Latonia (Round 1) 5-31-08
Our investigation at the Latonia occurred on 5-31-08. Our team arrived at the huge theater at 8:00pm and met with the owners prior to setting up the equipment.
Some investigators met with the owners a week prior for a tour of the building and listened to some claims of activity.
One owner claims that on one occasion she observed an apparition that seemed to dart from one end of the ballroom and went through a doorway on the other end.
This claim is said to have also happened many years ago and was witnessed by, at the time, a child playing in the balcony area. This witness states that she saw the exact same apparition dart from the same area of the ballroom and through the same door that the now owner witnessed the event years later.
Brief History
The Latonia is located at 1 East First Street, Oil City Pa. Construction for the Latonia Theater began 1928 and was completed by March of 1929. The theater sat 1600 people.
The theater then went through some hard times within a few years of opening and then opened and closed on different occasions trying to survive the depression era.
The theater was then purchased by Warner Bros. in 1942 and operated the theater through 1959.
In 1959 the theater was then sold to the Drake Realty Co. and the theater was no longer in operation.
For a few years there were attempts by gas companies to purchase the Latonia with the plan of demolishing the building and placing a gas station on the corner.
Parker Furniture then purchased the building (unknown date) where the theater was forever changed.
Different floors, walls, steps and other measures were taken to suite the needs of the furniture business.
The Latonia now houses a few businesses such as Northwest Savings Bank, Butlers Candies, a dance studio, a barber shop and the now owners have opened the ballroom area to host events such as comedy nights, live band performances and other events.
The Investigation
Investigators sat up six stationary I.R. cameras in the following locations.
Camera one was placed in the ballroom main area
Camera two was also placed in the ballroom covering another angle
Camera three was placed in the original stage area
Camera four was placed near the stairway of the actors dressing rooms
Camera five was placed to capture the balcony area
Camera six was placed in the “Green Room”, where actors socialized.
Due to the large scale of the building the camera set up took a bit longer than expected. The investigation began at 11:00pm. The following equipment was utilized.
Six infrared camera DVR system, EMF meters, K2 meter, audio recording devices, handheld Mini DV IR camcorders, digital camera’s and IR thermometers.
During the investigation we gathered a little over thirty hours of video on the DVR system. With the handheld Mini DV camcorders four hours and fifteen minutes of video was recorded.
Five hours and forty-five minutes of audio was captured between three recorders and 679 photos were taken by investigators.
There were several personal experiences reported throughout the investigation.
The first experience was reported by Scott and Mark while setting up the DVR camera’s in the area of the dressing rooms. They both reported hearing an audible whistle coming from the area of the hallway that goes near the green room. During this time Mark also reported the sound of footsteps from the same area.
Fourteen minutes in to the investigation while just walking throughout the building gathering baseline readings both Mark’s and Larry’s brand new batteries went dead without notice.
The next personal experience was observed by all members. While sitting in the ballroom having an EVP/K2 session all members at some point reported seeing shadows “peeking” through the center curtain of the exits under the balcony area. Nothing however was able to be captured on any recording device.
Another personal experience was able to be captured on the audio recorders. It occurred when Ryan and Mark went up a ladder in to the “Abyss”, pretty much as high up as one can venture in the Latonia. Scott and Larry stayed behind on the floor below and both reported that they again heard the whistle coming from the area of the dressing rooms. This time it was captured on one of the audio recorders.
Throughout the night while investigators were in the area of the dressing rooms the whistle was heard.
The best personal experience was again observed by all members of the group and also recorded with one of the Mini DV Camcorders.
This all occurred in the “Green Room” during another EVP/K2 session.
Fifteen minutes and 30 seconds in to the session Mark reported seeing shadows moving about in a side hallway. Ryan went out to investigate the shadow masses that Mark was reporting. While in the hallway Ryan reported of a very strong odor of something citrusy that dissipated within seconds of first smelling the odor.
About two minutes later Ryan re-entered the “Green Room” and made the statement that if there was anyone in the hall not to be scared and come in the room and talk to us and if whoever was there wanted to whistle we would love to hear it. The K2 then began to flash then stop.
A question and answer session then went on between investigators and the unknown source for a little over ten minutes. Also during this time investigators, one at a time, would hold their hand over the K2 and ask whoever was in the room to reach out and touch their hand. The K2 would only have the one steady light until the question was asked then would begin jumping two to three lights then go back to base line. Also during this Mark and Larry reported that the fingers on their hands were freezing. The temperature of their wrists were taken along with a temperature of their fingers and there was a 12 – 15 degree drop between the wrist and finger temperature.
We then changed the batteries in the K2 to be sure that were not getting a false positive.
The K2 was then put back in place with the same results for another seven minutes then the activity just stopped.
This entire session lasted for approx thirty-five minutes and during the session Larry did report hearing the same whistle as previously reported from somewhere in the hallway behind him.
Our team experienced several different personal experiences throughout the investigation and captured a few EVP’s.
We feel there is a lot of activity in the Latonia but we just can’t quite make the leap to say that it is haunted.
We have already been talking with the owners to do a follow up investigation. With the knowledge we have now….. who knows. Maybe we will capture more evidence that will cross us over to a haunting.
UPDATE!!!!
After we had our reveal with the owners, one of them just couldn’t contain herself and asked one of our investigators to go with her to the area of the “Green Room”. She wanted to see if she would be able to experience anything like what we had reported in our findings. They headed off with two flashlights, the K2 meter and an EMF meter.
About 20 minutes later they came back both wide eyed. The owner, the one that was not such a believer in ghosts, had her first experiences.
She is writing up her account and sending it to me to post here on this page so I won’t ruin the story. You will get it first hand from her.
We want to extend our thanks to the owners of the Latonia for opening up their building to us.
Here is the owners experience as she wrote it:
After the reveal by ORPIT Sunday evening I asked Mark if he would go with me into the green room to see if we could get some activity. I had asked Mark to go with me because after viewing the video it appeared the “enity” responded much better with Mark than the other two fellows.
Mark and I went into the green room. I had in my hand the K-2 meter and Mark had the E.M.F. Detector. We were there totally in the dark with no activity for about 15 minutes with Mark talking. I spoke beginning by introducing myself as one of the owners of the theatre, stating that I was taking care of the theatre and I would also take care of “him”. I went on the say that the fellows had told me that “He” likes to whistle and asked if he would whistle for me. At that moment there was a very audible short 2 whistles. The readings on the meters also indicated activity at this point. I encouraged the “enity” to come downstairs to visit with us. “He” whistled again faintly and the temperature became noticeably cooler. Continuing to talk I again encouraged “him” to come down stairs. At this time there was 3 very distinct footsteps heard coming down to the landing. The footsteps continued to shuffle in uncertainty and then there were 3 steps back up the stairs. Mark and I were certain one of the others was gong to step into the room, but no one was there.
I continued to speak and asked if “they” were to shy to come down would they mind if we went upstairs. Going up the stairs we first went to the right up into the ballroom, as I wanted to compare readings on the instruments. They bottomed out and so we proceeded back down the stairs, crossed the landing and approached the second floor stage rooms. The meters started to go crazy and as we approached the middle stage room I asked if this was “their” room. I said I thought it was neat that we shared the same room. (I have personal items stored in this room.) Our instruments immediately bottomed out. We kind of froze at this point, with myself thinking I had upset them by saying we shared the same room. I continued to speak as we moved to the first stage room and I asked if this was “their” room. Nothing sparked on the meters so we proceeded down the hall to the other stage room. I asked if this was “his” room as we approached and the meters started to go very crazy, lights flashing up on the K-2 meter and I asked Mark what his reading was and his reply was 6.8. He said he had never seen it so high.
At this time we were not feeling so brave. You could certainly sense a presence there so I said we would not intrude on “him” but we were going to go back to the green room and perhaps “he would come visit us there. We got “him” to whistle again faintly but noting more occurred at that point. We went back into the meeting room and shared our experiences.
Since that time I have had only one experience. One Sunday I was alone in the building, up getting sodas out of the fridge and after closing the door there was a loud whistle. Thinking it was the door. I opened and closed it but the sound could not be replicated. This area is near the stage area.