HBM155: Ghosts Aliens Burritos

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A beam of green light illuminates a ghost made of aluminum foil. Digital render by Jeff Emtman.

 

Alex Greenfield says that there was no such thing as a normal day when he was a kid.  His dad (Allen H Greenfield) self describes as a “researcher in the shadow world.” And his mom soon grew tired of her husband’s lifestyle, which included a lot of time on the road: chasing rumors of cryptids, ghosts, and aliens.  

Content Note: pervasive language, brief mentions of bigotry.

After his parents split up, Alex, his dad, and an ever changing cast of motorcycle gang members and step-moms kept seeking the occult. 

Some of the topics discussed in this episode: St. Simons Island in Georgia (and reported hauntings), The Okefenokee Swamp (and the ignition of swamp gas), The Three Mile Island Nuclear Accident (and subsequent protests), Mono Lake in California (and the UFO sightings  there), and a movie called Being There (wherein the character played by Peter Sellers appears to walk on water). 

Alex Greenfield is the writer of The Sand, 10.0 Earthquake, and other movies.  He also used to be the head writer for WWE Smackdown. Alex’s dad, Allen H Greenfield (aka. T Allen Greenfield), is a UFOlogist and occultist.  He is the author of Secret Cipher of the UFOnauts, The Story Of The Hermetic Brotherhood Of Light, and other books. 

Unrelated to this episode, but do give a listen to the limited series that Jeff’s been mixing for Crooked Media.  It’s called Another Russia, and it’s about the assassination of Russian dissident Boris Nemtsov, as told by Ben Rhodes and Zhanna Nemtsova.  Available now on every podcast app.  

Also, Jeff’s headed back to Berlin, Germany for about a month.  If you know any good stories/interviews he should record while he’s there, send a DM on Twitter or Instagram, or use the contact form.

Here Be Monsters is an independent podcast supported by listeners and sponsors. 

Producer: Jeff Emtman

Music: The Black Spot, Circling Lights, August Friis

 
 
 

Sponsor:


is / ought Books

is / ought books is a publisher of spiral bound self help manuals, art books, and non literary works on paper.

All titles from is / ought books are available to buy online via the link below. is / ought books are also distributed via Small Press Distribution (SPD).

Thank you is / ought books for sponsoring Here Be Monsters.

Get some Books!

New from is / ought books: James Finnegan’s novel: Das Ka-Ka-Pee-Pee-Tal and Other Works in Progress. Available for purchase here.

HBM151: Blowgun Time Warp

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Image by Jeff Emtman. Digital render.

 

Season 10 of Here Be Monsters starts and host Jeff Emtman hallucinates his adolescence while working long hours. Scenes from middle school dances, dawn bus rides, the basement, and ( most crucially), a late-night raffle at a hardware store.

Do you like Here Be Monsters? Tell your friends, support HBM on Patreon, and have your boss sponsor an episode.

Producer: Jeff Emtman
Music: Serocell and The Black Spot

 
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab

Sponsor: RadioLab

Are you curious about the world, but also want to be surprised, and even moved?

Radiolab experiments with sound and storytelling allowing science to fuse with culture, and information to sound like… well, music.  Join hosts Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser for an experiential investigation that explores themes and ideas through a patchwork of people, sounds, and stories.

Listen to Radiolab

Hello: a Radiolab episode that’s about humans and dolphins communicating.

HBM128: Seeing Auras

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Graphic by Jeff Emtman and Colby Richardson.

Graphic by Jeff Emtman and Colby Richardson.

 

Colby Richardson’s mom got leukemia when he was young. He has trouble remembering her. Soon after her death, Colby and his siblings wound up at a house in Hope, BC where he met Santo, a childhood friend of his mom’s. Colby remembers that Santo’s voice to be soft and extremely calm. 

Santo told Colby that he had a beautiful, green aura, a glow that surrounded his body. Back when his mother was alive, Santo had been able to see her aura too, the same green, but with a deep purply violet mixed in. 

That afternoon, Santo and Colby sat in a living room with their eyes closed. Santo led him in a visualization exercise where they breathed slowly together until a door emerged in their minds’ eye. They opened the door and let light shine down. And when Colby opened his eyes, he could see auras floating around too. 

 
 

Colby only saw Santo that one day, but it made an impression. In middle school and high school, Colby would sometimes stare to see the moving shapes of light around people. Eventually the ability faded. 

But even today, Colby still sees clouds of green and purple before he falls asleep. He says it makes him feel connected to his mom, like she’s watching over him. But he also worries that he was tricked into believing in magic while he was in a susceptible state, grieving the death of his mother. 

So, these days, Colby is uncertain about how to reflect on that afternoon in 2003. In the intervening years, he’s thought about getting in touch with Santo, but never found the right time.  Just recently, he finally reached out. He found that Santo’s health has degraded, and he may have missed his chance to get clarity about his experience with auras.

Producer: Jeff Emtman
Editor: Bethany Denton
Music: The Black Spot

 
Colby Richardson and his two cats in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Photo by Jeff Emtman.

Colby Richardson and his two cats in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Photo by Jeff Emtman.

HBM106: Beautiful Stories about Dead Animals (part 2)

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👉 Listen to Part 1 👈

This is a special two-part episode, in which Kryssanne Adams describes the many times where she’s seen death or inflicted it upon animals.

Content Note:
Animal slaughter and other descriptions of death

Kryssanne is a writer in Bellingham, Washington, where she also helps run the Bellingham Alternative Library, sings in a Threshold Choir, and works at a museum.

We turned these episodes into a book, which is available for purchase in our store.

Producer: Jeff Emtman
Editor: Jeff Emtman
Music: The Black Spot, Serocell

 
Kryssanne Adams. Photo by Jeff Emtman

Kryssanne Adams. Photo by Jeff Emtman

HBM076: Griff's Speech

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Photo of Griff by Luke Eldridge

Photo of Griff by Luke Eldridge

 

As a baby, Griff Eldridge was quieter than most.  But he slept well.  He fed.  He played with his big brother Ira. And he smiled easily.  For a long time, his parents Luke and Davinia didn’t worry, because he was so happy and healthy.

When Griff became a toddler, Luke and Davinia started to compare his speech to the speech of  other children and to the standards laid out in the Personal Child Health Record, a book issued to new parents by the UK government.  

Griff was on track when he started to babble around 12 months old.  But, unlike other children, the babble never evolved to understandable sentences.

Luke and Davinia began to track Griff’s speech in a notebook and test his hearing. They took him to several doctors, none of whom agree on a single diagnosis.  They learned of “Verbal Dyspraxia” and “Phonological Disorder”.  He’d see a speech therapist.

Griff is nearly four years old, about to start primary school, and still he’s never spoken a fully coherent sentence.  They have 18 months to get him up to speed.  Recently, Davinia’s been teaching Griff the signing language Makaton.

In this episode, producer Luke Eldridge (Griff’s father) shares scenes from their home as his family works together to help Griff learn to talk.  Bethany Denton edited this episode, along with help from Jeff Emtman. Additional editing help from Nick White at KCRW.

Music:  The Black Spot, Flowers

Hello NYC!  Jeff and Bethany are speaking at The Unplugged Soul at Columbia University’s Heyman Center on April 14th and 15th.  It’s free.  Register here.

 

HBM046: Crooked Skirts

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Photo of Karen Smith as a child.

Photo of Karen Smith as a child.

 

Growing up in Queens, NY, Karen Smith had no reason to suspect anything was wrong with her. Even when it hurt to sit for too long, or when her clothes didn't fit right, everything seemed fine. That's because Karen's mother did everything she could to hide the fact that Karen had Spina Bifida.  The condition gave Karen severe scoliosis, a curve in her spine that made walking painful and made her skirts hang crooked.  Her mother removed any full-length mirrors from the house in attempts to keep Karen from becoming self-conscious. But as she grew older, her scoliosis became more severe.  And by the time she was in fifth grade, Karen had to be hospitalized in a children's ward, in and out of a corrective halo.  This was just the beginning of three long years of treatment.

Bedridden and limited in her mobility by body casts and back braces, Karen judged the passing of time by the sounds around her as her vision progressively worsened. She found solace in her AM radio, pulling in stations in from far away in the middle of the night.  She heard sounds of the courtyard below, filtering up through an open window.  She wondered if the other kids would be too old to play with her by the time she's healthy enough to join them. 

 
 

Music: Garrett Tiedemann of American Residue Records

This story was produced and scored by Garrett Tiedemann, creator of The White Whale podcast.  Garrett also works for Sister Story, a series that shares the daily lives of Catholic nuns.   Bethany Denton and Jeff Emtman edited this piece. Nick White is our editor at KCRW.

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