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The 2008 conference had yet another great line up and was once again held at the YMCA in St Annes although this was the final year when it would be held in the conference hall upstairs. The weather was quite cool which meant that coats and hats were the order of the day at our annual post conference drunken beach party. How we missed the long hot summer nights of the middle years of this decade!

Janet Walkey was once again master of ceremonies and the speaker line up saw some old friends as well as the new face of bigfoot expert Paul Vella speaking at his first LAPIS conference - but hopefully not his last!

We'll post some piccies of the event shortly!

This was our great line up of speakers...

Mike Hallowell

Mike is a full-time writer and paranormal researcher. He takes care of scary business by investigating ghosts, poltergeists, UFO sightings and anything that scares the bejabbers out of most people. He says that earning a living by visiting haunted pubs and castles is as good as it gets!

He will talk about the incredible South Shields Poltergeist case. This is the true story of one of the world’s most terrifying cases of poltergeist infestation where one invisible entity went on a mission to cause terror.

In December 2005, a South Tyneside family were attacked by a violent poltergeist. Now, for the first time, one of the researchers who confronted it will tell the full shocking story. This may well be the most terrifying account of a supernatural encounter that you will ever hear and definitely one that you will never forget.

Malcolm Robinson

Malcolm is a premier league UFO & paranormal researcher and founder of the Scottish research group, Strange Phenomena Investigations (SPI). He will present a lecture on his life's research looking into the weird and the wonderful.

Malcolm will discuss some of the cases that took him off the sceptical fence and forced him to look more closely at the paranormal. He will share with the audience tales of first hand ghostly encounters, including a number of his own incredible ghostly tales. He will also discuss some of his research at Loch Ness looking for 'Nessie' and also his research into UFO sightings in Scotland.

And yes, he is the proud keeper of Bob Taylor’s famous trousers and may even whip them out at the conference!

Matthew Williams

Matthew is a controversial figure in the world of ufology. He is the only man in Britain to be convicted of making crop circles when he was fined £100 in November 2000 after admitting damaging a farmer's crops near Marlborough, Wiltshire.

Since then, he has created many amazing and complex circles, some in front of TV cameras. So why have we asked a circle maker to speak at a LAPIS conference? The reason is that incredibly, whilst in the fields creating the circles, he has encountered strange paranormal phenomena in and around these formations .

Paul Vella

Paul is an independent Forensic Computer Expert Witness by trade, specialising in criminal defence cases, but he also runs the world's most popular Bigfoot related web site - www.bigfootresearch.com.

He has made several trips to the relevant areas of the United States over the years gathering evidence and is widely regarded as the most credible authority on the subject to be found this side of the Atlantic.

A natural sceptic, Paul errs on the side of caution when it comes to Bigfoot evidence and reports, but as someone who works with forensic evidence on a daily basis, he says that some of the evidence for the existence of Bigfoot is compelling but he will reserve judgement until he has seen one for himself.