What if the dead never really left? UCLA professor Dr. David Delgado Shorter teaches a class called Aliens, Psychics, and Ghosts, and he was born into this stuff. His great-grandmother, a healer, raised him, and his father did classified work in the New Mexico desert. We dig into Día de los Muertos beyond the sugar skulls and Halloween costumes, where appreciation turns into appropriation, and why the gates between the living and the dead swing open every October. Plus, David shares personal encounters he’s never told publicly before. Grab a candle and a glass of water. Your ancestors are listening. Find David at DavidShorter.com.

Psychic medium Cindy Kaza, known for her work on Travel Channel’s The Dead Files, The Holzer Files, and Ghosts of Devil’s Perch, joins Splintered Spirits for a conversation that goes way beyond your typical ghost story. Cindy opens up about the moment she first saw a spirit at just 10 years old, the “awakening” in her early 20s that changed the course of her life, and her training both in the U.S. and at the legendary Arthur Findlay College of Intuitive Sciences in England. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s actually like behind the scenes of paranormal TV, walking into the most haunted, tragic locations looking camera-ready while everyone else is bracing for impact, this episode has the answer, and it’s funnier than you’d think. But this isn’t just paranormal investigation talk. Cindy gets real about the hardest moment of her life: losing her brother, and what that loss taught her about grief, mediumship, and the limits of her own gift. She shares the ancient burial ritual that changed how she, and maybe you, think about death, dying, and what comes after. It’s a rare mix of laugh-out-loud TV stories and genuinely moving honesty from one of the paranormal world’s most recognizable mediums. Whether you’re a longtime fan of ghost hunting shows, psychic medium readings, or just love a great story about grief, loss, and the afterlife, this episode of Splintered Spirits delivers all of it. Tune in for ghost stories, paranormal investigations, and a conversation about life, death, and everything in between that you won’t stop thinking about. @Santaparanormal

From Prison Cell to Paranormal Art: Mike “Danger” Castro What do Army military intelligence, a wrongful murder charge, and the visual identity of the paranormal world have in common? Mike “Danger” Castro. Mike served seven years in the Army, including tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, before becoming one of the most sought-after creatives in the paranormal space. He’s been the creative voice behind Beacon TV since before it launched, including the artwork for Amy Bruni’s docuseries, co-ran Ghosted magazine for nearly three years, and founded Black Frame Society, a community of artists, musicians, photographers and creators standing up for human-made art. But the road there was anything but ordinary. Mike opens up about being arrested for a murder he didn’t commit, fighting the case from jail, and ultimately winning a settlement and an apology from the State of New Jersey. He shares how that ordeal forced him to rebuild his life through art, and how his first paranormal gig, branding ghost tours at the Old Columbus Inn, led to everything that followed. Then it gets personal: the woman who died in Mike’s home, and who his whole family has seen since. He describes finding her standing on his staircase looking up at him while his young son talked to her, and a photo he took just feet from where he sat for this interview that he says doesn’t look human at all. Plus: the difference between a real investigation and an event investigation, why evidence-hoarding holds the field back, the paranormal figures Mike respects most, and his theories on residual energy and parallel dimensions. Links to Mike and Black Frame Society are in the link tree in our bio. #SplinteredSpirits #Paranormal #GhostStories #ParanormalPodcast #Haunted

What happens in the room when someone takes their last breath? Darnell Lamont Walker would know. By day he's an Emmy-nominated kids' TV writer behind Karma's World and Work It Out Wombats. The rest of the time he's a death doula, sitting with the dying and their families so nobody has to face the end alone. And he does most of it for free. In Darnell's words: "I haven't quite figured out how to ask dying people for money." Gary and John sit down with him to talk about his book Never Can Say Goodbye, hospice, grief, and what being a death doula actually looks like. Then things get weird, in the best way. Darnell describes the energy shift that can pass through a room at the moment of death, and an ayahuasca journey where he met his late grandmother again. He also takes on the big Splintered Spirits question: what are spirits? We get into why men have such a hard time talking about death, whether spirit guides help us through life's transitions, and what a death doula does when a client wasn't a good person. Stay to the very end. Darnell rewrites his own obituary every year, so Gary and John give it a try. One is heartfelt. The other is John's. 👻 (I'm kidding, they're both insane). If you're into the paranormal, the afterlife, end-of-life care, or just the strange side of death, hit play, then like, share, and subscribe. @Santaparanormal

Do ghosts have a message for the living? Paranormal investigator and empath Bianca Pierre-Louis, known as Spooky Melanin Magic (@spookymelaninmagic ) joins Gary and John for a ghost-hunting conversation that’s funny, eerie, and eye-opening. From the most haunted places in America to the feelings that follow her home, Bianca shares what it’s really like to sense the spirit world. This episode dives into empaths and psychic intuition, haunted history, paranormal evidence, and the stories that never made it into the history books. Bianca explains how she tells her own emotions apart from the energy of the dead, why some spirits are still trying to be heard, and what keeps drawing her back into the dark. Whether you’re a seasoned ghost hunter, a true believer, or just curious about the paranormal, this one has everything: real hauntings, big laughs, and the question at the heart of every episode, what are spirits? Plus, John and Bianca tease their upcoming investigation together. Grab a seat, Spirit Squad. We’re spirit maxing. @Santaparanormal

She sees the dead. She collects haunted dolls. And ten million people can't stop watching. Clairvoyant, actress and paranormal powerhouse Kelsi Davies joins Gary and John to talk about growing up with spirits, the family gift nobody wanted to talk about, and what really happens when she walks into the most haunted places in America. Plus her new Tubi series, a trip through a past life, and the question we ask everyone: what are ghosts? It's funny, it's dark, and it gets a little cosmic. New episode is live now everywhere you listen. Watch on YouTube or Spotify, or catch it on Apple Podcasts and wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to like, comment, hype and share! Follow Kelsi everywhere @kelsiidaviess @Santaparanormal

John Kruth runs one of the strangest labs in America, and he's got the data to prove it. As executive director of the Rhine Research Center, the oldest continuously operating parapsychology lab in the country, with roots tracing back to a 1930s Duke University basement, Kruth has spent over fifteen years running ESP, psychokinesis, and psychic phenomena through controlled, peer reviewed, double blind experiments. He grew up doing meditation and healing work before he could ride a bike, and a shared childhood dream convinced him early on that something bigger than five senses was going on. This episode is built around one question. Are spirits energy, or are they information? Gary sits down with Kruth to unpack what parapsychologists mean when they say psi, which covers telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and the far edges of human consciousness. Kruth breaks down the Ganzfeld experiment, a sensory deprivation setup involving ping pong balls taped over your eyes, red light, and white noise, then tells a genuinely unsettling story about accidentally leaking his own thoughts into a subject sitting in another room. From there it's biophotons, energy healing, near death experiences, and survival research, plus a real debate over whether ghosts and hauntings are leftover human energy, like John Santa's theory suggests, or something closer to an informational field we're all quietly plugged into. It's a rare chance to hear a working scientist take hauntings, apparitions, and mediumship seriously without checking his skepticism at the door. Kruth compares psychic ability to golf, something anyone can practice but usually needs a natural gift to really excel at, and explains why the Rhine still runs lab studies instead of just chasing ghost stories on camera. If you care about parapsychology, ghost hunting, or just want a smarter conversation about what might survive after we die, don't miss this one. @RhineResearchCenter-ESP @Santaparanormal

Paranormal author and investigator Sam Baltrusis joins Gary and John Santa from @santaparanormal live with a reveal they didn’t see coming. Sam’s distantly related to Lizzie Borden. With his new book, Lizzie Borden and the Family Curse coming out October 13, Sam digs into the Borden family tree and its unsettling ties to other infamous names, including Aileen Wuornos and Marilyn Monroe. He also traces an ancestor whose father was executed on spectral evidence, begging the question whether a family can really carry a curse. The conversation goes deep on the Fall River axe murders. Sam walks through alternate suspects, including William Borden, and the Bertha Manchester murder theory. He also shares what Ryan Murphy's take on the Lizzie Borden story got wrong. From there, the talk turns thoughts on a different ways ghost hunters should work. Sam, Gary, and John debate going into a haunted location cold versus knowing its history, trade notes with the skeptics, and explain why critical thinking matters. If you love true crime, haunted history, New England ghost stories, or paranormal investigation, this live episode is for you. Sam and John will both be at MASS ParaCon, October 2 to 4, 2026, in Taunton, Massachusetts. Subscribe to Splintered Spirits for weekly conversations with the people chasing the unexplained, and Stay Curious.