Books, Movies, and Ghosts... Oh My!

Location: The Old Iris Theater (Books and Crannies); Terrell, Texas

Date: August 10, 2013

The Old Iris Theater in downtown Terrell, TX

After celebrating John’s graduation from the University of North Texas on Friday, we packed up and headed to the small town of Terrell, TX on Saturday night for an investigation. Our destination was the Old Iris Theater, which was built in 1925 and operated in downtown Terrell until 2001. After some renovation, our gracious host Gayle Harris, now operates the theater as a new and used book store, Books and Crannies, as well as a small ladies’ clothing boutique, and a 34-seat theater (in what was once the space behind the original movie screen), which shows classic movies twice a month. We were welcomed not only by Gayle, but also her colleagues Sean Damson and Cozette Moore and the adorable resident cat, Maddie.

We knew this had to be a short investigation due to other travel plans, so we went right to work setting up our equipment and had everything ready to go by 8:30. While setting up the infrared cameras, John noticed that the back corner of the store by the emergency exit had a very oppressive feeling. Out of curiosity I took our rarely-used dowsing rods to the back corner to see if anything would happen. Let’s just say I was not disappointed. As soon as I stood still in the back aisle, the rods felt like someone was trying to pull them from my hands. This continued for over a minute, with the rods swinging quickly from side to side and being tugged upon. When my dad joined me at the back, the rods gave the same performance in his hands.

Don using dowsing rods in the reading area.

After a few minutes of using the dowsing rods to check out the back aisle, we split up when my dad went to investigate the theater, and my mom and I tried some different equipment in the back corner. While we got no EVPs from this session, we do strongly believe we were communicating with a young boy using our K-II meter. To help solidify what the dowsing rods seemed to detect, I swept the entire back corner with the K-II. The light indicators never left the lowest level, green, unless they were near the dowsing rods my mom held, which were still swinging and crossing as we asked questions and tried to stir up some other activity from someone. Satisfied that there wasn’t an electrical cause for the rods crossing and the K-II showing occasional spikes near them, I set the K-II down on a book shelf so we could try to use it to communicate. Almost instantly after we put the dowsing rods away, the K-II started flashing erratically. When it would stop for a second, I would ask a question. After several tries, we finally got pretty prompt responses to “Are you male?” and “Are you a young boy?” It was hard to tell what were responses given the erratic flashing, though, so my mom decided to try talking to the “young boy” like he was one of her junior high students. In her stern teacher voice she told the spirit to leave the meter alone, leaving only the green light on until we asked a question, and then light it up to indicate “yes.” After that he responded very plainly by lighting it up to a short series of questions such as “are you less than 10 years old,” “are there other spirits here with you,” “are they adults,” and “do you like to knock books off the shelves?” 

Note that the lights on the K-II meter are brightly lit.

While we talked to the young boy, my dad also found some activity in the theater. Random noises seemed common in there, but one particularly loud metal clang got his attention and also coincided with a book being thrown from a shelf in the store, which I will discuss shortly.  While he sat in the theater, he got a small amount of activity with something turning his flashlight off and on (shown in the video below), and he also got two EVPs. The first was a male saying “possible” in a very croaky, mechanical voice when Don says, “I sure hope someone’s talking to me.” The other occured after Don says “Oh I’m sorry, is there someone here?” when he heard a noise. At least 2 voices (one male and one female) respond “Not that I know.” The voices were so low and muffled by the voice recorder’s background noise that I amplified their responses in the audio clip below.

While activity in the back corner began to subside and my dad still sat in the theater, John sat watching the infrared camera stream on our monitor. Shortly before my dad heard the loud clanging sound behind him in the theater, John, my mom, and I all heard a distinct “thump” in the bookstore and knew a book had fallen from the shelves. Sure enough, in the romance aisle we found a Madeline Baker paperback (part of the Reckless series, I believe) leaned against the shelf opposite of its original location. Upon rewinding the video footage, we saw the book didn’t just fall— it was shoved from the top shelf with quite a bit of force, which actually made it bounce before landing. When the video is slowed down, you can briefly see a blurred mass moving behind the book as it flies from the top shelf. This video is featured below along with footage of the flashlight activity. Another book, a Harlan Coben hardback, was also tossed from its shelf later in the night, but this occurred much further back in the store just out of our camera’s line of sight.

Orb moving by book shelf.

After the first book incident, my mom and I moved to the reading area in the front of the store. I continued to get strange activity with the dowsing rods, but up here instead of the K-II meter going off, something decided to play with a flashlight we left on the floor of a nearby aisle. This went on for several minutes, and a brief video clip of it is featured below. It is interesting to note that the only two photos I took that featured orbs where caught during this session when Beverly was setting down and picking up the flashlight.

Orb hovering over Beverly.

The next evidence we got came from the back of the store when my mom wandered to the kids section in hopes of talking to the young boy again. While they are very short, we did get two EVPs from this session. The first was after I sneezed at the front of the store and she asked if he had heard that, to which he either whispered “yeah” or said “uh.” Shortly after that she asked if he had a favorite spot in the store and he said “uh huh.” Both of these can be heard in the audio segment below.

After about three hours of investigating, Gayle, Sean, and Cozette returned to see how things were going. At this point, they informed us that there was also a small basement we might want to check out. Part of the theater’s little known past was that a previous owner fell down the basement staircase, receiving a fatal head injury. He died later at a local head hospital. My dad went down there alone to see if he could talk to anyone. At the beginning of his EVP session, while he is standing alone in the basement asking questions, the audio recorder picked up a very heavy, labored breathing sound. More interestingly, though, was what it picked up as he was climbing the stairs on his way out of the basement. My dad ducked to avoid hitting his head on what looked like a showerhead sticking out of the wall, and after he commented on the pipe’s presence, a gravelly male voice can be heard saying, “I never drank.” Our impression is that the spirit of the previous owner still lingers in the basement and was trying to clear up some unpleasant rumors as to why he fell down the stairs. This can be heard along with the other EVPs in the file below. 

Although this was a short investigation, it turned out to be one of the most rewarding in terms of evidence and personal experiences. The Old Iris Theater is certainly worth return trip in the future.

Hayley.