Bucks will be the site of a Paranormal Conference at the Zlock Performing Arts Center featuring host Eric Mintel, and other guest speakers including Nick Pope, Dominic Sattele, Bill Birnes, Tom Carey, Eric Spinner and Jim Krug on March 9 from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m.

The event started to come together this past summer when paranormal expert Mintel and Peter Chiovarou, director of the Zlock Performing Arts Center, began discussing what the event might look like and when it should take place. Ultimately, the two agreed that Bucks would be a great venue to host.

Chiovarou expresses, “Being that there are so many paranormal stories and sightings in Bucks County, we came up with the idea to hold a Paracon to bring many of our community members together to meet, talk and listen to the industry’s top paranormal pros.” Chiovarou continues, “This kind of event has never been done here in Bucks County, and between Eric’s connections regarding the speakers and the great location of the Zlock Performing Arts Center, we knew it would be a perfect match.”

Mintel shares a similar view, “I’ve seen a lot of paranormal conferences around the country, and Bucks County doesn’t have one. This is the prime time now to start a convention.”  And it’s true, the paranormal seems to be involved in our lives and thoughts now more than ever, and a social event that extracts these topics to the top-of-mind and allows experts in the field to share their understandings is not only exciting but important to the community as a whole.

Mintel, whose connections in the paranormal world have made this event a possibility, says that “people know me as a jazz musician … but in 2016, I had started my own TV show called Eric Mintel Investigates … the natural progression is putting on a local convention.”

Mintel maintains a large network of fellow paranormal enthusiasts, so putting together the list of speakers was fairly straightforward. “I reached out to Nick Pope who is seen on Ancient Aliens on the History Channel all the time, he is our featured speaker. Thankfully, his schedule allowed him to be here.”

Pope is a former civil servant and employee at the British Government’s Ministry of Defense. He is known for his investigations of UFO phenomena in terms of assessing “the defense and national security implications of the phenomenon.”

Pope notes that following his retirement, he was “involved in a government program to declassify and release most of the UK’s documents on UFOs, many of which I wrote. That meant that … I was free to discuss this material. The media comes to me now when they run UFO stories and want to get an insider’s perspective on how this subject is handled in the government.”

“I’m looking forward to … sharing information about some of the exciting developments we’ve seen recently. Many of these developments involve Congressional hearings on some extraordinary claims made by whistleblowers who have looked at this subject from inside the US government, military and Intelligence Community,” Pope said.

Another guest speaker scheduled for the conference is Spinner. “By day,” he says, “I’m a health food store owner and nutritional consultant. By night, I’m a Bigfoot researcher. I have been researching these elusive individuals for 20 years, and I am an investigator with the Big Foot Field Researcher’s Organization. I also have led over a dozen expeditions into the field and have traveled to investigate reports in surrounding states.” Spinner adds, “I am looking forward to sharing some of my experiences with the crowd, and hopefully raising a few eyebrows and maybe some interest in the topic.”

Birnes, another scheduled speaker, has been writing about and researching UFOs since the 1980’s but really got involved when working with an army intel officer who handled the UFO debris from Roswell. Similarly, Birnes is “looking forward to meeting folks and talking about things out of the ordinary.”

Host Mintel states, “The Bucks County community, I love it. I travel all over the country but it’s always great to come home. And as I was growing up, I had heard so many stories of ghosts and other paranormal activity here in Bucks County, so to me, there is no better place to hold this event.”

Speakers’ times are as follows for the First Annual Bucks County Paracon:

Speakers:

1-1:45 p.m. James Krug

2-2:45 p.m. Eric Mintel and Dominic Sattele

3-4 p.m. Nick Pope

4:15 – 5 p.m. Bill William Birnes

5:15- 6 p.m. Tom Carey

6:15- 7 p.m. Eric M. Spinner

Tickets for the conference are $45 and will be available at the box office on the day of the event. Current Bucks students with a valid student ID receive one free admission. Parking is free.

Various vendors will be located in the lobby and there will be food trucks outside of the theater.

For more information or to purchase tickets for the First Annual Paranormal Conference, visit bucks.edu/tickets.