Paraconnections
Ghost/Paranormal/Supernatural Conferences or, “ParaCons” are in full force right now. ‘Tis the season. Usually these conventions are held in the spring or summer when it’s not “spooky season”. Although to be fair, for those of us in this unique industry, it’s spooky season year-round. What is this paracon, you might ask? Think: ComicCon for paranormal enthusiasts. At paracons, enthusiasts will hear from expert speakers, learn about the art of investigating, meet paranormal experts, network with paranormal investigation groups, buy equipment and books, perhaps get psychic readings, take ghost tours, and have the opportunity to investigate with professional investigators as after-hours events. Then there is an entire subset of this genre of conferences, specializing in specific topics like Cryptids, Monsters, Aliens, and Vampires. This spring I’ll be attending the Ohio Bigfoot Conference in Lore City, Ohio; Parapsycon at The Ohio State Reformatory; and then Monster Fest right here in Canton, Ohio. I am very excited to see the latter being held right in my own backyard at the Downtown Doubletree Hotel. The organizers are kind enough to allow my tour company to host a ghost tour as an unofficial after-hours event. I’ve never attended any of these events as a vendor, but I still find them great places to network and meet other “professional weirdos”, as some of us like to dub ourselves. I’ve never done a lot of research specifically on Cryptids, so both Ohio Bigfoot and Monster Fest will be somewhat new territory for me. In late June I will be at the flagship of all paracons, Haunted America Conference and I’ll talk more in detail about this one below.
In a separate category was our Professional Ghost Tour Guide Meetup in Orlando in January, and that was specifically geared towards those of us who lead ghost tours. It proved to be very helpful to connect with other tour guides and generate new ideas to develop and fine-tune our tours. It was more informal, a small intimate group, and you can check out my recent blog specifically just about that gathering to get the details. Next winter the tour guide meet-up is going to be held in Richmond, and if you are a ghost tour owner or guide, it will be a wealth of information. It is a private group, so please let me know if you would like details and I will steer you in the right direction.
So as for paracons, to kick off the season, I attended my first paracon last weekend. I am in the midst of writing a book, so I am always seeking connections to learn more about the writing process and hear how others tell their stories. West Virginia always intrigues me and I’ve written about it before, but this past weekend I had the chance to be at the first ever Appalachian Paracon at the Blennerhassett in Parkersburg. The Blennerhassett Hotel, which opened its doors in 1889, is associated with a lot of legends and lore, and for an extra five bucks, you could register for a ghost tour of downtown Parkersburg.
Much of the tour focuses on the stories of the hotel. The event organizer, Adra Johnson has stirred up and rattled quite a few proverbial chains at the Blennerhassett in the past several years, according to Lynn Stone, our tour guide.
The entities have always been there at the hotel, but recently they have been roused, and are way more active than usual. We learned that the hotel has at least two infamous “women in white”. A hotel worker describes the first woman as having a white, expressionless face and bright red hair. She also reported that the woman wasn’t from this era; she wore a light blue dress that had a frilly, tall collar and a brooch. She is typically seen in the library and outside the window that was once the main door to the hotel. The other lady in white is spotted (and felt!) in the elevator, usually opening and closing the door, touching people, and pressing buttons, both literally and figuratively. And then there is “The Bowler Hat Man.” The man is known to be seen in the dry storage area in the basement and also in room 409, which is located a few stories above the storage area. Hotel staff believe him to be the founder of the Blennerhasset, Colonel William Nelson Chancellor himself.
Why does he keep coming back, you ask? Perhaps he shows up to make sure things are kept up to his standards and to oversee the operations of the hotel that he built and constructed. This project was his magnum opus and he wants to make sure it is still maintained to his liking. Chancellor dreamed of building a hotel that would be second to no other hotel in the state of West Virginia, and the Blennerhassett was exactly that when it opened. Parkersburg was in the middle of the oil and gas boom era in the 1880s, and Chancellor wanted his hotel to highlight the wealth there. The city of Parkersburg first received electricity in 1888 for the street lights on the main streets in the town. The electricity was generated by natural gas. The hotel had both gas and electric at the time that it opened. As for the ghost of Chancellor, he’s rather a mellow sort of spirit, much more inclined to be quietly smoking a cigar somewhere than disturbing guests. We also learned quite a bit about Joseph Eisele, the “Parkersburg Murderer”. Parkersburg had its very own serial killer and this guy was no joke. He would kill his victims, then turn around and help prepare their bodies after they were embalmed, and then attend their funerals like nothing suspicious had ever happened. Sociopath, much?
The spirits of the hotel really lend themselves to the atmosphere for a successful paranormal conference. Adra told me that as an investigator she had always admired the hotel. She says that it was a place she visited when she needed a reminder as to why she was working in the paranormal field, because the hotel has always been incredibly active, and is very deserving of a paranormal program. The first speaker at bat was Megan Thompson, speaking about Appalachian Magic. She charmed us all with her quirky stories about mountain folklore. For example, if you drop a loaf of bread taking it out of the oven, it means your husband is cheating. If a coal miner washes his back before going into the mine, that means his roof is going to collapse. And some coal miners today still will not bathe before going to work because of this classic superstition. If you hear knocking in your home, someone is going to die. And Megan also shared some natural healing techniques like the seventh son of the seventh uncle blowing air into your mouth to cure thrush. (Yeah, I know. Some of these are head-scratchers, no doubt.) Another crowd-pleaser and favorite speaker is always Sherri Brake. Sherri is from my neck of the woods, and I have been lucky enough to attend two of her ghost tours. Smart and well-read, her talks are always interesting and her time on the stage at this conference was no exception. She spoke about five different haunted prisons and asylums.
There were quite a few vendors spread throughout the hotel and the stand-out for me was Steve Hummel’s Archive of the Afterlife, and he brought several selections from his museum to put out on display. His physical museum was once in Moundsville, adjacent to the West Virginia Penitentiary, and he is hoping to move it back there, after moving to a less-touristy town during the pandemic.
Among other interesting objects, Steve brought small jars of earth from the graves of each of Jack the Ripper’s victims. I’ve taken the Jack the Ripper tour in London. I’ve considered going to the annual Jack the Ripper Convention. (Yes, they do have such an event.) And I’ve watched many documentaries on this mysterious granddaddy of all the serial killers, so a piece of history relating to him and his crimes appeals to me greatly. (I know…. I know. But you guys already knew I was a little odd when you started to read this blog.)
Adra shared with the congregation that they had an unexpected surge of registrations for this conference- way more than anticipated, and the space for the speakers quickly filled up to standing room only. Fortunately the organizers ended up opening a wall and allowing seats to spill into the vendor room to accommodate more people to hear the popular speakers at the end of the day. I found it to be super interesting and a very well-run show for its inaugural year. They even served themed drinks in the hotel Lounge.
The only thing left out was information about where to park. I kept worrying throughout the day that I might be slapped with a parking ticket, but alas upon leaving, I was happy to see that I was not. They don’t call it Parkersburg for nothin’…. (Pardon the terrible pun there.)
One of the largest paranormal conference events is Haunted America in Alton, Illinois on June 23-24 in Alton, Illinois. I attended in 2019 and am excited to add it to my schedule this year. It was hands-down one of the most well-run conventions I’ve attended. According to Troy Taylor, event organizer and founder of American Hauntings, they have affectionately called the conference “Paranormal Summer Camp” before, and it truly kind of of is just that… it’s a chance for adults to escape from the real world for the weekend and talk about things that are important to those in attendance, but may not be considered all that normal for the rest of society. We are not out in the woods somewhere, but it’s an insulated society for one weekend and a “safe place” for people who love ghosts and the unexplained. I think that sentiment captures this industry perfectly. It is intriguing for so many people, yet is still often considered strange or taboo to others.
The Haunted America Conference was America’s first event of this kind. Troy gave me some background on the event. They held the first one at the Lincoln Theater in Decatur, Illinois, in 1997. A reporter at the local newspaper thought the idea was funny, so he put a story out on the Associated Press wire the week of the event – and it went nuts. Troy spent every day that week on the telephone, 6-7 hours each day – talking to radio shows and newspapers about the idea for the event. They ended up with news programs and TV shows like “Extra” and “Encounters” at the conference for the next few years after that. So, I guess the Haunted America Conference turned out to be a pretty good idea.
Over the next 15 years or so, the conference bounced around between Decatur and Alton, Illinois. They also did one in Jacksonville, Illinois, in San Diego, California, and out on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Since 2015, though, it has been back in Alton. It’s turned out to be a great spot for it since, in addition to being “One of the Most Haunted Small Towns in America,” it’s also really centrally located. They get visitors who come from all over the country to attend every year, so being in the middle of the United States is pretty convenient. Saint Louis is just across the river, and an easy airport to fly into. (Especially if you are a lucky enough to work as a flight attendant as your “day job”. I always joke that if you don’t want a flight attendant to show up somewhere, don’t bother asking, because we indeed *will* indeed find a way to get there!)
The number of attendees has varied over the years. It’s ranged from 150 people for quite a few years in a small location to grow to about 400 when the event moved to a hotel conference center. They already have broken that record for this year so it’s going to be a great turnout and I am excited to be there to see for myself.
The speaker roster for the list has been a really extensive one. Since Troy started this event WAY before there were so-called “TV celebrities,” he has tried to continue to steer away from them. It’s a speaker-based event, so there are not guests seated at tables giving autographs and that kind of thing. For that reason, the invites steer toward authors and actual speakers. Since there are not that many slots, they’re in pretty high demand. I think this is what draws me in and what makes this the best convention for me personally. I have been to the ones with celebrity ghost hunters, and they are more expensive and in general less-interesting than the authors and investigators. Troy has a great lineup this year, and I am excited to hear Sherri Brake, Amelia Cotter, Luke & Len, Cody Beck, and of course Troy, himself.
In 2019 my favorites at Haunted America were Richard Estep, an investigator and tour guide at the Stanley Hotel, who spoke about Fox Hollow Farm, a very dark, storied location in Indiana, once home to a serial killer, and Karen Dahlman, who is an expert on Talking Boards, and cleared up so many myths and inaccuracies about the Ouija board and its uses. I was fascinated that she was able to communicate with her cat through the board. It was sweet and endearing, not scary nor demonic, like some of the media, movies, and television shows would have you believe. I also got to do an after-hours event with Luke Naliborski, and if you look at my blog archives, I’ve written about the very interesting and well-researched Alton ghost tour. Being the most haunted small town in America, they’ve got a lot to work with in this “dismal little river town”, as Mark Twain once described it.
Whether in Alton, Parkersburg, or elsewhere, haunted conventions, paracons, paranormal conferences, or whatever else you want to call them, bring me great joy. Aside from the networking and the speaker presentations, I always learn something new: the history of a spooky location, strange cryptid behavior, and even things to incorporate into my own tours. I cannot wait to connect with other professional weirdos in the next few months. Feel free to reach out to me if you’ll be one of the weirdos in attendance too, and we can connect over creeps, a cup of coffee, or a cocktail. Spirits and sprits. I can’t think of anything better.
