{"id":29058,"date":"2021-04-02T00:06:27","date_gmt":"2021-04-02T04:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=29058"},"modified":"2021-04-02T00:06:32","modified_gmt":"2021-04-02T04:06:32","slug":"theatre-aurora-delving-further-into-its-own-history-after-ghostly-encounter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/theatre-aurora-delving-further-into-its-own-history-after-ghostly-encounter\/","title":{"rendered":"Theatre Aurora delving further into its own history after \u201cghostly\u201d encounter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Adam has been rather lonely since the start of the global pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With his door closed to visitors, his days have largely been spent in silence, but when he does have company, he can be a bit of a rascal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s anyone\u2019s guess at just how long Adam has been experiencing these pangs of loneliness, but if you\u2019re a believer, it started well before COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adam got some companionship, albeit temporary, last month when members of Peterborough Paranormal accepted Theatre Aurora\u2019s invitation to come to their Henderson Drive building to look further into ghostly apparitions and spooky encounters all too familiar to stage veterans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Director of Operations Steve Knoxx has been on site for the last few months working on renovations at the building, which started out life as a cement factory. Knoxx says one experience in the theatre\u2019s dressing rooms left him almost with a feeling of dread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was uncomfortable and draining, he says of the experience. It also left him with questions, one of which was partially answered just days later by Board Member Neill Kernohan who asked, \u201cHave you met the ghost yet?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know why he would say that to me, I was freaked out as it is!\u201d says Knoxx with a laugh. \u201cHe said, \u2018I\u2019m not going to say anymore. We don\u2019t like to talk about it.\u2019 No big deal. It went on and on like that for months. About a week ago, I was in the building and felt there was something so very strange going on here. It is not like when you walk into a cold room; it is more of a full-bodied tingle that something very strange is going on, especially in certain parts of the theatre itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe house lights are up and there is something on stage and \u2018snap\u2019 it\u2019s gone. It was faster than my eyes could follow it. There was no sound and I wondered whether I had imagined it or not. It was midday, dead quiet and I saw this thing running across the stage. That\u2019s it \u2013 I\u2019m gone I\u2019m not doing anymore work today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In some respects, the work was just getting started. Knoxx decided to pursue the matter further and, with the support of the Board, he reached out to Mandy Rose of Peterborough Paranormal who jumped at the chance to dig deeper into the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith COVID, I haven\u2019t been able to [do these investigations] in a year and when the opportunity came up, it was a yes,\u201d she says. \u201cIt is something I take seriously. I have always had a fascination with the paranormal, even going back to when I was a little kid. Where it comes from, I have no idea. It might be a history thing, but from what I understand there were psychics in our family and I guess it is just in my blood. I got the gene!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With her fellow investigator Sam by her side, they came to Theatre Aurora with the equipment necessary to get to the bottom things. In addition to their cameras, their bag of tricks included a \u201cghost box\u201d which picks up on frequencies in the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Rose stresses that she is not a medium; rather, she describes herself as an empath in that she can\u2019t see ghosts, or hear them. Instead, it\u2019s their energy she can feel and the tools do the rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we went backstage, I didn\u2019t pick up on the little boy; I immediately picked up on this grumpy old guy who was perturbed by us being there, almost invading his space,\u201d she shared. \u201cAt one point, Steve was showing me the rooms and I hear, \u2018Looks like s—!\u2019 I didn\u2019t think it looked like s—, but this grumpy old guy in my head did. He kind of left us alone and after that, it was the kid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSam picked up on him. When the photographer (from The Auroran) left, Sam said somebody touched him on his outer thigh and it felt like it could have been a kid. Then, when we were doing the ghost box session, Sam asked the kid, \u2018I was hiding from the photographer, were you also hiding from the photographer?\u2019 I believe he got a yes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upon further investigation of the recordings they made on site, they found the child\u2019s spirit identifying himself as Adam with the date 1896 cropping up frequently on the track. Further questions revealed the boy as Adam, a child who liked horses and was \u201cquite lonely\u201d in his own words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To help ease his loneliness, the team left a small toy horse to play with should the mood arise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the meantime, it\u2019s a matter of trying to figure out who Adam might be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Theatre Aurora is now working with the Aurora Museum & Archives to paint a fuller picture on the history of the Henderson Drive lands and if there is any evidence of eight-year-old Adam \u2013 or even the grumpy old man \u2013 somewhere in history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are aware the investigation could open up the door to skeptics, but that is not a concern for either Knoxx or Rose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t believe in ghosts, you don\u2019t believe in ghosts,\u201d says Ms. Rose. \u201cI don\u2019t care what you think because I have enough experience that I know what I have experienced and seen \u2013 but I get it. Some people don\u2019t believe in it because they don\u2019t want to and can\u2019t, and that\u2019s okay. I\u2019m into this to help people and help them understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we were talking to Adam, was that a scary experience? I don\u2019t think so. It was just a regular conversation. I do what I do because I love it, I\u2019m interested in it. I am not here to prove to the skeptics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong>
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adam has been rather lonely since the start of the global pandemic. With his door closed to visitors, his days have largely been spent in silence, but when he does have company, he can be a bit of a rascal. It\u2019s anyone\u2019s guess at just how long Adam has been experiencing these pangs of loneliness, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":29032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/2021-04-01-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-7yG","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-09 12:07:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}