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S1 E3 - S.I.P.A. Paranormal Chronicles - Dr Elliott Van Dusen - Paranormal Phenomena Research & Investigation (PPRI)
20 Plays2 months ago
In this week's episode we have the pleasure of welcoming our first Guest Dr Elliott Van Dusen.
He is the President and Corporate Director at Paranormal Phenomena Research & Investigation, Corporate Director at Canadian Association of Parapsychological Research & Investigation (CAPRI), and the Executive Vice President at Ghost Project Canada.
Paranormal Phenomena Research & Investigation is a registered non-profit organization composed of experts in paranormal and unexplained phenomena. Serving Atlantic Canada and New England USA.
They aim to empower their students with the knowledge and critical thinking abilities they need to investigate and research parapsychological phenomena in an ethical and responsible manner.
https://www.ppri.net/
https://www.ppri.net/services/capri-pec/
Recommended
Transcript
Intro
Introduction and Background
00:00:12
Lee Hatfield
Okay, good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to SIPA Paranormal Chronicles. My name is Lee, your resident host, and today I am delighted to introduce our very first guest, Dr. Elliot Van Dusen, who is the President and Corporate Director at Paranormal Phenomena.
00:00:29
Lee Hatfield
Research and Investigation or PPRI, is also the Corporate Director at Canadian Association of Parapsychological Research and Investigation, CAPRI, and is also the Executive Vice President of the Ghosts Project Canada.
00:00:45
Lee Hatfield
So Elliot, welcome and thank you for joining us.
00:00:49
Elliott Van Dusen
Thank you, Lee. Thank you for having me on the show.
00:00:52
Lee Hatfield
Perfect. So let's have a little bit about yourself, you a little bit of a bio just to let everyone listening know who you are and what you're all about, please.
00:01:02
Elliott Van Dusen
Yeah, sure. So like you said, I'm the director of Paranormal Phenomena Research Investigation.
00:01:06
Lee Hatfield
this is ga coach
00:01:09
Elliott Van Dusen
I started that organization, which is a registered nonprofit organization in both Nova Scotia and Canada. It's also registered in the United States as well in state of Massachusetts because we serve all of Atlantic Canada and New England.
00:01:22
Lee Hatfield
There was built in 1885, closed down, and 255.
00:01:25
Elliott Van Dusen
And I started that in 1997.
00:01:26
Lee Hatfield
There's no idea. There's no idea.
00:01:29
Elliott Van Dusen
A lot of people asked me if I had paranormal experience that got me into the paranormal, but I actually hadn't.
00:01:30
Lee Hatfield
There's no idea. There's no idea.
00:01:35
Elliott Van Dusen
I wanted to be a police officer, specifically a homicide detective. So I found the show Unsolved Mysteries to be very captivating because they would always show cold cases.
00:01:46
Elliott Van Dusen
And then every once a while they throw a ghost story in there or UFO story, which I i found absolutely fascinating.
00:01:49
Lee Hatfield
like say might then was
00:01:53
Elliott Van Dusen
And then it wasn't until 1997 when I discovered the X-Files on TV. It had come out in 1993, but I hadn't watched it. until then. And then I thought it was really interesting that you had two law enforcement officers investigating claims of the supernatural.
00:02:05
Lee Hatfield
Yeah, that's a different problem.
00:02:07
Elliott Van Dusen
So that's when I created PPRI to start kind of looking around my local area, collecting some local folklore stories, ghost stories, UFO sightings.
00:02:13
Lee Hatfield
and morning
00:02:15
Elliott Van Dusen
And of course, that led me on to what's pretty much become a lifelong journey in the paranormal. I started investigating, started taking academic courses wherever I could in parapsychology.
00:02:27
Lee Hatfield
yeah i well we know
00:02:28
Elliott Van Dusen
And all while doing all that, I made a career, a real career, because, you know, as most people know, can't really make a whole lot of money in the paranormal. So I joined the Royal Canadian Man of Police and I served with them for 15 years.
Law Enforcement and Paranormal Interests
00:02:43
Lee Hatfield
yeah
00:02:43
Elliott Van Dusen
And I did achieve my dream of becoming a homicide detective. I spent most of my time actually with the RCMP, eight out of the 15 years that I was with them on plainclothes detective type sections.
00:02:57
Lee Hatfield
Awesome. I see that you are a big fan of the X-Files with the photographs that you've got behind you. So do you put yourself more as Mulder or Scully?
00:03:08
Elliott Van Dusen
Definitely more Mulder, actually, yeah because when they created those two characters, typically males are more skeptical than females.
00:03:09
Lee Hatfield
and
00:03:16
Elliott Van Dusen
And I've actually seen that with my work. When I do public educational events, most of my clientele are middle-aged or older females that come come to the events.
00:03:27
Elliott Van Dusen
And there are some males that come and some that are believers, but I always... kind of do a funny joke, I always do a raise of hands on how many males are here because their wife or their partner dragged them here.
00:03:38
Lee Hatfield
Thank you.
00:03:40
Elliott Van Dusen
And there's actually quite a few hands that go up. And then, of course, even with my law enforcement career, i was much like my fictional hero, Fox Mulder, where I often received a lot of ridicule for being involved in the paranormal.
00:03:55
Elliott Van Dusen
I don't know what it was, but every detachment that I went to, I always attribute it to, you know, I put my nose down to to the grind and and went hard to work. And somebody would always Google my name, try and look up background on me.
00:04:08
Elliott Van Dusen
And of course, because I was so heavily involved in the paranormal, my name would come up on on Google. And, you know, I often received a lot of ridicule, just like Mulder did in the earlier season from his colleagues.
00:04:21
Lee Hatfield
So I'm assuming that's what led you to to write in your first couple of books about paranormal in the law enforcement. Can you enlighten us on that a little bit, please?
00:04:31
Lee Hatfield
sure.
00:04:31
Elliott Van Dusen
Yeah,
Publishing Supernatural Stories
00:04:32
Elliott Van Dusen
those were kind of anomalies, actually. So the first book that I wrote was called Evil in Exeter, and that was about a haunted house in Exeter, Rhode Island. And I mean, the most haunted house that I've ever investigated still to this day.
00:04:45
Elliott Van Dusen
And that took place in 2018, 2019. eighteen twenty nineteen
00:04:50
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:04:51
Elliott Van Dusen
But after that, my mother actually you know really enjoyed the fact that I had written a book and you know was doing book signings, and she encouraged me to write another one.
00:04:52
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:05:00
Elliott Van Dusen
And I told her, I said, well, these types of cases don't come along. You know, every single day I've been doing this for 27 years, and that was definitely the the the oddest case that I've been involved with for sure.
00:05:12
Elliott Van Dusen
So I started to think, what else could I write about? And I thought about my two passions, which was law enforcement and the paranormal. So I started to reach out to some colleagues to see if they had any stories. And they felt really, yeah you know, safe and comfortable talking to me. Yeah.
00:05:26
Elliott Van Dusen
about the paranormal, and they they often shared ghost stories, UFO stories, even some cryptozoology animals that are not yet identified by science-type stories.
00:05:33
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:05:38
Elliott Van Dusen
And before I knew it, I had over 50 stories, so I published my second book, Supernatural Encounters, True Paranormal Accounts from Law Enforcement. And then after that came out, of course, I was doing podcasts and and promoting the book, and i had more law enforcement officers from all over contact me And I've actually been credited with with that from some of the academic people in parapsychology about being able to tap into that niche market where law enforcement will actually share those experiences.
00:06:02
Lee Hatfield
learn
00:06:08
Lee Hatfield
and
00:06:09
Elliott Van Dusen
Because a lot of people find that when they talk to law enforcement about the paranormal, they don't typically get information.
00:06:15
Lee Hatfield
the
00:06:15
Elliott Van Dusen
any information from them. In fact, I just did a podcast yesterday and the gentleman was telling me the same thing that every time he reaches out to law enforcement about their UFO sightings, he doesn't get them. So I don't know if it was my background in law enforcement or if it was a mix of my background in law enforcement. Plus, I knew I was involved in the paranormal or I've also been told I'm a pretty easy guy to to talk to. So I kind of lucked out and yeah, you know, I was able to collect over well over 100 stories that might have gone untold if they hadn't have been published.
00:06:46
Lee Hatfield
but
00:06:49
Lee Hatfield
that's that's That's pretty cool. and I think from an outsider looking in, I think it's probably 50-50 with regard to the fact that you're a law enforcement and you've actually got an interest because they know that, like you said, that they're not going to ridicule you and they're not going to yeah you're not going to laugh at them basically because you already understand what's going on.
00:07:12
Lee Hatfield
So so say from I what you said earlier about creating PPRI.
00:07:12
Elliott Van Dusen
Absolutely.
00:07:20
Lee Hatfield
So can you go into the beginnings of how PPRI came about and how you kind of expanded into what it it is today? Thank
Evolution of PPRI
00:07:29
Elliott Van Dusen
Yeah, so started I started it in 1997 with a friend that was also interested in stories the supernatural. And we you know began to kind of look at some local stories here in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and collect so you know both stories, UFO sightings.
00:07:39
Lee Hatfield
to
00:07:45
Lee Hatfield
It has
00:07:48
Elliott Van Dusen
And eventually that led into investigating people's homes.
00:07:52
Lee Hatfield
like
00:07:54
Elliott Van Dusen
That seems to be the the biggest thing.
00:07:56
Lee Hatfield
but sounds the project
00:07:58
Elliott Van Dusen
kind of file that you get contacted about are ghosts and hauntings. So, you know, we started to, you know, purchase equipment when we could. Obviously, at this point, you know, we were young very young men, under 20 years old, working regular jobs.
00:08:15
Elliott Van Dusen
So trying to save up to buy all the the equipment that we could, cameras and tape recorders and, you know, electromagnetic field radiation detectors.
00:08:15
Lee Hatfield
to free accommodation.
00:08:21
Lee Hatfield
just second
00:08:26
Elliott Van Dusen
And, you know, it really It really kind of took off, I would say, in the early 2000s. By then, i had found a parapsychologist that was teaching parapsychology at the Nova Scotia Community College here named Dr. Darrell Walsh.
00:08:42
Elliott Van Dusen
I had taken both of his courses. He invited me to join his organization at the time when they were doing investigations, which was called the Center for Parapsychological Studies in Canada.
00:08:54
Elliott Van Dusen
And that really gave me proper...
00:08:55
Lee Hatfield
Project CTA-1.
00:08:57
Elliott Van Dusen
kind of background and how to do a real scientific investigation with people that were much older than me, had a lot more experience than me.
00:08:57
Lee Hatfield
So we're going to look at the funding.
00:09:05
Elliott Van Dusen
And, you know, I really kind of took the mentee
00:09:10
Lee Hatfield
film monday
00:09:13
Elliott Van Dusen
mindset at that organization and and was moldable.
00:09:14
Lee Hatfield
so
00:09:16
Elliott Van Dusen
And then, of course, I started to seek out wherever I could get more reputable education in parapsychology. And at the time, Stratford Career Institute in Toronto, Ontario, had offered a parapsychology diploma.
00:09:30
Lee Hatfield
Awesome.
00:09:30
Elliott Van Dusen
They stopped offering it for many, many years, but I think I just recently saw last year that they may have started it back up again.
00:09:38
Lee Hatfield
like
00:09:38
Elliott Van Dusen
And that's kind of where I got my my foundation to start out with but besides those two NSCC courses.
00:09:45
Lee Hatfield
awesome so Obviously, with PPRI starting out as an investigation unit, what made you then decide to to create Capri and start teaching the courses towards to individuals?
Formation of CAPRI and Education Initiatives
00:10:01
Elliott Van Dusen
Yeah, so how the name Capri came about is, I often joke, our federal government, nothing simple with them. So when we decided to register ourselves as a not-for-profit organization across Canada, the Innovation Department...
00:10:12
Lee Hatfield
work that sections. are
00:10:18
Elliott Van Dusen
that does those registries didn't like our name, Paranormal Phenomena Research Investigation Association, which is our our proper name that were registered in in Nova Scotia.
00:10:25
Lee Hatfield
don't think so.
00:10:28
Elliott Van Dusen
And it wasn't because there was any other organizations with a similar name, but for whatever reason, they didn't like it. so We had to bounce back a couple of different names. And finally, the the name Canadian Association a Parapsychological Research and Investigation stuck.
00:10:44
Elliott Van Dusen
And then during COVID, I had noticed that there was quite a demand from people looking for education in parapsychology because...
00:10:51
Lee Hatfield
yeah
00:10:54
Elliott Van Dusen
it had kind of dried up, you know, in the late 90s and early 2000s, you could start to find spots that were teaching parapsychology.
00:10:55
Lee Hatfield
Thank you.
00:10:59
Lee Hatfield
and know what
00:11:02
Elliott Van Dusen
But then it kind of dried up, especially in the actual academic university levels. There just, you know, isn't funding for those types of courses. So I decided to look at my organization, look at the expertise that we have and start developing some online courses that would be flexible for individuals. So it's all online learning,
00:11:24
Elliott Van Dusen
We provide all the open source material. You know, it's relatively priced fair. I actually did a cost analysis. I looked at different organizations that were teaching courses and I yeah was able to undercut them all, but still provide, you know, the same quality education that you would get elsewhere.
00:11:33
Lee Hatfield
yeah
00:11:35
Lee Hatfield
this not one for that That's
00:11:42
Lee Hatfield
true.
00:11:43
Elliott Van Dusen
So we launched that about two falls ago and
00:11:43
Lee Hatfield
second
00:11:50
Elliott Van Dusen
it It has done fairly well. We've we've registered, i want to say, at least over 50 new students that I had never met before. I met some great people. I actually met you you know through that.
00:12:03
Lee Hatfield
last true
00:12:05
Elliott Van Dusen
It's been phenomenal, and and it's great for us because we also get to make connections with people from all over. And when we do find somebody that's you know really well-versed in the paranormal and a like-minded individual such as yourself...
00:12:18
Elliott Van Dusen
you know, we're able to actually reach out if somebody needs help in your local area and and offer that case to you, which is great. It's all about networking in in this.
00:12:28
Elliott Van Dusen
And so we, between trying to provide that high quality education where it's based on academic papers that were written, things that were proven in the laboratory, based on real experiences and the networking aspect of it.
00:12:28
Lee Hatfield
Absolutely.
00:12:42
Elliott Van Dusen
I mean, I find those Those types of courses really invaluable. I still take different courses to this day. If I see a university offering, you know, a course here and there in parapsychology or something similar, I always enroll for it. I've never taken a course and not learned something new.
00:13:00
Lee Hatfield
That's pretty cool. So as you just said, yeah, I have been a student of yours for a few of the courses. I do have my favorites, the one that i've the the few that I've been on.
00:13:11
Lee Hatfield
But what would you say is the most popular courses that people want to get involved in?
Popular Courses in Parapsychology
00:13:17
Elliott Van Dusen
I would definitely say we have a lot of people that want to enroll in the introduction to demonology, which is really interesting. I have an interest in demonology, which is unusual for people that are involved in parapsychology, just because it's more heavily based on on religion.
00:13:31
Lee Hatfield
What's. Yeah.
00:13:32
Elliott Van Dusen
But I find the aspects of demonology fascinating because a lot of things that manifest in a demonic case are actually fall back under parapsychology.
00:13:33
Lee Hatfield
Yeah. Yeah.
00:13:43
Elliott Van Dusen
You know, when Somebody that's allegedly possessed can obtain information from you, from your mind, you know, their mind scanning you, that would fall under telepathy.
00:13:54
Elliott Van Dusen
When they're able to provide you future information that comes true, that would be precognition. When they're able to make things move and levitate. with their mind, that would be psychokinesis. All that stuff actually falls under parapsychology. So I find, find it very fascinating, even though there's a religious component to it.
00:14:11
Elliott Van Dusen
I'd say the second most popular course, of course, is our introduction of parapsychology. And it might not necessarily be what people, uh, think it is. I know it wasn't when I was young and I first signed up for it.
00:14:24
Elliott Van Dusen
I thought that extrasensory perception and psychokinesis was boring and I really didn't honestly care about it as much as I did about survival.
00:14:37
Elliott Van Dusen
You know, ghosts and hauntings, that's that's what I was really interested in.
00:14:37
Lee Hatfield
I'm going to sleep.
00:14:40
Elliott Van Dusen
It wasn't until I got older and I realized that you have to know about all three of those aspects to really understand the haunting phenomena. You know, especially when you're dealing with ghosts that don't have a physical body.
00:14:53
Elliott Van Dusen
And what they are is we believe that it's somebody's human consciousness and personality that has survived bodily death, but they're still able to manipulate the physical environment.
00:15:02
Lee Hatfield
<unk>
00:15:02
Elliott Van Dusen
Well, that is psychokinesis.
00:15:04
Lee Hatfield
thank you
00:15:05
Elliott Van Dusen
So if you don't understand psychokinesis and how a ghost can open doors and close doors, you know, you're at a real disadvantage there. So it did all kind of fall into place for me as I, of course, gained some more experience and and wisdom.
00:15:20
Lee Hatfield
Yeah, because I found coming on your courses, the first one that I did was the ghosts and hauntings and the tutors were Daryl and yourself. Then I did the Poltergeist Phenomena course.
00:15:32
Lee Hatfield
And then I did the introduction to demonology. And every single week, you're learning different different stuff about each subject every single week.
00:15:45
Lee Hatfield
And yeah for me being a complete novice in the paranormal world to start doing these courses, I've now got the nickname in our group as Being the Brains.
00:15:57
Lee Hatfield
because Because I'm coming out with, well, actually, if you do this course, you'll find out about X, Y, and z And they go, oh, yeah, well, we must jump on these courses if they're so good. And like I tell loads of people about these courses because not only are are they very informative, but I find that they – the It's not just all serious.
00:16:17
Lee Hatfield
We do have a great laugh, like the banter that you, you I and Daryl have between each other.
00:16:17
Elliott Van Dusen
Thank you.
00:16:23
Lee Hatfield
So like we have a lot of fun. So are there any really cool new new courses that are coming up that you want to talk about? Hint, hint.
00:16:33
Elliott Van Dusen
No, you're right. i will I will second that, too. We do have some fun on the course. You know, we do have some laughs. And like I said, especially if we run run, we run like four week and eight week courses.
00:16:43
Elliott Van Dusen
So I find when you run the eight week course, you really get to know the students a lot better because you're meeting with them, you know, for two, two and a half hours once a week on Zoom. So it's, you know, face to face digitally.
00:16:52
Lee Hatfield
not
00:16:54
Elliott Van Dusen
You really do get to get to know them and bond with them.
00:16:54
Lee Hatfield
Okay. Okay.
Future Course Plans and Funding
00:16:56
Elliott Van Dusen
We do have some courses. I decided which courses we're going to run for our spring session.
00:17:02
Lee Hatfield
okay
00:17:03
Elliott Van Dusen
We're going to have a new one that is going to be taught by yourself called Paranormal Equipment Course.
00:17:03
Lee Hatfield
that
00:17:09
Elliott Van Dusen
And I thought that was really important because everywhere I go, I keep seeing people with misinformation about using the paranormal equipment course. You know, some people call it ghost detectors and they think that, you know, the phone apps, that they're real.
00:17:24
Lee Hatfield
I just want to say that.
00:17:24
Elliott Van Dusen
And there's a lot of other things behind it. And it's amazing how many people don't know how to use their equipment properly.
00:17:29
Lee Hatfield
I just want to say that.
00:17:32
Elliott Van Dusen
I can tell you right now, every time we go to an investigation, I purchased us body cameras. Yeah. because of an incident somebody had told me about another paranormal group that was doing an investigation and a rotary phone rang and I said oh my god it's like tell me that they got it on video or audio and the museum curator said no they they didn't we weren't even in the room and we all ran to the room and it stopped and
00:17:41
Lee Hatfield
You don't say I'm going on the road. certain wronghold
00:17:51
Lee Hatfield
Okay.
00:17:57
Lee Hatfield
they' still yellow there
00:17:58
Elliott Van Dusen
We have no evidence of it. And I thought, oh, man, that's that's terrible. But that's typical of the the paranormal. It's so spontaneous. It happens when we don't expect it. And then I thought because of my law enforcement background, hey, body worn cameras aren't that expensive.
00:18:12
Elliott Van Dusen
Maybe we should invest in some for the organization.
00:18:14
Lee Hatfield
okay
00:18:15
Elliott Van Dusen
And we have and they have actually come in handy at times. But every time I go on an investigation and I have to set them up properly, i have the manual with me and I have to go through it to make sure that I'm doing it properly. It's not something that we use every day.
00:18:30
Lee Hatfield
was like, I love it.
00:18:30
Elliott Van Dusen
You know, we might conduct, I'd say maybe 10 investigations per year.
00:18:35
Elliott Van Dusen
So, you know, if you go a couple of months without using it, it's good to brush up on that. And I really do think this course that you're going to put on is going to be very educational. There's just, you know, so much to learn about the equipment.
00:18:48
Elliott Van Dusen
And to complement your course, we have some other ones that will be coming down the pipe eventually. I've got my two professional photographers working on a paranormal photography course.
00:18:57
Lee Hatfield
yeah
00:18:59
Elliott Van Dusen
where we're actually going to incorporate a bit of a practical component into it, where they will go out and take some pictures. And then our instructors will walk them through how to use the software to lighten the image and analyze the image and play around with the shadows and the and the lighting and the contrast.
00:19:08
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:19:16
Elliott Van Dusen
And then we're also working on the electronic voice phenomena course, which would complement, again, your course very well.
00:19:23
Lee Hatfield
okay
00:19:23
Elliott Van Dusen
And we're also going to do a practical component with that, where we may provide you with an EVP that we have, or we may have a couple of course fake ones, and then we'll get you to analyze it with the software.
00:19:37
Elliott Van Dusen
We'll show you how to use the software, get you to analyze it, get you to isolate it, get you to increase the volume on it and really try and get you to produce, you know, the best possible evidence available.
00:19:45
Lee Hatfield
Okay.
00:19:48
Elliott Van Dusen
So I think that course is going to be great. I'm glad that we're adding it and, uh, Of course, it'll also assist your organization as well because you're going to be teaching it for us and we're going to split the tuition.
00:20:02
Elliott Van Dusen
And for those that don't know, when you sign up for our courses, that's how we do all of our stuff for free.
00:20:04
Lee Hatfield
nation
00:20:07
Elliott Van Dusen
That's how we investigate for the public for free is any tuition money that you pay to us goes into the nonprofit bank account. And then if we do have a family that needs help, there may be money there to travel to their home or to purchase a new piece of equipment.
00:20:22
Elliott Van Dusen
And same with all of our educational events.
00:20:24
Lee Hatfield
Thank you.
00:20:24
Elliott Van Dusen
By the time we pay our expenses and the venue and all that stuff, any profit that's left over goes directly back into the organization.
00:20:25
Lee Hatfield
eat
00:20:32
Elliott Van Dusen
And that's how we fund ourselves. And in fact, all the proceeds from the sales of my books as well, I always donate back to PPRI. Because, again, we are a nonprofit and unless you're teaching at a university, usually under something else like psychology or sociology, and then you're kind of writing paranormal papers on the side of your desk, you can't really make a run of this for a paid career.
00:20:57
Elliott Van Dusen
You know, unfortunately, as much as we all want to, it's just not not there.
00:21:03
Lee Hatfield
That's it. And you see some of the yeah some of the TV shows and people go, well, that would be really cool to do that for a living. But like I say, in reality, there's absolutely no chance because at the end of the day, a lot of what we...
00:21:19
Lee Hatfield
we do and what we use and use to guide ourselves. we yeah A lot of it is a pseudoscience at the end of the day.
00:21:30
Lee Hatfield
That's what I was basically getting at. So there's a lot of, I won't say that people think it's fake, but it's very difficult to prove something that's not been proven.
00:21:42
Lee Hatfield
And I think
00:21:42
Elliott Van Dusen
Yeah, absolutely it is. You know, that's why very few paranormal things have been entered in in course because it just has such a high standard and, you know, you can't prove...
00:21:55
Elliott Van Dusen
the paranormal one way or the other, there's still a lot of things that we don't understand. We certainly made some headway on things, but, you know, uh, like you said, when you start digging into it, there's a whole lot about the paranormal and how things operate, uh, against what we know, in the physical sciences right now that we just still just don't understand.
00:22:16
Lee Hatfield
Yeah, and and that's why going back to the course I'm going to be teaching on paranormal equipment, I've broken it down into four weeks.
Paranormal Equipment Course Details
00:22:22
Lee Hatfield
So the first week is going to be about about the cameras and the audio, the stuff that every paranormal investigator needs.
00:22:32
Lee Hatfield
yeah then that If you're going to get the basics... They're the basics. And then week two goes into more of the the baseline observations kind of equipment.
00:22:42
Lee Hatfield
So you're talking about your electromagnetic field readers.
00:22:46
Elliott Van Dusen
Thank you.
00:22:47
Lee Hatfield
You're talking about your black mold readers. You're talking about your thermometers and your anomometers for wind and and temperature.
00:22:57
Lee Hatfield
So that's going to kind of be the week two. Week three is going to be more of the... The bells and whistles, flashy gadget that everyone thinks that everybody needs, where in fact you don't.
00:23:11
Lee Hatfield
They're just a way for another company to get loads of money. So I'm talking about your REM pods and your cat balls and your dead bells and that kind of thing. And then week four, just I've just entitled Other.
00:23:23
Lee Hatfield
of So that's going to be your dowsing rods, your Ouija board, your pendulums, and a few other things along that lines. So I'm really looking forward to teaching.
00:23:37
Lee Hatfield
First off, I've got to finish the course. I've got to actually create it, which I'm three quarters the way through. But I'm really looking forward to to teaching it under under your umbrella because I think it would be a lot of fun.
00:23:49
Elliott Van Dusen
Yeah, I think so too. And it's a it's a practical course. It's something that like any paranormal investigator, I can almost guarantee you could take and we'll learn something new.
00:23:54
Lee Hatfield
you
00:23:58
Elliott Van Dusen
You know, like a lot of people are using their cell phones, but what we're finding is that the apps... you know Most of them, when you dig into them and read read them and go to the websites, they do specifically say that they're for entertainment purposes only.
00:24:13
Elliott Van Dusen
And we do know that apps are are designed to listen to what we say, what we do, and manipulate behavior. Apple just got hit with a major multi-million dollar lawsuit because...
00:24:26
Elliott Van Dusen
Surrey was turning on and recording people's conversations and recording information.
00:24:30
Lee Hatfield
Thank you.
00:24:31
Elliott Van Dusen
You know, you're basically a walking microphone. And I can tell you that when I worked with the RCMP, that the mobile Facebook app also had coding in there where they can turn on the microphone and listen to you And it's no coincidence that if you're talking to a friend about, hey, I might want to purchase a BMW tomorrow,
00:24:52
Elliott Van Dusen
and a couple hours later you go home and you're scrolling through Facebook and you haven't actually gone on your phone and looked at BMW and it's not cookies or anything like that, you will see ads on there.
00:25:04
Elliott Van Dusen
i I know I've had conversations even with my wife about makeup, for example.
00:25:06
Lee Hatfield
And....
00:25:09
Elliott Van Dusen
stuff that I definitely would not Google or look into. And sure enough, a couple hours later, I'm getting ads on it. Or she does it to me all the time with TikTok. She'll be like, hey, did you see that TikTok with this guy? And I'm like, no.
00:25:21
Elliott Van Dusen
And then all of a sudden that guy is is showing up in my feed. So very, very manipulative software. And when you're trying to do a proper scientific investigation, those are not the tools that you you want to use.
00:25:34
Elliott Van Dusen
Yeah.
00:25:35
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:25:35
Elliott Van Dusen
you know And we'll talk about a lot of that on the court.
00:25:37
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:25:38
Elliott Van Dusen
you know Yeah, it's it's it's going to be an eye-opener.
00:25:38
Lee Hatfield
Yeah. you You kind of stumped me. yeah You kind of stumped me a little bit that you're, I can't believe that you haven't Googled makeup. So I'm like,
00:25:50
Elliott Van Dusen
No, it's funny, just an odd time. Like I said, somebody will talk to me about something that I know I certainly haven't Googled or looked up, and all of a sudden I'm getting ads for it on Facebook and social media.
00:26:04
Lee Hatfield
Yeah, it's weird, isn't it? Yeah, like I've got a perfect a perfect example about that, but I'm going to save for the course where we say think that the app was listening to us prior to an investigation that we did.
00:26:07
Elliott Van Dusen
Yes.
00:26:17
Lee Hatfield
But I'm going to save that for the course. So one of your new adventures that you've got going with regard to PPRI is the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Unit.
00:26:29
Lee Hatfield
Can you talk to us about that?
Specialized Units and UFO Research
00:26:32
Elliott Van Dusen
Yeah, so that was really interesting. So when I started PBRI back in 1997, I mean, our name is generic. It's Paranormal Phenomena Research and Investigation, because that's what we do. research and investigate paranormal phenomena.
00:26:45
Elliott Van Dusen
And when I started it in 1997, I had a huge interest in UFOs and aliens, and alien abduction. I thought all that was fascinating. Area 51, anything to do with that, I thought was absolutely fascinating. I would read magazines and books and...
00:27:01
Elliott Van Dusen
I found though what happened is once I created a paranormal organization, the majority of things that we get reported to us are ghosts and hauntings.
00:27:06
Lee Hatfield
Thank you.
00:27:10
Elliott Van Dusen
So I ended up unintentionally becoming a subject matter expert in ghosts and hauntings, which is, which is fine. I mean, I absolutely love that phenomenon as well. And I know it better now than I would do anything in UFOlogy, but yeah,
00:27:25
Lee Hatfield
thank
00:27:26
Elliott Van Dusen
We went to the Shag Harbor UFO Expo last year, my brother-in-law and i and he's retired Air Force. He's had a couple of UFO experiences while he was working with the Air Force. He was an air traffic controller for them.
00:27:38
Elliott Van Dusen
And when we were driving back from Shag Harbor, two things stuck out to me. One, I thought, you know what, we haven't had a UFO sighting reported to us in years.
00:27:49
Elliott Van Dusen
Why is that? And two, I thought it was interesting at the event. They asked for a raise of hands. How many people have seen a UFO? Most of the room put their hand up. And then when they said how many people reported that UFO to somebody, very few hands were up, maybe one or two.
00:28:06
Elliott Van Dusen
And I thought to myself, geez, there's a big gap in data. Right there. So on the way back, thought about it.
00:28:15
Lee Hatfield
I'm trying solve. Open
00:28:16
Elliott Van Dusen
And when I got home, I kind of looked at our website, looked at my objectives and priorities. And I realized that the way the mission statement was written, it was it was heavily geared towards parapsychology.
00:28:27
Elliott Van Dusen
So What I did is I revamped what our mission statement is. I created a mission vision values for us, which is now on our website. And I wanted to create the UAP unit, the Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena unit.
00:28:42
Elliott Van Dusen
And I designated Andrew as the director of our UAP unit because he certainly has a very good background with planes being in the Air Force.
00:28:53
Elliott Van Dusen
He's very familiar with the lights that go on it and the some of their maneuvers that they do and the heights that they can fly at. And of course, he's also got that radar information. He's also got contacts with a NORAD and different things. So it made total sense for me to kind of make him the lead on it.
00:29:10
Elliott Van Dusen
And then this would have been so the Shag Harbor Expo was in October. September, October. By December, we had the unit up and we had a UFO reporting form up on our website.
00:29:24
Elliott Van Dusen
I think to date we've received five or six previously unreported UFOs, which is phenomenal. And that's what we ask for is any previously unreported UFOs or UAP incidents. Because if you've already reported it to somebody like MUFON or Chris Rakowski,
00:29:43
Lee Hatfield
to
00:29:43
Elliott Van Dusen
you know, then that data already exists somewhere in Canada.
00:29:47
Elliott Van Dusen
So we're interested in the ones that haven't been reported yet.
00:29:48
Lee Hatfield
Okay.
00:29:49
Elliott Van Dusen
And we do share it like anyone that's into UFO research, we will put you on our distribution list. So anytime I get a UFO report, I will send it to Chris Rakowski because I know he collects them and and collects all the data for it. So we're open to sharing it.
00:30:02
Elliott Van Dusen
And we just recently started kind of a Google map on our website too, where you will be able to see where the UFO spots are. Now, I did kind of narrow us down to just collecting them in the New England, Atlantic Canadian areas.
00:30:19
Elliott Van Dusen
That's because that's what we service. But we we are open to taking them from anywhere. And we actually did, i think, receive one from Alberta out of those five.
00:30:30
Lee Hatfield
oh Yeah, and it's really strange that the time that you launched this and then everything kicks off in New Jersey with the...
00:30:38
Elliott Van Dusen
Yes. Oh, the drone sightings. Yeah, it was at right after that.
00:30:40
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:30:41
Elliott Van Dusen
Yeah, which was funny. we didn't get We didn't get any drone sightings or anything. These were all like kind of historical UFO sightings, which was really cool. and And we do have an option, too, if you have any video or pictures so that you can upload it.
00:30:55
Lee Hatfield
We're like, we're cut.
00:30:56
Elliott Van Dusen
and And the unit's good as well because I was scrolling through Facebook one day and I saw that there was a UFO sighting around Sable Island. And it somebody said that there was a fireball in the sky and it it was strange. And I thought it was really interesting. So I took a couple screenshots and I sent it to Andrew and I said, hey, man, if you're not working on anything, why don't you take a look into this?
00:31:19
Elliott Van Dusen
And he actually was able to get a photo of the the fireball that had been reported to the like Department of Fisheries. And they ended up releasing the photo to him, which was really cool.
00:31:29
Lee Hatfield
Thank you.
00:31:30
Elliott Van Dusen
And then because Andrew and I had driven Chris Rakowski to the Shag Harbor UFO Expo, we got to spend a lot of intimate time with him because it's about a four or five hour drive from Halifax to Yarmouth and then back.
00:31:42
Elliott Van Dusen
So I spent about 10 hours with him in the car. And I've known him since I was a child. You know, like when I was 16 and started PPRI, I was conversing with him on email way back in the day.
00:31:54
Elliott Van Dusen
He actually... is such a pack rat for records. He actually had an email I'd sent him when I was like 16 years old. It was hilarious when he showed it to me. but you know what? We sent all the information we had to him and because he has his master's in astronomy and he's, uh, you know, an astronomer, he actually, and I never believed it. I always thought it was one of those typical government coverups, but he actually said it was the planet Venus. And you always hear the odd story about a UFO being,
00:32:22
Elliott Van Dusen
confused for the planet Venus but in this case he looked it up on the star map he did his background and because the atmospheric conditions at the time that UFO sighting that we had actually turned out to be the planet Venus
00:32:34
Lee Hatfield
else That's pretty cool. So I'm going to be asking you in a few minutes about some of your personal experiences, but I'm just going to stick with PPRI for one more subject.
00:32:47
Lee Hatfield
And you are, I believe it's your second or third symposium that you're planning this year. So
00:32:54
Elliott Van Dusen
Yes.
Halifax Paranormal Symposium
00:32:54
Lee Hatfield
can you tell us about that?
00:32:56
Elliott Van Dusen
Yeah, so about two years ago, well, three years ago, actually, Daryl and I wanted to hold like a professional academic conference in the paranormal.
00:33:07
Elliott Van Dusen
And I started to do some research around it. And lo and behold, I found out that once I had joined the RCMP and moved out west, that the Parapsychological Association had actually held one in Halifax.
00:33:18
Elliott Van Dusen
Back in, want to say it was around 2005.
00:33:23
Elliott Van Dusen
2006 or 2009. So I'd reached out to the president of the the Parapsychological Association and I asked her how it went. And she said it was actually probably one of their worst ever attended events in the history of the PA. a And i kind of learned...
00:33:40
Elliott Van Dusen
based on doing our public events that you have to kind of find a happy medium here in Atlantic Canada. It has to be educational, but it also has to be like entertaining and kind of in layman's terms.
00:33:52
Elliott Van Dusen
It can't be too heavily academic or else you're just not going to get that interest.
00:33:52
Lee Hatfield
Oh
00:33:56
Lee Hatfield
oh
00:33:57
Elliott Van Dusen
So COVID hit and we had to put plans on hold. But once COVID finished and the pandemic restrictions were lifted, We went out to secure a venue and we talked to the Halifax Tower Hotel and we decided to host our first symposium, which was the 2023 Halifax Paranormal Symposium.
00:34:16
Elliott Van Dusen
It was very well received. I took a huge risk. My wife calls me the Elon Musk of the paranormal, but on a beer budget because I always have these grand ideas and I think I have the money of Elon Musk, but I don't.
00:34:28
Elliott Van Dusen
And you know that one probably cost about $15,000 to run. And I had fronted all the money either personally or through PPRI, what we had in in the nonprofit bank account.
00:34:41
Elliott Van Dusen
And it it worked out and we were able to hold one again last year. And last year's was very successful as well. We did see a little bit of decline in ticket sales. And I think that's because the economy is just so bad everywhere.
00:34:57
Elliott Van Dusen
I know Shag Harbor...
00:34:59
Lee Hatfield
Thank you.
00:34:59
Elliott Van Dusen
had a significant drop in numbers. They went from like 150 attendees in 2023 to 77 in 2024.
00:35:04
Lee Hatfield
more
00:35:07
Elliott Van Dusen
So it wasn't just us, it was other conferences around Canada that were suffering as well. But we were still successful and are going to be holding the 2025 Halifax Paranormal Symposium for the third year at the Halifax Tower Hotel and Conference Center.
00:35:24
Elliott Van Dusen
Beautiful venue. It's probably the nicest hotel in Halifax. And I'm not just saying that because They're one of our gold sponsors and that we've held the event there.
00:35:29
Lee Hatfield
Thank you.
00:35:32
Elliott Van Dusen
It is. They ha spared no expense when they built that place. Absolutely beautiful. And it's going to be held November 1st, Saturday here in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
00:35:43
Elliott Van Dusen
This year, we actually will have technically sex six guest speakers, but two of them are kind of working together. So we're going to have Dr. Yana Greenberg talk about ancient aliens and ancient astronauts.
00:35:56
Elliott Van Dusen
We're going to have Ron Iacobetti and Tony Rathman talk to us about electronic voice phenomena and the two different devices that they've built. They've they built the Staticom.
00:36:07
Elliott Van Dusen
And they also built the digital seance experience, which both they claim is live communication with the deceased. I can say that Dr. Yana and I did a private session with them and the conversation that we were having between us four
00:36:20
Lee Hatfield
power
00:36:25
Elliott Van Dusen
and the the voices on the other end was relevant. When we had Yana talk to them in Russian, they actually started to make jokes about the Russian language not being real and things like that. So the conversation was actually relevant and they they don't have a receiver.
00:36:41
Elliott Van Dusen
in it like a radio receiver so it's not like somebody is on the other end with a radio like feeding that information or you're not getting interference so it's going to be very interesting to hear those guys present on EVP and then actually do a workshop for us with the attendees where we're going to pick people to come up and actually ask questions to the deceased you may actually end up lucking out and connecting with somebody and that you know or that they give you information that you know is is meaningful to you.
00:37:11
Elliott Van Dusen
Then we'll have one of my investigators, Pierre Filetro, talking about Ouija boards that that came up that people are interested in, you know, the history of Ouija boards.
00:37:14
Lee Hatfield
It could
00:37:21
Elliott Van Dusen
And there's a lot of nonsense associated with them. So we're going to cover that off as well. Natalie Jones, the CEO of Paraflex is coming. She's going to talk to us about metaphysical energies.
00:37:32
Elliott Van Dusen
And last but not least, we're going to have Toronto journalist Brian Baker come and talk to us about some of the cryptozoology stuff that he has covered while reporting.
00:37:44
Lee Hatfield
That sounds pretty cool. and i might even scare you what once in POSIM and just turn up unannounced and expect to get into free.
00:37:52
Elliott Van Dusen
and would be That would be awesome.
00:37:53
Lee Hatfield
Yeah.
00:37:53
Elliott Van Dusen
You're more than welcome.
00:37:53
Lee Hatfield
yeah
00:37:53
Elliott Van Dusen
If you do come, let me know because I'll sneak in the door for free.
00:37:57
Lee Hatfield
Well, I have contacts, so I should be OK. So just before we leave, I know you've been into the paranormal world for quite a few years. So
Personal Paranormal Experiences
00:38:08
Lee Hatfield
I'd like to ask you about some of your personal experiences that always come to mind when people ask you this question.
00:38:15
Lee Hatfield
yeah One of the things that you like yeah you can't explain it or yeah some of these true experiences that a paranormal investigator can experience you good during a good career. Yeah.
00:38:29
Elliott Van Dusen
Well, when you ask that question or anyone asks that question, there's definitely three different things that pop into my mind for sure. i mean I mean, I know that there's more as well, but the the three that really stumped me, I would say, would be the first time I ever experienced anything paranormal.
00:38:47
Elliott Van Dusen
PPRI was established, would have been...
00:38:51
Lee Hatfield
yeah
00:38:52
Elliott Van Dusen
I believe it was in between 1999 and late 2001. We went to a alleged haunted house in Kentville, Nova Scotia, where the homeowners said that pennies were materializing all over the home.
00:38:57
Lee Hatfield
So,
00:39:06
Elliott Van Dusen
And they had seen an apparition of one of their dogs that they had to put down.
00:39:07
Lee Hatfield
going
00:39:10
Elliott Van Dusen
They were seeing faces in photographs, and they were seeing the apparition of a female walking down their their stairwell. So there was a lot of activity that they had reported to us that obviously piqued their interest.
00:39:24
Elliott Van Dusen
So we sent a small team down to conduct an overnight investigation. And the first thing we did when we got there, the house was clean. They did a tour around the house with us.
00:39:35
Elliott Van Dusen
They showed us the jar that they would keep all these pennies in. and we set up our equipment and the husband and the two daughters went to bed around 11 or 12 o'clock at night so it was just myself the other investigators and the wife that were home and downstairs in the living room and the way their house was set up is if the husband and the kids came downstairs you would see them because we're in the living room and the stairwell was right there to the right so you would have seen them come down
00:39:58
Lee Hatfield
Thank you.
00:40:05
Elliott Van Dusen
And every hour on the hour, this is back before cell phones and things like that, we actually had a camcorder that was recording on VHS. So I'd have to get one of my investigators to go check it to make sure the tape hadn't run out and that the batteries were still going.
00:40:20
Elliott Van Dusen
And sure enough, around between three and five in the morning, when they went to go check the camera, you could hear me ask him to do that.
00:40:31
Elliott Van Dusen
You could hear him get up off the couch, the springs lift from the couch. You could hear him walk towards the camera, footsteps get louder. And then you can kind of hear him gasp and a penny had materialized at the base of the tripod.
00:40:45
Elliott Van Dusen
Of course, outside a camera range, but the penny had appeared there. Nobody had planted it there or put it there. That was something that totally you know blew our mind, and we ended up coming back for a second investigation there because of that one incident.
00:41:03
Elliott Van Dusen
And then the second time we were there, one of my other investigators that but just recently rejoined us within the last couple years, actually, He was out of the paranormal for a while, but he's back.
00:41:14
Elliott Van Dusen
He had actually witnessed a female child apparition on the bed in that house. So there was no doubt that there was something going on in that house that, you know, we couldn't explain.
00:41:25
Elliott Van Dusen
The other two things that really stand out have to do with technology. And it was in the Exeter case. And the first one was there was a strange message that had appeared on the homeowner's phone.
00:41:39
Elliott Van Dusen
She had gone downstairs with her son, her daughter was off to school, and every morning they'd go down, check on the cats, make sure the litter box is clean, they got food, they got water. And when she came up, her phone was lit up as if someone had sent her a text.
00:41:51
Elliott Van Dusen
And when she went over and looked at it, it said, hey, Suri, Malik, dirty girl. And then the response said, in my realm, you could be anything. And so she called me. i was back in Canada at the time, a very haunted house.
00:42:04
Elliott Van Dusen
She was freaking out. So the first question I asked was, hey, was the TV on? Because, you know, we're all sitting around and sometimes, you know, Amazon, pop the you know, Alexa pops on and, you know, Suri can sometimes think it's you're saying her name and that'll pop on.
00:42:19
Elliott Van Dusen
But there was no radio on, no TV on, there was nobody upstairs. So I said, okay, that's interesting. Let me call you back. I want to check a few things. Hung up. I tested it on my phone and the proper response at the time was, hmm, I just don't understand this gender thing.
00:42:37
Elliott Van Dusen
So I'm like, okay, well, she's on the AT&T network. I'm on Bell. I'll call my business partner in Boston. He's on the same network. So I had Spencer do it on his phone. He got the same response that I did.
00:42:48
Elliott Van Dusen
So we tried it with a third Apple iPhone, and sure enough, same response that me and Spencer had gotten. So later on when we eventually contacted Apple, they had no idea why the iOS had responded with Or sorry, in my realm, you can be anything as opposed to what it should have responded, which was, hmm, I just don't understand this whole gender thing.
00:43:12
Elliott Van Dusen
So that was obviously very interesting. And then when I started to research the name Malik, because I said, well. Malik to me sounds like a name, so I started to research the name Malik.
00:43:23
Elliott Van Dusen
And in this particular case, years before I got involved, an Arabic medium had told the family that the homeowner had an evil jinn attached to her.
00:43:34
Elliott Van Dusen
And a jinn in the Quran is our version of an angel or a demon, so they can be good or bad, just like angels are, you know, they become demons when they're fallen angels.
00:43:46
Elliott Van Dusen
So sure enough, I start researching Malik and find out that Malik is actually a jinn in the Quran that has 19 other jinns underneath them. So the message actually had some meaning and and was relatable to the case, which I thought was, you know, extremely interesting.
00:44:03
Lee Hatfield
This looks like almost like
00:44:03
Elliott Van Dusen
The other electronic thing that happened to me was one night I was using religious provocation. So for anyone that doesn't know what that is, if you have a suspected demonic case, it's been showing that when you do certain things with religious items, whether it's set up you know crucifixes or little statues, read scripture,
00:44:26
Elliott Van Dusen
splash holy water, different things like that, that, that can provoke a response, uh, from, from the demons. And, uh, that particular, there was a particular night that I was, splashing holy water up in the master bedroom where most of the activity, uh, seemed to be centered around.
00:44:43
Elliott Van Dusen
And I was asking, and not even asking, but demanding a sign. I said, you know, in the blood of Christ and the or in the name of Christ, the blood of Christ, I compel you to give me a sign.
00:44:56
Elliott Van Dusen
And there was nothing. It was absolutely dead quiet. Wasn't getting any sort of response. So didn't think anything of it. About 24 hours literally passed. It was about 24 hours later because it would have been around three in the morning or three in the afternoon. I was doing this.
00:45:12
Elliott Van Dusen
we go and pick the kids up from school, bring them back home. As soon as we pull in the driveway in the home, all of a sudden, and, It was the homeowner's vehicle, which I don't drive.
00:45:24
Elliott Van Dusen
I don't connect to her Bluetooth. None of that because I had my Civic there. And when I would come down to do the investigation, I'd park the Civic, not touch it until it was time to go back to Canada. So I'm in the passenger seat and we pull into the driveway and all of a sudden her music cuts off and there's a man speaking.
00:45:42
Elliott Van Dusen
And I'm like, what the heck? And I start listening to it. I'm like, hey, that's me. And then I realized because it said in the name of Christ and the blood of Christ, I compel you give me a sign.
00:45:54
Elliott Van Dusen
And I pulled my phone out and somehow my phone had gone through the password. So you either had to use the face ID or enter your password.
00:46:04
Lee Hatfield
Thank you.
00:46:04
Elliott Van Dusen
It had pulled up the voice recorder. It had connected to her Bluetooth, bumped her off and connected to my phone to her Bluetooth. And then it would have had to find the recording because I make notes on the voice recorders for the file so that when I go to type up my reports, I've got accurate notes.
00:46:22
Elliott Van Dusen
all of those steps that's just too many uh you know i had no explanation for that how do you how do you do that how do you get into that phone bypass passwords go through the you know all the different recordings i had find that and not just that but the recording didn't start at that that was about you know halfway through so halfway through that recording it would have had to like slide it across to get to that exact uh per I couldn't explain that.
00:46:50
Elliott Van Dusen
And I couldn't explain the, uh, an apple couldn't explain the, uh, the message.
00:46:54
Lee Hatfield
That is absolutely crazy. So we've come to the end of our episode. For all those people that are listening, I will put the PPRI contacts in the episode description.
00:47:08
Lee Hatfield
So if you do want to jump on one of the courses, especially mine, it's coming up. then just follow the follow the link and it will take you straight to PPRI. So, Elliot, I thank you very much for your time.
00:47:22
Lee Hatfield
No doubt we'll be speaking in the next couple of weeks when we yeah start preparing for the course. But, yeah, thank you very much, and I will see you in the future.
00:47:27
Elliott Van Dusen
Yes.
00:47:31
Lee Hatfield
Thanks very much. Take care. You're
00:47:33
Elliott Van Dusen
Thank you. Thank you for having me, Lee. Appreciate it.
00:47:35
Lee Hatfield
most welcome. Bye.