Gettysburg may be known for apparitions on and off its Civil War battlefield, but this weekend the people haunting the area will be those with a primary interest in the paranormal.
The Ghost World Conference begins Friday and runs through Sunday at the Wyndham Hotel and Conference Center in Gettysburg and is a combination of trade show, lectures and awards.
The conference has been organized by the New Jersey Ghost Hunters Society, the Maryland Paranormal Investigators Coalition and Ghostvillage.com.
"(For) people (that) are interested in history and in haunting, Gettysburg is near the top of the list for a lot of folks," said Jeff Belanger, one of the event's founders. "Since our audience is really from all over, I know a lot of people said this was the perfect excuse for them to come to Gettysburg."
Belanger united with two others who had been holding events for a few years on their own, and the three decided to combine their efforts to create one conference under the name "Ghost World."
The event may be in its first year, but Belanger said they expect 300 people to attend from across the United States and Canada. Registration for the conference has closed.
Belanger said he expects that many people attending will be amateur ghost hunters who delve into paranormal activities on the weekends. Few people actually work full-time in paranormal research, he said, and Princeton University recently disbanded its research department. But supernatural tourism, in which people plan vacations around haunted locations or happenings, could also bring people to the conference, Belanger said.
The conference will also include the presentation of the Paranormal Awards, which focus on people and organizations involved in paranormal research in categories such as best paranormal book and best ghost-hunting organization.
Nominations for the awards were selected through a six-week online voting process, and people were then allowed to vote on the finalists over an eight-week period. Mark Sceurman and Mark Moran, founders of Weird NJ and co-hosts of "Weird U.S." on the History Channel, will host the awards ceremony. Lifetime achievement awards will also be given to Brad Steiger, Hans Holzer and Art Bell.
"We definitely wanted to honor some of the legends that have been doing this a long time," Belanger said.
The conference will also include a "Supernatural Symposium" that plans to include discussions about paranormal research.
Although many people research the subject, Belanger said, no central governing body or protocol oversees what is found or how it is documented. The idea of the symposium, however, is to find a way to organize information obtained through research, he said.
"The goal is to build a centralized database where people all over the world ... can contribute," he said. "We have to take the first step."
Ghost World Conference Gettysburg
Ghost World Conference Gettysburg
