 3: an intelligence there, or at least not in all cases,
[10:58] Speaker 3: but that is no less valid or haunting than the
[11:01] Speaker 3: stuff we see at the darker end of the spectrum,
[11:03] Speaker 3: you know, where we have aggression, malice, and incredible poltergeist activity.
[11:09] Speaker 3: So a haunting can be caused by, I think, good
[11:13] Speaker 3: and bad origins, but it always comes down to energy,
[11:18] Speaker 3: the depth of it, and the intensity of it.
[11:21] Speaker 2: Richard, when we talk about hauntings, we always think about
[11:23] Speaker 2: something scary and horrible, but in some cases, they could
[11:27] Speaker 2: be humorous, can't they?
[11:29] Speaker 3: They can be quite funny. I mean, as someone who
[11:32] Speaker 3: spent half of my life living and working in firehouses,
[11:35] Speaker 3: many firehouses have their ghosts and firefighters are natural pranksters.
[11:40] Speaker 3: So it's not unusual to hear about haunted firehouse stories,
[11:43] Speaker 3: which involve things being moved and then returned later on,
[11:48] Speaker 3: things of that nature, people being perhaps slapped on the
[11:52] Speaker 3: head in the middle of the night when they're sleeping,
[11:54] Speaker 3: things that might be scary in some environments, but are
[11:57] Speaker 3: are pretty funny to the people that live and work
[12:01] Speaker 3: in a location like that. So there can also be,
[12:03] Speaker 3: in poltergeist cases, a sense of humor seems to be apparent.
[12:08] Speaker 3: There seems to be a natural pranksterism in those sorts
[12:12] Speaker 3: of hauntings. But I would also add as a cautionary note,
[12:16] Speaker 3: they seem to be very mercurial in personality or temperament.
[12:20] Speaker 3: And these pranksterish poltergeists can sometimes turn nasty on a dime.
[12:28] Speaker 2: We've talked about, uh, hauntings in the past, uh, in
[12:33] Speaker 2: many appearances on our show. What would you, let's go
[12:36] Speaker 2: through some of the stories. What are some of your
[12:38] Speaker 2: favorites of the book?
[12:40] Speaker 3: Oh my goodness. You've got to start really with the
[12:42] Speaker 3: white house, because I think that is America's house. It
[12:45] Speaker 3: is the people's house. Uh, so as long as we've
[12:48] Speaker 3: had a white house, um, there have been stories of
[12:50] Speaker 3: ghosts that are associated with it. Pretty much every presidency,
[12:54] Speaker 3: every first family. has had stories to tell about their
[12:58] Speaker 3: time in that house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. You start
[13:03] Speaker 3: with Lincoln. I'm a huge Lincoln aficionado. And he is
[13:07] Speaker 3: perhaps the most famous ghost that is still said to
[13:11] Speaker 3: haunt the White House. And of course, very famously, he
[13:14] Speaker 3: was assassinated while he was in office. And the heartbreaking
[13:19] Speaker 3: thing about writing a book like this, George, is sometimes
[13:22] Speaker 3: you find that a story that you loved and cherished
[13:24] Speaker 3: isn't true. And one of my absolute favorite Lincoln ghost
[13:28] Speaker 3: stories involved another very famous statesman, Sir Winston Churchill, who
[13:34] Speaker 3: was a guest in the White House on more than
[13:36] Speaker 3: one occasion during the Second World War. And there was
[13:40] Speaker 3: a time-honored story that Churchill was sitting in his bathtub,
[13:45] Speaker 3: soaking in the bath, which he was very wont to do.
[13:48] Speaker 3: And sitting there with a cigar, you know, and a
[13:50] Speaker 3: glass of something alcoholic, a brandy or a port or whatever.
[13:54] Speaker 3: And in walked the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. And this,
[13:59] Speaker 3: of course, is said to be the Lincoln bedroom, you know,
[14:01] Speaker 3: where Lincoln is often seen. And so Mr. Churchill stood
[14:05] Speaker 3: up and the two great statesmen eyed one another. And
[14:09] Speaker 3: Churchill said, Mr. President, you seem to have the advantage
[14:11] Speaker 3: of me. Now, that's a very Churchillian comment. Right. And
[14:17] Speaker 3: the story is just phenomenal. Unfortunately, when you do the research,
[14:22] Speaker 3: it turns out that Churchill did not, in fact, sleep
[14:25] Speaker 3: or stay in the Lincoln bedroom. The bed was not
[14:28] Speaker 3: to his liking. One of his colleagues stayed there. So
[14:31] Speaker 3: Churchill was, in fact, in a room across the hall.
[14:34] Speaker 3: And the White House's own historians say they think the
[14:37] Speaker 3: story is is simply just that the story. which is,
[14:41] Speaker 3: it's a real shame, right? Because it ought to be true.
[14:44] Speaker 3: We would like it to be true. But Lincoln's son
[14:49] Speaker 3: is said to haunt the White House as well. So,
[14:53] Speaker 3: you know, an air of sadness, that little boy that
[14:55] Speaker 3: caused the Lincolns so much grief with his loss is
[15:00] Speaker 3: also said to be a presence in that house. So
[15:03] Speaker 3: we have a kind of happiness and we have tragedy
[15:05] Speaker 3: intermingled around one family.
[15:08] Speaker 2: Didn't Lincoln dream of his own funeral?
[15:12] Speaker 3: He did. We have that source from Ward Lamont, his
[15:16] Speaker 3: personal bodyguard, who said in his memoir afterwards that Lincoln
[15:22] Speaker 3: had relayed to him a very vivid dream in which
[15:23] Speaker 3: he was walking through the White House and everything was
[15:26] Speaker 3: dressed in black for mourning. People were looking very sad.
[15:31] Speaker 3: And he asked somebody who has died, who's being mourned,
[15:34] Speaker 3: and he was told, the president has died. And of
[15:37] Speaker 3: course he was the president at the time. And it
[15:39] Speaker 3: is taken as an omen of Lincoln's impending death, which
[15:43] Speaker 3: it may have been. As someone though, who also has
[15:47] Speaker 3: a naturally skeptical bent, I would like to point out
[15:49] Speaker 3: that Lincoln lived through his entire presidency with the constant
[15:54] Speaker 3: threat of assassination. You know, people were always threatening to,
[15:58] Speaker 3: to take a shot at him. There were attempts to
[16:00] Speaker 3: kidnap Lincoln, even after his death. In fact, Confederate sympathizers
[16:06] Speaker 3: snatched his body and they had a shootout with the
[16:10] Speaker 3: Secret Service at Lincoln's tomb in Springfield, Illinois. So even
[16:14] Speaker 3: in death, his body was not allowed to rest. So
[16:17] Speaker 3: one wonders whether that dream was truly a prophecy or
[16:21] Speaker 3: was it Lincoln's subconscious just reminding him to maybe be
[16:24] Speaker 3: a little bit more careful.
[16:26] Speaker 2: Then you talk a little bit of John F.
[16:27] Speaker 3: Kennedy.
[16:28] Speaker 2: Tell us about that.
[16:30] Speaker 3: JFK, I think, is another tragic figure in the White House.
[16:35] Speaker 3: And I always like to tell people about the fact,
[16:38] Speaker 3: I don't know if you knew this, George, that JFK
[16:42] Speaker 3: was shot because he didn't go to Gettysburg. When Lincoln
[16:46] Speaker 3: wrote the Gettysburg Address, he was invited to make a
[16:49] Speaker 3: few remarks. And so, of course, famously, he spoke for
[16:55] Speaker 3: only a couple of minutes and gave us the most
[16:56] Speaker 3: famous speech of all time. That was in 1863, November
[16:59] Speaker 3: of 1863. A hundred years later, so the centennial of
[17:05] Speaker 3: the Gettysburg Address, they invited the sitting president to come
[17:07] Speaker 3: to Gettysburg and make a few remarks. That president was
[17:11] Speaker 3: John F. Kennedy. Now, he had visited Gettysburg already earlier
[17:15] Speaker 3: that summer and had been rather impressed with the place.
[17:19] Speaker 3: But he wrote back and said, unfortunately, I cannot come
[17:22] Speaker 3: back to Gettysburg to deliver an address because I have
[17:26] Speaker 3: a prior engagement in Dallas, Texas that week.
[17:31] Speaker 2: Wrong place, wrong time.
[17:33] Speaker 3: Yes, sir. And one can only wonder how our history
[17:36] Speaker 3: might look different had Kennedy accepted that invitation to Gettysburg
[17:40] Speaker 3: rather than campaigning in Dallas.
[17:43] Speaker 2: Has anybody ever seen the ghost of Kennedy after the fact?
[17:47] Speaker 3: Not that I'm aware of. He is not one of
[17:50] Speaker 3: the ghosts that haunts the White House as far as
[17:52] Speaker 3: I'm aware.
[17:54] Speaker 2: What creates, in your opinion, Richard, hauntings?
[18:01] Speaker 3: Well, let's answer that question by looking at the White House, George,
[18:04] Speaker 3: because it seems like a good example, doesn't it? Yeah.
[18:06] Speaker 3: If you think about this building and what it has seen,
[18:10] Speaker 3: and of course, I use the term seen, not literally,
[18:12] Speaker 3: but within its walls, you have Lincoln gazing out and
[18:19] Speaker 3: thinking about the weighty issues of the day, thinking about
[18:22] Speaker 3: how many thousands, then tens of thousands of boys were
[18:25] Speaker 3: dying every day on his command, you know, and as
[18:30] Speaker 3: commander in chief that lay on his shoulders the incredible
[18:33] Speaker 3: stress and the strain of that things like the emancipation
[18:36] Speaker 3: proclamation you know uh you had fdr during the second
[18:39] Speaker 3: world war this is where the decision bombs on japan
[18:45] Speaker 3: what must that have been like the energy the turmoil
[18:47] Speaker 3: there this is where uh the vietnam war of course
[18:51] Speaker 3: um you you had you know the presidents that were
[18:54] Speaker 3: um bearing that weight on their shoulders as well. So
[18:57] Speaker 3: generation after generation of the presidency within this fairly small
[19:01] Speaker 3: building has experienced the most incredible angst and tension and stress.
[19:07] Speaker 3: And I truly believe that that much emotion seeps into
[19:12] Speaker 3: the environment somehow, and it leaves the equivalent of a
[19:14] Speaker 3: psychic scar. And that scar, when somebody of a suitably
[19:18] Speaker 3: sensitive disposition at a later point in time is able
[19:21] Speaker 3: to pick up on it, They sense something, they feel something,
[19:24] Speaker 3: they experience something, and there is our haunting.
[19:29] Speaker 2: How has Hollywood handled this in terms of its portrayal
[19:34] Speaker 2: in the movies?
[19:36] Speaker 3: The portrayal of hauntings, I think, is usually done for scares.
[19:41] Speaker 3: There are very few happy ghost stories. I think we
[19:44] Speaker 3: can probably number them like 10 to 1 in favor
[19:49] Speaker 3: of scary ghost stories. stories um but i do think
[19:52] Speaker 3: that the silver screen also has its more than its
[19:55] Speaker 3: own share of uh of genuine ghost stories too and
[19:59] Speaker 3: the the truth is that they may appear happy to
[20:02] Speaker 3: us actors living the life of riley on the you know,
[20:05] Speaker 3: on the big screen, but many of them are very
[20:07] Speaker 3: sad individuals and they live sometimes very difficult and tragic lives.
[20:12] Speaker 3: And so I'd wanted to look at that in this book.
[20:15] Speaker 3: One of the locations I visited, I went to visit
[20:18] Speaker 3: the grave of Rudolph Valentino, one of the biggest stars
[20:22] Speaker 3: of his day. His ghost has been famously seen several
[20:25] Speaker 3: times at his home in the Hollywood Hills. loved by
[20:31] Speaker 3: every lady in his day and yet deeply, deeply unhappy
[20:35] Speaker 3: in his real life.
[20:36] Speaker 1: Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
[20:39] Speaker 1: 1 a.m. Eastern and go to coasttocoastam.com for more.

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