I've never seen a ghost, but I've talked to way too many people that I know and trust that have seen [or encountered] things of this nature.

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site

I was making up our print of "The Others" today and the splicer kept on opening and closing all by itself... only joking.

The medium told me that I would marry a person with the initials VK. So when In 1958 when I met the beautiful Vallery King I thought this was it. However in 1965 I married the absolutly Georgeous Virginia Kennedy and we are still married.

Bob - Seances, ouiji boards are scary stuff. Being a sceptic on ouiji boards, I did an experiment where other people were controlling the puck (or whatever it is called) and I asked the questions *without actually saying anything or indicating what I had asked.* (This was in the lobby of a theatre, BTW.)
In cases where I thought questions where there should have been numerical answers, it went straight to the numbers. In cases where letters were required, it went there. I don't know what was happening, but given the number of successful tries, something out of the ordinary was occuring. I never went near a board again after that experience.

Evans:
Hospital haunting
Another
Another, and a theatre

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Anyhow, the guy was doing service work in the booth which has a single projector and a platter system. Suddenly, he realized that he could hear a projector running somewhere (it certainly wasn't the one he was working on), then he heard a second projector power up and go through the normal sounds of making a changeover.

Later, when he mentioned the occurrence to the theatre's staff, he was told that many years earlier a projectionist had died there when he was electrocuted in the booth. At the time of his death the booth had different equipment and was a changeover operation.

I worked as a projectionist at this 20 plex with 2 large booths of 10 screens each. The booth was so large that a certain area was used for concession storage. Some of the projectors were located near the concession storage and more than once I was working on this equipment when when snak bar people would come up to get their stuff. Anyhow, chances were that they would not see me and would consequently jump a little when I stepped away from the projector !

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I just read a pretty good story about a haunted theater called the Lyric in Blacksburg, Virginia. Its long so make sure you have time. http://www.furrs.org/writing/ghosts.htm

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If you want to see pictures of the places that Joel is talking about in his story, check out our web tour at:
http://www.thelyric.com/webtour/start.php3

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Colin Wiseley
Lyric Theatre
Blacksburg, VA
www.thelyric.com

The Exeter (1 screen, 3 Super Simplex on WE Universal Bases, Ashcraft D's) was built in the sanctuary of the former "First Spiritualist Temple of Boston", a now tiny religion that had services in which they supposedly communicated with the dead. A big movement in the mid 1800's. This is a big structure, maybe 500 seats, and the words "First Spiritualist Temple of Boston" are still in the stonework today. No longer a theatre. We always heard strange noises there, often like someone was coming up the stairs. They had a hard time keeping projectionists, except one old guy, Steve, who was a minister in the Spiritualist religion, and had preached there. He had a Spiritualist radio show on a local station (at like 3 AM Sunday), and we sold him some production equipment for it. One time, pulling speaker wires in the attic, we found a bunch of old "orders of service" describing who they were going to be contacting that Sunday. They ran "Rocky Horror" at midnite for years, with a dressed-up, reciting-the-lines crowd. Once they had us put brand new Ballantyne PRO 70's in (never ran 70 though), then had us put the earlier described equipment back because the picture was more stable. Now a book superstore.

Cinema 57 (2 screens, 4 AA-II, Xenith 4000's), particularly the large house, is built on the exact site of the infamous "Coconut Grove" nightclub fire of 1942. http://www.ezl.com/~fireball/Disaster21.htm This is located in Boston's old filmrow district. The fire was the reason for many of the theatre fire codes now in existence. The theatre always gave me the creeps big time, even before I discovered it was built on that site. Now a hotel function room. I'm glad it's gone. Many fire victims died from inhaled fumes from nitrate film, interwall spaces were filled with nitrate because film exchange on 2nd floor had the editors shove the trimmings in holes in the wall to save on trash fees. Also would have made it burn nastily. The now defunct Capitol Theatre Supply office and shop was used as the temporary morgue.

The second one features cowboy actor Buck Jones, who was killed in the fire.