INTERVIEW: ‘Ghost Hunters’ star Dustin Pari explains first paranormal experience, fear of dark hallways

Amazingly Ghost Hunters is back on Syfy for season 10, beginning Wednesday, Aug. 26 at 9 p.m. While so many other paranormal shows have drifted into the afterlife, this reality series has withstood the test of time (and several cast changes) to remain a stalwart ahead of the pack.

Dustin Pari was a hunter on previous seasons, and now he’s back to look for evidence of the paranormal in several interesting locations.

“I think the fans are really going to enjoy it,” Pari said recently of season 10. “We had some incredible locations that we were able to investigate for season 10. One of my personal favorites was the Wild Turkey distillery that we did. I mean that place is so well known. It’s a piece of American history, so it’s very cool to be able to get into something like that. But then on the other side of that, something that has always been very important to me, one of the reasons that we do what we do is … some of the homes and the private residences. So we were able to do that as well. I think it was a great balance, and I think that it’ll be great for people to see.”

Pari left the show because the lifestyle of traveling and filming was demanding on his family. He did return for Ghost Hunters International, but the same issue arose. However, now the timing seems right for his return.

“I’ve always maintained a very nice relationship with everybody that’s on the team and on the program,” he said. “They asked me if I’d come back to do a couple of episodes. I said, ‘Yeah, it sounds like it would be a good time. I’d love to.’ … A couple episodes ended up being the whole season.”

Pari said that the evidence he’s able to capture is part of a larger “spiritual journey” that he’s on. From an electronic voice phenomenon (EVP) to the glimpse of a possible apparition, he calls these “precious moments” that speak to something larger. “They speak to our afterlife, the persistence of our soul from this world to the next,” he said. “So to have the opportunity to see something like that, to witness it, to be a part of it, it’s just amazing.”

Even though he’s a believer, he’s also skeptical of the evidence he examines. Pari said he is determined to find the truth. “You don’t want to just take a story and run with it, and Lord knows there’s a lot of stories about a lot of different places, a lot of buildings,” he said. “A lot of people are just going to get tied up in folklore and that kind of stuff, so when you are researching actively in the field, you want to make sure that what you’re experiencing is real. So you do need to be a little stringent in kind of your validation of experiences.”

When watching an episode of Ghost Hunters it’s easy to become scared, even from the safety of a living room. On the scene, it must be frightening to head into dark passages and listen for the possible presence of ghosts.

“You don’t get any false macho bravado with me for sure,” he said with a laugh. “I love the adrenaline rush that you get when you’re doing an investigation, but I have my weaknesses, too, man. When it comes to places like prisons, or old schools or hospitals, I do not like the long, dark hallway with all those open doors or jail cells. That freaks me out. I always get kind of nervous in those things. I try to stay in the center and just stay focused. I don’t like pop-out, scary kind of things. I kind of feel like that situation, those hallways and all those doorways, kind of lends to that possibility, so I try to keep my mind focused and occupied so that I’m not really paying too much to those doors that bother me so much.”

The team that surrounds Pari, including leader Jason Hawes, has become close over the years. “Many of the team members I’ve known for almost 10 years, but it’s interesting, you know, because you meet recent additions and such. I know like KJ McCormick. He was on the show previously, but not on the same time as I was. So we would see each other in passing here and there. We never had the chance to get to know each other or investigate together, and lately we’ve been paired up a lot. … I think that not only have I gotten the best evidence that I’ve ever gotten in terms of investigations, but I’m having the most fun that I’ve ever had doing it.”

When Pari and the team head into an investigation, they don’t need a lot of equipment or a large camera crew. “We don’t want to contaminate the evidence or the field if we’re trying to do our work,” he said. “But I have to give them [the camera crew] credit. They really are professional, and they know what it is we’re trying to do. So they stay very silent. They stay out of the way. They really don’t present that much of a problem, and it’s interesting, too, because not all of them were believers in the beginning. But the more that they’re around, and they start to have their own experiences and everything, it’s cool to see how they start to get into it and get excited about paranormal occurrences that happened.”

No doubt there are skeptics of the investigations on Ghost Hunters and the entire paranormal field. Pari has had encounters with some folks who are doubtful of his research. “It seems to me that when they have that experience, when something happens, that’s when they become believers,” he said. “I think that’s natural. I think that’s normal. I don’t think we all should just believe what we’re told to believe. It should be a personal journey. It’s interesting to watch people take those steps and learn on that journey.”

Pari’s own journey into the paranormal began when he was 8 or 9 years old. Here’s how he put it: “I had seen what we would now classify as a shadow figure. It stood about 6 feet tall. It was in my doorway of my childhood bedroom, and my family was still up. So hallways, the kitchen, all the lights, everything was still on, so this thing was completely backlit. It was just a freestanding shadow, and it petrified me as a kid. I just pulled the covers over my head, and I said my prayers. I never saw the thing again, and I lived there for another nine or 10 years. Then I moved out, and I always wondered whatever that was [that] chose to visit me and what its purpose was. And I kind of feel like now it is what put me on this path. That’s what set me up searching for answers. Without that initial first occurrence, my first contact, God knows what my path would be in life. … That put that hunger in me for answers when it comes to the paranormal.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Ghost Hunters returns Wednesday, Aug. 26 at 9 p.m. on Syfy. Click here for more information.