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March 3, 2019 - The Unexplained - Howard Hughes
01:01:31
Edition 385 - Bridget Marquardt

This time the ex-Playboy model and reality tv star who thinks Hugh Hefner's mansion is haunted....

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Across the UK, across continental North America and around the world on the internet, by webcast and by podcast, my name is Howard Hughes and this is the Return of the Unexplained.
Well greetings from London Town where we've had a few days here in February of absolutely fantastic weather.
As I record this in the very last days of February, we've had a run of spring-like days.
Now if I tell you that today I'm looking out of the window now just turning my head to the left and I can see above me a clear blue sky and down to the bottom of it that deep ochre orange tinge of a sunset.
We have had a perfect spring day and the date I'm recording this is the 25th of February.
Never in my life have I known anything like this and I can tell you that at a place called Keradigion in Wales the temperature today hit 68 degrees Fahrenheit 20 degrees Celsius a record for the UK unknown in my lifetime and I think unknown throughout history.
So something is going on with our weather which is another topic for another day.
But today that something has delivered us an absolutely beautiful day and apparently there's going to be an even warmer one tomorrow.
I actually went cycling in the park near where I live in a t-shirt just before.
So I'm literally fresh off the bike.
Never ever done that in February.
I'm one of these summer cyclists.
You know, I start cycling around about April.
I stop in October because it's too cold.
And I know there are people who do that and I should all year round, but I just can't.
You know how it is.
Thank you very much to Adam Cornwell, my webmaster, for looking after the website and getting this show out to you.
Still a few issues, not very many with the website.
If you have any problems hearing the show, any problems or thoughts about the website, go to the website theunexplained.tv, follow the link, and you can email webmaster there.
That's Adam, and he will see your email.
We have had some problems.
I can tell you the latest ones have been to do with the contact forms for my story and guest suggestion.
I haven't been seeing those messages because of some issue with that, but I believe it is now in the process of being fixed.
So your stories will be coming through to me, which is very good news.
And I'm sorry that I'm only just mentioning that now.
I should have mentioned that a little while ago.
But please keep those coming because I will now be seeing them.
Before the guest on this edition of the show, and I'll tell you about her in a moment, I want to do some shout-outs.
And the first one I'm going to do is really, really special.
So listen up.
This is Welcome to the World and love and best wishes from your dad, Craig, to Orlando Suite in Plymouth.
Only recently been born, literally within the last couple of weeks.
Orlando, one of these days, somebody may play this to you and I wish you a wonderful journey through life and love from your dad, Craig, and from everybody I'm sure listening to this show, Orlando Suite in Plymouth.
How nice.
Okay, Kelly in San Francisco, nice to hear from you.
Dougie or Doogie, good to hear from you.
John in Los Angeles and FaZe, nice to hear from you.
Richard in Burnley, thanks for the email.
David, Kevin, and Jasmine, thank you for getting in touch.
Jesse, who emailed me actually just today, because he's on a road trip that's taking him right across the Pacific Northwest of the USA.
How fantastic is that?
Maybe one of these days, fortune will shine upon me and I'm going to be able to do that.
Ah, wow.
Michael in Detroit, nice to hear from you, Michael.
Damon in the Chicago suburbs, thank you for the email.
Steve O'Neill, thanks for yours.
Gavin in Glasgow, nice to hear from you.
And Max in the US says, thanks for the D.B. Cooper show and thank you for the things you said about it, Max.
And maybe, Max, you might be right.
Perhaps he really is hiding in plain sight, as that photograph you sent me kind of suggests.
Oh, yes, I mentioned a photo in the last edition that was sent to me by listener Bill, showing what looks like a very strange snake-like object on the ceiling in a family photograph taken at a holiday home in Cornwall.
Now, I've had a photo expert, a guy called Stuart, Stuart, thank you for doing this, to check the image, and he said it's not a lens flare, but in my opinion, it's an object swinging from side to side from the ceiling and was captured with a camera that was in auto mode trying to compensate for the lower light conditions inside.
So by the looks of it, it's a natural phenomenon by the sounds of it.
Okay.
Alan, just very finally, before we get to the guest on this edition, more about her in a moment, Alan has emailed from Sheffield, says he's been listening to The Unexplained for about seven years, now download the podcast and listen to it each week.
I love the mixture of guests and topics, and thank you for the things that you say.
He tells me a story that I want to tell you.
And now that the My Story link is working, I've got this one.
So, My Story happened around 1973-74 working for our local co-op in the TV service department as a van lad.
One day, my colleague, who'd been a radio operator in the RAF during the war and was a very keen ornithologist, and I were loading the van with televisions to be returned to customers after repairs.
I looked up and I saw what I thought were large birds going around in a circle.
My colleague Fred assured me they were not birds.
On a second glance, I could see that they looked metallic and they kept glinting in the spring sunshine.
It was as though the three objects were going around an axis.
One of them shot off after that at very high speed over the city.
The other two remaining objects carried on going around the same axis.
Then another one shot off in a different direction.
The last remaining object went around the axis a couple of times and then also shot off at incredible speed.
You've heard these stories before, haven't you?
We were looking at a vast open sky at the time and couldn't believe what we'd just seen.
I don't think anybody in the workshop believed us, but I'm sure we saw UFOs on that day way back at the beginning of my working life.
What a story.
You often hear stories of people who look at objects in the sky that then veer off at incredible velocity.
Thank you, Alan, very much for telling me your story.
That's very good of you to do that.
And if you want to tell me yours, you can go to the website now and Adam assures me that the link for my story is now working.
So thank you very much.
The guest on this edition is somebody called Bridget Marquardt.
And a few days ago, I got an email from her agent in Los Angeles.
Bridget, if you watch the e-channel in America, apparently is a star of a show called The Girl Next Door, which I have to say I haven't seen, but we'll check it out, The Girl Next Door.
She is also deeply interested in paranormality and ghosts and has a new podcast show called Ghost Magnet Beginning that will further her researches.
She's already done some quite interesting researches, including a ghost investigation on the Queen Mary and also, I think it's the Playboy Hotel Haunted.
We'll find out about that anyway when we speak to her.
Now, I don't normally do this.
I don't appear on other people's podcasts and they don't appear on mine.
It's just the way things work out.
But I was intrigued by this and I thought, why not do it?
So I hope I'm pronouncing her name correctly.
Bridget Marquardte is the guest on this edition of The Unexplained.
We'll talk with her in a moment.
Please, if you want to get in touch with me, tell me, or even tell you, tell me who you are, where you are, and how you use the show.
It's always good to hear from you.
And you can email me following the link to me through the website, theunexplained.tv.
And thank you to Adam, as I say, for his hard work on maintaining the website and also sorting out the issues we've had with the launch of the new website, which most of you really like.
And that is good news.
We'll be developing things further, of course, here on The Unexplained.
All right.
Let's get to the western part of the United States now.
And Bridget Marquardt is there.
It's going to talk with us about ghosts.
Bridget, thank you very much for coming on The Unexplained.
Thank you for having me.
I guess the first thing I should really be asking you, which is a question I've never asked anybody before, Bridget, before we talk a little bit about you and then how you got into what you're doing at the moment is, what are you doing on my show?
Your agent got in touch with me and recommended that I needed to speak with you.
And when somebody gets in touch with me from Tinsel Town and says, you need to be doing something like this, you know, I tend to listen.
So what are you doing on my show?
Well, I have started a paranormal podcast and I heard that you have an amazing paranormal podcast and that I need to talk to you.
All right then.
Okay.
And would you consider yourself, before we get into the meet and drink of it all, would you consider yourself to be a paranormal investigator?
Is your life steeped in all of this already?
It is, and it has been for a very long time.
Okay, because look, I'm going to level with you immediately.
What I do with people, because I'm a journalist over here, right, is I immediately try and find as many biographical sources as I can.
And inevitably, unreliable though it is, I end up at Wikipedia.
And I'm holding in my hand here the Wikipedia page about you.
I say page.
The Wikipedia, listen to that, three pages about you here.
And none of this I knew.
I'm really sorry that I didn't.
But, you know, you've, for your young years, you've had an amazing life, including having been involved with the Playboy organization and Hugh Hefner.
That's just the first couple of paragraphs of this thing.
And then, of course, comes the acting of sorts.
And according to this biography, which again comes from Wikipedia, so may not be entirely correct, we have to say, at one stage in your life, you were a Playboy Playmate.
I don't even know what one of those is.
Well, I've been in the magazine four times.
Well, I've been on the cover four times, and I've been in the magazine many, many times, including international ones and that kind of stuff.
I don't even, I can't even count how many times if you count international and all of that.
But on the cover of the American Playboy, four times.
Okay, so do you consider yourself to be what, an actress or a model or a combination of the two?
More of a TV personality because, I mean, our show, Girls Next Door, was on, or it might have been called Girls at the Playboy Mansion in the UK.
I'm not sure.
But it was on for over five seasons.
Like we were on partial six seasons.
And then I had a show on the travel channel, traveling to the world, Bridget's sexiest beaches, it was called.
And then I've done some streaming shows for Yahoo.
It was called Animal Nation, and it was such a fun show about all, it was just all animal stories.
So I would just travel around the United States doing like really fun, cute, inspirational animal stories.
Okay, now you know that a lot of people will interview you, and I am not going to do this, but I just want to get it out there to start with.
A lot of people are going to be intrigued by the fact that you knew and worked with and for you Hefna.
And I have to ask, number one, why did you want to do that?
And number two, what was it like?
I had always loved Playboy since I was little.
My dad got the magazine.
And even though I wasn't supposed to look at it, I would like sneak peeks at it.
And I didn't really see it for nudity or sexuality or anything like that.
I just saw beautiful girls.
And I thought, oh my God, she's so pretty.
I want to be like that someday.
So from a really young age, it just inspired me to want to do that.
And not because of the nudity and not because of the sexuality.
I just thought that that was like the epitome of being beautiful.
And that was kind of like being crowned Miss America, sort of, but in a different way.
Like it was just a goal that I always had.
And then when I got older and I was in like high school and college and things like that, my guy friends would always be like, oh, you should do Playboy.
You should totally do Playboy.
And finally, I just went and auditioned in San Francisco.
They were doing like a casting call and I got called to, I got a phone call a couple weeks later saying they wanted to bring me to LA and do hair and makeup and do a professional photo shoot and have me meet Hef and stay at the mansion.
And I was just freaking out.
And I went there and I did that and it was the most incredible experience in my life.
I felt, it was not, and I thought I was going to be embarrassed and shy because I'd never done anything like that before.
But they made me feel so comfortable and everything felt like family and Hef was so nice.
And They had a big, they, I didn't know it at the time, but every Friday, Saturday, Sunday night, they big do big dinners and have a movie and everything.
And I met all of his friends and all the playmates were up there and everybody was just so nice and welcoming and friendly.
And I just thought, I really want this in my life.
This is amazing.
It's like a second family.
So would you call all of this a kind of desire?
Look, everybody who performs, and I'm one of those people too, we all have a desire to be noticed.
And it sounds to me like from a very early age, you had a desire to be noticed and you were blessed with good looks.
So that is one way, I guess, if you're born in the right place at the right time, to be noticed.
I think so.
I mean, even as a young girl, I loved doing the talent show and being in dance and doing the recitals and that kind of stuff.
So I think that all goes hand in hand.
Okay.
Performing and being in front of people.
And, you know, I have to ask this, even though some of my listeners will say, this is the unexplained.
supposed to be talking about paranormality um other other of my listeners oh When I read in your biography here that I'm still holding, the word playmate, I kind of, in my naivete, I'm not sure what does that mean?
Are you a kind of personal assistant, secretarial capacity, representative?
What does that mean?
Okay, so playmate is not exactly true for me.
A playmate is a girl who is in the magazine and has a month.
So her, so like there's November 2017.
Okay, I got it.
And she has a pictorial for that month, and then she becomes a playmate.
I never had a pictorial for one month.
I'm not like a miss November or a miss January or anything like that.
I was in there with Holly and Kendra as the girls next door.
And we had like special celebrity features in the magazine.
So our pictorial was separate from what they call a playmate.
So, and then, but I am a Playboy bunny, meaning that I have a custom-made Playboy Bunny costume, and I did do spokes modeling for the brand.
So I would do events and that kind of thing in the bunny costume.
There are some people.
There are some people, of course, who see the wearing of the bunny costume as demeaning to women.
How did you feel about that?
Well, for me, I can understand why people see it that way.
But for me, it was an honor.
Like I had looked up to Playboy for so long.
I was so excited to get my bunny costume made.
And I felt like it was a real honor to be representing the brand like that.
And I had done spokes modeling for other things in the past, like for beer companies and alcohol companies and things like that prior to my Playboy years.
And to me, it's just a way bigger and a more reputable brand to be representing.
And I was super excited to get my bunny costume.
And I'm one of the lucky people that actually got to keep my bunny costume.
And I love it.
I think it's such a cool thing.
But I totally understand where people are coming from.
Listen, we had to have, I didn't know any of this.
I don't know where I've been all these years, but I didn't know any of this.
So I think we had to ask these questions just to get a handle on you as a person.
Hugh Hefner always fascinated me whenever I'd see him on the BBC over here because the footage of him we would always see is a guy in a long robe with perfectly produced hair and with a glass of champagne and what they call over here a bevy of beautiful women around him.
Was it like when you lived in the mansion and were around him, what was that like?
You know, it was I lived at the mansion for six and a half years and Heff always wears his pajamas and smoking jacket 24-7.
I never really see him drink champagne except for special occasions.
But yeah, he worked in the mansion and lived in the mansion.
So he went down the hall and there were all the offices with his social secretaries and the vice president of the magazine.
And he would have all his meetings right there in his pajamas in the house, but down in the office wing.
And then whenever he wanted to, he'd go back to his room and take phone calls and do that kind of thing and then get ready for dinner and a movie or whatever was happening that night.
I guess you clearly thought a lot of him.
When he left us, it must have left a void for you.
Yeah, I wasn't.
I tried to go up and see him towards the final year.
In the final year, I tried to go up and see him many times and they wouldn't let me come up to see him.
So that was pretty devastating for me.
I feel like I never got to really say goodbye.
Right.
And right.
And that's something that is going to stay with you, I guess, as it would with anybody.
All right.
Well, listen, thank you for talking with me about that.
And I just thought since it's so much a part of your biography, apart from the other television work that you've done, which is quite extensive, I think we kind of had to get that out there.
So you're used to performing.
You're not afraid of appearing before people.
I don't get where the paranormality fits into this, but apparently it's been a big part of your life.
So talk to me about that.
It has.
Well, it started from very young.
I mean, I always had a fat, I always loved Halloween and scary movies and spooky stuff.
And my great-grandfather had passed away and we were relatively close.
I mean, as close as you can be when you're 12 and your grandfather, and it's your great-grandfather, you know.
And my cousin had also had a, her sister's boyfriend had passed away.
And so her and I decided to get a Ouija board and play it.
And we thought this was going to be fun and kind of scary, but just fun.
And the board was moving and it was supposedly talking to my great-grandfather.
And, but I was accusing her of moving it.
And she was accusing me of moving it.
And we weren't taking it very seriously.
And after we got done, it was sort of uneventful right away.
But a few days later, I came home from school and I came in through the back door and I went into the living room and I heard the back door swing open.
And I went back there and I closed it again and didn't think anything of it.
I just must not have closed it tight.
Went back into the living room.
The door swang open again.
Went back in there.
Like, what is wrong with the door?
So I made sure I closed it really tight this time and went back in, swings back open again.
So I go back in there and this time I lock it.
And then as I'm walking by, out of the corner of my eye, I saw what appeared to be my great grandfather standing there.
Well, when I turned to look fully, it wasn't there anymore, but it scared me so badly.
And then from there on for several years, I just had glimpses of him like that, or what appeared to be him like that, and nightmares and the feeling of him around me when he wasn't.
And the weirdest part about it, or I guess it's not weird, but it's the scariest part about it is that it wasn't a kind, like guardian angel type of feeling.
It was a very scary type of feeling, which now as an adult looking back on it, I think it wasn't really him at all.
Whatever it was, it wasn't him.
It wasn't kind and loving like he would have been.
Did you tell anybody?
You were very young.
Did you tell anybody about that?
I did.
I told my parents and my parents kind of freaked out.
And I told my grandmother.
My grandmother actually took me to a psychiatrist who I was talking to.
And my parents had me talk to our pastor at our church and he came to the house and he kind of didn't believe me and just sort of said I should keep a diary of what happens and talk to somebody professional.
And so I was seeing the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist came to the conclusion that I must have been, something tragic must have happened to me when I was younger with my great grandfather, inferring maybe like abuse of some sort or whatever.
But as an adult, I look back on that and I think that was all, all wrong.
And I also have heard too, that a lot of preteen slash early teenage girls go through this type of thing.
And I don't know if it's a connection with the paranormal or if it's if it's something hormonal and something else going on.
So you think that what you were experiencing might have been not necessarily a ghost in those terms, but maybe some kind of DNA memory, perhaps within you or something else?
I don't, I honestly do not know what it was.
I just know that that is what happened to me and that is what started my love for the paranormal because then I wanted to delve into it more.
And even though this, and I'm sorry to interrupt, even though this presence that you experienced, your great grandfather, even though you felt it was cold and malevolent, you wanted to get involved in this more.
I did.
I did.
I wanted to, I mean, years later, not at that time, I didn't want to deal with it more.
I wanted it to go away and just stop happening because I was like eighth grade going into high school and I didn't want to, you know, wake up with nightmares or like feel that creepy presence, you know, over my shoulder.
But later in life, that when that finally subsided after a couple of years, later in life, I was like, I love this stuff and I want to, I'm interested in it and I want to put myself in this position and experience it.
I want to know if what I was experiencing was real.
I want to know, I mean, like anybody, I want to know the truth.
I want to know, does it really exist?
Or is this just like our imagination or something else going on?
And were you still, I mean, you were very young to be doing that, but were you still using the Ouija board then?
No, that was the first and last time I used the Ouija board.
Right.
But this, all of this.
A lot of people want me to use it now.
They're like, oh, we should get a Ouija board.
We should get a Ouija board.
And I'm always like, no way, no way, no way.
Well, I think it is, there are a lot of people, I mean, I would never do it, right?
My sister, when I was a kid, had a pen friend called Debbie in America.
And you know, pen friends, in those days, they probably still do exchange gifts.
And one of the things that Debbie sent from the U.S., apart from all the bubblegum and stuff for me, was a Ouija board.
And my mother would not have it in the house.
She would not have that thing in the house because she believed it was bad.
And a lot of people to this day absolutely believe that it's a very bad influence.
But there are people, you know, there's somebody in California, not very far from where you are, I don't think, called Karen Dolman, who you may have heard of.
And, you know, she would be a good guest on your show.
I'm sure you would like Karen.
Now, Karen is a very grounded and switched-on individual who's been using the Ouija board professionally for years.
And although I always say, I've got to warn my audience that I'm not recommending that you do this at all, in fact, quite the opposite.
You know, she does have some stories to tell.
So there are people who use it.
And like you, I wouldn't go near them.
But you dabbled in it.
And that was one of the things that got you moving on this path.
Definitely.
And then I would just do it for fun.
Like I would go, you know, with friends and we would stay in haunted locations.
And every time I travel, I try to be like, oh, is this hotel haunted?
Oh, it's haunted on the fifth floor.
We should try and stay, you know, there.
And just for fun, I didn't have equipment or anything.
We'd just try and go and maybe walk around after midnight and see if anything happened or we saw anything or anything like that.
And just like, how old were you then, Bridget?
For fun.
What was your age then?
This was older.
This was probably in my early 20s.
Okay.
Now, that's when other people are kind of out and having fun and building their lives.
But you've got this darker interest.
You were doing that too.
You know, if we were, so I didn't grow up in LA.
I grew up in Northern California.
So we would say we would come to LA and I would say, oh, let's stay at the Hollywood Roosevelt because it's haunted.
And I just think that's cool and fun.
And has an amazing history too.
So we would stay there.
And then after midnight, we'd go and walk around and see if we can, you know, or go stand in the mirror that supposedly you see Marilyn Monroe in and that kind of stuff.
So I try and put myself in those spots where people say they've seen and heard things just to see if I can experience anything.
I've got to say, whenever I've experienced things, they haven't been in places that people have talked about necessarily.
Whenever I've gone to places where I'm told in the UK they're really haunted, nothing ever happens.
What happened for you?
Well, at the Hollywood Roosevelt, absolutely nothing.
I've stayed on the Queen Mary a million times, and I have had a few things unexplained happen there.
They're not super crazy, but we were staying in an inside stateroom the first time I stayed in there.
And so there's no portholes of any kind, and it's super dark in there.
We have to say, just for listeners, I'm sure there can't be anybody who's never heard of the Queen Mary, but the Queen Mary was a great British transatlantic liner, rather like the Queen Elizabeth now, and the Queen Mary, the current one.
And it is, you know, its final resting place is where you are.
And it is said to be, authoritatively said to be seriously haunted.
Sorry, I interrupted.
No, that's okay.
So we were staying in an inside stateroom, very, very dark.
We wanted to go explore the ship.
This was still during the day.
So I was with my boyfriend.
We left the light on on purpose because it's just so dark in there and went and walked around.
We came back and the light was off.
And we were both like, oh, I thought we left the light on.
Didn't think much of it because maybe we didn't, you know.
And then went out again to go explore or go do whatever we were going to do.
And this time left the light on for sure.
Came back, light was off again.
That's so weird.
So then we went out late and we were exploring the ship.
And then we, if you've ever been on, I don't know if every ship is like this because I think the Queen Mary is the only actual ship I've ever been on like that.
I have never been on a cruise ship or anything, but the corridors are so long and narrow and you can see all the way down.
And we were walking and we heard this weird thud behind us.
And we turned to look and out of the corner of our eye, we saw something just sort of disappear through the wall that looked like a little boy.
And I turned and looked at him and I was like, did you just see what I saw?
And he was like, I don't know.
What did you see?
And I'm like, I thought I saw a little boy.
And he's like, so did I. So we go running back down there and there's just, there is just nothing.
There is also supposed to be on board the Queen Mary one of the swimming pools that is said to be haunted by the ghost of a child, isn't there?
Yes.
And I've spent some time up at the swimming pool.
I have not experienced anything up there, but a lot of people have reports.
And then more recently, oh, wait, let me just to finish that story of that original time I was there.
We went back to our room and the light was off again.
And we just thought that was so weird.
So the next day we, when a housekeeping was walking by, we were like, is there like a thing where the lights turn off automatically in the rooms if you are gone for a certain amount of time?
And she's like, no, why?
And we're like, oh, our light keeps turning off.
And we were trying to leave it on because it's so dark in here.
She's like, oh, no, you're just on B-deck.
Stuff like that happens all the time.
The TVs turn on while I'm cleaning the rooms and stuff.
B-deck is the most haunted deck.
Now, you know, some people of a nervous disposition who'd be staying there would probably be asking for a change of cabin and a change of deck, wouldn't they?
They probably would, but I wanted to experience that.
So I was like, oh, great.
This is wonderful.
But since then, I've been doing more and more stuff with the Queen Mary.
And they invited me to come and stay in the room B340, which is the most haunted room on the ship, supposedly.
And in fact, it's so haunted that for over 30 years, they quit renting it out.
And it was just, they actually had a live camera in there.
And you used to be able to log on to their website and just watch live footage of this room.
Jeez, I wish I'd known about that.
So nobody would stay in there.
It's just the bed supposedly unmade itself and weird things like that would happen in there.
So they renovated the room and I was, I got to be the first person to spend the night in there.
And unfortunately, nothing happened while I was in there, but I tried.
I brought all since my first ghost hunting experiences, I have gained some equipment.
I have a little ghost hunting kit that I take with me places now.
And I set up cameras in there because I also wanted to catch if they were trying to trick me too.
Like they gave us dinner.
I was thinking, hmm, why are they giving us dinner?
Are they going to go and do something in the room when we come back?
So I had like a hidden camera hiding in there.
And I have my EMF meters and my motion detectors.
And I have a laser thermometer.
What else do I have in my kit?
Oh, a voice recorder and a small handheld camera, although I usually do most of it on my phone.
But I have that just in case.
And extra batteries, of course, because as we know, the batteries seem to drain when you go to places.
Well, there are those who say that whatever phenomena they may be, they need to get energy from somewhere.
And they often get it from the equipment that hapless people like you and me use.
Exactly.
So I always try and bring extra batteries with me.
And I always make sure that my batteries are charged before I leave.
So that way when I get someplace and I go to turn on my stuff, I know that I checked all the batteries and everything.
So everything should be good to go.
So if I get somewhere and they're drained immediately, then I feel like I have a sense of what's already going on.
So something happened for you on the Queen Mary, but not perhaps the amount that you would have hoped for.
No, and then on that time we were staying in B340.
I actually stayed in B340 twice.
So the second time I was staying there, I stayed with a girlfriend who were like, yeah, let's do a haunted night there.
And we went and actually did their ghost tour that they offer.
And we were lagging behind because, I mean, to be honest, I've done the ghost tour a million times.
And I had my equipment and stuff like that.
So we just were kind of hanging behind.
And we're walking down this hall.
And I'm looking down at my EMF meter.
And all of a sudden, I was like, something, I saw like a flash go by down into this dark little side corridor.
And at the same time, my friend gasped too.
She's like, oh no, I just saw that.
It was just like a shadow went by.
And my EMF meter was going crazy.
And we walked like five more feet.
And there was a plaque right there on the wall that said that there had been a ghost sighting there previously, like back in 1991 or something.
So you saw something like, what would you call it an orb, I suppose?
Is that right?
It wasn't an orb.
It was more just like a, I was looking down.
So what I saw was just sort of a dark kind of shadow go by.
And my friend, just she's not sure what she saw.
She's not even really a true believer.
She's just a complete scaredy cat.
But she was like, she felt like she saw something at the same exact moment.
So I don't know what that was.
And then the tour guide was like, girls, what are you doing back there?
Like, let's go.
And we're like, wait, but we actually just saw something on this ghost tour.
So.
Are the best kinds of investigations, although I would guess they would be difficult and I probably wouldn't do them.
I don't know, though.
The ones where it's just you alone, a haunted location and your equipment.
It's you and it if it exists.
What about that?
Have I done it?
Yeah.
Sure.
Yeah, let's see.
Have I ever...
I'm with somebody who either is part of the facility that I'm with or a friend that I'm making go ghost hunting with me.
I don't think I've ever really just gone and done anything on my own.
I'm trying to think.
I've definitely split off on my own, but I don't think I've ever just done the entire thing.
I'm a very group-oriented person, so I don't think I would just, you know, pack up and be like, I'm going to go here by myself and just go ghost hunting.
I'm like, who wants to go ghost hunting with me?
Then what would you do?
And maybe this has happened.
We'll talk about some of your other ghost experiences in a moment.
But what would you do if something seriously frightening happened?
If some apparition appeared right in front of you, you know, the temperature goes right down and then there's something standing in front of you and it's got no feet and it's just you and it.
You don't sound like the kind of person who would be that scared.
You would be more intrigued than scared.
No?
Here's what I find.
I feel like everything that I have seen up to this point or experienced is always out of the corner of my eye.
And then when you turn to look, it's gone.
Or you're like, what is that?
And then it's gone.
It's never something that lasts long enough where you can be scared.
And then even if it is there long enough to where I start to feel sort of scared, my mind immediately goes to rationalization.
Like that's not really happening.
That can't be.
And it starts rationalizing what else it could be and going through all kinds of things.
And by the time it's doing all of that, whatever was happening is completely gone.
I haven't experienced something that takes place prolonged period to where I feel threatened or really need to get out.
It happens so fast that I'm questioning what I even saw.
Do you think that you are, as in the title of your show, a bit of a magnet for phenomena?
I do.
I feel like a lot of places that I can go to, I can sort of sense if something's happening there.
And I feel like a lot of places I go to, things start happening.
And I had some experiences even at the Playboy Mansion.
And so Heff was a really good sport about it and let me bring in paranormal investigators.
I brought him Barry Taft.
Yeah.
And we did an investigation at the mansion.
And he actually was getting crazy EMF readings off of me.
And he said he concluded that I was the conduit there.
So I think.
What exactly was manifesting at Hugh Hefner's mansion?
Well, lots of people experience different things.
And I think that there's even more stories that I need to get into.
My first episode of my podcast is The Ghosts of the Playboy Mansion.
But I think I'm going to have to do an episode too because since I did that, even more people are like, oh, I have stories.
I have stories too.
So, but for me, things were going on there.
And there are small things.
I don't want to give too much away of my first podcast, though.
So I don't think we've, you know, just to be fair, we've got to go into it to some extent, if you don't mind.
But look, tell me, if you don't want to tell me the stories that you were personally involved in or too much of it, tell me stories that other people have told you from there.
Well, people have just felt that there's a ghost story that goes long before Heff ever got there about Mrs. Letts.
She's one of the original owners.
And supposedly she either jumped or was pushed to her death off the balcony in there.
So there is a ghost story that goes way before Heff.
And then, of course, even in Heff's life, there was lots of tragedy and everything.
Dorothy Stratton and other people that had passed away that were very close to the mansion and would hang out there frequently.
So I think that there's a lot of history there.
And I think that there is a lot of people who, that there are a lot of people who would still like to be there.
And I don't think it's unusual that there might be activity there.
Okay.
And just give me a flavor, without giving too much away, of what you experienced when you were living there.
Definitely some electrical issues going on with my television.
I did see somebody at some point in my room, and I wasn't alone when we saw it.
So I have witnesses to it.
What did you see in your room, Bridget?
I can't give it all away.
Okay.
Well, you have to tune in on March 11th.
Okay, but you know, your agent asked if you could come on this podcast.
So we've got to give my audience something.
Otherwise, it's going to be a big letdown.
I've got lots of ghost stories to tell, but that particular one you have to tune in for.
But the game house was super haunted too.
And people, the housekeeping are afraid to go out there.
And the gym is underground in the basement.
And Holly had a story in the gym that this girl walked by and went through a doorway that she didn't realize was a doorway.
And then she tried to go find the doorway.
And all she found was like a secret panel that was just to a closet.
So where did the girl go?
Like just everybody has a lot of stories at the mansion.
So I definitely think there's something going on there.
Okay.
And do you think that, you know, sometimes people say that places become haunted because the events that have happened there are sometimes traumatic or they're sometimes important for the people involved.
Do you think that the experiences of people who went to work there and be there when it was being run by Hugh Hefner were something to do with the fact that there are so many things apparently imprinted upon that building?
For the people that work there, no, I would say that it goes back to the original owners of the Letzes and whatever tragedy may have happened in the house then.
Okay.
All right.
But you were quite happy to live in a place that appeared to be haunted.
What did Hugh Hefner himself make of this?
You said that he was quite happy for you to go in and stake the place out and bring an investigator in.
Yeah, well, because I was also taking classes to be a paranormal investigator online.
There's this thing called Flammel College where you can actually take classes online.
And my final thing was to do an actual ghost hunt and write a report about it.
So of course I wanted to do the Playboy Mansion.
And while I was researching it, I just found that there was so much information and there were so many stories out there that it was much more than just like a final report for a class that I needed to write a book on it.
So I started writing a book about the ghosts of the Playboy Mansion.
And thought it was, he just like laughed about it.
He, he didn't deny that it was a possibility, but he wasn't like, he wasn't super into it or anything like that.
But he was a super good sport.
Like we would take ghost tours.
Even when we went to London with him, we went and did the Jack the Ripper tour.
Did you do the Tower of London?
The Tower of London is supposed to be Tower of London.
Yes, we did Tower of London.
We did Jack the Ripper tour.
And all of that was me going, oh my God, we have to do this and we have to do that.
And he was such a good sport.
And then when I said, oh, we should bring in a paranormal investigator, he was totally fine with it.
So I wouldn't say that he was 100% believer, but he was very supportive of me trying to investigate it and figure things out.
Now, there's no reason why you should know this, but I don't live very far from a place called Hampton Court Palace.
In fact, I could walk to it.
Did you go there?
Hampton Court.
Yes.
I can tell you that is supposed to be a seriously haunted place where the people who work there will often tell you, and I spoke at length to one of the guys who'd been there for 30 years, that the likes of Henry VIII regularly appear to the staff there.
All sorts of things.
That'd be so scary.
But it didn't happen for you then.
No, I didn't have a, well, we were on a tour, you know, with lots of people around and everything.
And I think that sometimes the more people that are around, it's harder to have that kind of experience.
But no, we were just there during the day doing a regular tour and we loved it.
And I, I would, but that would be so incredible to be there alone at night and investigate it.
All right.
Would you do that?
Yes.
Since you're so close, you'd have to come and meet us and do it with us.
I would definitely do that.
They don't, in terms of media, they don't do an awful lot of it.
You know, they do ghost tours of their own, and you know about that because you've been there.
But they don't tend to do an awful lot of kind of media.
I tried to do a show there, and even though I'm a local, you know, and I'm a big supporter of the place, they said no.
So it's not an easy thing to do, which I guess builds up the mystique of it, really.
Have you been to, I would guess that in the area that you live and in the field that you work in, you're often around places like the Hollywood Walk of Fame and stuff like that.
I would have thought that if, and I've been there and it's very atmospheric, I would have thought if any place is haunted, that walk of fame is going to have one or two stories to tell.
Well, again, it's just so busy right there, and there's so many people.
I don't know how I don't know if you could actually experience something in that kind of atmosphere like that with so much going on.
I mean, millions of people.
There's people laying on the sidewalk.
There's tourists going by.
There's people taking pictures.
There's tons of traffic.
The clubs are busy.
And it's like that almost 24 hours a day there.
So it's just very crowded and it would be hard to pick up anything in that kind of way, I think.
And there's impersonators.
So you'd be like, oh my God, Marilyn Monroe.
Nope, that's just an impersonator.
I saw the Marilyn Monroe one myself.
But I had a photograph taken by Clint Eastwood's star there because he was always a bit of a hero of mine.
And that photograph never, digitally, it somehow erased itself.
So I don't have that photograph standing by Clint Eastwood's star.
That means I've got to come back, I think.
In terms of Hollywood, and look, you're just a stone's throw from it all and part of it, there are a million stories of people who've led anguished lives.
I mean, there are people like Marilyn Monroe herself and the controversy about how she died.
Are you going to be checking out some of those locations to see if you can pick up anything in places like that?
Oh, I'll go.
I would love to be able to go to places like that.
Some of those places, a lot of the places are privately owned.
So they're not open to investigations and things like that.
Like the home Maryland Road died in, that is somebody's private house.
So there's no investigations that take place there as far as I know.
But people that are open to it, like for instance, the Oman house up in Benedict Canyon, he was neighbors with Sharon Tate's house.
Oh, wow.
And so he has all kinds of weird phenomena in his house.
And I've done, I actually hosted a ghost tour at his house once and we weird things happen there.
And he has so much stuff caught on tape.
And he was telling us we were in this room and he was trying to get this little piano thing to play because sometimes it'll play on its own.
And we were all standing in a circle doing that.
And I'm watching him and behind him, the door just slowly shuts behind him.
And I was like, um, wait, the door just shut behind you.
And it was just so surreal watching it close just slowly like that on its own.
And not only that, he has these figurines on top of this aquarium and they just fall over on their own all the time.
And you would think, okay, well, they're figurines, so they're just not that sturdy on there.
But he'll set them back up and then he jumps up and down in front of that whole thing, and they don't budge.
But then you walk away and then they fall over.
Oh, Lord.
What's causing that?
I wonder.
Yeah, we all kinds of there's all kinds of things about Benedict Canyon.
One, it was like an Indian reservation at one point.
And then obviously the Manson murders taking place right there.
But Benedict Canyon has a lot of weird and unexplained things going on there.
All right.
I definitely want to dig into that more on my show.
All right.
Well, give me a flavor then of the plans that you've got for stuff that you're going to do.
Give me a taste.
Well, like I said, the first episode is Ghosts of the Playboy Mansion.
The second episode, I'm having Scott from Dearly Departed.
He does these, well, they're called death tours of LA, but I'm going to be talking to him about some of the weird paranormal things.
And we definitely want to talk about Benedict Canyon.
And I'm going to be having David Oman from the Oman House on.
My friend Shana, she is a playmate in former Miss USA.
She's done a lot of paranormal investigations on the East Coast.
I definitely want to hear her stories.
So I'm just going to be talking to a lot of my friends in the celebrity industry that anybody that I can get my hands on that I know has a story and who's willing to share it to come and do that.
And then any live investigations that we can also do, as well as talking to locations.
Like I would love for a representative from Queen Mary or any place really that's haunted to come on and talk to me about the experiences that people have said happened there or that their staff has had, you know, their experiences there.
Well, I wish you luck with it.
Podcasting is not the easiest thing, but it's a lot of fun, but there's a lot of work involved.
Have you got a team working on this or are you doing this all yourself?
I do have a team working on it.
And I had a radio show, a live radio show for two years too.
So I feel like it's very similar to that and the preparation that you have to do for it.
I think I'm up for the challenge.
Well, you know, there's nothing like a challenge in life.
Plus, I'm passionate about it and I love exploring.
I love hearing people's stories.
And so I, you know, if you have a passion for something, then it's not so much work.
Yeah, no.
Listen, I'm here to absolutely concur 100%, 110% with that.
California is a place we're constantly being told where everybody's in therapy.
And these days, the thing that a lot of people are doing is hypnotic regression, right?
To find out who and what they were in the past and whatever connections they have.
Is that some, you strike me as being the kind of person either you've done it or you would want to.
I have not done it.
I would be open to it.
But no, I had a shaman one time tell me that I've had six past lives.
Okay, what were they?
I don't know.
He said in one life I was a medicine woman.
Like he said I was on the battlefield helping wounded.
Okay.
So are you in this thing for the long haul then?
Are you going to be, do you think you're going to be doing, I mean, look, I've been doing this online show and a radio show connected with it since the early 2000s, right?
And I was inspired.
Great.
Well, I was inspired by the Great Heart Bell.
And, you know, radio is an up and down business.
So at one point, I turned it into a podcast and it's been running as a podcast for how many years this year?
See, I lose track of it.
It's 2000.
13 years as a podcast, nearly 14 this year.
And it's been on the radio off and on since 2004.
So it's kind of what I've done.
But you have to have a lot of fortitude for this, I would say.
And, you know, you've just got to keep going.
And you sound like you're going to do that.
I hope so.
Yeah.
Because I'm very, like I said, I'm very passionate about it.
And I like hearing people's stories.
And this is just an opportunity for me to hear those stories and experience through them what they've experienced.
Okay.
And I think that's exciting.
What's the scariest thing you've ever experienced?
You're going to tell me your great-grandfather.
Maybe not.
It's not, actually.
Well, I think because my great-grandfather was so long ago and because I've kind of dismissed it as maybe just something that is hormonal that young teen girls go through.
But the scariest thing that ever happened to me, I was with my fiancé.
It was just a couple years ago.
And I've always wanted to stay at the Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana.
What is that?
The Myrtles Plantation.
It's supposed to be the most haunted house in the United States.
Oh, God.
So, and it's an old plantation home in Louisiana.
And I've read books about it.
I've seen documentaries on it.
I've always wanted to stay there.
So finally, for my birthday, we were going to New Orleans and we decided to rent a car.
And we could only get one night at, we kind of did our planned our trip short notice.
So we were only able to get one night in the Myrtles plantation.
We went there to spend the night.
And by the way, my fiancé is super skeptic.
He's a good sport.
He'll go with me on things, but he sort of thinks it's silly and he doesn't, he's not a believer.
Does that lead to disagreements from time to time?
Not really, because he's not always in my face about it.
He just kind of is very, very skeptical.
That's what Bridget does.
We'll let her get on with that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But he's a good sport.
He'll hold the EMEF meter and say, oh, you know, it's flashing over here.
Or he'll film me doing it so that I have video of it and that kind of thing.
But so we go to the Myrtles Plantation.
We rent out the room that has, there's a haunted staircase and a haunted mirror in the entryway.
So there's one room that actually is has that part of the house affiliated with it.
And nobody else is allowed to come into that area because it's part of your room, if that makes any sense.
So at night, we decide to start going on our investigation.
And I'm sitting on the 17th step where somebody supposedly died.
And I'm trying to get EVPs.
And he's over the haunted mirror where people have seen things appear in the mirror.
And there's like blood streaks down the mirror, supposedly.
He has the EMF meter and he's doing all of that.
And we're not getting anything.
I mean, the EMF meter, it was a K2 meter and the light was Not even doing the little first green nodule.
I had to like double check several times to make sure it was still on and that the batteries were working because it just was not picking up anything at all.
So finally, we give up.
I'm like, I'm just not getting anything here.
And we are laying in bed.
We're using the iPad, just playing games, trying to fall asleep because there's no TVs, no nothing in this house.
So finally, we're starting to fall asleep.
And all of a sudden, we hear above us, but we're on the top floor.
So there is nothing above us.
We hear thuds.
And I'm like, did you just hear that?
He's like, yeah, I heard it.
Okay.
And then it sounds like furniture is being dragged around.
And then it sounded, and then we heard somebody come running up the stairs outside our room, which nobody else has access to.
So we go and look and no one's out there.
And then we hear creaking, which we know where that is.
We've investigated this whole area.
So we know where the creaking is coming from.
There's creaking on the side in like the little sitting area, but there's nobody there.
And we keep hearing footsteps and stomping around.
And then we hear little kids playing.
And supposedly two little kids had died in the house.
They were poisoned with oleander and their birthday cake.
So it is supposed to be haunted by two little kids.
And a man died on the 17th step.
So supposedly you hear footsteps coming up the stairs, but they stop on the 17th step.
And I mean, the whole house just seemed to be going crazy.
And we kept going, I kept going, oh my God, did you hear that?
He's like, yeah, I heard that.
Did you hear that?
I'm like, yeah, I heard that too.
And I mean, we were just sitting there in bed, like holding on to each other.
And the room felt so heavy, like somebody was in there.
And then all of a sudden we heard like an electronical noise.
And so we jumped up.
I'm like, what was that?
And he's like, oh, I think it's your EMF meter.
It's just, and my EMF meter was going crazy.
It would light all the way up to red, then turn off and go all the way back to red again, turn off all the way back to red again.
And I'm like, but that doesn't even make noise.
It just lights up.
So there was something going on in there.
It was just, it was just an hour of absolute craziness from three something to about four something.
And then all of a sudden, around four something, I just felt this whole release and it was over.
And I'm like, do you feel that?
It's over.
So it's almost as if something had wanted to put on a show for you both.
And he, he does not believe.
And he was just like, I do not know what was going on.
And then we went down to breakfast.
They do like biscuits, homemade biscuits and gravy for breakfast and everything.
We went down there and there was other people there.
They're like, were you guys moving around in your moving furniture around your room last night?
We're like, it wasn't us.
We heard it too.
And then the staff there said, oh, what room were you guys staying in?
And when we told them what room, they were like, oh, congratulations for making it through the night.
The last two people that have stayed in that room didn't make it through the night.
Well, thank God they told you that at breakfast time and not the previous night is all I can say.
I said, I need the t-shirt.
They said, I survived the Myrtles Plantation.
Wow.
Well, you know, that's a pretty good experience.
So what do you think then?
And we're coming to the end of this now.
And as I say, I wish you good luck with your venture.
What do you think then is happening with all of this?
Do you think that there is a parallel dimension?
Do you think that they call it the stone tape theory that locations record important or bad events that have happened in them?
Or do you believe that there's like a spirit realm?
There are sort of three ways of seeing all of these things.
Which way do you go?
I wish I knew.
I mean, I don't, I'm open to all suggestions of what it could be.
I definitely think that there's residual energy in certain places.
I don't think that somebody would plan to haunt a staircase and be caught walking up and down it for eternity kind of thing.
I don't think that that's something that anybody wants to do for eternity.
So I think that it's just sort of residual.
Like somehow that energy is just sort of repeating itself there.
I am intrigued by the idea of a parallel universe going on, but that just seems like a lot to wrap my head around and think that that's happening.
I'd rather believe that it's somebody from the spirit world just trying to reach out or make communication or has unfinished business of some sort or something like that.
I feel like it keeps it more human to me, but I really don't know.
And I'm open to hearing all kinds of ideas on what it could be.
Do you believe in reincarnation?
Do you think you, I mean, you've had, apparently you've had six lives before, so you must reincarnate.
You know, I'm not sure if I believe in it or not, but I would like to.
I like to think that that's what happens.
Okay.
I think that that, I think that that's a really cool idea, especially if the theory that you're kind of reincarnated and you know, you've lived lives with the same sort of people before.
They may not have been your mom in a past life.
They may be your mom now, but in a past life, it might have been your daughter or your sister.
I like to think that the same people that you know and love right now are going to be in your future lives as well in one way or another.
And pets too.
But, you know, I just don't know.
And that's what I love about doing this podcast too, is hearing people's thoughts and theories on things and how they feel and stuff.
And, you know, just trying to figure it out kind of like a ghost detective.
Well, I have to say, look, I tend not to have people who do other podcasts on my show.
And I tend not to go on theirs.
It's just the way things have worked out over the years.
I don't know.
I know there's a lot of this going on.
I just kind of, I quietly, and, you know, my name is Howard Hughes, I think reclusively get on with what I do.
I love your name, by the way.
So, well, it's got a bit, as you know, it's got a bit of a history.
And of course, there's a Howard Hughes, is it Parkway or Freeway?
I forget which, in Los Angeles, if you check that out.
It's not very far from the airport.
It's right by the airport.
Yeah, I know.
I took a photograph of the sign.
I thought, wow, you know, I'm immortal here.
And this is my real name.
But, you know, after the podcast thing, you know, a lot of us tend to kind of do what we do in isolation.
And we don't actually share ideas with other people.
I was on Natalie Gray's podcast.
She lives in Los Angeles.
She's a real combination.
She's Canadian.
Oh, Natalie, I've got this right.
British American citizen.
So she's...
And has an office at Pinewood Studios, which is where, of course, they make the big movies like the Bond movies.
But that's the only other podcast that I've ever appeared on.
Oh, Wow.
It's an unusual thing.
So I wish you well with the launch.
Are you the ghost magnet, or is that just a title for the thing, for the program?
Well, I think that I am, but I also think that people that come on the show probably are too.
If they have stories to tell, then I think that anybody who's had paranormal experiences is probably a ghost magnet.
It's a very clever title, I have to say.
You're not going to have any problems with anybody stealing that name from you, I don't think.
It's a very clever title.
Okay, good.
Well, listen, Bridget, amazing to talk with you.
You've had a hell of a life up to now, and there's still plenty of time to go.
You know, I only wish you great adventures and a lot of fun doing it, too, in wonderful California.
And thank you for talking with me.
And give my regards.
If you come to London, we'll try and do Hampton Court.
Let's do the Hampton Court thing because you will be found.
I mean, it's different.
Look, I live around here, but it's different every time I go.
And you would think that I would be bored by it by now, but I'm just not.
There's always something different there.
And even I feel strange presences in certain parts of that building.
And the stories, if you get talking to the people in the uniforms there who guide people around and help you, they will tell you all of them, well, most of them, remarkable stories of stuff that is very hard to explain.
Bridget, a pleasure to speak with you.
You too.
Thank you so much for having me.
And I will, of course, put a link to Bridget and her work on my website, theunexplained.tv.
Well, we've got more great guests in the pipeline for you here.
We've got more good weather coming, too.
I'm just looking at the back end of that sunset at the moment.
It is absolutely fabulous.
You know, it's one of those days that you'll remember.
You know, I'm going to remember for a long time the day when temperatures hit 68 Fahrenheit in the UK.
On a February day when, in my childhood, February was synonymous with ice and cold winds and hard, you know, hard conditions.
But today has been something quite different.
Now, whether that speaks to us about what is happening to our climate, maybe it does, I don't know, and I think we need to talk about that in a future edition.
But today, it's almost as if somebody up there declared a big truce, and apparently they're going to do the same thing again tomorrow.
And you get no complaints from me about that.
I'll be out on my bike again if I get time.
Thank you very much for being part of this.
As I say, we've got more guests coming for you very soon here on The Unexplained.
So until next we meet, my name is Howard Hughes.
I am in London.
This has been The Unexplained and please stay safe, stay calm, and above all, please stay in touch.
Thank you very much.
Take care.
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