Last Look at the Haunted America Conference This Past Weekend

The 2009 Haunted America Conference in Decatur, Illinois, this past weekend featured numerous presenters discussing haunted sites across the country, high tech equipment for ghost hunting, the use of digital cameras, problems with paranormal photos, as well as after hours events to include an on-stage seance which Pat and I skipped because we were pooped, a ghost hunting workshop, and a few late night ghost hunts of the host Lincoln Theater. (Both of downtown Decatur's theaters are notably haunted.) Pat also won two souvenirs from notoriously haunted locations.

Troy Taylor discussed the subject matter of his latest book, Sex and the Supernatural, which I have revewed on Gather. He opened by asking if anyone had ever had sex with a ghost. One person in the back raised his hand. Troy asked "what was it like having sex with a ghost." The voice from the back replied "Ghost? I though you said goat!" Troy and unindicted co-conspirator Len Adams had cooked the gag up between them and it went over well. Troy touched on ancient attitudes towards sex, medieval attitudes which led to witch hunts and slaughter, satanism and cult activity, the vampires of folklore, and more. Troy says it's the fastest-selling title Whitechapel Press has.

Leslie Rule had problems with the weather but made it by the day of the main event, Saturday, to discuss her latest book, The Ghost in the Mirror. On stage, she dissued how mirrors seem to figure prominently in ghost appearances, talked about being raised around ghosts, about meeting her mother, crime writer Ann Rule's friend, Ted Bundy years before he was arrested, tried, and executed as America's most notorious serial killer. Leslie is a photographer and says she took all her the photos for her mom's book on Bundy, who had manned a crisis hotline with her, The Murderer Beside Me. She's a nice lady; Pat and I had dinner with her at Jimmie Johns where she told us about her problems getting to Decatur due to rotten weather. (Great sandwiches.) I mentioned in a previous post that Leslie recognized the Green River Killer on TV when he was arrested as someone who had attended one of her mother's lectures on the subject.

Craig Telesha was fascinating. Author of Strange Frequencies, he covers ghost hunting technology. His main thrust was that analog and digital equipment are completely different forms. People have abandoned analog for modern digital cameras and other technology. But the analog stuff should not be ignored/ Not only can you buy reel to reel recorders and old 1970's microphones and such on eBay cheap, but they might give even better results due to their different nature. The main difference is that analog is "what you see is what you get" while digital puts a computer chip as an interface between what you are recording and what comes out. Craig also mentioned that some people had had success seeking EVP (electronioc voice phenomena) with tape recorders set inside (unplugged) microwave ovens presumably due to the shielding they contain.

Nick Redfern talked about chupacabras. I think a number of people, myself included, were kind of looking forward to a change-of-pace discussion of Bigfoot. Instead, he talked about chupacabras in Puerto Rico, and I must admit that it was interesting. His reasoning was also solid: unlike Bigfoot and other creatures rooted in history, the chupacabra reports appeared out of nowhere only about 20 years ago or so. It puts them at the threshhold of being a real creature and a paranormal creature.

The Haunted America Conference this past weeked at the Lincoln Theater in Decatur, Illinois, also included Georgia ghost hunter Bob Hunnicutt who showed some wild films. One film showed an elevated corner room (in that it wasn't on the ground floor) and as you watched, in the lower half of the window, a clearly visible space alien face slid into view then back out again. In another house, a camera on a tripod is shooting up a stairway. The family in the house is so scared the daughter is bunking with her parents in the basement. Watching up the stairway to the empty upper floor, you see another smooth featured space alien face slowly poke out from the side to look downstairs towards the camera then withdraw. Another photo shows a wedding party posing in front of a mansion. In the second shot taken moments later, in the background against a large window is a black man in profile wearing a dark formal suit of some sort with a clearly visible white collar; the wedding partiers were white and there were no black folks present, at all. Very cool.

Patrick Burns of TruTV's Haunting Evidence (no longer in production but being aired in reruns nightly around midnight) discussed why he has returned to using digital cameras after his disappointment with the earlier digital cameras and discussed one case profiled on their shows, showing them at a crime scene with a mist that no one present saw, gathered around their bodies.

Len Adams and Luke Nadolski led off Friday night with "Sons of Strange Stuff" where they told war stories about their favorite ghost tour experiences and invited others to talk about their own notable experiences. They had a more sedate entrance than last year when Len, wearing a hockey mask and strapped to a dolly, was rolled to the lectern. They did end by pelting the audience with souvenirs.

We had a great time, saw some great photos and film, and probably even learned a bit. I'm no ghost hunter (takes a huge amount of dedication and, as Bilbo Baggins said, "Adventures make one late for dinner") but we do enjoy hanging out with people who are into ghosts and the like and taking ghost tours when we can.

No coffins for the door prize drawings this year (I have a separate AC strory with photo of the 1880's coffin I won last year), but they did have other neat stuff.

Pat actually won two items! The big prizes were 13 shadow box-type mountings with a soil sample or rock inside the frame and a certificate of authenticity as the background. One Pat got was a rock from the Bell Witch Cave about which Troy has written a book, and the other was a rock from the Gates of Hell at Stull Cemetery in Stull, Kansas, where the devil supposedly makes an appearance twice a year during his world tour. Neither one of us had even heard of Stull Cemetery until Pat's win, but Troy has something about it at his website (www.prairieghosts.com). Both souvenirs are reputed to carry bad mojo so Pat used a cleansing ritual on them.