Is the Fischer Theatre

Haunted?

Yet More Updates 10-31-05

The Historically Haunted Tour was conducted on the 29th. Over ten groups took a tour of the theatre that highlighted the history of the structure, and contained insight from members of the Springfield Ghost Society. A great time was had by all! Look for this event again next year, only bigger and better!

More Updates! 09-21-05

    After two investigations over 18 months or so, one of which was overnight, the good people of the Springfield Ghost Society have posted their findings. You can get the  complete report here. I urge you to visit their main website here. There are many interesting investigations that they have done. These folks are not a couple of kids with flashlights and tape recorders. They are a professional group of link-minded people, who come in and do a very thorough and impressive investigation. I'd like to take this space to thank them for the time and effort they have put into investigating our theatre.

    Some highlights from their stay:

    ...

12:06am   We were sitting on the floor against the wall on balcony under production booth and heard something crash nobody else was in the area

12:08am  We are still on the balcony under booth and heard what sounded like something heavy being dragged across the production booth floor.

...

...I could see a female figure standing next to Gail in the purple coat on the stage

...I felt another surge of energy rush past me and heard a voice say to “hurry up, we don’t want to be late”

...she said that something whispered, “Where?” and brushed against her cheek  

...

    Here's the complete report!

    So obviously, the answer to the question of whether or not the theatre is haunted gets a resounding Yes! from the Spingfield Ghost Society!

UPDATE!

The Halloween taping was a bust. Although I haven't listened to or watched it all yet, I don't "see" anything obvious. However, in September a group of paranormal investigators toured the theatre and performed a preliminary investigation. Their findings were interesting, to say the least. I await the full report from them, at which time I'll post the interesting bits and link back to their website.  They are anxious to return and stay longer and perform a more complete investigation.

Original Posting

    Anyone that has spent time in the theatre alone can tell you that there is no "silence" in the dark of the theatre. Old buildings settle. There are few buildings in town older than the Fischer, and settle it does. The silence resounds with clicks and pops, cracks and creaks.

    However, if you get a board member or volunteer alone, or in the right mood, you'll hear stories of other noises... footsteps, draggings, even a whistling, of a certainty that one is not alone.

    My own experiences took place in preparation for the David Clark concert in 2004. This was our first live webcast, and I spent considerable time in the building getting the equipment right, testing the levels, testing the web links, the audio, etc. Overall I was probably by myself 10 hours in the Fischer, over three days, mostly at night. Mostly in the projection booth. Mostly accompanied only by the glow of a computer monitor like the one you sit in front of now.

    I heard many noises over those nights. I carried my good flashlight and found myself shining it, not where I was going, but where I thought something might be laying in wait. I was paranoid. OK, I was scared. But you've got to understand that at the age of 38 I still won't sleep with my feet over the edge of the bed, because toes are just too juicy a treat to the boogeyman beneath.

    Now, before you write me off as kook: As part of that preparation, I accidentally recorded an entire night of "silence".  There are many things you would expect to hear : trains, cars going by, brakes screeching. The Fischer is by no means an airtight facility. But there are noises on that archive that gave me pause. There are noises that still give me the creeps. So I give them to you here, unamplified, untouched. I've cut out the interesting bits, so you don't have to listen to ten hours of mostly nothing. Keep in mind these sounds were recorded in an empty theatre, between 10:30pm and 7:30 am on September 16 & 17th, 2004. These files were recorded as .wma files and I've left them as original as possible, so you'll need Windows Media Player to listen to them.

(Just a note: many people have commented on the 'clicking' noises that can be heard if you crank up the audio, particularly on the longer clips. I'm certain that these are an artifact of the hard drive in my equipment spooling to disk, and nothing more.)