Jonathan is not what you would think of when you think of a stereotypical believer in psychics. He is male, which is a minority in the sea of people who show up to psychic events. He is also college-educated and works in a science-based industry. Jonathan has always seen himself as skeptical and normally wouldn’t have given a show like Lifetime’s 2018 show Seatbelt Psychic any attention. But about a year ago, Jonathan’s life was thrown off kilter with the sudden death of his fiancée. Those people who have experienced the death of someone close, especially when that death seems to come out of nowhere will know how you can feel like you have lost one of your arms. Jonathan had many questions about his fiancée’s death and had a need to know. If there is life after death—as many religions tell us—was she happy? At peace? Was she watching over him? 

Jonathan began looking into mediums (people who claim to be in contact with the dead) and found Thomas John’s show Seatbelt Psychic. For those of you who have been following the Guerrilla Skeptic investigations, you will be familiar with Thomas John Flanagan. For a refresher, here is his Wikipedia page. At the bottom of the article, you can find most of the articles I and others have written about his exploits. 

At first, Jonathan thought Seatbelt Psychic was great. Thomas John picks up unsuspecting passengers in what viewers are led to believe is a ride-share such as Uber or Lyft. At the beginning of each of the eight episodes, Lifetime is sure to remind viewers that Thomas John has not met any of these sitters before, and I believe that. The sitters of the show are shown being picked up and putting on their seatbelt. Then Thomas John drives away from the curb and makes friendly chatter. After a block or so, Thomas John lets the sitter know that he is psychic and would like to know if they would be open to a reading. All the people we see on the show say yes. Then we see tightly edited clips of Thomas John giving spot-on readings, including names of their loved ones, to the passengers sitting in the back seat. Tears, laughter, and acknowledgement of how accurate Thomas John is with his readings soon occur. The passengers are brought to a location where some are filmed leaving the car and are then interviewed. There is follow-up by the show with sitters supplying photos of the loved ones who Thomas John reached and even sometimes a further update on how much their lives have changed for the better since their reading with Thomas John. 

I totally get it. It looks so believable with heart-warming music, flattering lighting, and oh so lovely accurate affirmations from the spirits. 

We as viewers are conditioned by the hours of TV and movies we have watched to focus on what we are seeing and not think about what we are not seeing. I just binge-watched the fourth season of The Crown. It felt so real; there were amazing intimate conversations between Queen Elizabeth and her son Prince Charles about his failing marriage. We saw it happen. We saw the detail of the room, and we know that these two persons are real and that Charles had a failing marriage with Diana. Yet we forget that there are many people and cameras and microphones and special lighting equipment in that room (if it is a room; it might be a set) and we don’t know if they had this conversation. No one wrote it down, and there is no audio of it. We just assume it happened as we see it happen. If the show is done correctly, we forget about all the things we can’t see, the things that must be true right in front of us, but it will ruin the experience for most of us if we focus on what we don’t see. 

So that is what is happening with Seatbelt Psychic as well as Thomas John’s other TV show that aired on CSB All Access in June 2020, The Thomas John Experience. 

How can these possibly be unsuspecting passengers being picked up by a ride-share whose driver just happens to be a psychic who is about to give them a detailed personal reading about their loved ones? 

I’ve written about all this in detail here, here, and here if you are interested in learning more. 

A few weeks ago, Jonathan reached out to me on Facebook Messenger. (I’m purposefully being vague about Jonathan to protect his privacy, and Jonathan isn’t his real name.) He explained that one night he just felt something was wrong with what he had seen on Seatbelt Psychic and googled “Seatbelt Psychic Fraud.” One of my articles was the second link he found. Quickly he learned that the people sitting in the backseat were not unsuspecting passengers picked up on the street and many of them were actors—complete with IMDb profiles. 

Jonathan had planned to attend one of Thomas John’s shows once it was safe to do so again, but thankfully he hadn’t given Thomas John money for a reading. What Jonathan told me was that he was grateful to have learned the truth about Thomas John. He expressed frustration that Lifetime would allow a show like Seatbelt Psychic to lead vulnerable people such as himself into the world of psychics. Jonathan urged me to keep researching and writing about grief vampires such as Thomas John. 

I’m still getting letters like Jonathan’s from time to time but not as often as I did when Thomas John’s shows were running. His popularity has never been much; he is at most a C-level psychic. And don’t take my words for fact; we can see how often people are visiting his Wikipedia page, which is an independent measure of people’s interest. 

Here is a graph of how often people are visiting Thomas John’s Wikipedia page from December 1, 2019–December 1, 2020.

That big spike was when The Thomas John Experience was launched in June 2020, and the biggest spike he got was only 1,800 views. That’s almost nothing in the world of celebrity. Remember this guy says he is communicating with dead people. You would think a few more people would be interested. Over the year, his Wikipedia page has been viewed 60,739 times—on average 166 views a day. For comparison, I’m a nobody without a TV show, and the Susan Gerbic Wikipedia page during that same time received 23,494 views—64 views a day on average. 

There was no second season of Seatbelt Psychic, and we are still waiting to see if The Thomas John Experience films again. It’s no surprise that people aren’t writing to me as often as before. 

I thought I was done writing about Seatbelt Psychic, yet here I am again. And this time I have an inside scoop and more research from my team that I’m going to report on now. 

First to the inside scoop that led the Guerrilla Skeptics to do further research. 

I was put in contact with Kris (not the real name, and I’m keeping this vague to protect Kris’s identity) who was one of the people who was riding in the backseat for the show. Kris and I have had many long conversations that filled me in on many details of what the viewers don’t know about the filming of Seatbelt Psychic. 

Kris lives in the Los Angeles area and happened to notice an advertisement asking for people in the area to apply to be on a game show. That looked intriguing, so Kris filled out an online application. After a few weeks, Kris heard back and was told to report to a location for a shoot. Kris knew to wear clothing without logos and to dress up a bit for the show. Kris came to the location and was informed that they were running on a tight one-hour schedule. There were a lot of forms to sign; Kris doesn’t even know what was signed, but when everything was done a car came to pick Kris up.

That was really strange, because Kris was only told that it would be a game show and here was this big black car with go-pro cameras all over it. Kris was suspecting to be driven to the Ellen show or something. Why else would there be so many cameras? Kris got in the car and buckled up. The driver introduced himself as Thomas. Kris had never heard of Thomas John before, but Thomas John quickly began giving Kris very personal and intimate information about dead family members. Kris was soon in tears. 

They drove for an hour, with Thomas John giving hit after hit. Kris was completely blown away. Kris didn’t notice where they drove or what they passed, because Kris was so focused on what Thomas John was saying and it was so emotional.

Kris was interviewed and dropped back off at the pick-up location. Waiting there was the next person who had just signed their forms and would be taken for a ride in the same car.

Afterward, Kris didn’t know what to think. It didn’t dawn on them to challenge what Thomas John had said; it was all accurate. Some months passed, and Kris started attending Thomas John events and readings. At one, Kris was picked out of the audience and given a personal reading remarkably similar to what was said in the car. Kris told me that it started to seem strange that the same people got attention each time. But still, Kris moved on with life until I reached out. Through many conversations, we have managed to learn a lot from each other. 

Enter the Guerrilla Skeptic Team

As you may know, I have a substantial team of volunteers who are quite interested in psychic mediums. They are busy following posts, watching videos, attending events, and just generally keeping an eye on many different people. They find things all the time, but it’s up to me to document the investigations. We don’t want people to know who is on the team. As usual, it’s curious that my team is interacting with psychics, but the psychics don’t seem to be aware that they are a part of this group investigating them. Some of my team would be considered in close contact—even inside the inner circles of these grief vampires. 

We were curious what we could discover if the team watched the eight episodes of Seatbelt Psychic on mute and just focused on the background. Kris had been riding in the car for an hour, and each other sitter also rode for an hour. Where did they go? Kris said that other sitters were picked up at the same location. It was a production for the day, not just for Kris. 

It was pretty tedious work, but we are tenacious. We captured a lot of screenshots of what was going on in the background. And with the use of Google Maps and knowledge from a couple of team members who live in the area, it was quickly discovered that two locations were used on the show: the Sportsman’s Lodge at 12825 Ventura Boulevard, Studio City, California, and the area around The Federal and the Post Office in North Hollywood.

If the premise of the show is that he is picking up unsuspecting passengers—people he has never met—and then giving them detailed readings from their dead family members, then why is he picking them up at the same two locations? Why did they fill out an application beforehand and then sign paperwork at the location before filming? How do we know this? Let’s look at the show and see what we can see. 

In figure 1 below, you can see a woman in bright pink getting into the car. We later find out her name is Pinky, and she once ran for mayor of Los Angeles. Pinky getting into the car gave us some terrific images; we can almost see into the hotel lobby, plus there is that big sign over the top that says “hotel parking.” We can see the River Rock sign outside the rainy window. 

In figure 2, you see three different women with the River Rock sign and building behind them. We had many more examples of River Rock from behind the sitters as well as from the driver’s side window. Thomas John driver pulls forward, and we see the same rock wall, same stop sign, artwork, and the cars in the hotel parking lot. He makes a right turn onto a street with more of the River Rock plants and walls. 

We see the same black car following behind Thomas John over and over. It’s not close enough to see the two people riding in the front seat or the license plate. I mention it because the car was there so often that we noticed it, but it wouldn’t be all that strange because the producers would need to be nearby in case there was a complication. I’m sure they needed to be within earshot and were able to listen in and communicate with Thomas John without disrupting the filming.

 

 

Figure 3 shows the Google Maps street view we found. We had a lot more images that we found off the Sportsman’s Lodge’s Facebook page, including some nice images of the pickup area. We mapped a right turn out of the Sportsman’s parking lot and watched the images, and it’s pretty easy to follow the path that Thomas John took over and over with these sitters. 

 

Figure 4 shows the street where Thomas John picked up another set of sitters. It’s the post office and The Federal building area. We can see Kaiser Hospital (the big white building) off to the right in many of the pickup photos. And next door (as you are driving away from Kaiser) is The Federal, a bar and restaurant which ironically plays a part in this investigation. That is the building where Mark Edward and me played the roles of Suzanna and Mark Wilson in Operation Pizza Roll where we first met Thomas John. 

 

 

In figure 5, we see the same backdrop as this coffee shop. We have many more screen shots that prove that people dropped off at this location and interviewed were in the same general area. 

I know there is editing going on in all reality shows, but we can see it here just by looking at the background and seeing how the conversation doesn’t match up. In this example from a YouTube video of Episode 4, you can watch it yourself. At thirty seconds into the video, Thomas John has asked the sitter if he is open to having a psychic reading. The man is wary (we later learn he is a preacher), and at this moment the car isn’t moving; you can see a strip mall outside the driver’s window with two cars waiting at the light next to them. The preacher is asking Thomas John “Where do you get this gift?” Thomas John says, “I get it from God. He gives people different gifts.”

Then only a few seconds later, at thirty-eight seconds in, the car is moving. We see a park outside the driver’s window, and the preacher is asking Thomas John “What God is this? Is it the God of the Bible? Is it Buddha? Is it Allah … ?” Thomas John says he does not know. “I just feel like it is the universe creator.” 

And if you continue to 2:47 in the video, you see the pastor struggling with continuing the conversation about communicating with the dead. There is a painful pause where the pastor decides what to say, and Thomas John puts his hand to his face and waits, and then the pastor asks, “Is she happy?” And Thomas John looks up into the rearview mirror at the pastor. It’s a powerful moment for the show. If you watch the whole episode, you see that they break for commercial at that moment.

But let’s look at this moment again. Outside the driver’s window at 2:47, we see the same view as in second thirty. The cars waiting for the light to turn green are in the same spot as before; nothing has moved. What does this mean? It means that the show is edited, taking pieces from one moment and chopping it up and moving it to another moment to create a different conversation. 

Here is another interesting edit. On Episode 8, we have a mother and son in the backseat. Thomas John asks if they would be okay getting a reading, and when they say yes, he goes right for the big hit: “Whose Ina?” And the woman answers “That’s my mom’s name.” This happens at 1:12, which you can see for yourself in this YouTube video. And then at 2:27 they are still talking about Ina. We can see Thomas John listening but only hear what they are saying in the backseat. For one second, we see the exact same underpass section with the same odd coloring in the same spot at both 1:12 and 2:27. What’s up with that? Looks like they are driving in circles, staying in the same lane. Is it that small of a loop they are driving in that they are having the same bit of conversation? Or did they edit the audio to appear that they were having the same conversation?

As I cautioned earlier, we fall into the pattern of thinking that what we are seeing is what is actually happening. The cameras are not cutting back and forth from sitter to driver to a view of both. Every camera is recording all the time. Editors decide how to manipulate the video, and it is easy to show footage of Thomas John listening and then adding audio said at a completely different time, possibly about a different subject, to the clip. Then it looks like Thomas John is listening to the sitter respond. I’m not surprised, and we can find instances of this happening throughout the series. With the visual evidence of the background, we can know this manipulation is happening.

 

One other odd thing that stood out to us after watching the videos over and over again: at no time does Thomas John make a left turn. One team member pointed that out, and we all started watching for a left turn. Not one. He always seems to be in the lane closest to the curb. We’re not sure why, but that is what we observed. Possibly for insurance purposes because he is driving people around? Thomas John has had a lot of different careers, but I don’t think any of them have been a professional driver.

A right turn at every intersection makes the route a giant circle. From watching the footage, it looks like laps. An hour is a long time to drive in circles, and Thomas John needs to be concentrating on the conversation he is having. Plus speaking to all those dead people, I would expect it would get really confusing. In the times I and my team have seen Thomas John in person, he reads with his eyes closed. He said he does this so he can concentrate on what the dead are saying. Good thing he is not driving with his eyes closed here. I’m sure the insurance people wouldn’t have liked that. 

A simple right turn on a route that has been carefully selected for its attractiveness is in order. I’ve driven around Los Angeles many times, and there is a lot of graffiti and homeless communities on the streets. I suppose they didn’t want to show anything like that on the show.

One of the ways we were able to figure out the route was that he passed by landmarks, street signs, and businesses over and over again. We saw Wells Fargo, Petco, Wendy’s, some place called NoHo 7. We saw Kaiser out that back window many times, always on the same side of the car, which fits if the route is made up of right turns only. There were a lot of signs on the sidewalk for NoHo, which is what locals call North Hollywood. We see a credit union always out of the left window, and the Southern Pacific Railroad building always in the right window. Highway 101 signs are always on the driver’s side of the car. 

In figure 5, we see three images of NoHo 7, always out of the driver’s side window. These are from three different readings and three different days judging by Thomas John’s clothing changes. 

One of the team members posted a rundown of what was said and timestamps of what was seen out of the window. Here is an example: 

9 seconds into the video, they pass by a building with a sign, possibly one of the words on the sign is pharmaceutical. At this point, the conversation is just “How’s your day?” At 2:10, they pass the same building, but now he is telling her that her dead dad is apologizing. Importantly, there’s a building behind the pharmaceutical building that appears at 52 sec, and they drive past it, only to drive past it again at 1:13.

They also pass the same green sign twice, once at 16 sec when he is telling her he is a medium, and again at 2:23 after talking about her dad.

They pass by what seems to be the same green fence multiple times, each time the topic of discussion is different. At 54 sec, the green fence ends and she says, “I can’t believe you know all this,” in response to him guessing her dad’s name (at this point they’re also passing the building behind the pharmaceutical one again). Then at 1:05 the green fence starts. At 1:14, they’re passing the fence again, at 1:24 the fence is gone, and at 1:49 the fence is back.

At 45 sec they pass by a 7/11 store talking about her grandma, and pass the same 7/11 again at 2:52, this time talking about her son.

At 1:23, they pass a red fence, and pass what looks like the same one at 2:28 sec.

At 32 sec they go under an underpass talking about her grandmother (the first time he asks about her grandmother is at 38 sec), and they drive under the same underpass at 3:00 talking about her son. (At 2:13, they go under an underpass that is clearly not the same one.)

Two really strange appearances are worth noting. The first begins at 2:57 when they pass an intersection with a white truck or van in the background. Then only 7 sec later at 3:04, they pass the same intersection with the same white van. The second begins at 1:10 sec and lasts about 15 seconds. During this time they’re talking about her dad. The thing is, both his and her background changes during this short period, and because of the conversation, and since they were stopped, it really shouldn’t have changed at all.

Confusing, isn’t it? The editing is tight, but when you pay attention to the background, it tells a very different story. I’m very thankful I have an awesome team willing to work on this research. We could have plotted out the route using Google Maps, but what’s the point? It’s pretty obvious what is going on. These people are not random people being picked up by a ride-share driven by medium Thomas John. 

What Kris told me appears to be verified by the multiple people picked up at the same two locations. The hour-long drive claim checks out because we see the same landmarks in the background pass by in the same reading. The many edits that are throughout the show are telling us that the reading did not always progress as seen in the final show. Conversations were chopped up and re-formatted to make a more cohesive story. The constant right turns show us that the route is a loop. 

These are not random people. Everyone who got in the backseat of that car signed documents saying it was okay to be filmed and to be driven around. They might not have read those documents first. I don’t know if they all thought they were being driven to a game show. I do know that some of these people are actors; they are listed as part of the cast on IMDb. This means that somewhere there is a biography of the actor. Kris filled out an application to be on a game show, and possibly others did the same. I don’t know what was on that application, but it doesn’t take much more than a first and last name to find enough to give a reading.

Let me perfectly clear. I do not think that Thomas John has met these people before. When these people get in the backseat, they do not know they are going to be given a psychic reading. They probably have no idea who Thomas John is. Remember back to the beginning of this article—almost no one knows who Thomas John is. These people are not acting; they are genuinely reacting to the reading. Kris was blown away; the tears were real. Kris wasn’t paying attention to anything but what Thomas John was saying. I asked if Kris noticed the car following or that they went around in loops. Kris said Bigfoot could have been running alongside the car and they would not have noticed. 

Episode 2 opens with this bombshell of an exchange with a woman sitter. When you look at the video, she is very pleasantly asking about his day and commenting on the rain while she is putting on her seatbelt. Thomas John is frozen in this over-the-top shocked look. He pulls into traffic (always remaining in the lane closest to the sidewalk), and as he continues to play it up, he says, “Sweetheart, I have to turn around.” She pleasantly says “okay,” and then he says, “I know this is totally weird, but I’m a medium, and I communicate with people who have passed over.” She smiles, leans forward, and says “okay.” Thomas John, still acting distressed, says, “and I actually feel like I’m going to pass out because there is like 200 dead people with you.” 

During this exchange, the car is moving along at a normal traffic speed, and then in the next frame the car has stopped moving, and it is alongside a curb and she says, “I wonder if it’s because I’m a mortician?” Thomas John says, “Yep! That would be it [they have a laugh]. I have to get you out of this car. I don’t want to crash the car while we are driving.” And she exits the car, saying, “No worries. No problem.” As she exits, we see they are parked in a parking space in a parking lot.  Thomas John gives another exaggerated look of relief and opens his car door. I’m not sure why he didn’t just roll down his window if he wanted some fresh air; maybe the ignition was turned off and he could not power down the window. Why would the car be off if he were just dropping her off? How long were they sitting there talking before she left? It’s just seconds in what we see on the show. 

All this leads us to wonder if Thomas John should be driving at all. Can he enter a hospital? Visit people in a nursing home? Is it ethical for him to leave her thinking that she has 200+ dead people floating around her everywhere she goes? That’s not strange at all.

It gets better. The Guerrilla Skeptic team found an Instagram post by this woman. The account has been deleted, so I don’t feel uncomfortable sharing the name she has chosen to represent herself on social media: Death Becomes Her.

She seemed clueless at the time she posted this comment, thinking that she was fooling with Thomas John and not the other way around. I wonder what she put on the game show application. Or how difficult it was once they knew her name to find her past occupation working in a mortuary? I’m also curious what parts of the conversation were removed because there clearly are edits; the background shows us that. She seemed pretty happy being dropped off in the rain at some parking lot when she thought she was on the way to a game show taping. We are obviously missing something. 

It is possible that some of these people might have exaggerated a bit—hamming it up for the cameras that were facing them. I don’t know. But I really do not think that any part of the sitter’s role in this was scripted. 

What I do know, is that when the medium has prior information about who will be the sitter, especially if the name is unique and they have a little more information such as where they live, approximate age, and hobbies. Then finding their social media accounts would be pretty easy. Keep in mind that we know that Thomas John uses Intellus.com, the subscription website that allows you to “find people with quick results.” We know that he uses this website because during one of his webinars he accidently showed his computer’s email inbox, and we could see it was bookmarked. You can see it in this article. 

In one of my conversations with Kris, we talked about the one-hour drive with Thomas John. Only a couple minutes actually made the show. Kris’s name is pretty unique, and it took me only a few minutes to find where Kris was born and the names of Kris’s parents and grandparents, where they immigrated from, father’s occupation and names of all the siblings, uncles, and aunts. I found all this in a few minutes of research. As I told Kris about the things I was finding, Kris told me that some of the information was the same as what Thomas John gave. 

For researching this article, I’ve had to re-watch bits of the show with the mute on, and it’s still heartbreaking. People get in the car mostly in a good mood. Thomas John warms them up with a nice smile and then starts a reading. Their emotions are like a roller coaster: they are smiling and laughing, then they turn red trying to hold back the tears. Then they start dabbing at their eyes and in too many cases they are dealing with grief. Thomas John leaves them at the curb with a smile; love and harmony are in the air. Listening again to the shows with the sound on, we hear people tell Thomas John how much the reading meant to them. One woman said, “You don’t know how badly I needed to hear this. You have changed my life.” The crew does an interview with each of the sitters, and they explain how much they miss their loved ones and how meaningful it was hearing from them again. 

Some people got a follow-up on the show. The sitters give the show old photos of the loved ones that Thomas John communicated with. In the episode with actress Wendy Westmoreland, Thomas John speaks with her brother. She later gives the show a faded Christmas photo of her and her brother. When I looked up Wendy Westmoreland on Facebook, I knew I had the correct person because I found that same photo posted, along with the brother’s name and people talking about him in the past tense. So, if I can find this information, then how difficult would it be for Thomas John or his people to find it when they had far more time and a lot more motivation to do the research? 

Other follow-up on these sitters showed that they were making life-changing decisions based on what Thomas John told them. Reuniting with family, making a move, a job change, dealing with drama in the family, or adopting a new dog. These all sound so positive, but really we don’t know. The information they are receiving from this stranger who was driving them in loops around North Hollywood might not be what is in their best interests. And think about what happens when you figure out that you have just had someone mess with your memories of your loved one. You think you have just been hearing from your brother who says he is watching over you. That must feel amazing—until you realize that your brother didn’t say that; your brother is still dead, and someone just manipulated your emotions for a TV show.

I’m sure none of you reading this article will be surprised to know that reality TV isn’t actually … reality. Yet I think we need a reminder from time to time. Plus, this show isn’t a reality show about two people on a date or strangers on an island competing in competitions against each other. This is more akin to giving TV time to showing people who have cancer getting a surprise consultation with an oncologist who rides next to you on a bus on your way to a game show. Hope and joy and the feeling that you were selected for this special medical advice just as you needed it would be in the follow-up interviews as you are filmed standing at the bus stop afterward. But in this analogy, the oncologist you have just spoken to is a quack. Getting unsolicited medical advice from some rando on a bus that proclaims to have a successful treatment for your cancer in a clinic across the border in Mexico—and, oh yeah, the treatment is going to be free. It’s like Oprah just gave you a car, but no one told you that you have to pay the taxes at the full market rate first. There is always a hitch—and in the case of the quack oncologist, you have become an unwilling advertisement for the quack treatment. Most don’t realize that they were the game show until it’s too late. Viewers are unaware of the infomercial they have just seen. 

Lifetime and CBS don’t seem to understand the harm pushing these readings can do on these sympathetic humans who thought they had signed up for a game show. I just don’t get it. It’s not buyer beware or that these people should have known better than to take this as anything but entertainment. Bullshit. The sitters and the viewers of the show are not clued in; from beginning to end, it’s touted as real medium communications. Not even a weak disclaimer anywhere. 

For the Jonathans and Krises out there and the few people who write to me from time to time, this is why my team spends hours watching muted videos staring at the background passing, pausing every few seconds to take a screen shot of a street sign or store front. This is tedious work, and only people who feel passionate about the truth and educating people one by one would take the time to do this. 

Stay ready; there is more to come.