He ain’t afraid of no ghosts.
When Ryan Buell started the Paranormal Research Society back in 2001, he had no clue it would turn into a TV show. The then-19-year-old Penn State student — who has a paranormal past that he doesn’t talk about because “those doors have been closed” — was just looking to help people who were being tormented by supernatural goings-on.
Fast-forward to 2010, and Paranormal State is wrapping up its fourth successful season on A&E. Buell and his crew of investigators have criss-crossed the country visiting folks that are being poked, prodded and frightened by beings from the other side, giving them comfort, providing support, and documenting the weird things that happen in the dead of the night.
The documentary show led the way to such series as Paranormal Cops, Ghost Hunters, Most Haunted and the upcoming Ghost Lab, proving that we can’t get enough of the unknown. Buell says interest in the paranormal has never really waned.
“We’re not the first people to do this,” he says on the line from Pennsylvania. “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote the Sherlock Holmes books, was part of a paranormal society. They were dedicated to researching the paranormal. There was parapsychology around the Second World War and the Cold War. If you were to look at it, the acceptance of the paranormal always seems to occur when we’re in very dire times. When I talked about ghost-hunting in high school, people would laugh at me. And when 9/11 happened, the acceptance started again.
“When you see images of people dying all over the world, you start to realize that death isn’t so far away,” Buell continues. “And with that comes that age-old question of what happens when we die? They’re looking for an outlet into this, and what better way than watching a show on your couch?”
Paranormal State’s Season 4 finale airs tonight, and switches things up by investigating a legend that has plagued a northern state throughout history: the Jersey Devil. Legend has it that the Pine Barrens region of New Jersey is home to a winged, devil-like creature that was the spawn of a witch, born in 1735.
So, what did Buell and his team find?
“We take a look at the legend as a whole, and of course the big thing was whether we could go out and find the Jersey Devil,” he explains. “There has been no real evidence of it. All we’ve heard have been sounds that people have recorded that they say is the Jersey Devil, but there has been no physical or video findings until Tuesday. I was driving around the Pine Barrens, and my gut told me, ‘This is the place we should go [with the production crew].’ So we did, and went out into the woods.
“We have something on the thermal camera that we cannot explain. We showed it to a bunch of people who understood wildlife and the Pine Barrens, and they all said, ‘Um, I can’t tell you what this is.’”
The finale of Paranormal State, “Devil in Jersey,” airs Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET on A&E.
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