Nobody has to convince the head carpenter at the Pantages Theater that there may be ghosts wandering about the theater late at night. Warren Crain, 47, of Tacoma said he has seen the same man twice standing amid the seats as he is about to close up the theater after a show.

 

And he thinks he knows who he is.

“I sort of go under the assumption that Alexander (Pantages) comes around once in awhile and checks up on us,” he said.

Pantages was the business partner of William Jones of Walla Walla. Together the men built the Tacoma Pantages, which opened in 1918.

Crain’s assumption is plausible. “Why would any random apparition decide, ‘Yeah, I think I’ll hang out at the Pantages’?” he asked.

But what about the female phantom?

A recent sighting of a woman in the balcony by another staff member led to a ghost hunt Monday night by Paranormal Washington, a relatively new spirit investigating group. The team brought infrared cameras, voice recorders and electromagnetic field detectors and spent seven hours in the dark.

“I would love to tell you that we saw an apparition ourselves, but the truth is we did not,” team member Kim Varian said in an e-mail.

Though it was “mostly uneventful as for personal experience,” Varian said several investigators “felt as though someone was sitting next to them or following them.”

A full report of what the team calls a “reveal” won’t be available until the team reviews 40 hours of video, photographs and recordings, she said. The results will be published later on the group’s Web site at www.paranormalwashington.com.

But the team did not come up empty-handed.

Varian said that in reviewing the voice recorders she found “audio clips of the same female voice that was speaking in a language I believe is Italian. The voice is heard at two different times in the evening in the same location.”

Here's a clip of one of the recordings.

Varian is heard saying “that’s interesting,” and then a female voice singing something that sounds like “Mia Mi” can be heard.

Varian doesn’t know what was being said and would like to find someone who understands Italian. She said the group’s founder, Kelly Beem, also has found two photographs “of great interest.”

Beem said Thursday in an e-mail that the audio clips are “compelling” evidence.

Who’s the lady?

Lacey Leffler, associate marketing director for the Broadway Center for the Performing Arts, which runs the Pantages, suggested it might be the famous performer Klondike Kate.

Before Alexander Pantages built the Tacoma theater, he owned a theater in Dawson City, Yukon Territory, where Kate performed. She later toured and made Pantages a lot of money.

Leffler said the story is that Klondike Kate was one of Pantages’ girlfriends, but he ended up marrying another.

Leffler said the story continues that Klondike Kate died penniless and heartbroken and to this day walks the Pantages looking for her love.

Crain hasn’t seen the lady but said a staffer warned him about wandering spirits when he was first hired. He said he had no reason to doubt the man’s honestly.

Crain’s said the first apparition occurred five years ago, about a year after he came to work at the theater; the second was three years ago. Each time he saw a white man, medium build and wearing a suit of indeterminate style.

Crain said the apparitions don’t scare him because theater people are good people even if they are ghosts.

Crain has the sightings to prove to himself there are ghosts but admitted he probably wouldn’t need them to keep an open mind.

“I think there is the possibility of too much out there that we don’t know,” he said. “It’s like my professor said, you can’t prove a negative. So you can’t prove to me spirits don’t exist. Therefore I will operate under the assumption they might.”

Mike Archbold: 253-597-8692

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