Seen Bigfoot, a UFO or a ghost? Bucks County's first Para-Con may be for you

In the summer of 2022, a father and son traveling Route 611 in the wee hours near the Oaks restaurant in Pipersville saw something strange cross the highway.

"It was an eight-foot shadow. As they got closer, they realized that it was not a deer or anything like that, but a tall, physical, structured thing. And that’s when they said to themselves this could be Bigfoot,” said Eric Mintel, a ghost hunter whose YouTube program, "Eric Mintel Investigates" is based in Bucks County.

“They reached out to me and told me their story,” he said.

But their reluctance to go public scuttled a video interview.

“But they swear by it,” he said.

But the stigma of seeing things like Bigfoot, UFOs, ghosts and witnessing otherworldly may diminish on March 9, when Mintel and crew host Para-Con, a nearly day-long paranormal conference at the Zlock Performing Arts Center at the Newtown campus of Bucks County Community College.

Nick Pope, who ran the British government's UFO program, and who has appeared on the History Channel's long-running "Ancient Aliens" series, is the featured speaker. Also appearing will be New York Times bestselling author Bill Birnes who appears on the program "UFO Hunters" and local UFOlogist (and prolific author) Tom Carey, who may be the foremost authority on the 1947 Roswell UFO incident.

Nearly 40 vendors will be there, selling books and taking questions.

"This is really a grass roots effort. We're not getting any kind of sponsorship. It's just us," Mintel said. "We're going to do this every year, but this is our launching pad."

Also making an appearance is Eric Spinner, of Medford, New Jersey, a Bigfoot hunter in the South Jersey Pine Barrens. He'll discuss his close encounters with Squatches, and he has the plaster footprints to show for it.

Seeking Sasquatch When Bigfoot is spotted in New Jersey, he's on the case

There have been at least five documented sightings of Bigfoot (sometimes called Sasquatch) in Bucks County since the mid-1970s, according to the Pennsylvania Bigfoot Project, which tracks and posts sightings of the large, hairy creature. (Bucks County has a local chapter.) Former Rieglesville Mayor Greg Stokes went public in 2021 about what he believes was a close call with the creature while camping in the Pennsylvania wilderness in the 1980s.

“There’s something there,” Mintel said.

But what?

“It could be something coming in and out of our reality through some sort of portals, and appears and disappears,” he said.

The idea of creatures ducking in and out of physical reality has been discussed in South Jersey at the Lines on the Pines, and annual gathering in South Jersey to celebrate "Everything Piney," the nearly 1 million acres of wilderness that not only is only home to the Garden State's favorite cryptid, the Jersey Devil, but also Bigfoot.

While most Bigfoot sightings in the U.S. occur in the Pacific Northwest (and, oddly, in the Deep South), encounters with the creature have been reported in New Jersey. Mintel believes he had one last September. He was in the Wharton State Forest in the pines "squatching" with others for an episode of his show, when he and his team of investigators heard a branch crack.

“I flipped around real quick and looked in the direction that it was coming from, and I could see yellow eyes for a split second, and then they disappeared," he said. "We could hear something running back toward a swamp area. So, this was something that was watching us.”

Things got weird.

“We completely got zapped,” he said. “All of our equipment, everything lost power.”

Camera lights, phones, an Apple watch, and the myriad devices he uses to detect electromagnetic changes (the calling card of the paranormal), went dark, suddenly and mysteriously drained of power.

“Completely burned out,” he said. “There was some kind of energy force, but what it was, we don’t know.”

“It was a weird night. After that, we left,” he said.

If you want to attend the March 9, 2024 Para-Con, it will be Saturday March 9, 2024 from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Zlock Performing Arts Center. You can get tickets here, or go to ericmintelinvestigates.org.

JD Mullane can be reached at 215-949-5745 or at jmullane@couriertimes.com.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Bucks County to host first Para-Con for ghost, UFO, Bigfoot fans