Predictive Demographics / Tales of High Strangeness

Hosted byGeorge Noory

Predictive Demographics / Tales of High Strangeness

About the show

Demographer and generational marketing expert, Ken Gronbach, looks into the future using the tool of demographics which serves as a way to navigate the many landscapes that will define what the United States looks like now and for the next 30 years. Gronbach started the first half by pointing out that demographics show that the United States will have a severe shortage of health care and funerary services for the aging baby boomer population. Smart investors and workers will migrate to these industries and others focused on an older population, and should be guided, he said, by a policy of "make my life easy, save me some time, and don’t rip me off."

Gronbach also said that Russia has a shrinking population and very few immigrants, so they will need to get more people by annexing countries, specifically Ukraine, which has "50 million healthy people." He believes that China "shot itself in the foot" with their "one child" policy of the 1970s, and now have no younger people to drive their economy - no "heavy-lift taxpayers" as he called them. The largest population increase, said Gronbach, will be in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the population will grow to 4 billion in the next 50 years. Back in the U.S., Grombach sees women as taking more of the degrees in higher education and leading in the future.

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Greg Newkirk and Dana Newkirk are professional weirdos who have traversed North America on hundreds of paranormal adventures in search of everything from legendary monsters to mind-bending psychic phenomena. In the second half, they discussed their new film 'Hellier,' a five-part, cinematic documentary series following an investigation into a series of unexplained events in the heart of the Appalachian coal country. Greg started by de-emphasizing the fear factor of paranormal investigation by remarking that "most of these things that people are afraid of, are just trying to get their attention." Dana related her experience of using occult methods (such as tarot cards) to assist in investigations, which she described as "a really great conduit" for information.

The film chronicles the Newkirks’ investigation of strange occurrences in Hellier, Kentucky with a witness who claimed that small, hairless creatures were plaguing him and his family. The man, known only as "David," said that the entities were moving things around his property, scaring his children, and even abducted the family dog. The Newkirks arrived in Hellier and interviewed locals to get a start on the story, and progressed from there. Another tool in the investigation was a "spirit box," which uses randomized broadcast radio signals to supposedly pick up communications from the spirit world. Based on their efforts, Greg believes that investigations should adapt their focus based on changes in the character of the issues under study.

News segment guests: Dr. Tim Ball, Dr. John Curtis, Steve Kates

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