AUSTIN, Texas — The Night Owl Podcast is returning with new episodes at the end of this month. After nearly a year-long hiatus, one of Austin’s favorite podcasts is coming back. The Night Owl Podcast was started in 2017 and has taken Central Texas by storm. Created by Texas native Stephen Belyeu, The Night Owl Podcast takes its listeners on a supernatural journey around some of the area’s most famous haunts. Host and creator of The Night Owl Podcast Stephen Belyeu joined Your Morning on Spectrum News 1 to talk about the origins of the podcast, its return and their first live event of 2021.

“I grew up in South Texas in a small town called Pawnee and I grew up half Hispanic,” said Belyeu. “The community down there is predominately Hispanic, and there is a lot of South Texas folklore based on the Latin community. Stories like La Llorona, lechuzas and chupacabras dominated down there and I was really fascinated by the paranormal in general. I gravitated more towards ghost stories and folklore. My background then took me on a journey of storytelling, writing scripts for movies and TV shows. But then the podcast medium surfaced and I decided to gravitate towards my love for storytelling with my love for the paranormal, and take it in a new direction. Because at the time, I was listening to podcast ghost stories and they weren’t doing it for me. I was wanting something more engaging so I went for it. I’ve been honored and blessed to be able to have a following that’s gotten behind it and supported us this long. So I’m excited to get back in the saddle.”

On the growing popularity of the podcast, Belyeu said, “I think ghost stories are always trying to be scary. But at the heart of it, I think we all want to feel like there’s something else out there. That there’s something beyond this life and so I’ve kind of taken an approach where it’s still scary because it’s the unknown. So you still get that spook factor when you hear the show, but I always get to the core — to the emotional story behind the ghost story. Like what’s going on in these places? How are these people being impacted? And also, what’s the bigger story? What’s the thing that we want to take away from saying we do or don’t believe in ghosts? The show takes a journalistic approach to explore not just ghost stories, but the culture around them and I think that’s cultivated its own culture in itself. So I’ve been excited to see that grow. I think the show is being supported a lot because it’s unique, and I think the fans have been looking for something like that because that’s what I was looking for, so I just decided to create it. And I’m really happy that people are gravitating toward it for that reason. We’re all curious about whether ghosts are real or not, and I’m trying to help answer that question the best way I can with the show.

After a hiatus, The Night Owl Podcast is returning with their first live event of 2021 called “Haunted Homestead,” and Belyeu is partnering with a well-known ghost hunter. “A friend of mine in the paranormal community Aaron Sagers, he’s a journalist and TV host that’s been in a lot of paranormal shows on discovery+ and Travel Channel,” said Belyeu. “He called me and said, ‘I’m going to be in Austin and I miss the community. I miss everything down there. Can we do something really quick?’ I had two weeks but I threw it together and we’re going to do a really fun event out at one of our favorite haunted locations here in Austin called Pioneer Farms. It’s a beautiful 90-acre farm that’s just chock-full of activity and reports. Aaron and I are going to do a joint live taping of our podcasts out on the haunted farm. You have the option of staying after the taping to take the tour — we have a personal self-guided audio ghost tour that you can take with your smartphone and you get to walk the haunted farm which is 90-acres, all by yourself with your headphones in, at night. So it’ll be creepy and fun but we’re going to do the live storytelling event and paranormal discussion from 7 – 9 PM on July 21^st at Pioneer Farms.”

For more information and updates on The Night Owl Podcast, visit their website at thenightowlpodcast.com.