Last month I attended the Chicago Paranormal Convention for the first time. It was a one-day event featuring half a dozen or so speakers and lots of vendors. Checking the schedule ahead of time, I decided the last two speakers sounded the most interesting to me. So, on a Saturday afternoon, I put on my Sasquatch t-shirt with the word "Believe" on it, and drove down to check it out.
At the entrance I met Jack, the event organizer. He immediately said he liked my shirt. He talked a little bit about the convention, and mentioned it's an annual event, and will be at the same location next year.
I registered at the entrance table by paying a $1 admission fee, and then I was inside, where there were many rows of tables with many, many vendors selling all sorts of paranormal-related merchandise. I completely forgot to take pictures of this. I looked around for a few minutes, and then headed to the seating area for the presentations.
J. Nathan Couch
The first speaker I wanted to hear was J. Nathan Couch, who talked about Goatman encounters. I was completely unfamiliar with this topic. Supposedly over the years there have been sightings of a half-man/half-goat creature, somewhat like satyrs or Pan of mythology. A surprising number of places around the country have legends of such a creature living in the woods outside of town.
Couch said he grew up in Georgia and routinely heard monster stories at the dinner table, which filled him with fear as a child, and later turned to fascination. (I couldn't help but think of my own fear and fascination with aliens as a kid.)
After moving to Wisconsin as an adult, Couch learned about Goatman stories circulating in the community. He began researching the topic, and eventually published a book in 2014 titled "Goatman: Flesh or Folklore?". During his talk he covered some of the sightings discussed in his book.
He said the Goatman legends often occur in "lover's lane" locations (reminiscent of the lustful nature of mythological satyrs), and sightings can often occur near places that are sacred to Native Americans.
He didn't elaborate on this last point, so at the end of his talk I asked what Native Americans think about Goatman. He gave a lengthy answer, and mentioned his efforts to talk with a tribe near Green Bay. They always gave him cryptic answers, though. One woman explained that they don't like to talk about it even within the tribe, because many are afraid of the creature. I was impressed with his answer, and glad to hear he had done research in this area. All too often it seems like the Native American viewpoint is ignored. (For example, last year Wendy and I visited the Arizona meteor crater. There was a very nice museum there which included the history of the crater, but I did not see any mention of the Native American views. It was almost as if the crater didn't exist until a white man discovered it!)
After his talk I bought a copy of his book, which he autographed. Later I discovered that in 2015, the Fortean Times magazine favorably reviewed his book, saying it "should become a template for how to investigate reports of cryptids, and every fortean should read it." High praise!
Allison Jornlin
Speaking of high praise, at the very end of Couch's talk, he mentioned the next presentation was Allison Jornlin speaking about "Scary Fairies". He said he wished he could stay to hear her speak, but he had to go back to his booth. That's a promising sign, I thought; he apparently holds Jornlin in high regard.
Allison, a former school teacher, gave a fantastic presentation which lasted nearly an hour and a half. She started by showing clips of interviews she's done with people around the world who claim to have had fairy encounters, which included a young man from the country of Bhutan in south Asia, a Native American, and a retired police officer from Illinois.
At one point she showed a slide on how to see an elf in 3 days:
(I think someone else came up with these steps. I have not tried them, so I cannot confirm whether they work.)
The main focus of her talk was the more dangerous aspect of fairy folklore. For example, the police officer she interviewed claims to have seen what's called a brownie. Brownies, if angered, turn into boggarts, and boggarts is where the term "bogeyman" comes from. She says that Stephen King must be steeped in fairy folklore, because some of his books are clearly inspired by it.
One interesting thing she talked about is how the movie "Nightmare on Elm Street" (which I've never seen) was inspired from news reports of something that became known as SUNDS: sudden unexplained nocturnal death syndrome! It only affected young, healthy men from Southeast Asia (mostly Hmong refugees). The media described it as a "death dream", which is what caught Wes Craven's attention; he later wrote and directed the movie. I was not aware of any of this.
While she did not have a book to sell, she did pass around a copy of one called "Fairy Films: Wee Folk on the Big Screen" in which she wrote a chapter on Scary Fairies.
There was a lot more she talked about, and were it not for the fact that it was 6:30pm and I was getting hungry, I would have loved to hear more. After her talk, the convention was coming to an end, so I headed home.
BONUS GOATMAN
I finished reading Couch's book and it had a twist ending that I did not see coming! (SPOILER ALERT) After researching all the Goatman legends he could find in the U.S., he noticed a pattern: the legends only dated back to the 1960s. There weren't any earlier than that. Something must have caused this, he thought, and eventually he found the answer. Starting in 1930, and continuing for decades, a vagabond by the name of Ches McCartney roamed over much of the country with a herd of goats. He smelled terrible and often wore goatskin clothes. He was a Christian, preaching racial tolerance and selling postcards and a pamphlet of his life story as a source of income. He caused quite a scene wherever he went, and local newspapers often wrote stories about him. Couch is convinced this man became the source of nearly all Goatman legends.
There are still a few modern firsthand accounts of Goatman sightings that can't be attributed to McCartney. If these reports are to be believed, Couch leans towards some sort of nature spirit that occasionally becomes visible. It's admittedly a bit crazy, he says, but not really any crazier than believing in ghosts. He says at the end (very wisely, in my opinion) he hopes he never encounters Goatman himself, because he just might lose his grasp on reality.
