By Kelli Knudsen
Journal staff
The image burned into most people's minds of paranormal investigators -- men dressed in tan jumpsuits with futuristic-looking vacuums strapped to their backs -- is a far cry from reality.
Real paranormal investigators do exist, though you wouldn't be able to distinguish them from any other person in a room. Also, they don't have a cheesy '80s theme song.
Ghosts, werewolves, UFOs and anything out of the ordinary were the topics of discussion by investigators at The Unexplained Conference: Strange Stevens Point, held Saturday at the Country Springs Hotel.
The conference featured presentations by Chad Lewis, co-author of "The Wisconsin Road Guide to Haunted Locations;" Linda Godfrey, co-author of "Weird Wisconsin" and "Hunting the American Werewolf." There was also a question-and-answer session with paranormal investigators Noah Voss and Kevin Nelson.
Voss, who runs the Web site, www.GetGhostGear.com, sells equipment used to try to investigate ghosts. Tools such as electromagnetic field readers, thermometers and other gizmos are not used to "detect" ghosts, Voss said, but to rule out anything else that could be causing a disturbance.
"What we use them for is to monitor as many variables in the environment as we can so we can notice anomalies," he said.
Voss got into the field because he was always interested in the paranormal, and he saw a need for someone to supply technical equipment.
He doesn't hold onto any specific beliefs about ghosts because he wants to be objective.
"I am still open to find out whatever I find out," he said. "I see a lot of unexplained situations. I don't attribute them to any one thing."
A former newspaper reporter, Godfrey knows all about being objective in her work in documenting reported sightings of manwolves, lizard men and other creatures.
Godfrey said she prefers the term "manwolf" to "werewolf" because "it's descriptive but doesn't have the long, shady baggage."
She got her start in paranormal research after she wrote a story for her newspaper about manwolf sightings. She continued interviewing people who claim to have had encounters with manwolves and other creatures.
"The national media have been coming to me ever since," she said.
Godfrey has been on many television shows, including "Inside Edition," "Animal Legends" on Animal Planet and "Fang versus Fiction" on American Movie Classic Channel.
Though she was skeptical of the claims people were making at first, she believes they are not crazy.
"I don't know exactly what people are seeing, but I do believe the majority of these people have had an unexplainable experience," she said. "They range from children to the elderly, men and women, blue collar or white collar."
Source: http://www.stevenspointjournal.com/apps ... 40570/1657
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