Aaron Sagers

Aaron Sagers
Aaron Sagers, photo by Ali Cotton, Aug. 2019
BornNovember 15, 1977 (44 years old)
Orlando, Florida, United States
EducationGraduated New York University, M.A. in Journalism, 2004
Occupation(s)TV Presenter, entertainment journalism, online journalism, TV producer, paranormal investigator
Years active2004–present
Notable credit(s)Paranormal Caught On Camera, Paranormal Paparazzi, Talking Strange podcast, Ripley's Believe It Or Not!, The Paranormal Pop Culture Collection
TitleTelevision personality, Journalist, Paranormal Journalist, Paranormal Investigator
WebsiteOfficial website

Aaron Sagers is an American television presenter, journalist — including a self-described "paranormal journalist" — podcast host, and expert of geek culture and paranormal media.[1] He is also an author, social media micro-influencer, and founder of ParanormalPopCulture.com,[2] a website which covers paranormal topics in popular culture.

Sagers was Host/Co-Executive Producer on Travel Channel's Paranormal Paparazzi, which he co-created and co-executive produced with Zak Bagans, has appeared on The Today Show, Paranormal Lockdown, Portals to Hell, and numerous other paranormal programming.

He is the co-host of the 2022 Netflix paranormal investigative series 28 Days Haunted, and currently an on-camera personality on Paranormal Caught On Camera on the Travel Channel, and Discovery+ streaming service; is executive producer and host of the Talking Strange paranormal podcast with the Den of Geek Network; and host/producer of Ripley's Believe It Or Not! Ripley's Road Trip web series.

He travels the globe as a speaker of paranormal and science-fiction topics for National Geographic Channel, Syfy, and Universal, and at events such as San Diego Comic-Con, New York Comic Con, South By Southwest, and Wizard World Comic Cons.

Early life

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Aaron Sagers was raised in Orlando, Florida, as the youngest Catholic son of five siblings, three older brothers and one older sister. He grew up with a love of nerd culture, and is a fan of Doctor Who, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and comic books. He also developed a love of the pop culture of his parents' and his own generations, such as The Twilight Zone.[citation needed]

Sagers attended Saint Margaret Mary school in Winter Park Florida before graduating to Bishop Moore High School. He then transferred to Tift County High School in Tifton, Georgia, before attending Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida for his undergraduate degree. In 2002 he attended New York University to study journalism for his Master of Arts, where he graduated in 2004.[citation needed]

Career

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Sagers began his career in travel journalism with Budget Travel[3][4] and MSNBC and working freelance before eventually accepting a position with the Tribune Company. He launched the entertainment weekly magazine Merge for The Morning Call newspaper in 2005, and served as an arts & entertainment editor until 2008. He created and wrote the "Pop 20" and "Pop Pundit" syndicated column for McClatchy-Tribune, which ran for more than three years.

In 2009, he launched ParanormalPopCulture.com was to cover "all forms of paranormal popular culture in mass media - and to have fun while doing it" without "proving or debunking the existence of anything beyond the entertainment factor."[5] He takes credit for coining the phrase "paranormal pop culture" and has said in interviews he was motivated to create the site after writing multiple well-received articles[6] on paranormal television, but also because of his childhood fascination of ghost stories around the campfire, monsters, and zombies. His main goal is to examine the "cross section of mainstream pop culture and the paranormal."[7] He interviewed a variety of celebrities on both paranormal and mainstream topics, including George R.R. Martin,[8] Simon Pegg,[9] Dan Aykroyd,[10] Clive Owen,[11] Matt Smith,[12] Kevin Smith, Rob Zombie,[13] Stan Lee, George A. Romero,[14] Robert Kirkman and Max Brooks,[15] the cast of Being Human,[16] Mike Mignola, and Bruce Campbell.[17] His work was featured in Entertainment Weekly and The Hollywood Reporter.[18]

As a journalist, Sagers's work has appeared in publications such as The Hollywood Reporter, IGN, Chicago Tribune,[19] The Baltimore Sun,[20] The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Miami Herald, Orlando Sentinel, Orlando Weekly,[21] The Morning Call[22] and Playboy.[23] He began writing for the CNN website in 2011, and Paranormal Pop Culture was a content partner with CNN's Geek Out! vertical.

As he gained notoriety for his contributions to the paranormal community, he started to appear on paranormal reality programs. He was a celebrity guest judge on the Travel Channel show Paranormal Challenge[24] in 2010, and worked with Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures as a lecturer at paranormal tourism events, and has appeared as a guest on Coast to Coast AM multiple times.[25] Sagers was guest editor for the TAPS Magazine,[26] the magazine for the Syfy channel's Ghost Hunters, in March/April and May/June 2011.

Sagers first appeared on camera with CNN in March 2012.[27] He has contributed on-air to the BBC, Huffington Post Live, and began contributing to MTV's Geek site in 2013. He was a guest, then guest host for Playboy Radio with Jessica Hall, Sirius XM Radio .[citation needed]

In 2012, Sagers co-created, executive produced, and hosted the paranormal entertainment news and lifestyle series Paranormal Paparazzi based on his Paranormal Pop Culture concept along with Zak Bagans. The eight-episode series was similar in tone to TMZ, and included field reports about zombie bunkers, bigfoot hunts, haunted locations, and featured interviews with Norman Reedus, and other celebrities. It aired for one season. His book Paranormal Pop Culture: Rambling and Shambling Through the Entertainment of the Unexplained was released in 2013.

He appeared as HBO's Game of Thrones expert for morning shows across the nation and Australia, and filmed a Travels with Dracula travel show in Transylvania (with Bram Stoker's descendant Dacre Stoker) in 2013, which led to him returning to Romania for his "Vlad vs. Vlad" segments with Luke Evans supporting Universal Home Entertainment's Dracula Untold's home media release in 2015.

As a TV host and paranormal personality, he appeared on TruTV's Super Into — where he ghost hunted with Aaron Paul in 2015. He hosted the two-hour special episode of Paranormal Lockdown, titled Paranormal Lockdown: Evidence Revealed, with Nick Groff and Katrina Weidman in 2016. Sagers appeared on Reelz' The Shocking Truth to discuss The Conjuring in 2017. He appeared on Portals to Hell's first season with Jack Osbourne and Katrina Weidman in 2019.

From 2014 to 2018, Sagers was Editor At Large and producer for Syfy's online presence, previously named Blastr. During this role, he contributed to series “Everything You Didn’t Know,” and created the series “Blastr to the Past,” “Science of Fear,” and “Comic Book Roulette.”

From 2018 to 2019, he served as an executive producer for Centerboro Productions, where he developed numerous paranormal TV show pitches. In 2019, he joined Fandom as a producer and senior manager of creative for sponsored content. During his role at Fandom, he produced content for Facebook/Oculus, Coca-Cola, and Overwatch League.

Since 2020, Sagers has appeared as a "Paranormal Journalist," and panelist on Travel Channel's and Discovery+'s unscripted clip show, Paranormal Caught on Camera, which was airing its fifth season in 2022, and already filming its sixth season. On the show, he is known for providing historical context, paranormal theories, and citing folklore/myth. The popular series discusses folklore and phenomena from across the globe, and is notable within the paranormal genre for its 26-episode seasons. In 2021, Sagers scripted, produced, and hosted the Ripley's Believe It Or Not! Ripley's Road Trip web series.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Sagers launched the NightMerica true crime/paranormal podcast in 2020 with co-host Britt Emme, and began hosting "Paranormal Pop Culture Hour" with Den of Geek. This led to the creation of the Talking Strange paranormal podcast for the Den of Geek Network in 2022. Guests have included, Alan Tudyk, Greg Nicotero, Elvira, Dana Gould, Harvey Guillen, Rhys Darby, Rainn Wilson, and more. The show streams on Twitch, and is posted on YouTube, and published on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other platforms. The show has been invited to record live at Rooster Teeth's RTX festival in Austin, Texas.

In September 2022, Sagers was revealed to be the co-host on Netflix's first ghost hunting show, 28 Days Haunted — along with Tony Spera, the son-in-law of Ed and Lorraine Warren — a series that involves three paranormal investigative teams embedded at three separate locations for nearly a month.[28]

Journalist and author

[edit]

Aaron Sagers has been active as a journalist and author since at least 2002. He began his career in travel journalism with Budget Travel[3][4] and MSNBC in 2003, and worked freelance before eventually accepting a position with the Tribune Company. He launched the entertainment weekly magazine Merge for The Morning Call newspaper in 2005, and served as an arts & entertainment editor until 2008.

His work has appeared in publications such as The Hollywood Reporter, IGN, Chicago Tribune,[19] The Baltimore Sun,[20] The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Miami Herald, Orlando Sentinel, Orlando Weekly,[21] The Huffington Post, StarWars.com, Marvel.com, Entertainment Weekly, and Playboy.[23] He began writing for the CNN website in 2011.

He has been a contributing author for Lonely Planet travel guides for Costa Rica, ABC-CLIO[29] reference guide on pirates in pop culture, and the H.W. Wilson Company[30] reference guide on the paranormal. Sagers was also a guest editor for the TAPS Magazine,[26] the magazine for the Syfy channel's Ghost Hunters, in March/April and May/June 2011. His book Paranormal Pop Culture: Notes from the Entertainment of the Unexplained was released in 2013. He has contributed to pop culture psychology books Doctor Who Psychology and Joker Psychology.

Host and moderator

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Sagers (right) emceeing a panel discussion with Wil Wheaton at the 2013 Wizard World New York Experience in Manhattan

Sagers travels the globe to festivals and fan conventions as a professional speaker, moderator and panelist. He has appeared multiple times at large-scale events such as San Diego Comic-Con, New York Comic Con, South by Southwest, London Film & Comic Con, and more to rooms between 1,500-7,000 people. He has been hired by networks or studios to moderate live events for Universal, Sony, Fox, Focus Features, National Geographic Channel, Discovery Channel/Destination America, Syfy — and Universal Home Entertainment’s high-profile Back to the Future and The Breakfast Club anniversary reunions.

He has appeared on panels alongside, among others, the casts from fan-favorite franchises The Avengers, The Walking Dead, Pacific Rim, Doctor Who, Captain America, Sons of Anarchy, Guardians of the Galaxy, Firefly, Supernatural, Lucifer, and more.

Sagers gives specialized lectures on various topics connected to paranormal pop culture, such as entertainment's fascination with Mars, a history of ghosts in media, and the apocalypse.

References

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  1. ^ Sagers, Aaron (August 31, 2011). "Nerds and hipsters: The yin and yang of American subcultures" Archived 2012-08-17 at the Wayback Machine. CNN.
  2. ^ Sagers, Aaron. "About ParanormalPopCulture.com: A little about us". Paranormal Pop Culture. Retrieved July 6, 2013.
  3. ^ a b "Free Tours in New York City - Budget Travel". 4 June 2005. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  4. ^ a b Budget Travel Archived March 27, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ "ParanormalPopCulture.com". Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  6. ^ "providencejournal.com: Local & World News, Sports & Entertainment in Providence, RI". providencejournal.com. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  7. ^ Huth, Kelly (June 24, 2011). "Aaron Sagers, former Lehigh Valley writer, to appear on 'Paranormal Challenge' on Travel Channel". The Express-Times
  8. ^ Sagers, Aaron (4 September 2014). "George R.R. Martin the fanboy on Star Trek, Stan Lee". Archived from the original on 31 October 2016. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  9. ^ Sagers, Aaron (25 November 2013). "Simon Pegg, Nick Frost on Pub Crawls, Friendship at 'The World's End'". HuffPost. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  10. ^ "Dan Aykroyd: From Ghost Buster to Spirit Drinker". 11 April 2010. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  11. ^ Sagers, Aaron (4 April 2012). "Clive Owen on playing a father in 'Intruders' and what scares him". CNN. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  12. ^ "Matt Smith on a very Time Lord 'Doctor Who' Christmas". www.paranormalpopculture.com. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  13. ^ Sagers, Aaron (June 1, 2010). "Rob Zombie: Heavy metal musician, film buff ... and superbeast?". ParanormalPopCulture.com.
  14. ^ Sagers, Aaron (August 1, 2010). "Master of the Dead: George A. Romero on a life directing slow zombies in a genre that won't die". ParanormalPopCulture.com.
  15. ^ Sagers, Aaron (January 15, 2011). "Generation Z: Zombie superstars Kirkman and Brooks living up among the undead". ParanormalPopCulture.com.
  16. ^ Sagers, Aaron (April 8, 2011). "Syfy's 'Being Human' stars on striving for the normal within paranormal". ParanormalPopCulture.com
  17. ^ [1] Archived July 9, 2011, at the Wayback Machine. The Sacramento Bee. Retrieved October 17, 2012.
  18. ^ "'Skeptic-in-Chief' Aaron Sagers Talks Travel Channel's 'Paranormal Paparazzi'". The Hollywood Reporter. 28 September 2012. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  19. ^ a b Services, Tribune Media (15 October 2009). "Christmas happens: Movies to help alleviate holiday fatigue". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  20. ^ a b "'The Office' puts sites in Scranton on the map". 25 October 2007. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  21. ^ a b "Orlando Weekly". Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  22. ^ "Finding a frenemy to feel fine". Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  23. ^ a b "Playboy - Articles, Celebrity Interviews, Parties, Products and Beautiful Women". www.thesmokingjacket.com. Archived from the original on 6 October 2013. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  24. ^ Morning Call
  25. ^ "Aaron Sagers". Coast to Coast AM. Retrieved 2022-08-10.
  26. ^ a b "TAPS Paramagazine - Paranormal magazine - ghosts, cryptozoology, ufos, and more!". www.tapsparamag.com. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  27. ^ 'Run For Your Live'" CNN. April 7, 2012
  28. ^ Higgypop. "Netflix Makes Its Move Into The Ever-Growing Ghost Hunting Genre With '28 Days Haunted'". Higgypop Paranormal. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  29. ^ "Headlines: Error Page". www.historyandtheheadlines.abc-clio.com. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  30. ^ "Home Page - EBSCO". EBSCO Information Services, Inc. - www.ebsco.com. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
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