The History of Richardson Hall

So I'm not sure why we haven't posted this up before, but here's a little history of Adams State and Richardson Hall for those of you that are curious.


Adams State was founded in 1921 as Adams State Teacher's College. That's why the front of the building says the "Normal School". During this time, normal schools were teacher colleges.The blueprints and early foundations were started in 1921, and finally finished in 1923-25 (we aren't' completely sure of the complete date). Dr. Ira Richardson was the first president, and founder Billy Adams' friend, of Adams State Teacher's College (1925 - 1950).   

The part that is circled was the original school. Yes, the original school. Library, dorms, classes, cafeteria, professors' offices, administration offices, auditorium, and gymnasium. The wing on the left, was built in 1938 as one of President Roosevelt's New Deal programs. The wing on the left was built in 1947.


Governor Billy Adams, worked for three decades before obtaining the authorization to found Adams State Normal School in 1921. During his long career in the legislature, there were times when Adams was the only Democrat in the senate while there were other times when he led the majority party. Good weather or bad, he fought for what he thought was best for his county and his state. In the forty-two years he served in the legislative halls, he introduced only one bill. The bill was passed and created the Alamosa State Normal School at Alamosa. Later it was changed to the Adams State Teachers College. It is rumored that the KKK, (a majority of the legislators in Colorado at this time) pulled the funding for Adams State to fund the Colorado State Teacher's College at Greeley (University of Northern Colorado - Greeley). Mr. Adams cleverly added in a clause in one of the pages of the bill to fund Adams State. He was also instrumental in creating the Colorado Agricultural College at Fort Collins and Western State College at Gunnison.

Pretty nifty huh?


- Becca

Ghosts of Richardson: Mr. Janitor

So as you know, we've been researching each ghost that we come in contact with. Well, tonight in our library investigation we just may have found out more about Mr. Janitor. 

So far all we know is that he was a janitor who worked for Adams State and he died peacefully in his sleep. His daughter, who had worked here with him was the one who found him. 

Becca, that's me, discovered obituaries in the Colorado room in the library. This room is a compilation of historical events, people, etc that have happened in Colorado. 

We now have three possible identities as to who Mr. Janitor could have been. 

Identity 1 

Identity 2

Identity 3

Basement chairs part 2

While I was going through my iPod, I found another photo that I took before winter break.

The chairs that were scattered around in the boiler room are all lined up facing the boiler room door. I know for a fact the club didn't position them like that. I can't confirm that no one else touched them, but I do find it odd that another group of chairs were fixed to face a door.

Like we showed in the last vlog we did of the basement, both the white door (where the first group of chairs were facing) and this door lead to the wall of pipes and the boiler room.

On a side note, the semester starts January 14th, and the club will meet back up shortly thereafter. Look for more frequent updates and a lot more videos this semester!

Night Investigation Vlog

We have a new video out that we took during our night investigation. Granted, we did that in September and I just managed to put it together, but that's beside the point...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyQ1T5F0zRY&feature=youtu.be

Chairs of the Basement

Yesterday during our investigation, the group headed down to the basement to check that everything was unchanged. Matt headed back into the cage area, and the rest of us fanned out to sweep the area. About ten seconds after Matt got back behind the cage, he said he needed to show us something creepy.

Once we got the lights on, I climbed back there with him, and saw what he meant. In the back of the caged area, there are several chairs scattered about. They're all moved and turned because the club needed to move them for the tours, and because we usually pull them up and use them for things.

So seeing every single chair in the caged area turned and facing the white door was really unnerving. I don't get creeped out very easily, but I couldn't help the goosebumps.

That one brown chair is odd too- why just the one chair picked out of the others, and why right in front of the white door? I know for a fact no one in the club set them up like that. The only people who would have done that were with me last Thursday, and no one ever goes into the caged area unless they're with the club or they're with facilities.

As to why the chairs are lined up how they are, I don't know, but you can bet we'll be finding out soon.

The Basement

For those viewers wanting a look around the basement, the Club did a quick video to show everyone around. Click the following link to see our latest video!

http://youtu.be/8WCt_5__hLo

Apparitions

Last night during my latest bout of insomnia, I was going through some old photos on my computer looking for one of the dressing rooms. While I was scrolling through, something in one of the images caught my eye:

Original Photo- no editing (except the red circle)

So, curious now, I put it in FotoFlexer, enhanced the brightness, zoomed in a bit, and was thoroughly impressed at what we managed to catch:

 

 

 

Once again, the only editing is the enhanced brightness

This photo was taken last year (August 31). I'm not sure how I missed this the first time, but now it has really caught my attention. The only three people in the auditorium besides me (based off the other pictures) were Jake and Becca, and while there is the possibility it was one of them, I'm not completely convinced.

Because I missed this picture, I started going through the other ones from that night, and I pulled out more pictures that had interesting things in them. This picture, of the balcony, is interesting because last year when we investigated we had no way of getting up onto the balcony. I can confirm that none of us were up there during the time this picture wast taken:

Unidentified Shape (original)

Shape with enhanced brightness & zoom

I checked the time stamp on this next picture. It was taken six minutes later, and still none of us were up on the balcony:

Balcony (original)

Enhanced brightness, zoom, and contrast adjustment

For this one, I wanted to put in two originals. The first is of Becca and Jake about  fifteen seconds before I took the picture of the black shape. They were both walking down the aisle in front of me, and at the moment I took the picture of them, they both heard a noise behind us and I caught their startled expressions. We got up on the stage and then I took a picture of the whole auditorium to see if I'd catch anything:

Jake and Becca

Shape (original)

Enhanced brightness and zoom

Could we have captured someone else wandering around the auditorium with us? If we have, then it's intriguing to think of which ones they are, and what they thought of us a year ago. Let us know what you think of these, we want your feedback!

The Doorway

As you all have probably figured out by now, I'm a bit of a procrastinator. I swear I'll have stories up of the haunted tours, but in the meantime...

So during the tours we met a few people who were pretty interested in the club, which totally made my night. They came by during the club meeting, and we were doing some investigating. You know, just basic stuff: EVP's, a little bit of provoking, and using the EMF detector here and there.

Before we began an EVP session, one of the new members Eric pointed to the right side doorway beside the stage and asked, "What happened in this doorway?"

Becca and I seriously froze. No, nothing we're aware of happened in this doorway, but myself, Becca, Emily, Matt, and now Eric have all asked about that doorway. Last year when we started investigating, Becca and I had a really uneasy feeling about that doorway. Okay, okay, I'll admit we were a little afraid of it in the beginning. After a while we just got uneasy. We heard a lot of growling coming from the doorway, and several times we saw an unexplainable figure standing inside watching us.

We never really told this to anyone (because really, who besides us would care?), and we let it go over the summer. When we started up again in August and we brought our new (now hardened veteran) member Emily into the auditorium, we never mentioned the doorway to her. So imagine our surprise when she walked past it, stopped, and then asked, "So what happened in this doorway?" When we asked her why she wanted to know, she told us, "I don't know, I just don't like it. It gives me the creeps."

Okay, so in all reality a lot of the auditorium probably gives people the creeps. I mean, it does look sketchy. But Why did that doorway draw her attention? When we brought in our other now-hardened member Matt, after not having mentioned the doorway to him, he asked us the same exact thing, and then explained his question the same way.

Can't you just feel the creepiness oozing out?

Honestly, I'd forgotten about that doorway and the creepiness emanating from it until today. I mean, it's always in the back of my head, but with so many more stories to keep investigating, and all the new places to be afraid of, it doesn't bother me as much. So when the newest member Eric asked us about it, it was pretty startling.

Adding onto this whole thing, my roommates went through our tours last weekend and after they were over, both told me that they felt unusually creeped out by the doorway. On the tours, we stop at the end of the aisle beside that doorway, and my roommate Rachel told me she didn't feel safe with her back to the door. She told me that "it sounded so close that I thought I was gonna turn around and see someone in the doorway". And, as always, with everything that has to do with Richardson, when she turned around, she saw nothing there. My other roommate Lisa said that she felt unsettled about the doorway too, and she also heard the voice. They told me it was a mixture between a hiss and a whisper. It didn't say anything specific, but it was clearly a voice.

When I asked them about the doorway, I never said anything about it being creepy. How we even got on the topic had nothing to do with anything paranormal. I was looking for a picture of the doorway, and I realized I took a decent one last year. I told her I was surprised I'd been so on top of it last year, and when I showed her the picture to explain my point, she looked unnerved and said she didn't like that doorway. 

At first I thought maybe Becca and I were the only ones that didn't like it, and I thought it was just a personal preference thing. But now that people not even in the club (that don't do any investigating of the sort) have come to the unanimous agreement that there is something weird about that doorway, I'm pretty confident it's not just based on personal opinions. I'm not exactly sure what happened in that doorway. I've never really focused our investigating efforts on that one spot, but I think now that it keeps cropping up, we have a new mystery to solve. 

Finally, after a year of waiting...

The club, since its founding, has had one overall goal: do an overnight in Richardson. Monday at 2:30 PM, our request was finally, finally approved, and tonight the Paranormal Discover Club will be overnighting in the building that started it all!

I took a picture because I was so excited

Since Richardson is one of the most notably haunted places on campus, we've been recording and researching there for a year now (the club was founded in September 2011). Though we do catch a lot of really great evidence, it's hard for us to tell what's actual evidence, and what's background noise from the life going on in the building.

So after pestering pretty much everyone in a position of authority here at Adams, we will be meeting Jared (head building manager of Richardson) at 6 pm by the front doors to start the night. We will be locked in from 6 pm until 8 am tomorrow morning, and we're hoping for some good evidence. Thank you to everyone who supported us along this quest; we'll be sure not to let you all down tonight!

Investigation of Richardson Hall 2/27/2012 Part 2

After our success with the chair experiment, the Paranormal Discover Club headed back to Richardson Theatre the next day, not just to finish up our experiment, but to test out a few new recruits. The total headcount for the afternoon was 9 people: myself, Becca, Jenn, RJ, Jake, and then the new recruits Josh, Emily, Dani, and Melissa.

When we take potential members on a run-through, we don't ever do anything that we haven't done before. Not only is it risky to do new experiments/investigations with a group of first-timers, it's also hard to judge how well they handle themselves compared to the rest of the group. If we put them through the same things we've already done, we can see how well they do compared to us. 

So really their test-run was just a repeat of the chairs, and it started off pretty smooth. We met the new recruits out front of Richardson Hall and laid out the basic rules:

• Go with your gut- if you feel uncomfortable, unsafe, begin to get sick, or just need to leave for any reason whatsoever, tell one of the senior members, and then get out. 
• Always stay with one of the senior members- Don't leave our sight at any time, no matter what. No venturing off to do solo missions, no leaving without informing one of us, and no going off in groups without one of the senior members. 
• Use common sense- don't do anything, whatsoever, to put yourself or anyone else in harms way. That includes venturing off into dangerous places, climbing up anything, and crawling under anything (leave all that to one of the senior members). And please, do not do ANYTHING to provoke anything in the investigation area.
• No faking anything- Evidence is always so much more awesome when it's genuine. Do not fake anything at any time. Accidents are understandable
• If you are caught breaking ANY of these rules, you will be escorted out of the investigation area and your request to join the club will be denied

Once we got the rules laid out and everyone agreed, we headed in through the main doors. Pitch black as it always is, the creep factor really wasn't that high. It was nothing we hadn't done before. Jake and RJ were still in class, so it was just the seven of us at first. To kick the investigation off, Becca and Jen each took a group of three, and I wandered between the two as we put up all the chairs in the theatre. 

For the first time in a long time, Joshua's Chair wasn't down. Now I know that it's usually a good thing when chairs don't move by themselves, but in our case it's unusual and a little troublesome. 

After checking the chairs, we gathered the group up on the stage and sat down in the dark to wait and listen for anything unusual. However, it had gotten pretty chilly in the theatre and the heater kicked in, making it near impossible to hear anything. There were a few taps and bumps, but we couldn't place them, and it became pointless to sit on the stage.

Becca led Dani and Emily down into the audience to do a quick seat check, Jen stayed with Melissa and Josh on stage, and I headed up to the right side dressing room to see if anything unusual was going on there. Let me tell you, the climb up to the dressing room is a steep and narrow one, and if you're not good with heights, you'd hate it up there. 

A few seconds after I got up there, I got a killer headache and felt really light-headed. Since one of the rules that I stress the most is "if you suddenly feel sick or nauseous, get out of there and take a break" I followed my own advice and went back to the stage. 

Really, nothing that exciting happened for about the first half hour. A few seats ended up moving half-down, but really, it was all calm. So, feeling adventurous, Becca and I decided to venture downstairs for a little look-around. Jenn was opposed to us going downstairs at first, because it could be potentially dangerous. But, wanting to have a look-around, and since we hadn't been down there since Halloween, we persuaded Jenn and headed down.

The temperature change was shocking, but until we get a temperature gauge, we're not making anything of that. Since there was a heater on up on stage as well, we're not jumping to any conclusions except that we were really freaking cold. Before we'd even gotten all the way down the stairs, we heard a shuffling noise coming from the gated area; obviously, since no one can get in there, and the only other people in the theatre were upstairs, it was a bit startling. We pressed on though, and partially split up; Becca went to check beneath the stairs, and I was over by the gated area. When we gathered again in the center of the room, from behind us in the corner we heard what sounded almost like a chuckle. And, as always, there was no one there.

Contributing the "chuckle" to the wind or a draft, we headed into the boiler room. Being cautious (and okay, a little paranoid) I had Becca stand in the doorway so I wouldn't get locked in. The huge fire door that's supposed to stay open could always somehow slide shut, and that wouldn't be a good thing. The boiler room was even colder, but I count that off to the fact that the floors are cement, the walls are brick, and the old, cheap windows probably let quite a draft in.

While I was in there, Becca called out to me and said, "it sounds like someone's walking around in the gated area, come here". I walked quietly over to her, and sure enough, I heard what sounded like footsteps shuffling across the cement. Almost immediately, Becca and I got killer headaches; it was so bad and so sudden that I made the decision to head back upstairs.

As we got to the stairs, there was a huge thud from up above; someone had dropped something on stage and, being completely honest, it scared us senseless. We were up the stairs in two seconds flat. A few minutes after we got back upstairs, our headaches disappeared.

I was more than startled to come up onto the stage and see Jake and RJ there; we hadn't even heard them come in. So with most of the group together (DeeDee was busy with schoolwork), things fell into motion. The heaters turned off a few minutes later, and we were able to sit up on stage and listen like we always do. Though we heard some noises, it really just sounded like the building settling, so we counted them off.

While sitting down on the stage, Jenn suddenly grabbed my arm and said, "look up there!" I looked up at the right-side dressing room and noticed what looked like a shadow up on the wall. A moment later the shadow disappeared back around the wall of the dressing room, and Jenn and I were left wondering.

Almost immediately after we saw the shadow, our entire group (minus Becca, Emily, and RJ) heard a voice come from behind us. I thought it was Josh, but when I turned on my flashlight, I saw the rest of the group in front of me on the stage, and the three others out in the audience; chills ran down my spine.

I really wanted to go investigate, because I had a feeling that the noise came from the basement, but Jenn didn't feel right about going down there. Once again, following the rule of "go with your gut", I sided with Jenn and decided not to go downstairs. We'd already been down there once, and really we hadn't caught anything we could prove.

Melissa and RJ, really wanting to explore down there, insisted we go down. Melissa told us that she "feels like we need to go down and look around". Jenn was adamant about not going downstairs though, and I had already agreed with her. When the rest of the group appeared on stage, I told them we'd be leaving in a few minutes.

I heard a noise come from the basement, and immediately whirled around; it was just RJ, heading down the stairs. RJ had never been in the basement before, and now he was heading down alone, which broke a few of my rules. So, even though I had agreed not to go down, I went down after RJ because I wasn't letting him go alone.

Sure enough, everyone ended up following us downstairs. I hate going in large groups for investigations because I believe that if there is something there trying to communicate, it won't happen with a group of nine people crowded in the tiny basement. To prove my point, we really didn't have anything happen. Jake and RJ left halfway through being down in the basement, but even then nothing happened. After about five minutes of showing everyone the basement, we decided to head back up. I pulled Becca aside; I wanted the two of us to stay down here and see if we caught anything now that there were less people down here.

The group wasn't even all the way up the stairs when we both heard a voice hiss GET OUT and a moment later, I felt something touch my arm. Our nerves already frazzled from being in there for so long, the two of us had a good ole fashioned freak-out and raced up the stairs.

After that last encounter, we decided it would be best to call it quits for the day and meet back another time. Jenn and I led out Josh, Dani, and Emily, and we expected to see Becca and Melissa right behind us. After a few moments of waiting in Richardson, I grew increasingly worried and told Jenn to stay with the recruits while I went to look for them.

I was startled to see Becca on stage, nearly in tears, refusing to move because she was so scared. After a few minutes of calming her down, I finally got her to tell me what was wrong.

"I was heading towards the door (she points to the door where we always hear growling and see shadows) and I heard something growl my name. I just... I got scared, I don't want to go over there right now."

Eventually, Melissa and I coaxed Becca off the stage and out of the theatre.

It was an investigation full of mystery and scares, and though we didn't get a lot of evidence, we found some new members, and we'll have some stories to tell for a while. 

Creation of the Chair Experiment

In one of the earlier posts, I talked about the little boy of Richardson Hall (whom we now call Joshua). Though I guess investigators aren't supposed to have favorites, I've got to say he's my favorite ghost. Not just because I have a soft spot for little kids, but because he's our most interactive spirit by far.


Back when we were setting up for the Ghost Tours, fellow investigator Becca and I would spend a lot of our afternoons  alone in the theatre building doing walk/run throughs and setup for the tours.  During one run through, I saw that one of the seats in the front row was down, and realizing that would be a hazard for me (our tours were in the pitch black theatre and I was walking backwards) I put it up. Becca and I went downstairs and came back up a few moments later.


The same seat I'd just put up was down again.


Being completely honest, it didn't really phase me. Like I said before, the theatre is the oldest part of the campus, and I figured the seats were loose and it just fell down on its own accord. I put it back up, and then moved it back and forth a bit to see how loose it was. Contrary to my assumption, the seat wasn't loose- it stuck a bit when I pushed it down, and it never fell on its own while we watched it.


Still in the middle of a run through, Becca and I were working on the stage. I thought I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye, and when I looked over, the same seat was down again.


It is notorious for ghost children to play with others in the room, and like I said in the post about Joshua, I believe that he doesn't know he's dead. He's tried to interact with us before, and Becca and I wondered if he was trying to play with us.


So we decided to play back. We went into the audience and pushed up all the seats that were down, including the seat in the front row. Becca, being our main ghost communicator, told Josh that we wanted to play. She asked him to push down the seats like she was doing (she demonstrated).


We walked around the seats, keeping an eye out. Becca called out to me because the seat that had continuously been pushed down was down again; so were a couple of other seats. So we played back- Becca pushed one down, I pushed one down, and then we told him it was his turn. This game went on for about ten minutes; several more seats were pushed down  (regrettably we never saw with our own eyes the seat being pushed down).


Then things got more interesting; while playing our game, Becca felt a slight tap on her arm. Since I was on the other side of the room, we had a pretty good feeling who it was. Thus, our game of tag started. And for those of you who haven't played tag with a little ghost boy, let me tell you it's not as easy as it sounds. But Joshua tagged both of us, and we continued to play.


It had gotten pretty late, and Becca and I had to head home. After saying goodbye to Joshua, we went to leave out of the back door that we'd come in from. The second we stepped through the first doorframe, over my left shoulder I heard "get out". I thought it was Becca and turned back to ask her what that was about; Becca was on the right of me, looking over at me with the same stunned expression. We were out of the door in less than two seconds.

Investigation of Richardson Hall 2/27/2012 Part 1

The Chair Experiment

After being absent from investigating for so long, Becca and I headed back over to Richardson Hall. Yes, I know we do a lot of investigations on the Theatre, but really, we can't explore anywhere else, so for now our choices are limited. And besides, it's a pretty active place, so why not investigate it to the fullest?

The two of us came up with an experiment to perform: the chair experiment. Like we said before the little boy (who we discovered is really named Joshua, so that's what we call him now) likes to interact with us a lot, so he's our best spirit to study. 

For our experiment, we went through the entire first level of the theatre and put up any seat that was down. Now, in the theatre, there are some seats that, when pushed down will stay down. But for the most part, the chairs spring back up unless there is weight in them. 

So once all the seats were up, we went through to take pictures as evidence that all the seats were back up. After that, we had planned to go through and check if any somehow went back down. However, before I could even take the first round of pictures, we found that one seat had gone back down. 

Every time we are in the theatre, that is the seat that's always down. We've dubbed it "Joshua's Seat" because without fail, no matter how many times we put it back up, it always comes back down, and we believe that it's Joshua's way of telling us that he's here. 

So for the experiment, I put the seat back up and took pictures as best as I could to document the seats all being pushed up:

Right Side
(Note Joshua's Seat, 2nd Row on the left)

Larger view of right side
(Joshua's Seat bottom right)

Center section right side

Left section back half
(Note: First row on the left, the two seats near the heater
are half down again after we put them all the way up)

Center Section Left side

After taking these pictures, we went back through maybe a minute later to check seats. This is what we saw:

Center section

Left section front half

Left Section

The one that really gets me though is comparing a picture that I have in the beginning of the blog to something I just discovered going through them. The two pictures below were taken 2-3 seconds apart. I've labeled the rows to make comparing them easier. In row four of the first picture, 4th seat in, the seat is up. In the two seconds it took me to step half a foot to the right and snap another picture, the same seat is down. Neither Becca nor I touched it in the few seconds between pictures. 

Seat is up like we had it

3 seconds later, the seat is down

Running short on time, Becca and I put up the seats once more to run the experiment again. We walked past one of the doors on the side of the stage and the two of us froze at the same exact time; from right in front of us, we heard a growl. Now, though a growl isn't something that's unnatural, when you hear a growl three feet in front of you and you're pretty positive a dog didn't follow you inside, it's a little shocking. 

Since the theatre was pitch-black, I snapped a quick picture just to make sure there wasn't a dog. In our defense, seeing the picture on my small camera screen was a lot more startling than it really was. 

When you enlarge the picture, you can see that the mass
behind the chair is just paint on the board. However, on
a tiny camera screen, it looked like a mass of shadow
crouching in front of us.

I can't even explain how shocking that was to see on my camera screen. And we definitely high tailed it out of there. But, because I knew we wouldn't be good investigators if we didn't go back, we went in a few minutes later and found out exactly what that black mass was:

I've honestly never been more startled by a piece of wood.

So, once we found out that the mass was only paint and wood, we decided to head back to do the last round of chair checks. I assumed Becca had followed me to the chair, going in front of the stage. There were footsteps behind me, and I could feel a presence there, so I didn't question it. So when I turned around and saw that Becca was across the theatre and had gone up the far aisle, and I was alone, that's when I questioned what was behind me. 

All in all, Joshua's chair was down once again, and after about an hour in the theatre, and since we were late for dinner, we ended our investigation for the afternoon. I've gotta say, I think our short little experiment satisfied us, and that won't be the end of our adventures. 

The Ghosts of Richardson: The Little Boy

No ghost holds more authority here at Adams State College than the ghost of the Little Boy. Ask anyone working in Richardson Hall, and that's the first ghost they'll mention. What really makes him special, though, is that his activity isn't just limited to Richardson Theatre, like nearly all the other ghosts. The Little Boy has been spotted in numerous places doing numerous things.

There are two different rumors going around about who the little boy is. The most prominent story we've heard is that the ghost is the son of an Adams State Alumni who had wandered into the Richardson Theatre and died when he fell off the stage and broke his neck. The other story, which has just begun to surface, is that the the Little Boy might be the ghost of Joshua Carey, a 9-year-old boy who was struck and killed by a car while crossing the street. His father worked at Adams State in the Alumni office (located in Richardson Hall) for a while, and it's possible that Joshua made himself at home in Richardson.

Either way, the Little Boy is always the first story told. He is described as a young child (between the ages of 5-9) and he has been seen wearing a striped shirt and baseball cap. Witnesses say the little boy likes to interact with late-night workers. The janitors have said that they've seen a young boy running down the halls after hours; when they pursue the boy, he is no where to be found. Others have told us they often hear the laughter of a little boy, and then what sounds like a tricycle rolling down the hallways.

Personally, I feel that spirits of young children don't understand that we can't see them. I don't think they grasp the concept of the two different realms- the living and the dead. I feel that the Little Boy doesn't know we can't see him, and he wonders why we get scared when he tries to talk to us. So now, whenever my team goes into the theatre at night (and even during the day) we make a point of telling him we're here, and though we can't see him we still want to talk to him.

So far, the Little Boy has proven himself over and over. We truly believe he resides in Richardson Theatre, and we're hoping to catch more evidence of him soon.

**UPDATE: Upon further investigation, we discovered that the myth of the little boy falling off the stage and dying is NOT TRUE. However, the story of the young boy named Joshua Carey is true, and descriptions of the ghost boy match Joshua**

The Ghosts of Richardson: The Theatre

Front View of Richardson Hall

Welcome to Richardson Hall, the most haunted building on campus. When the school first opened in 1921 it was originally called the Adams State Normal School, and was a college for teachers. Richardson Hall (named after Ira Richardson who was the schools first president that died in 1958) was the only building the school had when it opened, holding a gym, library, dorms, and more. Today, it's apparently the home of several notable ghosts, and our center for all things paranormal.

Richardson Theatre 

Facing the stage

Facing the main doors

According to the stories and our research, Richardson Theatre is the hotspot of paranormal activity. This is perfectly understandable because this theatre is the oldest on campus and is one of the only areas not to have been remodeled yet. It has two notable ghosts to its name, and both ghosts have said to be spotted multiple times. 

Inside the theatre, you of course have the audience section (both in front of the stage and then a small balcony above main seats), the stage, and then on either side of the stage (once you climb a few perilous ladders) there are two dressing rooms.  

The dressing room on the upper left is just a plain room. Though it's got nothing creepy and our EMF detectors didn't pick up any unusual spikes, it's not a place I'd want to linger in for too long. 

Creepy dressing room

Right Side Dressing Room

The one on the right manages to raise the creep factor- all over the walls are the titles and dates of plays that went on throughout Adams State history. The oldest date is 1926, and the newest is 1982.

Writing on the walls

Close Up

Then, if you go down beneath the theatre, you enter the old boiler room beneath the stage- home to the janitor, and our first notable ghost. The janitor (whose name is unknown at this time) lived in a small apartment above the boiler room with his daughter, who still works here at ASC. Around the seventies, the janitor died of natural causes in his room beneath the theatre. People have reported hearing boxes being pushed across the stage, seeing the door to his old room open and close on its own accord, and have heard footsteps in the rafters above the stage. 

Boiler Room

The Janitor's Room

Seriously Creepy Locker

Inside the chained off area

Stairs leading down to the basement

The main audience area, though, is where one of the most famous ghosts (not only of Richardson but of the whole campus) is said to have died. Around the early sixties, a young girl (whose name was not disclosed) had become too overwhelmed by the pressures of college, and she never returned to her dorm one night. The next morning, her fellow students found the young girl hanging from the balcony over one of the aisles. People have reported hearing music coming from a piano late at night (though no piano is located in the building because the theatre is out of use for plays), and many have reported seeing a young girl walking the halls, disappearing into the theatre, never to be seen again. 

We've heard some odd things, and seen some unexplainable phenomena, but until we can investigate further, this is all we have so far on Richardson Theatre. 

Jake checking out the rafters above the stage

Jake and Becca scouting out the audience, going down the aisle
beneath where the young girl hung herself. 

Oh, and just to add to the creepiness, here's a picture that Becca took while exploring the audience. Above the stairs leading onto stage, the reflection casts an odd image. We know it's a reflection from the metal basing, but after multiple pictures in the same spot, we were unable to reproduce this reflection. Keep in mind this picture wasn't altered.

Things to Look Forward To

So the Paranormal Discovery Club has made a few breakthroughs in our adventures. Of late, we've been getting permission from the faculty to hold a few explorations, which include some EVP sessions, a few eery EMF detection sessions, and unnerving sights and sounds to add to the mystery.

But just a few days ago, I contacted the principal of the school, Dr. Svaldi, and he's told us that once we get a hold of a faculty member willing to stay after hours with us, we can legally enter the building and stay the night in Richardson Hall, which just happens to be the most haunted building on campus.

On top of that, we've gotten the OK on joining forces with the nursing department's haunted hosue to host our ghost tours, which I've been wanting to do for weeks. Though the way it's going, I'm getting the feeling I'll be the only one actually giving the tours. Because we also have the choice to be actors in the haunted house, and everyone seems more intent on doing that than giving the tours. But hey, it's improvement.

That's all for now, fellow ghost hunters. Keep your eyes peeled and your imaginations open.