Kindred Spirits: A haunting chat with Amy Bruni and Adam Berry
By Devin Shea
Kindred Spirits is in its third season on the Travel Channel. We were fortunate enough to speak with hosts Amy Bruni and Adam Berry about their childhood experiences, what propelled them to seek answers and the show’s new season.
The Interview
Kindred Spirits: The Beginning
1428 Elm: We are so excited about season 3 of Kindred Spirits! Amy, you grew up in a haunted house and Adam, you had a big experience at Gettysburg. Were they the reasons why you became interested in the paranormal?
Amy Bruni: Our little bungalow home in Alameda, CA was unassuming but super haunted. As a kid, I had all these crazy experiences. My family are very accepting of that kind of thing so they would just talk to me like it was normal and that it just happened with everybody.
As a result, I grew up never being afraid of ghosts. But I had a very powerful experience there that kind of led me down the path that I am on now.
I saw a full bodied apparition standing outside the second floor window of our kitchen. There was no way anybody could be standing there!
Later on, we learned that there had been a wrap-around porch in that location at one time so someone COULD have stood there. That is when I started digging into the whole ghost thing.
Adam Berry: For me, I had experiences as a kid but it wasn’t until I became, like, a young human that I was able to rationalize what was happening around me. I went to Gettysburg and went on a ghost tour. After the tour was over, I wandered off because I wanted to see things for myself.
I ended up going to a particular area, I believe it’s a track and field now, but it was part of the battlefield at one time. There were large anomalies like white, misty orbs the size of humans moving through the treeline.
Then the trees would block them off and I could hear gunfire, yelling and twigs breaking around me. That was very bizarre and I knew that I wasn’t hallucinating or dreaming.
You know, there’s stuff that happens and you’re either going to ignore it or you’re going to dive into it head on and find out what it is. That’s what I ended up doing.
Kindred Spirits – Adam Berry – Courtesy of TLC
1428 Elm: You both mentioned how it caused you to seek out answers but did these experiences help your personal growth? Did they affect your belief systems?
AmB: I know for me, I was definitely that weird ghost girl throughout my adolescence. I was not thinking of it in any deep regard until I was in my early 20’s. For me, it was a novelty. I tried everything dabbling in astral projection, Ouija boards, Wicca and New Age-y stuff.
It wasn’t until years later when I joined an actual paranormal team that I realized, oh wait, this is more than just a spooky thing. There’s an actual belief system here.
It borders on a religion, really and I started approaching it with a lot more respect at that point. And I feel that Kindred Spirits has brought it full circle…and it’s been quite the journey from a little kid in the library checking out books on spooky ghosts versus now, making it my life’s work.
Kindred Spirits – Amy Bruni – Courtesy of TLC
AdB: There are times when we think, oh we’ve see this before, we know what that is, maybe it’s the same thing. But there are times when we’re still floored and we don’t understand and we don’t know why the activity is doing what it’s doing.
Why someone would pass away as a child but be an adult, we have no idea what that is. It drives us. The more we do it, the less we know and we never claim to be experts.
I think the only experts in ghost hunting are the actual ghosts because they’re dead. THEY know what’s going on. We’re just guessing and using our knowledge to try and figure it out.
The Quest for Knowledge
1428 Elm: That is a great answer which leads me to wonder do you head into your investigations with specific questions in mind?
AmB: For us, we strongly believe that ghosts are here for a reason, each and every one of them. Especially if they’re trying to get your attention, there’s usually something they are trying to finish. It could be something as small as their name is misspelled on their headstone, which happened in season 2 (of Kindred Spirits), to something as big as they know where a lost loved one is.
We believe that we need to find that answer and so that’s what we look for in each case. Once we find out WHO they are, we can find out why. It’s an entire journey and that’s why we’re there for multiple days.
However, the questions we look to answer are why are they here and what can we do to help them. We believe in the idea of presenting a solution which helps to move the entities along.
AdB: I think for season 3 (of Kindred Spirits), the cases are a bit more intense…we picked the ones that needed the most help. You can’t predict anything. You have to go with the flow. It’s a lot of hard work.
We’re done proving that ghosts exist. You know? It’s more like, yes we know they’re here and now who are they, why are they here, what is their purpose, why are they affecting this family so much? There’s much more to it than just verifying a haunting.