Ken Greer – SW Michigan Paranormal Research
The Portage Theater, Chicago, IL
I attended the Chicago Ghost Conference on October 2nd and 3rd at the historic Portage Theater in Chicago.
The event kicked off on Friday evening with a welcome reception and live music from the band Redbird.
The first speaker of the evening was Bill Konkolesky, the Michigan Director of MUFON (Mutual UFO Network). Bill was a highly informative speaker and talked about several big sightings in Michigan and other areas. He also brought up the fact that there seems to be a trend between people experiencing more than one type of paranormal event. This theme would crop up all weekend.
Following Bill’s remarks, was Dave Schrader from Darkness Radio show and podcast. Dave is a funny guy and a great speaker. He related some of his personal experiences including things he has seen at Waverly and on The Queen Mary. Anyone not familiar with his radio show/podcast should check it out at www.darknessradio.com. It’s one of the best shows out there.
After Dave spoke, there was a panel discussion with some of the different speakers from the weekend and members of various paranormal groups. Jeff Belanger moderated the event. Jeff is another extremely funny guy. One of the best questions asked was “How did you become interested in the paranormal?” It was intriguing to hear everyone’s personal reasons for being involved.
The panel ended at around 8:30pm and then it was time for the Chicago Ghost Tour. They had about 120 people spread over three buses. The buses visited some of the more famous haunted locations throughout Chicago including Hull House, Concord Hotel, and the location of the deadly Eastman Boat Disaster. I was unable to go on the tour, but everyone said it was a great night.
The doors opened again on Saturday morning at around 7:30am.
Ray Sawyer from Darkness Paranormal out of Connecticut was the first speaker. He gave a presentation about EVP’s, giving good hints and tips.
Next up was Joshua Warren. Joshua is the author of eight books and creator of LEMUR (League of Energy Materialization and Unexplained Phenomena Research) Paranormal Investigations of Asheville, NC. Joshua takes a scientific approach to the paranormal and tries to recreate events in his lab. He has been investigating the Brown Mountain Lights for the past 15 years. These lights are seen regularly on the side of Brown Mountain in North Carolina. Joshua talked about the ties between people experiencing more than one paranormal event; including Ghosts, UFO’s and Cryptozoological animals. I was impressed by Joshua’s presentation. He can be heard weekly on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory and has his own radio show in North Carolina.
Following Joshua was Tony and Deb Pickman from the Sallie House. I still vividly remember the Sightings episodes that showed the Sallie House with psychic Peter James. I remember scratches appearing out of nowhere on Tony during filming.
Tony and Deb only lived in the house for two years, from 1992 to 1994. To Deb the house and spirit was peaceful and playful. For Tony though, it was demonic. For some reason the spirit did not like Tony. It would scratch him all the time and even started his clothes and other things on fire. Deb and Tony showed many pictures taken at the house over the years. There were quite a few that showed shadow figures, dark brown or blue masses of shadow and things that spontaneously combusted or were singed. Tony and Deb gave an emotional and powerful presentation. This was actually the first time they had talked at a public paranormal conference. Although they left the house in 1994, they have been back several times since to investigate it. Amazingly, they even have experiences at their current home when other groups are investigating the Sallie House. GREAT presentation.
I believe the next speaker was Jeff Rezman. Jeff mainly talked about using ghost boxes and some of the dangers of using them if not done properly. The main thing he wanted to stress was that you had to properly end a ghost box session by asking the guides or technicians to help the spirits get back to their side. You have to wait for an OK signal before shutting the box down. If you don’t you are in danger of the connection or portal remaining open and the spirits being able to travel back and forth at will. I would have liked Jeff to demonstrate an actual session while on stage, but his presentation was informative and interesting.
Next up was the crew from Paranormal Cops, a new show that will be appearing on A&E later in the year. Three of the members of the group are Chicagoland police officers. Along with a psychic and technical manager they investigate Chicago area haunts.
They showed the trailer for their new show and then took questions from the crowd. Once again Jeff Belanger moderated. I think that the forensic and investigative skills these guys use professionally on a daily basis will make this a deeply interesting show to watch. I think they may bring something new to the genre.
Filmmaker Dan Hall spoke next. He is currently finishing up his fourth paranormal documentary and he showed two scenes from his recently released movie Ghost Stories II. One scene was an investigation at Whisper’s Estate in Central Indiana and the other showed the investigation of the Wayne County Historical Museum where EVP’s were captured from a 3000 year-old Egyptian mummy. The clips were fascinating and I plan on getting his movies.
He has one movie just on the Central State Asylum for the Insane in Indianapolis. Dan was a riveting guest, and I look forward to seeing more of his work. (I won a copy of his movie Ghost Stories 2, so I’ll let you know what I think)
Fredrick Stonehouse followed Dan. Unfortunately, I missed his talk. Fredrick is an outstanding author of over 30 books about Great Lakes Maritime history. I have heard him before on a podcast and he has some incredibly interesting stories. I’m a little upset that I missed his presentation, but at the time I was talking with Scott L from Ghostly Talk podcast. Ghostly Talk is one of the longer running paranormal podcasts out there. I believe they started in 2002. I’ve been listening to the show for the last two years, so it was nice to finally meet Scott.
Jeff Belanger finally got to talk about his work. He is the author of nine paranormal books. Jeff is an extremely funny guy and is very knowledgeable about the paranormal. His talk was a quick history of ghosts, ghost hunting and communicating with spirits. The highlight of his excellent presentation was Ursula Bielski coming out as Resurrection Mary and giving her story and history of her haunting as a phantom hitchhiker.
The final speaker was the famous Lorraine Warren. Lorraine and her late husband Ed are paranormal researchers, investigators and demonologists with over 40 years experience. Some of their famous cases include the Amityville Horror and the house from A Haunting in Connecticut. Lorraine and her husband Ed are two of the godparents of the paranormal, up there with Hans Holzer.
Lorraine gave a brief history of her and Ed’s life together, and showed some pictures from their many investigations. One picture in particular was awe-inspiring. It showed a large demonic head formed out of either mist or ectoplasm. The amount of detail in the face was downright creepy. At the end of her lecture she showed a film showing an actual exorcism. In the movie Maurice “Frenchy” Theriault is shown drooling and the drool turning into blood, a scratch appearing on his forehead and when asked a question in Latin he responds in Latin backwards. Towards the end of the video his eyes rolled back into his head so you could only see the whites of his eyes and he slumped forward. This was a fascinating film clip. It was a sincere pleasure seeing Lorraine Warren speak. Imagine all of the things she has seen over the years!
After Lorraine, there was a buffet dinner where everyone just hung out and mingled. Afterwards, there was live music with three different bands.
I would like to say that Wanda Spudic, Ursula Bielski, Mike McDowell and the rest of the crew did a wonderful job of keeping things moving smoothly and on time. I did not notice any problems and other then things getting a slow start on Saturday morning, all the speakers stayed on schedule.
It was a great weekend; all the guests were interesting and approachable. Most of them had tables set up for when they weren’t onstage. Along with the presenters, there were also booths for different artists, crafts and merchandise. It was a pretty impressive collection of paracelebrities considering 2009 was only the second year of the event. This should be a must attend event for anyone in the Chicago area in the future.
KEN GREER
SW Michigan Paranormal Research
Tags: Ghost Hunting, Ken Greer
Two things struck me about this. The fact that people are experiencing more than one type of paranormal event and the information regarding the Ghost Box.
I intend to be much more careful with my Shack Hack and will now shut it down more properly. Thanks Ken.
The exorcism sounded pretty gross. Would love to have seen that film.
The exorcism was creepy in that “that’s not a fake dead body” kind of way.
You can tell it wasn’t acting or fake.
I think the Pickman’s presentation (from the Sallie house) was the most interesting. A lot of really good pictures of black, blue and gray shadows and mists. I don’t think they have done any live events like this, so they got a little emotional when they were telling their story.
It was pretty powerful stuff.
Was the exorcism considered the result of a ghost or a demon? Was it dealt with by a roman catholic ritual?