Interview-Alternate Perceptions Magazine, November 2014
An Interview with Paranormal Investigator Mike Sears
by: Brent Raynes
Mike Sears, who saw his first ghost at age 5, is no stranger to the paranormal. He’s had some truly unique, incredible sounding experiences, and in 2008 he founded Tennessee’s Volunteer State Paranormal Research. He and members of his paranormal team (which includes his wife Monique) were featured recently on a local PBS program called Tennessee Crossroad, showing how they investigated the reportedly haunted civil war era mansion known as the Rippavilla Plantation, in Springhill, Tennessee. Here’s a link to Mike’s website.
Brent Raynes: Mike, please tell us a little about yourself and how you came to be so interested in the paranormal?
Mike Sears: I live in the middle Tennessee area with my wife and two great kids. I’m blessed to have a family who support the research and work that I do. I was involved with the paranormal at a very young age. When I was five years of age, I was in my bed and awakened to see a young girl wearing a white Victorian dress with her dark black hair in curls. This happened at my parent’s house in western New York; the house dated back to the 1930 time period. My parents at the time told me it was my active imagination or a dream; they were not believers of ghosts. Over the years, I had several other encounters but nothing like the two life changing experiences I had in 1994 in Melbourne, Florida.
The first one was in June of 1994. My dad was dying from Cancer and was kept home under hospice care. I lived at home at the time and helped my mother with my dad. During the month of June we had some experiences with my dad seeing spirits and sharing future events to come. At the time, we thought it was the morphine and medication that was causing these experiences. My father towards mid-June went into a coma for several days. Hospice told my mom that his temperature had rose to 107 degrees and they felt he was very near death. The hospice nurse was scheduled to be off that night and next day. She said that if we’d like them to stay or come the next day to feel free to call them any time and they would be there for us.
My mom stayed at my dad’s side that night and I had gone to bed. I told her if she needed me or my dad passed away, to please come wake me. Later that night, a little after three a.m., in the morning, my dad took his last breath. My mom grieved at his side close to 30 minutes and decided to come wake me and let me know of his passing. Before my mom could leave the living room, where my dad was in the hospice bed, he sat up in the bed and spoke out to her. He asked her to come back to the bed and talk to him. My mom in shock couldn’t believe she was hearing him speak, since he couldn’t speak well for weeks and spoke nothing while in a coma. His color back in his face and looking very much alive, he started to talk to my mom. He told her that he had begged to come back and be able to tell my mom and I that there is nothing to worry about with him when he is gone, that he will be fine once he passes away. That his pain will be gone and that he will be with passed family and friends on the other side. My dad and mom talked for hours. He talked to passed family and friends, sharing messages to my mom. My mom said she couldn’t see anyone, but she said she could feel a presence in the room. She also felt a static charge in the air, making the hair on her arms stand up. One of the more amazing talks she had was my dad’s first wife. She was from Japan, where her and my dad had met when he was in the military. He spoke fluent Japanese and shared to my mom what his first wife wanted her to know. My mom spoke to my dad till the early morning. It was almost eight a.m. and she felt I needed to be awakened to know the night events. My dad said before he spoke to me, that he needed to go freshen up and take a shower. He rose from the bed and walked to his own bedroom on his own, took a shower and dressed himself. A man who was restricted to bed for over a month, a man who had to be hand fed during the month of June. My mom woke me and told me that I needed to go talk to my dad. I was in shock to hear this. I got out of bed and headed to the living room, where the hospice bed was located. I found my dad missing. My mom said I needed to go to her bedroom and find him in his own bed. I was shocked and puzzled hearing this. I walked towards their room and could see my dad sitting up in his own bed awake, the color of his face looking healthy. He called me in and asked if I’d sit near him on the bed. I was speechless at first and then we talked.
During the talk I was shocked to hear my dad make this comment. I had mentioned how rough he had it with his life and fight with cancer. My dad replied, “I haven’t had it rough Mike.” I replied, “Who has then?” He replied, “Jesus has had it rough.” This made me almost fall off his bed in shock, to hear my dad say such a statement. My dad was not a church going person; he was not a fan of religion at all. The only time I heard him say the name “Jesus” was when he was cussing. After our talk, my dad said he was ready to crossover to the other side. My mom told him she didn’t know how this worked and maybe he needed to get to sleep. He wished us well and we said our good byes. Several hours went by and he woke up. He was shocked to be still alive. My mom said to him that maybe he was given a free pass, a day to enjoy life. He said he was hungry and wanted something to eat. My mom offered to make him a smoothie or soup broth, since he hadn’t eaten real food for several weeks. He told us that he wanted real food. He asked me to run to the store and buy him a special meal. I went to Publix and bought some live crawfish, red potatoes, corn on the cob and some beer. My dad helped me cook the meal and we all enjoyed it at the dinner table. We talked all day sharing family stories and experiences. Later that night around midnight, he said he was extremely tired and wanted to go to sleep. He wished us well and we said our goodbyes in case he didn’t awaken in the morning. The next morning he was back in a coma. Hospice was scheduled to be there that morning and when they came in the house, they were very upset to find him in his own bed. They didn’t believe what my mom and I had experienced. My dad had returned into a coma, his color of health was gone. Three days later he passed away for the second time.
The second event in 1994 would happen two months later in August. I was awakened around three a.m. in the morning. I felt a presence of someone in my bedroom. I thought someone had broken into the house. I reached for my handgun and to turn on the light, but before I could, someone grabbed me by my ankles and was pulling me off the bed. I was pulled almost all the way off the bed; my waist on the end of the edge of the bed and my legs being held by someone. I started to kick and twist to break free. My legs dropped and feet fell to the floor. I climbed up my bed as fast as I could to reach my hand gun and to the light. Someone jumped on top of me and pushed my face deep into my pillow. I screamed out to warn my mom, but sadly it was muffled by the pillow. I fought and pushed myself up and felt whoever it was on top was gone. I turned on the light and turned with my gun in hand to see who was there. I was shocked to find no one in my bedroom and to see that my bedroom door was closed shut. I got out of bed and went to wake my mom. I woke her up and explained to her what had happened. She got out of bed and went to wash her face to wake herself up. When she came out of her bathroom she witnessed me lift off her bedroom floor and being thrown back over ten feet into her bedroom wall. I yelled to her saying I was being attacked again. She witnessed me being attacked for almost thirty minutes. During the attack she saw me being touched and grabbed by an unknown force and the hair on my body stand straight up when it happened. She even grabbed onto me several times and she could feel the energy go through her. After that night I would continue to be attacked day and night in the house for just over a year. We witnessed electrical items turn on and not even be plugged in an outlet, objects thrown at me, multiple doors slamming at the same time, light bulbs explode, my Akita dog being attacked, and seeing shadow figures at times. My mom and I called all kinds of clergy to bless the home and it just made the activity worse and active. We called in a medium and she left running out of the house. When she was there, she picked up on the three spirits who knew of my dad when he was in the Vietnam War and that they were upset that my dad had crossed over and they had not; they were haunting my dad since the war according to her. When the medium was there these events happened, we witnessed multiple tea candle flames reach heights of 12 inches and higher. The medium had lit a 6 inch circumference candle in the living room, she returned less than 30 minutes to find it all melted on the table, and the part that made her run out of the house was the large family Bible that was laid on my bed. She had asked to open the Bible and lay it on my bed and read from it. The bedroom got ice cold, you could see your breath and the pages on the book started to lift up and turn on their own, like a fan or wind blowing on it. Then the Bible lifted up in the air on the bed and the book slammed shut. She said quickly, open it again and start reading whatever verse you find. So I did it and the events repeated itself. This time we stepped out of the room when the pages started to turn on its own. We watched the book rise again several inches off the bed and slam shut. The bedroom door swung hard and slammed in our faces. Right then the medium wished us the best and grabbed her items and left our house.
Months later my mom had a student who was Native American. She found out his dad was a medicine man. She called him and asked if he was able to help us. He came over and did a ritual that lasted almost eight hours. He taught me a lot in that time. After his cleansing, the activity ceased for almost a full year. My mom had left for vacation and the first night I was home alone the negative spirits made a presence. My dog ran into my bedroom and jumped on my bed scared. All of a sudden, every door in the house started to open and close, slamming hard each time. I screamed out that I wasn’t afraid of it anymore and to do whatever it wanted. The doors suddenly stopped. After that night the activity continued but not as violent and as often. Those two events inspired me to search and learn more about the paranormal, to take those experiences and help others understand what they might be experiencing and that there is an Afterlife.
Brent Raynes: Please tell us about your group Volunteer State Paranormal Research, why you created it, and what you hope to accomplish.
Mike Sears: Volunteer State Paranormal Research was created back in 2008. I had worked with other teams prior and had learned a lot from them, but their goals were not the direction I wanted to go in. I didn’t get into Ghost Hunting for a hobby, something fun to do on a weekend or to be famous. I was seeing TV shows and teams in it for a thrill and to have that personal experience. I wanted to have a team that could learn more about the Afterlife and to help people understand that not all paranormal activity is something to fear. I wasn’t seeing others relating to the client or researching the Afterlife. When my mom and I were going through the haunting experience, we had reached out to various paranormal teams. Back in 1994, there were not as many paranormal teams as today. Those we found were mostly on TV. They wanted to only help if they could film it on television and the one local team we were able to find, were too scared to help. What I hope to accomplish is to help others understand their experiences and maybe break the stigma that all paranormal activity is negative and should be feared.
Brent Raynes: Besides helping others with their paranormal and haunting situations, you and your wife Monique I gathered have had ongoing experiences of your own, at your own residence?
Mike Sears: Yes, our home is an active location. We moved in our house in 2005, and at the time I wasn’t seeking the paranormal. I was still keeping distant from it due to living through an extreme haunting. Our house is not old or full of history. The second day we lived in the house I was in my office area, which is located in the basement. I was setting up my computer and saw someone coming down the stairs in a white dress. At first I thought it was my wife, but as the person continued down the stairs it was revealed that it wasn’t my wife but another woman. The woman had her hair in a bun and was a sandy red in color. She reached the bottom of the stairs and then entered the room. She stopped, looked at me and smiled. She then turned her face away from me and continued to walk across the room till she reached the wall and went right through it. I was shocked and yelled out to my wife Monique, “We live in a haunted house!!!” I sure didn’t want to live through what I had in Florida again. Several months went by and my three year old daughter started asking to go outside in our front yard to play with the little boy. My wife and I would look outside and never see the boy. As time went on our daughter started playing with what we thought was an imaginary friend in her bedroom. A boy named “Joe”. We asked her where he comes from and she said that he is the same boy who used to be outside. I went and asked one of the neighbors who has the little boy, so we could meet him and his parents. The neighbor explained that we were the first family in a while that had kids on the street; that there were no other kids on our street. A few months later, late at night, Monique and I were awakened by what we first thought was our cat on the bed. Monique sat up to find a little boy sitting at the end of the bed. I felt him sitting on the bed near my feet, before I could sit up and see him; he had hopped off the bed and walked in front of our foot board. Monique saw him vanish in thin air. She later asked our daughter to describe Joe and it matched the boy she had seen in our room. A year later, I saw him for the first time sitting at our kitchen table. He was sitting there and smiled at me. Then he just vanished. Over the years, at the house we have seen the boy and the lady many times. We have done EVP sessions and had them respond to our questions. Since I got into paranormal research, we have had other spirits follow us home showing themselves and talk during our EVP sessions. We don’t fear them and we treat them as guests.
Brent Raynes: Although your primary focus is with regard to psychic/paranormal phenomena, when I mentioned UFOs at Sandy Nichol's home the other day you told me of a very interesting experience that you and your mother had some years back. Would you care to describe it for us?
Mike Sears: The event happened when I was 13 in the early 1980’s. I lived in western New York just south of Rochester. We lived in a small town that was very country and a rural setting. My mom was picking me up from karate class and it was a very dark night out, but clear skies. It was late Fall for the time of year this happened. She was driving me home and I was looking out the window of the vehicle and saw this bright glow coming from this field. The light suddenly lifted straight up in the air. I yell to my mom to look quickly at the field to see this. Just as she looked it shot across the sky superfast and disappeared. She pulled over to the side of the road and we tried to see where it went, but it was gone. We got home and shared the experience with my dad. He laughed and thought we had an active imagination. The late evening news came on TV and the news reported about people calling in about a bright white light flying in the skies south of Rochester, New York. My mom and I were excited to know it wasn’t just us who saw this. The next day on the evening news they reported that the mystery lights were from a spot light that was being used for a sales event at a car dealership. My mom and I laughed and said no way in hell that was a search light. Rochester and that dealership are over twenty five miles away. No way that light was resting in the field, shot up in the air and then went right and vanished. Later we drove back to the field area where we spotted the light. In the field we found a perfect circle of flatten grass/wheat. The circle was over 30 plus feet across. Was it an UFO event? I’m not sure, but a moment I won’t forget and something I can’t explain.
Brent Raynes: How do you feel your work and your experiences in the realm of the paranormal have perhaps changed your life?
Mike Sears: I feel the work and experiences I have had with the paranormal has changed my life. The biggest one is I no longer fear death; that this part of our lives is just a small part of our journey. The eight plus years I have been investigating I have learned I am not alone with these experiences, that there are many others who share them also.