The book "Tabloid Man and the Baffling Chair of Death" chronicles Paul Bannister's excursions as a freelance writer/reporter for the well-known American supermarket tabloid, 'The National Enquirer'. He recalls some of the astounding tales his fellow reporters and coworkers survived, as well as his repeated forays into the world of the paranormal. The bizarre encounters he was lucky enough to experience are brought back to life with his witty banter and investigative approach. I found myself unable to put the book down, gobbling up the text, and eager to know what the author would run into next. Each tale, expertly told, brought me closer to understanding the strange relationship between the tabloid, and those who bravely worked under the iron fist or the owner. It also gave me a glimpse into days gone by, where strange occurrences fascinated readers through print and propelled inquiring minds to investigate the unknown.

Folks who grew up reading the sensational headlines, while waiting to pay for their groceries, will be transported back in time, as Paul recalls some of the most famous stories to grace the Enquirer's front page. I was fortunate to have an opportunity to interview Paul about his book, and that interview is below. ~ Kendra Belgrad, SRI Team Leader

(SRI) You've worked with some fascinating individuals. Please tell us a little about your relationship with G.P., the owner of The National Enquirer?

(PB) The National Enquirer was owned by one man, Generoso Pope Jr, a onetime CIA psychological warfare expert. I’ll not go into great detail about GP, that’s dealt with in my book, but he certainly changed the face of American media with his single-minded focus and ability to shape his papers the way he wanted them.

His staff didn’t have a friendship with him, it was more the relationship you’d have between a lion-tamer and his beasts. He ruled by fear of firing, and, again I deal with this at length in ‘Tabloid Man,’  by putting us in competition with other staff members.

(SRI) In your opinion, what was the most bizarre story you ever reported, and why?

(PB) I am proud that I brought news of the CIA remote viewing experiments to the public, detailing how the agency was training psychic spies through the other SRI (Stanford Research Institute)  but I did many other stories that I feel informed or entertained readers. Of course some were odd. It’s bizarre to be groomed by a gorilla that can communicate through sign language (and took her own self-portrait for the cover of National Geographic) just as it’s odd to be addressed by a ghost or entity, as happened to me when I investigated the Enfield poltergeist case in London.

(SRI) When you visited 284 Green Street in Enfield, North London, with Maurice Grosse of The Society for Psychical Research, what were you expecting to experience when you entered the home? Did your thoughts on poltergeist activity change after seeing it first hand at that house?

(PB) It was not frightening to witness events in the Enfield house, though I did jump a little when a voice boomed down my ear as I walked in. I’d witnessed PK activity in Brazil before that, and in Toronto, where Professor George Owen ‘created’ a ghost who could never have existed and had tables levitate and so forth, classic Victorian seance material.

(SRI) Though the activity was said to disappear as mysteriously as it began, did you ever wish to revisit that location? If so can you explain why?

(PB) I didn’t return to the Enfield house, partly because there was no call to do so, but also because it was a sad, miserable place that was not welcoming. The very fabric of the house seemed negative, just as Busby’s Chair had a similar aura. We’ve all experienced houses that welcome you, and places that seem unfriendly. Our intuition isn’t too often wildly wrong, so maybe there is an energy we don’t yet know about. After all, we have only harnessed –if that’s the word – electricity in the past couple of hundred years. Before that we had millennia knowing it only as lightning. It wouldn’t surprise me to find there are other forms of natural energy that could explain psi functioning, ghosts or other echoes.

(SRI) You have worked on many controversial stories during your years as a reporter for The National Enquirer, what was the one you were most proud of? Did any leave you with a sense of regret? Where there any stories you refused to cover?

(PB) Among controversial stories I did take on were the Jon Benet Ramsey murder, the OJ Simpson case, the Chandra Levy/Gary Condit affair, Obama’s birth certificate mystery (I was on that story from 2007 onwards, by the way) George W Bush’s meltdown in the White House and a number of others. I wasn’t happy about a story I uncovered in Hawaii about Obama in his high school years, as I felt it was unfair to dredge up something from 27 years before, but it ran as a front page piece in several of the tabloids. On balance, I’d have treated that differently, so yes, I did regret that one.

(SRI) You spoke with the former owner of the Busby Stoop. Following your investigation into the 'Baffling Chair of Death', were you inclined to believe or disbelieve the account you were given?

(PB) Although the story of Busby’s Chair, the Baffling Chair of Death, had an unexpected outcome which I won’t give away here, I’m convinced of a couple of things. The chair was imbued with evil. The Soviets worked on something similar in the 1970s and 80s, using psychics to put vibrations of evil or confusion into inanimate objects they gave as gifts to opponents. Sounds bizarre, but I heard that from several credible sources and I have an open mind on it still.

(SRI) Did you feel any pangs of loss when your picture of the 'Baffling Chair of Death' was destroyed?

My original photographs of Tony Earnshaw and the Chair were destroyed after the anthrax attack on American Media’s offices, but I still have the image in my old book ‘Strange Happenings,’ and the curator of the museum in Thirsk where the Chair is on view sent me a snapshot that I used on the cover of Tabloid Man. It’s the real thing and I’ve been interested to see how many people have asked to see just that picture.

(SRI) As the Enquirers senior reporter on "the psychic", how did you feel about speaking to those who claimed experiences or belief in such activity?

(PB) I was fortunate in my years as a staff reporter that my area of interest was the paranormal, it allowed me to stand aside from some of the tabloids’ more distasteful celebrity stories, and during three decades as a freelancer, not being on staff meant I was able to turn down some assignments I really did not want to work.

Of course, as the Enquirer’s chief reporter of the paranormal, I met a lot of people who claimed abilities I privately think they didn’t have. Some, like a fellow in Fort Lauder dale who claimed to channel  ‘the princess Tara from 5000 BC’  was just stupid. I asked the ‘princess’ when this fellow was in his pretend trance how she knew it was BC if Christ had not yet been born. Response: ‘Do not mock me, mortal!’ I exited, laughing.

(SRI) Was there ever a time you believed differently, and if so, what changed your mind?

(PB) Not really. As a small boy, I twice saw the apparition of an old man in my boyhood home, turned out when I described him to my mother he was the previous (deceased) owner.

(SRI) After witnessing Professor John Hasted's test subject Julie Knowles using the power of her mind, what was the first thought that went through your mind?

Watching mental feats by teenage Julie Knowles and others – Uri Geller, a boy in LA called David Shepherd, people at a spoon bending party I went to in Santa Monica, when I bent my own spoons without doing anything more than stroke them and will them to bend – several did, easily – only convinced me that we don’t know everything.

(SRI) In your book, you write about psychometry and Howard Starkel's impressive demonstration with artifacts from General Custer's Last Stand at Little Bighorn. In your travels, have you encountered other demonstrations of psychic abilities that showed such accuracy, and knowledge of details that were not in the public record?

(PB) I came across this reasonably often, oddly in commercial psychics who are usually just good readers of people. It seems that the psychics have learned to either identify or trust their intuitions, or maybe can voice them. Of course some are total frauds. There’s a woman in California who makes several millions of dollars a year from her ‘church’ and its gullible members, feeding them nonsense about how heaven has building regulations and there are no insects there unless you want them to be. She’s been busy, too, as she claims 54 past lives.

(SRI) Tell us about your stories that involved psychic detectives. What were your first impressions of those particular people working on cases involving dead people?

(PB) Some are awful, not accurate at all, others are attested to by their local police departments. I was very impressed by Kay Rhea, in Cupertino, who worked extensively with police and police artists to detail events around murders, as well as with several other psychics. I know some make errors, some make dozens of statements that are wrong, but sometimes they hit exactly, against huge odds. Are they tapping into that pool of consciousness or somehow communicating with a murder victim’s mind? What Kay told me indicated the latter – she was shaken and drained after undergoing the emotions of the victim. It wasn’t an experience she enjoyed, but she did it anyway, to close cases.

(SRI) In your experience, were the members of the military you spoke with open to talking about ghostly encounters?

(PB) I found a haunted bomber at an airbase museum near Fresno, California and the fitters, their officers were all very frank and open about the impossible things they’d seen and heard, in contrast to the National Parks personnel who tried to shoo me away.

(SRI) You wrote about a three week ghost tour of Europe, which you set up for the winners of a ghost story contest conducted by the National Enquirer. What was your favorite stop along the way?

(PB) The ghost tour I set up as a reader prize took us to London, Paris, Rome and Munich among other places, but my favorite easily was York, where we re-met Harry Martindale, the policeman who witnessed a parade of Roman-era ghosts in the cellar of the Treasurer’s House there (yep, that’s in the book) and took the ghost tour the city offers.

(SRI) What are your thoughts on past life regression, and have you ever been curious enough to conduct an investigation into your own past?

(PB) That, by the way, is an interesting area, too. For a long time I was suspicious of past life regressions, though I never underwent one for myself. My own family literally came over with the Conqueror, a Banastre is named in the rolls at Battle Abbey and I have records back to 1116 CE of Banastres who lived in my home county of Lancashire, on land grants given to his followers by King William.

Generally, though regression is a bit unconvincing.  Too many people were Napoleon or Cleopatra,  and claimed inaccurate memories that were checkable, but some academics have done credible research. Ian Stevenson in Virginia did extensive work with Indian villagers who believe in reincarnation, gathering cases of young children who somehow ‘knew’ people from previous lives in another village. For me, a very convincing case was brought by Dr Arthur Guirdham in England, who spent decades following the recovered highly-accurate ‘memories’ from two of his patients, who not only claimed to have lived as Cathars in 13th century France, but described events and named names that were only available to scholars capable of translating medieval Latin and French in archives that had been untouched for hundreds of years. That’s also detailed in the book.

You wonder if they really did live before, or if they somehow tapped into a seam of consciousness.

(SRI) When was the last time you listened to the 'ghost on tape' you recorded in your 1982 phone interview with the curator of the old stone house on M Street, in Washington D.C.?

(PB) I did a story about the Old Stone House ghosts in Washington DC – the house is on M Street and has seven ghosts at least. The then curator, Rhea Koch (I think) was her name, was happy to tell all about the ghosts. During our phone interview, which I tape recorded, I made a mis-statement about how many ghosts were in the place and asked her to clarify the number for me. Rhea was chatting on, and I only heard her voice, but when I went back to the tape another distinct, slightly whispery voice interrupted that neither of us heard. It corrected what I’d said with ‘Four, two and a kid.’  This was an intelligence of some sort. To this day. I’m convinced, totally convinced, that I have a ghost’s voice on tape.

I kept that tape, made a copy, too. [Listen to it HERE] Last month (April) I tried to copy the copy for a radio show and for the first time my tape to tape deck failed, went completely bad. I have played the tape on a pocket recorder, it’s fine and I shall get the tape converted to an audio file and put it on my website (www.BannisterBooks.com)  so anyone can hear it.  It isn’t a trick, it really happened just as I described matters. Of course, because I know it wasn’t faked it’s more convincing to me, and I understand that others might be skeptical. Doesn’t matter, I know it’s real and there’s no advantage to me in faking it. Just a few months ago, I called the Stone House and spoke to someone on staff there. I asked politely about the ghosts, explained about the book and recalled my interview with Rhea. He stiffly told me they didn't know her, they ignored all that ghost stuff and made it plain he considered me a kook. Well, thanks. It fitted exactly with what had happened years before after I did several National Parks haunted sites stories. A senior official of the NPS had given me details, then been reprimanded when the stories ran. To save her job, she had to back away from further cooperation.

(SRI) You began your life in England, and have traveled extensively. How did you finally end up in Oregon?

(PB) I came here after 20 years in northern California, and it’s paradise. I may be writing a bio of my actor friend Dan Haggerty – see his droll story of the Siberian tiger and the ice fisherman in ‘Tabloid Man’  and I’d like to put together ‘Grizzly Adams’ Guide to the West’ with the idea of making a TV series from it. Just a hope, and no psychic predicted it!

(SRI) Please tell us about your current projects, and any you have planned for the future.

(PB) I like York, it’s a very ancient city and in an odd way it has cropped up again in my current project. I’ve just written a novel set in the third century CE, based on the true story of the Roman admiral who stole their fleet and set himself up as emperor of Britain. His name was Carausius, and he may be the basis for the legend of King Arthur, as I’ve uncovered a surprising bit of evidence.

I chose to make Carausius British not Belgian as one report had him, and for the narrative, I started his life near Flamborough Head, in Yorkshire. Oddly, as I researched more and let the story flow – I wrote the 80,000 words in six or seven weeks after several months’ research and after creating a matrix or skeleton to hang the story on  – the ties to York got stronger and stronger. One of my characters traded in jet, which is only found in one place in England, near York. The Roman province of Britannica Inferior was ruled from York, the legion destroyed by Boadecia came from York, the sea raiders sailed up the river to loot York, Carausius actually may well have been British, I found, and more and more small ties were established that really happened, yet I didn’t know when I ‘invented’ them for my novel. It was pretty exhilarating to write, as most days I had no real clue what turns the narrative would take and at the end of the day I’d be astonished at how the jigsaw pieces all fitted together neatly.

(SRI) Thank you so much for writing such an interesting book for us to read as well as answering our questions.

(PB) Thanks for reading, enjoy the website, and my weekly e-pistles to friends, which I post on there, with untold stories that didn’t get into the book. Success, too, with your investigations!

Visit Paul Bannister's website: www.bannisterbooks.com

If you'd like to purchase Paul Bannister's book, you may do so at the following Amazon.com link, and by doing so, you will also be supporting SRI's continued operation: Tabloid Man & the Baffling Chair of Death, Vol. 1 (Volume 1)