Soldiers and Sailors War Memorial Theater Update: From May investigation of Soldiers and Sailors War Memorial Theatre located in Beckley West Virginia. Sorry it has taken so long for an update but we had a load of evidence to go through and are still working on a lot of it. We wanted to share what we have so far. I will start with a bit of background. The theater was constructed as a tribute to the veterans of World War I in 1931 by the Freemasons. On the opening day the theater was not complete but opening ceremonies were held. All of the states elite were there dressed in their finest. Make shift bleachers were erected to hold the band that was scheduled to perform. Sometime during the opening ceremonies the bleachers collapsed. Amazingly enough no one was killed although one of the band members “Bob” who was the tuba player, was seriously injured. When the bleachers collapsed Bob sustained a serious neck injury. I was told that he was confined to bed (several months) until his neck healed. Considering the times in which this happened medical attention was not as readily available as it is today so Bob did not heal as well as he had hoped. Legends have it that Bob was a big storyteller and the longer he talked the more tired his neck became and his head would gradually fall sideways. So if someone seen Bob talking on the street and he was leaning you could bet he was telling a doosie. Sometime after the accident Bob was given a space in the basement of the theater for living space. Stories are that sometime after his death as apparition was seen in the corner of the apartment. Some people said that it looked like someone was hanged but we believe it was Bob. Given the fact that Bobs head would lean to the side during a big story we assume even in death he still likes to tell tales. When we arrived at the site we were in awe of the building. The architecture of the building is breath taking. We were saddened to find out that as of August 1stthe building will be closed for renovation. The building has been turned over to the Theater of West Virginia group and apparently no more paranormal investigations will be allowed in the building. Although it is exciting for the town of Beckley it is a letdown for groups like us. Especially since we will not get to do a follow up investigation. Anyway on to the hunt. Setting up equipment in a place as big and open as the theater was a challenge not like any other we’ve had in the past. The acoustics in this place were unreal. I have been in theaters before but for a theater this old it was amazing. After going through with John our tour guide and finding out all the hot spots we began to set up. Even though we have been doing this for a while we sometimes still find we are learning and we had one heck of a time with some of the video equipment. I’m still not sure how much of it was us and how much was the spirits of the old theater. But eventually we were set and ready to go. The first part of the night was somewhat quiet and uneventful. So we decided to go outside and take a break. While taking this break I (Sandy) could not keep my nose out of the door. Not more than five minutes in to our break it sounded like a herd of elephants ran across the stage. The noise was so loud that I was across the parking lot before I realized it. (yes at times I can be a big chicken) Thus it began. For nearly three hours noise, footsteps and doors closing bombarded us, along with knocks, bangs and every other thing you could expect at a ghost hunt. At one point we were all standing stage right and it seemed we had made contact with Bob. We asked him if he could walk to center stage for us to take his picture. Although we did not capture anything on camera we did capture his footfalls as he “walked center stage”. I’m not sure what went through the minds of each of us at that time but I can assure you we were all speechless for a split second! Sometime later two of the guys were sanding stage left and one of our guest members Matt was looking up at the catwalk because he heard what he thought to be footsteps. While looking up he was startled when he felt a tap on his shoulder. No one on our team was close enough to touch him so were not sure if it was Bob another of the playful spirits of the building. Another story that was told to us was that during a performance a young lady actress decided to go to the balcony after her scene was over to watch the rest of the play. Sometime later she was shot and killed in the balcony. There have been other groups who claim to have heard a gunshot on their recordings but we unfortunately did not. Although sometime later in the night during one of our breaks we did capture a female voice saying “balcony”. We will be posting a couple of very interesting pictures and several evp’s. We are still reviewing the video and will post ASAP.
EVP of Tap Dancing Captured During Setup
Spirit of Bob Walking To Center Stage for Photos
Balcony
While outside taking a break, we all heard a loud banging noise from the stage area. We all went back in to try and get a response and was able to get one knock.
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