Ghostapalooza II:
The Empirical Strikes Back
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introductionOn 7 February 2000, in response to the ad in the Seattle Weekly, Nancy contacted us about strange occurrences in the basement of her boyfriend's business. According to her initial email, "All of the employees have seen or heard things and most are now afraid to work down there by themselves."
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The people involved with the bookstore reported a series of incidents that can be grouped as follows:
- Feeling like you're being watched or seeing someone out of the corner of your eye, but no one's there
- Getting a cold feeling/feeling of dread, including feeling anxiety when the lights are out
- Hearing voices but no one's there, including sounds in the boiler room and other odd noises
- Objects moving without human intervention, including doors opening by themselves
- Objects appearing out of nowhere, including change falling from the ceiling
To understand the circumstances of these incidents, we began with an initial interview to determine whether the site warranted investigation. On 11 March, we contacted Chris, the general manager of the Off-Campus Books bookstore, at 4517 University Way, Seattle. On 15 March, the three members of B.O.O. conducted an initial interview of Chris. We then researched the history of the building and on 14-17 April we conducted an on-site investigation, where we gathered data and interviewed employees and others involved in the day-to-day operations of the bookstore.
The members of B.O.O. conducted an initial interview with Chris on 15 March 2000. On their way to the interview, Ohio and Catherine stopped for lunch. The fortunes in their fortune cookies said, "Be careful of extravagance" (Ohio's) and "You will travel far and wide" (Catherine's), though in retrospect it appears these had little significance for the investigation. They're only cookies, after all.
During the course of the interview, we discovered that reported occurrences were concentrated in the basement of the bookstore.
The building was vacant when the store moved in around April 1999. Chris reported that he worked alone until he began hiring employees in July/August. Prior to the hiring, he reported, he saw shadows and had the feeling of being stared at. After he brought in the new employees, he would hear not quite discernible voices. Upon asking whether someone had said something to him, he would discover that no one had.
Chris also said that one of the employees heard change falling on the ground. In searching for the source of the sound, she found coins where there hadn't been any before. Another time, an employee saw a door fly open without explanation, and several employees expressed an overall feeling of anxiety. However, the employees said nothing about these experiences until later in the fall; when one person's experience became widely known, others began discussing their own occurrences. This being a place of business, all witnesses were sober at the time of their experiences.
According to Chris, employees from a clothing store next door also reported seeing, hearing, and feeling weird things, including once seeing a cloud or shadow move through a wall.
No one noticed any pattern to the events. Chris did mention that things seem to pick up in September, right around the time that the fall quarter began. He also indicated that the last event had occurred within a month from the date of the interview.
Two members of the team returned on 26 March. We received permission to use a small room in the basement as our base of operations. Chris informed us that we would have keys to the building (for access during off-hours) and that we could unload our equipment in the alley and come through the back door. We verified 14-17 April as the date for our on-site investigation and familiarized ourselves with the area's physical characteristics.
To become further acquainted with the building, we went to the King County Courthouse to study property records, including the county assessment, blueprints and permits for multiple remodels, and title. We also researched the building online and in the Seattle Public Library. Searches of Seattle records as well as Social Security records gleaned very little information about Kalberg or the original owners. We found nothing to indicate any violent or otherwise dramatic events in the building's history.
Legal description: Lot 11 and North 25' of Lot 12, Block 8, University Heights Addition. Predominant use: Retail Store. Construction Class: Masonry (I-beam girders, reinforced concrete). Quality: Average.
The building's design stayed fairly consistent up until about 1964. In addition to the remodeling carried out by the current tenants, the building underwent remodeling in 1963-64, 1971, 1984-86, and 1996. This information is based on the permits and blueprints we could find and interpret. It appears that after the Diamond/Rasco variety stores left, each new tenant made changes to the building.
From a review of existing blueprints, it appears the elevator, stairwells, and the sink/toilet and boiler room were part of the original design of the building. The slanted ceiling in the empty back room in the boiler room is the bottom of a staircase that leads to the alley, turns at a 90° angle, and continues into the basement of the adjoining bookstore.
There was a staircase at the front of the store from the first floor to the basement. It appears all of the tenants used this staircase until Mark's Hallmark sealed it off in 1984.
The basement is below ground, with concrete-block walls, pipes all over the place, and fluorescent bank lighting.
Access is by a front staircase from the first floor of the retail space and a staircase and scary freight elevator in the back. Several electric transformers/junction boxes are situated in the basement on the west wall. In the back, there is a boiler room with an adjoining small room beneath a stairwell. The heat source for the building is an oil-burning boiler with the oil tank possibly below the floor, both located in the basement in or near the boiler room.
The basement measures approximately 60'x103'. The structure consists of concrete block with plaster and lathe over it. There are several partition walls made of 2x4 and plywood. It appears there is little insulation between the partition walls and no electrical conduit or water pipes running through them.
The building faces the Ave. In the back runs an alley.