What does it mean to be human? Does being human mean you’re exclusively of this planet, or does it mean you can also be something else at the same time? Every day, we discover more and more about our universe, and our connections to it. And with every news story about the world around us, we realize we actually don’t know anything at all. But that doesn’t mean we can’t dig deeper on our own. Our guest today has done just that, through her own art and creative practices, and has learned how to tap into something beyond what we typically experience with our five senses. And, of course, after studying visual arts in an art school in Australia whose grounds used to be an insane asylum, she has some ghost stories.

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About the Guest: Jordan Harcourt-Hughes

What if your soul originated from somewhere beyond Earth? What if consciousness isn’t limited to human experience? These are the questions artist and author Jordan Harcourt-Hughes has been exploring through her multifaceted creative practices.

Jordan of New South Wales, Australia, practices several distinct arts, including writing, metal sculpture, painting, installations, and creative workshops. She started with writing as a child, but abandoned it at 19 when words felt inadequate to express deeper truths. Part of what inspired this artistic blossoming were extreme out-of-body experiences, which led her to believe she may be an extraterrestrial or “star seed.” Since then, she uses her artwork to connect with other-dimensional energies and frequencies. Nowadays, Jordan has come full circle: revisiting writing to explore the cosmic themes in her life. Perhaps it’s no surprise, then that her novels star a metalsmith who tunes metal to other-world frequencies. As of this writing, Jordan just published the second novel in the series, “High Country.”

Check out Jordan’s latest work or sign up for one of her mindful art courses at jordanharcourthughes.com.

What are Star Seeds?

During our conversation, Jordan shares remarkably tactile out-of-body experiences. Aside from being able to visualize her consciousness outside her physical body, she could also feel wind in her eyes while flying outside her physical form. These experiences, combined with her lifelong feeling of being “not from here” and an insistently serendipitous book by Dolores Cannon, led her to explore the concept of star seeds. Star seeds are souls who have incarnated on Earth from other planets to assist during times of transition.

What is a Soul Migration?

From the moment Jordan experienced what she calls a “soul migration” at age 19, her perception of reality fundamentally changed. The transformative power of this journey and an associated near-miss with death was so profound that Jordan formally changed her name at 26, acknowledging she had become a different vibrational being.

The Alien Within

What makes Jordan’s perspective so interesting is her emphasis on looking inward rather than outward for extraterrestrial connection. “The more we look inside, the more we will find,” she explains, challenging the notion that extraterrestrial contact must come from outside ourselves. Through her paintings in the “Speaker Series,” featuring figures with masked eyes, she illustrates how visual perception can actually limit our ability to sense what’s truly around us.

Is there really an Australian art school built in an abandoned Asylum, and how haunted is it?

Jordan studied at Sydney College of the Arts campus at Callan Park in Lilyfield, Sydney. The site is heritage-listed and is known for its distinctive 19th‑century architecture. This campus occupies buildings that were once part of the Callan Park Hospital for the Insane—a former mental health facility that had only stopped treating patients 5 years before Jordan learned sculpture there. She recounts in the episode how the lingering aura of madness deeply affected her art school experience. Jordan’s first true ghost story happened during this time of her life.

Ghost Stories From Australia

Well, Hainted Loves, what did you think of these otherworldly theories? If you’re looking for more Australian ghost stories, here are some of our other guests from Australia:

• Ghosts Are Not Pets
• The Horror House of Armidale, New South Wales
• The Thing in the Wardrobe

Whether you consider yourself a spiritual seeker, a creative practitioner, or a fellow star-seed, Jordan’s journey offers a new perspective into the mystical nature of reincarnation, communication, and consciousness itself. After all, if you accept the premise of reincarnation, why would our souls be limited to just one planet? Aren’t there so many other ways to have a spooky day?

The post The Extraterrestrial Within: A Soul’s Journey From Outer Space appeared first on Homespun Haints.

These paranormal stories from East Tennessee are on YouTube:

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About the Guests: Kristy of Soul Sisters Paranormal and Miranda the Ghost Biker

We first interviewed Kristy Sumner in 2020, in one of our best paranormal podcast episodes about haunted jailhouses in the South. Back then, she was doing paranormal investigations in and around Ocala, FL. While she is still a part of Soul Sisters Paranormal, she has relocated to East Tennessee. Follow Soul Sisters Paranormal on their Instagram or Facebook page, and don’t miss their YouTube coverage of investigations.

Kristy now works with with Ghost Biker Miranda, another paranormal investigator we previously interviewed about the phantom monk of East Tennessee. Visit her website at ghostbikerexplorations.com. Then follow her on YouTube for coverage of her investigations and interviews (she even interviewed us), and Facebook of Instagram for updates and events.

Since we last interviewed them, Kristy and Miranda have started leading public overnight paranormal investigations at the historic Scott County Jail in East Tennessee. They also do daytime tours, focused on historical preservation. Find more details on their collaborations through History, Highways, and Haunts, LLC here. Book a tour of the jail here, and don’t miss the escape room in a genuine maximum security prison wing!

They also host the nighttime ghost walks in Rugby together now. Check Facebook for Rugby ghost tour information and special events.

Paranormal Investigations in East Tennessee with History, Highways, and Haunts, LLC

Kristy and Miranda still do paranormal investigations all over East Tennessee and beyond, but nowadays they are focused on two specific locations. We can’t blame them, as some of their findings at these places are truly out of this world.

Historic Village of Rugby

In the 1880s, Thomas Hughes founded Rugby, Tennessee, as a groundbreaking experiment in community living. This agricultural commune aimed to create a class-free sanctuary for England’s “second sons,” e.g. the younger brothers of heirs. These backup heirs grew up in opulence, but inherited none of it, making their adult lives seem rather pointless.

Situated in the scenic Cumberland Plateau and leveraging the newly built Cincinnati-Southern Railroad, Rugby quickly attracted residents from both Britain and America. Hughes had a vision of a cooperative, cultured society. Soon after formation, when the town was still basically just tents, Rugby boasted a theater company and a literary society, Kristy tells us.

But winter was coming. One of the worst winters in the plateau’s history. The previously well-to-do new residents of Rugby began to think they may have made a mistake focusing on cultural activities instead of the realities and hardships of the fronteering life. The community’s growth stagnated, as the number of people leaving was roughly equivalent to those arriving. Still, Hughes continued to invest over the decade that the commune thrived, eventually creating a loveable little village, with 60 adorable Victorian buildings and several diverse residents.

When the Tabard Inn burned in 1889, it took with it one of the main economic drivers of the town. Many of the 500 settlers left. A few families stayed, however, and the town persisted. Today, it stands as a historic site, with some of the 14 original structures open to tourists.

The Paranormal Activity of Rugby Village in East Tennessee

Kristy and Miranda suspect that many Rugby residents loved the town so much, they never wanted to leave. They catch more photographs of ghosts here than anywhere they’ve ever investigated before.

And it’s not just ghosts haunting the village. Miranda and Kristy have seen some inexplicable oddities in Rugby, including:

• A distant, large, glowing rectangle, like a monolith, or perhaps a door?
• Slashes appeared 9 feet up a pole, just outside of the house they were investigating at the time…was it a bear, or a Bigfoot? Black bears in the region would typically scratch about 5 feet up, or 7 if reaching. Squatches, though…who’s to say?
• Mysterious healing waters.
• A glowing humanoid figure walking across a driveway, captured by a video doorbell. It certainly wasn’t any of the town’s residents. Could it be extraterrestrial?

Paranormal enthusiasts save the date: Rugby hosts an expanded haunted attraction called Ghostly Gathering the last 2 Saturdays of October.

Historic Scott County Jail

The haunted Old Scott County Jail is one of the oldest buildings in the area, dating back to 1904. Throughout most of its century-long history, the jail actively housed about 50 inmates. The jail closed in 2008, following the opening of the Scott County Justice Center.

In 2021, Kristy and Miranda re-opened the jail as a museum. It is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. They are dedicated to preserving the history of this East Tennessee landmark, in addition to supporting paranormal investigations there.

The Hauntings of Scott County Jail

Since beginning restoration, a worrisome number of metal shivs and razors have been discovered, purportedly hidden in nooks and crannies by former inmates. Fascinatingly, upon putting these blades on a table and leaving for the night, the blades disappeared, never to be found again. According to Kristy, even laying your scissors on the table and leaving the room is a risky prospect. What are all these spectral inmates going to do with the real shivs they’re collecting?

Then again, Miranda tells us the spirits haunting the jail are overall jovial and friendly. The team believes its the way the living interact with the dead there. They advise visitors to have fun with the spirits, and to avoid interrogating or antagonizing them. Singing or playing a musical instrument will often generate a swell of interactive paranormal activity, which these East Tennessee investigators observe indirectly through various tools. One memorable investigation, someone brought a fart machine for the ghosts to interact with. While none of the spirits took them up on the offer to press the button, they did capture a flatulent EVP, indicating that the ghosts knew exactly what they were getting at. Did the call and response farting indicate the ghosts’ heartfelt approval? We’d like to think so.

Have you witnessed anything paranormal in East Tennessee?

Yet another mysterious tale in our series on East Tennessee legends and paranormal Appalachia! Could it get any weirder? You tell us! Submit your story here to be featured on the next episode of Homespun Haints Podcast…we look forward to sharing a spooky day with you!

The post Sasquatch Vandalism, Glowing Monoliths, and Fart EVPs appeared first on Homespun Haints.

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Episode Summary: Paranormal Iowa

Sometimes ghost stories help to answer the questions we have about the paranormal. But sometimes, these stories only serve to create more questions. When you delve into the world of ghosts, demons, and other supernatural phenomena, you have to accept uncertainty, and know that some questions will never be answered.

Today, we present to you a string of incidents that occurred in the life of a young man living in Iowa. We leave it up to you to decide what to make of his experiences.

About the guest, Bailey

Bailey still identifies as a skeptic because he’s never literally “seen a ghost”. Yet he has seen the hatman; and a shadowy figure that doesn’t show up on camera harrassed him. He’s witnessed a potential alien visitation; and, of course, a mysterious invisible creature bit him while in a bedroom that backed up to a cemetery.

Sponsored by The Smell of Fear Candles

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Sponsored by Acid Queen Jewelry

Acid Queen Jewelry sponsors this episode. Alex is an artist who specializes in one-of-a-kind pieces of wearable artwork, inspired by folklore, magic, and other romantic notions crafted with sturdy metals and gorgeous large natural stones. Use the coupon code homespun for 10% off her gorgeous handmade necklaces, rings, earrings, and bracelet cuffs. Sign up for her newsletter for early access to all sorts of new releases.

Show Notes

Bedrooms that back up to cemeteries

We’ve had a shocking number of guests on this show that have slept in rooms where their view out the bedroom window involved cemeteries in some way. We have to wonder…does living cemetery-adjacent have something to do with their ongoing paranormal experiences? For more view-of-the-boneyard realness, listen to The Woman Who Lived in a Cemetery, Things That Crawl Out of Cemeteries, and We’re Walking Through Blood.

Is a shared imaginary friend still imaginary?

Bailey first starts to question his reality when his older brother has a childhood dreamtime vision of his own imaginary friend, Tim. If both children in the same house have the same imaginary friend, what does that mean? Could it be that one brother picked up on the other brother’s stories, and has a good imagination? Or could it be that Tim existed outside of the imagination?

The Villisca Axe Murder House

Ghost Hunters love to portray The Villisca Axe Murder House as the most haunted paranormal place in Iowa. The locals aren’t all so keen on its sordid past being exploited for it’s touristy present. But there’s no denying that the house has seen an above average number of murders within.

Aside from its sinister history, what makes this house so scary? According to the fabulous article our friends Karly and Tera of The Haunted Housewives Podcast wrote for our blog, “Tour guides, visitors, and investigators hear whispers and footsteps. A lot. People see shadows and catch them on camera. Rumor has it that if you don’t believe in ghosts, you will after spending the night at the super haunted Villisca Axe Murder House.”

The Beast of Land Between the Lakes

It’s a tale as old as time. A group of inebriated college students with too few survival skills and too many beers make their way out into the woods to go camping. As they hike, they come across holes in the ground lined with sticks and tufts of grey fur. As the darkness grows, the students feel like they’re being watched. Then the howling begins. But it’s a howl that sounds almost like maniacal laughter. Human Laughter. A few days later, police discover their half-eaten bodies lodged in nearby trees.

This is an amalgam of the modern reports of encounters with the Beast of LBL. Yet the legend goes as far back as the 1800s, when Shawnee fur traders warned French explorers to watch out for something in the woods. Their descriptions were suspiciously werewolfy. It’s uncertain whether the original beast was a true shapeshifter, or a man with an inherited family trait that caused him to go mad after nightfall. But the fact that people are still reporting sightings and evidence of the beast to this day implies that he must have fathered little beastlings to carry on his terrifying legacy.

(And yes, we know, technically, the paranormal cryptid called the Beast of Land Between the Lakes is from Kentucky, not Iowa. But with the surprising speed at which this wolfman allegedly moves, he just might get around.)

The urge to run up the basement stairs because you feel something is following you

Is this just a childhood thing, as Bailey says, or is it more sinister? Diana also had this feeling quite frequently growing up. The feeling is less since moving back into her childhood home, but still occurs from time to time. But then again, the other things happening in Diana’s basement nowadays are still quite creepy.

What is it about superstitions that allow them to overcome logic and skepticism?

Bailey had a very superstitious grandma, who helped him feel more normal when the paranormal threatened to rock his reality. In this article, Diana breaks down some reasons why we have superstitions. The post explains why you feel the illogical urge to toss salt over your shoulder. And how that might actually be making your life better.

Paranormal Iowa

We hope you enjoyed today’s episode about some of the paranormal encounters Bailey had growing up in Iowa. If you’re from Iowa and have seen strange paranormal entities there, please leave us a comment on our Facebook Group. And if you want to do some paranormal investigation in Iowa, we can vouch that Bailey would be an astute and open-minded companion. He’s also itching to visit the Villisca Axe Murder House and other haunted places around Iowa. So if you’re ghost hunting in Iowa and could use a hand, drop us a line and we’ll hook you up so you can both have a spooky day!

The post What Bit Me? A True Paranormal Story from Iowa appeared first on Homespun Haints.

Listen to the interview here, then scroll down for a bonus episode.

Episode Show Notes: True Stories About Aliens

On this truly bizarre and hilarious episode, we hear stories about the half-body apparition of a green foot, a saber tooth tiger, the perils of farting in a museum, and a nocturnal alien visitation.

About the Guests: Josh and Dakota.

Today’s guests are the hosts of the Mindless Morning Show Podcast. Hollywood Digest named the show 1 of the top webshows in the world. In fact, at the time of this interview, they were number 69 in the list. And that’s about to have a whole lot more double-entendre relevance after you listen to this episode, heh heh. Dakota is a writer, author of the sci-fi novel Barnard’s Galaxy: Descendants of Legacy, soon to be an ongoing saga. Josh is a video game developer.

While the Mindless Morning Show is no longer in production, you can still listen to old episodes. Catch up with Josh and Dakota on Discord for updates on their future projects.

Bonus True Alien Stories

Here’s the bonus episode we promised:

The True Story of the FBI Documents on Nikola Tesla and his Alien Origins

In the early 20th century, famous scientist Nikola Tesla produced over 1000 patents. Some of his inventions and ideas were so far ahead of his time that they might even still be ahead of our current time. He apparently predicted smart phones pretty accurately, among other things. Where did Tesla get his ideas? Well, according to the stories floating around on the internet (which are always true), one declassified FBI document suggests he was an alien.

When Tesla died in the middle of the Second World War, the US government was suddenly very interested in obtaining all of his research. They mainly wanted to prevent it from falling into unfriendly hands. But there were also some promising military applications for Tesla’s work. Specifically, Tesla had supposedly invented a “death ray”. He even allegedly had a working prototype. According to rumor, the prototype cost $19,000 to construct, and was stashed in a safe deposit box at an NYC hotel.

It’s fun to read old FBI documents from the era when the government was willing to consider all sorts of possibilities. Also from the era where using typewriters, paper, and microfiche meant that spelling errors would go down in history (one special agent misspelled Tesla as Tulsa, go figure). When Tesla died, the Alien Property Custodian seized his belongings. Aha, there’s the alien link! Disappointingly, the word “alien” in this case just calls into question whether the foreign-born Tesla’s documents were at risk of being claimed by hostile foreign countries.

Did Tesla build a real death ray?

Also disappointingly, when the US government finally obtained Tesla’s safe deposit box, it contained only standard electrical equipment. But not long after, Tesla’s young protégé Bloyce Fitzgerald was tracked down in Wichita, Kansas. The FBI determined he was possibly still working on the “death ray,” which he touted as the “only possible defense against…the Atomic Bomb”. The whole situation seemed to come to no real end. The government obtained Tesla’s writings, pouted for a bit that no death ray was forthcoming, and the case was basically closed in 1950.

Then the case was reopened in 1957. What changed? A Yugoslavian-American informant contacted the FBI to report that a woman named Margaret Storm was “issuing newsletters which contain information pertaining to flying saucers and interplanetary matters,” and that “Mr. and Mrs. Storm are exploiting the reputation and genius of Nikola Tesla.” Basically, the Storms claimed Tesla invented an interplanetary communication device that wasn’t complete until after his death. Also that Tesla was born on Venus, but raised on Earth.

Was Tesla an Alien?

So are the stories true; did the declassification of this document reveal that the FBI believed Tesla was a space alien or worked with extraterrestrial? After spending wayyyyy too long reading the entire chain of communications, I can say there was nothing in the document that indicated the FBI was at all interested in investigating this angle. But Margaret Storm wrote a book about her Tesla-alien claims, if you’d like to investigate the truth of the story further. Or, if you’d rather just pretend to investigate Tesla based on David Bowie’s theatrical performance, watch the 2006 film The Prestige.

Thank you for listening to our show!

Do you have a true story about an alien experience? We love hearing about all the weird encounters, of the third, fourth, or any kind. Join in the conversation on our Facebook group. Until next time, have a spooky day!

The post Farting in a Museum and Alien Cunnilingus appeared first on Homespun Haints.

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Paranormal Stories

In this episode, we talk to Emma Kay, comedian and podcaster. Emma Kay delights us with two very strange stories. We have absolutely no explanation, and many weird theories, as to how these stories even happened. If you have any thoughts as to what’s going on once you listen to the episode, please reach out to us on Facebook or Instagram and let us know!

About the Guest: Emma Kay

When we are not in the middle of a global pandemic, you can find Emma Kay performing at the Broadway Comedy Club in Manhattan. Follow her Facebook page @EmmaKayComedy to learn about her next show times. You can also listen to Emma Kay’s podcast, Funny Not Funny, where she interviews other comedians and discusses the emotional struggles that many comedians deal with behind the scenes.

Episode Show Notes

Ghosts or UFOs?

We don’t know what exactly Emma Kay saw in those woods around Camp Cedar Creek. It could have been ghosts, but is it possible she and her friends encountered extra-terrestrials playing human? The latter fits with other sightings common in that area. New Jersey itself has quite an exhaustive list of sightings you can browse through if you’re so inclined. Furthermore, if you’d prefer, Patch has put together a nice article about Jersey is a hot spot of UFO activity.

Of course, the Navy has officially released UFO footage (because 2020 is apparently the year to do such things). In light of the US government semi-confirming that some alien stories are true, every theory is up for grabs.

What is it about haunted campgrounds?

Emma Kay is not our first guest to have a real life ghost encounter with paranormal phenomena of some sort at a campground. A few episodes back, we heard from Emily Brown who ran smack into a Banshee while a counselor at a Boy Scout Camp. And in one of our Patreon episodes, our guest Jennifer found herself stranded in a cabin on a mountain with a lively yet dead roommate.

Enjoying our stories of real-life ghost encounters?

We really appreciate the opportunity to interview a haunted comedian, since we value the funny side of the paranormal as much as the scary side. We see no reason the two can’t exist within the same true short ghost stories. Until next time, have a spooky day!

The post The Things In the Woods: Mysterious Encounters appeared first on Homespun Haints.