Short bio
Brian began researching ghosts in the mid-1990s and helped form a group known as the Ohio Paranormal Investigation Network. 
His focus was helping clients through their situation above gathering "evidence" and as the culture of ghost investigation shifted toward entertainment and client verification he decided to move away from operating a group. The overall focus was always to help other groups and indiviuals who had an interest in the field and this led him to writing non-fiction books as a way to help lower the learning curve and hopefully help culture move in a better direction.
The first three books were based on a handbook he created to help educate his group members. His fourth book, The "E4" Method, was created after he ended his group and focused on trying to create a blend of scientific, parapyschological, spiritual, and other approaches. While the effort made sense to many researchers it went against the status quo and was largely misunderstood and ignored.
During his time as a ghost researcher he also branched out into cryptozoology and UFOlogy. Being someone who looks to learn from others Brian worked with a number of groups including Sasquatch Research Initiative, Centre for Fortean Zoology, ParaNexus, Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society, Pennsylvania Cryptozoology Society, as well as the Mutual UFO Network and the Cleveland UFOlogy Project to name a few. He eventually published two more of his "handbook" series books in cryptozoology and UFOlogy. The former with a forward from Loren Coleman. Brian also hosted the Paranormal News Insider podcast and live radio show through various networks as well as standalone from September of 2008 through November of 2022. The break after the podcast ended allowed him to focus on writing and publishing fiction. In the fall of 2023 he contributed a short story to, Autumn Tales II: Pumpkin Slice Nightmares, and in February of 2024 he released his first novel, The Beast of Friday Lake.He has also appeared at a number of conferences, conventions, libraries, college campuses, and podcasts and radio shows. Brian holds a Ph.D. in Metaphysical Humanistic Science specializing in metaphysical science from the Institute of Metaphysical Humanistic Science, is an ordained minister, and is a state licensed wedding officiant in Ohio.
Full bio
Brian was born in Indiana but moved to Ohio as a baby in the early 1970s. He grew up in northeast Ohio and never had an opinion about ghosts, Bigfoot, or aliens although the topics were a bit scary. In the early 1990s he first heard of parapsychology and was told by his teacher that it was a junk field and had no merit. He heard the same thing in college while studying psychology but learned that many of the people involved in psychical resarch (the predecessor to parapschology) were the same that he was supposed to trust as scientists. He eventually got interested in local urban legends and wrote a research paper about one that generated interest in his classmates. 
This ultimately led to the formation of the Ohio Paranormal Investigation Network which he was unceremoniously appointed director of. The group was reborn a number of times and he eventually shut it down in the summer of 2011 for various reasons. The webiste continues as Ghost Help, which is a bit of a skeptical view of ghosts and ghost investigators but serves to help investigators and potential clients through a split website.
He had created a handbook that was mandatory reading for his new group members. From this handbook he began to write a series of articles published on the website and then further expanded into a book. He decided to self publish his book idea, but due to costs opted to split his large book into smaller ones. His first two were very introductory and basic and he followed those up with his second in the handbook series with Handbook for the Amateur Paranormal Investigator II: The Art and Science of Paranormal Investigation. Once the paranormal group came to a close in 2011 he dedicated a lot of time toward figuring out where his group went wrong with their methodology and how he could create something that could guide ghost hunters away from the gadgets that did nothing more than fool them into thinking they were encountering ghosts.
As Brian continued his research he began to talk about his newly created "E4" Method of ghost investigation. His approach attempted to utilize the client engaging the environment in order to hopefully create a repeatable spontaneous event which should be the goal of every ghost researcher. After explaining this on a number of podcasts and live events he began to form his notes into a short handout to help people understand all the facets of the methodology that was an ongoing and evolving performance of the client and investigators using various aspects of parapsychology, pyshical research, as well as scientific methodology. The short handout that was intended to be about 30 pages evolved into a full book that went over the entire process. Due to groups being comfortable doing what everyone else was doing no one took his methodology seriously enough to pursue it, or took the time to understand it thoroughly, although a few groups had mild success using parts of it.
Brian had researched other fields that were viewed as paranormal including cryptozoology (search for missing or hidden animals like Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, or Mothman), as well as UFOlogy. He ultimately worked with a number of groups and organizations around the world to help him understand how to investigate these other topics and how they might relate to ghosts. He learned from the Canadian group Sasquatch Research Initiative, was the Ohio representative for Nick Redfern's Crypto Squad USA that was the U.S. arm of the Centre for Fortean Zoology, and eventually worked with Eric Altman's Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society and Pennsylvania Cryptozoology Society as a handpicked member.
He also worked with the non-profit ParaNexus Anomalous Research Association and worked his way up to a board member and took ownership after the group dissolved as an association. Brian also worked with the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) but could not dedicate the time to being a full time investigator and also noted a lot of disorganization at various levels. He also worked with the Cleveland UFOlogy Project that is one of the oldest UFO research organizations in the world. He later created Ohio Cryptid as his own personal investigation organization that serves mostly as an educational website and a way to gather cases in Ohio.
Brian decided to continue his handbook series writing Handbook for the Amateur Cryptozoologist publishing it in 2014. That year Loren Coleman bestowed the honor of making it one of the top cryptozoology books of 2014 and "The Best Guidebook for The Cryptozoologist-In-Training of 2014". He wanted to sell the book at his International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine. This came with Loren writing a foreword for the second edition of the book published the following year. He finished the handbook series by publishing Handbook for the Amateur UFO Investigator in 2017.
From September of 2008 until November of 2022 Brian was the host of the Paranormal News Insider radio show and podcast. Brian was the first guest on a show called The Grand Dark Conspiracy in early 2008 and came back a few months later and the idea between him and the host, Dan Bautz, was born to have a short segment of paranormal news heard during the show. Through a handful of networks and a run on AM radio near the Columbus, Ohio metropolitan area the shows lasted together. The main show changed its name to The Darkest Hours Late Night and had demonologist Dave Considine as well as Brian as co-hosts until the radio station changed formats. Brian took his show to two more networks until the last one ceased operations in 2022.
Since the Paranormal News Insider went off the air Brian has concentrated on working on his many ideas for novels that he had no prior time to invest in. In February 2024 he published his first novel, The Beast of Friday Lake. He also contributed a short story to the horror anthology Autumn Tales II: Pumpkin Slice Nightmares. He has also appeared at a number of conferences, conventions, libraries, college campuses, and podcasts and radio shows. Brian holds a Ph.D. in Metaphysical Humanistic Science specializing in metaphysical science from the Institute of Metaphysical Humanistic Science, is an ordained minister, and is a state licensed wedding officiant in Ohio.He is currently working on a full length novel of that short story as his second full length novel. Brian lives in northeast Ohio with his wife Amy and their dog Luna.
