Paranormal Investigation

by D.J. McAdam

Mummy's Ghost Recently, I had the opportunity of attending a paranormal conference on paranormal investigation, and thought it might be of interest to our readers to share my impressions of the event.

The conference was a two-day affair in Richmond, Virginia, sponsored by the Center for Paranormal Research and Investigation (CPRI). Overall, it was a very well-organized event - better than many "business" and "professional" conferences I've attended over the years - and the speakers were uniformly interesting, well-qualified, and well-prepared.

Saturday morning started off with a few words from Teddy Skyler of CPRI, who acted as a sort of "mistress of ceremonies." The first speaker was Mark Nesbitt, author of Ghosts of Gettysburg and a number of similar books. My companion and I have actually stayed in a haunted inn at Gettysburg, so the subject was a familiar one to us. This is Mark's area of expertise, so of course he covered it well.

The next speaker was Bobbie Atristain, who heads up CPRI. She gave an interesting presentation on the type of psychological and psychiatric problems that might cause a person mistakenly to believe that he or she is experiencing a haunting, schizophrenia being one obvious example. It was an intriguing topic.

Following Bobbie was Dr. Ron Milione. Ron holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, and is sort of the "mad scientist" of The Atlantic Paranormal Research Society (TAPS) who develops new ghost-hunting equipment for that group. He displayed some of the latest gadgetry, and I don't believe anyone left his presentation unimpressed.

Perhaps it would be wise to stop here for a moment and explain that, while there were formal presentations, each was followed by a lengthy question-and-answer period. Additionally, all of the speakers were accessible during breaks, and could not have been nicer or more approachable. I had a nice chat with Bobbie concerning her group's activities in Northern Virginia, where I reside; my companion spoke with Ron Milione on one of the breaks about enhanced vision devices.

We then were treated to a presentation on ESP by Dr. Sally Rhine-Feather, daughter of the famous parapsychologist J.B. Rhine, whose books I read as a young man. It was Dr. Rhine who brought the term "ESP" into mainstream consciousness, and it was encouraging to see his work being carried on so ably. We've almost gotten to a point today where ESP or psi is passé, which is really too bad, but Dr. Rhine-Feather rekindled my interest in the subject. On break, I purchased her book, The Gift: Extraordinary Experiences of Ordinary People.

Lunch break followed. (On our own, we made a quick trip to a nearby Pizza Hut, if you must know.) When we returned, there was a fascinating discussion of Electric Voice Phenomena (EVP), by yet another highly-qualified PhD, S. Rorke, a physicist. I've got to be honest here and say that my mind was so filled up after his presentation that I skipped the last speaker of the day, who covered Ufology and Crop Circles, two areas which presently hold little interest for me.

The evening ended with an awards banquet, which gave participants a further opportunity to get to know each other. The food was typical buffet banquet fare. (Sigh....)

At any rate, we began bright and early the next day with a presentation on demonology by noted investigator John Zaffis. John's discussion was really top-notch and, as readers of this site know from our demonology page, the subject is one that I am avidly interested in. I'd once heard Ed and Lorraine Warren speak on the subject back in Connecticut; John, of course, worked with the Warrens, and is the nephew of one of them, though I'm not sure which. I would have purchased his new book, Shadows of the Dark, at the conference, but it sold out before I ever got to his table, so I'll have to buy my copy at Amazon.

Immediately following John's presentation was the highlight of the event, an hour and a half presentation by Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson of Taps - yes, the guys from the television show Ghost Hunters! Needless to say, they were great. Actually, they'd been in attendance during the entire two-day conference. Has television stardom changed them? Not at all. They are both very nice, very down to earth, and very interested in paranormal investigation. I had a chance to speak with them briefly in the hotel lobby about growing up in Warwick, Rhode Island. They could not have been more pleasant, or more approachable.

Overall, the weekend conference was a terrific way of grounding myself in a more formal way in various areas of paranormal investigation. This is simply not something you do on your own; you need to work with others, and - a point made by John Zaffis - you need to network with others if you ever want to find yourself on a really good investigation. And yes, that means that you've got to be willing to pay your dues, by doing the "grunt work" associated with an investigation, and so on. I think that's as it should be.

My advice? Find a paranormal conference near you, and sign up! And you can bet I'll be going to next year's CPRI conference, which rumor has it will be held in Norfolk, Virginia. (Hint on finding me: I'll be the one whose name-tag says "McAdam".) Hope to see you there!