Members of the AGHOST investigation team are shown at Centralia's Historic Fox Theatre during a ghost investigation earlier this month.
A view of the stage at Centralia's Historic Fox Theatre taking during a ghost investigation earlier this month at the building.
Mysterious voices, sudden apparitions and a trove of fun stories could all be part of the package when AGHOST’s Ross Allison reemerges at Centralia’s Historic Train Depot on Saturday, Oct. 12 to host the second annual ghost walk through 13 storied buildings, including the Fox Theatre.
The 89-year-old single-screen theater— currently under renovation— will be one of the highlights of the Centralia Downtown Festivals Association’s “Ghost Walk: A Supernatural and Historical Folly” that will feature Allison and his team of investigators who will guide participants on a tour of local lore and their discoveries.
“They are working hard to restore it back to its glory days,” said Allison, referencing the Fox Theater. “We had the pleasure of walking around and seeing what we could find. There have been stories of shadow figures being seen throughout the building, apparitions being seen. We haven’t finished going through all of our evidence yet,” added the noted author, teacher and paranormal investigator, who founded his Seattle-based research and education-oriented team in 2000.
AGHOST — Advanced Ghost Hunters of Seattle Tacoma, formed in October 2000 — staged a full-scale investigation inside the historic structure earlier this month and plan to pore through hours of video to pick up anything from an unfamiliar sound to any material object that may have inexplicably been moved or shifted during their recording.
Their objective in their investigations, Allison explains, is to identify the presence of an “intelligence factor” inside the theater or any other location his group may be analyzing.
The Seattle-born ghost hunter further noted that there are two types of paranormal hauntings: repetitive ones that are routine in nature and intelligent hauntings that interact with the living and their surrounding environment.
“When you have stories from one of the owners telling us of one of his encounters in the lobby area (of the theater) and, all of the sudden, the vacuum cleaner flew down the staircase at him— something like that would show me that it’s intelligent,” he noted.
What’s more, Allison cited another claim of someone witnessing the apparition of an usher roaming the theater in vintage 1930’s attire. Other documented occurrences at the theatre consisted of wonky lights in the dressing room and figures in the projector room, as detailed on ghostlyactivities.com.
“What I try to do is submit enough evidence and experiences to hopefully open people’s minds that there could be something going on out there. You know, people tend to forget that a lot of times this comes from personal experiences,” he continued. “I could show you a video of an apparition going right up to the camera. But if you don’t believe in ghosts, you’re going to judge my credibility.”
Other downtown sites that were studied by Allison and company were the Bead Opus, Anderson Book Company and The Shady Lady antique shop, where an EVP technique (electronic voice phenomena) was conducted to spot communication between spirits.
In addition to launching one of the oldest ghost hunting operations in the Pacific Northwest, Allison has authored seven books on ghost investigations, along with lecturing at various universities and appearing on several TV shows over the past 17 years.
As for what Centralians and visitors can anticipate during the upcoming tour, Allison told The Chronicle that they should expect the unexpected, as there’s no telling what his explorations may reveal.
The opening tour will kick off at noon on Oct. 12 at 210 Railroad Ave. and new ones will commence every hour, with the final session scheduled for 9 p.m. Attendees will be invited to browse the nearby “Dark Market” — scheduled for 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. at Centralia’s Historic Train Depot.
The single price of admission for individuals 12 or older is $20.
For further details, visit www.brownpapertickets.com/events
