John Zaffis (born December 18, 1955) is a
paranormal
Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...
researcher born and based in
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...
,
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
. He starred in the
SyFy paranormal reality TV show, ''
Haunted Collector
''Haunted Collector'' is an American television reality series that aired on the Syfy cable television channel. The first season premiered on June 1, 2011, and ended on July 6, 2011. The series features a team of paranormal investigators led by ...
'', and runs the Paranormal and Demonology Research Society of New England, which he founded in 1998.
Career
Zaffis has over forty years of experience as a
paranormal investigator
Ghost hunting is the process of investigating locations that are reported to be haunted by ghosts. Typically, a ghost-hunting team will attempt to collect evidence supporting the existence of paranormal activity. Ghost hunters use a variety of ...
.
[Coast to Coast](_blank)
/ref> Research has taken Zaffis all over the United States as well as Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, and Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
. He lectures at colleges, universities, and libraries throughout the United States, although usually not under academic auspices. Zaffis currently runs the Museum of the Paranormal located in Stratford, Connecticut. He also starred in and wrote the documentary film
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...
''Museum of the Paranormal'', which was released in spring 2010 and produced by New Gravity Media. His first book, ''Shadows of the Dark'', was co-written with Brian McIntyre and published in 2004 through iUniverse.
A documentary film on his work and personal life, called ''John Zaffis: The World Within'' and produced by CORE Films (which also produced the paranormal documentary series '' Scared!''), was released on September 3, 2010.
''Haunted Collector''
Zaffis starred in a documentary TV series on Syfy called ''Haunted Collector
''Haunted Collector'' is an American television reality series that aired on the Syfy cable television channel. The first season premiered on June 1, 2011, and ended on July 6, 2011. The series features a team of paranormal investigators led by ...
'', which premiered on June 1, 2011. It features him, his son, his daughter, and three other crew members searching for ghosts in certain buildings people call upon him to investigate. The premise of the show is that the crew finds an item in the building that may have some sort of connection with a haunting. The show was initially cancelled in November 2013. It has subsequently been renewed and as of October 2016 is releasing new episodes on Destination America
Destination America is an American cable television channel owned by the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks unit of Warner Bros. Discovery. The network carries programming focused on the culture of the United States—including food, lifestyles, an ...
.
Other media appearances
Zaffis has made appearances on ''Unsolved Mysteries
''Unsolved Mysteries'' is an American mystery documentary television show, created by John Cosgrove and Terry Dunn Meurer. Documenting cold cases and paranormal phenomena, it began as a series of seven specials, presented by Raymond Burr, Ka ...
'', '' Fox News Live'', and the Discovery Channel documentaries ''Little Lost Souls'' and ''A Haunting in Connecticut''. He currently co-hosts the ''Paranormal Nights'' radio show with Brendan Keenan. Zaffis was also in two episodes of ''A Haunting
''A Haunting'' is an American paranormal drama anthology television series that depicts eyewitness accounts of alleged possession, exorcism, and ghostly encounters. The program features narrations, interviews, and dramatic re-enactments based on ...
'' ("The Possessed" and "Ghost Hunter") where the main characters of both episodes are possessed by harmful demons. In the 2008 docudrama ''The Possessed'', he plays himself as the demonologist. Zaffis also appeared and was interviewed in the 2009 ''Ghost Adventures
''Ghost Adventures'' is an American paranormal and reality television series that premiered on October 17, 2008, on the Travel Channel before moving to Discovery+ in 2021. An independent film of the same name originally aired on the Sci-Fi Cha ...
'' episode at the Remington Arms factory. He also appeared in the 2009 '' Scared!'' episode filmed at the Grand Midway Hotel.
Zaffis has appeared six times on the long-running radio program ''Coast to Coast AM
''Coast to Coast AM'' is an American late-night radio talk show that deals with a variety of topics. Most frequently the topics relate to either the paranormal or conspiracy theories. It was hosted by creator Art Bell from its inception in 1 ...
'' from 2005 to 2007. Often, he is a guest and co-host on the ''Beyond Reality Radio'' program hosted by The Atlantic Paranormal Society
The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS) is an organization that investigates reported paranormal activity. Based in Warwick, Rhode Island, TAPS was founded in 1990 by Jason Hawes. In 2004, the organization itself became the subject of '' Ghost H ...
's Jason Hawes
Jason Conrad Hawes (born December 27, 1971) is an American plumber and the co-founder of The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS), which is based in Warwick, Rhode Island. He is also one of the stars and co-producers of Syfy's '' Ghost Hunters'', w ...
and Grant Wilson
Grant Steven Wilson (born July 3, 1974) is an art director and developer for Rather Dashing Games (now a division of Kalmbach Publishing), a game company he founded with Michael Richie, and is the co-founder of The Atlantic Paranormal Society ...
.
He has also appeared in several episodes of the Travel Channel
Travel Channel (stylized as Trvl Channel since 2018) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, which had previously owned the channel from 1997 to 2007. The channel is headquartered in New York, New York, United S ...
's paranormal reality TV program, ''Ghost Adventures'', as well as on ABC's investigative program, '' 20/20'', and on Piers Morgan
Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan (; né O'Meara; born 30 March 1965) is a British broadcaster, journalist, writer, and television personality. He began his Fleet Street career in 1988 at ''The Sun (United Kingdom), The Sun''. In 1994, aged 29, he was ...
's cable talk show broadcast on CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
.
Personal life
Zaffis admits that he was initially very skeptical of the existence of ghosts, until one Wednesday evening when he was sixteen and saw a transparent apparition at the foot of his bed shaking its head back and forth. When he told his mother of the incident, Zaffis learned that his grandfather, when he was alive, always shook his head when he was upset about something. In the next few days, Zaffis' grandmother, who lived with him, died. This incident piqued his interest in the paranormal and set him about talking to authorities on the subject and reading about the paranormal. Zaffis spent his first years studying under his uncle and aunt Ed and Lorraine Warren
Edward Warren Miney (September 7, 1926 – August 23, 2006) and Lorraine Rita Warren (; January 31, 1927 – April 18, 2019) were American paranormal investigators and authors associated with prominent cases of alleged hauntings. Edward was a ...
,[Our Haunted Lives: True Life Ghost Encounters, Jeff Belanger, page 186] both demonologists.
What he learned from his aunt and uncle exceeded his original interests in ghosts and haunted house
A haunted house, spook house or ghost house in ghostlore is a house or other building often perceived as being inhabited by disembodied spirits of the deceased who may have been former residents or were otherwise connected with the prope ...
s.[Providence Journal, "Paranormal expert to appear in Portsmouth", by Bryan Rourke, October 31, 2002] Zaffis became interested in demonology
Demonology is the study of demons within religious belief and myth. Depending on context, it can refer to studies within theology, religious doctrine, or pseudoscience. In many faiths, it concerns the study of a hierarchy of demons. Demons may ...
at a young age, which led into his involvement with cases of spirit possession
Spirit possession is an unusual or altered state of consciousness and associated behaviors purportedly caused by the control of a human body by spirits, ghosts, demons, or gods. The concept of spirit possession exists in many cultures and re ...
and exorcism
Exorcism () is the religious or spiritual practice of evicting demons, jinns, or other malevolent spiritual entities from a person, or an area, that is believed to be possessed. Depending on the spiritual beliefs of the exorcist, this may be ...
and working with prominent exorcist
In some religions, an exorcist (from the Greek „ἐξορκιστής“) is a person who is believed to be able to cast out the devil or performs the ridding of demons or other supernatural beings who are alleged to have possessed a person, ...
s in that field. He has studied the work of Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
* Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...
priests, monks, Buddhists, rabbis
A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...
, and Protestant
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
ministers.[Paranormal Research Society of New England](_blank)
/ref> Zaffis has also taken part in and assisted with the work of well-known exorcists like Bishop Robert McKenna, Malachi Martin, and Reverend Jun.
According to fellow paranormal investigator Jason Hawes
Jason Conrad Hawes (born December 27, 1971) is an American plumber and the co-founder of The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS), which is based in Warwick, Rhode Island. He is also one of the stars and co-producers of Syfy's '' Ghost Hunters'', w ...
, co-star of the reality television series '' Ghost Hunters'', Zaffis counseled him after he began seeing apparitions
Apparition may refer to:
Supernatural
*Apparitional experience, an anomalous, quasi-perceptual experience
* A vision, something seen in a dream, trance, or religious ecstasy
*Ghost, the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that can appear ...
at the age of twenty. Hawes credits Zaffis with his subsequent career as a ghost hunter.
See also
* Stone Tape
References
External links
*
John Zaffis Museum of the Paranormal official website
The Paranormal Research Society of New England
(archived at Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
)
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zaffis, John
1955 births
Living people
Paranormal investigators
People from Connecticut
Spiritual warfare