Suppose the beginning of fall has put you in the mood for ghost hunting, particularly of the cable series variety. In that case, you’ll likely become accustomed to hearing a particular script play out. “What’s your name?” “How did you pass?” “Is there anything you want to tell me?”
If you’re looking for a break from this stale dialogue, you might want to try TikTok, where Mount Juliet’s own Kalani Smith has racked up two million followers. You might ask what makes Smith’s approach unique to merit that popularity. “I’m the combination of authentic paranormal content with a Gen Z attitude,” he explains. “My non-traditional approach with singing and humor could be why I get as much paranormal activity as I do. I treat them like I’m talking to a living person.”
Perhaps this is why he’s branded himself ‘The Ghost Hunting Cowboy.’ Smith offers a distinctive investigative approach that one might expect from a Mount Juliet man who doesn’t take himself too seriously. On Smith’s YouTube channel, he uploads full-length investigations, interspersed amongst short, humorous clips, such as line-dancing in a ‘haunted clown motel’ and playing Ouija with a Waffle House waitress.
It doesn’t get much more southern than that, and what’s more, he’s also a God-fearing man. Though some will assert that belief in the paranormal and religion are separate and contradictory concepts, Smith doesn’t see it that way; he talks openly about his faith stating, “I’m a Christian, and I think what I find solidifies my belief in life after death.”
This belief in the paranormal started for Smith when he was merely 11 years old, right here in Tennessee. He saw a Civil War-era drummer boy at the Shiloh battlefield. So convincing was this apparition that Smith assumed it was just a real person. However, it turned out to be a spirit. And ever since then, he’s been trying to make sense of it. Through his work, he doesn’t seek to evangelize to skeptics but rather to understand for himself what he saw and to bring others along for the ride. “I’m not in the business of making people believe,” he asserts, “but more interested in building my base of understanding and belief in the paranormal.”
After pursuing ghost hunting full-time and exploring places like Waverly Hills Sanatorium, Greenville Manor, and other haunted locations, he’s come to some form of understanding of the paranormal. “I feel there is a metaphysical environment or parallel that we cannot physically see. I also think that due to certain environmental conditions changing, the veil between our world and the other world is thin enough at times to bleed over.”
While he’s motivated by genuine curiosity and passion and has spent time pondering the implications of his work, he’s still a laid-back, down-to-earth southern man with good humor and a keen sense for entertainment -- which is a refreshing break from the seriousness that pervades the field.
He provides a very reasonable answer when asked whether anybody can perceive the paranormal. “I think many people experience paranormal activity, but their mind chooses not to notice it. In the same breath, I feel that some people assume all things are paranormal comparative to a logical explanation on why things happen.”
Indeed, it’s difficult not to notice Smith and his southern charm, whether in the physical world or the parallel – he’s liked (and likely entertained) by both the living and the dead alike.