The Paracast Newsletter
May 11, 2025
www.theparacast.com
Documentary Filmmaker Christopher Garetano Reveals the Tricks of the Trade for His Paranormal Movies on The Paracast!
The Paracast is released every Sunday and available from our site, https://www.theparacast.com, your favorite podcast app, and the IRN Internet Radio Network. All episodes from 2022 and later now feature better audio and fewer ads. We are also re-releasing some of our most popular classic episodes.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T SIGNED UP FOR THE PARACAST+ YET? PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO THE PARACAST+ SO YOU CAN SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE ULTIMATE PARACAST EXPERIENCE AT A SPECIAL LOW PRICE! We have another radio show and we’d love for you listen to it. So for a low subscription fee, you will receive access to an exclusive bonus podcast, After The Paracast, plus a special version of The Paracast with all the ads removed, when you join The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes on your device. Episodes for subscribers to The Paracast+ are now released 24 hours earlier. Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! For the easiest signup ever, please visit: https://www.theparacast.plus
This Week's Episode (May 4, 2025): Gene and cohost Tim Swartz present a return visit from documentary filmmaker Christopher Garetano. He is the creator and director of the award-winning docudrama, Montauk Chronicles (2015). He is also co-creator, co-director, executive producer and co-host of the History Channel’s The Dark Files (2017). In 2019, Christopher created, executive produced, directed and hosted his eight-episode investigative series, Strange World for the Travel/Discovery Channel networks. During this interview, Christopher will reveal his journey into films, and his various influences over the years. He’ll also talk about what he sees as the future of the film industry in light of new technologies. Christopher is also the host and creator/producer of the ongoing weekly podcast, Off To The Witch and is preparing to release the first feature-length chapter ( A Haunting We Will Go) of his new, TV docuseries. He is also the writer/creator South Texas Blues (originally published in Fangoria Magazine) comic and book. Christopher was born in New York and grew up marveling at the galaxy of discoveries within his parents’ video store; while immersed in special effects makeup, creature features and moviemaking since he was five years old. He is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts with a degree in film. One of his upcoming projects is a feature-length horror movie, Bury Me In A Nameless Grave.
After The Paracast — Available exclusively to Paracast+ subscribers: A return visit from documentary filmmaker Christopher Garentano, where he will reveal to Gene and cohost Tim Swartz his own paranormal experience that occurred years ago. Topics will also include various presentations of AI in film, including one about psychotic vehicles. And what are the potential dangers of widespread AI, and could it possibly result in computers taking over society? This was depicted in such films as James Cameron’s Terminator series and also Colossus: The Forbin Project from 1970. Also on the agenda: Whether the various paranormal mysteries, such as Bigfoot, ghosts and UFOs, will ever bee solved. Christopher was born in New York and grew up marveling at the galaxy of discoveries within his parents’ video store; while immersed in special effects makeup, creature features and moviemaking since he was five years old. He is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts with a degree in film. Christopher is the creator and director of the award-winning docudrama, Montauk Chronicles (2015). He is also co-creator, co-director, executive producer and co-host of the History Channel’s The Dark Files (2017). In 2019, Christopher created, executive produced, directed and hosted his eight-episode investigative series, Strange World for the Travel/Discovery Channel networks. One of his upcoming projects is a feature-length horror movie, Bury Me In A Nameless Grave.
Reminder: Please don't forget to visit our famous Paracast Community Forums for the latest news/views/debates on all things paranormal: The Paracast Community Forums. And look for @theparacast on Bluesky Social, Facebook, Threads and X.
There Be Monsters
By Tim R. Swartz
There are monsters. Ask any child who has lain awake in the dark of night, certain that some unknown horror lurks in the shadows under their bed. Ask anyone who has walked through a dark forest, aware that inhuman eyes are following their every move. Ask anyone who has heard a strange noise where there should only be silence. They will tell you. There are monsters.
Perhaps there is some place deep within our brains that remembers a far off time when we huddled together in the cracks and crevices of rocks, listening for the black things of the night that hungered; always hungered.
We like to think that things are different now, that we have tamed the things that hunted us in the night. It is comforting to think that our bright lights and big cities offer a refuge from those that would slake their thirst with our blood. However, are things really so different? Are we really as safe as we think we are?
Are there still monsters?
Blood is the Life
Over the years, strange attacks on animals and humans have been recorded and attributed to predators, other humans, and even supernatural creatures such as vampires. What makes these incidents similar is the general lack of blood found in the bodies. Primitive man believed that blood was sacred, the source of life in all creatures. When you lost your blood, you lost your life. So it made sense that the life force must be contained in blood.
The Old Testament is a good example of ancient beliefs regarding blood. Leviticus 17:14 states, that "the life of every living creature is its blood." The verse goes on to say that it is forbidden for anyone to eat blood because it is the source of all life.
Vampires and vampire-like creatures have been found in the folklore of every civilization, every culture, and every religion since the beginning of recorded time. In ancient Babylonia there was Lilitu, (in Hebrew Lilith or Adam's first wife in Talmudic lore); after her rejection of Adam's dominance, she becomes a demon that attacks infants and children in the night.
In India, tales of the Vetalas, ghoul-like beings that inhabit corpses, are found in old Sanskrit folklore. The Vetala is an undead creature, who, like the bat associated with the modern day vampire, is associated with hanging upside down on the trees found in cremation grounds and cemeteries.
The Chinese have the Ch'Iang (or Chiang-Shih), irrational creatures that are driven by bloodlust. They have difficulty walking because of the pain and stiffness of being dead so they hop instead. Some even will sexually assault their victims in addition to their bloodsucking.
The Malaysian Langsuitis is a woman who wears a gown, has long nails and long jet black hair. This vampire has a hole the back of her neck which she uses to suck the blood from children.
The Scotts tell of the Baobham sith, which takes the form of groups of beautiful girls who lure their victims into the woods and marshes to drain victims of blood.
Mysterious Attacks and Mutilations
Because of these early beliefs, man has always felt a superstitious horror when dealing with attacks that involve the loss of blood. Throughout history, there have been numerous reports of strange attacks and mutilations that seem to go beyond normal animal predators.
For several months in 1874, near Cavan, Ireland, something killed as many as thirty sheep a night, biting their throats and draining the blood. In 1905 at Great Badminton, Avon, sheep were again the target for attacks. A police sergeant in Gloucestershire was quoted in the London Daily Mail, "I have seen two of the carcasses myself and can say definitely that it is impossible for it to be the work of a dog. Dogs are not vampires, and do not suck the blood of a sheep, and leave the flesh almost untouched." In a single night in March of 1906, near the town of Guildford, Great Britain, fifty-one sheep were killed when their blood was drained from bite wounds to the throats. Local residents formed posses to hunt down whatever was killing their livestock, but nothing was ever caught, and the killings remain a mystery. Events of this kind have probably occurred regularly throughout history. The cases that have received media attention are those involving a large number of deaths, but hundreds of smaller attacks probably have gone unnoticed over the years.
Kill Kangaroo of Tennessee
One such mysterious creature that seemed to appear out of nowhere was the notorious "Killer Kangaroo" of South Pittsburg, Tennessee. In mid-January of 1934, something described as looking like a giant kangaroo terrorized rural Marion County, along the Tennessee, Alabama border.
According to the local newspaper, the Reverend W.J. Hancock saw the animal and said it was "as fast as lightning" as it ran and leapt across a field. This beast was reported to have killed and partially devoured geese, ducks, and several large dogs.
One witness named Frank Cobb claimed the kangaroo attacked and ate a German Shepherd dog, leaving only its head and shoulders behind. A tracking party followed the kangaroo's prints to a mountainside cave, where the trail ran out. The creature disappeared and was never found.
Perhaps the bloodthirsty kangaroo left Tennessee for warmer climates because in 1975, Puerto Rico was invaded by the so-called "Moca Vampire," an entity whose activities began in the town of Moca's Barrio Rocha, where it killed a number of animals in a grisly fashion never before seen. Fifteen cows, three goats, two geese and a pig were found dead with strange puncture marks on their bodies, indicating that some sharp object — natural or artificial — had been inserted into them.
Autopsy reports showed that the blood had been drained from the animals, and local police officers were mystified as how a wild predator could have scaled the fences surrounding the dead animals' pens.
After killing more than ninety animals in a two week period, the vampire then went after larger prey on March 25, 1975. When Juan Muñiz was returning home to Moca's Barrio Pulido, he was attacked by a "horrible creature covered in feathers." The laborer threw rocks at the creature to frighten it away, but it flew at him, scratching his face and neck. An armed group of locals sought to find the strange being, but no trace was found.
The vampire continued to kill on and off for the next several months before finally tapering off. Like the Chupacabras killings twenty years later, the majority of the Moca Vampire's attacks occurred at night or in the early pre-dawn hours. Those cases in which eyewitnesses managed to see the perpetrator usually described it as a weird bird or as a kangaroo-like creature.
So as you try to sleep tonight, wondering what that noise was in your closet, or what strange thing is moving in the shadows just beyond the headstones in the cemetery, remember that we are not that far removed from our distant ancestors whose blood and flesh nourished unseen horrors. For even safely behind our locks and security cameras, we still cannot hide from the monsters.
Tim R. Swartz is an Indiana native and Emmy-Award winning television producer/videographer, and is the author of a number of popular books including The Lost Journals of Nikola Tesla, and Gef the Talking Mongoose. His most recent books, along with author Sean Casteel are Weird Time – Exploring the Mysteries of Time and Space, and Mimics - The Others Among Us.
As a photojournalist, Tim Swartz has traveled extensively and investigated paranormal phenomena and other unusual mysteries in such diverse locations as the Great Pyramid in Egypt to the Great Wall in China. He has worked with major television networks both national and international.
Tim has appeared on the documentary “The Myth of Tesla,” as well as The History Channels programs "Ancient Aliens", "Evidence", "Ancient Aliens: Declassified", "The UnXplained", “Histories Greatest Mysteries”, and the History Channel Latin America series "Contacto Extraterrestre".
His articles have been published in magazines such as Mysteries, FATE, Strange, Atlantis Rising, UFO Universe, Flying Saucer Review, Renaissance, and Unsolved UFO Reports.
Tim is also the co-host of The Paracast with Gene Steinberg www.theparacast.com
His website is: www.weirdtimebook.com
Copyright 1999-2025 The Paracast Company. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy: Your personal information is safe with us. We will positively never give out your name and/or e-mail address to anybody else, and that's a promise!
May 11, 2025
www.theparacast.com
Documentary Filmmaker Christopher Garetano Reveals the Tricks of the Trade for His Paranormal Movies on The Paracast!
The Paracast is released every Sunday and available from our site, https://www.theparacast.com, your favorite podcast app, and the IRN Internet Radio Network. All episodes from 2022 and later now feature better audio and fewer ads. We are also re-releasing some of our most popular classic episodes.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HAVEN'T SIGNED UP FOR THE PARACAST+ YET? PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO THE PARACAST+ SO YOU CAN SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE ULTIMATE PARACAST EXPERIENCE AT A SPECIAL LOW PRICE! We have another radio show and we’d love for you listen to it. So for a low subscription fee, you will receive access to an exclusive bonus podcast, After The Paracast, plus a special version of The Paracast with all the ads removed, when you join The Paracast+. We also offer a special RSS feed for easy updates of the latest episodes on your device. Episodes for subscribers to The Paracast+ are now released 24 hours earlier. Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! For the easiest signup ever, please visit: https://www.theparacast.plus
This Week's Episode (May 4, 2025): Gene and cohost Tim Swartz present a return visit from documentary filmmaker Christopher Garetano. He is the creator and director of the award-winning docudrama, Montauk Chronicles (2015). He is also co-creator, co-director, executive producer and co-host of the History Channel’s The Dark Files (2017). In 2019, Christopher created, executive produced, directed and hosted his eight-episode investigative series, Strange World for the Travel/Discovery Channel networks. During this interview, Christopher will reveal his journey into films, and his various influences over the years. He’ll also talk about what he sees as the future of the film industry in light of new technologies. Christopher is also the host and creator/producer of the ongoing weekly podcast, Off To The Witch and is preparing to release the first feature-length chapter ( A Haunting We Will Go) of his new, TV docuseries. He is also the writer/creator South Texas Blues (originally published in Fangoria Magazine) comic and book. Christopher was born in New York and grew up marveling at the galaxy of discoveries within his parents’ video store; while immersed in special effects makeup, creature features and moviemaking since he was five years old. He is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts with a degree in film. One of his upcoming projects is a feature-length horror movie, Bury Me In A Nameless Grave.
After The Paracast — Available exclusively to Paracast+ subscribers: A return visit from documentary filmmaker Christopher Garentano, where he will reveal to Gene and cohost Tim Swartz his own paranormal experience that occurred years ago. Topics will also include various presentations of AI in film, including one about psychotic vehicles. And what are the potential dangers of widespread AI, and could it possibly result in computers taking over society? This was depicted in such films as James Cameron’s Terminator series and also Colossus: The Forbin Project from 1970. Also on the agenda: Whether the various paranormal mysteries, such as Bigfoot, ghosts and UFOs, will ever bee solved. Christopher was born in New York and grew up marveling at the galaxy of discoveries within his parents’ video store; while immersed in special effects makeup, creature features and moviemaking since he was five years old. He is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts with a degree in film. Christopher is the creator and director of the award-winning docudrama, Montauk Chronicles (2015). He is also co-creator, co-director, executive producer and co-host of the History Channel’s The Dark Files (2017). In 2019, Christopher created, executive produced, directed and hosted his eight-episode investigative series, Strange World for the Travel/Discovery Channel networks. One of his upcoming projects is a feature-length horror movie, Bury Me In A Nameless Grave.
Reminder: Please don't forget to visit our famous Paracast Community Forums for the latest news/views/debates on all things paranormal: The Paracast Community Forums. And look for @theparacast on Bluesky Social, Facebook, Threads and X.
There Be Monsters
By Tim R. Swartz
There are monsters. Ask any child who has lain awake in the dark of night, certain that some unknown horror lurks in the shadows under their bed. Ask anyone who has walked through a dark forest, aware that inhuman eyes are following their every move. Ask anyone who has heard a strange noise where there should only be silence. They will tell you. There are monsters.
Perhaps there is some place deep within our brains that remembers a far off time when we huddled together in the cracks and crevices of rocks, listening for the black things of the night that hungered; always hungered.
We like to think that things are different now, that we have tamed the things that hunted us in the night. It is comforting to think that our bright lights and big cities offer a refuge from those that would slake their thirst with our blood. However, are things really so different? Are we really as safe as we think we are?
Are there still monsters?
Blood is the Life
Over the years, strange attacks on animals and humans have been recorded and attributed to predators, other humans, and even supernatural creatures such as vampires. What makes these incidents similar is the general lack of blood found in the bodies. Primitive man believed that blood was sacred, the source of life in all creatures. When you lost your blood, you lost your life. So it made sense that the life force must be contained in blood.
The Old Testament is a good example of ancient beliefs regarding blood. Leviticus 17:14 states, that "the life of every living creature is its blood." The verse goes on to say that it is forbidden for anyone to eat blood because it is the source of all life.
Vampires and vampire-like creatures have been found in the folklore of every civilization, every culture, and every religion since the beginning of recorded time. In ancient Babylonia there was Lilitu, (in Hebrew Lilith or Adam's first wife in Talmudic lore); after her rejection of Adam's dominance, she becomes a demon that attacks infants and children in the night.
In India, tales of the Vetalas, ghoul-like beings that inhabit corpses, are found in old Sanskrit folklore. The Vetala is an undead creature, who, like the bat associated with the modern day vampire, is associated with hanging upside down on the trees found in cremation grounds and cemeteries.
The Chinese have the Ch'Iang (or Chiang-Shih), irrational creatures that are driven by bloodlust. They have difficulty walking because of the pain and stiffness of being dead so they hop instead. Some even will sexually assault their victims in addition to their bloodsucking.
The Malaysian Langsuitis is a woman who wears a gown, has long nails and long jet black hair. This vampire has a hole the back of her neck which she uses to suck the blood from children.
The Scotts tell of the Baobham sith, which takes the form of groups of beautiful girls who lure their victims into the woods and marshes to drain victims of blood.
Mysterious Attacks and Mutilations
Because of these early beliefs, man has always felt a superstitious horror when dealing with attacks that involve the loss of blood. Throughout history, there have been numerous reports of strange attacks and mutilations that seem to go beyond normal animal predators.
For several months in 1874, near Cavan, Ireland, something killed as many as thirty sheep a night, biting their throats and draining the blood. In 1905 at Great Badminton, Avon, sheep were again the target for attacks. A police sergeant in Gloucestershire was quoted in the London Daily Mail, "I have seen two of the carcasses myself and can say definitely that it is impossible for it to be the work of a dog. Dogs are not vampires, and do not suck the blood of a sheep, and leave the flesh almost untouched." In a single night in March of 1906, near the town of Guildford, Great Britain, fifty-one sheep were killed when their blood was drained from bite wounds to the throats. Local residents formed posses to hunt down whatever was killing their livestock, but nothing was ever caught, and the killings remain a mystery. Events of this kind have probably occurred regularly throughout history. The cases that have received media attention are those involving a large number of deaths, but hundreds of smaller attacks probably have gone unnoticed over the years.
Kill Kangaroo of Tennessee
One such mysterious creature that seemed to appear out of nowhere was the notorious "Killer Kangaroo" of South Pittsburg, Tennessee. In mid-January of 1934, something described as looking like a giant kangaroo terrorized rural Marion County, along the Tennessee, Alabama border.
According to the local newspaper, the Reverend W.J. Hancock saw the animal and said it was "as fast as lightning" as it ran and leapt across a field. This beast was reported to have killed and partially devoured geese, ducks, and several large dogs.
One witness named Frank Cobb claimed the kangaroo attacked and ate a German Shepherd dog, leaving only its head and shoulders behind. A tracking party followed the kangaroo's prints to a mountainside cave, where the trail ran out. The creature disappeared and was never found.
Perhaps the bloodthirsty kangaroo left Tennessee for warmer climates because in 1975, Puerto Rico was invaded by the so-called "Moca Vampire," an entity whose activities began in the town of Moca's Barrio Rocha, where it killed a number of animals in a grisly fashion never before seen. Fifteen cows, three goats, two geese and a pig were found dead with strange puncture marks on their bodies, indicating that some sharp object — natural or artificial — had been inserted into them.
Autopsy reports showed that the blood had been drained from the animals, and local police officers were mystified as how a wild predator could have scaled the fences surrounding the dead animals' pens.
After killing more than ninety animals in a two week period, the vampire then went after larger prey on March 25, 1975. When Juan Muñiz was returning home to Moca's Barrio Pulido, he was attacked by a "horrible creature covered in feathers." The laborer threw rocks at the creature to frighten it away, but it flew at him, scratching his face and neck. An armed group of locals sought to find the strange being, but no trace was found.
The vampire continued to kill on and off for the next several months before finally tapering off. Like the Chupacabras killings twenty years later, the majority of the Moca Vampire's attacks occurred at night or in the early pre-dawn hours. Those cases in which eyewitnesses managed to see the perpetrator usually described it as a weird bird or as a kangaroo-like creature.
So as you try to sleep tonight, wondering what that noise was in your closet, or what strange thing is moving in the shadows just beyond the headstones in the cemetery, remember that we are not that far removed from our distant ancestors whose blood and flesh nourished unseen horrors. For even safely behind our locks and security cameras, we still cannot hide from the monsters.
• • •
Tim R. Swartz is an Indiana native and Emmy-Award winning television producer/videographer, and is the author of a number of popular books including The Lost Journals of Nikola Tesla, and Gef the Talking Mongoose. His most recent books, along with author Sean Casteel are Weird Time – Exploring the Mysteries of Time and Space, and Mimics - The Others Among Us.
As a photojournalist, Tim Swartz has traveled extensively and investigated paranormal phenomena and other unusual mysteries in such diverse locations as the Great Pyramid in Egypt to the Great Wall in China. He has worked with major television networks both national and international.
Tim has appeared on the documentary “The Myth of Tesla,” as well as The History Channels programs "Ancient Aliens", "Evidence", "Ancient Aliens: Declassified", "The UnXplained", “Histories Greatest Mysteries”, and the History Channel Latin America series "Contacto Extraterrestre".
His articles have been published in magazines such as Mysteries, FATE, Strange, Atlantis Rising, UFO Universe, Flying Saucer Review, Renaissance, and Unsolved UFO Reports.
Tim is also the co-host of The Paracast with Gene Steinberg www.theparacast.com
His website is: www.weirdtimebook.com
Copyright 1999-2025 The Paracast Company. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy: Your personal information is safe with us. We will positively never give out your name and/or e-mail address to anybody else, and that's a promise!