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We first encountered Mary Marshall at the Chicago Dark Shores Ghost Convention last year where she put on a presentation delving into the scientific investigation of the paranormal. She’s based out of Hoffman Estates  in the Chicagoland area (which I just wanted to mention so that we could all enjoy this picture from a Sunspot show in Hoffman Estates a few years ago.)

While Mary isn’t an actual Paranormal MD (it’s a nickname) she does advocate a scientific approach to exploring the paranormal and has helped found paranormal studies classes at several colleges. We always appreciate a science-based approach here and another thing that I like is that they don’t charge money or offer exorcisms or cleansings.

That’s always been kind of my issue with a lot of paranormal investigation teams. Cleansings and exorcisms don’t really have any scientific basis whatsoever, unless you’re using some kind of psychological explanation for everything and are claiming that the ritualistic aspect of it makes people feel better. And that people feeling better can have some psychic effect on the space (an atmosphere of fear doesn’t usually contribute to a happy home.)

Okay, so Mary Marshall the Paranormal MD goes into depth with us on several of her supernatural experiences, including her original encounter with an evil entity from when she was a teenager and a case of ball lightning that she experienced with her daughter. She elaborates on her latest adventures with us as she recently completed a DVD with our buddy Jay Bachochin from WPI Hunts The Truth where they explore Wisconsin’s Kettle Moraine Forest, which is 100 miles of woods that have plenty of weird legends associated with them.

Jay is a huge Bigfoot fan and he and Mary describe their adventures like as “a dollar store version of Mulder and Scully on a dime store budget” and Mary gives us a preview in the podcast about what we can expect from the upcoming documentary.

When Mary shared with us her first experience with the paranormal she talked about how the room she went into had an overwhelming stench of sulfur (an element that smells like rotten eggs or skunk, and is often associated with volcanos.) In the Bible, sulfur is called “brimstone” and it’s a smell often associated with Hell and demonic activity. We thought that “Sulfur” might make a cool name for this week’s Sunspot paranormal music track.