FRIENDLY HAUNTING IN CONCRETE?

Paranormal Investigators look for Ghostly Presence in Historic Theater

By JENNIFER CARTER Staff Writer

Photos By FRANK VARGA Staff Photographer

CONCRETE — There’s something strange in the neighborhood.

At least Concrete Theatre assistant manager Joanie Johnson thinks so.

Johnson’s sure she’s felt a ghostly presence while working in the 83-year-old theater. Breon Williams, the theater’s new owner and Johnson’s boyfriend, is a bit skeptical.

But when representatives from Scientific Paranormal Investigators asked to investigate at the historic theater, he agreed. Williams said he’s not sure he buys into the idea of haunting, but he likes the group’s evidence-based approach to ghost-hunting.

Two of the group’s six members came armed with plenty of equipment Thursday when they visited the theater. These Skagit County paranormal experts make no claims to psychic powers or special sensitivity to the supernatural.

They rely on gadgets, including a hand-held electromagnetic field meter, a thermometer, a digital camera, audio recorders and a video camera.

Investigator Melissa Pederson scanned each room with a handheld meter that emits a chirping, clicking sound when it detects electricity. Her fellow investigator and sister-in-law, Tina Devoll, documented the readings.

"Try this wall over here,” Johnson told them. “This is where I get the willies.”

The meter’s clicking and chirping intensified around the spot, but Pederson wasn’t ready to rule it a ghost.

“It could be an electrical box,” she said.

Later, the pair donned headlamps to explore the theater with a digital thermometer.

“We having a traveling cold spot,” Pederson exclaimed as she followed the cool air with her hand down the rows, prompting Johnson to run out of the dark theater into the lobby.

The investigators also took photos and make audio and video recordings to play back later to see if they reveal apparitions, light orbs and “electronic voice phenomena,” or ghostly sounds and voices that can be heard only on tape.

Melissa Pederson uses a headlamp to find her way through the dark dressing rooms under the stage at the Concrete Theatre.

They walked through dressing rooms under the stage with an audio recorder.

“Is there a presence in the Concrete Theatre?” Pederson asked. “If you are here, why are you here?” She said that occasionally an electronic voice phenomena will respond with a clear message. “We’ve gotten a couple of those, and it just sends chills up your spine,” she said. Johnson said she hopes the investigation will turn up evidence to support her suspicion that there’s at least one ghost in the 1923 theater, which is on Washington’s Register of Historic Places.

There’s someone in here,” she said. “There is. And no one can tell me any different.”

Williams bought the theater in November. With the help of Johnson and some friends, he’s been fixing it up. He said the theater should start showing movies again this month for the first time in several years. A new screen and cushy seats are in place, the 1942 Century C movie projector is up and running, and the sound system will be installed over the next couple of weeks.

During the months of preparation and remodeling to get the theater ready, Johnson has spent a lot of time by herself there. She started getting the eerie feeling that she was not entirely alone.

Sometimes, while standing at center stage, she’s felt a sudden chill. In the beginning, she refused to go down the stairs to the dressing rooms beneath the stage. It was just too spooky down there.

Once, she was tired and sat down in a seat at the back of the theater. Then she felt as if someone were gently tapping her shoulder. Then there’s that spot about six rows back on the left hand side where she always feels strange.

If there is someone haunting the Concrete Theatre who wants to reveal himself, the paranormal investigators say they’ll spot him. Still, Pederson said, often they find what clients think of as signs of haunting can be explained naturally. “Eighty percent of the locations we go to are not haunted,” she said. Johnson seems confident that the theater will turn out to be one of the locations that are haunted, but that doesn’t worry her. At first, she said, she worried a ghost might be angry for being disturbed by all the remodeling. Then one morning she walked in and decided to greet it and give it a name. “I said ‘Good morning Fred!’

 “Ever since, she’s felt more at ease in the theater, even when she’s alone. “Whatever it is here, it’s not bad,” Johnson said.

Pederson said the theater’s history as a place of entertainment and community gatherings make it a good candidate for a friendly haunting. “When you die and you get to go back to what you like to do, you very often go back to those familiar places, “ she said.

Meanwhile, Williams said he’s hoping to make the theater into the kind of place it was in the 1940s and ‘50s again, with plenty of town gatherings and safe activities for kids. “It was a community hub,” he said.

The theater is well on its way. The Wild Women of Woolley will perform there April 15. The East Valley Community Care Team will hold a teen drinking prevention meeting there April 27. The Concrete Theatrical Group, a performance group of home-schooled students, is planning to start rehearsing a play there soon. Williams is even hoping to show a spooky movie for kids and parents on Halloween night. Yep, you guessed it — Ghostbusters.

Jennifer Carter can be reached at 360-416-2147 or at jcarter@skagitvalleyherald.com.