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Fright nights: Haunted Hickory Paranormal Conference back for a second scary year
Shannon Sylvia, Jason Gowin and Eric Singleton
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Published: September 24, 2008
Cue the creepy music.
The Haunted Hickory Paranormal Conference is back for its second scary year. On the schedule are speakers to send the season's shiver down your spine and ghost hunts to make you squeal.
Presenter: Shannon Sylvia
When: Friday, Oct. 3 and Saturday, Oct. 4
Think of Shannon Sylvia as the Emily Post of ghost hunting.
A member of the Sci Fi channel's Ghost Hunters International team, Sylvia will share some of her know-how on becoming a seeker of spirits. First on her list: Etiquette.
She's talking about being polite when you go into someone's home or onto someone's property in search of something otherworldly.
Treating a specter with respect is her No. 2 rule. She's still shaking her head over the people she saw yelling to try to summon spirits at Waverly Hills, a former Louisville, Ky., sanatorium.
"You shouldn't talk to ghosts any differently than you would have when they were living," she says.
Sylvia could save would-be spirit stalkers some money, too.
When she decided to become a ghost hunter, she went out and spent $1,000 on equipment. That was in 2005 and some of the gear hasn't been used yet.
For Haunted Hickory guests who want a spooky story, Sylvia has those, too. She grew up outside Boston in what she describes as a haunted house. Growing up, she says she could hear a choir of men and women speaking to her in a foreign tongue. The home was built on an American Indian burial ground, she says.
Today, she lives in a haunted condo, a unit in a schoolhouse from the 1800s.
Presenter: Jason Gowin
When: Saturday, Oct. 4
Jason Gowin knew as a child exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up: Scooby Doo. Today, he figures if Scooby didn't take ghost hunting too seriously, why should he?
"I want to bring the fun back," he says.
The ghost hunter, paranormal enthusiast and radio host says in his world, he's known as the world's most terrified ghost hunter.
"At the second anything terrifying begins to happen, I am gone," he says. "When these things start getting a little too intense, the best place for me to be is in the car."
Gowin recognizes how badly many people want to believe in ghosts. He focuses a lot of his energy on teaching people about false positives, things they think are evidence of the paranormal but are really occurrences that can be explained naturally.
He hopes the serious side of ghosts and ghoulishness doesn't turn off his potential audience.
"It's not just for people who believe in ghosts," he says. "You can come to this event as just a lover of ghost stories and have as great a time.
"Plus, there are snacks."
Presenter: Eric Singleton
When: Friday, Oct. 3
Eric Singleton, co-founder of the North American Paranormal Society, says he and his partners have one mission in mind. They want to help people having problems with the paranormal.
He and Shawn Litton started the group in 2006, after meeting when they both worked at Sears.
At Haunted Hickory, Singleton, of Gary, and other N.A.P.S. members will present Ghoul School 101, a class on investigating the not quite normal. They'll talk about details, what to do and what not to do, some of the equipment ghost hunters use and how to properly use it.
All that advice from N.A.P.S. might come in handy at the two Haunted Hickory ghost hunts scheduled for midnight on Friday, Oct. 3 and Saturday, Oct. 4. Singleton says a participant in last year's ghost hunt snapped a spooky shot of a shadowy figure down one hallway at the Newton-Conover Civic and Performance Place.
Go to www.north-american-paranormal-society.com and click on Guest Pics to see the photo.
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