Jayme Mellema is University Theatre's Scenic Designer. What you are about to read is his encounter with the unexplained...
Normally I’m not a sage burning, séance attending, night vision goggle-wearing believer in the paranormal, but after recently experiencing something here at Thompson Hall I can’t explain, I’m thinking about grabbing my goggles.
Prior to the renovation of Thomspon Hall, I’ve heard there have been a number of questionable occurances explained away as being the Thompson theatres “ghost”. Folks have gone so far as to claim it’s Frank Thompson himself….even thought he died overseas. When I’d heard these tales I simply nodded my head and went on with my life. Not that I’m not a believer in such things, but EVERY theatre supposedly has a ghost and in all my time in lots of theaters I have yet to encounter anything that made me believe these stories. Until recently. Lots of these theatre ghost stories start with “I was here, alone, late one night when…” and those are often easiest to explain away. Most people are not familiar with all the strange sounds a building can make, and when you’re in a theatre alone at night, I’ll admit, it can be kinda spooky. But my story takes place in the middle of the afternoon.
I was in the Studio Theatre painting scenery for “Into the Woods”. It was pretty quiet for a change. Often in the afternoon, there’s lots of loud banging or saws coming from the Scene Shop next door. But not that day. In fact very few people were around at all. The only person I recall being around was Dave Jensen. Paul Pharris was not around either, presumably at Stewart Theatre. I remember Dave walking past the large loading door into the Studio, headed toward the lobby several minutes prior to “The Incident”. Then all was quiet. And the air was calm. Often when I’m painting in the Studio I’ll have large fans running to help speed things along. But at this particular moment, however, the fans were off and as I said, all was quiet. I stood in the center of the Studio and had stopped painting to look at what I was working on. Good enough? I wondered. Hmmm. It never is. And then, moving from the seats toward the loading door, an extremely strong gust of air, brushed by my left side.
I say “brushed” past, because it sincerely felt like someone had rushed past me toward the door. The only part of my body that felt the burst of air was my left arm and torso. Nothing else. And it was very strong. I recall hair blowing about. It lasted only a second, and then, as before, all was calm again. My immediate thought was that perhaps Dave had opened or closed the Titmus Theatre loading door. Air current is very strong through those doors, and maybe it pulled air out of the Studio from the main entrance. I glanced over at the front doors to the Studio, but they were closed. No cross-breeze then. I looked into the loading area. No Dave and the loading doors were closed. Later, I asked Dave if he had gone into the Titmus after walking past. His answer was no.
Since then I have heard that in the past there had been another incident in the building very similar to mine. And others have said they’ve heard voices, had doors open or close, and seen things. But as I said before, I generally don’t jump to the conclusion “A ghost ran past me”! And yet it was definitely a strange experience that I can’t explain. And being an avid fan of the Syfy (to me it’ll always be SciFi) channel’s “Ghost Hunters” I believe in evidence to back up a claim. Jason and Grant would say that I need to look at alternative explanations before declaring, “I was touched by a ghost”. To that end, I DID attempt to recreate the circumstances of “the incident”, but I was unable to replicate what I experienced. And as of today, I haven’t been able to come up with any other explanation.
So, after all of that, am I now going to say that I think that Thompson Hall is haunted? No. There simply isn’t enough evidence of that for my taste. Have there been unexplained experiences in the building that might lead one to believe that there’s something strange in the neighborhood? YES. Absolutely. So maybe someday we’ll have more concrete evidence to backup those experiences, but until Jason and Grant can come with their ghost hunting team to tell us for sure…we’ll just have to settle for telling stories. Which, thankfully, is what we do best here at Thompson Hall.
Have you had a strange experience in Thompson Hall? Tell us YOUR story!
