Author: milwaukeeparacon

2015: Screening Sessions

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Screening documentaries, show previews, and film shorts is a goal for Milwaukee Paranormal Conference in future years. This year, because of our tight one day schedule, we have one hour set aside for a screening session and will be showing parts of two documentaries. Both screenings include a talk session with the documentary directors.

EOTP_poster_web ECHOES OF THE PAST (2015), directed by David Gloyd.

Focused on a mix of history and the paranormal, “Echoes of The Past” is a journey into one of America’s greatest unknown ghost towns. Directed by David Gloyd, this documentary focuses on the once great town of Pere Cheney, Michigan, which has been abandoned for nearly a century. See what remains after plague and fire erased the potential state capitol from the map and listen to the local legends and sightings that have kept locals from venturing out to this location late at night.

movie poster - PIM (web)

P.I.M.: A PARANORMAL DOCUMENTARY (2015), directed by Bradley James Kroll.

Ghost hunters, sensitives, paranormal investigators; what does it all mean? Lead by Noah Leigh, the Paranormal Investigators of Milwaukee (P.I.M.) investigate most of Wisconsin’s historically haunted landmarks with their scientific approach, teamwork, and state of the art equipment. Find out why they do what they do, what goes into a scientific approach, and what they’ve found along the way. Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it can’t see you.

2015 Speakers: Sociology

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untitled-75TEA KRULOS hosts the “Best Evidence Ever!” panel with special guests Ursula Bielski (Chicago ghostlorist and author), Jim Sherman (Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization), and Nick Roesler (Beyond Deep Black Radio).

What is the best evidence for the existence of ghosts, Bigfoot, and UFO activity? Krulos and his panel of guests take a look at a couple examples in each category.

Tea Krulos is a freelance journalist from Milwaukee, WI. His favorite subject matters have always been people considered unusual or quirky by mainstream standards. For his first book, Heroes in the Night, he joined a group of people that adopt their own superhero personas and call themselves “Real Life Superheroes.” Krulos joined them as they patrolled the streets, looking for crime to thwart, and got an insider’s look at a secretive sub-culture.

His new book Monster Hunters: On the Trail With Ghost Hunters, Bigfooters, Ufologists, and Other Paranormal Investigators (Chicago Review Press), will be released at the Milwaukee Paranormal Conference. The book follows Krulos as he learns about the lifestyles of people that seek evidence of the unknown. To research, Krulos spent many long nights in eerie environments, including sitting in the dark in various haunted locations and trekking through the woods of Michigan looking for the Bigfoot.

Krulos contributes regularly to publications like the Shepherd Express, Fortean Times, Riverwest Currents, and M: Milwaukee’s Lifestyle Magazine. He writes the “Monster of the Month” column for Forces of Geek.

Website: www.teakrulos.com

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MARC EATON: “The Scientist or the Sensitive?: Struggles for Legitimacy in the Paranormal Community”

Assistant Sociology Professor at Ripon College

Marc Eaton first became interested in the paranormal as a kid, when he watched Unsolved Mysteries and Ghostbusters. He never really considered the paranormal as a research topic, though, until he started watching Ghost Hunters back in 2006. After earning a doctorate in sociology from the University of Colorado in 2011, Marc moved to Ripon, WI, where he holds an assistant professorship in sociology at Ripon College.

Over the past three years, he has interviewed over thirty paranormal investigators, participated in nearly two dozen investigations, and attended five paranormal conferences. His ongoing research focuses on the experiences of investigators themselves: why they got involved, their methods of investigating, and how investigating has changed their perspectives on life and death. Marc hopes to get beyond media representations of paranormal investigation to illuminate the beliefs and practices of those who have actually dedicated themselves to the search for evidence of a world beyond the physical realm.

2015 Speakers: Ufology

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DONALD R. SCHMITT: “The Evidence for the UFO Crash at Roswell”

Author and leading authority on the Roswell case

Donald R. Schmitt is the leading investigator on the case of the Roswell UFO crash of 1947. His books on the subject include the bestselling books UFO Crash at Roswell, Witness to Roswell, and his most recent book: Inside the Real Area 51: The Secrect History of Wright-Patterson.
Schmitt is the former co-director of the J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies, where he served as Director of Special Investigations for ten years. Prior to that, he was a special investigator for the late Dr. J. Allen Hynek and the art director for the International UFO Reporter.
He has led and organized several archaeological dig projects at the actual Roswell crash/debris field over the years. The 2002 effort became the central theme of their highest rated show up till that time in the 10-year history of the SCI FI Channel – The Roswell Crash: Startling New Evidence, which also resulted in the book The Roswell Dig Diaries, of which he was a contributing author. The basis of his research and consultation has been the theme of many documentaries, and he makes frequent media appearances and lectures about the subject.
Mr. Schmitt was an on-set consultant at Paramount Studios on one episode of the popular Roswell TV series and was a UFO Consultant to NBC’s Unsolved Mysteries. He also appeared with Sally Kellerman in the pilot episode of “Greetings From the Unknown.”
By far his greatest achievement was the Golden Globe Best Picture nominated motion picture ROSWELL, which was based on the first book. Besides consulting on the movie, he made a cameo appearance. Presently, he is a contributing writer for UFO Magazine, and on the Board of Directors for the International UFO Research Museum. Currently, he is Associate Producer on the upcoming feature film 701.

Website: www.roswellinvestigator.com

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MARK O’CONNELL: “High Strangeness in Wisconsin: Odd UFO Encounters in the Cheese State“

Biographer of Dr. J.Allen Hynek and Mutual UFO Network Chief Investigator for Wisconsin

Mark O’Connell has written several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — one of which, the DS9 episode “Who Mourns For Morn?”, was recently named by Hugo-winning science fiction writer Charlie Jane Anders as #72 on the io9.com list of the Top 100 Star Trek episodes of all time.

Mark has had feature film projects in development with Disney, DreamWorks Animation, Launchpad Productions, Barcelona Films and Al Ruddy Productions. He currently writes the UFO blog “High Strangeness” at www.highstrangenessufo.com, is writing the authorized biography of UFO scholar Dr. J. Allen Hynek, and is set to make his reality show debut in 2015 in “Monumental Mysteries” on The Travel Channel. Mark lives in southern Wisconsin with his wife.

Website: www.highstrangenessufo.com

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NICHOLAS ROESLER: “Beyond Deep Black: UFO Secrecy, Black Projects, and the Road to Disclosure”

Researcher and author

Nicholas Roesler has been involved in UFO and paranormal-related research for nearly two decades.  In that time, he has served in multiple capacities for both the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON), as well as the Smoking Gun Research Agency (SGRA), as well as consulting for a think tank dealing in national security concerns.  He has written and lectured extensively on the topic throughout the United States.  He is the author of IN FOCUS: Photographic Evidence of Unconventional Flying Objects (2009) and BEYOND DEEP BLACK: UFO Secrecy, Black Projects, and the Road to Disclosure (2015).  He hosts a weekly radio program on KGRA Radio, dealing with UFOs, the paranormal, and national security issues.
Website: www.beyonddeepblack.com

2015 Speakers: Cryptozoology and Folklore

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P1000825_0606LINDA GODFREY: “American Monsters and Monsters of Wisconsin”

Author and researcher

Linda S. Godfrey is the author of 16 published books, including Weird Wisconsin, Monsters of Wisconsin, The Beast of Bray Road, and American Monsters. She is a frequent guest on national TV and radio shows such as Monster Quest, Monsters and Mysteries, Inside Edition, NPR, Coast to Coast AM and her books have been featured in articles in Parade magazine, Huffington Post and CNN.com. An active field researcher and investigator, the former newspaper reporter and teacher lives in southeastern Wisconsin.

Website: www.lindagodfrey.com

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JIM SHERMAN: “The Challenges Involved in Collecting Sasquatch Evidence”

Michigan field representative, Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization

Jim Sherman is a High School history teacher, track and cross country coach, triathlete, father and an investigator with the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO). He has done background research for Animal Planet’s television series Finding Bigfoot and even appeared on the “Super Yooper” episode. He currently organizes expeditions for the BFRO all the while maintaining remote recording stations throughout Michigan. His early interest in cryptozoology, including a random trip to Loch Ness, was heightened by a frightening experience he had while camping in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in 1990.

Jim’s research will be featured in a book due this June called Monster Hunters by Tea Krulos. Jim is currently working on his own book detailing his experiences searching for Sasquatch.

Jim’s contribution to Sasquatch data involves audio captures that he makes available to the public and research oriented videos that he produces to demonstrate evidence collection techniques.
Websites: www.bfro.net, www.souncloud.com/jim-sherman

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J. NATHAN COUCH: “Goatman: Satyrs in America”

Author and researcher

J. Nathan Couch grew up in the foothills of Northeast Georgia’s Appalachian Mountains. Given the area’s rich tradition of ghost stories and folklore, it’s no wonder he developed a passion for the bizarre and the unexplained.

Nathan is currently a resident of West Bend, Wisconsin and is owner and tour guide of the Downtown West Bend Ghost Walks. His first book Washington County Paranormal: A Wisconsin Legend Trip was published in 2012, and his critically acclaimed follow up, Goatman: Flesh or Folklore? was published in 2014. He’s also written articles and columns for WisconsinSickness.com, and CultOfWeird.com to name only a few. Somewhere in the midst of it all, he’s found time to be a guest on Ground Zero with Clyde Lewis, Darkness Radio, Mysterious Universe, and The Grand Dark Conspiracy.
When he isn’t writing about ghosts and monsters he’s usually talking about them with Mike Hoke on The Strange Side with Mike and Nate, a weekly Internet radio show that airs live each week on ZTalkRadio.com, or chasing ghosts with the Paranormal Investigation and Research Society.

Website: www.jnathancouch.com

2015 Speakers: Paranormal Investigation and Ghost Stories

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NOAH LEIGH: “Explained Paranormal: Explanations for Common Reports of Paranormal Activity”

Founder and Lead Investigator, Paranormal Investigators of Milwaukee
Noah Leigh founded the Paranormal Investigators of Milwaukee in 2007. He has been interested by the paranormal since he was a child but has never had a personal experience. He believes that most paranormal claims can be explained but the sheer volume of claims are too many to dismiss completely and considers himself skeptically optimistic. Noah is a trained scientist with a BA in Biology and two MS degrees, one in Epidemiology and one in Cell Biology and he is employed as a scientist. Noah uses his scientific training to conduct PIM’s investigations as much as a controlled experiment as possible and believes that true evidence of the paranormal needs to be determined via careful experimentation and measurements. Noah has conducted classes through the West Allis/West Milwaukee and Cudahy recreation departments as well as UW-Waukesha talking about the history of paranormal investigation and proper equipment use. Noah firmly believe that utilizing the best that science currently has to offer combined with thinking outside the box will be the best way to find answers regarding the paranormal.

Promo PhotoWebsite: www.paranormalmilwaukee.com

ALLISON JORNLIN: “Milwaukee Forteana”

Founder, Milwaukee Ghosts– Tours and Investigations

Could Milwaukee be even stranger than you realize? This presentation by Allison Jornlin from milwaukeeghosts.com features ghost stories and other weird tales from Milwaukee history. Is your television a gateway to another dimension? Can a ghost confess to murder? Do unspeakable creatures lurk in the shadows of our fair city? The fascinating answers to these questions and more will be revealed in this essential primer to Milwaukee mysteries and legends.

Website: www.milwaukeeghosts.com

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MELISSA TANNER: “Use of Response Techniques – Provoking vs Trigger Objects”

Founder and Lead Investigator, TnT Paranormal Investigations

Melissa has held an interest in the paranormal since growing up in SW Missouri and being exposed to civil war battlefields and mining sites where activity was reported. Melissa is part skeptic and part believer and loves to try to debunk reported sightings. Before, starting TnT Paranormal Investigations, Melissa has investigated with several paranormal groups, as well as investigated at some of the most haunted locations in America. She has over 8 years of paranormal investigation experience and has used those experiences to hone her skills as a paranormal investigator. Melissa is also the editor and a contributor for the newsletter Bumps in the Night, a TnT Paranormal monthly newsletter.

Melissa, along with co-founder Annette Turner, formed TnT Paranormal Investigators in the fall of 2009. Melissa and TnT Paranormal Investigators have conducted close to a hundred investigations in its short existence. Most of those investigations being for clients that have contacted us for assistance.

Melissa has spoken at over 80 conferences, libraries, historical societies, museums, and park districts on various topic related to the paranormal from the basic to being an investigator to the dangers of provoking. She has also been featured guest on several radio stations across the US and had a few television interviews. Melissa has had many interviews and articles published in newspapers, newsletters, and magazines across the US. In 2011, Melissa was featured in Season 2 of My Ghost Story with data from a local Chicago case. In 2014, Melissa was awarded the Investigator of the Year award from the Paranormal Award.

In addition to the paranormal Melissa’s interests include movies, music, reading, and playing the guitar.

Website: www.tntparanormal.com

PANEL: Noah Leigh, Melissa Tanner, Valerie Kedrowski (Stevens Point Paranormal)– details TBA.

TOURS and TAG-A-LONG INVESTIGATIONS: We will have a couple opportunities for joining up with ghost tours and also an event joining Paranormal Investigators of Milwaukee in the field. More info soon.

BREAKING: Does Milwaukee Paranormal Conference Speaker Donald Schmitt Have the Smoking Gun on Roswell?

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Yesterday we announced our line up of speakers (www.milwaukeeparacon.com/speakers) for the Milwaukee Paranormal Conference, including keynote speakers Linda S. Godfrey, Noah Leigh, and Donald Schmitt. The latter also made news yesterday by announcing that he will be unveiling what could be “the smoking gun” on the Roswell UFO crash of 1947: the Roswell Slides.

Schmitt and his research partner, Tom Carey, say they were given the slides by an undisclosed party. The origin of the slides is explained as thus:

“Some years ago, while an attic was being cleaned out, a chest was found containing many Kodachrome slides. Two Kodachrome slides were later found to have separately hidden in an envelope within the inner lining of the chest’s lid. The chest and it’s contents were traced and found to have belonged to an intriguing, childless couple [Bernerd and Hilda Blair Ray] that are now deceased.”

You can read more of the press release here: http://www.theufochronicles.com/2015/02/roswell-alien-slides-to-be-unveiled-in.html

Schmitt, Carey, and astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell will be presenting the slides in an event that will be livestreamed in Mexico City on May 5, 2015, just one month before the Milwaukee Paranormal Conference.

Are these slides going to be the incredible proof of extra-terrestrials the world has been waiting for? That is an answer I don’t have, but I’m very curious and excited to see what happens May 5 and then hear Donald Schmitt tell us about the case in person at his presentation here in Milwaukee. It will be a “slideshow” to remember!

Milwaukee Paranormal Conference 2015 Line Up

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Let’s hear a round of applause for our 2015 speakers and panels! Our guests include a variety of experts on subjects of the paranormal. You’ve probably seen some of them on shows like Finding Bigfoot, My Ghost Story, Ghost Adventures: Aftershocks, Monster Quest, Monsters and Mysteries, and The Roswell Crash: Startling New Evidence, among many other media outlets. I’d like to thank the many other people who inquired about speaking at the event. We had a limited number of speaker time slots, and those filled up quickly. We are hoping for a bigger event with more speakers in 2016.

If you click on the speaker’s name, it will lead you to their website. We will be updating this site with speaker bios and talk titles in February and March 2015. Other activities, such as potential documentary screenings, will be updated soon as info becomes available. We still have vendor tables, volunteer and sponsorship opportunities available, see respective tabs on this site. And now, without further ado…

2015 Keynote Speakers

Donald R. Schmitt, expert on UFOs and the Roswell Crash, author of UFO Crash at Roswell, Witness to Roswell, and Inside the Real Area 51: the Secret History of Wright Patterson.

Linda S. Godfrey, author of The Beast of Bray Road: Tailing America’s Werewolf, Weird Wisconsin, and American Monsters: A History of Monster Lore, Legends, and Sightings in America.

Noah Leigh, founder and lead investigator, Paranormal Investigators of Milwaukee.

Paranormal Investigation/ Ghosts

Melissa Tanner, founder and lead investigator, TnT Paranormal Investigations.

Allison Jornlin, ghost historian and proprietor of Milwaukee Ghosts Tours & Investigations.

Panel: “Communicating With Clients: Dos and Don’ts,” Noah Leigh, Melissa Tanner, Valerie Kedrowski (Stevens Point Paranormal).

Sociology

Tea Krulos, author, Monster Hunters: On the Trail With Ghost Hunters, Bigfooters, Ufologists, and Other Paranormal Investigators.

Marc Eaton, professor of sociology, Ripon College.

Cryptozoology & Folklore

J. Nathan Couch, author, Goatman: Flesh or Folklore?

Jim Sherman, Michigan field representative, Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (as seen on Finding Bigfoot).

Irish Folklore speaker TBA

Ufology

Nick Roesler, author, In Focus: Photographic Evidence of Unconventional Flying Objects.

Mark O’Connell, biographer of Dr. J. Allen Hynek and Mutual UFO Network Chief Investigator for Wisconsin.

Documentary Screening Session

Echoes of the Past (2015), documentary featurette, director David Gloyd.

PIM: A Paranormal Documentary (2015), documentary feature, director Bradley James Kroll.

After Party: Shaker’s Cigar Bar (Milwaukee’s Haunted Bar) details TBA.

Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/915715895128453/

First Annual Milwaukee Paranormal Conference is Happening June 2015!

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What: Milwaukee Paranormal Conference is a day full of speakers and activities related to the study of the paranormal.
When: Takes place Saturday, June 6, 2015 12-7pm at the Irish Cultural and Heritage Center, 2133 W. Wisconsin Ave. Admission is free.

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Do ghosts exist? What about the Bigfoot or UFOs? Well, now you have a place to ponder these questions and other mysteries of the universe.

Milwaukee Paranormal Conference will tackle the subjects of paranormal investigation (commonly known as ghost hunting), cryptozoology (the study of unknown creatures like Bigfoot and Lake Monsters), ufology (aliens and UFOs), and folklore.

The event is organized by Tea Krulos, who spent over a year traveling and meeting experts on these topics. Krulos joined various investigators in the field to explore haunted houses, creepy forests, and desert landscapes said to be the roaming grounds of these strange entities. This is all documented in his upcoming book Monster Hunters, to be released by Chicago Review Press in June 2015.

To celebrate this release, Krulos was inspired to organize a paranormal conference. These conferences occur through the country, including Chicago, Minneapolis, and even Appleton, but there hasn’t been a paranormal conference in Milwaukee since 2005.

Until now. The event will take place in the beautiful Irish Culture and Heritage Center (downtown, near the Marquette campus) and will feature over a dozen speakers on two separate stages, a vendor area, and other activities.
Whether you are an expert on the paranormal or just curious, this will be a fun-filled, interesting day exploring the unknown!