As part of this year’s “Halloweek” activities, ACBU hosted paranormal investigator Chris Moon for a Q&A and live spirit session on campus on Oct. 27.
In an hour-long lecture-based segment, Moon gave insight into his origins in paranormal investigation, starting when he had his first otherworldly experience at 7 years old. He continued to have these encounters growing up and traveled the country playing in bands while exploring haunted places.
It wasn’t until he retired from his music career that he decided to dive into the paranormal world full-time.
Moon informed audience members of ghost-hunting techniques as well as protocols, ways he communicates with spirits and even detailed some of his wildest hunts, including a disturbing encounter he had going to bed in the Lizzie Borden house, after which he woke up unable to breathe, with something choking him.
“I sit up in the bed and reach for something that is not there,” Moon said. “I get up in the morning, open up the door and there’s my mom standing in the doorway…All of a sudden she gets the weirdest look on her face…she turns me around into a mirror and I look in the mirror and all the way around my neck is a rope burn. We don’t sleep at the Lizzie Borden house anymore.”
After the informational portion and Q&A was a 10-minute break, followed by Moon leading the audience outside for a ghost hunt. All the while, his wife was available for free tarot card readings in a separate room.
As he removed his equipment and tried to connect with spirits outside of the Michel Student Center, he elicited questions from students before the group moved over to Founder’s Circle. There, he aimed to assist several students with connecting to their own deceased loved ones.
The event was met with many positive responses from those in attendance.
“I went to the event thinking that it was going to be fake,” Nathan Daehn, freshman nursing major, said. “This guy was not a fraud, in fact; I really connected to him. The spirit box session was very emotional. We talked to a lot of people’s dead relatives, which was hard to watch myself because of how emotional it was.”
However, others had a harder time believing the authenticity of the interactions.
“I felt as though it was clear to see the events were not real,” Reggie Paris, freshman game design major, said. “But I do understand many of the women and men in the crowd who asked questions about passed relatives were searching for that closure and felt that Chris Moon was the way to get it.”
Coordinators from ACBU were able to put this event together after attending a conference for campus activities two years ago. Having met Moon and remembered the experience well, some members made it a goal to bring a ghost hunter to Bradley.
“I think this event is very unique and has a very unique audience that we’re trying to reach,” Ashley Kasper, junior nursing major and event coordinator for ACBU, said. “It kind of combines that lecture aspect that we’re trying to do more events like, but [with] a very fun and interactive event with the ghost hunt.”
As the session came to an end, Moon graciously thanked the crowd and hinted at a potential return for next year.
To finish out the week, ACBU is set to host a Haunted Tour highlighting the “spookiest and most frightening parts of campus” and a Fall Fest on Olin Quad this weekend.
