Hannibal Community Theatre

On 14 May 2005 seven members of Show Me Paranormal Investigations worked the Hannibal Community Theatre at 515 Lyon Street, Hannibal, Missouri. The building was put up in the 1930s as a Presbyterian church. The church could not pay the final cost, and the local Catholic congregation took it over. It stayed a Catholic church until the 1960s, then a veterans hall for about twenty years. After sitting empty it was revived as the community theatre, and it was still that when we were there. We arrived at 5:00 pm and started the watch at 5:20. Present: William Houser (investigation coordinator), Kim Lovelace (case manager), Lisa Newland, Tabitha Houser, Jim Knutelski, Brandon Thomas (trainee), and Rachel Johnston (trainee). The report was dated 17 June 2005 and signed by William Houser. Kim Lovelace reviewed it.

This is a public theatre. The pin is the building.

Beyond a vague rumor that the theatre was haunted, no stories were known. One investigator had heard, secondhand from an actor, that a man had been seen on stage, walking behind the crowd, and then gone. Just before the first sweep we interviewed Margaret Northcraft and other people from the theatre. The officials knew only the rumors. A man who worked with the theatre and rented a room upstairs said he had never seen anything odd there.

Permission was on file. It was about 52°F, overcast, with light precipitation. We mapped the building, took baseline EMF and infrared readings, ran an active sweep, left recorders for a dormant hour with the team out, then made a final sweep.

Baseline temperatures inside ran from the upper 50s to about 70°F. A lot of the EMF in the building belonged to the wiring and to the equipment used for shows. Other spikes did not. On the first sweep we tracked one from a base of 0.03 milligauss up to 1.3. We followed it through the auditorium, room C, and the temperature in that same spot rose nearly ten degrees, from 63°F to 71°F, at the same time. The EMF tech thought he felt the energy touch him and asked for a still. That frame showed a large orb within a few feet of him. It is rare, for us, to get a reading, a temperature change, and a still in the same moment. We still do not treat an orb as proof.

About eight hours of digital audio came off the sweeps and the dormant hour. Two voices were clear enough to understand, of people who were not in the building. Both are attached on this case.

On the stairs in the main entry, room A, during the first sweep, between questions, a man's voice: "Very busy… OK." It does not answer a question we had just asked. It may be a comment on the questions themselves.

About forty-five minutes into the dormant hour, in the kitchen, room E, with nobody in the building, a woman's voice: "No… it's fine… Nobody's hurtin' us." We have no explanation for the voice or the line.

Low-light video ran in rooms A, C, and L. Room C caught very bright streaks of light moving extremely fast. They look dramatic. We concluded they were most likely bugs flying past the infrared lights. One frame from that tape is on this case.

One hundred thirty-six stills, film and a 4-megapixel digital camera, flash on most of them. Many frames had orbs, including on high-speed film. We set aside the ones that were dust or flash. Others we could not discharge as easily. As a rule we do not accept an orb as proof. With other evidence on the case, we kept them as support. The report shows a large orb midway up the stairs in room A, a self-lit orb in motion in the old chapel, room L, a large orb photographed more than once in the auditorium, the orb taken during the EMF spike, and a small orb in motion in room C. Those frames are in the original report.

In the kitchen, room E, four of us watched a paint tray move, untouched, off the edge of the sink. An investigator was pushing hard for an EVP at that moment, and the tray moved toward that person. We put the tray back and tried to make it fall on its own. It did not. Moments later it left the sink again, toward the same investigator. Three of us saw the second move.

One investigator reported several presences in the building. Her impressions have matched a record before. Nothing from that night could be checked against a document. We do not use impression as primary evidence.

Conclusions. Considering the impressions of the investigators, the strong nature of the audio recorded, and the great number of photographic anomalies captured here, we feel it is reasonable to believe paranormal activity may be occurring at this property. The case stays open. Immediate attempts were to be made to return. No follow-up is filed here.

This page is that report, shortened onto the sheet. The opinions in it are Show Me Paranormal Investigations' opinions.