Late at night, you can hear doors being slammed shut in the Bama Theatre. The elevator goes up and down with no one in it and you can hear people talking on the balcony. If this is not unusual enough for you, keep this in mind: it all happens when no one is anywhere to be found in the theater.
The West Alabama Paranormal Research and Investigation Group, along with the Tuscaloosa Paranormal Research Group, will be investigating paranormal activity at the Bama Theatre Sunday at 5:30 p.m.
David Allgood, manager of the Bama Theatre, said he has heard these noises and is a little uneasy about their origins.
"When you're there around two in the morning, it's a little unnerving," Allgood said.
Allgood was approached by the West Alabama Paranormal Group after hearing several reports of paranormal activity in the theater. Knowing firsthand what they could be dealing with, Allgood complied with their request.
"I'm kind of interested into what they will find," Allgood said.
Curtis Thornton, lead investigator for the group, said, as of now, the group has found no evidence of a suicide or murder at the Bama. Supernatural entities generally inhabit these particular places, which are generally old, historic sites, Thornton said.
"Paranormal activity is present here in West Alabama," Thornton said.
One specific investigation that Thornton said sticks in mind is when he and his team went to the old Bryce Hospital in Northport.
"It was full of full-body apparitions and voices," Thornton said.
Thornton, who is also a private investigator in West Alabama, said the investigations normally take place through the course of a night, in which they will set up equipment such as cameras and motion sensor devices. They will also go through the building using electromagnetic field detectors and digital recorders. After the night's search, it generally takes one to two days to come up with verified results.
David Higdon, co-founder of the Tuscaloosa Paranormal Research Group, said supernatural events are not taken seriously enough in society.
"If everybody knew what we were picking up with these recorders, people would start thinking differently about this," Higdon said.
The voices, Higdon said, are the result electronic voice phenomena, which are thought to be supernatural voices found on these recordings.
Higdon, who was deployed to Iraq in 2004 with the National Guard in Jasper, mentioned how, during these playbacks, there would be mostly silence, but then one might hear something very eerie, such as a child singing or footsteps in the distance.
Other tools that Higdon's team use include an electromagnetic field meter, which is used to detect electromagnetic radiation, and thermometers to detect any paranormal presence due to the reputed extreme changes in room temperature when a supernatural presence is near.
Thornton said he is convinced that there are three separate entities inhabiting the theater. If the mysterious and unknown do not scare you, maybe you might want to stop by. The teams will be open for questioning at 5:30 p.m., but the investigations will be conducted in private.
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