Every August, thousands of fans of the paranormal converge onto Sault Ste Marie for the annual MI-Paracon. This paranormal convention has become one of the top paranormal conventions in the US. In this episode, we interview the founders, Tim Ellis and Brad Blair. They share with us where the idea came from, how they used relationships to build this convention up, and what they have in store for us this year. This is a can’t miss!
Links:
More information and Tickets: http://MIParacon.com/
Books: https://yoopernaturalhaunts.com/
Creaking Door Podcast: http://eagleradio951.com/creaking-door/
Speaking Tour for Tim Ellis: https://www.facebook.com/tim.ellis.9
Speaking Tour for Brad Blair: https://www.facebook.com/brad.blair.73
Transcript
A certain amount of confidence and a audacity that we had approaching this saying, if we're going to do it, we're going to do it right.
Tim Ellis:I think that first year we maybe sold 700 tickets, but for us, That was amazing. it was a very powerful, magical moment where Brad and I were like, crap, we might be onto something here.
Cliff Duvernois:Hello everyone and welcome back to Total Michigan, where we interview ordinary Michiganders, who are doing some pretty extraordinary things. I am your host Cliff DuVernois today. Today we're interviewing a couple people who actually explore extraordinary things. And actually they're doing some really cool things coming to Sault Ste. Marie. Normally I would save this type of episode for around Halloween time. But what these guys got happening is gonna be happening within a few weeks, so I wanna make sure that we spread the word throughout Michigan so you can take full advantage of it. Today I am joined by Tim Ellis and Brad Blair. They're the co-founders of the Upper Peninsula Paranormal Research Society, as well as the Michigan Para Con, the Para Paranormal Convention that has come in here in just a few weeks. So Tim, Brad, welcome to the show.
Tim Ellis:Thanks for having us. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Cliff Duvernois:So why don't you tell us what Paracon is?
Brad Blair:Go ahead Brad, you can start. That's a good question. Yeah, it's a great question. So Michigan Paranormal Convention, MI Paracon, is something Tim and I came up with, the concept of 15 years ago now or so. We were traveling around to different events and, paranormal events. We'd been researching the paranormal for years and. We had this idea, we were literally flying back, from Florida and sitting next to each other on a flight. We said, what if we tried to put on an event like this in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan? We hemmed and hawed and went over the whole SWOT analysis and, what would draw people in, what would we have to do to bring people in? Because we're pretty much as far north as you go until you hit Canada. And, we started kicking things around a little bit and, and. We started developing this idea of bringing in authors, television celebrities, heavy duty researchers that have been around for years and years to just all come together and contribute to giving different presentations, doing meet and greet with the fans and other paranormal celebrities. all these kinds of people mixed together in one, in this big paranormal potpourri of a melting pot, that happens at Kewadin Casino.
Tim Ellis:It really was a matter of putting something together where as Brad and I were utilizing those types of events when we were traveling, it was to learn more for the team that we had just started with the Upper Peninsula Paranormal Research Society. We wanted to learn more about the field and learn more from those who were actually in the field doing all the work and the research, and wanted to learn from the best as far as we were concerned. So that's what these events are all about. you either wanna learn more on a personal level just because you're interested in the topic. Or maybe you feel you live in a haunted house or whatever, or you wanna learn about it for a little bit more on a professional level if you're part of a team or a research group. So it really fits both niches. No matter what your need is to learn more. That's what these weekends are all about, just coming and learning and sharing.
Cliff Duvernois:Yeah. That was actually gonna be my next question was when you talk about weekends, is it two days? Is it three days?
Brad Blair:Geez, it's gone beyond. It's, we now start on Wednesday night with a pregame party that we do at our host Kewadin Casinos. We do it in the back bay or back bar, Rapids Lounge that they have. And we bring in some of the celebrities that come in early. We just hop up on stage and do a little bit of Q and A and it's just a lot of fun. It's more laid back. So that's Wednesday night and that's open to the public. Then starting Thursday, all day Thursday, all day Friday, all day Saturday, we have presentations going on. We have, pay to play, ghost hunt of the Museum Ship Valley Camp going on Thursday night. we. Special entertainment in the nighttime. We have, psychic galleries, workshops on all kinds of paranormal topics. You name it. It's just, it's gotten to be such an all-inclusive weekend as far as anything strange. And out there goes.
Tim Ellis:And what's really neat to look back on is when we first started this, our 14 years ago, our first event, ran about 14 years ago. It was, it literally started, I think we had three speakers on Friday night. Maybe five or six on Saturday, and that was it. And to watch it grow to where it is today has been pretty fascinating to step back and, and check it out. But as Brad said, it starts off Wednesday night with a party because, anyone who's been here knows that the party is just as much a part of the weekend as, as. The actual speakers and the lectres. So it's a great time. it's just nonstop from Wednesday, right till Sunday morning when everyone's walking around, wiping the sleepy out of their eyes and hugging everyone goodbye you've seen for another year. So it's pretty, it's a pretty special weekend.
Cliff Duvernois:How many people typically attend one of your Paracons?
Brad Blair:It's, in the range of 13 to 1500. We have the nice, the upper level of, our cutoff is at 1500. That's what the powers that be at Kewadin Casino felt they could comfortably seat in their theater, for that length of time without people being crunched in on each other. so yeah, this year it looks like we're probably going to end up hitting that sellout point The way ticket sales are right now.
Cliff Duvernois:Nice. And we're definitely gonna talk about that, a little bit later in the show. What I would like to do is, I would like to dive into your backstory. 'cause you said this is something that you have been interested in all your life, and that is just the paranormal. So talk to us about your beginning roots, in that area. When did this start? Is this something that happened at grade school? Was it high school? Was it college? Talk to us about that.
Tim Ellis:Yeah, and it's a great question and it's one we're asked, quite a bit. How did we get started into this being, Brad's about to turn the big 50 and I'm 51. we've been doing this for a long time and why and where and we always get asked, did you grow up in a haunted house? and the answer is no. Neither of us grew up in a, what you would call a haunted house that a lot of people feel they live in or grew up in. We had a lot of weird experiences as we were kids. But it's because we're out looking for them. And Brad and I, and actually the third founding member of our team, the Upper Peninsula Paranormal Research Society, Steve Laplonte, the three of us literally met in first grade Lincoln Elementary School, Miss Smith's class. And we were, we gravitated to each other because we were the weird kids, the wonderfully weird kids. And we were okay with that. We were the ones who loved the scary stories and the ghost stories and the spooky movies. And at that age, a lot of kids aren't really into that stuff 'cause it does still freak 'em out a little bit too much. But, the three of us were. And we found each other immediately. and since first grade man, We have grown up and grown together and, and have lived and loved like a family. And, here we are all these years later, but it really wasn't from an incident or a moment that happened. It was just a, an attraction to whatever the weirdness is that's out there in this world that surrounds us and we haven't stopped loving it even as adults.
Brad Blair:Yeah. We fed off of each other's passion for the paranormal from the early days. It was, did you hear about this house down on the corner that there's a baby crying in the basement? And it's empty and we'd just, we'd bring different, of course most of them were completely fictitious or things that we'd heard from older siblings or neighbors or friends, but we just kept playing along and passing along the, this great folklore and tales of the paranormal, the spooky, everything from UFOs, Bigfoot, ghosts obviously have been our passion in the center of it all. But yeah, I mean it just, anything that was outside the bounds of normalcy, we were really interested in. and of course back in those days you had to wait, us keeping the stories going throughout the year, what was a novelty. Because back then you had to wait until the month of October for anything to be in the media on ghosts, vampires, hauntings, any of that, all came around in Halloween time. And we'd see people like Dr. Hans Holes, or Ed Lorraine Warren, showing up on like Phil Donahue or these daytime talk shows. Yes. Have that holy week, that last week of October leading to Halloween. Where every network had their Halloween specials on. And we lived for that. But then November 1st rolled around and it was gone for another 11 months.
Tim Ellis:Not for us, but for everyone else. No, we just, we never let it go. We never let it go. Yeah.
Cliff Duvernois:Now, so obviously, so this is something you guys have been chasing since you were kids and you had a curiosity about it since you were kids. Yep. Now, at what point did you decide to form the Upper paranormal, upper Peninsula Paranormal Research Society? It's a mouthful. Make it easy for you to say,
Tim Ellis:It really was after college. we all through high school, we spent a lot of our weekends doing what we called spooking, which is where we would get in the vehicles and we would drive to the abandoned houses or the old cemeteries and do the things to scare ourselves and the friends that came along with us, and we did that through high school and then we all graduated and went off our own ways for college. And as fate would have it and life would have it, we ended up back in our hometown, after graduating and working in our careers. And we realized at that point that we didn't outgrow of this. So we realized we had to take it to that next step now because at that point, as 22 and 23 year olds, if we're running around through abandoned houses, we're gonna get arrested. Now. We don't want to be arrested. So we figured we had to do it the legit way, which was actually create a research society to start to get serious about this and really start to look at what this thing is this feeling, is this energy is that we've loved since we were kids. So that's where it really started when we started to explore, taking it to a professional level.
Cliff Duvernois:Now, at what point in time did you guys think? 'cause what, obviously when we talk about investigating the paranormal, the one thing that always comes up, of course is the equipment. And I can't help but to go back to like my earliest experience with that, which was during the movie Poltergeist. And the people showed up in the house, they were investigating, they had cameras rolling and all this other stuff. So at what point in time did you say to yourself, Hey, if we're gonna be official, we need to actually have decent gear in order to do that. It's like the cameras I could see in the dark or the E V P recorders or, hate the spirit box. But even that, yeah, you
Brad Blair:Our first official investigation as the U P R S of the ERs. We were borrowing equipment. We had the old cassette reporters that, pushed the two big buttons in, let that s for a half hour, flip the cassette over, record that stuff. Yes. and I still have in our archives, boxes and boxes of these old 60 minute Maxwell cassettes that we were trying to record e v p electronic voice phenomena on. We were borrowing the big old cameras that you'd put the v h s tape into to go around and record. it was quite the endeavor back then. Not to mention film. Kids cameras today versus the yesteryear when we started this. Not the same. We had to go through and if we really wanted to see results and we thought we had something. We'd fork over the extra money to get one hour film processing. That'd be fancy. Otherwise, you sent it away and you had to wait a week for your pictures to come back. Yeah. So you know that, that age of the clunky gear versus, sleek down modern days, night and day.
Tim Ellis:Yeah, because remember when we, Cliff, when we first started, it was late nineties. We're talking 97, 98 when we started to talk about starting a team or where do we even start to have a team? And then it was late nineties in the early two thousands before we even actually started to do what we do now. So the TV shows weren't Ghost Hunters wasn't even out yet on sci-fi channels? No. So the TV shows weren't out there. The fancy gadgets weren't out there. We were trying to work off of what we knew from Hans Holzer and the TV shows that we saw and maybe Poltergeist or something where it was just the big audio recorders and the big cameras. and you had a notepad and a pen and you just took in, what happened around you. So that's where we started. That's where we cut our teeth. And then as the years and the decades rolled on, that's when all the fancy fun stuff used to come out. And before we knew it, we had totes full of gear that we still have the, yeah. That we don't even, we barely even touch now because we got caught up in that craze of wanting the next blinky gadget and the one that made sounds and we would buy 'em. And then it's really come full circle for us. Because we started very basic. We bought all the gear and we still have it, and it's just not all of it, but most of it's just sitting there. And now we're back to more of the basic science of investigating, which is trusting your gut and your senses and your sight and reporting your experiences. But still having better cameras and better audio recorders than we did back in the day. And the ghost box. And the ghost box, which we love so much.
Cliff Duvernois:Oh, I hate that thing. for our audience, we're gonna take a quick break to thank our sponsors. When we come back, we're gonna talk a lot more about Paracon and what you can expect from this year, 2023. We'll see you after the break. Are you enjoying these amazing stories? Michigan is full of people that are doing some pretty extraordinary things. If you want these amazing stories sent directly to your inbox, head over to total michigan.com. Enter your email address and get them today. What are you going to get? I'm glad you asked. First, you're gonna join our awesome Michigan community and it is quite awesome. Second, you will get an email that includes the top five interviews from the show sent directly to your inbox. This is going to include the powerful lessons that we've learned from these amazing people. Third, you're gonna get exclusive behind the scenes information about the show. There's a lot of things that are happening to grow this movement beyond the confines of just a radio show and a podcast. You'll get advanced notice of upcoming guests and early access to their interviews. You'll also get a link to our Facebook group. Now to get all these goodies, just head over to total michigan.com/join. Enter your email address and join our awesome community today. Hello everyone, and welcome back to Total Michigan. I'm your host, Cliff DuVernois. Today we're talking with Tim and Brad from the Upper Paranormal, Upper Peninsula Paranormal Research Society ERs group. And, we're talking about all things now, Paracon. And an exciting event that's happening, just within a few weeks actually as we're having this conversation. Brad, before you were talking about how you and Tim were on an air airline, you're flying side by side and you're like, Hey, why don't we put on one of these conventions ourselves? I guess the question to you is whenever these things start and it's something I like to explore. What made you think that you could actually pull this off?
Brad Blair:I don't, we were drinking a made you that day.
Cliff Duvernois:Ah, okay. that could solve the riddle, that's for sure. but what made you think that you could like actually pull this off and start to get speakers to come in and get people to show up? What made you think you could do that?
Brad Blair:You know, we took off on a wing and a prayer. And I guess just, A certain amount of confidence and a audacity that we had approaching this saying, if we're going to do it, we're going to do it right. We're not going to be one of these little sideshows that, pops in, Hey, we're gonna do this, and then doesn't deliver. We wanted to make sure we had the right people at the right place. location was a big issue. that was honestly, probably the biggest thing. And if you've never been to Sault Ste. Marie, we're at the end of I 75 right on the Canadian border. We're a great tourist town. The summers are very busy. Winter is a completely different story. We're busy but with a different crowd. It's a lot of hockey, snowmobiles, you're winter sports people, but we said, how are we going to draw from a major market because we're not near anything near major market. and that's where it came down to, We need the right people. We need people that are going to draw the fans and the curious and the bystanders in to buy these tickets. And come and attend and meet these people and listen to the lectures. we, it, it was, I guess the circumstance at the time was perfect. Kewadin Casino here in Sault Ste. Marie was looking to expand on their entertainment options. they did a lot of, older country stars, the occasional touring group. but they wanted to do something different. And the manager of entertainment at the time happened to be a fan of the developing paranormal reality genre that overtook Oh, nice. Channel and sci-fi and all of these other cable networks. upon approaching him, he was wide open to the idea, and then it was, gimme some ideas of what you guys think you want. Who do you wanna bring in? When should we set this up? and again, It's one of those things we knew you couldn't just rush in, hop in, put this together and have it next month. So our planning was close to a year on the first one.
Tim Ellis:Yep. and it's never, and it's never stopped from that. We, we plan a whole year for the event. We maybe take a year, a month off to catch our breath. And then we're right back. And so the whole process is anywhere from 10 to 11 to 12 months to put on the event. But, we're heading into our 13th, lucky number 13th year. Yes, it should be 14th, but of course, COVID shut the world down for a year. So we're heading into lucky number 13. we have an idea of what we're doing now, and so the process is, we know what we're doing at this point. We, we better anyway. And and so it's a lot easier now than it was in the earlier years, but also the event's getting bigger. So we're dealing with more people and more flights and more things, more moving parts to take care of. So in that aspect, it's much more difficult than it was in the beginning. But overall, we know what we're doing now, so it's easier in that aspect. But in the beginning it was, as Brad said, it was a shot and a prayer, and we didn't know after year one if we were gonna be around for another one. We just wanted to try it. And, the timing was perfect to team up with Kewadin Casino. They wanted something different. We had a fresh idea. The guy was, the head manager was into it. So the relationship started. and we've never looked back.
Brad Blair:our original plan was we thought if year one went well, we could get a second year. we honestly never envisioned it going past two years.
Cliff Duvernois:Yeah. So the question I got for you is, the very first year that you got it set up, like you said, it's, ringing a prayer, you guys are feeling this out on your own. And you put the website out there, you're like, Hey, here's the tickets. Go buy 'em. What was it like to see that first ticket sale actually come through? were you saying to yourself, holy cow, this is real, we gotta deliver now?
Tim Ellis:Yeah, we were literally in touch with Kewadin probably every day, if not every other day, saying, Hey, where are we at with ticket sales? I'll never forget that reaching out every day to every other day. And I think that first year we maybe sold 700 tickets, but for us, for our first year, oh, That was amazing. We didn't know what to expect. Yeah. Yeah. We were thinking maybe two, 300 we'd be happy. And we sold, seven to seven 50, I believe it was. And yeah. So it was a very powerful, magical moment where Brad and I were like, crap, we might be onto something here. And, and as Brad had said, We lucked out on the location too, to have the support of the casino. we're also very lucky that our entire team, the U P R S, we've had a small army behind us to put this on as well. We had one, we had a team meeting shortly after Brad and I had the idea, and we brought it up to the group. We're like, if we try to do something like this, are you guys behind this? Do you want to do it? All of 'em said, yes, we want to do this. So we couldn't do it without the group either because they work every weekend, every hour of this event, nonstop. It's all volunteer on our part because we want to do this event and it's because we love it. It's what we love to do. So it, we couldn't do this without a few things that fell into place perfectly.
Cliff Duvernois:And I know that a big draw for these conventions are the people, the speakers That you can actually book. And walk us through that process of how do you think would be a good fit for your convention. 'cause you guys treat this very seriously, right? When you're doing these, these investigations in your group and being all formal, it's not just whoever's popular, right? It's you. You have a certain feel, for who you wanna have as a guest. So how do you go about picking out those right guests for Paracon?
Brad Blair:it's interesting you bring that up too going. Just cycling back to year one, we didn't get all the guests we wanted. We wanted Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson from Ghost Hunters. They were the top guys in the field at the time. And this booking agent we were working with said, they're already booked up for that week. I can't get you them. There's this new show that's gaining popularity. And I can get you all three of their main guys. for less I could have got you these guys. And as it turned out, that newer show kicking in was called Ghost Adventures, which at this point in time has been the number one rated show on Travel Channel for I don't know how many years. But they were kicking into their second season and they took off like wildfire. So we had them as our headliners year one. We've never had that whole group back again. But it was pretty amazing to see how, and this is where, it ties into your question, where we gauged things, watching how the fans interacted with them as being a paranormal pop stars. Seeing the attention they drew. And then we said, we've gotta look at people that have this kind of charisma, people that are going to interact with the fans because there are some bigger names, well-known people out there that we get warned are horrible around audiences. They're not good. Oh. Interacting with people. And so they, they might be high up in the field. But if they're not going to sit back and be willing to have a conversation with attendees who are buying tickets and coming to meet them and doing autographs and taking the pictures with them, then we're not going to bring them in. We, we want people who are going to be as interactive as possible. Obviously we look for a good stage presence for people that are going to be up in front of this crowd of 1500 giving, their talk on what they're supposed to be the special super specialists in. there's a lot of layers to it. It's not just as you said, the most popular people we want more than that. We want people that are going to be working and having fun.
Tim Ellis:Yeah, because one of the special things about our event is the availability of the superstars that we bring in and the guests and their chance to interact with them and walk right up to them at their vendor table and talk with 'em and be with them. And as Brad said, if they're not good with the people, then we don't want 'em. Because it's, if the guests aren't happy, they're not coming back. So it's all about the people we bring in. And one thing we all, we have always tried to strive for too, is we really watch for the authors, and our opinion, some of the best researchers out there are actually the authors and not necessarily just the TV stars. So we're big on the authors too, and their publications and the work they've done. So we watch that very closely as well.
Cliff Duvernois:it's interesting you say authors because writing a book is no easy task. So you know that those Yeah. So you know that those people are dedicated to their craft. So for Paracon 2023, what are, who are some of the guests that, that are coming? That if people are, they watch tv, they're watching the paranormal world, or maybe not even tv, but anyways. What are some of the people that are coming here, what can people expect?
Brad Blair:one, one, who's going to be one of our headliners this year that we've never had before, i. we're getting a great reaction on, and part of it is people didn't know this gentleman was necessarily involved in the paranormal field, but Jack Osbourne son of Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne has done shows on Travel Channel. He's got some more work coming up and he's very heavily involved in the paranormal field. And this will be our first year having Jack in, We've got this crew from Ghost Hunters, which is 19 years running now. insane for that. That was the show that kicked off the whole reality field. Jason Hawes, Shari DeBenedetti, Dustin Perry, Steve Gonsalves, Chris Williams all coming up this year for it. We've got Steve DiSchiavi from a show called The Dead Files, which has a huge following. They've been, that's the first year we've got him. Yeah. It is the first year for Steve. That's another Travel Channel show. the crew from Destination Fear, which is now,
Tim Ellis:oh, on the YouTube, they've renamed it a little bit.
Brad Blair:they just moved from travel's doing a whole remake, and they've, they, they just filmed a whole season that's going on YouTube shortly. It might be up right now. yeah, they're, those are some of the headlines. As far as authors, Rich Astep. Yes. Great author. good friend of ours, great author guy kicks out like three books a year, four books a year. And we sit here oh yeah, exactly.
Tim Ellis:Yeah. And he's got a full-time job on top of that. he does Moses.
Brad Blair:Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Chip Coffey. psychic Medium, well-known. Yes. Multiple shows, psychic kids, Paranormal State, most recently Kindred Spirits, which Amy Bruni and Adam Berry. Also the co-stars from that show are both coming. Yes. Great people, friends of ours at this point in time, they work with us every year. Yeah. John Zaffis the godfather of the paranormal field. He is been doing this longer than most people.
Tim Ellis:Yeah. And he's the only, actually, the only person in the field that has been to all 13 Michigan Paranormal conventions. He has not missed one. We've invited him back every time. And he has come back every time and he is one of our favorites. And he is one of the crowd's favorites. you might remember him from Haunted Collector sci-fi, MO or TV show. Yes. and speaking of authors two, one of Brad and i's favorites. And one of the things that I love about what we've been able to do through the years with Michigan Paracon and getting to know these people is actually literally forming friendships and bonds with people that we used to look up to before we ever got to know him. One of 'em is one of our favorite authors in the whole field, which is Jeff Belanger and Jeff will be back as well. So
Brad Blair:Jeff is also the head writer and researcher for Ghost Adventures. The, aforementioned Oh, cool. Yeah. Number one show on travel channel.
Tim Ellis:Yeah, so the list goes on and on and it's all on our website where you can see it all. But, each year it just gets bigger and we couldn't be more excited.
Brad Blair:Yeah, if you hop on MIParacon.com, it will have all the speakers. We're hoping to have the set schedule, which we've been having to for stall due to getting the flights booked. travel's been a nightmare this year. Anybody that's been on, oh yeah. Coding on flights gonna attest. So we're hoping by the end of this week that the schedule is set in stone. And we'll have that up on the website as well. And that's where you can get tickets for, day passes, weekend passes, psychic galleries, any of the workshops. Everything is up at miparacon.com. There's also a phone number that runs through our partners at the Convention Visitors Bureau. If you have any questions, you can call, email them. They'll get right back to you. They've been an amazing Yeah, partner over the years.
Cliff Duvernois:Nice. And one of the things I wanna circle back to what you were talking about earlier about how it seems like your paranormal fix only happens for one week out of the year before people move on to Christmas or something else like that. You guys actually have a podcast. I. Where you talk about things that go bump in the night. So talk to us about that.
Tim Ellis:Yeah, we do it. it's actually been, actually new episodes have been on hiatus for most of this year, this calendar year. It's just been so busy as Brad and I are both, business owners as well. I. And small business owner. So anyone who's a small business owner knows what that means, especially in today's world. But, yep, so we're doing everything we can just to keep our lights on in our actual businesses. we're, I'm hoping, we're hoping once we get past paracon and start to head into September, we can fire up some new episodes. But it's called right behind us, the Creaking Door Paranormal Radio is what it's called. And we've had this been, going for. 14 years now. Maybe. It's gotta be sweet Moses. I know it's over 10. but it, yeah, and it's just, it's, we were utilizing the connections we were making through Mi Paracon and bringing on the guests of a lot of the people we brought in. And then I. as we continue to grow the podcast, making connections with other people. And it's just, it's a podcast. It's a, it's an hour long podcast that interviews, we always do an opening segment, then the main interview, and then a closing segment. And the main interview is always with someone, one of the bigger names within the paranormal field. And, it's very informative but very laid back and, just having a lot of fun with it. So it's out there and it's on all the major streaming platforms that all the podcasts are these days, and you can find at the Creaking Door Paranormal Radio and it's out there. And, hopefully within a couple months we'll be back on track to at least start getting some new shows out.
Cliff Duvernois:Sweet. And speaking of authors, You guys have a couple of books We do. So talk to us about that. Okay. I do that.
Brad Blair:This was the first, this was the second. Yes. funny story, Tim and I had talked about actually writing this book for a number of years. Yes. This is Great Lakes Monsters and Mysteries. yes, Covers a lot of the legends in the lower of the Great Lakes region. We, we cover every state that touches one of the Great Lakes, plus, sea monsters. We've got Bigfoot, we've got hauntings, we've got great legends that, have grown through the years, in this wonderful region. We're lucky enough to call home. Tim and I had been kicking the idea around. And we got a call one day from a lady named Rosemary Ellen Guiley who was one of the most influential authors in the field of the paranormal. She published over 70 books in her lifetime. And she owned this publishing company, Visionary Living Publishing. And she said, yo, you guys. Are in such an amazing area of the world. I think you take it for granted, how beautiful the upper peninsula is. Yet it's still one of these kind of last frontier areas where you've got miles and miles of unexplored wilderness, an undeveloped waterfront. She said, have you guys ever thought about writing a book? On your area, on your case files, and you and your team have a 20 year history. I think people would love to see that. We said, we've talked about writing a book. But along the lines of this with more cryptids and UFOs and everything, all in all in one. And she said, I like that idea too. But she said, I really wanna see a book on your case files. And yes. haunted history of your area of the upper peninsula in northern Michigan. And just to put the icing on the cake. She says, and I would like it done within the year so we could release it next year at your 10th annual Michigan Paracon. So we called Steve and we said, the three of us being the founders of the team and having all the history and all of the case files sitting in, file cabinets in my basement, which my wife loves. yeah. So we got together. we sat and crammed and pulled files out and it was so great to reminisce before we cut this down into the 10 stories that made it into the book. And just going through some of these files and cases that we hadn't thought of in, 17, 18, 20 years, that Oh, that'd be great in the book. So we divvied up the cases that we decided we wanted to work on, and each of us took a third of it and within the year we had it out. Rosemary had it published. Yooper Natural Haunts. Still available on Yes. On Amazon and at yoopernaturalhaunts.com.
Tim Ellis:Yeah. So this is basically, this is Ghost Stories. Yes. This is all our case files over 20 years worth. And then this is more monsters. It's got ghost stories, as Brad said, but Sea Creatures, UFOs, black-eyed kids. it's just all the fun. Oh yes. All the fun stuff.
Brad Blair:we even have a chapter, we, in the Creaking Door podcast, we have a mailbag segment where people could send in their stories. And we came up, with some of our favorites from over the years.
Tim Ellis:Those are some of my favorite stories in the whole podcast.
Brad Blair:And, change the names to protect the innocent. But we came up with this Nicky little chapter, Tales from the Creaking Door. There's some nice a of us sitting in the studio, which is, Way closer to realistic than it should be.
Cliff Duvernois:Salute to Eagle 95 1 there. Yes. Yes.
Brad Blair:yeah, we, Rosemary at the time, loved the concept of this book. So she had pre-signed us to do a second book before we had the first done, unfortunately. Oh, nice. shortly after the first book was published, we found out Rosemary had been battling cancer the entire time she was working on this. She passed shortly after the book was released. It was the last book she published, oversaw the publishing of and just to think back of. All of the mentoring she did for us. The picking up the phone to have her yell because she didn't like a part done. I, she was a task master. She was wonderful. We could not have had a better writing coach or somebody to bring us into that aspect of the field, that aspect of media than Rosemary Allen Guiley. and we were so blessed to have worked with her.
Tim Ellis:Yeah. And the whole time we were doing it, we had no idea she was battling cancer and was nearing the end of her life. She never once complained or or let us know once. She kept us on task until that book was done. So it was an absolute honor, and probably one of the best memories of our lives to be able to work with her. Just before she passed.
Brad Blair:A a and she wrote the intro to the forward to the book. So we've always got that with us. And then, Jeff Belanger, our friend that's, the author and writer for Ghost Adventures. He wrote the forward to, Monsters and Mysteries for us. So we've had some great people that we got to work with in these book projects.
Cliff Duvernois:I could sit here and talk about this all day long and I know you guys don't fully care. for, so you already mentioned, mi par, is it MIParacon.com? Yep. The website if people want to go and get tickets. Yes, sir. and as far as like your books. Everything else like that, where can people go to get that?
Brad Blair:Amazon or we can send you personalized copies directly through Yooper natural haunts.com and that's Y o show 'em Timmy.
Tim Ellis:So you take that there, go and put a.com at the end of it, and that'll get you to our personal website where we can sign 'em for you and and get 'em out to you that way.
Cliff Duvernois:And then one last thing. You guys are also on the road giving speeches, so is there some way that people can track you, where you're going, where you're gonna be presenting? 'cause I know you do it around Michigan.
Brad Blair:If you follow us on social media, we probably keep that updated better than any other sites on our face Facebook page is probably the best. If you follow, Creaking Door on Facebook or the Upper Peninsula Paranormal Research Society. Tim Ellis, Brad Blair, our personal pages, we keep pushing it out. Right now we've got what we start, I think in, we start with Michigan Paracon. Yeah. In August that, that kind of kicks off our fall, world tour, which this year literally is a world tour. We'll be at the, Michigan U F O contact in Houghton Lake, the weekend of, I believe, September 23rd. Mm-hmm. Nice. The following weekend we're on Mackinac Island with Amy Burney's Strange Escapes. We head to, we're flying into Birmingham, England the last week of October. This year we'll be presenting at Sage Paracon, which is, yeah. So excited, kind, the beautiful Paracon, for England. So it's the big one. it's, Quite the neat event, and that's being held at Coombe Abbey, outside of Birmingham. So really looking forward to that one.
Tim Ellis:And we're also, nothing's, penned yet, but we're working with, the libraries are starting to reach out now too. And we'll be doing midweek talks as well throughout the state. So just watch our social media. Yeah. And that'll give you the best schedule.
Brad Blair:I,
Cliff Duvernois:Brad, Tim, thank you so much for taking time to chat with us today. we really do appreciate it.
Tim Ellis:Always a pleasure, Cliff. Always a pleasure, Cliff.
Cliff Duvernois:And for our audience, you can always roll on over to total michigan.com. Click on Tim and Brad's interview and get all of the delicious links that they were talking about before. We will see you next week when I have another story with an ordinary Michigander doing some pretty extraordinary things. We'll see you then.
