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CNN Larry King Live
Do You Believe in Ghosts?
Aired October 30, 2009 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight, do you believe in ghosts? You'd better believe Dan Aykroyd does. Spirits have spooked his family for decades.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAN AYKROYD: We walked into the room and there was a trumpet flying around the room, and it was speaking and there were voices coming out of it. And as soon as he came in, it dropped to the floor.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: He's dead serious about seances and psychic experiences. They have brought supernatural beings into his home.
Joan Rivers says it is no ghost story. She's convinced her apartment is haunted.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOAN RIVERS: I used to say this is stupid. This is nonsense. There is a reason for this. At one point, you say, you cannot say that anymore. Something is going on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: We'll probe the paranormal next on a special Halloween edition of "Larry King Live." Boo!
Good evening. It is All Hallows' Eve. Tomorrow, the ghosts and goblins will creep among us. And so, we devote our show tonight to Halloween, emphasizing ghosts.
Joining us in Providence, Rhode Island, Jason Hawes, co-founder of The Atlantic Paranormal Society, also known as TAPS. He's star and co-producer of Sci Fi Channel's GHOST HUNTERS. That's in its fifth season, airing Wednesday night. A new book out called "Seeking Spirits."
And Grant Wilson, co-founder of the same organization, co- producer of that show. That show is in its fifth season.
Here in Los Angeles, Mary Browne, psychic and counselor, author of "Five Rules of Thought: How to Use the Power of Your Mind to Get What You Want." She says, by the way, that her life started with ghosts. We'll ask about that. And Chip Coffey, psychic medium of A&E's PSYCHIC KIDS and PARANORMAL STATE. That program -- those programs kick off in December.
Jason, what is TAPS?
JASON HAWES, THE ATLANTIC PARANORMAL SOCIETY AND GHOST HUNTERS: TAPS stands for the Atlantic Paranormal Society, which is a group of friends that have been going since about 1990. We go in trying to debunk claims of paranormal activity, believing that 80 percent of all claims can be debunked.
KING: And do you find, Grant, that you do debunk them?
GRANT WILSON, THE ATLANTIC PARANORMAL SOCIETY AND GHOST HUNTERS: Absolutely. In fact, our day jobs, we're plumbers.
And most of the people in our group, we bring people with real- world knowledge, people with HVAC experience, people who restore houses, because a lot of the people watch a lot of movies and things, and they realize -- they think there's way more to the paranormal than there really is.
And you get in there and start peeling away the layers, about 80 percent of it can be disproven.
KING: Aha. But, Jason, what about the 20 percent? Do you believe in ghosts?
HAWES: I do. I'm a firm believer in the paranormal.
I just think that, if somebody goes in looking for just proof of the paranormal, they could find anything haunted. But you need to really try to get that real-world knowledge, and knock out a lot of the things that can be easily debunked...
KING: OK.
HAWES: ... before you're able to find some stable stuff.
KING: Before we bring in our experts, Jason -- Grant, rather -- what is a ghost?
WILSON: That's a big question there, Larry.
A ghost can be anything from a dead person, residual energy trapped in from a traumatic event trapped in some object in the house. It can be psychological issues.
It can be, some even say, a fold in space-time.
But the answer is, we really just don't know yet.
KING: OK. Let's take a look at the ghost hunters in action. You can judge for yourself if sinister spirits were at work with a tricky television set. Watch. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILSON: The thing with this TV is, if you're watching it, it would go off.
HAWES: Grant and I headed into the living room, just to see if we had (ph) the power, and the TV shut down.
WILSON: Ope! Just did it.
HAWES: We're plugged into the screen extension cord. Where's the screen cord going?
WILSON: Over here, dude. The cord -- it's coming on now?
HAWES: It's on now.
WILSON: What? The cord came out of the wall?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: All right. The cord came out of the wall, the set remained on.
Mary, how do you explain that?
MARY BROWNE, PSYCHIC AND AUTHOR: Well, I'm not positive in this circumstance.
KING: What would you guess?
BROWNE: Well, I would assume that the house has a ghost energy, because often, electricity is affected. It's an energy. It's a vibration.
So, ghosts, often, when they want you to know they're there, poltergeists -- the ones that move -- they will do something with electricity. So, they could shoot a vibe, a vibration, energy into the TV set. It's possible, yes.
KING: What's your read, Chip?
CHIP COFFEY, PSYCHIC MEDIUM, A&E'S PSYCHIC KIDS AND PARANORMAL STATE: I think you're absolutely right, Mary. I think that it could possibly be a paranormal circumstance that's being affected -- the ghost is affecting the energy.
Or it could be that somebody tripped over the television set, unplugged it, and then that set off a trigger train reaction.
KING: Without getting personal, if that were my house, I would move.
(LAUGHTER)
Why would I stay? "Oh, I've got ghosts. Let's go home." BROWNE: Oh, man!
KING: OK. Mary, you says your life started with ghosts?
BROWNE: Well, when I was a child in Iowa, I was at my great-Aunt Mame's funeral parlor answering the phone, very early in the morning. I was seven years old, and I got restless.
I started walking through the place, and I stopped in front of the room where a wake was going on. And I saw this bouquet of flowers sort of lift off a podium and go back down like that. And then I saw a shadow of a woman who looked like you, Larry, except that you could put your hand through it. It was not solid, but it looked just like a woman.
KING: Didn't that freak you out?
BROWNE: Well, and...
KING: No?
BROWNE: I have to say that I then walked in, and I looked in the coffin. And the woman who was supposed to be dead was this spirit, this ghost I'd seen.
I was kind of overwhelmed. My Grandma Grace when I told her said, "You have a gift. Don't brag about it. Don't get upset about it."
And I think that sort of helped me to not go overboard.
KING: You're nodding, Chip. You believe dead people can come back as ghosts?
COFFEY: I absolutely believe that dead people can come back as spirits.
KING: You ever seen one?
COFFEY: I have seen many.
KING: Many.
COFFEY: Many.
KING: Did they speak?
COFFEY: They do, actually. A lot of them do speak to me.
And one of the most interesting circumstances that I've had is, my own mom passed away about 12 years ago, and I've waited for years to be able to catch a glimpse of my mother. And it took nine years, but of all things, I was out riding around on my riding lawnmower in my side yard, and there, standing on the side yard, nine years after she passed away, was my mom.
KING: What did she say?
COFFEY: She really didn't say anything. She just appeared to me for about three to five seconds. But it was the most comforting thing I think I've ever experienced, Larry.
KING: It could have been vivid imagination, too.
COFFEY: Could have been. Could have been.
KING: Could have been.
COFFEY: But I don't...
KING: Audience, do you believe in ghosts? Share your own personal ghost stories and sightings on our blog, cnn.com/larryking.
By the way, still to come, Dan Aykroyd and Joan Rivers. They've got ghosts in their closets -- and in other places.
Stick around.
(LAUGHTER)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: We're back. You just saw a clip from the hit movie, "Paranormal Activity" -- number one movie in America. It cost 15 grand, earned more than $62 million.
Why do people love this?
Why, Grant? Why do they love it?
WILSON: Well, personally, you've got to think about it. There's not really too much of a frontier left out there. We're conquering space. We know the oceans. We know the whole earth.
In this day and age, people are looking for a little magic out there, a little something that they don't understand.
And I think we're all a little too consumed with trying to live forever. And to know there's continuance after death, it's all very intriguing.
KING: Here's another look at Sci Fi Channel's GHOST HUNTERS. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILSON: Jay and I started to do a thermal sweep of the grounds, Samuel mudhouse outside. Within seconds, he stopped and started looking around, and I was just focused on getting the video camera rolling.
HAWES: Something walked directly in front of us. I panned the camera and quickly to the left, to see if there was anything there, and there wasn't.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: OK. Jason, how many cases result in confirmed activity?
HAWES: Well, like we said, over 80 percent of all claims can be disproved. So, there's a lot of cases that we do that never make air.
You know, we go in -- we've done a lot of cases recently for the U.S. military, as well. And we've caught some really -- some really interesting stuff.
KING: The military's looking for ghosts? You've got to be -- you're kidding. Right?
WILSON: No. We actually have Pentagon clearance to get into some of these active military bases...
HAWES: Which...
WILSON: ... to check them out for them.
HAWES: Which is nice, because it goes to show that it's not something -- the field's really opening up to the point where people could talk about it and not feel they're being laughed at anymore.
KING: Why do you see ghosts, and others can't?
COFFEY: I think...
KING: Well, I never saw a ghost.
COFFEY: I think that everyone has the ability to connect to things that are spiritual or paranormal or psychic. I think that some people are just better at it than others.
KING: Mary, why do you see them?
BROWNE: I think it's a gift, Larry. I think that...
KING: Why you?
BROWNE: Well, why not? Why does Renee Fleming sing magnificently? People are given gifts from God. And hopefully, you can use them to help others.
But...
COFFEY: Absolutely.
BROWNE: ... it's an ability -- I really think it's an ability to see a faster rate of vibration. It's almost like you can see things moving faster when you tune in. And so, many people have been gifted with that.
And it's -- you know, it's not always a walk in the park. As you said, if you had a ghost, you'd move.
KING: You bet.
BROWNE: Honest to God, there are times it's terrifying. People have to be careful. They're not all happy poltergeisty, fun and games, Casper entities. Some of them are really, you know, negative.
KING: Grant, do you think we also want to believe?
WILSON: Well, of course. I mean, the whole society around us conditions us between -- from Hollywood, religion, our parents, they all condition us. And it all seems to point that there is at least continuance.
And so, people -- it's amazing the leaps people take from Earth to the spiritual realm. I mean, they'll hear a bang they don't identify, and they immediately think it's their dead Uncle Fred, when it's just bad plumbing.
HAWES: Well, and I think more people want to believe now anyway. It's just the mere fact to know that there's something after this, I think people really need that to hold onto.
KING: Is that why, Chip, these shows like yours, PSYCHIC KIDS, and GHOST HUNTERS and MEDIUM and CELEBRITY GHOST STORIES are so successful?
COFFEY: I think that's absolutely correct. I think what the ghost hunters said is absolutely correct. We want to have some affirmation that there's an afterlife.
KING: Jason, is Halloween a special time for "them"?
(LAUGHTER)
HAWES: Well, it's when some people believe that veil is thinnest between our world and theirs. I really just think it's another day. It's a great holiday. It's got to be our favorite holiday, of course.
KING: Sure.
HAWES: But I just think it's another day out there.
KING: You like this holiday, Mary?
BROWNE: I used to really not like it, because it's kind of like a day that witch kind of people do kind of ritualistic things that isn't harmonious. But I think people are thinking, "Halloween -- I'm going to see ghosts." So, everybody's thought forms are focused on ghosts; so, thus, they'll probably see more -- or think they do -- on Halloween.
But...
KING: Yes.
BROWNE: ... yes.
KING: Anything's possible.
(LAUGHTER)
KING: Jason, We'll be keeping in touch. Jason Hawks and Grant Wilson. Our other guests will stay. We're hitting the road with a mobile ghost -- a mobile ghost lab in 60 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: We're back. Real-life ghost busters don't wait for the ghosts to come to them. They go looking for ghosts. Meet Barry and Brad Klinge from Discovery Channel's Ghost Lab. They're on location in spooky San Antone.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BARRY KLINGE: Hey, Larry, I'm Barry Klinge. This is my brother Brad Klinge. We're from "Everyday Paranormal." Here in San Antonio, Texas, this is our home town, home of "Ghost Lab..."
(CROSSTALK)
BRAD KLINGE: Home of Menger Hotel.
BARRY KLINGE: It's one of the most haunted places in San Antonio. They say it is the No. 3 most haunted hotel in the country.
We're about to go in and investigate. We're going to show you exactly what it takes to be an investigator, what goes into our investigations. Let's go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This place has so much history around it. The grounds, the Alamo, all the violence, the war, everything that you see in the movies and read in the books about, that happened on this spot.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A couple of different rooms. We're going to look at the Menger barroom right here. Right now, the rest of the team is up setting up gear, setting up game cameras, setting up infrared cameras, DVR systems. They're wiring the place for sound. They are wiring the place with dayloggers. It is what we call the electronic net. We're going to spread it here at the Menger.
ERNESTO MALACARA, ASSISTANT GENERAL MANAGER, MENGER HOTEL: When I first got here, I started hearing stories about apparitions and things appearing throughout the hotel.
The gentleman who was taking a shower, and he steps out of his room and is drying himself off, and lo and behold, a fellow in a buckskin jacket and gray, the color gray (inaudible) pants is standing in the room. And he is talking to somebody else, or another entity, shall we say, that is in the room.
DOCIA WILLIAMS, AUTHOR: He was muttering, are you with me or against me? Are you going to stay or are you going to go? Several psychics were questioned. They felt that the man that was saying, he was trying to talk his friend into coming and seceding from the union with him and joining the Confederate forces.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are in the room where the man in the buckskin coat has appeared. What we're going to do now is called an EDP session. It's an election voice phenomena. It is what referred to as a disembodied voice that is captured on an audio recorder that you cannot physically hear with your ear at the time. We'll say a sires of phrases or questions and then we'll be silent for a little bit, basically to give whatever it is time to answer.
Guy in the buckskin jacket, did you die in the Civil War? Did you ride out of here?
Did you join the Confederacy?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now we're just taking all the information we just gathered at the Menger hotel. We brought it out here, we're going to go over it. This is the real part of ghost hunting. Walking around in the building is a fraction of it. This is the main part. What we're going to do is Hector and Ashley, they're listening to audio. I'm going to start listening to some audio too. Hopefully we'll catch some evidence and hopefully have something to show you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: Barry And brad will be here later in the show. But next, Dan Aykroyd, who grew up with ghosts. His haunted childhood, yes, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: We're back on this Halloween eve with our special Halloween show, and joining us in New York, old friend Dan Aykroyd, well-known for his role in the blockbuster movie, "Ghost Busters."
I was proud to be in that movie.
His father, Peter, is with him. Peter is a retired senior executive with the government of Canada. And he has a new book out called, "A History of Ghosts -- the True Story of Seances and Mediums and Ghosts and Ghost Busters."
How did you get involved in this, Peter?
PETER AYKROYD: I got involved when I was eight years old. I attended my first seance, and our family has been interested in the whole thing all during my life. And so from eight years old to 87 years old, it's been a passion of mine.
KING: At seances, did you communicate with former people?
P. AYKROYD: The people who came through the medium in the seances in our family were all spirits. They weren't ghosts. Ghosts don't talk in my definition, but spirits do. And the spirits were the spirits of those who once lived, and are now are on the other side. And they came through the medium who was in a full trance and talked about all kinds of things. And I was able to witness all that ever since I was a kid at eight.
KING: Peter, you write in the book that you, "Watched through your family's parlor door seances through the crack of a basement door." What did you actually see? What did you see?
P. AYKROYD: Well, I saw a typical formation of a seance. I saw a table. And I saw sitting around the table three or four -- four couples, all dressed up as if they were going to some kind of Sunday thing or a performance of some kind. And my grandfather sitting at the -- at the lefthand side of a medium.
The medium was Walter Ashurst (ph), and he was a mechanic. Worked at the locomotive works (ph) with a grade eight education. And he would go into a deep trance, and that's what I saw. And I heard the...
KING: Oh.
P. AYKROYD: ... people speaking through him.
KING: Wow.
P. AYKROYD: Speaking Chinese, some of them.
KING: Now, you grew up with this, Dan. Did you think you were in a nutty house?
D. AYKROYD: You know, there -- the stories started really when I was quite young.
My Uncle Ack -- Ack Aykroyd -- Morris (ph) Aykroyd, Dad's brother, I remember we were having a -- sitting down one night, and -- you know, after dinner. And he told a story about coming into the -- the room in Westmount, Montreal where they'd held seances. And he walked into the room, and there was a trumpet flying around the room. And it was speaking. And there were voices coming out of it. And as soon as he came in, it dropped to the floor.
He said he was about four years old at the time. So that was the kind of -- first story I heard. And then my mother and father talked about different events.
KING: Did you...
(CROSSTALK)
D. AYKROYD: I just kind of grew up with it.
KING: Did your friends kid you?
D. AYKROYD: Oh, yes. Of course, when you get into this realm, as you well know, Larry, and as many of you -- many of your guests know, there are -- are many people out there who are -- are disbelievers. And they're entitled to that. But no the definitely try to trash you and tear you down. No -- no doubt.
KING: Dan's experiences in his own spirit-filled home inspired one of the most popular movies ever made. Who are you going to call? Ghost Busters! Watch.
(VIDEO CLIP)
KING: I was so proud to be in that movie. My first movie. I've been in 23 movies since. But that was the first. Ivan Reitman directed it, and Dan wrote it. It was a -- are you going to do Ghost Busters III, Dan?
D. AYKROYD: Well, first of all, how great was Bill Murray in that film?
You know, two years ago, Larry, I'd have to say to you that we -- it wasn't probably a possibility. But now it looks really good. I think we're headed towards, you know, towards getting a production number real soon.
With Sigourney and Bill Murray and Ramis and Hudson and you?
D. AYKROYD: Oh, absolutely. Of course. I -- we really couldn't move forward unless everybody was involved in some capacity or another. But primarily it's passing the torch to a new generation. Because, Larry, you know, the hernia mesh is failing, the hip -- I can't carry the pack any more.
(LAUGHTER)
My eyesight is gone. Driving that big Cadillac -- I don't know how to do that anymore. So we need kids to come up and help us -- cadettes.
KING: More with the Aykroyds after this. Their advice on what to do if you have a ghost.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: We're back with the well-known Dan Aykroyd -- one of my favorite people -- Peter Aykroyd, his father, the author of, "A History of Ghosts," new book just out. And remaining with us here in Los Angeles, Chip Coffey, and psychic and medium of A.E.'s, "Psychic Kids" and "Paranormal State." Reprograms (ph) come back in December.
You know, Peter, through your life there have been skeptics. How have you put up with them?
P. AYKROYD: I have no trouble at all about that, because I -- you can't deny what you've seen and what you've witnessed. And so therefore, you are firm in your belief about that. And so I'm not a skeptic.
And skeptics can come to me with any kind of story that they want about the psychic phenomenon that I've observed, and the scientists have written about. And I can defend most of them. I can't defend some of them. And so I just capitulate and say, "You're right. That was fakery."
They get into the business and they -- then they're entertainers. And they find that the skill is leaving them, and so they fake it. And ends with -- that's when they're caught. And that's -- for the rest of their life, that's what they're tagged with.
KING: All right, Dan, what do you think all of this is? Who are they, these poltergeists, the humorous (ph) ghosts and these seances and these coming back from the dead? Who are they? Who are they?
D. AYKROYD: Well, I -- Hanz Holtzer (ph), the great parapsychologist and ghost buster, basically said that when our body is shocked, and the shell is gone, then the energy of the soul, which can't be destroyed is there to live on. And it -- it can travel back and forth in time and space. It's -- I -- it's unlimited. So I think that's -- explains a lot of hauntings.
I think the spirits that came through the seances certainly at -- in father's event there, and during the Bindeloff (ph) sitting in the 30s. A very famous seance with some young boys that got around and had a spirit come through -- these are -- these are minds without bodies. And they're a little different from ghosts. And really dad's book focuses on all of the empiricists at the time of the turn of the century who were looking into this: Arthur Conan Doyle, Sir Oliver Lodge, William James, who was a professor at Harvard -- helped found the American Society for Psychical Research.
So I think that spirits and ghosts have the -- have kind of a different energy. And --
KING: Well put.
(CROSSTALK)
D. AYKROYD: I think that they all come from someone who's been -- who's been living before.
KING: All right. Chip, could someone be here now?
COFFEY: Absolutely.
KING: Hovering over us?
COFFEY: I think every place --
(CROSSTALK)
KING: Going through us?
COFFEY: Absolutely.
KING: Can they hear?
COFFEY: They can hear.
(CROSSTALK)
KING: They can watch? They can observe?
COFFEY: They can watch. They can observe. I think that they come to check in on us frequently.
KING: And when we leave, when do we meet them -- when we go?
COFFEY: I think pretty readily we meet them when we go. And I'm hoping that when I go, I'm going to come back and haunt a lot of my friends.
KING: Oh, you are. Oh.
COFFEY: I'm going to be -- I'm going to be a very noisy ghost.
KING: Dan, you definitely will, right? I know you. You're going to haunt.
D. AYKROYD: Well, maybe. You know?
KING: Come on. You'll haunt.
D. AYKROYD: Although there's something to be said for -- OK. OK. I'll -- for you, Larry, I would haunt.
KING: Peter, do you think ghosts go into bedrooms, and watch intimacy?
P. AYKROYD: Oh, absolutely. If they're interested. Sure.
(LAUGHTER)
KING: So they're voyeurs?
P. AYKROYD: Well, Larry, look -- Larry -- Larry, think -- think about an invisible world. The invisible world is all around us right now. Right there where you are in your studio, and right here where we're talking, the invisible world is here. This room that we're in now is filled with all kinds of signals and all kinds of radio signals, television signals, cell phone signals. Only you can't hear them, cause we don't have the instruments to pick them up.
And this is -- this is -- this is the reality. And among those signals are guardian angels, and they're watching over us. So they're here. The whole place is filled. I get the impression that the -- all of -- all around us in this invisible world there are -- there are people.
KING: Wouldn't you guess, Chip, that this kind of thinking and life has kept Peter young?
COFFEY: I think he's brilliant. I think he's got some of the right answers. I listened to both Misters Aykroyd, and they are right on track with what I believe. So thumbs up guys.
KING: Yes. That's a great compliment coming from -- from both --
Well, how do we know if a ghost is -- if a ghost is in every house -- every apartment. Right, Dan? According to this, ghosts are everywhere.
D. AYKROYD: They are everywhere. Some of them chose to -- to move across and go to the light and -- and quickly make a transition. And those are the ones that are happy. It's the ones that have been taken out suddenly -- traumatically -- that Hanz Holster used to investigate. And they're the ones that kind of linger here, and have to be helped across. The most famous ghost story of all is the ghost of Flight 401. And I encourage people to look up that.
KING: Yes.
D. AYKROYD: There's a lot of books on it. And that to me involves aviation, and a pilot who was actually haunting Eastern Airlines planes. And in the end it had a happy ending, because his wife, his daughter, his family and his colleagues got together and they helped his soul cross over to the other side.
But he was witnessed so much by people at Eastern Airlines that the psychological department had to put out a memo saying, "Don't talk about this guy, because nobody's going to fly with us any more."
KING: Yes. That was a great, great, great movie.
Quickly, Chip, what's on the other side?
COFFEY: I think peace, joy, happiness, heaven.
KING: Heaven. Bad people go somewhere else?
COFFEY: I think bad people probably go to the spirit world and they get an old fashioned butt kicking.
(LAUGHTER)
KING: OK. In trouble.
Dan, thanks.
Peter, thanks. Good luck with the book. Peter Aykroyd's book, "A History of Ghosts." Dan Aykroyd of course and Ghost Busters III is coming.
Thanks, Chip. Thanks for being with us.
COFFEY: Sure.
KING: Mary will come back. And Joan Rivers has been sharing her apartment with a ghost, and she can't evict it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOAN RIVERS, ACTOR: I moved in, and then things started again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: It's always a great pleasure to welcome the actress, comedian and talk show host Joan Rivers to LARRY KING LIVE.
Joan believes that her Manhattan apartment is haunted. She and her ghost were featured on an episode of Biography's "Celebrity Ghost Stories." Here, take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RIVERS: I moved in. It was just very strange. I was cold, I could never get any of my electrical things to work correctly. And he said to me, "Oh, I guess Mrs. Spencer is back."
Very angry. And did not like what was being done at the house.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Hey, Joan, I've been to your house. Why don't you move?
RIVERS: I cleaned it out. I was very lucky. I took it very seriously. And I found a ghost buster named Sally Glassman, who came up and cleaned the apartment out for me. Thank God my dog would walk back in. Place is no longer cold. It worked beautifully.
KING: Were you a skeptic before that?
RIVERS: Oh, beyond a skeptic. Every time in the beginning when things would go wrong in the apartment, the dog wouldn't come in, and you felt awful and scary, and things were locked that shouldn't be locked, I used to say, "This is stupid. This is nonsense. There's a reason for this."
And then at one point you'd say, "You cannot say that anymore. Something is going on here."
KING: What did the ghost buster do?
RIVERS: She was amazing. She came up on her own, took no money -- which is already -- I knew that she wasn't out to -- no, you know what I'm saying --
KING: Yes.
RIVERS: -- wasn't someone saying, "I'll clean out your apartment, you give me money."
She put out corn meal. She did a white mass. She did a drumming service. She did, in every room -- and I had to buy everything. We had to buy a sword in a sheath -- very specific things. And she came up at midnight and went through my entire apartment, room by room by room -- especially with the corn meal and everything, and water and bowls --
KING: What --
RIVERS: -- that had salt in it.
KING: What did your friends say to you when you told them stories of being haunted?
RIVERS: I think, in the beginning, they thought I was crazy. But you would go into my apartment, and it was freezing. And the dogs would not come into the apartment.
And there were certain things that just, people had to say, maybe something's going on here.
KING: So, Joan, what do you --
RIVERS: And my elevator man --
KING: Yes, what about him?
RIVERS: My elevator man said to me -- I said to him, "Something's going on in my apartment."
And he said to me, "Yes, Mrs. Spence is back."
(LAUGHTER)
RIVERS: And you'd go, "Oh, my God! What did I buy?"
KING: Well, what do you -- what do you believe it is? What do you believe it is?
RIVERS: It was -- what they say is, when you renovate, you stir up the spirits. This lady had died in the apartment. She was not happy at what was going on in the house, how things were being changed. And she just was angry -- angry, angry, angry.
And we had to reach her and talk to her, and tell her what was going on.
I found her portrait in the basement, and I hung it in my vestibule.
(LAUGHTER)
RIVERS: And someone said it was the best thing you could have ever done. It made her very pleased.
KING: Did you ever have any history of the family with anything like this?
RIVERS: Yes. My family -- I'm not psychic, but we've had things. I had an uncle in Russia who was woken up by his dead brother, who said, "Get up, get up. Your house is burning."
And he got up. And the other side of the house, where he could never have known it in a million years, was totally on fire.
When my mother died, and died suddenly, I wanted a sign so badly, I can't even -- I still can't talk about it. And there was nothing. She died in New York.
And when I went back to L.A. after the funeral, I opened my medicine chest, and there was the first good piece of jewelry I'd ever given her, in my medicine chest.
KING: Whoa. We're going to take a break, and then we're going to have Mary Browne come back, join Joan, and attempt to explain all this.
Have you ever had a feeling about something you can't quite explain? Check out our five questions with psychic Laurie Levin, who says everyone has psychic abilities. She'll tell you how to tap into yours. Plus I'll share my personal favorite Halloween memories, my favorite candy and all the tricks we played with kids, because we were bad.
Now, that's scary. It's all on our blog, CNN.com/LarryKing. Back with Joan in 60 seconds.
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KING: Joan Rivers is still with us.
Joining me -- returning is Mary Browne, the psychic counselor, author of "5 Rules of Thought," who says her life started with ghosts.
How do you explain Joan's story?
MARY BROWNE, AUTHOR, "FIVE RULES OF THOUGHT": Well, she was in a building a with spirit who died there, who was Earth-bound, who did not probably know Mrs. Spencer was either not quite aware she was dead or she just did not want to leave her house. And the only way to get her over is someone psychically to be able to convince her she's dead and that she'll be happy in the after life, on the other side.
So the rituals which Joan told me about I'm not totally familiar, but somebody knew how to put up a vibe, do rituals that help the spirit to release itself. And it can be terrifying and dogs are very -- you know, they're very sensitive --
KING: Sensitive?
BROWNE: Yes. And I'm glad Joan said that, because ghosts do come in cold. The house will be cold. The force comes in cold. It is not hot.
KING: Do you think some ghosts are evil? BROWNE: Yes, absolutely.
KING: Do you think --
BROWNE: Just like people.
KING: -- her ghost could have been evil?
BROWNE: I think her ghost was a real unhappy woman.
KING: Ticked?
BROWNE: Yes, really unhappy, was mad about her life and wasn't ready to pass on, liked her house. It was her place. She wanted to stay. She was mad that she died and so she was staying. And that's how you have these -- these ghosts or these spirits that are Earth bound. And we -- we don't want people to really be Earth bound. It's an unhappy state.
KING: And, Joan, when you go, do you want to be a ghost?
RIVERS: I would love to be a ghost and go after all my agents.
KING: Boy, would you be a ghost. Boy, would you be a ghost.
RIVERS: I'd be a Jewish ghost. I wouldn't say boo, I'd go Noo.
KING: Mary, you --
(CROSSTALK)
KING: -- by choice. Do you think a ghost says, you know, I'm dead and--?
BROWNE: No. I -- I don't -- and I don't think everyone is -- comes back as a ghost. I think the spirits --
KING: There are spirits and ghosts, right?
BROWNE: Yes, absolutely.
KING: There's a --
BROWNE: I mean, Aykroyd said that very, very well. A spirit needs to come through a medium, a conduit. You have to pick up the message. It's thought. It's vibration. When we die, we take our thought with us. Thought doesn't die, so people think beyond the grave. They love beyond the grave.
Some people are sensitive enough to pick up on those thoughts and give messages to people. Sometimes a ghost is an Earth bound person without a physical body and an etheric body. And they need to be convinced that they have to go.
KING: Joan, I'm so glad you have a happy home now.
Thanks for sharing your story and thank you, Mary, for joining us.
RIVERS: Thank you.
KING: Thank you, guys.
Hey --
RIVERS: Happy Halloween.
KING: Same to you.
Hey, we're going live to a high tech ghost lab, next. But first, we're calling upon friends of CNN heroes to tell us more about ten extraordinary individuals who will be honored Thanksgiving night. Tonight, Olympic gold medalist Kristi Yamaguchi invites you to Efren Penaflorida.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KRISTI YAMAGUCHI, FIGURE SKATER: I'm Kristi Yamaguchi. As one of last year's CNN Heroes Blue Ribbon Panelists, I helped recognize extraordinary work of every day people who are changing the world. As founder of the Always Dream Foundation, which supports organizations with a positive influence on children, I see just how much this world needs heroes.
Now, I am thrilled to help CNN introduce one of this year's top ten honorees.
EFREN PENAFLORIDA JR., CNN HERO: Gang members groomed in the slums as early as nine years old. They are all victims of poverty.
I am Efren Penaflorida Jr. We thought of a group to actually divert teenagers to be productive. So that's why we're bringing the classroom to the kids.
We operate the push cart every Saturday. We teach them language, mathematics. And we also have our hygiene clinic.
And I always tell to my volunteers that you are the change that you dream. Collectively, we are the change that this world needs to be.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARRY KLINGE, CO-FOUNDER, "EVERYDAY PARANORMAL": July 6th, 1990; I was on a family vacation in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It was broad day light. We were on our way out of town in my dad's truck. I look over in to the field and I see this small group of union soldiers just walking through the field. I thought they were doing a re-enactment.
So I told my dad to stop the truck. I jump out with my old VHS video camera. And I start running after them. They were in frame for several seconds. I think, you know what, I wanted to get closer to these guys, so I could get them on film better. I stop the camera, and I start running after them again.
Right at that moment, they disappeared before my eyes. There was no explanation. There were no signs of a reenactment. There were no crowds, no cars, nothing like that. There is no way they could have gotten to the tree line that quickly. It was just unexplainable.
And I've been wanting answers ever since.
We put the VHS tape on and I was blown away. It really sparked my interest in the paranormal at that point.
KING: We're back.
We take you now to San Antonio, Texas. The Klinge brothers are standing by.
Brad is president and founder of "Everyday Paranormal," Discovery Channel's "Ghost Lab".
And Barry, his older brother, is vice president and chief operating officer of "Everyday Paranormal".
The all new series, "Ghost Lab," on Discover Channel, airs on Tuesday nights.
Brad, what is "Everyday Paranormal?"
BR KLINGE: "Everyday Paranormal" is the investigation group, the paranormal investigation group that I started a few years back. And, you know, in the name it says just that. So we believe that paranormal happens everyday to everyday people in everyday places. So that's what it is, in a nutshell.
KING: Where are you standing, Barry?
What are you in front of?
BARRY KLINGE, "EVERYDAY PARANORMAL": Right now I'm standing in the Ghost Lab. This is our Smart Board technology we have here. We do a lot of manipulation of some of our audio files. We can look at pictures. We can do research right here from the Ghost Lab. And what it is is an enclosed trailer. We have every gadget known to man, where we can at -- at our fingertips, find out information, find out history, go over our evidence in real time.
KING: So, what, Brad, do you believe?
What do you believe?
Do you believe there are ghosts, supernatural things, paranormal --
What do you believe? BR KLINGE: I -- I believe that -- and it falls along the lines of what everyone else is saying tonight, basically that a ghost or a spirit is energy. And you can't destroy and you can't create energy. You know, it -- it leaves the body when someone dies and does something, whether it's intelligent or residual.
And these are the things that, you know, once we find evidence that -- that supports that something is paranormal, we dive a little bit deeper into it and find, through conventional science, you know, why this stuff is happening, not -- not just that we got a voice or that we got a picture, why did we get that voice and why did we get that picture?
KING: Barry, tell me about the traveling Ghost Lab.
What does it do and how does it do it?
BA KLINGE: Well, the village Ghost Lab we're sitting in. It's a 24 foot car haul and trailer, completely enclosed. It has flat screen TVs, computers, audio listening devices, visual -- we can actually watch our DVR systems on our infrared cameras.
And we take it to -- on the location. We do real time analysis. So while we're investigating, we're finding evidence, we find it at that moment. We don't find it weeks later. We find it at that moment. It helps us focus to where we need to go further into the investigation.
KING: So, what, does someone call you, Brad, and see some things different or queer or unusual around them and ask you to come out and investigate?
BR KLINGE: Yes, exactly. You know, a lot of people are -- are scared of -- of -- and a lot of people think that paranormal is very taboo. And whether it be religion or -- or personal beliefs, they kind of want to stay away from it, simply because they don't want to be ridiculed.
Well, what we do is we bring the -- the science aspect, the regular guy aspect, to it, to come in and, you know, make people less afraid of the paranormal.
And they do. You know, once we come in and -- and show them that, hey, maybe this stuff does have natural -- natural reasonings behind it, not natural is the fact that you disprove it, but natural in that paranormal exists and behaves in a scientific manner.
KING: Now, Barry, is it true -- I know you've been to more than 70 locations, discovered a lot of supernatural things.
Is it true you have a recording of Civil War soldiers talking?
BA KLINGE: Yes, we do. We were at the Myrtle Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana. It dates back to the 1700s and the Civil War. We have what we think is a conversation between a -- a colonel and, you know, another soldier and they're actually talking back and forth.
KING: All right. Now, there were no recording devices then, so how could you possibly have that, Barry?
BA KLINGE: Well, we've actually let -- we -- we think at the Myrtles, we caught a conversation, whether it's a natural recording, something in the atmosphere, it recorded that, that conversation that happened many years ago. And our audio recorders caught that conversation that's being played back.
KING: When we come back, we'll find out what the Klinge brothers discovered on their exclusive investigations of San Antonio's Menger Hotel.
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KING: We're back with Barry and Brad Klinge of "Everyday Paranormal." Earlier, we showed them conducting an exclusive investigation of the San Antonio's Manger Hotel. Tell us about that. And what did you and your team dig up there?
BR KLINGE: right next to the Alamo, there is an old hotel called the Manger Hotel, one of -- the third most haunted locations in the country. Third most haunted hotels in the nation. So we went in. We did some interviews. And we did a mini investigation. We investigated the place during the day time.
And we actually caught a couple of pieces of evidence. One of them is a voice. It's a very clear voice. One of the claims of people in the hotel is that they hear -- they've seen a man talking at the window and heard his voice. He's saying, are you going to stay? Are you going to go? Are you with us or are you against us? You can very clearly hear a man say, get your horse.
And what we did is we actually amplified that a little bit. You have to reduce some noise, and then enhance the voice a little bit. It was just a little tiny amplification, and you definitely hear it.
So what's neat about that is what we call a residual haunting. Basically, this is a voice, some sort of conversation that was recorded a long time ago that just plays itself back and we happen to get a recording of it.
BA KLINGE: There is one other picture at the Manger hotel, one other piece of evidence that we wanted to point out. It was taken down one of the hallways. You can see it right here. It's point of interest. There is what looks to be like a woman in a dress in, a long dress down at the end of this hallway. Now we took a picture before and noticed that this image right here is a -- is a cart, is a towel cart. And this image was not in there.
And all of a sudden, it was in there. Our investigators noticed that no one was in that hall. We marked the time. It is a very, very strange photo. It does look like a woman in the dress.
The Manger is supposed to be haunted, according to staff there, by 43 known entities. So there is no telling who this is. Maybe that is the chamber maid they're already saying they're seeing.
BR KLINGE: Could be. It's just a strange picture. The cool thing is we have another picture that is not in there. So it's just a point of interest. We're going to go over it a little further. It's a cool picture.
BA KLINGE: But this whole thing, the ghost lab, the lab you see here is a part of spreading the electronic net. We cover building from top to bottom, corner to corner. And hopefully we find some paranormal activity. Thanks a lot, Larry.
KING: Thanks, guys. Continued good luck. What's your website again, Brad?
BR KLINGE: It's WWW.EveryDayParanormal.com. All one word.
KING: All one word. WWW.EveryDayParanormal.com. By the way, we forgot to mention this, but Joan Rivers has a lot of upcoming personal appearances. If you'd like to know where, just go to WWW.JoanRivers.com -- WWW.JoanRivers.com.
We thank all of our guests. We wish you a very happy and safe Halloween. And when they ring your bell and say trick or treat, say trick. Hey, throw them a little. "Anderson Cooper 360" starts right now.
