Life

Woman to launch paranormal podcast

For many, the paranormal is relegated to autumn, when the leaves begin to fall and the air takes on a spooky chill, but for Bridget Callahan, an interest in things that go bump in the night is a life-long passion that has led the Canton resident to start her own podcast, Eerie Echoes with Miss B.

The idea came about during a conversation between Callahan and the show's producer, Diego Sanchez. "I met him when I worked at Penn College because his band, MorrisonPoe, was brought in by the radio station and did a show on campus. Him and I struck up a conversation, and maintained the friendship all these years," she explained.

"We both have a love of the paranormal, ghost stories, UFO's, Bigfoot, things like that, so at the end of last year, he approached me about doing a podcast, and I kind of laughed it off,'" she said.

"Then he came back to me again and asked if I would consider doing it, and he would be the producer, and I figured it couldn't hurt. It sounded like fun," Callahan said.

Each episode will be around half an hour long, with new episodes debuting on the last Thursday of every month, featuring a different topic.

"Paranormal happenings in the news from around the world, whether it be Bigfoot, aliens, ghosts, whatever, that'll be one month. And the following month, we're going to be doing stories from our listeners," Callahan explained.

The podcast debuts June 27, and features a story about the Barclay Cemetery and the town of Barclay.

"It was a story that I grew up hearing, that Barclay cemetery was haunted," Callahan explained.

"We are doing a lot of research on the history and talking with people who have experienced hearing voices at night, and one hunter who actually heard these noises during the day," she said.

"At times, you can hear what sounds like coal miners up there playing against the rail track, and, especially in the cemetery, you can hear, predominantly women and children, because there was a period of time in the late 1800's where a lot of families, mothers and children, died within a month of each other because of a spread of disease," she explained.

Callahan places a lot of the emphasis for her love of the supernatural on her heritage.

"I'm Irish, and there's always really good ghost stories in Ireland," she said.

"And particularly with ghost stories, it was very comforting for me to know that when my grandfather, who I was very close with, passed away, he might not physically be here, but he could be very well existing in another plane," Callahan said.

"I'm not saying I don't believe in God, I do very much, but I don't think God is so linear," she continued.

"I think he's multifaceted, and I believe in the multi-dimensional. And we are energy. Energy is neither created nor destroyed, so when the physical dies, what, it just goes away? That just never made sense to me," Callahan explained.

"So I was always fascinated with ghost stories. Always. I was terrified of ghost stories, too, because, you know, there comes bad and vice versa," she said.

While Callahan admits she doesn't take herself too seriously, she stresses that great care is taken to present each story with the utmost respect.

"Diego and I might be lighthearted during our own stuff, but whenever it comes to telling somebody else's story, we treasure the fact that we can tell that story, and we're going to share it exactly the way that person presented it to us," she said.

And, while the show is just getting off the ground, Callahan has big plans for the future, including interviews with associates of famed paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, and possibly an episode from The Cell Block, which has a well-known history of haunting.

"In October, we're going to New Orleans. Everybody, for their first time, seems to go to Salem, and I'm drawn to Salem, too, for obvious reasons, but I want our first Halloween episode to be from New Orleans," Callahan said.

Those interested can check out the podcast for free across all major hosting platforms, including Spotify and Apple. Callahan said she hopes to add iHeartRadio to that list soon.

"There's even a YouTube channel for Eerie Echoes," Callahan said.

"We'll be doing a lot of shots from each scene that will be posted there. And it's a good place to listen to it as well," she said.

Even in its infancy, Callahan assures that the podcast is not a one and done.

"We've already started working on season two, and we'll be kicking that off in Lilydale, N.Y., which is a psychic community in between Rochester and Buffalo. It's actually a place where Dan Ackroyd's great-grandfather used to write about the psychics that would travel through the area," she said.

"It was through his great-grandfather's papers that he was able to come up with the idea for Ghostbusters," she explained.

Callahan would likely be considered the star of the show, but she stressed that none of it would be possible without the involvement from Sanchez.

"Diego says I'm the voice of the podcast because it's Eerie Echoes with Miss B, but without Diego, it wouldn't even be in existence," she explained.

"So I want to make sure that people realize that I really appreciate everything that he's doing for the podcast as well," Callahan said.

A launch party for Eerie Echoes with Miss B will be held at The Crooked Goose, 155 W. Fourth St., beginning at 7 p.m. on Thursday, June 27, with drink and appetizer specials available.