According to Lorraine Boissoneault, "The circus had just completed two performances in Michigan City, Indiana, and was traveling overnight the 45 miles to nearby Hammond. The first train, carrying workers and many of the circus animals, cruised on to its destination with no problems. But engineers on the second train halted their progress to fix a hotbox. The overheated axle bearing could cause a fire on the train if not deal with immediately. It was around 4 a.m. when the second train pulled off onto a side track, but the last five cars— including four wooden sleeper cars—remained on the main track. As the engineers worked, and the performers slept, an empty train used to transport soldiers to the East Coast for subsequent deployment to the warfront in Europe came barreling down the main track. The driver blew past several stop signals, and then the lamps of several of the circus engineers trying desperately to stop the oncoming train. But the train’s steel-frame Pullman cars smashed into the wooden circus coaches, at speeds between 25 and 60 miles per hour, according to contemporaneous newspaper reports. The sound of the collision was so loud that nearby farmers awoke and hurried to see what had happened." What people came to see was one of the worst train accidents of all time. Many people were injured, and many people died that day. Some were burnt up from the crash so bad they were able to be identified. The dead performers, both identified and not were laid to rest at Woodlawn Cemetery in Chicago. That plot is now known as Showmen's Rest. The ghost stories attached to the area include people hearing ghostly animal noises, and circus music at the cemetery. Our quick investigation lead us to find if the crash site is haunted or not.

Meet Jaci and Bill Kousoulas paranormal investigators, mothman enthusiasts, and researchers. Jaci and Bill Kousoulas are the founders of Phenomenology Research Professionals (PRP), a research team dedicated to exploring the intersections of psychology, spirituality, and the paranormal through rigorous qualitative methods. They are the authors of Bridging the Tragedy, a psychological study examining the 1967 Silver Bridge Disaster in Point Pleasant, WV, the Mothman narrative, and the phenomenon of post‑traumatic growth (PTG). Their work highlights how individuals transform trauma into meaning, resilience, and personal evolution.

On March 1, 2024, they launched their next major study, Transcending the Darkness, which investigates the relationship between trauma and paranormal experiences. As with Bridging the Tragedy, the project focuses on the positive outcomes participants report after these events. Interviewees include Gary Osborn (The Rendlesham Enigma), Rev. Michael Carter (Ancient Aliens), Dr. Dean Bertram (director of The Man Who Invented Flying Saucers), and additional experiencers and researchers.

Bill and Jaci live in Sycamore, Illinois—sixty miles northwest of Chicago - but surrounded more by cornfields than skyscrapers.

Learn more from them at: https://www.prpconnect.org/

Everyone, meet Bishop Kristina Rake. The Most Reverend Kristina Rake is the Archbishop of the Catholic Church in Exile—an Inclusive Catholic jurisdiction within the world-wide Independent and Old Catholic Church movement. The Catholic Church in Exile (as it is called) welcomes all people to every sacrament, regardless of age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, or lifestyle. She leads her clergy and laypeople on a volunteer basis. Her church’s ministries include an orphanage and young mother’s ministry in Kenya, as well as an LGBTQIA advocacy group based in Kenya, Africa, that helps the community in countries where homosexuality is punishable by imprisonment and death. Bishop Rake holds a Master of Theological Studies from Andover Newton at Yale Divinity, plus an additional 18 graduate credits concentrated in Psychology and Theology. Archbishop Rake is the author of hundreds of articles and standardized tests on topics as diverse as writing, literature, embryology, physics, IQ intake, American History, and more. She is also author of God and the Paranormal: Ghosts, Mediums, and the Afterlife in the Bible. She is currently completing a follow-up volume about the intersection of science, belief, and spirituality and a novel which combines science, demonology, and the occult. She is an award-winning writer, an award-winning speaker and teacher, a member of Mensa, and a religious consultant for movie studios such as MGM and Spooked TV. She has appeared in several documentaries as herself—including A Thousand Words & The Attached on Amazon Prime, Tubi, and AppleTV— and has cowritten entertainment projects which involved her areas of expertise of science, theology, demonology, and fringe sciences. Bishop Rake has been married for 26 years to her best friend, Mark, and has two human children and 3 ferret babies. Bishop Rake’s Church: http://www.catholicchurchinexile.com