About this time each year, TVs in living rooms everywhere are filled with scary movies and TV shows about spooky things to entertain viewers. But there’s a big difference in the shows that are designed for entertainment and the shows that Michael La Chiana is producing.
La Chiana, a paranormal investigator and researcher, is dedicated documenting the “real” stuff.
His first show, “The Heritage Hunters: Journey Through the Past” was released last year and he told WIZS’s Bill Harris on Wednesday’s TownTalk that it’s already gotten 900,000 views.
His second show is due out next month, he said. The show can be found on Prime Video he said.
There’s nothing wrong with those scary movies and shows about ghosts, but La Chiana said he reminds folks that there IS a difference: “what you see on TV – unless it’s a true documentary, is not real.”
When he investigates paranormal phenomena, he said he looks at every angle to prove – or disprove – what’s going on.
“I love to debunk everything that I can so I can find real evidence that’s there,” he said. That unexplained creak or pop could be a loose floorboard or clanging water pipe inside a wall.
He is pretty much a one-man production company – he investigates, films, writes, edits, produces – so his second episode has taken a couple of years to complete.
“I’m very thorough and I dig deep,” he said.
The second episode delves into the history of Tom Dooley, who was a real person hanged for a murder in North Carolina back in the 1860’s.
Yes, that Tom Dooley, that the Kingston Trio sang about in their hit song of the same name. La Chiana found Laura Reed, a Nashville recording artist who covered a rock version of the song, and she said he could include it in his show.
“To have original music is great,” he added.
The upcoming episode investigates the jail where Dooley was held for a long time, and La Chiana said he’s “captured so many things over the years.” He uses sophisticated recording equipment during his research and investigation, and said he especially enjoys hearing what he can capture on the audio recordings.
“What we’ve captured is insane,” he said of the upcoming episode featuring the legend of Tom Dooley. “We’ve asked several times ‘Who killed Laura Foster?'” La Chiana said. “We got a male voice telling us the name,” he added.
There’s VP – voice phenomena – that you can hear with your ear – and then there’s EVP – electronic voice phenomena – those sounds that are best heard on audio recordings.
La Chiana said he prefers to investigate alone or with as few people as possible, to be able to stay focused on the presence or disturbances in a particular place.
Future episodes of the show will feature real places, La Chiana said. “Places you can actually go…and check out yourself,” he said.
When he went to investigation the mysterious Brown Mountain Lights in the western part of the state, he said he was intrigued.
Could those lights be a natural phenomenon – an energy that comes up out of the ground?
“It’s very fascinating,” La Chiana said, adding that such phenomena are “not so ghosty and more of a mystery – I like those types of things, too.”