August 16, 1998: Mass Deaths of Species, Colorado Sightings - Linda Moulton Howe | Ghosts - Barry Taff
Parapsychologist Dr. Barry Taff then joins to discuss his 30 years investigating ghosts, hauntings, and poltergeists. Taff reveals his own lifelong psychic abilities, including the capacity to diagnose medical conditions in strangers, a talent that both fascinated and frightened those around him since childhood. His experiences led him to the UCLA parapsychology laboratory, where he became both researcher and research subject.
Taff recounts extraordinary cases from his career, including the Hollymont haunting where thousands of coins rained from a ceiling, and a Hyde Park investigation where the apparition of a deceased homeowner physically attacked him before dissolving. He examines the evidence for survival of consciousness after death, weighing whether ghosts represent genuine discarnate intelligence or projections of the living human psyche.
Key Moments
Howe: one third of U.S. amphibians are gone: Howe reports that, per the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, one third of U.S. toad, frog and salamander populations are now gone, with three Yosemite species extinct since the 1915 baseline and the rest in steep decline.
Howe: USGS finds unsafe radium in 1/3 of southern New Jersey wells: Howe summarizes a June 1998 U.S. Geological Survey report showing unsafe radium levels in a third of 170 wells tested in southern New Jersey - and 65 percent of wells in heavily populated areas - with health departments saying USGS failed to inform them and only learned of it through the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Barry Taff's 30-year parapsychology career at UCLA: Taff sets out his credentials: research associate at UCLA's parapsychology lab from 1969 to its 1978 termination, doctorate in psychophysiology from UCLA, and personal investigation of more than 3,500 ghost, haunting and poltergeist cases plus early 1970s work on the protocols that would become Stargate-era remote viewing.
Hollymont case: thousands of pennies rain from the ceiling: Taff describes the 1976 Hollymont Drive case in the Hollywood Hills as the 'Mount Everest' of his career: with no adolescents or disturbed adults present, objects flew at people, and while the team stood in a pantry thousands of coins apported from nowhere and rained down until they were ankle-deep on the floor.
Hyde Park 1970: attacked by a man who then dissolves: Taff recounts a 1970 Hyde Park / Inglewood case where, after a seance for a couple killed in a car accident, a tall white-haired stranger appeared in the house, threw him into a bathtub and tried to strangle him shouting 'get out of my house' - then, after six men beat the assailant off, simply faded and dissolved like in a movie. The homeowner's grandson later produced a photo of his deceased grandfather that matched exactly.