The guest
Sam Golbach and Colby Brock: Sam & Colby, a YouTube duo from Overland Park, Kansas who built a massive following exploring abandoned and haunted locations with documentary-style videos.
What this episode covers
Sam Golbach and Colby Brock recount meeting in band camp as anxious teens and deliberately training their confidence at the mall before chasing fame on Vine and then YouTube. Their career pivoted after a felony arrest in Florida for trespassing went viral and a knocking 'conversation' in the Queen Mary's room B340 turned them toward haunted content. They walk Joe through their scariest investigations (Villisca Ax Murder House, The Conjuring House, Robert the Doll, Zak Bagans' museum, a near-death Odessa catacombs trip) and the gear and methods they use. The talk weaves in skepticism, the psychology of belief, manifestation and the law of attraction, and the realities of social-media virality.
Recommended on this episode
MediaRecommended
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Francis Ford Coppola
“great movie”
“did you guys watch the Bram Stoker movie yeah with Gary Oldman [ __ ] great movie yeah that's that's wild”— Joe Rogan
MediaRecommended
Nosferatu
F.W. Murnau
“what a great monster movie”
“what a great monster movie though like what a great character and he lived in coffins”— Joe Rogan
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
ProductReferenced
Tums
“I had to like carry around these like Tums the anti-oh pills to just like honestly pop before each time I would go into like a new classroom”— Sam Golbach
MediaReferenced
Fear Factor
“top 10 most haunted places in the world we filmed Fear Factor there once really yeah”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
Candyman
“oh so it's Candyman exactly Candyman yeah yeah so it's the evolution of Candyman”— Joe Rogan
BookReferenced
The Man from the Train
Bill James and Rachel McCarthy James
“the serial killer that went from Midwest Town Midwest town on a train and it's called The Man from the train”— Colby Brock
MediaReferenced
The Conjuring
“as soon as you stepped into the uh The Conjuring House Have You Ever Seen The Conjuring movies yes”— Colby Brock
MediaReferenced
Fire in the Sky
“he was in this uh this movie uh called Fire in the Sky I don't know if you ever heard of it”— Joe Rogan
ProductReferenced
REM Pod
“the rim pod is what they call it I don't know what that stands for really but it does the same thing”— Colby Brock
BookReferenced
Dracula
Bram Stoker
“Dracula the the book by Bram Stoker and all the movies were based on this man named Vlad the Impaler”— Joe Rogan
ProductReferenced
Spirit Box
“there's this thing called a Spirit box that like shuffles through different radio frequencies”— Sam Golbach
MediaReferenced
Annabelle
“so Annabelle's a movie movie franchise is based on a real doll uh so the real doll is like apparently the second most haunted in the world”— Sam Golbach
MediaReferenced
The Osbournes Want to Believe
“the osbornes want to believe the show sees his son jack 34 trying to persuade Ozzy 71 Mom Sharon 68”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
The Amityville Horror
“that movie scared the [ __ ] out of me same when I was a kid how much of that is”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
The Shining
Stanley Kubrick
“so the Stanley was the uh inspiration for the shining right yes correct”— Joe Rogan
MediaReferenced
Ghost Adventures
Zak Bagans
“it was like literally what created Zach Bagans like in his Ghost Adventures and stuff”— Colby Brock
Big reveals from this episode
- Their felony trespassing arrest in Tampa, Florida went number-one worldwide trending and launched their career into the millions of views.
- First believable paranormal experience: a 35-minute yes/no 'knocking' conversation in the Queen Mary's room B340, secretly audio-recorded by a religious friend.
- When asked 'is there a heaven,' the entity knocked three times for no, causing their Christian roommates to flee the room.
- In Odessa, Ukraine's catacombs a guide revealed a pipe bomb and admitted rival guides booby-trap tunnels to kill off competitors' clients.
- Four days before their arrest, they were held at gunpoint by officers who mistook them for school terrorists in all-black gear.
- Sitting in Zak Bagans' Devil's Rocking Chair, Sam felt paralyzed and hypnotized, legs sore as if he'd run 5-10 miles.
- At Robert the Doll's museum Sam suddenly dry-heaved for no reason; the guide tied it to yellow-fever victims buried in that corridor.
- Robert the Doll has received more than 10,000 written apology letters from people who believe he cursed them, including Ozzy Osbourne.
Worth remembering
- Colby broke his back attempting to jump from a second-story balcony onto a bean bag during a pandemic TikTok challenge.
- As an anxious teen, Sam carried Tums to pop before entering each classroom in case he got called on.
- To beat shyness, the pair gave each other embarrassing public challenges at the mall, with 100 push-ups as the penalty for chickening out.
- They got permanently banned from their hometown mall after putting a seating-area couch on an escalator for a video.
- Room B340 on the Queen Mary was reportedly closed for 30 years due to multiple unexplained murders and suicides.
- The 1912 Villisca, Iowa ax murders left two parents and six children dead in one house and remain unsolved.
- Ghost-hunting EMF tools like the REM Pod emit an electromagnetic field that lights up when something enters its roughly two-foot radius.
- Waverly Hills Sanatorium sells out access for the entire year within 20 minutes, and people rent it for parties and birthdays.
- They cite the 'egregore' theory: that enough people collectively believing in something can manifest it into existence.
- Joe debunks the Patterson Bigfoot film, noting the filmmaker was a con man and a man named Bob Hieronymus claimed to be the suit.
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