Years after its closure, an old high school auditorium taught an important lesson during a paranormal investigation. Keep listening for the story.

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Welcome to the PEEP Podcast! I’m your host Nicolle Morock, and I’m grateful you’re here! The two big ideas behind the PEEP Podcast are to show that the paranormal is more normal than most people think and to connect the science to the psi, including ESP, hauntings, and psychokinesis! In this episode, you’ll hear the story of my investigation of Grainger Hill Performing Arts Center.

But first… just kidding. I don’t have any big news to reveal this week, so we’ll jump into tonight’s topic, which is a chapter from my book, Please, don’t call me psychic: Stories from my paranormal life, which is available on Amazon and most other places books are sold.

The book is about the experiences I had, and the lessons learned from them, over the course of ten years of paranormal investigations with the National Society of Paranormal Investigation and Research, NSPIR for short.

For more than  decade we investigated public locations and private residences. Sometimes, we did it as a public service, fundraising for a local arts community in places like Sanford and Kinston, North Carolina. Those opportunities provided us access to the location while we provided a source of entertainment for locals. This story is one of those cases…

NSPIR Story 12 - Grainger Hill Performing Arts Center

Geographical location: Kinston, North Carolina

Location type: public, but no longer in business

Claims of activity: disembodied voices, things moving on their own, creepy feelings

Lessons learned: People can be scarier than ghosts.

EVP available online: yes, one

There was a place in Kinston, North Carolina, called Grainger Hill Performing Arts Center. It's the theater that used to be attached to George's high school. He had a lot of fond memories of that place, and as many small towns have done with their former high school auditoriums, the people of Kinston turned it into a performing arts center.

In an effort to support the center, George had the idea of having his class reunion include a ghost hunt there. He recalled rumors from his years in high school that the place was haunted, and it continues to have that reputation.

Our first time there was a preliminary investigation, with just NSPIR members and young man named Clay, who was there as the art center’s babysitter for the night. It's funny how many people I've met over the years doing NSPIR investigations that have been cool enough that I've wanted to continue to keep in touch with them. He is one.

On that first night, we checked out every room we could. It was an interesting place with multiple levels, as most theaters are. There's the stage area, the catwalk above the stage and beyond the catwalk, I remember there being a kind of a storage area that included some old costumes and a wig that George put on his head and the rest of us joked it was probably full of dust mites, lice and other creepy things. There was a stairwell from that room down the side of the building. Down below the stage area were dressing rooms. Then of course, there was the auditorium seating area.

We had some creepy moments that night, but I don't think we had any major personal experiences, other than a few cold spots and hearing some taps, bumps and knocks. We just enjoyed ourselves checking out the old place.

The second time we went there was for George's class of 1972 reunion. I think there were about 20 of George’s old classmates that we split up into two different groups. As usual, we tried to keep the two groups separated enough from each other so that if anybody was trying to get an EVP, the noise from each group wouldn't bleed over into the others’ area and make any audio capture questionable.

It was quite the interesting night because we were in a historic place with people who've never done any sort of paranormal investigation. We spent a lot of time reminding them not to whisper, to claim stomach growls, and to pause for an answer after asking questions. During the course of the evening, I did capture a weak EVP of a single-syllable whisper or a sigh that sounded female. It wasn’t substantial, though.

Then, something happened up in the catwalk that I will forever remember. I was leading a group up there, and we were standing in the part that could hold about 10 people just above the stage – kind of a little area where you could look down and see the stage, but the floor was solid enough that we weren't any in any danger of somebody falling to the stage.

We were standing there being quiet and people were taking turns asking questions during an EVP session. We ask one question at a time with about 30 seconds in between just in case we were to get an answer from a ghost on our audio recorders. And we heard a tap on the other side of the catwalk across the open space over the stage. Then there was nothing.

Whispers of “Did you hear that?” spread amongst the group, and I had to remind them not to whisper. After a long enough pause to make us think it was nothing, a few more questions were asked, and then we heard a footstep in the same area, but a little closer to us. “Did you hear that?” “Yes, I think it was the sound of a footstep.” “Where did it come from?”

Suddenly, somebody came out from behind the curtain just a few feet away from us! The woman beside me grabbed both of my arms and threw me in front of her! I screamed! Half the group screamed, and everybody jumped. When we all came to our senses, we saw that it was George, playing a nice little trick on us.

George will always remind me that he managed to scare me that night, and I will always remind him that it wasn't him that scared me. The lady using me as a human shield startled the crap out of me!

NSPIR went back a third time with one of the groups from the Wilmington area. We had some more personal experiences that night, including Sheila, the leader of the other group, feeling like she was the target of some sort of negative energy, especially while we were sitting in the auditorium seats. We were kind of spread around them doing an EVP session, and she felt like somebody was sending negative energy her way or there was a negative spirit who was messing with her and making her extremely uncomfortable.

I wasn't sure if I was picking up on a negative spirit or if I was just picking up on her intense feelings of discomfort, but after a while I was not feeling comfortable, either. I didn't feel like it was directed at me, but it was just not a good, happy feeling. Sheila's also sensitive, and she was definitely the focus of whatever it was going on that night.

I learned one important lesson at Grainger Hill: people are scarier than ghosts. Anyone willing to use a relative stranger as a physical shield against the unknown is much more frightening than a specter… or George.

Thank you for listening.

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