Local radio personality Dave Schrader cast in new Travel Channel show

Dave Schrader

​Minnesotans may know Dave Schrader as the host of 100.3 FM's Darkness on the Edge of Town, a paranormal talk show where he has chatted up ghost hunters, demonologists, filmmakers, and folks well-versed in end-time theories.

This summer, he will be lending his knowledge (and occasional skepticism) as a judge on Travel Channel's new show Paranormal Challenge.

The premise sounds a little like Ghost Hunters crossed with a game show: Each week teams are sent into various haunted hot spots with special technology in search of capturing the unexplainable. Competing teams will be judged teamwork, acquired evidence, knowledge/use of history, and technology.

Rolling Hills Asylum

​"I will be the voice of logic for the public and the people at home watching these shows who may ask, 'Why are they doing things this way?'" Schrader says. At the end of the challenge, teams will be required to provide what they believe to be solid proof of paranormal activity. "Sometimes I don't agree with them," he says, "but there have been more than a few times I've been really blown away."
 
The premiere episode will feature the notorious Rolling Hills Asylum, a location that looks like it could be the setting of a Silent Hill video game or a Trent Reznor video. Upcoming locations in the six-part series include the Eastern State Penitentiary and the Pennhurst State School.
Paranormal Challenge debuts this Friday night at 8 p.m. on the Travel Channel. For more info, visit the show's website.