Ghost Story

The Haunted Auditorium – Santa Maria, CA

“My school is over 100 years-old and one of the original buildings is still standing: Ethel Pope Auditorium. I don’t know the exact year, ballpark—probably 50-60 years ago. There was play going on in the auditorium on a rainy night and on the way there, a high school girl performer got in a car crash and died on the way.

Somehow that night, she was still in the play, performing even though she was dead. Now sometimes during plays at night you can see her up on the catwalk above the stage, sometimes when you look up. You can see blood dripping off her head from the car crash.

I haven’t seen this, but here is definitely creepy shit going on in that building. Just weird things. There’s major temperature changes, hot some places cold in others. Then the lights will turn on and off sometimes and the doors would mysteriously open and close.  I think some of the people who run lights have seen stuff. Some people hear whispers or feel touches.

She’s not necessarily haunting; she’s just there. I’ll admit, it’s scary being in there by yourself. It’s just a huge empty building—there’s always weird stuff. It’s an eerie feeling. Girls for sure don’t go in there by themselves. Its fun to take other people to creep them out, though.”

Haunted house stories are always best when they’re local. I live near Santa Maria, and after telling me this story, Antonio has promised to take me to Ethel Pope.  Because of the details about the temperature changes and whispers, I’ll probably be on the lookout for them, and since all old buildings are drafty and make noises, I will surely be rewarded—and terrified.

The key to a story like this is the victim—given her age and gender, this story is all the more scary to me because I can relate to her. Also, because the speaker admitted his fear, the whole story becomes more real and scary. By saying girls “for sure don’t go in there by themselves” also hints at more danger that I could run into.

The only thing missing in this tale is a motive for the ghost to be hanging around the auditorium .