Claudia Lamar, Lifestyle Editor - Amador Ledger Dispatch

Question: Claudia, before we get this interview started, can you tell me about your family life, hobbies, recreational activities and anything else you would like to reveal in this interview.

Answer: During the day I work as the Lifestyles Editor for the Ledger Dispatch, in Amador County, and in my free time, I edit my online literary journal Phantomkangaroo.com – an eerie place for poems.

Question: Tell us how you got into journalism. Has this always been a passion for you?

Answer: Definitely a passion. I studied creative writing in college, and before my current position, I worked as a copywriter for an advertising agency.

Question: Before you got into journalism, you worked for an ad agency, can you elaborate on that?

Answer: I mostly wrote copy for brochures and direct-mail advertisements. I usually had to research topics like automotive maintenance and then write as if I knew what I was talking about.

Question: In your journalism career, what would your dream job be? I guess what I am saying is if you could work for a major publication, what would that publication be and why?

Answer: I would love to work for Llewellyn, or some other metaphysical, new age publisher. I would love to be able to edit or write copy for paranormal books.

Question: I am going to Costa Rica this April. I love to travel internationally. I am told you are also an international traveler, can you tell me where you have been?

Answer: I took a road trip cross country in 2006. Ended up sleeping in my car the whole way back because I ran out of my money. But I got to see so many of the states. Completely fell in love with Arkansas and Colorado. I did the whole backpacking through Europe a couple years ago too. Still trying to save up money to go back to Switzerland. Some of the other countries I saw were Italy, France and Ireland.

Question: Since I am a paranormal investigator, you mentioned something that was off-the-record and now I want it on-the-record, tell me about your UFO experience and your strange ghostly voice story.

Samuel Lopez-Downum and Claudia

Answer: Well, the first experience was an EVP experience, and that happened about 4 months after my grandfather died. I was 14 years old. My mom had just purchased a VHS box set of the Indiana Jones trilogy and we sat down to watch it. Less than 10 minutes into the movie the audio cut out, and a distorted, almost demonic voice started talking to us. It wasn’t until we realized he was speaking Spanish and addressing us intimately that we realized it was my grandfather. He said he was happy and that he wasn’t dead, but I think he just meant that his spirit was still around. Still, to this day, he visits me in my dreams whenever I’m in need of some sort of guidance.

The other incident happened when I was 16. It was the night before New Years Eve 1999, and me and some friends snuck out of my house to go to the American River. We were hanging out there until about 2 a.m. when, on the levee, we saw what we thought was a bright-meteor type thing coming toward the river. It started to get bigger and brighter so we started running for our lives. At one point I looked back and saw that it turned blue in color, and then it just seemed to hover for a second, before it imploded or disappeared completely. I never considered it some kind of alien or UFO experience, until a couple years when I picked up The Best of Unsolved Mysteries dvd at a flea market, and there was a reenactment of almost the exact same experience that me and four friends had on a lake. It even turned blue and imploded like ours did.

Question: You brought your significant other. Can you tell the readers who he is and how you two met?

Answer: He is Samuel Lopez-Downum. We actually met almost ten years ago through a guy I was dating, but secretly I always wanted to date him. We kept bumping into each other over the years and last year we finally fell in love. We share a mutual weirdness and interest in unearthly things.

Question: Wow! With your journalism, I know that this will take you far. Let’s get to some fun questions, so the readers can know more about you. What are your favorite books, TV shows, movies?

Answer: The X-Files, obviously. I love reading Tru TV’s Crime Library online. I love any kind of animal attack films. Every show on ID Discovery, and of course paranormal-inspired poetry.

Question: What is your favorite song?

Answer: Into the Mystic by Van Morrison. Sam, actually sung it for me during karaoke at the HPI scouting mission, in Ione.

Question: If you had 6 dinner guests, 3 fictional and 3 historical, who would they be and why?

Answer: Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath would have to be there, because I imagine we would play with a Ouija board, drink wine and write some drunken and spooky poetry together. Mulder, but sans Scully, because I think she would just bring us down. Then I would invite the Little Prince, of The Little Prince, Rumi and I guess, maybe Scully could come, to balance things out.

Question: Is there anything I missed? Something more you would like to tell the readers?

Answer: Definitely check out phantomkangaroo.com, and please, feel free to submit!

Question: Thank you for this wonderful interview. Do you have any words of wisdom for your readers?

Answer: I don’t really have words of wisdom. I’m never really sure if I believe in anything definite. I mean, who am I to believe in some things and not other things? Wisdom is fluid to me. I’m always discovering something new about myself that contradicts what I believed before.