Curiosity abounds at Butler paranormal conference
UFO sightings are the most common instance of paranormal activity in Butler County, followed by cryptid sightings of creatures like Bigfoot, so says paranormal professional Daniel Hageman. The earliest sighting of his life was when he was 5 years old, and he claims to have spotted multiple paranormal phenomena throughout life.
“Butler is a hotbed for UFO sightings,” Hageman said.
Hageman, creator of the Butler Organization for Research of the Unexplained, said that while his primary interest is UFOs and aliens, his cause has grown to include other forms of paranormal activity. It all culminates in a yearly event, the Butler Paranormal Festival, which took place this year on Saturday, April 26 at the Tanglewood Center.
The 18th annual Butler Paranormal Festival included vendors and self-described experts who presented their research on aliens and UFOs, ghosts, Bigfoot, spirits, astrology and all kinds of paranormal creatures and beliefs. Other features of the event were activities like psychic and tarot readings.
Hageman said interest as grown in paranormal activity since he first got involved in the 1970s and ’80s. Events like the festival were not common back then, but now, there’s something like it happening somewhere every weekend.
Hageman said this is true even around Butler. His organization originally started as the “Butler UFO Group.” But as residents expressed interest in other phenomena and beliefs beyond strictly extraterrestrial activity, the organization grew into the Butler Organization for Research of the Unexplained. Hageman said the organization now has around 100 members.
“Because of my involvement with UFOs, it’s led to interest in paranormal activity in general,” Hageman said. “Bigfoot, ghosts, Mothman, Dogman, we cover all the facets.”
The conference, Hageman said, normally gets about 400 visitors each year. Hageman said he wants the conference to be a place where people can come and express their curiosity, adding that “we’ve been lied to all our lives” by governments around the world.
Bryan Seech, who runs an organization called the Center for Cryptozoological Studies, presented his research on a number of unexplained incidents, including sketches of gargoyles that he said were sighted near Chicora. The sketch shows that some type of creature would have taken three 11-foot-strides to run across Route 68.
Seech said it’s easy to get involved in the world of paranormal activity, whether it be from going down a rabbit-hole of information or being inspired while growing up.
“As a kid in the ’70s, we would watch ‘In Search Of’ with Leonard Nimoy,” Seech said. “I grew up watching all these shows, collecting all these UFO magazines, that’s how I got into all this stuff.”
In addition to theories about aliens and cryptids, other people at the paranormal conference showed their work in areas surrounding energy and healing, including through astrology and crystals. Melanie Krneta, who studies homeopathy, showed visitors her mandala stones, meant to create relaxation.
Similar to those presenting research on the supernatural, she said alternative medicine has also drawn a lot of curiosity.
“I think people have lost trust in the medical profession, I think there’s a lot of people that have been not healed,” Krneta said.
At the conference, visitors could meet with tarot card readers and psychics to receive readings. Two of the psychics and guest speakers, Jean and Suzanne Vincent, grew up in Butler and were raised in the Catholic church.
The sisters Vincent said their interest started when they were children, when they thought a ghost was haunting their basement. Since then, the sisters have made a career out of investigating paranormal activity, and have even assisted law enforcement.
Despite being self-described experts of paranormal research and metaphysical activity, the Vincent sisters said some things still catch them off-guard.
“Some of the activity you see, it’s so unusual,” Suzanne Vincent said. “I have the tools now to understand things. I went through a learning curve, but I’m not gonna stir things around.
“There’s some weird stuff out there.”
