Ghostly gathering planned
Society will hold conference in area.
Monday, April 17, 2006
By KAT MAIN
The Express-Times
HACKETTSTOWN | With names like Shades of Death Road and Ghost Lake, it's no wonder the New Jersey Ghost Hunters Society chose Warren County to be the site of its annual conference.
Set for Saturday at the Hackettstown Community Center, the conference is expected to draw about 50 ghost chasers to the region -- the most the conference has seen to date.
"This past year has seen more paranormal-based programs pumped into the mainstream. It's definitely contributed to membership," said New Jersey Ghost Hunters Society founder L'Aura Hladik.
Started in 1998, the society has 346 members. Hladik said about 140 of those members joined within the past 18 months. Many of those new members are coming out of northwestern New Jersey, she said.
The conference will feature presentations representing all of ghost hunting's related fields such as technology, legends and investigation methods.
"The presentations will give people a crash course in what it's taken members five or six years to learn," Hladik said.
Among those slated to speak is Jeff Belanger, author of "The World's Most Haunted Places: From the Secret Files of GhostVillage.com" and "Communicating with the Dead: Research from Beyond the Grave." Also on the agenda is a talk by Donna Kent, founder and president of the Cosmic Society of Paranormal Investigation.
Society members will also have a chance to investigate Charlie Brown's Steakhouse in Hackettstown, where the ghosts of a little boy and young woman have been reported.
Society members will attempt to gather information by using equipment ranging from digital and thermal- imaging cameras to electromagnetic field detectors and electromagnetic voice phenomena recorders. In using the high-tech equipment, researchers said they've recorded voices when nothing was heard by investigators and have later found images on film when eyes saw nothing.
Often times this kind of evidence can prove something is happening in a location that isn't quite of this world, Hladik said.
But it can also offer logical explanations, rather than paranormal ones, for why something is happening. That's one reason Hladik said her group is so popular.
Belvidere resident Dina Chirico said she joined the society in 1998 to find the answer behind her own experiences.
"Experiences I had as a teenager brought me to get more involved as to the why; why are energies here and what do they want," Chirico said.
The idea of investigating her experiences scientifically appealed to her.
Chirico is not alone.
"People from all walks of life, policemen, lawyers, accountants, nurses and doctors, were so thankful to see there is some place to go to where other people have these experiences and that there is an organization dedicated to finding a scientific answer behind them," Hladik said.
But some wonder if the evidence gathered is really proof of life beyond death.
"So far we haven't really discovered an instrument that conclusively proves what we're capturing is the dead person," said DeSales University forensic psychology professor Katherine Ramsland. "For all we know, (electronic voice phenomena) could be aliens trying to talk to us."
Over the years, Ramsland has traveled to many locations in search of a true paranormal experience and has even worked with the cast of the SciFi channel's "Ghost Hunters."
"I wish I could see them I haven't but it's not for lack of wanting," she said.
Even if the information gathered isn't proof of someone from beyond the grave reaching out, it still makes for good entertainment, she said.
Reporter Kat Main can be reached at 908-475-8044 or by e-mail at kmain@express-times.com.
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