Halloween is drawing near, and if you’re looking for a spooky activity to take part in, the Historic Howell Theater has got you covered. Starting Friday, October 16th to Friday, November 6th, ghost tours will be held at the theater. It is a widely known urban legend that the Historic Howell Theater is haunted, and this fall you can see for yourself if it is. The tours will be lead by Ken and Jen Suminski, the founders of Portal Paranormal Society.

“Portal Paranormal Society has been around since 2009 investigating the paranormal up to and sometimes more than once a month. Most of our investigators have had paranormal activity experiences in their lives prior to joining our team and, like myself, we have been studying it for years and years,” says Ken Suminski.

When asked about what paranormal experiences Portal Paranormal Society has had at the Historic Howell Theater, Ken responded “the theater is a very interesting venue for us. In addition to the usual EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) captures that we get, there are many visual phenomena that present themselves there too. On our solo, (non-public), hunt we observed quite a bit of shadow activity which we thought occurred at a higher than usual rate.”

Suminksi then went on to talk about more profound exposure to the paranormal realm. “As far as the extreme activity goes we all observed what appeared to be a shadow figure of some sort of animal run down the main aisle of Theater 2 and leap at fellow group founder Jen Main. I was seated in the aisle and saw it fly past me on it’s way to Jen who was seated on the stage directly in the path of the aisle. According to our research a circus lion died while in town for a show. We know that reports said it was buried behind the theater and as far as we know it is still there. Could this shadowy figure have been that lion stalking and charging Jen? We like to think so. One thing is for sure, no less than 4 of us witnessed this event and could not come up with a rational explanation.”

Both projection booths are prone to paranormal activity. “During our last investigation one of our investigators, upon heading to close the door of projection room 1 and start an EVP session was startled quite a bit when the door slammed shut on her. The slam was loud enough for me to hear down at our tech set up and I actually called up from the bottom of the stairs to make sure everyone was ok. She said that they were but that the door slammed so hard it broke one of the hinges,” Suminksi says.  

Mood swings are a common appearance when ghosts are present. ”No less than three of my investigators, while in the projection rooms, would experience overwhelming mood changes. Quite out of character for any of them and intense enough where they had to excuse themselves. The emotions ranged from uncontrollable laughter, to anger and even sadness. All of the people involved are very stable and not prone to mood swings,” Suminski says.
Tickets will cost $15.00 in advance and $20.00 at the door. The tour consists of a brief history of the theater and two hours of ghost hunting in Theater one, Theater two, and both projection rooms, with team members as guides. It also includes a explanation of the experiment being run and instructions on how to participate. A copy of all evidence found during their hunt session that will be electronically delivered is also included. The money for the tickets will help preserve the Historic Howell Theater! For more details visit www.historichowelltheater.com