Eric C. (left) and Carla Worth, paranormal night owls, are hosts of “Talk Spook” on The OAM Network.
The Flyer’s cover this week is about those with their fingers on the paranormal pulse of Memphis.
Below is the full interview with Carla Worth and Eric C., the hosts of the local “Talk Spook podcast. The show covers ghosts, aliens, horror, and just about anything supernatural or weird.
Look for full interviews with the Mayor of Spooky Memphis and the Witches of South Main on Friday and Monday.
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Memphis Flyer: I’m doing short profiles on those with their fingers on the paranormal pulse of Memphis.
Eric C.: That’s just us!
Carla Worth: If there’s a pulse, you mean!
MF: How did you each get interested in these topics? How did you meet? How did you start this podcast?
CW: How did we meet?
EC: I think we met at Spillit. I think I was friends with Gil (Worth) first, actually.
CW: Oh, my husband.
EC: Yeah.
CW: We met through Spillit, which is another podcast The OAM Network does. I think you came on “901 Paranormal” a few times.
EC: I had been on the gameshow podcast, actually.
CW: I don’t know. Eric just ended up in my life somehow.
MF: How did y’all get to talking about paranormal stuff?
EC: She already had “901 Paranormal” and I had guest hosted. Then, I went away for awhile and I came back.
CW: He didn’t go to jail or anything. He went on a bike trip.
EC: We came back and we said we should start the podcast back up but there aren’t any more ghosts in Memphis.
CW: There aren’t anymore ghosts in Memphis. So, we needed to change the name and come up with something more broad.
EC: I was a big “X Files” junky.
CW: That’s how it is! We were both “X Files” fans. That’s how we started talking about (the paranormal).
EC: I’ve always found this stuff interesting for sure. I think there’s a lot of — I’m a huge skeptic — but…
CW: He wants to believe.
EC: I’d like to believe. All of these collective stories maybe says something bigger about people and humanity and our need to explain some things. Yeah, maybe there is some stuff to it. Spooky stuff is cool. Some of our spooky stuff is real.
MF: How did y’all find your ways to paranormal topics? Was it the “X Files?”
CW: Probably. And you (Eric) had listened to my podcast.
EC: You lived in a haunted house.
CW: I lived in a haunted house with my husband and that’s how I got into it.
MF: Whoa. Tell me some creepy things that happened in that haunted house.
CW: There was one time when I was taking a shower. This is when we were already deep into it, when we already knew something was going on. I could hear people talking about me taking a shower. It was like they were standing outside (of the shower). I used to lock the bathroom door to take a shower when Iw as home alone. That’s how terrified we were al the time.
At one point, we turned all the mirrors around the other way because we always felt like something was watching us from the mirrors.
We sound crazy! We’re not crazy at all!
We’d hear scratching and growling in the bedroom with us. We’d be laying in bed and ask each other, “what corner of the room do you hear it in?” We would always agree it was the same area. We’d be having conversations while it was going on.
We had things break all the time.
My favorite story was this. This is how we decided to move out. I have a daughter and she had just turned five on this particular weekend. We always said if it messed with her, we would move.
She had this Barbie doll. It was a Barbie vet. It had a toy cat and the cat would give birth to more kittens. And it was Barbie taking care of them all. The toy would go, “meow, meow, meow.”
Gil worked at a church and he was off at work. I’m sitting there debating on whether or not we’re going to go to the church because they had bouncy houses that day, otherwise I wouldn’t have gone.
I was sitting at the computer wondering if we wanted to go do this Jesus thing. She’s sitting there playing with the toy and I hear it go off and it goes, “meow, meow, meow.” Then, she says, mommy did you hear that?” We’re already so deep into this. So, many things had already happened.
So, I turned to her and I say, “did I hear what?” She says, “nothing.” Then I hear the toy go off again, “meow, meow, meow.” She says, “mommy, did you hear that?” I said, “hear what?” At this point, hairs are standing up and I’m ready for it.
Then, I hear — not from the toy but from some other voice in the room and I can see her, she’s in my line of sight — I hear, (in a deep husky voice), “ME-yow, ME-yow, ME-yow.” It was a gravelly, devilly voice.
EC: Like Morgan Freeman.
CW: She jumps up and she jumps on my lap and I say, “baby, we’re going to church!” We jetted out of the house. I called Gil while we were on the porch and told him what happened. And he was, like, “we’re moving out.”
I got attacked another time when I was sitting on the couch in broad daylight. It was bouncing me around to the point where Gil took me to the emergency room because they thought I was either epileptic, or I was having a seizure, or a psychotic break. There were a lot of options there. They did CAT Scans and ran a bunch of tests. They couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me.
So, I told them what happened, just the physical stuff, nothing about the house. The doctor came in and was like,” it sounds like you live in one of those ‘Paranormal Activity’ movies.” I was like, “I kid you not, we do.” So, I got diagnosed with a haunted house!
MF: Where was the house? Midtown? Downtown?
CW: I’m excited to tell you it was in High Point Terrace.
EC: What did they prescribe you for that?
CW: Nothing. She just said, “you need to get out!” I said, “I know, girl. I know.”
EC: No Ghost-O Bismal?
CW: Oh, my gosh, you are tired.
MF: How long ago was that?
CW: I move in in June and by January we were gone.
MF: How many years?
CW: It was seven years ago.
CW: (Gil) had already lived there for five year. He and his roommate — granted, it was two dudes and they were throwing parties all the time — so, if there was a ghost there, he probably wouldn’t have noticed it.
EC: Or, the ghost didn’t want anything to do with them!
CW: But Gil did say he woke up one morning to a little boy praying at his night stand.
His roommate moved out and I moved in. That’s when things started getting weird.
This is a hilarious part of the story. One Halloween, on the radio, they had a psychic. So, I called in and I was like, “I just want to see what she says.”
She said, “oh, your house is haunted.” I was like, “good guess!” Then she was like, “you have two ghosts there. One of them is really jealous and wants you out.
I was like, “hmm. I have heard multiple ghosts, voices talking. So, that could be a thing.”
She said, “they like it when you take a shower.”
MF: Oh, creepy!
CW: Also, again, that could be an easy thing to say. Everyone has a bathroom in their house. But I though that was really fucked up.
So, that’s how I got into this.
MF: Talk a little bit about your investigations at (Crosstown Concourse) before it opened.
CW: We got really lucky. I own housekeeping service and I do a lot of the Crosstown spaces across the (Cleveland). So, I went to one of the co-developers and ask if we could ghost hunt the building before they renovated it. He said, “sure.”
It was probably a terrible idea at the time. But we signed al the waivers and they let us in and we did a guided tour twice. If you are interested in hearing about those they are at (archived episodes of) 901 Paranormal.
The first time, not much happened. It was kind of creepy. But the second time, we got an (electronic voice phenomenon, or EVP).
We were standing on the stairs in between the retail part and the distribution center. We had someone yell at us to “get out.” We didn’t hear it at the time. So, it was an EVP. That was some of the best evidence we’ve ever gotten as a podcast.
MF: Tell me more.
CW: We’re standing in a gate in the emergency section in between the retail and distribution sections. The retail side wold have been predominately white. It’s where you’d go shopping and the ladies would be like,” try our perfume.” Then, you have the distribution center that would have been predominately black or Hispanic, the lower-wage workers. There was a literal barrier between them. They weren’t supposed to mix.
So, we’re standing at this gate, kind of wandering around, recording. We didn’t hear it at the time. But we went back and listened and this voice. To me, it comes from that distribution center. It yells at us to “GET OUT!”
MF: I’ve never had an experience myself. But something about those EVPs just creeps me the fuck out.
CW: I was talking about the Marine Hospital (in the French Fort area) where I have audio where someone is typing on a typewriter in a morgue. Or, they’re throwing rocks. Or, they’re humming and singing.
It’s a four-floor building. There’s someone on the fourth floor taking pictures but there’s no woman in the basement. There should not be anyone down there humming. So, it doesn’t make any sense.
MF: Eric, you’re a scientist?
EC: I have most of a chemistry degree. But I finished my Bachelor’s in art and got my Master’s in art. So, I have a science background.
I do (information technology) for Columbia University.
So, I don’t know. I’m the most scienctist-y of us two, maybe. I think as a person, as a liver of life, (laughs) I like to problem solve and collecting information.
MF: Have you ever had a paranormal experience?
EC: I had an experience of what I thought at the time was a chupacabra. But it turned out just to be my own heartbeat.
CW: It’s a good story.
EC: It’s on the Spillit podcast. That’s a story for another time.
MF: But, as you said, some things can’t be explained and that’s kind of what draws you in.
EC: I think the storytelling aspect of it is really interesting. I like hearing about weird shit, you know.
We interviewed a lady and she said she backed her car into a ghost. I was like, this lady is going to be nuts! But she sounded totally legit. She was a journalist for awhile. I mean, a lot of journalists are crazy but…
CW: She said, “this is the first time anyone has interviewed me.”
EC: It’s really interesting. And we keep it pretty light. I think the fact that we’ll kind of debate something’s credibility.
CW: But not the death. We’re not like, “fuck you, this is wrong.”
MF: You said you like hearing about weird shit. How come?
EC: I don’t know.
CW: I think everyone is kind of interested. You have to put on the spectrum with religion. If you have someone who’s really into Christianity…like me, I are up Catholic. So, for me, it’s demons and the ghosts. It was already there. The seed was already planted. I just ran away with it.
EC: When you hear people, they are legitimately having these experiences. Then, a lot of people are just legitimately wanting to have these experiences.
CW: I do agree, wholeheartedly, that you can scare yourself. You can imagine. If I was in the basement alone in the Marine Hospital, I could have very well been like, “I just heard something.”
But it was the fact that I put my recorder down there and walked away. That’s what cool to me. I wasn’t just freaking myself out just being down there, I actually had something else that was just apiece of equipment. It doesn’t have an opinion either way, recording these actual sounds.
MF: Is there anything we left out?
EC: We do not have a schedule. We kind of do (the “Talk Spook” podcast) when we find time.
CW: Also, archived episodes of Paranormal 901 are still out there.
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