| 2010 HAUNTED AMERICA MIDWEST CONFERENCE June 10 & 11, 2011 at Haunted Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois! AMERICA’S ORIGINAL GHOST CONFERENCE RETURNS FOR 15TH SPOOKTACULAR YEAR! Join Author and Host Troy Taylor as the American Ghost Society Returns for Another Great Year of America's Original Ghost Conference, traveling for the first time to the McGaw Fine Arts Building on the campus of haunted Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois! Founded in 1829, the college is the perfect setting for our ghostly event, boasting dozens of haunted locations, including an apparition that haunts the conference location itself! Join us for another weekend of ghosts, hauntings and the unexplained and experience Jacksonville -- one of the most haunted towns on the prairie -- for yourself! America's Original Ghost Conference (Often Imitated, Never Equaled) is back for our 15th year and will be held over the weekend of June 10-11, 2011 on the haunted Illinois College campus in Jacksonville, Illinois. Join us for our first Ghost Conference at this new, spook-infested location and discover nationally-known speakers on ghosts, hauntings and the supernatural. The event will include lectures and presentations on hauntings, haunted tours, ghost hunts, after-hours events and much more! Join us in Jacksonville and explore this historic and haunted region with our many weekend events, including your chance to hear lectures and workshops on ghosts and ghost hunting; listen to presentations on paranormal phenomena and investigating the unknown; take part in discussions and questions & answer periods; visit haunted locations; take part in haunted workshops; experience ghost tours, late-night investigations, and much more! This is our 15th year for the Haunted America Conference and our first time at Illinois College! As with our other events, guests will be able to gather research on ghosts and hauntings that they won't get anywhere else; meet other ghost hunters from all over America; and visit Jacksonville -- a place that teems with both history and hauntings! Don't miss this amazing event! Tickets on Sale Starting January 5, 2011 for newsletter subscribers ONLY! 2011 SPEAKERS & PRESENTERS: * Host – Author Troy Taylor * Rosemary Ellen Guiley * Tiffany Smith Johnson * Patrick Burns * April Slaughter * Nick Spantgos & Derrick Ward * Len Adams
* Dale Kaczmarek (Workshop Presenter) * Michael Kravchuk (Workshop Presnter) * Ghostman & Demon Hunter Show (Special Radio Guests!) 2011 AFTER-HOURS EVENTS: Friday Night ONLY: Group / Gallery Psychic Session with Tiffany Smith / 8:30 - 9:30 PM Join renowned psychic Tiffany Smith for a special group session exclusive to the Haunted America Conference! In a group gallery reading, Tiffany provides quick "mini" readings to active participants in the group. Those attending may ask psychic or medium type questions and get a quick, concise reading on the issue in question. These readings are provided in front of the group and observed and heard by all! It's great to see if you have never had a reading before and wonder what questions are asked of a psychic, then you can also join in on the event. Limited seating available! Held at McGaw Hall on Friday evening! Friday & Saturday Nights: Haunted Downtown Walking Tours of Jacksonville Friday: 8:30 PM Saturday: 7:00 PM Join American Hauntings Rep & Guide Loren Hamilton on Jacksonville's first ghost tour, a historic and haunted look at one of the most spirit-infested towns on the Illinois prairie. Join us for the downtown walking tour and discover the secret, sinister and spirited side of the city, from the infamous Hockenhull Building, Our Savior Rectory and much more! Departs from the Illinois Theater in downtown Jacksonville -- directions will be provided at the conference check-in desk. Limited spots available! Friday & Saturday Nights Ghost Hunts at the Nearby Eldred House 10:00 PM Both Nights Join us at the famous James Eldred House in nearby Eldred, Illinois! This chilling night will include a real-life ghost hunt and investigation of Eldred House grounds, spooky cellar & nearby cemetery! The James Eldred House dates back to the 1820s, resting on land that was among the first to be occupied in Greene County. There have been at least four deaths in the house over the years and legend tells of a Native American who was buried on the property --- leading to ghost stories that are still being told today. Experience this historic location first-hand and see for yourself if there is truth to the rumors! Friday & Saturday Nights Ghost Hunt at the Old Funeral Home 10:00 PM Both Nights Join us for an exclusive ghost hunt at the former Williamson Funeral Home, now home to the Jacksonville Theatre Guild. The building was first known as the Proffit Boarding House in the early 1900s and played host to scores of touring actors who performed at the nearby Strawn Opera House. For 55 years, it then served as the Williamson Funeral Home, where thousands of people were prepared for death and where mourning families may have left remnants of their grief behind. In 1999, the Jacksonville Theatre Guild took over the buildings and not long after, reports of a haunting began to surface. Search for the ghosts that linger in this former mansion! Friday & Saturday Nights Ghost Hunt at the Haunted Rectory 10:30 PM Both Nights Join us for an exclusive overnight ghost hunt at one of the most unique locations that we have ever offered -- the authentic haunted rectory of the Our Savior Church in Jacksonville! We'll spend the night looking for the rectory's reported ghosts and learn more about its rich history. Is the rectory really as haunted as some people claim? You'll have the chance to find out on when we give a limited number of ghost hunters the chance to possibly meet some of the former occupants of the old mansion face-to-face! Friday Night ONLY: Ghost Hunting Workshop with Dale Kaczmarek (President, Ghost Research Society) 9:00 PM Join one of America's most respected ghost researcher as he returns for another Haunted America Conference workshop, this time on the methods and importance of properly using electronic equipment to gather evidence of the paranormal. He'll show you what the TV shows are doing wrong and help you collect the best evidence possible in your own investigations. Saturday Night ONLY: Ghost Gear Workshop with Michael Kravchuk (The Ghost Gadget Guy) 9:00 PM Join "The Ghost Gadget Guy" for a workshop on the best -- and worst -- gear to use in your paranormal investigation. This hands-on workshop will include classic gear like EMF detectors, photos and video, etc. and also the more experimental like the Ovilus, EM Pump, Inductive Amplifiers, Laser Grids and more. With help and Michael's unbiased reviews, he'll let you know which pieces are worth adding to your ghost hunter's kit REMEMBER! The Private link is available for subscribers ONLY for the next 5 days. On Monday, registration will be open to the general public. Don't wait to make your reservations, get signed up for the conference now! Click Here for the PRIVATE REGISTRATION Link! --------------------------------------------------------  AMERICAN HAUNTINGS -- MORE GREAT EVENTS! The list of great events for 2011 from American Hauntings just keeps growing! Over the past monthS, we have added a number of new overnights and ghost hunts, including a few additional dates for events that sold out very quickly. One of the big added events is our Night at Hannah House on April 30. We're offering our guests a private night in one of America's most notoriously haunted houses! See the link below! Would you like to come face-to-to face with a ghost? We may not be able to guarantee it, but your chances are better with American Hauntings -- America's Original Overnight Ghost Tour Company -- than with anybody else! AMERICAN HAUNTINGS 2011 SCHEDULE (SO FAR!) February 12: Night at the Old Funeral Home
Jacksonville, Illinois -- Join us at this former funeral home, now home to the Jacksonville Theatre Guild -- and to a number of restless ghosts! Only 4 spots left! March 11-12: Haunted Weekend in New Orleans
Escape from cold weather and journey with us to New Orleans for an amazing weekend of ghost hunts, tours and America's most haunted city!
Only 2 Rooms Left! Deadline to Register is February 10! March 26: Night at Nemacolin Castle
Brownsville, Pennsylvania -- join us for a ghost hunting overnight at this historic and very haunted mansion! St. Louis, Missouri -- Another all-night ghost hunt at one of America's most haunted houses! Hear the TRUE stories of the Lemp mansion, NOT what you've seen on TV! Only 2 Spots Left! Eldred, Illinois -- Join us for our first ghost hunting event of the year at one of our most popular Illinois locations! April 29-30: Haunted Weekend in Gettysburg
Come back for another of our guest's favorite trips as we explore of the country's most haunted locations -- during the day and night -- the Gettysburg battlefield. Only 2 Rooms Left! Decatur, Illinois -- A Friday the 13th overnight ghost hunt at one of the most terrifying places in America! May 21: Night at the Squirrel Cage Jail
Council Bluffs, Iowa -- Join us for another all-night ghost hunt at one of America's most usual -- and haunted -- jails! Only 2 spots left! July 16: Night at Rolling Hills Asylum -- Just Added!
E. Bethany, New York -- Join us for an overnight ghost hunt at this spook abandoned asylum! August 5-6: Bell Witch Weekend
Adams, Tennessee -- A favorite weekend of the summer is back! Join us in the heart of Bell Witch country for a history and hauntings weekend, optional canoe trip, tours, after dark exploration of the Bell Witch Cave and more! Only 1 Room (couple) left for Canoe Trip! Only 4 rooms for the History & Hauntings Weekend! -------------------------------------------------------- | PARANORMAL CLASSICS FROM MICHAEL WINKLE
This is the latest installment of a feature that we have recently added to the newsletter. In each issue, Michael Winkle will be uncovering a new, little known supernatural, paranormal or just plain weird feature from the annals of the unknown. |  | The Roadside Ghost Category: Purposeful apparition From: Kovach, pp. 22-28, 200 Where: About eighteen miles east of Placerville, California, on a section of Highway 50 known as Bullion Bend When: Saturday, June 11, 1994 Who: Deborah Hoyt How close to source: Investigative journalist Sue Kovach interviewed the main officer involved in the case, Rich Strasser Phenomena: On June 6, 1994, 24-year-old Christene Skubish began the seventy-five mile drive from Placerville to Carson City, Nevada, to visit a friend. In the car with her was her three-year-old son, Nicky. Somewhere among the hills and curves of Highway 50 they disappeared from the road. Deputy Rich Strasser of the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office, having small children of his own, followed the missing persons report closely. On June 10 he learned that Christene’s family planned to search the long stretch of road themselves. Strasser decided to check gas stations around Placerville to learn if anyone remembered seeing the woman, as the only 24-hour stores on that trip were in Placerville itself. At about 3:00 am on the 11th, Deborah Hoyt and her husband were driving west on Highway 50, returning home from Lake Tahoe. They sang traveling songs to pass the time – and stay awake. On a treacherous stretch of the highway known as Bullion Bend, eighteen miles outside Placerville, Deborah, looking out the passenger’s side window, saw a naked woman lying on the shoulder of the road. The woman lay on her right side, her face toward the road but an arm over her head so that no features could be seen. Her legs were held together and slightly bent, the body about halfway to a fetal position. “I just started screaming and screaming,” Mrs. Hoyt said later. The Hoyts found a forest ranger station farther down the road and called for help. Sheriff’s deputies and Highway Patrol cars crept along the highway but found nothing. Despite this, Deborah Hoyt was adamant about seeing a naked body. Deputy Strasser heard about the Hoyt report around 5:00 am. He felt it might have something to do with the Skubish case, so he rolled out to Bullion Bend himself. By this time it was light enough to see small objects on the road, and Strasser spotted a small child’s shoe on the asphalt. He stopped and walked along the shoulder, noting the embankment dropped away at a very steep angle. A few minutes later he discovered a car half hidden by the trees. Christene Skubish had apparently fallen asleep at the wheel and veered off the road. Her car bounced almost onto its side for a moment, hitting a tree and losing most of its roof. It finally ran into a second tree and lay there, a total wreck, for five days. Strasser clambered down and found mother and child in the wreck. Christene, still strapped in, appeared to have died quite recently. Nicky lay naked on the passenger’s seat, having removed his clothing during one of the hot June days. The boy looked to be in worse shape than his mother, “emaciated, like the pictures you see of starving children in third world countries,” in Strasser’s words. At first he reported both dead, then he realized the toddler was breathing shallowly. He called for a rescue team, and the paramedics who responded took the child to the University of California Davis Medical Center. Oddities: Did Mrs. Hoyt see a crisis apparition – Christene’s spirit, trying to draw attention to her dying son? Journalists and humorists of the nineteenth century made many jokes about the absurdity of “ghost clothing” – and ghostly houses, coaches, and other inanimate objects. Yet this report of a nude ghost is almost unique. There is also a mystery surrounding Christene Skubish’s physical remains. A medical examination revealed that Nicky’s mother died at the moment of impact, a fact that astounded Rich Strasser. The temperature in that wooded region had varied from the nineties Fahrenheit during the afternoon to the forties at night, yet after five days there was no sign of decomposition, nor were insects or maggots associated with the body. In fact, “rescue personnel noted a strange, sweet odor in the air surrounding Christene’s body.” (Kovach, p. 26) Ending: By chance Christene’s family came upon Strasser and the wreck before even the rescue team. Strasser had to restrain the dead woman’s sister from climbing down to the crash site. In the end, though they mourned Christene’s passing, they celebrated Nicky’s miraculous survival. Deputy Strasser received the Sheriff’s Department’s Medal of Valor and later moved on to the Special Weapons and Tactics division. Legend: None Explanation: Some people suggested that Christene managed to crawl from the crash site up to the highway, where she was spotted by Debora Hoyt. Hoyt maintained that the woman she saw was naked. It seemed extremely unlikely that Christene could remove her seatbelt, then her clothes, crawl up the near-vertical slope to the highway – then crawl back down again, dress again, and belt herself back into her wrecked vehicle. A moot point, as she died on impact five days earlier. Others pointed to Nicky Skubish as the “ghost”, but by that fifth day the toddler could not even move. “The doctors who saw Nicky said if I hadn’t found him when I did, he would have died within another hour,” as Deputy Strasser put it. Comments: Although rare in ghostly tales, I have read of astral projection cases in which the person leaving his or her body perceives him/herself as naked. Five days after death, however, one would certainly classify Christene’s appearance as a ghost instead of an astral traveler. The amazing preservation of her body and the “sweet” aroma surrounding it put one in mind of stories of saints and their “odor of sanctity.” Perhaps we should call the Skubish case a miracle and leave it at that. Kovach, Sue. Hidden Files: Law Enforcement’s True Case Stories of the Unexplained and the Paranormal (Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1998). Unsolved Mysteries television series, “Highway Vision.”  JANUARY 2011 January 8: Night at the Original Springs Hotel -- Okawville, Illinois -- Dinner for two, one-night stay at this haunted hotel and a search for the lingering spirits of this mysterious place! SOLD OUT! January 16: Kansas City Area Regional AGS Meeting! Belvoir Winery at 1325 Odd Fellows Road, Liberty, Missouri -- 3PM. This free meeting is open to the public and will included a presentation and tour of the haunted history of the winery and former Odd Fellows building. If you wish to attend, send an email to Becky Ray at becky@ghost-investigators.com with the names of everyone who will be coming with you. We hope to see you there! January 29: Night at the Lincoln Theater -- Decatur, Illinois -- Spend the entire night looking for the ghosts of "one of the most terrifying places in America". SOLD OUT! (Another overnight at the theater has been scheduled for May 13) FEBRUARY 2011 February 6: Night at the Lemp Mansion -- St. Louis, Missouri -- Exclusive all-night ghost hunt at one of the most haunted houses in America! SOLD OUT! (Another overnight has been scheduled for April 10) February 12: Night at the Old Funeral Home -- Jacksonville, Illinois -- Join us for a night at this former boarding house and funeral home and search for the lingering spirits! Reservations! February 18-19: Haunted America West Coast Conference -- Old Town San Diego, California -- Join us for two days of ghosts, hauntings and the unexplained with speakers and presenters, tours, ghost hunts and more. Details and Reservations! February 19: Night at Bryn Du Mansion -- Granville, Ohio -- Spend the night in search of ghosts at this legendary haunted Ohio location! Reservations! February 26: Night at the Haunted Rectory -- Jacksonville, Illinois -- Search for the ghosts of one of our most unusual locations, the spooky Our Savior Church rectory! Reservations! MARCH 2011 March 11-12: Haunted Weekend in New Orleans -- Haunted weekend of ghost tours and haunts in one of the most spirited cities in America! Deadline to Register is February 10! Reservations! March 26: Night at Nemacolin Castle -- Brownsville, Pennsylvania -- Exclusive, private ghost hunt at one of the most haunted locations in the state. Reservations! March 26: Night at the Twin City Opera House -- McConnellsville, Ohio -- Private ghost hunt at what has been considered one of the most haunted locations in Ohio! Reservations! This electronic message is intended for newsletter subscribers. Please note that any form of distribution, copying or use of this communication, or the information it contains, is strictly prohibited without the express permission of the sender. Any use of this communication without permission is unlawful and a violation of federal copyright standards. If you have received this communication in error, please return it to the sender. © Copyright 2011 by Troy Taylor. All Rights Reserved. |
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