A Day in My Life

Paranormale Aktivitäten zu untersuchen – das ist einer der Hauptfokusse des beliebten Podcasters. Von TALITHA LINEHAN

A podcaster of the paranormal

My name is Ross Blocher. I am 36, and I am

the co-host of the podcast Oh No, Ross and Carrie! at ohnopodcast.com. Together with my co-host, Carrie Poppy, I investigate claims of the paranormal from a scientific standpoint by doing things like joining religious groups, going to spiritual events, and undergoing alternative treatments. Then we report on our experience of things like psychic surgeries, telekinesis, ectoplasm, and trying to achieve an outof-body state. We started the podcast in 2011 and now have tens of thousands of listeners worldwide.

It’s not unusual for me to spend all day Saturday and Sunday working on the podcast. I almost never set my alarm, but I tend to wake up around 6.30 a.m. Sometimes, I’ll lie in bed and do some reading. I find that the more I read, the happier I am in life. It’s a direct correlation. I read mostly books about popular science, psychology, and things like that.

Then I go to the computer to check my e-mails, update Facebook posts, and do some audio editing. I do that for two to three hours, until it’s time to get ready for the day.

Typically on a Saturday, Carrie and I will have somewhere to go for the podcast. It could be a conference, a class, or a treatment. We tend to carpool to save on the cost of gas. So I might drive from my place in Burbank to pick her up in Hollywood, which is about 16 miles (26 kilometers) away. The event or experience could take two to four hours, or even longer. We try to go into it as blindly as possible, and we don’t tell people that we are reporters, so that we can be sure of having a more authentic experience.

We normally eat out for lunch. Carrie’s a vegan, and I’m a vegetarian, so LA is a great place for us to be. Afterwards, we drive to Carrie’s place to do some recording. For an hour-long episode of the podcast, we probably record an hour and a half of audio, often more. We do take notes and use them while recording, but we don’t script or plan what we’re going to say. We stop often, either to look something up or because of noise, like a plane flying overhead or Carrie’s boyfriend coming or going.

When we’re finished, I do a basic edit before sending it to our editor, who sends it back to me later for a final edit.

I normally get home between eight and nine in the evening

and hang out with my wife and son for a few hours. We have a late dinner and watch movies together. Then, after everyone else goes to bed, I go back to the computer.

Every day, listeners send us ideas for future episodes, and I spend a lot of time responding to them. I follow links and watch Youtube videos, and if it’s something we haven’t heard of before, I add it to this massive Google Doc called “Master list of potential investigations.” The ideas are categorized, so there’s alternative medicine, fringe religion, fringe science, the spiritual, the paranormal — topics like that. I respond to around 10 listeners a day, and that’s just enough for me never to keep up. But I try.

I also watch Youtube videos relating to current investigations, usually right after we have gathered our first-hand experiences. And there are online classes that I’ve been visiting for years that we haven’t reported on yet. So if possible, I’ll take the time to work on some of them.

During the week, I work as an animator, but the podcast is laced through my life, as I’m always checking e-mails, going online, and reading related material. I don’t sleep too much, and that’s probably a good thing — because there’s always so much to do.