Beardo Gets Scared

As you can tell from the above image, this post is going to be, in some ways, quite different to the posts I've done previously. This post won't be discussing any locations, and it won't be a review. Instead this post will be a documentation of the youtube channel 'Beardo Gets Scared' and the man who runs it: Beardo. This post will be similar to those I've done previously regarding the 'Most Haunted' team, the 'Help My House Is Haunted' team, 'Ghosts of Britain', Ed and Lorraine Warren, plus Aleister Crowley. With Beardo being a YouTuber, I didn't expect to be writing much, but was pleasantly surprised to end up with three pages worth of notes. To gather the information I will discuss, I have been watching his videos and live streams for a couple of months now, and so all information is from these videos. I can't remember in which video he's said what, so instead of linking individual videos, I'm going to link his youtube channel at the end.

As mentioned earlier, Beardo runs the youtube channel 'Beardo Gets Scared'. His real name is Dale, and he was born on a day in June 1981 which, as of the time of writing this, makes him 42 years old. He's Welsh and is married to a woman who goes by the name of Mrs Geek. His wife often helps him out with behind the scenes work and helps him out as a moderator of the chat during his live streams. The reason I'm writing about Beardo is because he is both a paranormal investigator and a debunker. This means that most of the work he does on youtube is either investigations, or it's sitting watching other people investigate and explaining how they're faking things if they are. 

I believe due to the work Beardo has done that he, and all other debunkers, are an incredibly important part of the paranormal space as they keep investigators in check. It can be incredibly tempting to fake things, especially with knowing how many views it can get, so to know that people like Beardo are glaring at you while you investigate is a brilliant counterweight to the temptation. It's also incredibly important for Beardo to do what he does because technology is getting increasingly better at helping investigators hide fakery. So, for Beardo to know how technology can be used in this way, and to share it with the world, is incredibly helpful.

As of writing this, Beardo currently has 30.5K subscribers to his youtube channel and 397 videos. He also says that he is the biggest debunker on youtube, which is quite the achievement. He wasn't always on youtube though, and has only recently become full time on the platform. I don't know the exact ins and outs of Beardo's employment history, but he has said that he worked as a bailiff at one point, and that he worked in the security industry for a long time during which he worked with CCTV cameras for thirteen years. 

Beardo's Origin Story

Beardo is someone who, like myself, gained an interest in the paranormal through watching Most Haunted. When he was younger, he saw them on TV and they inspired him to go out and investigate like they did. The first place Beardo investigated was Neath Abbey, which is in the South of Wales. He went there for the first time during, he thinks, 2003 and expected tapping like what he saw the Most Haunted team frequently experience on TV, but became disappointed when it didn't happen for him. He does still believe the paranormal exists though, and one reason for this is an experience he had while he was seventeen years old. On the 31st of October 1998, Beardo had an experience with a ouija board which he has recently discussed on his youtube channel. As with any experience I hear discussed, I've transcribed it. The experience reads as follows:

'It was October 31st 1998, Halloween. My parents had left me alone for the first time as a seventeen year old with one single rule: no parties. But naturally, being a teenage lad, that's exactly what I did. I couldn't resist the temptation and organised a small gathering of friends. Halloween, with horror movies, alcohol, cigarettes; what could go wrong? Whilst watching horror movies, we moved on to telling ghost stories with somebody regaling a tale of a ouija board gone horribly wrong where five people apparently lost their lives to a car accident that was predicted by the ouija board. Once the story, which was clearly made up, ended; somebody said "we should do a ouija board". There was only one problem: we didn't have a ouija board. Ouija boards in 1998 weren't easy to come by in the UK. They were not available in shops. So, we did what a lot of people did and we created out own on the back of a monopoly board. The planchette was just a whiskey tumbler. 

So, as we moved to the dining room and sat round our makeshift ouija board set on the dining table, we decided to make things more scary. We drew a pentagram in the center of the board, yes, no, the letters of the alphabet, and the numbers one to nine, and then zero at the end, and then good and evil just for good measure. Then we delved into the supernatural; we lit candles, we turned on a small guitar amp with no guitars plugged into it to get some background noise and static. So, laughter ensued, the glass didn't move, and then somebody says "you have to call out properly" and then said the following words: "to all spirits in the surrounding area, if you would like to communicate with us, please move the glass". And then the glass moved. There were a few gasps, and then laughter, and then things took an unsettling turn. 

At first the planchette, after the initial movement, remained still, but after the incantation for a second time it started moving. Initially we dismissed this as our own pranks to each other as all we were getting were insults to each other, but then the atmosphere shifted when the board revealed information about what was hidden under the stairs of my friend's auntie's house; a detail that none of us should have known. Perhaps one of us did. Tension started to escalate and the person that refused to have any direct contact with the planchette or the board asked a personal question from the side of the room about his recently deceased father, and the board responded; and the board responded accurately, sending shivers through us all, and panic sets in as insults, death dates, were all spelled out on the board.

It was like an inexplicable force intensified around us like something was pushing the glass, and terror reached it's peak when the lad sat to the side of the table, that had refused to have anything to do with the board, started screaming at the board to stop; and then something happened that none of us will ever forget. There was the sound of a flick on the side of the glass, the glass seemingly spun from under our fingers, flipping up the right way, with force shot across the room heading towards the teenager screaming at it, and then burst in mid-air. Glass showered all over the room. 

We all ran. Terrified, we fled to the living room, closing the dining room door behind us, and when we turned to look, we were confronted by a shadow moving across the glass of the dining room door. What seemed like a supernatural presence in fact turned out to be a concerned neighbor investigating the commotion. We left the house, and following the neighbor's advice, because she'd seen what had happened, we burnt the ouija board. She told us of her own experience and said the way to get rid of everything is to burn the board. We cleaned up the shattered glass, we set fire to the ouija board in the garden, and then threw it over the wall into some waste ground. 

However, in the following months and years, the horror persisted; although it slowly waned away. Strange occurances haunted us, even the skeptic among us, who found the entire thing funny on the night, begun experiencing odd shadows and movements at home, and the anticipated death day spelled out by the ouija board approached; then nothing happened. So, because of this, some of us grew less fearful. Others of us couldn't shake the lingering unease. The tale of that Halloween night continues to echo in our memories. The sound of the glass on wood, and the occasional glimpse of inexplicable shadows still sends shivers down our spines, reminding us of the night we thought we contacted the dead. The Halloween ouija board horror became an indelible part of our shared history, a chilling reminder that some stories once unleashed refuse to be forgotten.'

The above experience was spoken by Beardo during a video he did announcing that he was going to do some videos showing himself conduct experiments with a ouija board to see if he could replicate the same events on camera. He hasn't done those experiments yet due to illness in his family, and he wanted to get his family involved, but has reassured that the ouija board experiments will still be conducted at some point. 

Beardo's interest in the paranormal continued beyond this ouija board experience, and after his roughly 2003 Neath Abbey investigation, he went on to investigate an Asylum in Leeds during roughly 2009, and then Margam Castle in roughly 2012. Despite this long running interest in the supernatural, it wasn't until years later that he decided to publicly delve into the paranormal world.

Beardo Gets Scared

Beardo's first youtube video, which you can see on his channel, is titled 'My last plays in warzone. Rebirth Island' and was uploaded on the 17th of August 2021. Originally, Beardo started off as a gaming streamer. His second video is of himself playing Fortnite for the first time, which he still plays today. Any shooter gaming he currently does is on his Twitch channel, and I don't know for sure, but I suspect he started off on Twitch before going over to youtube. From the gaming clips, Beardo moved into reaction videos on YouTube to channels such as 'Nuke's top 5'. These channels he reacted to showed a number of clips of alledged paranormal activity, and over time Beardo learnt more about debunking through watching these clips plus other debunkers. This led into him doing videos purely focused on debunking, rather than reacting. 

On the 14th of March 2023, Beardo live streamed to youtube for the first time; a video which currently sits on 1880 views. This has led to frequent streams from Beardo, with him often streaming on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. Quite often he dedicates the weekday streams to chatting with the community he's built, and then on Sundays he often streams himself playing various horror related games. 

Beardo seems like someone who is incredibly dedicated and protective over his community, and he showed this by conducting an event on the 25th of December 2023. This event was a live streamed video that ran for one hour called 'no one alone for christmas'. He, and other youtubers, all took part in this to ensure that anyone who would be alone on Christmas could join in and chat on the live stream. The way it worked was Beardo streamed for an hour, and then 'Three Spires Paranormal' streamed for an hour after him, and then a third group streamed after them for an hour, and so on, to ensure as much of the day was covered as possible. Beardo's 'no one alone for christmas' live video is currently sitting on 3149 views, and was a brilliant way of tackling the loneliness he knew some people in his community may feel on Christmas day.  

As mentioned earlier, Beardo is incredibly dedicated in his community and shows this through how involved he is with those who watch his videos. At the start of each live video, he reads out the names of everyone participating in his stream, and during his stream he tries his best to read every single comment: even when there are hundreds of people watching and potentially commenting. He hasn't shared his account log in with anyone else as he wants people to know that when his channel likes their comment on a video, or replies to it, that it is actually him who has done that. 

Beardo also shouts out certain channels, and has a dedicated playlist to the channels he supports. Some of those he frequently mentions are 'Mr. Grey', 'Parrple', 'Kenny Biddle', 'The Ouija Brothers', 'The Side Eye Guy', 'Dorset Paranormal', and 'Adelaide's Haunted Horizons'. Beardo is particularly good friends with Parrple and Mr. Grey. 

Beardo's Traditions

Due to the closeness he has with his community, Beardo has a few fun things that happen during his live streams. If you ask about Derek Acorah, Beardo will play a particularly funny clip of a 'message' Derek recieved from a spirit while on Most Haunted. Also, Beardo does a thing called 'the rawr'. I don't know if this was Shrek inspired, due to a kid in one of those films asking shrek to 'do the roar', but if you put the same request to Beardo, he will fulfill the request. 'The rawr' is simply himself moving his arms like a T-Rex while saying 'rawr'. He used to do this while sitting in his chair, but recently he has upgraded it to a pre-recorded video of himself in a dinosaur costume. It's a really funny video to watch, and is a great way of him bringing laughter and smiles to his community. 

Another tradition which occurs in Beardo's live streams is something called 'the ban hammer'. Beardo is a huge fan of horror films and of comic book related media. He particularly likes vikings and the character of Thor, and so owns a replica of Thor's hammer 'Mjolnir'. When he 'bans' people, he has another pre-recorded video which shows him wield Mjolnir, complete with added lightning effects, and swinging it towards the camera. This video finishes with a red 'banned' stamp showing. Most commonly, this video is a response to anyone who wishes Beardo a happy birthday, or to anyone who says he has dimples. An example of such a comment to recieve a ban is 'happy birthday to Breado the dimple boy'. It isn't a mean thing done by people in his chat, it's just something both he and his community seem to have a good laugh about. As for the name 'Breado', this was possibly a spelling mistake during one comment in his chat, and the name has been referenced ever since. 

Regarding the origins for the 'happy birthday' messages, Beardo blames Parrple. Apparently it's something that Parrple started roughly a year ago and people in Beardo's community have done it consistently ever since. The happy birthday messages can be quite brutal sometimes, with them evolving into joking about Beardo being old. Comments regarding his age are usually along the lines of 'what was life like before the wheel was invented?' To which Beardo would say something along the lines of 'exhausting because you had to walk everywhere, you're banned!' He would then play the ban video. It's a good bit of fun, and Beardo seems to find the comments funny. 

Another tradition of Beardo's is that he always starts his videos by saying 'Beardo's wierdos, boils, and ghouls'. He always refers to his supporters as 'Beardo's wierdo's', but as for the 'boils and ghouls' part, he has said that he took inspiration from the Crypt Keeper who featured as a character on the tv programme 'Tales From The Crypt'. As briefly discussed, Beardo is a huge horror fan, and you can see that in the background of his videos. His wife, Mrs Geek, even makes little dolls of various horror characters which can also be seen behind Beardo.

Beardo Today

As mentioned earlier, Beardo has debunked a variety of teams and channels such as 'Really Haunted', 'Twin Paranormal', 'Most Haunted', 'TAPS', 'Lainey and Ben', plus 'Mindseed TV'. He's had people thank him for the work he does because it's saved them money from subscribing to the fake channels. Beardo doesn't find it an issue calling out fakery when he sees it, and seems to quite like 'stirring the pot' as it were, often saying he thinks lots of people are going to get quite upset or angry following the release of one of his videos. Despite the fireworks sparked by Beardo's work, he in no way promotes 'toxic behaviour'. Toxic behaviour includes making personal insults, sending abusive messages, and reporting channels without good reason. Whenever Beardo thinks something he says is going to be controversial, he makes a point of being as fair and respectful as he can; even telling his viewers not to go into the comments of those other channels to give them abuse. 

Beardo has been quite open about the abuse that he has recieved following him giving his honest thoughts and opinions. He's said that he has recieved threats from people, and as a result now has to be careful regarding saying where he's going to investigate and when. He says these comments don't bother him though, and he will happily pick fights when he knows he has the higher ground. 

Beardo has made his stance on the paranormal very clear. He is very supportive of people such as Danny Robins, who hosts 'Uncanny', due to the skeptical approach to investigation depicted. Beardo himself isn't fond of equipment being used in investigations, and can criticise teams for using certain items or for referring to them in certain ways. A good example of this is the use of cat balls. Beardo isn't a fan of cat balls, and doesn't like it when people refer to them as scientific equipment, but is open to them if used in the right way; for instance on a planchette which is on a ouija board. He also isn't a fan of apps, although is open to being shown otherwise. His stance as to why he doesn't like technology is that he finds technology tends to lead the investigations, when really it should be the investigators leading the investigation with the technology on in the background. Plus most, if not all of the technology, can be innacurate.

Beardo has also done parody videos where he claims his house is haunted and then proceeds to fake anything that occurs. One video showed him sleep walking, and upon approaching a shoe in the middle of the room he danced around it while still sleeping. This particular bit was done as a poke at videos showing sleep walking and that people will avoid objects which aren't part of the normal room layout, such as a shoe in the middle of the floor. They're very funny videos and he's intentionally faked things in a poor way in order to display how things can be faked, and to show how easy it can be. He makes sure to be very clear in these videos that he's faked them in order to avoid any confusion or false belief in the videos. 

Beardo also does videos he calls 'paranormal sins' which are jokey videos of him watching an investigation and having a good laugh at it. He doesn't properly debunk it, but he does point out issues and plays a fart noise for each sin added to the tally. The sins could be dished out based on something as big as fakery, or something as small as using a cat ball. They're fun videos, and a good laugh. They're also most likely inspired by the 'cinema sins' videos that exist where a channel goes through a film and does the same for anything bad that occurs in the film, but without the fart sounds. 

As mentioned at the start of this post, Beardo is currently on 30.5K subscribers. Not too long ago, he reached 25K subscribers and to celebrate he got a tattoo on the back of his hand of the Beardo logo. He wanted to do something special to celebrate the channel and his community, and so he did that. 

My Thoughts

As I said at the start, I've been watching Beardo for a bit of time now, and I think he comes across as incredibly kind and honest. He really does seem to care for his community, and even though I've disagreed with a couple of things he's said, he is very respectful with how he goes about debunking teams. He even has conversations behind the scenes with the teams he debunks and gives them a fair chance to prove their innocence by asking them to send him unedited footage of their investigations. Due to the work he does, and how well he debunks things and investigates, I definitely think he is an incredibly important part of the paranormal space and deserves to be highlighted and remembered in such a way on this website. 

Regarding his ouija board experience, the fascinating thing about it to me is that it's Beardo who has said it. Beardo comes across as skeptical and reluctant to take events as paranormal. Yet, in one of his latest streams he expressed his concerns with calling out to the entity known as 'Zozo' during his ouija board experiments. Bearing in mind Beardo is someone who has frequently said he will happily lick the Annabelle doll to see if it will kill him, that ouija board experience clearly shaken him and has given him the impression that there is something to ouija boards. He did, however, say alcohol and cigarettes were present. This makes me think that what he experienced happened to some extent, but that it was all heightened to extremity by the alcohol and cigarettes. I could be completely wrong though, and I'm really looking forward to his experiments to see how far he pushes it. 

Thank you for reading to the end of this post! It's a bit of shorter section for my thoughts this time because there isn't really much you can say when discussing your opinion of a person. I hope you enjoyed the post regardless. Beardo is someone I haven't known about for that long, so I've really enjoyed watching his videos and learning about him over the past couple of months. One point I forgot to mention until now was that when I started writing this, I was listening to a random playlist and 'Liar' by the Sex Pistols just so happened to be the first song on that list. I found that funny as I feel that song is an appropriate anthem for Beardo, not because he lies about stuff but because he points to other people who are lying which is exactly what the song does. 

Also, I did ask Beardo on Facebook about which song out of Liar (Sex Pistols), Fake It (Seether), Awaken (Dethklok), and The Man Without Fear (Drowning Pool ft Rob Zombie) he felt suited him and his work best. I intended on using whichever one he chose as the song attached the the image I uploaded to Instagram to say that this post was out, but unfortunately I've found out Instagram sadly doesn't have his choice: The Man Without Fear. Instead I've had to choose Liar for the coming soon post, and then Awaken for the main post on Instagram as they're the only ones out of the choices which were available. 

A special thank you to Damain, Nicolette, and the Cornish Ghost Whisperers for your ongoing support of The True Paranormal. If you want to follow The True Paranormal, you can do so on Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), Instagram, or Tumblr. The True Paranormal is also on youtube, and if you want email notifications of when there is a new blog post you can subscribe to this page via the menu on the left. If you want to contact me with your own experiences, or even if you just want to discuss the paranormal, you can contact me at thetrueparanormal1@gmail.com 

Beardo's Youtube Channel:

Beardo Gets Scared