By: Myrriah Gossett
GhoStock is a convention for paranormal investigators and ghost enthusiasts alike, and it just happens to take place every year in Savannah. According to the Web site, Savannah is the most haunted city in America. I believe it, considering the amount of ghost tour participants that comb the city every night in trolleys, on foot and in the new buses that show clips of movies and scary happenings that occurred in Savannah.
This is the convention’s sixth year running. It includes panel discussions on a number of topics, along with investigative teams heading out into the city to do some ghost hunting. As I just happen to conduct tours in one of the many haunted houses in Savannah, GhoStock gave the house a VIP pass for the convention and I was the lucky tour guide who was chosen to attend.
Walking over to the Desoto Hilton, I expected to wander around trying to find the particular room where the conference would be taking place, but, to my pleasant surprise, I was greeted at the entrance by a sign that read “GhoStock Convention.” I made my way into the room expecting to see a number of people dressed in black showing off their new electromagnetic field readers and other gadgets for the paranormal.
What I found instead were a few tables set up with GhoStock T-shirts, lanyards and a plethora of books on a variety of topics for sale. I walked up to the check-in table showing my VIP pass and explaining the house that I work for. The staff was then informed of my part-time occupation and I was escorted to a set of seats where I waited for the next lecture to start.
I decided to attend the “Spirits of Savannah” panel discussion by Dr. Allan Brown. He is an English professor at the University of West Alabama and has published numerous books on haunted areas in the South. His lecture covered many stories and personal accounts of haunted buildings and homes in Savannah. This included the Pirate House restaurant, 17 Hundred 90 Inn and Restaurant, the Juliette Gordon-Low House and, of course, the Colonial Park Cemetery.
After Brown finished, there was a Q-and-A during which questions were taken from the audience and from a live chat room of ghost enthusiasts who could not make it to the conference. The man running the show happened to be Patrick Burns of “Haunting Evidence” on TRU TV, formally court TV, whose stage line reads “America’s Most Wanted Meet America’s Most Clairvoyant.” He walked around taking questions, asked a few of his own and shared some of his own personal accounts of what he has investigated in Savannah. Besides his work on TV, Burns is the founder of GhoStock and the Ghost Hounds Paranormal Society, which is the main sponsor of the convention.
The attendance seemed to be a bit sparse, but it was an earlier lecture and I assumed that ghost hunters are not really morning people. The conference spanned the entire weekend. Lectures ranged from “How to Gain Investigation Sites” to “Spectrophilia,” or the sexual activity between ghosts and human beings, which is apparently kept PG. The ghost hunters that invaded Savannah also showed the evidence they collected during their investigations. According to the paranormal investigators, the evidence supports the idea that Savannah is still “haunted,” if that is your belief.
The next stop for GhoStock is the UK, but representatives say they will be returning to Savannah another year. You can check out investigations and more information about GhoStock at GhoStock.com.
