The Plaza Theatre

19 February 2017

The Plaza Theatre

Our next investigation was (to me) at a very exciting place; The Plaza Theatre in Romsey.

A little bit of history…

The Plaza was built in 1931 as a cinema. It became a bingo hall in the 1970s, and then lay derelict for some years until bought by the Romsey Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society (RAODS). They converted the building into a theatre with two performing spaces – the 231-seat main auditorium, and the Greenroom bar and refreshment area, which doubles as a 45-seat studio space. RAODS have owned and operated the theatre since 1982.

As this is a working Theatre, our investigation was scheduled to start quite late and more unusually, on a Sunday. Still; being serious and dedicated Paranormal Investigators, this did not put us off. Once everyone from the team had arrived, we were given a tour of the available areas and taken through our plan of action and escape routes (should a fire alarm sound).

For our first location, Dave, Matt and I went to the lighting and sound booth which is said to have an ominous presence lurking in there. I set up a Dictaphone and a video recorder and sat at one end of the lighting booth. Dave set up his video camera and sat at the other end of the booth and Matt went and stood in a separate area where one of the spotlights is kept. While in there, Matt described that he felt that he was not alone and could see a shadow moving around him. He got the name Gregory which he said out loud. He said that when he did this, the shadow stopped in front of him. He then came out and Dave went in. As Dave went into the smaller room, Matt and I heard something strike one of the metal cabinets in the room with us. Neither Matt nor I had moved to possibly kick or knock anything over. In fact, we were both sitting down. Once in the room, Dave also said he felt that he was being watched while in this small room. He said that he thought he could see something moving in his peripheral vision. He came out and I went in. Dave came in with me. I admit that the small room did feel different. However, there is a lot of electrical equipment in there. Could this be throwing out large amounts of EMF’s (Electromagnetic fields). EMF’s are proven to affect people who are sensitive to them.

We all went into the larger area of the lighting and sound booth. Matt said that while we were in the smaller room, he could see a shadow moving out from where we were and moved towards where he was. He also said that he saw a light anomaly with his naked eye, (not through a night vision camera). We stood around in the room. I can honestly say I could sense an energy moving around us and did see a few light anomalies through the video recorder. As we had spent quite a while in this area, we felt it was a good time to move on.

We went and joined Tracy and Dan’s team for a few minutes in the bar area. However; as soon as we did, any activity they had experienced using the spirit board seemed to cease. I waited a few more minutes and told them that it was most likely because we had interrupted them. We left them to their experiment and went and sat on the stage area for a bit.

Our next area was down in the changing rooms. Dave and Matt decided to try a bit of scrying.* Scrying is the practice of looking into a suitable medium (mirror, water etc.) in the hope of detecting significant messages or visions. Nostradamus practised scrying; he would stare into a bowl of water or a "magic mirror" to see the future while he was in trance.

I do not feel comfortable scrying so I opted to film their experiment and take notes. Dave noticed straight away that his face started to take on different features. Dave explained that he could see features of an older man with a heavy brow and clean shaven. Matt also noticed that his features were altering and explained that he could see something similar. He asked Dave if his right eye felt strange. Dave confirmed that it did and it appeared to be drooping.

A few of the others had started to filter in and where stood watching. As quite a few of them had never been on an investigation before, we invited them to have a go at scrying. As this was a changing room, there was an awful lot of mirror to go around. After this experiment was completed, it was felt that now would be a good time to have a break. While the others went, we decided to stay for a bit longer. Areas of the changing room were off limits due to costumes being prepped and ready for the morning’s performance. I did have a sneaky look behind some of the curtains however, and did notice that one of the areas curtained off did not feel very nice.

I decided to go and find Maria so left Dave and Matt to it. When I found Maria she reminded me of an experiment we had taken part in during an organised investigation with another events team. She wondered if it might be worth us trying to recreate it. I agreed it would be a good idea.

After a short break, Maria and I had most of the team stand around on the stage in the circle. Maria led a visualisation exercise to encourage energy to build and aid our experiment. This experiment can be quite alarming but fun to do. During the experiment, people experienced the urge to rock, step forward and sit on the floor. Others hands would raise. It feels as it something (you cannot see) influencing you to do this. We then tried a bit of table tipping. *Table-turning (also known as table-tapping, table-tipping or table-tilting) is a type of séance in which participants sit around a table, place their hands on it, and wait for rotations.

Quite quickly, we experienced the table moving and heard knocking noises coming from underneath the table. During this experiment, we appeared to be talking to a male actor that had visited the Plaza Theatre and had been a Dame in a pantomime. I got the feeling that the actor favourite role had been Sherlock Holmes. The table rapped twice which we took to mean yes. Of course we have no way to prove this.

Some of us moved back down to the changing rooms. While here we did start to hear a metallic ringing noise and the counter that Dave and I were sat next to was vibrating quite violently. We eventually worked out that the ringing noise was a metal leg holding this counter up vibrating. We did not really get to the bottom of what was causing this vibration but it seemed to stop when we moved away from the counter. Maybe one of us had accidently set this off or maybe it was spirit activity acting in the same way as if we were holding a séance around a table?

We decided to call it a night from here as it was getting late.

I would like to thank Tracy and Dan for arranging this amazing location and a bit thank you to everyone involved which made tonight another amazing investigation.