Enosburgh Opera House: Enosburg Falls, Vermont

July, 14th 2007 8:00 P.M.

By Kathy Connolly

THE HISTORY
The Enosburg Opera House was built in 1892. We went to investigate the story of a spirit named "Willy", the son of a laborer. It is said that Willy fell while working in the attic, broke his leg and died; forgotten by everyone. The ghost is reported to be playful and is blamed for moving props and stealing playbooks. Many people have reported hearing footsteps in the attic of the theater, though no one has ever seen Willy. The E.S.P. team went in hopes of getting Willy to come out and play.

LOOKING FOR THE OPERA’S PHANTOM
According to our tour guide, activity had been reported in the attic, by the stage and in the refreshment room. This was the perfect night for the debut performance of some new equipment, infrared cameras. The tech team set the cameras up in the refreshment room and by the stage, and placed a digital recorder in the attic. These would run the entire time we were there, undisturbed. Once the equipment was in place, we set out to prove or disprove Willy’s continued existence.

THE INVESTIGATION
We had divided into three teams. Leaving team one to watch monitors, another team headed up to the stage area while the third stayed on the ground level to investigate the green room and the men’s and women’s dressing rooms. Within minuets of settling in, "things" started to happen.

The group by the stage started to hear movement, and called on the radios to see if anyone was making noise. Then, the group downstairs heard what sounded like a hand swiping at the wall. When trying to use the radios, strange noises drowned out reception. One of the investigators expressed to a teammate his hope of catching the noises on the recording, as many times what the human ear hears is not always picked up by a recorder, and vice versa.
Activity continued throughout the night. The original curtain for the theater hangs backstage and is being restored. Against this backdrop, an investigator reported seeing an "orb" materialize, move to the left of the curtain, and disappear. Knocks and bangs turned many investigators’ heads, radios continued to transmit noises that sounded like frequency disturbances and groans.

Equipment stopped working at times. The monitor hooked up to the I.R. camera in the refreshment room seemed to have frequency disturbances, a voice recorder had battery issues, and one of the team members had a digital camera stop working – even after replacing the batteries. Oddly, our EMF (electro magnetic frequency) detectors were unaffected all night.

THE EVIDENCE
The evidence was startling. The sound of a hand swiping the wall in the greenroom was caught on tape. The eerie sounds on the radios squawked back at us from our recordings. A knock and other sounds were caught on the recorder left by itself in the attic. The tape of the refreshment room had gone black with a mysterious light anomaly – possible orbs – being the only image recorded at those times. And the camera that wouldn’t work? It was fully functional then next day.

This investigator has never been so surprised by an investigation. The results were startling and give me reason to believe there is an opera ghost in the hamlet of Enosburg.