Haunted New England - The Paranormal Podcast 899

The Paranormal Podcast

Jim Harold

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.5 • 4.9K Ratings

🗓️ 2 September 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Spooky season kicks off in style! Jim Harold welcomes back author, storyteller, and podcaster Jeff Belanger to celebrate the release of his brand-new book Wicked Strange: Your Guide to Ghosts, Monsters, Oddities, and Urban Legends from New England. Jeff shares why New England may be America’s most haunted region, the importance of local legends, and how stories from cemeteries, roadside oddities, and even a legend of “satanic imps” have shaped the culture of the region. You’ll also hear about his friendship with Ed & Lorraine Warren, the White Lady of Easton, and how his podcast New England Legends helped inspire the book. Along the way, Jim and Jeff swap eerie experiences about interviewing people just before they passed away, the role of storytelling in grappling with death and the unknown, and why legends matter more than ever in our information-overloaded world. This is a wide-ranging, thought-provoking, and spooky conversation. It's perfect for the start of Halloween season. You can find Jeff's book at Amazon: https://amzn.to/4g4uTyM -- This post contains Amazon affiliate links that benefit Jim Harold Media when you make a qualifying purchase. Thank you for your support! — – Join our Spooky Studio Plus Club for exclusive content and 20 years of show archives: ⁠⁠https://jimharold.com/plus⁠⁠ – Get Your Spooky Merch at our Mausoleum of Merch at ⁠https://jimharold.com/merch⁠ – Sign up for our FREE Virtual Campfire community: ⁠⁠https://virtualcampfiregroup.com⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everybody, happy spooky season. We're releasing this today on September 2nd.
0:19.8	It's a red letter day for me because I feel this really is the full
0:23.5	kickoff to the spooky season. You know, some people say, well, October is Halloween season.
0:29.4	Ah, the heck with that. I say now is the time. Now is the time. Spooky season starts now. And who
0:36.0	better to start it with than the gentleman I'm about to bring up on the screen,
0:40.1	Jeff Belanger.
0:41.1	And it is, if I am correct, it is a red letter day for him too because he has his new book out,
0:47.0	Wicked Strange, your guide to ghosts, monsters, oddities, and urban legends from New England.
0:53.8	Jeff, welcome to the show. Congratulations on the new book and happy spooky season. Yeah, thanks, Jim. Thanks for all that. Yeah, it is the kickoff. Right now, everything goes pumpkin spiced. Yeah, which that's okay. I mean, I look forward to it. I'm a seasonal kind of person, so. Yeah, well, that's the thing for me. This is the beginning of the whole thing. This is when it really kicks off.
1:16.3	So this new book, Wicked Strange, I love that. That's kind of like, isn't it a winket of a nod to like, you know, some of the stuff we see on SNL and different things, it's wicked, you know, if it's from New England.
1:30.1	Is that where the idea came from?
1:32.4	That's our word for very.
1:34.1	Yes, of course.
1:35.4	You know, wicked piss a kid, you know, like the, we had debates about the title because, honestly, people will tell you that's more not just a
1:44.8	Massachusetts thing, but more a Boston thing. But I don't know. I've heard plenty of people say it
1:48.7	in Maine and other states. It's such a great word. Like, oh, man, it is wicked cold out.
1:53.5	Like, it's, it just means very. It's it. So feel free to adopt it wherever you are. You're
1:59.0	all welcome to it. But yeah, it is a nod to our culture.
2:03.0	And because I think the oddities, the haunts, the UFOs stories, everything from this region
2:10.6	has to be painted with the culture that it sits in. So New Englanders have a certain
2:15.8	practicality to them that's different. It's not better or
2:20.3	worse. It's just different than other parts of the country and other parts of the world.
	...

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