Thomas Stone captures film footage of lead investigator Ben Martin testing EMF levels in the storage room.

*Update: after covering this story, I found something I can’t quite explain in one of my photographs. Scroll down for more.

Throughout my life I’ve had enough experiences to make me believe in the realm of the paranormal.

However, I remain sceptical of everything because with the minds ability to manipulate thoughts, emotions and senses it can become increasingly difficult to distinguish reality from illusion.

The Lethbridge Paranormal Investigators, a group of other worldly enthusiasts, allowed me to follow along with their investigation of the Empress Theatre in Fort Macleod.

At the beginning of the inquiry lead investigator, Ben Martin, asked everyone to stand in a circle and remain silent as he began his pre-probe ritual.

The best way to describe this process is as paranormal prayer. He starts with thanking the spirits for allowing us into their space and then requests their manifestation.

After he finished his rite, we went up to the second floor balcony and when we reached the landing the door swiftly swung open, as if to invite us in.

Martin moved on to set up his static camera on the upper balcony but assistant investigator and team founder, Jamie Franklin, and I stayed back checking to see if the door is weighted to swing open.

She gave two attempts at closing the door, leaving it open a smidgen but trying to slow the momentum so the door wouldn’t swing open again but it swung open again both times.

On her third attempt, she closed the door completely and the door remained closed.

After Martin had set up the static camera, we shut off all the lights in the theatre and took our investigation into the basement.

The stairs leading to the basement were narrow, steep and overly creaky making me reluctant to trust that they’d hold up.

In addition to the stairs the walls were worn-out and fading grey bricks, which compounded the creepiness of the environment.

We continued onto the landing of the stairs and I walked into one of the old dressing rooms and got an immediate shiver up my spine. My hair stood on end.

I stood in the room for a few minutes wondering if I’d see anything in the darkness of the room but after a few minutes of feeling uncomfortable I decide to leave.

We sat in silence in the main area of the basement for quite a while asking questions to the possible spirits hoping to get a response from the spirit box, a speaker that harnesses radio frequencies to catch spirit communications.

With no luck from the spirit box, we decided we’d pull one last long shot. We returned to the main theatre area and Martin played opera music from his phone.

His mentality was to entice the ghost by playing music that the spirit would find nostalgic and with the history of the Empress he thought opera was appropriate.

As the song ended the current manager of the theatre, Tim Ranson, stopped by to drop off a few items he needed later.

Since we already investigated every room in the building and were having no luck with spirit contact, we decided to end the investigation there.

The Lethbridge Paranormal Investigation team plans to release their footage from the Empress on their Facebook page

Personally, I never found anything that happened during our investigation to be unexplainable but that is just my own opinion.

I encourage everyone to watch the video and decide for them selves, it will be available at Lethbridge Paranormal Investigations.

Update:

When Kooper returned from covering this story and examined his photos, one photo in particular had something he couldn’t quite explain.

“I took this photo from the back of the balcony. When my flash fired, it was completely dark in the room and there was no other ambient light other than my flash. However, a strange shadow appeared in the photo which I can’t explain,” says Kooper.

Check out the photo and judge for yourself. Do you think the shadow represents paranormal activity? Or did something in the room cause the shadow?

Take our poll and tell us what you think!