Working on Ghost Hunters has left a sort of lasting legacy on my life. I am far, far away from that work now, but there are frequent reminders of all that time spent on the road in those cold, dark places.
Now working on a scripted show, I watched an actor walk in for a script/table read last week… it was Steve Valentine, who just so happened to host the Ghost Hunters Halloween live show in Delaware in 2008. Imagine that! The last time I saw him was nearly 3,000 miles away, on the opposite coast. I found it bizarre, but that’s actually not the strangest coincidence brought about from my time spent on Ghost Hunters. The absolute weirdest, craziest thing that’s ever happened in my life was during the filming on Ghost Hunters Academy in 2009.
Filming in various towns up and down the east coast, we ended up in St. Augustine, Florida for a couple weeks, to investigate the old lighthouse there. When that wrapped up and we were heading out of town, one of our crew guys had to fly home to care of some personal business.
Our caravan lumbered up the highway to Jacksonville, and we set up camp at a gas station, while one of vehicles continued on up the road to take our crew guy to the airport. While waiting on the driver to return and relaxing in the driver’s seat of the RV (which had the GHA logo on the side), an incredibly fit-looking black man with dreads approached. “Hey, are Jason and Grant around?” he asked (Jason and Grant being the stars of the main Ghost Hunters series.) “Nahhh, they’re not on this show,” I said, “this is a spinoff……. You know, you actually look a lot like the guest investigator on Ghost Hunters Live in Kentucky.” He simply smiled, shrugged his shoulders a bit and said “yeah.” My mind was completely blown – was this the same guy??? While trying to figure it out, he said “Well, if you see them, tell ’em I said ‘hi,'” and he walked away. “Tell ’em I said ‘hi?'” DUDE! NO FREAKIN’ WAY!
My good buddy Ben (one of the Academy contestants) was sitting in the passenger seat, watching this whole thing go down, so I put him on the case. “Ben, look up wrestler Elijah Burke and see where he’s from!” He did, and discovered that our Ghost Hunters Live guest is/was from….. you may have guess it: Jacksonville, Florida!
No doubt about it, while working on Ghost Hunters Academy, I ran into the guest investigator of Ghost Hunters Live at a gas station 750 miles away from where the show took place. And that, my friends, is one of the two weirdest things that’s ever happened in my life.
The Ghost Hunters Academy RV and Chewie in New Jersey