http://www.tdn.com/articles/2008/07/27/top_story/doc488c0be541fb0594601120.txt

A reporter's quest to meet a ghost

Saturday, July 26, 2008 11:42 PM PDT

By Amy M.E. Fischer

Is the Kelso Theater Pub really haunted?



This month, the Daily News conducted its own unscientific investigation at the Kelso Theater Pub to see if the spirits rumored to inhabit the place would make an appearance.



It was Editor Cal FitzSimmons’ idea. Initially, he’d wanted me to go alone. He thought it would be fun to make me sit in a dark, reputedly haunted building because he knows I am an avid fan of the TV ghost-hunter series “Most Haunted” and have an active imagination.



I said that wasn’t going to happen. I wouldn’t last five minutes alone in the Theater Pub. Also, if something did happen, who would verify my story? In the interest of establishing journalistic credibility, I convinced him to let me bring along another newsroom employee.



At 11 p.m. on a recent Wednesday, Tom Kell, the manager, handed over the key and told us to call his cell phone if “something really weird happens.” Armed with a digital camera, digital voice recorder and flashlights, we locked ourselves in the building.



Following Cal’s instructions, we turned off the lights, even though the Southwest Washington Paranormal Research group said lights didn’t make a difference to the ghosts. The ghost hunter TV shows are shot in the dark with night-vision cameras because it makes for good TV, SWPR director Kim Travis told me.



I was plenty scared at first, even though I had watched at least a dozen movies at the Theater Pub over the last couple years and felt perfectly comfortable.



Tonight we sat in the balcony, waiting in silence, listening to the old building’s creaks and the hum of the air conditioning. We asked questions aloud in the dark in the style of Yvette Fielding, the fetching blonde British TV host of “Most Haunted.”



“Is there anybody with us? If there’s somebody here, tell us your name,” I called out, both hoping and dreading something might answer. “Would you make a noise or give us a sign that you’re here?”



According to a psychic investigator whom the ghost hunters once brought to the theater, a man named Franklin haunts the balcony. Franklin apparently decided to lie low this night. Later, when playing back the digital voice recordings of the night, the only voices on the tape were ours.



I turned on a portable radio I’d brought and scrolled through the FM stations. Travis of the SWPR told me when she played music from the World War II era, the spirits got more active. The lights would flicker, motion detectors would go off, and the SWPR’s cameras picked up orbs and hazy, smoky clouds of “ectoplasm,” believed to be a manifestation of the spirits.



According to Travis, the spirits seemed to dislike loud rock music. Researchers would hear knocks and bangs, as if the ghosts were saying, “You guys can leave now, turn that off,” Travis said.



So I played jazz, country and 1980s New Wave music, but the ghosts wouldn’t bite.



Our initial trepidation turned to boredom and then sleepiness. To rouse ourselves, we went downstairs to shoot photos of the balcony from the stage stairs. This was where a SWPR member was slapped on the back by an invisible entity during an investigation and had the red mark to prove it. This was where the ghost hunters once demanded, “Whoever’s on the stage, show yourself,” and their EVP recording equipment picked up the response, “I’m here.”



We were feeling pretty relaxed by now. That made me feel like we were wasting our time. There were so many other “real” things I ought to be doing.



So we decided to go to the women’s bathroom.



It was here that the paranormal research group’s voice recorder picked up the sounds of a female voice murmuring, “I’m cold.”



Also, the psychic investigator told the SWPR the spirits of two little girls haunt the bathroom. The girls are afraid of Franklin in the balcony, the psychic said.



We lit a candle we’d brought, because I’d heard spirits were attracted to candlelight.



Our hour-long bathroom vigil passed without incident, except for a few tense moments when I thought I heard someone breaking into my car parked on the street and began fretting over the possible theft of my “Best of David Bowie” CDs.



Later, when looking over our photos of the lounge, we saw a couple of large orbs hovering by the chairs we’d been sitting in. There also appeared to be orbs in several of the balcony photos. But that was it.



As the clock neared 2 a.m., we returned to the balcony to sit. I made sure my braided hair didn’t hang over the back of my chair, not wanting to tempt anything to tug it. I heard a rustling noise in the corner of the balcony. I knew it was probably the air conditioner vent, but it got my imagination spinning. What would I do if the rustling noise began moving closer? I plotted an escape route.



Neither of us asked questions in the dark this time, even though it was obvious our psychic abilities sucked.



Three hours after we’d arrived, we gathered our gear.



“Thanks for nothing, ghosts,” I called out.