Go! Stories

     It's October, and you know what that means. No, not the Major League Baseball Playoffs, Halloween! So, talking about ghost stories is always something interesting. You have people that believe wholeheartedly that ghosts exist, and you have people who are the exact opposite. Then you have people that are halfway in between. To be honest, on a scale of one to ten where one is I don't believe in ghosts at all, where ten is I am a true believer, I tend to land around seven. I'm religious, and I believe in angels, and if angels exist, then there must be demons that exist. They are talked about in the bible, which I believe in. Also, one of my personal beliefs is that when we pass away, we go into a spirit world, which I believe is still here on Earth, but on a different plain. There have been a lot of different studies that have shown that when someone passes away, they lose a tinny tiny bit of weight, which scientists, yes, educated scientists believe there is energy that leaves the body, which they agree may be a spirit leaving the body, crossing that plain, and into the spirit world where we can't see with physical eyes.....most of the time.

    I'm not a tinfoil hat wearing insane person, but I have had experiences in my life that I cannot explain. I mean, I can tell people what happened, but I scientifically can't explain how it happens. I believe that there are good people who die, and bad people who die, and that sometimes, there are phenomena that happen where something, or we, can make some kind of contact with those who have passed away, or even haunted by an evil or unclean spirit, but I believe we have good, kind and righteous spirits that can watch over us and make some kind of contact as well. I'm not saying I know these things one hundred percent, but there have been instances in my life where I am left thinking that there is something to it all. 

    There is an interesting podcast I like to listen to called Anything Ghost Show. It's where the host, Lex Wahl will read ghost stories that people write in and tell him, or people can record themselves telling the story, and he plays them on the podcast. The Halloween episodes are the episodes with the best stories. 

    I say this because for almost a decade, I did plays and improv comedy at the Empress Theater in Magna, Utah. I love that little theater, but I cannot tell you how many unexplained things that happened there. Enough to where nobody wanted to be in the building alone with only a couple of lights on. There was one story I had that happened in 2015. It was one of the very last improv comedy shows I performed in. My good friends, Curtis and Emily who were in the show with me were helping me lock up the building. Since our shows went from ten at night to midnight, since we had to perform after the regular plays that the theater had performing there, which I was also usually in as well, and we told the box office ladies that they could go home and that we would clear out the theater and lock up.

    On this particular night, we performed, we greeted people as they left our improv show, and we began our walkthrough of the theater. We start in the lobby, head downstairs to the dressing rooms, make sure that nobody was in them, then into the green room where the actors hang out and get ready for the shows. Then there was a little room we called the dungeon because it was all cement with no carpet, and it had a creepy vibe. They were empty. We then went up to the room with the props table where all of the play props were set for the plays. Empty. We headed out into the stage and the seats and tech booth, they were empty. 

    That room leads down a small hallway, at least it used to, I heard they have changed some of the floorplans around, but at the time, it was a small hallway that lead to the lobby or stairways to the dressing rooms. Empty. Then there was an upstairs room we called the rehearsal hall. It had a keyboard and seats and tape so that we could rehearse our plays and musicals. There was a little door in the ceiling with a little ladder that went up into the attic and catwalk where a lot of the stage crew would work and hang out. We had to go up there, check the rehearsal hall and go up and check the catwalk and attic. Empty. We then headed back down the stairs to the lobby.

    That was the walkthrough. We went over that theater up and down and around the whole place to make sure that it was empty, and it was completely empty. We were hanging out in the lobby where we were going to look for the keys to lock the doors and go home, and then something happened that we did not expect that scared the living heck out of us.

    As we were turning out the lights in the lobby with the keys in hand, something upstairs in the rehearsal hall stomped louder than I have ever heard a stomp from someone up in that room normally, then there were two more big stomps across the room from where we heard the first stomp, it the stomping started down the stairs. It scared us so bad that we ran out and didn't lock the theater. We hightailed it out of there as fast as we could. I can't explain it, but there was nobody up there. We had just thoroughly gone through everywhere in that room, and there was absolutely nothing up there that we could see.

    I had experienced other things there with others, and it put us into a position where we don't know how or what happens, but those experiences made us believers over non-believers. Even as I write this blog post, I have goosebumps. I tried talking a picture of my arm and the hairs standing up on end just remembering it happening, but the picture didn't turn out too well, so you will just have to take my word for it. It scared me out of my mind when it happened, and it is still scary for me to remember it, and explaining it all to you. 

    Like I said, I am not a one hundred percent believer, but I think there is more to the stories people tell, and I think there is a primal fear we all have. Paranormal horror films are very popular and very scary for a reason. Some may say it's the thoughts and feelings of something around us we can't see that feels creepy, but when you add an extra element, like sounds or fleeting sights of something you aren't quite sure you saw, but maybe didn't, but either way, it's making you think there might be something more that we aren't sure about.

    Maybe a ghost stomped on the floor above us, stomped across the room, and started stomping down the stairs that scared the heck out of us enough to book it out of the theater and not lock it up, or maybe there was something that just happened to fall across the room and down some stairs. When I think of those two possibilities, I think a disembodied person trying to scare us sounds more real than I like to think.

    I sent an email to the podcast Anything Ghost Show that I mentioned before. I sent it in about six months ago. I just thought that it wasn't a story he wanted to tell. However, I received an email from the host, Lex Wahl earlier today that told me that he loved the story and that he has been saving it for the Halloween special for this year, which makes me feel honored to be a part of. I sent a text to Curtis and Emily, who are married, and told them I sent the email and that our story is going to be told on the podcast. They were excited, and they said they try to block it out of their minds, lol. 

    Anyway, whether you believe in ghosts or not isn't the point of this post. The point was to tell you a true story that really happened, and if you don't believe the ghost part of the story, just think of it as a fun little story to tell around a campfire when people start telling ghost stories. If you believe in ghosts, maybe trying to arrange a ghost hunting tour of the theater might be right up your alley!

    I hope you are all doing well. Things for me are busy. Between schoolwork, curling, and watching movies and tv shows to review, I have been keeping busy. Oh, by the way, because there aren't always critic screenings for films, I am toying with the idea of still reviewing films I see after they are released, and also, I have found that there are streaming movies and shows that I am thinking about starting to review, or at least discuss. If you like that idea, let me know, and I will make it happen.

    Take care, and maybe I will post one more blog post before the end of October, but if not, you just got your ghost story for the holiday.