ParaPod Fest Announces Paranormal Film, TV, and Podcast Award Nominees

The upcoming ParaPod Festival, taking place Friday, March 31 through Saturday, April 1, 2023, in Santa Clarita, California, is the first of its kind to not only celebrate all things paranormal in one place but to honor the influencers and content creators who work in the paranormal genre. The two-day event will wrap up with a live awards ceremony – the ParaPod Awards – with awards given to podcasts and their hosts, documentary filmmakers, and television shows and personalities.

“As a content producer and host myself, being able to create a platform to celebrate the paranormal genre and those content creators who are working in it has been a long-time goal,” says ParaPod founder Tony Sweet. “Influencers, podcasters, documentary filmmakers, television producers, and hosts who dare to cover topics like UFOs or Bigfoot often get overlooked by mainstream awards shows, and I want to change that.”

Podcasters whose content covered the paranormal were asked to submit their work in various categories via the ParaPod Festival website. A committee of listeners rated the podcasts in their selected categories to create a list of finalists. The finalist podcasts were then listened to and rated by a second committee to determine the nominees. The podcast nominees for the ParaPod Awards are:

In the category of Best UFO Podcast:

Strange Darkness Radio
UFO Chronicles Podcast
Paranormal Almanac

In the category of Best True Crime Podcast:

Hollyweird Paranormal
Heart Starts Pounding
Ghost Town

In the category of Best Ghost Podcast:

Ghost Town
Mega Strange
The Haunted Happy Hour

In the category of Best Spiritual/Psychic Podcast:

The Witching Hour
The Colby Rebel Show
Paranormal Almanac

In the category of Best Podcast Host(s):

Jason Horton & Rebecca Leib
Derrick Acosta & Johnny Weiss
Kaelyn Moore

In the category of Podcast of the Year:

Heart Starts Pounding
Ghost Town
Mega Strange

Documentary filmmakers worldwide submitted their short-form and feature-length paranormal films via FilmFreeway.com to be viewed and rated by a viewing committee, who determined which films would be official selections. Then, a panel of judges rated the films to determine the finalists in each category for the ParaPod Awards.

The finalists for Best Short Paranormal Documentary are:

(After)Life, directed by Ben Goldman (USA)
Close Encounters Interview with Preston Dennett, directed by Matt Schwartz (USA)
The Conspiratologist, directed by Stephen Bradford and Justin Jay Jones (USA)

The finalists for Best Feature Paranormal Documentary are:

Contemplation: On the Psychedelic Experience, directed by Julian Austin Palmer (AUS)
Accidental Truth – UFO Revelations, directed by Ron James (USA)
Black Knight Satellite: Beyond the Signal, directed by Melissa Tittl (USA)

Additionally, the ParaPod Festival social media team launched an online series of audience polls to determine the nominees and winners of the ParaPod Audience Favorites Awards for mainstream, paranormal television series. The nominees for the ParaPod Awards are:

In the category of Best UFO Series:

A Tear in the Sky
Ancient Aliens
Truth Declassified

In the category of Best Non-fiction Ghost Series:

Ghost Adventures
Destination Fear
Kindred Spirits

In the category of Best Cryptid Investigation Series:

The UnXplained
Mountain Monsters
Destination Truth

In the category of Best TV Psychic Medium:

Chip Coffey
Tyler Henry
Patti Negri

In the category of Best Paranormal Host:

Ben Hansen
Zak Bagans
Giorgio Tsoukalos.

The content of podcast nominees and film festival finalists can be viewed online at www.parapodfestival.com in the Podcast Awards Listening Room and the Film Festival Screening Room.

The winners will all receive a handsome, custom-created ParaPod Award. Podcast and filmmaker winners will be offered a non-exclusive contract to air their content on the ParaPod TV Roku channel. The winner of the Best Feature Paranormal Documentary will also receive a sponsored one-year subscription to WriterDuet Pro.

In addition to the awards mentioned above, the festival will be presenting a Media Legend Award to Emmy and Peabody-award-winning investigative journalist Linda Moulton Howe, who has covered UFO and disclosure topics for over forty years, and become one of the most recognized names in the paranormal genre. Best-selling author and producer Billy Carson is receiving the Pioneer Award for his work in bringing paranormal content into the mainstream.

The ParaPod Awards will begin just after the City of Santa Clarita-sponsered ParaPod Festival events on Saturday, April 1 at 7:00 PM at the Hyatt Regency Valencia. The awards ceremony is open to speakers, invited guests, VIP ticket holders only. VIP Weekend passes are available online at www.parapodfestival.com.