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2010 Archive:
Lampooning the Paranormal with Scott Gruenwald
November 30, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

Haunted Objects with John Zaffis
November 23, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

History of Ghost Hunting with Amy Bruni from Ghost Hunters
November 15, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

The Ghosts of the Stanley Hotel
November 9, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

The Haunted Victorian Mansion By 30 Odd Minutes
October 13, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

Halloween is for Everybody by Lee Prosser
October 11, 2010

Column - regular feature

A Brief, Unofficial History of Ghosts and their Hunters by Deonna Kelli Sayed
September 21, 2010


The New England Ghost Project By 30 Odd Minutes
September 14, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

A Paranormal Childhood with Ursula Bielski By 30 Odd Minutes
September 7, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

Parapsychology with Most Haunted's Dr. Ciaran O'Keeffe By 30 Odd Minutes
August 31, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

Paranormal Pop Culture by Aaron Sagers
August 31, 2010


Baseball's Ghosts with Dan Gordon By 30 Odd Minutes
August 24, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

Tamara Thorne - Ghost Chronicles
August 18, 2010

Ghostvillage Radio - podcast

Ghosts of Gettysburg with Mark Nesbitt By 30 Odd Minutes
August 17, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

Fire in the Sky Author Travis Walton By 30 Odd Minutes
August 10, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

Shave and a Haircut... There's Ghosts! By Mike Brody
August 9, 2010

Column - regular feature

Tara Normal Comic Book Artist H.C. Noel By 30 Odd Minutes
July 27, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

Paranormal Inventor Bill Chappell By 30 Odd Minutes
July 13, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

Paranormal Roundtable: Part Deux By 30 Odd Minutes
June 29, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

Legend Tripping with Christopher Balzano By 30 Odd Minutes
June 22, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

Kids and the Paranormal with Dave Schrader By 30 Odd Minutes
June 8, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

12 Rumors about the Mt. Washington Beyond Reality Event By Mike Brody
June 2, 2010

Column - regular feature

The Wisconsin Werewolf with Linda Godfrey By 30 Odd Minutes
June 1, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

Live-ish From the Haunted Houghton Mansion By 30 Odd Minutes
May 25, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

One Year Anniversary Show By 30 Odd Minutes
May 18, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

Paranormal Pop Culture with Aaron Sagers By 30 Odd Minutes
April 27, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

The Starchild Skull with Lloyd Pye By 30 Odd Minutes
April 20, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

Haunted Inns on the Cape - Ghost Chronicles
April 1, 2010

Ghostvillage Radio - podcast

On the Road with Patrick Burns and Marley Gibson By 30 Odd Minutes
March 30, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

The Haunted Comedy Club By Mike Brody
March 20, 2010

Column - regular feature

Folklore and Legends with Dr. Michael Bell By 30 Odd Minutes
March 16, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

Astrology With Christopher Renstrom By 30 Odd Minutes
March 9, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

Women in the Paranormal 2010: Beth Brown
March 8, 2010


A Real Haunting in Connecticut - Ghost Chronicles
March 3, 2010

Ghostvillage Radio - podcast

"Live" from Lizzie Borden's By 30 Odd Minutes
March 2, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

Robert Nathan by Lee Prosser
March 2, 2010

Column - regular feature

Women in the Paranormal 2010: April Slaughter
March 1, 2010


Cyborgs and A.I. with Dr. Kevin Warwick By 30 Odd Minutes
February 23, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

Women in the Paranormal 2010: Dr. Pamela Heath
February 22, 2010


Dr. Michael Bell - Ghost Chronicles
February 17, 2010

Ghostvillage Radio - podcast

Women in the Paranormal 2010: Marie D. Jones
February 16, 2010


The Haunted Slater Mill with Carl Johnson By 30 Odd Minutes
February 9, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

Paranormal Technology with Inventor Andy Coppock By 30 Odd Minutes
February 2, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

Not Your Daddy's Team: The Queer Side of the Paranormal by Deonna Kelli Sayed
February 2, 2010


Shaman Steve Wilson - Ghost Chronicles
January 27, 2010

Ghostvillage Radio - podcast

Paranormal Roundtable/Debate with the Oddballs By 30 Odd Minutes
January 26, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

Edwidge Danticat by Lee Prosser
January 25, 2010

Column - regular feature

2012 and Doomsday Prophecies with Marie D. Jones By 30 Odd Minutes
January 14, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

T. Glen Hamilton - Ghost Chronicles
January 13, 2010

Ghostvillage Radio - podcast

The Rendlesham Forest UFO Incident with Peter Robbins By 30 Odd Minutes
January 7, 2010

30 Odd Minutes - webcast

Surviving the Stanley Hotel By Mike Brody
January 4, 2010

Column - regular feature



February 16, 2010

Women in the Paranormal 2010: Marie D. Jones

Interview by Jeff Belanger

Marie D. Jones - Women in the Paranormal. Marie D. Jones is a best-selling author, screenwriter, researcher, radio show host, and public speaker. She's the author several books including: 2013: End of Days of a New Beginning-Envisioning the World After the Events of 2012, PSIence: How New Discoveries in Quantum Physics and New Science May Explain the Existence of Paranormal Phenomena, and Looking for God in All the Wrong Places.

How did you first get interested in the paranormal?


Marie D. Jones: I have been interested in all things paranormal since I came tumbling out of the womb! I just always seemed to be aware of the fact that there were other worlds than the one I walked in. From the earliest age, I was into ghosts, UFOs, and such. I have always had an incredibly overactive imagination, and had an invisible friend (an alligator wearing a top hat) as a child that to this day I insist was real! I also saw ghosts and Bigfoot in the woods beyond my backyard in Rockland County, New York, although I suspect it was really my hairy next-door neighbor (no offense, Mr. D!).

I do however have one vivid experience that solidified my love of UFOs, of seeing a "grey" alien in the window of my garage. I was probably about 6 or 7 and to this day I insist it was not a dream. I can recall every single detail and it terrified me. I also have experienced missing time as an adult, but that was probably more due to exhaustion than abduction. My dad, being the neighborhood scientist, was the go-to guy every time someone in the hood saw something that they couldn't identify, which was usually Venus or a shooting star. My neighbor across the street was a big UFO buff, too, and gave me some of his books on the subject to read when I was a little kid, so yeah, I guess those experiences pretty much set my fate in stone!

I think some of us are just born with a curiosity and desire to know the unknown, and also a real sense that the unknown exists in the first place. To me, it was as real and natural as the real world, which I was also fascinated with.

I began reading at a very early age, by age 2, and much of what I devoured was paranormal related, or else about nature and science and wildlife. I was a science-nerd kid, a total tomboy in dresses (my mom insisted) with chemistry and geology sets, telescopes, microscope, bird watching kits. I walked around the backyard with a bookbag full of "nature notes" and bird feathers and tracked wildlife in the woods behind my house. I owned every Field Guide imaginable, knew every tree, rock, seashell ,and flower, also dug a huge four foot hole in my backyard looking for fossils when my scientist father stated over supper one night that we were once all underwater. I found tons of seashell fossils! I still have them in a big jar. He never said anything like that again!

Nature, both the seen and the unseen, has always been my fascination!

So, between my weird imagination, love of the paranormal, and creative overdrive, I did what any sane person would do. I grew up and became a writer.

You write about many aspects of the paranormal from ghosts to quantum physics to end of the world prophecies, in your research have you noticed the researchers themselves tend to be more men than women?

Oh yes. Here is my take. In the "ghost hunting" end of the paranormal field, there are a lot of women, in fact they seem to be the majority, and in the more scientific edges of paranormal research there are very few. I am an oddball among oddballs! Because I come at all of this, though, as mainly a writer, I get to walk both worlds and not worry too much about the whole gender issue. I am not out there ghost hunting, nor am I lecturing as a PhD., I am stuck in the betwixt and between, and so far it's worked really well for me, because I am only one of a handful of women who are out on the cutting edge and we are not wallflowers. We demand to be respected and we are. Most people who come in contact with me know that I am a big goofball, but with a pretty sharp brain. Hell, I should have a pretty sharp brain. I read several books a week, and have since early childhood. So it ain't necessarily all my smarts in there, but I am the one putting two and two together to make four, so I am taking the credit for my brilliance!

I once posed to my friends on Twitter and Facebook the question about why so many women in paranormal, and most of them agreed that psychic stuff and ghost hunting particularly were estrogen-heavy, with ufology and cryptozoology more testosterone-topped. I happen to be more of a UFO/cryptid gal myself, but I have always waved my freak flag high.

Have you ever felt like you had to overcome a hurdle or bias because you're a woman researching the paranormal?

Well, yes, but again, only when the subject matter has veered out into the realm of science more so than "straight" ghost or PSI stuff. I think there are a lot more men in ufology, though, too and I got a ton of crap when I was in MUFON from men who thought I couldn't possibly formulate a thought! I left MUFON because of it (I love MUFON and have nothing bad to say about the organization -- this was related to just a couple of jerks I had the pleasure of running into). So, yes, I guess because I keep choosing to push the edge of the paranormal envelope, I keep getting poked at in return. I suspect that is typical of any arena, though, because I worked in the entertainment industry for years and women were never quite as "respected" there either, although things are changing.

I don't think having boobs and a hoo-hoo (can I say that on here?) is a detriment to doing good research and having great ideas. Unless I am PMS'ing, then I can come up with some doozey theories! What is cool is watching more and more women coming up in the hard sciences, because that opens the door for women to do just about anything.

Do you think being a woman has ever helped you in your research?

Well, first of all, I am a tomboy at heart, and am pretty ballsy for a woman, so I always find a way to make things work to my benefit. I have too much testosterone, ha! I tend to be drawn more to men as a result when doing my work and my research.

But, the answer is yes, because women are able to integrate right brain thinking into their left brain analysis much better than most men. Plus we multi-task like nobody's business. That allows me to see the power of the subjective, yet in a way that supports a more objective point of view. I can be both skeptic and believer and find that happy medium. I also think women are more diplomatic, have less ego issues, and can see the bigger picture better. I am generalizing here, because I have met some amazing and wonderful men in this field who are brilliant (my partner is one of them!), and whom I adore and respect tremendously but for the most part, there is a disconnect between the way the genders think that can be both a blessing and a burden. And I will bet that a lot of the "guys" out there look at me and my work and snicker, yet in their hearts wish to God they'd done the work themselves!

What is really great is partnering with a guy, in my case Larry Flaxman of ARPAST, because we bring twice as much to the table, and we compliment each other's strengths and weaknesses. Partnering is a great idea, especially when writing books. Two heads are better than one. Unless you are Tesla or Einstein. Then you don't really need another head. In Einstein's case maybe a good comb.

Have you noticed the gender winds shifting in leadership in the paranormal community?

Not so much in the ghost hunting or ufology communities. They seem to have stayed the same. A lot of women out there are running ghost groups, doing field work. UFO groups seem to be still more male-dominated, as are the monster hunters. PSI and psychic arena seems nicely balanced, maybe a tad in favor of women. But out on the edge where I work, there is a gentle trickle of more women breaking through, and writing and presenting theories that are outside the box. A lot of these women are working in the field of Noetics and consciousness, which seems to be the future of where paranormal research is going and should go. You know, I think maybe women are a bit more bold when trying to break new ground than men, simply because we know going into it that we have to work twice as hard to prove twice as much. Boldness is good. Very good. "Boldness been very, very good to me," to quote a baseball player whose name I just spaced on.

Do you believe women are more sensitive than men when it comes to experiencing paranormal phenomena?

Actually, I do, and for two reasons. Our more active right brain abilities allow for more open mindedness and receptivity, and certainly give us the edge on subjective experiences that more left brain thinking often cuts off at the knees. We also seem to have a more emotionally empowered ability to sense something out of the norm, and not write it off as being crazy or "just a dream." But I suspect we will one day find a hormonal connection as well. In my own family, my female ancestors, so to speak, have stories upon stories of ghosts, psychic experiences, etc. The men have few or none. Now, is this because the guys don't want to talk about it or admit to it? Or is there something hormonal, something in our physiological make-up that allows women to perceive and therefore experience things that their male counterparts don't? Again, generalizing, as plenty of men have these experiences. But it sure does seem women are the majority here.

How about a gender difference in how the phenomena is interpreted between male and female witnesses?

Again, yes, because of the hemispheres of the brain involved. Right brain thinking will certainly add its own spin on a subjective, personal experience. And again, the female physiology may include hormonal interactions we don't understand yet, that allow women to not only sense a paranormal experience is underway, but to interpret it as such and find and attach a specific meaning to it.

Now, the only time I believe gender does not matter is in childhood. Children operate mainly in alpha brain wave state up until about age 7, and boys and girls both experience the same "worldview" that accepts magic and the paranormal as normal. I have worked with hundreds of kids as a former teacher's assistant, and found those under the age of 8 to be so set in their beliefs that "stuff" existed that we adults would laugh at. Yet as a child, I recall believing in that same stuff!

My son is at the age when he is just beginning to forget the magical worldview, and it breaks my heart.

Importantly, though, for research, is the certainty that we have to take gender physiology into account when taking witness reports of the paranormal, and when witnessing them ourselves, although I don't think paranormal researchers have a clue how yet to do that.

What new projects are you working on?

Oh wow, what am I not working on is the question. I have a book coming out in June, The Dj vu Enigma: A Journey Through the Anomalies of Mind, Memory and Time with Larry Flaxman, my partner in ParaExplorers. We are also developing a huge concept for a book we plan to do later this year that we introduced in our last two books, and have a proposal out now for a book about a theory that unlocks the code of creation. We are also launching our own radio show, Weird Science, in March on SRN. I host shows now and then on Dreamland Radio. I am developing an original television sitcom series with a producer. Larry and I are writing a paranormal screenplay we just optioned to a producer-director. I am also rewriting a feature film script I optioned, a big sci fi adventure. Ummm, writing articles for TAPS magazine, New Dawn, doing radio for existing books, dealing with the growing interest in 2012 and my related book... My ultimate goal is to know the mind of God, and then be able to tell Her how to do it better.

Can I sleep now?

Relevant Links:

Marie's Web site: http://mariedjones.com/

ParaExplorers: http://paraexplorers.com/







2014 Haunted New England Wall Calendar by Jeff Belanger photography by Frank Grace
Check out the 2014 Haunted New England wall calendar by Jeff Belanger and photography by Frank Grace!


Paranormal Conferences and Lectures
Don't miss the following events and lectures:

Jeff Belanger and “The Bridgewater Triangle” at Dedham Community Theatre - April 6, 2014 9:00PM

The Spirits of the Mark Twain House - Hartford, Connecticut - April 12, 2014

Paracon Australia - East Maitland, New South Wales, Australia - May 10-12, 2014