There’s a stigma that faces first responders when sharing their own tales of the inexplicable.
It’s an observation co-founder of Entityseeker Paranormal Research, Morgan Knudsen has made while appearing on docuseries like “Paranormal 911” and “Haunted Hospitals”.
“The medical field, in general, isn’t usually open to talking about this at all,” she said, one April morning while on the phone in Edmonton. “The most amazing thing for me is the fact that most of these peoples don’t have a dog in the fight.
“They don’t have a reason to make this stuff up.”
As Louisianan paramedic, Stacey Hilton, said in Episode 1 of “Paranormal 9-1-1”, “I can’t go to work and talk about this. They’re going to put me in the psychiatric ward.”
These harrowing experiences of first responders — paramedics, police officers and security guards — are all part of the hour-long show.
There’s a journalistic approach to the show that is evident as producer Mike Allcock is heard talking to interviewees off camera.
“I like the breaking of the fourth wall aspect of the show, and our director for the show was so great,” Knudsen said. “He really knew how to cut to the important emotion to bring out the best representation of the people.”
You’ve got to rule out everything. Entityseeker is about people who can understand what she is hearing from witnesses. They work with nurses and doctors to map out what is happening.
“It’s being able to take the cases from Paranormal 9-1-1 and sit down and piece out what the next step is for people,” she said. “We look at the geological history, the background, and you can sit down and offer an educated opinion about it.”
Fortean phenomenon is nothing new to Knudsen, who discovered six years after founding Entityseeker in 2003, that her grandfather, Dr. Albert Durrant Watson, was the president and founder of the Association for Psychical Research of Canada.
His beliefs were published in two books: The Humble Ones, in The Twentieth Plane: A Psychic Revelation (1918) and Birth through Death: The Ethics of the Twentieth Plane: A Revelation Received Through the Psychic Consciousness of Louis Benjamin (1920).
You could say investigating the inexplicable is in her genes. In addition to her family’s heritage, she also experienced a haunting in her home at 9.
“Nobody in my family said anything about him,” she said. “It was really cool to read his philosophies on it and just how close the two of us were (in belief).”
As for her appearance on “Paranormal 911”, she found many of the stories shared by witnesses inspirational. One story had paramedics arriving on the scene to help an older woman who went into cardiac arrest. During the assessment period, they spoke with the patient’s husband who was sitting in his armchair who informed them of where she was.
The fire department also spoke with the gentlemen, and both parties discovered the man had been dead for a month.
“Paranormal 9-1-1” premiered on T+E on March 24 as part of a supernatural lineup on the cable channel. Also airing this spring is “Help! My House is Haunted”, “My Worst Nightmare” and Season 5 of “Paranormal Survivor”.
Though Season 2 has not been announced, the producers are already seeking out stories.
“The producers are on the hunt,” she said. “That’s always exciting.”