Ghosts, UFOs, and Taylor Swift’s Big News (Hour 1)

Transcript

Ghosts, UFOs, and Taylor Swift’s Big News (Hour 1)

Nite Lite with Pete Schwaba and Greg Bach · Tue Aug 26, 2025

Kathryn Lake

You're listening to Civic Media.

You can tune into any of our live shows on any radio station across the state with the Civic Media app.

Find us in your phone's app store and listen anytime, anywhere.

Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay, this is Night Light with Peach Wabba.

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

And now, a guy who never leaves the house without wearing a cup, Pete Schwabba.

Hi, I'm Pete Schwabba.

Welcome to another Nightlight.

Okay, I'm John Peterson.

You're already young.

Yeah, I am.

And we have Dom Lee, our producer who's assisting, helping us.

Producing us here in Madison, Wisconsin.

We're at the WMDX Studios.

You know, the mothership here in Madison, Wisconsin on State Street.

Beautiful evening downtown Madison.

Todd Ella does a show here too.

I know.

They've got a plaque here and everything for time.

Oh, I

know.

He's the big

guy.

Yeah.

He's important.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Something's going on across the street at the Overture Center.

There's three or four huge buses there and all kinds of people walking

around.

That whole second floor

is loaded with people.

They're packed over there.

I don't know what's going on.

They're

actually watching us.

Wow, they're filling in for Pete.

Wow, this is really an event.

Sure, they're streaming it right now.

I hope we get the

ticket cut on that one.

Pete's producer, Conrad, is with us.

Good afternoon.

Good evening, Conrad.

How are you?

I'm doing good guys.

How about you guys?

Do you have a good

day?

What do you do all day anyway before you do the show with Pete?

Well, if it's sad, you don't have to tell us.

Today, I wouldn't be sad.

Why do you always go negative right away?

Then we got to dig our way out of

it.

Okay, then hit us up.

Conrad, tell us

what happened

today

for you.

What kind of wonderful wife you

have.

Well, it was a really fascinating day.

I went to an apartment

and

then I worked out and then came into the studio.

So.

Oh, that's cool.

Okay.

Why did you tour?

So you

have to move?

You're moving, huh?

Yeah, I'm moving across town.

Yeah.

I live kind of by UWGB right now.

And yeah, I'm moving a little closer to the studio.

Okay.

Are you moving further away from your fitness center where you're working up because is that like an excuse now?

I can't go there.

It's too far away.

The snow drips.

I can't make my way through there.

Actually, there's five different YMCA's just in Green Bay, so I have no excuse.

Wow.

Okay.

Are there really?

Yeah.

There's a lot.

Yeah.

Why would that be?

I don't know.

Well, there's an east side, a west side, a downtown one, a Depeer one, and then one in Swamiko as well.

Okay.

All right.

I don't know how many YMCA's are around Madison.

There's at least two or three, right?

I don't know.

You don't know.

You never went.

I know there's one on the west side.

That's all I know in Madison.

Okay.

So.

So tonight, as we're filling in for Peach Swallow, we've got a big lineup here.

This is going to be, it's going to be a little weird.

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Remember Art

Bell, by the way?

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Art Bell,

the radio guy.

Love that show.

Love listening to it.

This is going to be kind of like Art Bell's show.

Because we have a UFO expert and we have a ghost expert.

So we're going to, you know, we're going to go out there.

We're going to explore, see what people have

found.

Well, we should.

We do this on this program.

So, you know, we thought we'd just try to fit in a little bit.

Sure.

That's

right.

Right?

Yeah.

Conrad, have you ever seen a ghost or a UFO?

Because that's our question of the night, right?

Yeah,

it

is.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I've got to play the question of the night theme.

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I'm off the track

already.

All right, jump in the gun.

He's the rebel here in the ground.

Play the damn thing.

Let's talk about the question.

Okay,

question.

Question.

Question.

Question.

Question.

Okay, I have a question.

Questions.

This question.

Domanda.

Question.

Question.

Questions.

Okay.

All right.

What indeed is the question, Conrad?

Well, it...

in honor of one of our guests, you know, Gray Cisco.

Have you ever either seen a UFO or a ghost?

And if so, where and when?

Yeah,

so, you know, jump on the civic media text and answer that question if you've ever seen a ghost or you've seen a UFO.

So Greg Cisco is our UFO expert.

He's going to join us in our next hour.

But Mitch Gauth is the ghost expert, right?

And he's going to join us in about a half hour.

That's right.

Now, how many times have anybody used voice note on this?

Has anybody on the civic

media ad read?

For Pete?

Anybody send voicemen?

I think there was one time I saw a voice note.

All right.

People are leaving voice notes now, kind of.

At least Gen Z is.

Yeah.

So you go on the Civic Media app.

That's right.

And you find

voice note, right?

A middle next to the text.

Yeah.

So you can send a voice note.

Which can.

See what happens.

Or you can just text us the regular way or give us a call on the Civic Media line 8557.

752-4842, that's 855-75 Civic.

Well, you know, we do the morning show in Madison at WMDX from six to eight.

Too early for anybody to really hear us or get up in the morning, so.

It's a sleepy

little town.

Yeah, it's a very sleepy

town.

So

we get away with anything.

Yeah.

So John, have you ever seen a UFO or a ghost?

I haven't seen a UFO, but I saw a spirit.

We'll

talk to our guest about that.

How about you, Conrad?

Did I already

ask that?

I feel like every time I thought I did see one or heard noises, I grew up with a cat.

It was probably the cat.

Yeah, that's probably... Well, you can always... Oh, that

sounds like a

line in a horror movie, right?

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Oh,

it's just a cat.

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Now,

I don't think Pete has gotten into the spirit world, has he?

Has he seen anything?

Does he follow

it?

Does

he get into the UFO sightings as well?

Does he get into all that stuff?

Because

we don't know.

He did.

Talk a little bit once about when he was on the road and there was this place where all these comedies you know people stood or stayed for One of their shows and it was haunted he said and he said he did hear something I think yeah at night there was knocking on the door and there was no one there

Wow,

so it was either you know a ding-dong bitch or ghost

Or just you know tall cat

Works for me.

All right.

So we have some breaking entertainment.

Yes, sir.

Emergency, emergency.

Batman speaking.

Yeah.

Warning all of you to brace yourselves for big news.

This is huge.

This is huge entertainment news and Pete Schwabba is not here.

Yeah,

we're gonna scoop him on this one.

We're gonna scoop Pete.

He's probably tearing his hair off that he isn't here tonight.

But Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey are getting married.

Wow.

Oh my God.

Oh, jeez.

Oh, you know,

I

can't wait.

I bet Pete's

Putting together right now

a

retrospective of Taylor Swift's

wife and

Travis Kelsey's and putting all highlights together.

And he tends to at least really some kind of film and at least posted at the website.

Well, Pete will be back tomorrow night and he can have his comments, but we got the we got the

scoop on that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I guess it broke the internet when she announced it.

Yes.

Yeah.

That's right.

20 million.

What?

Tom, did you say there were 20 million hits or something in a couple hours?

You said that, Conrad.

Or

you

mentioned it, Conrad.

Yeah.

Did you mention that, Conrad?

In about three hours, it was almost 18 million likes on her post.

And what she said, her caption said, your favorite English teacher and gym teacher are getting married.

Yeah, there you go.

I don't, I don't know any English or Jim teachers that are billionaires, but

yeah, I know.

Oh, that's sad that they get so many people to react to this.

You know, they, what empty

lives?

Yeah,

it's too bad they don't get any attention at all.

You know, yeah.

Yeah.

Whenever they'll get married at a football stadium, maybe at Kansas City, just fill the place up.

Make a little money.

I

went to the Packer game.

My wife and I went to a Packer game for a honeymoon.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Yeah, the Packers.

We saw Brett Favre kind of fill in in the game.

Fill in?

Yeah, he was not

a

starting quarterback at the time.

Oh, man.

That

was a long time ago.

Well, like 33, 34 years ago.

I'm probably getting

that

wrong

and my

wife

is

tearing her

out right now.

You know, I get home.

Well, you know, you should have told it this way and you forgot this and, you know,

I have no memory at all.

I've noticed

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that.

Why

is it that women have these great memories?

You can remember every detail, everything they ever want to nail you with.

And then, you know, we sit there and go, did we say that?

Did we do

that?

Overall, generally speaking, they're smarter than they are.

I don't know if you've ever picked up on that.

There you go.

You've got all the answers.

He's got all the answers.

We're getting a bunch of texts right now.

Oh, yeah.

People that have either seen UFOs or have seen ghosts.

Christine from Slinger says, saw my sister a year after she died.

It's something you never forget.

Wow.

That is really cool.

Yeah.

And she also saw a possible UFO, but not sure.

Melissa from Willy Street here in Madison.

Hi guys.

I saw three UFOs in Florida, driving past Lake Okeechobee, little white pearls flying through the clouds.

Well, that's kind of poetic.

And Tom says, my question is, I heard that Dundee, Wisconsin has the most UFO sightings in the state.

Is that true?

Well, we'll ask Greg Sisko when we talk to him.

in our next hour about that.

Go back to that.

He's with an organization called MUFON, which is the Mutual UFO Network.

And that's been around for, I don't know, 30 years.

They study UFO sightings.

They use civilian volunteers.

And he's been doing it a long time.

He's very much a skeptic, by the way, to pick these things apart.

But he does run across a few cases where they cannot explain.

And it looks like, well, that could be...

It could be true.

Well,

a lot of people are saying, well, these guys must be old folkies because they're still using the old term UFOs.

Oh, yeah.

What is it now?

What is it?

ASPs?

I don't

know.

ADP?

I don't know.

Why did

they have to change it?

That's, I don't know.

That's

the question.

All right.

We have a couple of, okay.

I guess we have Mark on the line here.

I think we've got a couple of minutes.

Let's see what Mark is up to.

Good evening.

Mark, go ahead with your question or

comment.

on a lighter side or that charlie crook had to insert himself here and he he thinks that now taylor swift is going to be a submissive to her husband going to be a trad wife and uh... really yes really and it's just if it's just pathetic i mean here here's a guy who's been submissive to others on the right wing his entire life i mean that uh... you know when a trumps you know that the woman to suck up to whatever concert

everything

and uh... and he feels necessary to insert himself in into this thing and i think you know wonderful for taylor swiftens dot twelve is kept you know i don't know you know the good good for them and i hope they have a long and happy marriage and that uh... but for you know for chile correct to it and they want to own taylor swift and i mean they're like donald trump wants to own every woman out there and that uh... and he's just as pathetic as donald trump

well i don't know now you're making me think of uh...

Charlie Kirk, every time I hear Taylor Swift's name now.

I'm sorry about that,

guys.

Oh, man.

All right, Mark.

Yeah,

thanks, Mark.

Wow.

He's

jumped

on

that bandwagon

right away,

hasn't

he?

Well, it's big entertainment news.

Did she get a ring yet?

Everybody's going to want to see the ring.

Got

to have a ring.

Did she get a ring?

Yeah,

it's a pretty big ring.

Yeah, I bet

it is.

Looks

like a Super Bowl ring.

Really?

We'll have to put that on the website here, the nightlight website.

Okay, well, that's good.

What else we got?

Well, it looks like we won't be talking about the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago.

We've run out of time.

Well, we can get to it.

We can get to it after we take a little time out here.

Yeah, they moved to a new location.

I've been, we've been there.

You and I went there.

This is one, one field trip we ever went.

That was like 30 years ago.

I know.

And they've moved a couple of times.

Remember we ran out of

pot

and we had to, uh, we had to score.

Oh wait.

Yeah.

Oh, was that, that time hurt?

That was some other time.

That was a, that was another time.

Okay.

All right.

Well, we're just getting started on this Tuesday night.

It's John Peterson, Gordy Young in for Pete Schwabba on Nightlight, inviting your phone calls and texts.

You can call us 855-752-4842 back with more on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Kathryn Lake

You're listening to Civic Media.

Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.

Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.

Civic Media Radio Network.

This is Nightlight with Pete Shraba.

We are filling in for Pete Shraba.

This is John and Gordy in the morning and we're doing the evening shift.

Yep,

double shift again today.

We did it yesterday.

We're doing it today, but Pete will be back tomorrow evening.

No late shift.

We don't know where he went.

It's a secret.

It's a undisclosed location somewhere.

You won't tell us.

No.

We'll probably reveal where

he is and then you

know,

fandom.

You know, it's not, it's not an easy life.

Yeah.

We do have a question of the night.

Yes.

Have you ever seen a UFO or have you ever seen a ghost?

Kind of a two for one question tonight.

Yeah.

And you can, we've already gotten a bunch of texts.

So you can be a part of that.

Get on the Civic Media app and text us your answer to that.

Of

course, I have my story, you know, when

I saw an apparition.

So we'll get to that.

We'll save that when we...

Introduce our guests here in about 10 15 minutes.

All right, Mitch got we

were talking about the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago.

That's been out of business since 2023.

Yeah

I mean, it was a museum.

Come

on.

It was great

saving everything.

Yeah, we went

there.

Great pictures together.

Many microphones, all the old equipment,

cameras, old TVs.

Yeah, really.

And a lot of radio legends

were honored down there.

Radio and TV and even even puppet shows, things like that.

Kids shows.

It

was so easy to cast us aside.

So

now they're reopened in Chicago.

Yeah, in a broadcast.

Well, it has it's going to open in October.

I believe the 24th of October and it coincides with the 100th anniversary of Johnny Carson's birth.

That's

right.

Yeah.

Well, I did see a picture of it.

They had a display in Johnny Carson.

It was all the late night hosts at the front door there.

So it's a, it's an actual museum again, or is it just a virtual museum?

The museum

is returning in pop-up form.

So it's going to pop up on 440 West Randolph Street.

And the pop-up will last until January of 2027.

The evolution of late night television is the exhibit.

75 years of the genre.

And it's going to obviously highlight Steve Allen, who I loved

watching.

Steve Allen was great.

He was really great.

Jack Parr didn't know that much about him, but I

did watch

him.

I did watch him.

Yeah.

Parr was kind of political.

He had

a lot of political folks on there.

Arsenio Hall.

Conan O'Brien, really terrific.

Was fantastic.

Really was.

And Stephen Colbert.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So they're dedicated all to late night TV.

That's right.

That's right.

So again, we, uh, we were talking about the big breaking news, Taylor Swift and Kelsey Travis, Kelsey.

Well,

just happened to

bring something in.

Yeah, we've got something.

Uh, Charlie Barron's, you know, Charlie.

Yeah.

Well, we, we had him, uh, yeah, we've, uh, talked to him a couple of times.

He, in fact, he appeared at the comedy club two floors below us.

Yes.

So I'm that

night for, for a while.

He's been on with Pete.

I'm sure.

Yeah.

And I've seen him perform a couple of times.

Yeah.

He's great.

So what is he?

Well, he, he have a, he's scooped an interview.

You've got to

scoop with Taylor Swift.

So why

don't we check that out?

Let's listen.

All right.

Conrad, you got that cut?

Is that cut 12?

Yes.

Okay.

Go

ahead.

Push the button.

Folks, we have Taylor from Minnesota in the studio right now.

She just got into an accident.

Taylor, what happened?

I was driving down the road the other day.

Were you

in your station wagon or your van?

I was in my van and this, oh, this deer.

Jeepers, cripes.

We got a deer story, folks.

Hang on to your butt.

This

dang deer just jumped out in front of my van.

I didn't even know what was going on because I don't know if I swore.

Then I might go off the road and hit a snowdrift.

Yeah, and then you really

If

I hit the deer, then I got that on my mind all day and I gotta clean off my car.

So

that is why you carry the second ice scraper.

Now what's the state of your minivan?

There's possible deaths.

I

hope you got the gecko.

And I was late

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to pick Jimmy up and he's

like, Mom, you're late and he's just, you know, nagging at me the whole rest of the day and it's all

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because

of this dang deer.

Shake it off and watch out for deer.

Sorry, too soon.

Too soon?

Yeah, that was way too

soon.

She

does

a great Minnesota accent.

She did that crazy accent a long time ago.

That

was

an early video, I think.

It was an early video and it was edited together by Charlie Behrens.

And it was an amazing thing.

No one expected it.

She just told that story in that accent there, but it was just breaking up because they weren't ready for

it at

all.

That was on BBC.

Yeah,

it was on

BBC Radio.

No kidding.

Yeah.

So Charlie, he does a podcast that's on the Civic Media Radio Network on Saturdays at noon.

And it's a funny little pie.

It's kind of behind the scenes.

Does he have a Manitowoc Minute?

He has the Manitowoc Minute.

He still does that.

He does a lot of other videos as well.

And he works with his brothers.

I think one of his brothers is a comedian, not a couple of them.

And that's a

big... My cousin's

a comedian.

Yeah.

That's right, Jeff Cisario, right?

That's right, Jeff Cisario.

It's been a long time since you've seen him or talked to him or had any contact with him, right?

It's been since we were little kids, so I would say maybe the early 60s, something like that at the latest.

Was there a restraining order involved?

Jeff and you?

What I was told

was that he

was much younger than me, and you know, I was the bigger kid, and I didn't want to hang out with a little kid, and we hated

visiting relatives anyway as kids.

So we just disappeared.

We went our separate ways.

I didn't

really talk to him.

So now I'm trying to get in touch with him.

Didn't we have him on one time on the radio show

way

back?

We did.

Like in the 90s.

He

was filling in for a lot of people in Chicago radio.

Yeah.

And I heard him and I asked him, hey, why don't you appear on our morning show?

And he did.

He said, who are you again?

And I said, boy, it'd be great if I knew somebody in a major market that would get me a job.

And he says, yeah, that would be nice.

And that was about it.

That was about it.

And

Pete, by the way, has tried to get us together to appear on his radio show together.

And he never got back to Pete.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well,

that's sad story.

Okay.

Um, we've got, uh, Mitch got in the studio

here.

He's got his

book coming up next, uh, right around the corner here.

And it's John and Gordy filling in for Pete Schwabba on the civic media radio network.

We'll be back in just a couple of

minutes.

I was feeling

alright, I'm with my boys, I'm with

my troops, yeah.

A couple of days ago, we haven't seen him since.

I don't know what happened.

What happens to some radio people?

It's John Peterson and Gordy Young, Philly, for Pete Schwab.

He'll be back tomorrow, he says.

Left a note, I guess.

We have a question of the night.

Have you ever seen a UFO or have you ever seen a ghost?

And we picked those two.

It's a

double question

if

so where

yeah, and where when yeah, we'd like to hear your stories.

We've gotten a bunch of texts and We have two guests tonight.

Greg Cisco will join us in our next hour.

He's our UFO expert and right now We have Mitch goth who is with the organization.

Is it haunted us?

Is that what it is?

Haunted us haunted us.

Okay.

What what is what is haunted us all about?

Do you do ghost hunting?

What what is it?

Well?

More than ghost hunting, we are paranormal researchers, and our goal is to share America's haunted places with everybody.

Tell their stories, their history, and their paranormal claims, and get them out so that folks who enjoy ghost stories can learn all about these places, even if they're far away.

even if they're closer to home than they might initially.

What got you interested in all this?

What lured you into this haunted,

occupation stuff?

So when I was growing up was right around the time when ghost hunters and ghost adventures really started to pop up on TV.

And funny story, I didn't watch those shows at all.

I didn't really put much stock in it at all.

It was just kind of a piece of entertainment that was on one of the many channels on TV.

Maybe I caught an episode here or there.

But I actually moved in next door to a ghost hunter when I was about 14.

And a friend of mine,

It was a friend of mine and their family.

They were all ghost hunters, which was news to me.

I had known this person for a couple of years, never knew that they went out ghost hunting, but their whole family made weekends of it a lot of the time.

And so a couple of months later, they came over and they asked, you want to go ghost hunting this Saturday?

And I thought, well, I don't have anything else going on this Saturday.

So I might as well, fun way to spend a weekend, one individual weekend in my life.

And I went out with them and we stopped in a place in Beloit an old mansion turned restaurant and It would have it was abandoned when we went there.

So it was old and spooky and empty and I had some one of a kind experiences there that kind of hooked me into the whole Paranormal world and I've been doing it ever since

was it EVPs

or was it a visual at all?

So that night, that particular night, it was all audio.

EVP is the recording of those anomalous events.

And unfortunately, it was my first time I didn't have an audio recording.

But everyone else with me was all well equipped.

And one of the things they gave me was essentially a bionic ear, almost kind of like what you use for birdwatching.

And I plugged it in my ear and just kind of listened and EVP sessions.

formed the structure of their entire investigation and EVP sessions are asking questions to the ghosts that might be in a place and waiting for them to respond.

So you will ask a question, you know, is anybody here to what looks like an empty room?

And you'll wait for 30 seconds, a minute, and then you'll just ask another question.

And it's on the audio recording that you're taking where the spirit voice is supposedly manifest.

But if you're wearing a bionic ear like I was, you might hear

those voices in real time.

And so while these questions were going on, I was just kind of sitting and listening.

I was sitting on the stairwell of this two-story building, listening down to the first floor where the bar had once been.

Now it's just a big old empty room.

But as questions started to go on, I started to hear more and more from downstairs where nobody was.

Really?

But it wasn't just one voice.

I couldn't pick anything out and it grew and it grew and it took me a long time to figure out.

I stopped listening to my friend's questions completely because I was enthralled by what this background noise I was hearing was.

And I figured that it was the...

the sound of like overlapping conversation, like a bar full of people, but that was the sound that was rising up from downstairs, except there wasn't a soul down there, not one.

Okay, at what

point did you freak out,

throw the

earpiece down

and run away?

Run away!

Really, this

all happened the first time?

The very first time.

I was honestly more dumbfounded.

I went out fully not expecting to experience anything.

So to experience something, I was a bit more startled, shocked.

that something is actually happening.

This is not at all what I expected, but I guess it was run of the mill for them, and they were very professional about it.

They tried their darnedest to capture it on their recorders, and they all... I think they had four or five recorders running that night, and they all went back and tried to see and tried to check.

It did not materialize on any recordings, but... But you were hooked.

Yes, and that was... What is EVP?

What is it?

Yeah, that is an electronic voice phenomenon.

It's

hard.

Now, I understand that you use like a ghost box or, right?

Yeah.

It's a white noise machine.

So the ghost box or the spirit box.

Spirit box.

The spirit box is the modern name, but both names are interchangeable, basically.

It is a radio.

It

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is

a, which I'm sure you guys are familiar with.

It is a, it's a traditional AM FM radio.

Okay.

And they've, they followed the same standard ever since they were invented back in the early 2000s or, you know, modified, I suppose.

Did you ever find that maybe the stations were a little too strong for that voice box station?

Yes, absolutely.

If you are.

So which is better, AM or FM?

In my opinion, AM, because it tends to have less, less activity and more, and more just.

flat white noise,

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but

it really depends on where you're at geographically and where you're at in a building because

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you're

exactly right.

If you're in a city with a lot of radio stations, all you're going to hear are, you know, what's coming up next on 101.5 or something similar

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like that.

But maybe you are way out in the countryside where there aren't many, or maybe you are way out in the countryside in an old building in

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the

basement, in a subbasement where

really nothing, no radio frequencies can really reach, and you're still hearing some odd activity and some odd voices.

And I know some people who put them into Faraday cages, the whole radio, whole operation, dropped them in a Faraday cage.

Well,

okay, what's, I don't know what a Faraday cage, when

is that?

A Faraday cage is a structure that you build to keep out electromagnetic and radio waves.

So if you own a microwave at home, you see the window in it and it's got the weird kind of texture, the mesh on the inside, that is a Faraday cage to help keep the energy inside from leaking out.

And the same concept goes the opposite way.

If you put a radio in a Faraday cage, it doesn't matter if you're standing right next to a radio tower, it's not going to pick up anything.

And that works better?

It's theorized that it should obviously cut out the interference.

And then whatever you hear, if you hear a voice coming through, it adds an extra layer of, well, we did our due diligence.

So what is that?

Yeah.

Well, I went to a website where you can buy all that equipment, ghost, something or other.

I can't remember what it is, but I, Mike, my kid was very much into this and we did a little ghost hunting

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here and

there.

And I realized one thing, you know, we saw, you always see abandoned houses, you know, as you travel.

And we went into one of those abandoned houses.

And I realized at that point that really it

may not be haunted.

It's just abandoned.

Yes.

So you really have to go to places that are haunted in order to get any kind of reaction.

Yes, absolutely.

And a lot of places that look haunted are simply just empty.

You know, you could take almost any building at all and, you know, shut the lights off.

and

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leave

it empty for a couple months and it will just get that kind of vibe to it.

It's the eerie.

It's just eerie seeing a place that should have people in it that doesn't.

We're

talking with Mitch Gauth.

He's with Haunted US and we're taking your calls if you want to chime in here.

If you have a ghost story to tell 855-752-4842 or you can text us on the Civic Media app.

All right.

Well, Mitch has a book, 30 Haunted Nights in Wisconsin.

Give us a clue.

Tell us what

that's all about.

Yeah, so Haunted US as the broader organization, the broader website is all about bringing you stories, ghost stories from around the United States.

But we wanted to really focus in on our home state, myself and my co-authors home state, Wisconsin, and really dig in deep to the lore and the hauntings and bring something new.

You know, because you can get a lot of ghost stories on hauntedus.com, but we wanted to bring something a little extra to the table and and offer something extra special to the people of Wisconsin.

And so that became 30 haunted nights in Wisconsin.

And that is 30 different haunted locations all right here in America's Dairyland that are said to be some of the most haunted places in the state and in the United States of America.

You had a

link at that site and there was a link.

Was that a review or just a part of your book?

Which link was that it was talking about the Berlin tannery?

Yes, that is I believe that's an excerpt on our on our website Okay, all right.

Yeah, it came across like that.

Yes,

and it was really interesting.

I looked it up on the map

I know

exactly where it is.

It's just north of the river.

Yep

What was your experience there?

Oh the Berlin tannery was an unbelievable experience Because we we got there and I had heard about the Berlin tannery a good deal they had done

They had been haunted house for about 10 years from the mid 2010s up until when we got there around 2024.

And they had their share of paranormal claims for many years.

But I hadn't heard much in the last few years about, you know, what was going on at the tannery, you know, were they still doing ghost hunts?

Were they still being a haunted house every Halloween?

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So I really

wanted to get the inside scoop

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about

what was going on there.

And we got there and this building from the outside, it's this big.

red brick structure with a few windows for folks out there who might not know what a tannery is.

A tannery is literally a leather factory.

So cow skin, fresh, bloody cow skin goes in one side and cured leather comes out the other.

So the intricacies of leather tanning were a mystery to me when I got there.

And immediately we met the owner, Dan, who said, take all the photos you want, any questions you've got.

feel free to ask them.

And we got all of our photos of the outside and we asked them, you know, do you have time to show us what the inside of this building looks like?

And he said, absolutely.

So we walk in and the

The main area, the building that you see from the outside, this red brick, is all filled with props for the haunted house that are just waiting to be set up for next season.

And so we traverse this area and we're like, this is pretty neat.

You can sort of see spaces on the floor where machinery used to be.

And then Dan tells us, wait until you see the basement.

And so we head...

We head down to the basement of this

old

leather factory, the skin factory is what I've taken to calling it.

And the whole place just opens wide up.

It is this huge, huge,

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chamber-less

room.

And it actually leads to basically every other building on the block in Berlin.

This entire block is the tannery.

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And

so you're kind of deceived from the outside that just this one section is the whole building.

But really, the entire city block is this massive facility.

And once you get down into the many levels of basements that are there, you get to see ovens, like huge, building-sized ovens, just filled with meat hooks.

Wow.

Dryers, huge dryers built of wood, also filled with meat hooks.

Did you see haunted

cows or anything?

You know?

Ghostly

cows.

Really?

Interestingly, no.

I was kind of hoping for a cowlose somewhere.

Yes.

I wanted to hear.

the cries of some long-lost cow who didn't want to be made into leather echoing through this massive saw factory.

But you gotta finish the story right after this break, okay?

We're talking with Mitch Gotth, he is with Haunted US, and he's got a great book out.

It is...

30 haunted nights in Wisconsin.

All right.

We will continue with our ghost stories.

And if you have one, you can call us on the Civic Media Radio Network line 855-752-4842 or text us on the Civic Media app.

Coming right back with Nightlight.

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You're listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website,

civicmedia.us.

with our special guest, Mitch Gawth, author, and he's got a book entitled 30 Haunted Nights in Wisconsin.

We were just in the middle of a story where he's in a tannery and about to be stampeded by a

ghostly house.

Ghostly house.

It's ghost riders in the sky, you know?

Okay.

So yeah, now continue the story.

You're in this big vacant basement with ovens in it and hooks.

Yes.

What

happened?

So we are traversing this darkness.

The owner of the building, Dan, is just, he's the only one with a flashlight.

And, you know, the darkness just kind of seeps into the light.

The flashlight doesn't venture very far, but we are still trying to get our photos.

I'm there interviewing Dan.

I've got my notebook out, writing by this teeny, tiny glimmer of light, writing down everything he says.

And he just keeps showing us, you want to see what's behind this door.

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And it's a

whole new swath of this factory.

And

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then

at the far end of the drying room where they would hang the skins,

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there's

another door.

Wait till you see what's behind this door.

And it's the boiler room where these gigantic pieces of machine, we are just lying in rust and decay.

And then at this point, we have no idea where we are.

We know we're in this building somewhere, but we are in Berlin, Wisconsin still.

They've left a lot of people down there.

Yes.

Finally, we cross over this basement catwalk, which is just

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kind of

sitting there almost.

You walk up these stairs, and there's a catwalk there.

And we walk across this catwalk to a garage door.

It's like, wait until you see what's behind this door.

And he pulls it open, and there's our car.

We're back.

We're right back where we started.

OK.

Really?

What?

So you just set

you up.

You said see you later guys.

In classic haunted house fashion, you know, because this is the bread and butter of this creepy factory

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building is

haunted house.

And, you know,

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when they

opened it as a haunted house, that's when people started saying, you know, who was that in that area?

Or that person really scared me.

And the haunt actors and the owner were like, I don't know anybody like that.

There wasn't anybody over there.

So there are some real ghosts in

here.

Oh, man.

Well, John, why don't you tell your

ghost story?

Yeah, well, you're from Jamesville.

Yes.

Mitch and I...

I used to visit down there, worked on a farm, a friend of my parents, and I was just kind of crawling around on the floor.

I was very young, you know, six or seven years old, something like that.

And I was watching Invaders for Mars on TV.

Black and white, of course.

And everything in the room was ancient.

The wallpaper was ancient.

Everything was really old.

And they had a pantry, two doors, pantry.

off the living room, and it was always closed, always locked, but it was open this time.

The door was just a jar, and I thought, well, I can get in there.

So I'm crawling on the floor, and I'm moving around in that room, and it was just every junk.

It was a storage room with, you know, clothes and boxes, and I saw this really interesting cloth, this grayish cloth, and I started pulling on it, and I looked up, and there was this man looking down at me.

And I completely freaked out, completely.

I was screaming, I left that room, I ran into the other room where my parents were and the people that owned the house.

I told them what I had seen, who I had seen, the description, and they said it was very much the description of their late grandfather.

And that was it.

I mean, I don't think they were ever kidding me because I kept asking them through the years, many of the years, and they never took it back.

They never broke my little, my frightened moment.

So yeah,

so I think I really saw something.

Is that an apparition or is that a, what is

that?

That would be an apparition.

You saw their features.

And you could readily describe it in a way where someone else would say, that sounds like a familiar person.

Exactly.

That is an apparition.

That is a vivid, vivid ghost.

But I pulled on cloth, you know?

Yeah.

And that is, you know, it's not something that really happens often.

That's a very unique ghost story.

But, you know...

Ghosts manifesting in something.

That's actually physical is is a story that you might hear now and again So it's not without precedent.

Well, there you go.

All right.

We just have a couple of minutes left You got one more quick one Mitch

sure story.

Yeah, absolutely it

on

us.

All right So I guess the the best story I can pull immediately from 30 haunted nights in Wisconsin

Your book?

Yes, the book, Thirty Haunted Nights in Wisconsin, comes from actually the very first chapter.

So if you buy this book and you crack it open, it's the very first ghost story you'll read.

And that is for Shakers Cigar Bar in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

And when we went there...

They're very into their ghost stories.

They have neon lights of ghosts all over.

So they were very excited to show us around and we were very excited to hear the stories.

And there are reports on every floor, mainly the basement.

There are a lot in the basement.

And so what ended up happening is they spent a lot of time in the basement really taking us through everything and we got everything that we wanted.

But then we went upstairs, and they kind of glanced over the second floor because there was a murder on the third floor.

And so they really wanted to take us to the third floor and tell us that story, too.

But as we were heading up the stairs, I was stopping to take notes on what the tour guide was saying.

And Brandon was taking photos, my co-author, Brandon.

And suddenly, Brandon just exclaims.

What?

What?

What?

Everybody just kind of stops.

What's going on?

Somebody just walked into my shot up the stairs and he maintains to this day that once again he saw a vivid apparition of a woman in a late 1800s, early 1900s dress.

And funny story, it seemed to match the general description of the third floor murder.

What cigar shop was this?

That is Shakers Cigar Bar.

Is it still around?

It is.

You can go there, smoke a stogie inside.

Well, you

know,

it seems like

that spirit does not like the third floor.

No.

It seemed like they were trying to keep us away.

Yeah.

It seemed like that.

That's it.

Well, Mitch, this has been fascinating.

A lot of fun.

And again, the name of the book.

The

name

of the book is 30

Haunted Nights in Wisconsin.

And the best place, a website to go to, Facebook, whatever you got.

Yep.

You can find us on hauntedus.com.

We have a new location featured every Thursday.

And of course, you can get the book on Amazon.

And if you want to follow us, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Haunted US.

We

are going to do that.

Then we'll have you back.

Yep.

Thank you, Mitch.

Okay, we're coming back with more of Nightlight and our guest on our next hour, UFO expert Greg Sisko.

Stay with us on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Kathryn Lake

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