Paranormal fans gather at century-old hall

Paranormal fans gather at century-old hall
June 4, 2009
By Dave Zuchowski
post-gazette.com

There are plenty of ghosts, monsters and things that go bump in the night in Western Pennsylvania.

At least that's what devotees of the paranormal said during the 2009 Western Pennsylvania Paranormal Conference held last weekend at Julian's Banquet Hall in Washington.

Conference director Anthony Atha, a business major at West Virginia University, said the very site of the conference had paranormal overtones.

"I looked for an historic building and settled on Julian's because it is a 100-year-old structure that once served as an armory and would lend itself to a paranormal investigation," he said.

Don Wagner, of the Pittsburgh-based Peace of Mind Paranormal Society, reported no significant findings from the investigation undertaken at the end of the conference, but he added that all the data had not been examined.

Like Mr. Atha, who said he had his first paranormal experience at the age of 5 when he saw an apparition, Marie Meeks, of Washington, said she too has had personal encounters with unexplained phenomena. She is the owner of Club 40, a bar and restaurant in Washington.

"We seem to have many ghosts in our building," she said. "They seem to be happy ghosts because they laugh a lot."

Mrs. Meeks said she once saw a man out of the corner of her eye and tried to communicate with him but got only a cryptic answer from the apparition. A year later, her husband had a similar experience in the parking lot with a man who looked the same and was wearing similar clothing.

"Our staff sometimes hears people talking when there's no one there, the chandeliers in the restaurant swing back and forth, a customer once saw a gray-haired lady in our mirror and the men's room door sometimes opens without cause," Mrs. Meeks said.

Six speakers addressed the audience on paranormal topics such as "Death and Mourning in Art" and "Monster Hunting and Cryptozoology: Why They Aren't Necessarily the Same Thing."

The opening speaker, ghost researcher John Sabol, explained his methodology, which includes a mix of archaeology, anthropology and theater.

Rather than using ghost-detecting equipment, Mr. Sabol, who's appeared in more than 25 films including "Dune" and "Rambo II," uses himself as a participant-observer tool in his "ghost excavations."

"My approach is more social science than physical science," said the author of seven books, who has done research on the Gettysburg battlefield and published the results in his latest book, "Bodies of Substance, Fragments of Memories."

Shawn Kelly, founder of the Pittsburgh Paranormal Society, takes a different approach to ghost hunting by using a variety of high tech equipment. Having completed more than 100 investigations, Mr. Kelly showed conference participants photos of what he said were apparitions and sound recordings of what he said were inexplicable voices discovered by the society.

Another speaker, Kurt McCoy, a program assistant at West Virginia University and author of "White Things," a book on monster sightings, explained his research into paranormal phenomena, such as the Mothman sightings near Point Pleasant, W.Va. The so-called Mothman, West Virginia's unofficial monster, Mothman walks like a human but has large wings and glowing red eyes and spawned the 2002 film, "Mothman Prophecies," starring Richard Gere.

"You don't have to go to Loch Ness to find monsters," Mr. McCoy said. "Reflections or shadows of our fears, they're in every town and state in the nation."

Throughout the day, psychic Susan Sheppard, of Parkersburg, W.Va., conducted private, 15-minute readings using a mix of tarot cards, astrology charts and intuitive impressions. Bob Finkle, who drove from Carlisle to attend the event, scheduled a reading.

"She started giving me information about myself and my deceased mother with nothing from me other than my birth date, and everything she said was right on. I went in a skeptic and came away impressed with her abilities," he said.

Circling the room, vendor tables offered items for sale including incense, amulets, books, jewelry and hypnotherapy CDs meant to help with smoking cessation or weight loss.

At one table, Heather Frazier, of Houston, sat with copies of her book, "Pittsburgh's Ghosts: Steel City Supernatural," 10 ghost stories set in southwestern Pennsylvania.

The Rev. Linda Martin, an ordained minister from Belle Vernon, offered "channeled readings."


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