An actor. A poet. A writer. A tour guide. A storyteller. A paranormal investigator.

            Denny O’Rourke considers himself an “old soul” and a “Renaissance man of sorts” as he likes to have his hands in a little bit of everything, now adding to the list, a podcast.

            But there’s a little more to Denny, or “D.C.” as he’s known on his paranormal podcast, than meets the eye. Basically, he sees dead people.            

According to Denny, it all started around his thirteenth birthday, just a few days after losing his grandfather.

            “He and I were extremely close. Two days after we buried him, I woke up in a dream where I was in a white room, and he was in a white chair, wearing a white suit, and he asked me to come over and talk to him.”

Denny said, in that very vivid dream, his grandfather said goodbye to him.

            “I woke up in absolute tears. I told my mom, my dad, uncles, I even told the reverend at my church. They all said I was a kid and that I was grieving. But, I couldn’t explain it; it felt like something more.”

            The dreams didn’t stop with the loss of his grandfather. Denny shared similar examples where deceased friends and family would appear in dreams with different messages, sometimes even asking his assistance on earthly matters they’d left behind.

            “As time went on, there were a few other instances where people came and went from my life and reached out to me in the form of dreams, and I knew there was something more to it that I couldn’t quite explain.”

            And then, other things began to happen.

            “My first paranormal experience I guess, is what really sucked me into it.”

            Denny told me the story of the night a friend he worked with asked if he’d like to join him exploring Old House Woods, a fifty-acre patch of forest reported to be haunted.

            “He asked me if I wanted to go ghost hunting. I said I’d never done that and asked what was involved. He explained, and I said, ‘okay.’

            “We went out to the woods in the middle of the night, and he told me to keep an eye out on the surroundings because I’d probably start seeing stuff.”

            Seeing stuff, he did. After about an hour passed, Denny said he experienced something he will never forget.

            “Next thing I know, this shadow man appeared out of the woods and came into the road we were standing on. I’m standing several feet away from him, and I can see he’s got on a tricorn hat and a long flowing overcoat.”

            After a very frightful episode, he and his friend jumped in the car. Denny recounts his last look out the back window of the vehicle as they sped away.

            “The last thing I see as I’m looking out the window is the full-on apparition of a man that looks like a pirate chasing us. It was almost like he’d been engulfed by the light of the moon.”

            Denny then described as the car fled further away, that the apparition was suddenly joined by six more.

            “I honestly thought it was a gimmick at first with that experience, but all the while, I’m still panicked because it’s a freaky situation. But, then I’m seeing what is actually happening, and I’m like, ‘Wait, what?’ as my brain’s trying to put this together. It was like straight out of a horror movie.”

And the ghosts haven’t left him alone since.

            “People were starting to hear about my stories and things I’d seen and experienced, and they were calling me up in the middle of the night, and I’m going, ‘Where’d you get my phone number?’” he laughs.

             “Then I had bigtime paranormal investigation groups reaching out to me. So that pretty much put me on the path to where I am now.

“When it first started out, it seemed like everything was scaring me, but I think it was because I didn’t understand it.”       

            But Denny says that throughout the years, he’s gotten used to it.

            “I’ve seen stuff for most of my life. I see shadows of people that are in the room with me, but they’re not actually there, ya know what I mean?” (Uh, no, I don’t, and hope I never do!)

            “I see kinda like energy fields every once in a while, that will move across the room right in front of my eyes and I almost have to do a double-take.”

            Denny told me of a conversation he had with a lady once concerning his dreams.

            “Her and I were talking, and I was telling her about me having dreams where people were giving me messages and she said, ‘Well it sounds like you might be a sleeping clairvoyant!’ I was like, ‘Do what?’ I’d never heard of such a thing!” Denny chuckles. “But, yea. It is what it is.”

             Fast forward to 2015, when Denny was working as a historical interpreter for Colonial Williamsburg, and an opportunity came across his path.

            “I learned just a few months after being there that they were hiring for ghost tour guides. I went to the audition and heard back the very next day.”

            Seeing how Denny had quite an extensive ghostly background, he was hired and immediately found his niche.

            Denny is now a guide for The Extreme Ghosts of Williamsburg, a candlelight walking tour that takes guests through the most haunted locations in Colonial Williamsburg. During the two-hour tour, Denny even demonstrates some ghost hunting equipment.

            “Some nights when it’s active, it’s really active! The spirits come out and they want to talk to us and they’ll light up the EMF meters and all the different gadgets that we have, and it’s really neat!”

            Hauntingly Yours: A Podcast for the Paranormal

            It was during the start of the COVID 19 pandemic that Denny’s tours were temporarily closed.

            “I love telling stories, I have to do something!”

            It was then that a friend suggested to Denny the idea of a podcast. He sat on the idea for a bit and soon created Hauntingly Yours, the podcast where he takes his listeners all around the globe, exploring some of the eeriest places in the world.

            At a time when travel is a challenge, Denny reaches out to those who know and are affiliated with these ghostly locations and gets first-hand accounts of all their creepiness.

            The podcast started off its first season with a bang as D.C. introduced his listeners to the paranormal world by taking them to, where else but, Old House Woods. From the familiar forest in Diggs, Virginia, he then escorted his listeners to Northern Ireland, India, the Czech Republic, and beyond. The season finale, which just aired on October 27^th, travels back to U.S. soil and (get ready for it) takes us to probably the least likely spot one would imagine to be haunted! (I know it came as a shock to me!)

                        On an ending note, I asked Denny how a “regular” person might get more in tune with the spirit world.

            “Well, I mean, they say in order to see, you have to believe. I’ve been seeing more things now than I ever have in my life. I’m sitting alone right now in my house, and I’m seeing stuff move all around me while we’re talking.”

            A chill goes down my spine as I thank Denny for his time and conclude my phone interview.

            The next morning, while reviewing the recorded interview, I noticed a weird static throughout the recording. Intermittently, the static sound gets louder and softer at times, but never stopping completely.

I later mention this to Denny.

            “Hmm, ghost?”  He asks.

            Certainly not! I laugh. Nothing like this has ever happened with this particular mic recorder before. I’m sure there is a logical explanation.

            Later that afternoon, I get to the end of the interview, where Denny is the first to hang up. I had left my speakerphone on, and the mic was still recording during the few seconds of pause I take to write down some ending notes. It’s during this pause (after Denny’s phone disconnects) that the static disappears altogether. The recording is suddenly clear, and the background quiet. So quiet, in fact, that in those few seconds of pause, I can hear the stroke of my pencil jotting down those ending notes…  

            Check out all the episodes of the complete first season of Hauntingly Yours, the podcast.    As D.C. gears up for his second season, he promises to have all sorts of new paranormal surprises awaiting listeners. He adds that the show is always on the lookout for sponsors and additional haunted locations to investigate. For more info, check out the show’s official link,

Hauntingly Yours: A Podcast for the Paranormal