NGI

... Head over to Haunted UK for a review of the general history and haunted history of the Darlington Civic Theater. Alternatively, use the table of contents to view the reports for each location.

Auditorium

The Auditorium of the theatre spreads over 3 levels with most seats, as can be expected, on the ground level. The highest level of the Auditorium looked down sharply on the stage which, on this night, was closed off with a heavy safety curtain so that a group investigating the stage area would not interfere with those in the Auditorium.

Flanking the stage at both sides, and accessible via a curtained off set of stairs, were private boxes - one of which was Senoir Pepe's own personal box.

Group 1 Report : Jay Claire Various Guests

This was our final location of the night and decided to spread ourselves out wide across the auditorium in groups of two.

Before this though - a couple of the group seemed to think they could make out two human shapes sat in one of the boxes which overlooked the stage (not Pepe's box). Jay and Claire entered the box to investigate. They both sat for a while and conversed with the people below to try to see if the shapes could still be seen. On further investigation - Jay found a small light source which seemed to be responsible for casting a 'human shaped' dim light on the back of the wall. Mystery solved!

As we spread out through the auditorium we intermittingly called out for any spirits that may have been present but got no noticable results.

Group 2 Report : Carol Julie Karl Lisa James Sharon

James and Sharon conducted their investigation on ground level of the Auditorium/ front stage area. Karl, Lisa and Carol conducted their investigation in the stalls, circle and box areas above. Julie remained in the middle of the Auditorium, seated in a seat that has a reputation for paranormal activity.

A temperature reading of 20.9c was recorded for this particular site. Julie on a personal level felt nothing around this area of note.

For their vigil Carol, Lisa and Karl sat in the viewing box area on the left hand side of the Auditorium. This is the area where the owner Pepi would sit during performance nights.

Halfway into the vigil after a period of calling out, Lisa who was sat on a chair near the exit door of the box, complained of feeling 'very' sick and being extremely cold. Carol took another temperature reading at this point, it read as 24.2.c. Lisa at this point left the location and sat outside of the box area. Karl then sat on the same chair as Lisa (so did Carol later) but nothing was felt by either of them.

From there Lisa, Karl and Carol proceeded up into the top half of the Auditorium - the cheap seats/stalls.

While they sat, Karl heard footsteps as if someone was coming up the stairs at the back of the theatre. They went to investigate, but no-one was there. Lisa was sat a bit further away from us, and Carol asked her if she wanted to have a go at using the pendulum. After a few minutes she again felt very unwell, and couldn't carry on with the pendulum exercise - again the feeling of nausea and extreme coldness had returned to her, at this point she had to leave the location.

Carol, Lisa and James then ventured down towards the stage area, where James and Sharon were. Nothing was felt around this area of note. The end of the vigil and we moved on to our next location.

Group 3 Report : Mark Phil Tracy Sharon Margaret

The group was sat in Pepe's Box talking about the ghosts that are supposed to haunt the place. Tracy's legs and ankles suddenly feel cold. Phil also says that he feels very cold. Phil then sees a streak of light flash across the curved ceiling, something similar to what we had witnessed on our initial pre-visit to the place. (Later experiments show that a torch light reflecting off the glass covered paintings at the rear of the dress circle produce exactly the same effect, so we can probably put this down to this).

Mark then takes a series of photos at 2 second intervals from Pepe’s box out across the auditorium. The series seems to show a variety of orbs. One in particular orb seems to be moving across the auditorium from right to left (although there is no way to know if this is the same orb, it does look like it). What is interesting about this orb is that usually when you take a picture of one it will not be there in the next photo, as they are usually bits of dust/moisture that have to be a certain distance from the camera to show up in the flash. This orb seemed to hang around. Phil also managed to capture this orb on his camera phone as the same time as Mark was taking his own pictures but from a different angle.

At 12.34am the group is still in Pepes box when what can only be described as a hand full of gravel is heard being forcefully thrown into the metal safety curtain. My group assumes that it is another group who are carrying out a vigil on the other side of the screen. During the mid investigation break it is revealed that the other group had heard the sound and thought it was us. This still remains a mystery. Mark and Phil made a thorough investigation of the area during the break and no sign of gravel or anything else that could account for the noise was found.

The group explored the rest of the Auditorium, tried sitting in the 'Haunted Seat' and went up to 'the Gods', but nothing else of interest was reported.