ParaCon explores ghostly realms
Paranormal festival draws fans of ghosts, other spectral stories
BURRILLVILLE – “Sometimes life is stranger than you think it’s going to be.”
So says Chris DiCesare, “The Ghostboy of Genesco,” and one of several guest speakers at Saturday’s sixth annual Ocean State ParaCon, an annual event that brings the paranormal and metaphysical communities together.
As a young college student, DiCesare’s view of life was forever changed by a series of horrifying events in and around his dorm room: C2D1 at SUNY Geneseo. From early February through late April of 1985, he and his college friends endured what is now referred to as ‘The C2D1 Haunting’. Apparitions, disembodied voices, moving objects and frightening physical attacks all became part of the ordeal suffered by DiCesare who quickly became the focal point of the haunting as well as several of his college classmates.
DiCesare told his story at the two- day Ocean State ParaCon, held this past weekend at the Assembly Theater in Harrisville. The conference is sponsored by the Rhode Island Society for the Examination of Unusual Phenomena, a Rhode Islandbased volunteer organization with affiliates in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine that specializes in the investigation and assessment of paranormal claims within the realms of Hauntings, UFO experiences, and Cryptozoology.
One of the biggest paranormal conferences in the country, thousands of the curious with an open mind and healthy dose of skepticism are expected to turn out this weekend.
Proceeds benefit the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
DiCesare was one of 10 lecturers on the paranormal at the conference, which also featured Dustin Pari, John Brightman, Tim Wiesberg and Stephanie Burke on Saturday, and Rosalyn Bown, Keith and Sandra Johnson, Ron Murphy and Bill Brock.
Also scheduled at the conference was Andrea Perron, author of that trilogy of books “House of Darkness, House of Light” about what she says were her family’s paranormal experiences at a notorious house in Harrisville.
Ed and Lorraine Warren’s paranormal investigation of the Perron family’s house was the basis for the 2013 movie “The Conjuring.”
The first scheduled speaker on Saturday was DiCesare, who recounted to a packed theater his a lifechanging ordeal while living in dorm room C2D1 of Erie Hall at SUNY Geneseo in 1985.
Although over two dozen college students have claimed to have witnessed or experienced the 1985 C2D1 Haunting, DiCesare (who lived in C2D1) and J. Jeff Ungar who lived one door down in C2D2 are considered the primary witnesses to the now infamous occurrence. At the time of the haunting, DiCesare a nationally- ranked distance runner who had completed nine 26.2 mile marathons at the age of 19, while Ungar was both an accomplished writer and photographer. Each of them were in their second year at the college when the hauntings began.
It was DiCesare who first began hearing a ‘disembodied voice’ in his dorm room on Feb. 11, 1985, just over a week after noted Demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren had lectured at the college.
“I was hearing something I should not have been hearing,” he said.
The following evening DiCesare says he saw a fullbodied apparition standing in the room, rising out of his roommate’s stereo. Di Cesare, in a panic, began relating his experience to Ungar, who admitted to being somewhat fascinated by the accounts that he was being provided with, and whose decision to chronicle the events led to what is now known as the ‘C2D1 Journal’. According the many witnesses, the haunting lasted for several months and included a blessing from Fr. Charlie Manning of the college’s Interfaith Center; the hasty departure of Di Cesare’s roommate, Paul; evidencegathering guidance from university professor Dr. Lawrence Casler; and a vicious attack in the dorm shower that left Di Cesare bleeding down his back and sprawled across the dorm’s bathroom floor in a state of shock.
After almost a quarter century of avoiding the spotlight, in 2009 Di Cesare finally agreed to share his experience. The film, “Please Talk with Me” recreates the 1985 events surrounding the photograph that has become known across the internet as the ‘C2D1 ghost’.
Following a 2011 college speaking tour, DiCesare was featured on the SyFy channel’s show “School Spirits”. The episode titled ‘Dorm Room Nightmare’ first aired on June 27th, 2012 and gained national attention.
Please Talk With Me premiered at SCARE-A-CUSE in September, 2012 along with a companion book by the Rev. Tim Shaw (foreword by John Zaffis, the Haunted Collector).
DiCesare has released his memoir, Surviving Evidence, ( Dark Moon Press) which became an Amazon best seller, and offers a compelling firsthand accounting of the infamous extreme haunting from the person who found himself at its center … and survived it.