t h e    s e c o n d  a n n u a l
Chicago Ghost Conference
O  C  T  O  B  E  R    2 & 3, 2009


a  t    t  h  e    h  i  s  t  o  r  i  c
PortageTheater
 

f   e   a   t   u   r   i   n   g :

Lorraine Warren, Jeff Belanger, Eddie Brazil & Paul Adams, Joshua P. Warren,
Fred Stonehouse, Deb and Tony Pickman, Bill Konkolesky and  Wanda Lou Willis
Hosted by Ursula Bielski and Michael McDowell

  W I T H:

THE INDIANA GHOST TRACKERS / CHICAGO HAUNTINGS / DARK ANGEL PARANORMAL  BEYOND THE VEIL / BRIAN LEFFLER / GRIMSTONE PARANORMAL / JEFF REZMAN  

J.C. HARRIS / CHICAGO PARANORMAL RESEARCH SOCIETY / LAKE CLAREMONT PRESS

a n d    w  e  l  c  o  m  i  n  g    b  r o  a  d  c  a  s  t    s  p  o  n  s  o  r  s:

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A  B  O  U  T      T  H  E      C  H  I  C  A  G  O     C  O  N  F  E  R  E  N  C  E

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"The dead say nothing
And the dead know much
And the dead hold
Under their tongues
A locked-up story."

-Carl Sandburg

One of the city's most beloved poets, Carl Sandburg, knew a thing or two about being haunted. Each October, we attempt to unlock the "locked up stories" of the spirits of Chicago--and beyond--at the Midwest's premier ghost hunting event of the season.  The first Chicago Ghost Conference went down in history as the first ghosthunters' convention ever held in the city of Chicago. For the first time, field investigators, authors, historians, folklorists, artists, sensitives, and enthusiasts from every walk of life came together in one of the world's most haunted cities for a weekend of learning, discovery, and--of course--ghosthunting.  The 2009 conference promises to be even bigger and even better.  All are welcome, whether you have merely a ghost of an interest in the paranormal, are looking to celebrate Halloween in a unique way, or whether you're a seasoned ghosthunter actively engaged in the science of paranormal investigation. 
Registration is now open! Our 2009 Conference headquarters will be the historic and storied Portage Theater on Chicago's Northwest side, just minutes from O'Hare airport and some of Chicago's greatest paranormal locations, including Robinson Woods and the former site of the John Wayne Gacy home. Be sure to join our mailing list for early registration notice and to receive a special discount during early registration.  Special evening events on Friday will sell out early, including a special ghosthunters' tour of Chicago and other supernatural events you won't want to miss!

Tickets to the Chicago Ghost Conference are just $50 per person ($30 for students), and include admission to the Friday evening reception and panel discussion (cash bar) all Saturday speakers and admission to the evening party Saturday night, plus a door prize ticket.  Pre-sale t-shirts may be ordered when you register; a free t-shirt will be given to the first fifty registrants!  

t o   r e g i s t e r   n o w,   c l i c k   h e r e !

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S   C   H   E   D   U   L   E   

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   S  P  E  A  K  E  R  S: 

Lorraine Warren

Along with her late husband, Ed, Lorraine Warren has been one of the nations' most famous paranormal researchers for over 3 decades.  Lorraine--with Ed and now solo--has lectured extensively at colleges and universities through out the country, and provided invaluable comfort and help to countless families and individuals suffering from severe paranormal events.  In 1952, the Warrens founded the New England Society for Psychic Research, and later opened the Occult Museum.  The Warrens were two of only a handful of investigators ever allowed inside the infamous "Amityville Horror" home  on Long Island and have the only pictures ever taken inside the house.  Lorraine's career has brought her to investigate more than 10,000 paranormal cases; she and Ed's work on some of the nation's most famous paranormal cases has been documented in nine books that the couple has published over many busy years, including Deliver Us From Evil , The Demonologist, The Devil In Connecticut, The Haunted, Werewolf, Satan's Harvest ,The Ghosthunters, In A Dark Place and Graveyard. 

The Warrens were also responsible for training several of today's most sought-after  investigating demonologists, including Dave Considine, Lou Gentile, and their nephew, John Zaffis.

                  

Jeff Belanger
The Ghost Files:
A Multimedia Haunted Tour of History,
Paranormal Investigation and the Ghost Experience

History, ghosts, UFOs, folklore and magic -- the concepts are a part of our collective consciousness, and though no one can explain exactly how it all works, few can match Jeff Belanger's ability to bring the unexplained out of the fringe and into living rooms and near our office water coolers. Jeff has been writing for publication since 1992. He's written for newspapers, magazines, television, the Web, and has authored numerous books on the paranormal, including The World's Most Haunted Places, Communicating with th  Dead, The Encyclopedia of Haunted Places, The Ghost Files and Weird Massachussetts.  Jeff's books have been published in six different languages (so far). He's also the founder of GhostVillage.com -- the Web's largest and most popular supernatural community according to Google.com and Alexa.com. He's lectured around the United States to audiences big and small, and he's become a recognized media personality -- appearing on over 100 radio and television programs worldwide including: The History Channel, The Travel Channel, Living TV (UK), The Maury Show, The CBS News Early Show, National Public Radio, The BBC, Australian Radio Network, Coast to Coast AM, and The 'X' Zone.  He has been interviewed by Reader's Digest, The Sun, Reuters, CNET, Forbes.com, USA Today, Newsday, The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, the Chicago Tribune, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Spirit (the in-flight magazine for Southwest Airlines), Metrowest Daily News, Danbury News-Times, Poughkeepsie Journal, The Augusta Chronicle, York Daily Record, The Providence Journal, Haunted Times Magazine, and Ghost! Magazine. Belanger's books have even made it to pop-culture. In the Halloween 2006 episode his Encyclopedia of Haunted Places  was shown to be a favored volume on the bookshelf of one of E! Network's Girls Next Door! (www.ghostvillage.com)

                                                 

Joshua P. Warren

Phantoms and the Mind-Body Connection

Born in Asheville, North Carolina, Joshua P. Warren has lived in the Blue Ridge Mountains his entire life. At the age of 13, he saw his first book published.. Since then, he has had eight more books published, including the regional best-seller, Haunted Asheville, and How to Hunt Ghosts. His articles have been published internationally, and he has been covered by such mainstream media as CNN, Fox News, Southern Living, Delta Sky, FATE, New Woman, The New York Times, FHM and Something About the Author; and made the cover of the science journal, Electric Space Craft. A winner of the University of North Carolina Thomas Wolfe Award for Fiction, he wrote columns for the Asheville Citizen-Times from 1992 to 1995.

Warren was hired by the famous Grove Park Inn Resort to be the first person to officially investigate the Pink Lady apparition in 1995 (the same year he founded L.E.M.U.R. paranormal investigations, of which he is president). His work has been praised by the Rhine Research Center, The North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching and numerous scholars. Warren has appeared on the History Channel, Discovery Channel, Travel Channel, Sci-Fi, and numerous networks affiliates of NPR, ABC, NBC, and CBS. He is frequently asked to be a guest on radio shows around the world, especially Coast to Coast AM with George Noory/Art Bell. Warren is also an international award-winning filmmaker. Since January, 2005, he has hosted a weekly paranormal program, Speaking of Strange, airing Saturday nights on News Radio 570 WWNC.(streaming live worldwide on the internet) His one-man documentary "Alone in A Haunted House" became the all-time best-selling documentary for its distributor. Eachyear, he  leads a public expedition to amazing paranormal sites around the world. 

Frederick Stonehouse
Things that go Splash! in the Night

Maritime historian Frederick Stonehouse has authored over thirty books on maritime history, many of them focusing on the Great Lakes, and has contributed to several others. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is a regional best seller. Wreck Ashore, the U.S. Life-Saving Service on the Great Lakes, won a national publishing award and is the predominant work on the subject. Another book, Haunted Lakes: Great Lakes Maritime Ghost Stories, Superstitions and Sea Serpents, has opened an entirely new genre in Great Lakes study. Haunted Lakes II, Haunted Lake Michigan and Haunted Lake Huron continued the collection. Haunted Lake Erie is due for release in 2011 and Haunted Lake Ontario in 2013.  Stonehouse has been a consultant for both the U.S. National Park Service and Parks Canada and has been an "on-air" expert for National Geographic, History Channel and Fox Family, as well as many regional media productions. He is the recipient of the 2006 Association For Great Lakes Maritime History Award for Historic Interpretation. The Award is presented annually in recognition of an individual making a major contribution over many years to the interpretation of Great Lakes maritime history in furtherance of the goals of the Association. Fred recently was named Historian of the Year by the Marine Historical Society of Detroit.  The award is the result of election by past MHSD historians and reconizes persons who have actively contributed to the study of Great Lakes history.  Additinal awards for contributions to Great Lakes maritime history have been received from Underwater Canada, Our World Underwater, Marquette Maritime Museum and Marquette County Historical Society.

Fred has taught Great Lakes maritime history at Northern Michigan University and is an active consultant for numerous Great Lakes oriented projects and programs. Major presentations have been given at: the National Maritime Conferences, Great Lakes Aquarium, Erie Maritime Museum, Great Lakes Lighthouse Festival, Michigan Lighthouse Conference, Gales of November, (Duluth), Ghost Ships Festival (Milwaukee), Keeper of the Light Festival (Bayfield) Underwater Canada  (Toronto), Inward to the Sea (New York) and Our World Underwater  (Chicago) among others. (www.frederickstonehouse.com)

Eddie Brazil & Paul Adams
The Haunting of Borley Rectory:
150 Years of the Most Haunted House in England

Eddie Brazil was born in Dublin and later moved to London.  

From an early age ghost stories told to him around the fire by his Grandmother awakened an interest in the paranormal. In the early Sixties his family moved to London. His interest in the unknown grew after he lived for some years in an alleged haunted house in Stockwell. In 1968 he discovered the work of Harry Price and the book ‘The Most Haunted House in England which put Borley Rectory on the map. Brazil visited the Borley site during the 70s and 80s and, in 1972, shot the Brazil Borley Photograph a convincing image of paranormal activity at Borley Church. An active member of the former Borley Ghost Society, he and his colleague and friend Paul Adams have both visited Borley many times over the last few years together, carrying out original research into the haunting and its history, and compiling the Harry Price website, a vast repository of information on one of the most famous cases in the field of ghost and hauntings research.. Their book, The Borley Rectory Companion, will be released in April of this year. Brazil is also a photographer and guitarist. In 1982 he wrote the theme music to the film Expresso Splasho and has also staged photographic exhibitions in London. Eddie Brazil lives with his wife and daughter in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England.

Paul Adams was born in 1966 in Epsom, Surrey. Ver much interested in ghosts and the paranormal from an early age, Paul Adams was introduced to Borley Rectory through Daniel Farson’s Hamlyn Book of Ghosts, bought through a school book club in the mid 1970s, and since then has studied the case in great depth. A long-time admirer of Harry Price, in December 2004 together with Eddie Brazil he founded the website www.harryprice.co.uk, which has now established itself as the major resource of information on Price’s life and work on the internet.   One of Adams' particular interests at Borley is Harry Price’s year-long tenancy of the Rectory and also the bibliography of the haunting, of which major studies of both are included in The Borley Rectory Companion. As well as Borley Rectory, the subject of physical mediumship is also another major interest, and Adams has had articles published on this and other paranormal subjects in Paranormal and Vision magazines in the UK and Ghost! magazine in the States. He lives with his wife and four children in Luton, Bedfordshire, England. (www.harryprice.co.uk)

Bill Konkolesky
U.F.O.s and the Paranormal
Bill Konkolesky is State Director for the hundred-plus member strong Michigan Chapter of the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) (www.mimufon.org) . His media exposure includes television appearances on ABC’s Peter Jennings: Seeing is Believing, the SCI-FI Channel’s Abuction Diaries, and working as a consultant to the History Channel's UFO Hunters.  Konkolesky is also a listed contributor to the books, Filer’s Files: Worldwide Reports of UFO Sightings by George Filer and David Twichell, as well as Weird Michigan. (www.mufon.com)

Deb & Tony Pickman
Life in a Haunted House

The Sallie House haunting is in a class by itself. There have been full-bodied apparitions and objects flying through the air. Items have moved, been misplaced or lost only to reappear or show up later or at another location. Phantom furniture has been heard along with thumps, thuds, knocks, scratching and the sound of animals and human voices. Although some voices have been heard with the naked ear, there have been an amazing amount of EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) captured, further depicting the voices of men, women and children. Numerous psychics have entered the picture in order to help us along the way, including Barbara Conner and the world-renowned Peter James. Paramount Pictures, the Travel Channel, KQ2 News out of St. Joseph, Missouri, Channel 4 News out of Kansas City, Kansas, and the Discovery Channel have all been involved in documenting this story over the last 12 years. 

After living through terrifying experiences in the infamously haunted Sallie House 14 years ago, Tony and Debra Pickman did something that most in their shoes don’t do; they ran fearful of the unknown. Today they are respected investigators focused on understanding the phenomena that ran them off. They have gone back many times over the years to investigate the house; during the last investigation Tony was thrown 4 feet across the room. Although they have not gone back to the house since, they continue their work by comparing what they have learned and theorized and applying it to other locations. In their desire to help others understand what they and others go through, they have created a website dedicated to their haunting. In making themselves available through the website, email and other venues they hope to help others work through their own experiences.   (www.thesalliehouse.com)

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 F E A T U R E D  E X H I B I T O R S

• Throughout the day, attendees will be free to visit our many exhibit booths, featuring numerous local and national ghosthunting groups, regional and national authors, paranormal radio broadcasters, metaphysical and ghost hunting vendors and others. 
  

Edward Shanahan &
The Unexplained World

Edward L. Shanahan is one of Chicago's most respected and astute psychic feelers, and is also gifted in the art of psychometry--deducing spiritual truths from the personal items of loved ones.  Ed, a native of Chicago's richly storied Southwest side, began his lifelong involvement with the unknown as a young child,  when his mom bought him his first magic set at Ford City. Magic did not long hold Ed's attention; however. He soon discovered Real Magick and, accordingly, became engaged in exploring the realities of the unseen world.  As a young man, Ed was intrigued by the work of his uncle, a handwriting analyst, who sometimes appeared on Eddie Schwartz's popular Chicago radio show, and he was intrigued by the stories told by famed Chicago personality Richard Crowe, one of the world's first full-time "ghost hunters." As a teenager, Ed began his first wide-eyed journeys into Chicago's paranormal underworld to explore some of Chicago's most notoriously haunted sites, including Bachelors Grove Cemetery, his first-ever outing to a haunted site.  Ever since, Ed's joy has been exploring both the spiritual and paranormal realms with fellow travelers from around Chicago and around the world, but he's also explored the world of high celebrity in the Pro-Wrestling and Glamour industries.  Today, Ed's web community, "The Unexplained World," draws thousands of visitors each week, many of whom tune in to his popular and acclaimed webcast of the same name.  Ed Shanahan remains a popular reader at private and public gatherings throughout the Chicago area and, recently,began hosting Beyond the Veil events, which he co-founded with Ursula Bielski, escorting guests to haunted and spiritual locations around the Midwest.  Ed has contributed to Jeff Belanger's Encyclopedia of Haunted Places and Scott Markus' Voices from the Chicago Grave, as well as Ursula Bielski's forthcoming Chicago Haunts 3: From the Secret Files of Chicago Hauntings, Inc.  To join Ed on his first return to Bachelors Grove, visit the Unexplained World's archived selection at: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/231080/haunted_bachelors_grove_cemetery_tour/

J.C. Harris
Bartonville Asylum






Doug & Scott L.
Ghostly Talk Paranormal Radio

Ghostly Talk remains one of the most popular and beloved paranormal-centered radio broadcasts in the nation, thanks in great part to the teamwork of award-winning hosts Doug and Scott L.  The Chicago Ghost Conference is delighted to announce that Ghostly Talk will be recording throughout the conference day, covering the conference lineup and commenting on the day's events.  Stop by the recording booth for more information on Ghostly Talk and let the guys know what you think of the Chicago Ghost Conference!  





EXHIBIT SPACE STILL AVAILABLE--
CONTACT US TO BOOK YOURS AT ursulabielski@sbcglobal.net

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Other, non-sponsored events and attractions you may enjoy while in Chicago:

The Houdini Séance at Excalibur (Saturday at 7pm)
Experience the thrill of a Victorian spirit circle in one of the most haunted nightspots in Chicago. Neil Tobin, resident necromancer of Excalibur nightclub and current President of the Chicago Assembly of the Society of American Magicians, will lead guests and members of the magic community in contacting the departed magician, Harry Houdini, who left his mortal body on Halloween over 80 years ago. This theatrical reconstruction of an authentic Victorian seance lasts approximately 105 minutes and takes place in Chicago's original Historical Society building, used as a morgue after the deadly Eastland Disaster of 1915.  Price includes admission to Excalibur for the evening, which will be hosting a riotous costume party later that evening.

The Field Museum of Natural History
The largest natural history museum in the world is just a few blocks from the Congress Plaza Hotel.  Its collections include Sue, one of the world’s finest T-Rex specimens, Inside Ancient Egypt, a prime collection of Ancient Egyptian artifacts and home of the so-called “Screaming Mummy,” and the famed Lions of Tsavo specimens, of Ghost and the Darkness fame. The Field’s many supernatural stories inspired the Chicago-based film, “The Relic.”

The Museum of Science and Industry
A fascinating and ghost-ridden collection housed in one of the only remaining structures of the 1893 Columbian Exposition.  If you loved Devil in the White City, you’ll want to visit this museum, where serial murderer H.H. Holmes picked up victims at the World’s Fair--and where his ghost is sometimes seen in the Yesterday’s Main Street exhibit.  The museum also houses the newly-restored U-505 submarine, a gorgeous vessel haunted by its erstwhile captain, Peter Zsezsch.  And the museum’s rear portico, overlooking the Jackson Park Lagoon, is the haunted home of defense attorney--and phantom--Clarence Darrow, often seen gazing across the Lagoon he loved, where his ashes were scattered at death.

Prairie Avenue
Chicago’s easy street in the days after the Great Fire, the newly-gentrifying Prairie Avenue is now home to the Glessner House Museum, which gives ghost walks of the Avenue at Halloween time, and Clarke House, Chicago’s oldest residence, which sponsors atmospheric October readings of Poe classics in a 19th century setting.

Fright Fest
Every October, Six Flags Great America turns its grounds into one of the country’s most sprawling haunted attractions.  Six Flags is located in Gurnee, about an hour north of Chicago.

Chicago-area Commercial Haunted Houses
You’ll find them all at www.hauntedhousechicago.com