We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sara Sweeney. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sara below.

Sara, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you feel you or your work has ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized? If so, tell us the story and how/why it happened and if there are any interesting learnings or insights you took from the experience?

Being from the paranormal community, there are many people that misunderstand my intentions. When trying to discuss the paranormal with business owners, people are quick to write me off as a fanatic that simply wants everywhere to be haunted. I am quite the opposite! I’m a researcher by training, so I take a very scientific approach to paranormal investigation. The process begins by researching the history of a given site. Understanding the history is paramount to correctly investigating the site. This is then followed by researching paranormal claims. Once on site, I try to debunk the known paranormal claims. For example, is there the scent of smoke? If there is but the room has wood, the scent is likely trapped in the material and released upon expansion. When conducting my own investigations, I try to debunk each occurrence that could be considered paranormal until I feel that I have exhausted every other explanation. This allows me to logically address questions and misunderstandings. This taught me to be prepared, in multiple ways. You have to be prepared to be met with criticism. You have to be prepared to explain yourself. You have to be prepared to answer tough questions. These are not applicable only to my work in the paranormal, but life in general.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Paranormal in Pennsylvania was started in 2022 by three friends interested in history and hauntings! The team is made up of David, the skeptic, Erica, the scaredy cat, and Sara, the paranormal fanatic, which is me! Together we travel around Pennsylvania learning the history and conducting paranormal investigations on various locations. We publish new episodes every Thursday on YouTube and podcast platforms! Our investigations range from well-known historical sites to small local haunts to even residential hauntings. Our goal is to help the world understand the hauntings, and to help the living that interact with these locations feel more at ease. In the process, we spread information on the history of various sites across the state. Sites that we have covered include extremely well-known places such as Gettysburg down to abandoned restaurants that only locals hold dear. There is no history, or haunting, too small to warrant sharing.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I am a huge proponent of the phrase “a rising tide lifts all boats”. The biggest thing that society can do is share the things that they like! If you see a cool image or hear a cool song, send it to someone. They might choose to not engage with it, but if they do, you could have started a domino effect. Collaboration is also key. There is more than enough space for every creative in this world, and the more that we work together, the better creative ecosystem that we develop.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Consistency truly is key. If you want to build a social media presence, you have to be engaging with it daily. This could be posting, responding to comments, reposting, etc. The more that you engage, the more that your followers will see you active and the platform will start to promote you. You also have to be ready to iterate and improve. If you post one style of content that does not get much engagement, try something else. Keep trying until you have identified a form that does well, and then expand from there! Posting consistently helps with this because it allows you to identify patterns.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://paranormalinpennsylvania.podbean.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paranormalinpennsylvania/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@paranormalinpennsylvania972?app=desktop
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@paranormalinpennsylvania

Image Credits

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