MEET CHICAGO HAUNTINGS
Ursula
Bielski
 Ursula
Bielski is the founder of Chicago Hauntings, Inc. An
historian,
author, and parapsychology enthusiast, she has been writing
and lecturing about Chicago's supernatural folklore and the paranormal
for nearly 20 years, and is recognized
as a leading authority on the Chicago region's
ghostlore and cemetery history. She is the author
of five popular and
critically acclaimed books on the same subjects, all published by Lake
Claremont Press.
Ursula's
interests in Chicago ghost hunting began at a young age. She grew up in a
haunted house on Chicago's north side and received an early education
in Chicago history from her father, a Chicago police officer, who
introduced Ursula to the ghosts at Graceland Cemetery, Montrose Point
and the old lockup at the storied Maxwell Street Police
Station. Since
that time Ursula has been involved in countless investigations of
haunted
sites in and around Chicago, including such notorious locales as
Wrigley Field, the Congress Hotel, the Indiana Dunes, the Red
Lion
Pub,
Hull House, Bachelors Grove Cemetery, Rose Hill Cemetery,
haunted
Archer Avenue, Chinatown, the Eastland disaster site, Death
Alley, Dillinger's Alley and the St. Valentine's Day Massacre
site. Her paranormal travels have also led her to investigate
sites as diverse and infamous as the Bell Witch Cave in Tennessee; the
Oshkosh, Wisconsin Opera House; New Orleans' House of the Rising
Sun; the City Cemetery in Key West, Florida; and the
Civil
War Battlefield at
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Aside
from her writing, Ursula has been featured on numerous
television
documentaries, including productions by the A&E Network, The
History Channel, The Learning Channel, The Travel Channel, and PBS. She
also appears regularly on local Chicago television and radio and
lectures throughout the year at various libraries, historical and
professional societies. In addition to her books, Ursula is the author
of numerous scholarly articles exploring the links between history and
the paranormal, including articles published in the
International
Journal of Parapsychology. Ursula is a past editor of PA News, the
quarterly newsletter of the Parapsychological Association, a past
president and board member of the Pi Gamma Chapter of Phi Alpha Theta,
the national history honor society, and holds membership in
the Society
of Midland Authors.
A
graduate of St. Benedict High School in Chicago, Ursula holds a B.A.
degree in history from Benedictine University and an M.A. in American
cultural and intellectual history from Northeastern Illinois
University. Her academic explorations include the Spiritualist movement
of the 19th century and its transformation into psychical research and
parapsychology, and the relationships among belief, experience,
science, and religion.
For
Ursula's upcoming appearances, click here!
Christopher
Thieme
 Christopher
(C.T.) Thieme was born and raised in Chicago until his family
moved to
LaSalle, IL, near Starved Rock. His father, Art Thieme, a collector and
performer of traditional American songs and stories and a contemporary
of Arlo Guthrie, was highly
influential in Chris' young life, nurturing a passion for the tales and
history of
Illinois.
After
graduating high school in LaSalle, Christopher spent the next six
summers working on the
Mississippi River aboard the excursion boat Julia Belle Swain, one of
the last true steamboats on the continental inland
waterways.
In
1989, he traveled through Morocco and parts of
Europe, searching for traces of
the mystical. However, it was in Illinois where he found himself most
likely
to "fall into" paranormal adventures. After finishing at Illinois
Valley Community College with an A.S. in Psychology, he enrolled at
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, where in 1993 he graduated
with
honors, earning a B.A. in English Literature. The two years
spent in Southern Illinois added to his superntural
experiences and
collection of stories.
After returning to Chicago in
1995, he started the web site Heathens
Haven,
which includes
samples of this work, an online speaking board and a section
devoted to his own personal paranormal experiences and
investigative work in the Chicagoland area. He has written articles
for Supernatural
Occurrences Studies magazine and has given lectures at
area bookstores on our haunted history.
Christopher has completed the novel Perpetual Care,
along with a cache
of short stories and collected essays. He continues
to write and lecture, and is currently at work on a
second
novel, Boiling Boy: An
Occidental Journey through the Between, another collection
of short stories entitled, Sins
of the Father, and a
collection of his own first-hand accounts of the supernatural entitled,
Me and
My
Shadow.
Most recently he has been developing a personlized and
multi-faceted approach to paranormal investigation, ranging
from
scientific practices to less mundane
methodology. Christopher brings a full dossier of experience
and
research to the Chicago Hauntings team.
Elizabeth
Rintoul
 Elizabeth was born and
raised in Chicago until leaving to attend college at Illinois
State University.
Graduating with a Bachelor of Arts
degree in English, Beth went on to complete a Master of Arts degree in
English at Saint Xavier University in Chicago, then traveled to Ireland
to continue her studies in folklore, mythology
and literary history.
Returning to Chicago, Elizabeth went on to earn a
Master of Education degree, and now teaches high school
English.
Elizabeth specializes in British literature, particularly Celtic
mythology and ghostlore. In the summer months, she explores
the ghostlore of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland with her
students, and trains other international tour guides for similar
adventures
Michael
McDowell
 Michael
McDowell is the founder, president and CEO of the Indiana Ghost
Trackers, Inc. (www.indianaghosts.org). One of the Great Lakes
region's foremost
experts on the paranormal, he is a research
specialist, investigator and journalist, with
specialized concentrations in the fields of ghost and
poltergeist phenomena. Michael will graduate in 2007 from Purdue
University with a Bachelors Degree in Systems Analysis.
Utilizing a combination of cognitive investigative skills and the
latest technological monitoring and detection equipment, Michael has
conducted numerous haunted house investigations throughout the United
States, including cases referred to him by individuals, universities,
the news media, and various parapsychological research organizations.
A main contributor to the education of paranormal enthusiasts
throughout the Great Lakes area, Michael has taught paranormal
investigation techniques to thousands of students. He gives lectures
along similar lines of study, covering such topics as psychic
protection, Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) and advanced investigation
topics.
In developing a large, non-profit ghost hunting organization, Michael
has built the Indiana Ghost Trackers into one of the strongest and most
well-respected ghost investigation societies in the country,
consisting of over 16 chapters and more than 400 members.
Michael has been featured in countless news articles and programs, and
on talk shows and television networks around the country, including
A&E, the Sci-Fi Channel and PBS. He is currently writing his
first
book and is the owner of Chaos Haunted and Historical Tours.
Find
out what Michael and the Ghost Trackers are doing by clicking here!
David Cowan
 David
Cowan is a native Chicagoan and hails originally from the
city’s
West Side. He is the co-owner of Chicago Hauntings, having founded the
company in 2001 with his wife, Ursula Bielski.
After conducting more than a thousand tours for Chicago
Hauntings,
he now serves as the company’s operations manager, overseeing
with Ursula all business affairs, sales, marketing, and
creative
development initiatives.
An accomplished journalist and writer, David is co-author (with John
Kuenster) of the best-selling and critically acclaimed book To Sleep With the Angels: The
Story of a Fire (Ivan R. Dee,
Inc.), considered the seminal and authoritative work on the 1958 Our
Lady of the Angels school fire in Chicago. After its 1996 publication,
the book was made into an Emmy-award winning television documentary
entitled Angels Too Soon
by
PBS station WTTW in Chicago, and is now used as a text for courses
taught at the National Fire Academy in Maryland, and in collegiate fire
science programs throughout the United States.
David also authored Great
Chicago Fires, Historic Blazes That Shaped a City
(Lake Claremont Press), a non-fiction anthology documenting
Chicago’s unique and legendary fire history, focusing on
fires
that resulted in important changes to national fire safety laws and
others of significant social and historical importance.
David’s
writings and reviews have also been published by major newspapers and
magazines, including the New York Times,
Chicago Tribune,
Chicago Sun-Times,
Chicago
Magazine, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
Cleveland Plain-Dealer,
New Orleans Times-Picayune,
Reader’s
Digest, U.S. Catholic, the Associated Press, and a host of
smaller publications. He also contributed to the Encyclopedia of Chicago History,
published in 2004 by the Newberry Library of
Chicago.
Aside from his print journalism, David has appeared on several network
television documentaries about historic fires, including productions by
the A&E Network, History Channel, The Learning Channel, the
Discovery Channel, England’s Channel 4, The Travel Channel,
PBS,
and the U.S. Fire Administration / Federal Emergency Management Agency.
He’s also been featured on local Chicago television and radio
stations, including National Public Radio, WGN radio, the Steve Dahl
Show, and WTTW’s Chicago Tonight and Chicago
Stories. He
holds membership in a number of writers associations, including the
prestigious Society of Midland Authors, for whom he served as
membership secretary from 2001-2002. As a public speaker, he has
lectured before numerous Chicago area historical, professional and
business societies and various school and library
groups.
A U.S. Air Force veteran, David spent nearly five years in the
military, eventually becoming a sergeant in charge of an elite
air-crash rescue unit that operated throughout the United Kingdom. In
1984, he was decorated for his part in the rescue of two pilots whose
F-111 fighter-bomber caught fire and exploded during an aborted
take-off at RAF Lakenheath Airbase, England.
David studied at the University of Maryland (Europe) and Cambridge
University, England, and, following his military service, graduated
with honors from Southern Illinois University with a B.A. in Journalism
and Political Science.
Growing up in Chicago, David has long been acquainted with the
city’s folklore and history, but it wasn’t until he
lived
in Europe that he took an interest in the paranormal. During these
years he visited and investigated numerous psi-related
locations
throughout England, Scotland (Edinburgh) and Wales, including various
cathedrals, castles, medieval ruins, churches and graveyards, and an
array of allegedly haunted houses, pubs, inns, and abandoned World War
II airfield sites, including the former American airfield at Thorpe
Abbots in Norfolk, said to be the most haunted in England. He also set
foot in the “Bloody” Tower of London, and walked
the narrow
streets of White Chapel -- the East London killing ground of Jack the
Ripper--forging friendships with experts who have chronicled
the Ripper’s officially unsolved
homicides. Other
travels took David to Hitler’s former Eagles Nest retreat in
the
Bavarian Alps (which he describes as the eeriest place he's ever been),
and numerous haunted battlefield sites in France, Belgium and Germany.
With his wife, Ursula, David has continued his investigations in the
United States--at Key West, Florida, New Orleans, Michigan,
Wisconsin, and--on his own--in California, South Dakota,
Utah and New York City, includng the World
Trade Center
site in lower Manhattan.
David and Ursula live wth their two daughters, the eldest of whom was
born on Friday the 13th .
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