When I first moved here from Arizona in August 2022 and began writing and shooting photos for The Chronicle, one of the first things I heard from my new coworkers were claims that our office building was haunted.
Our own editor-in-chief, Eric Schwartz, has recounted a tale where he was working in the office alone during the COVID pandemic — so he knew he was alone in the building — when suddenly he heard the microwave door be slammed shut on its own just across the room.
Others have heard phantom footsteps and even the sound of what they believed to be a typewriter clacking away.
Given that our office building is currently for sale and we’re possibly going to move, I decided to do a little paranormal investigation myself while I still had the chance.
On Saturday, April 12, I was joined by volunteer investigators from the South Sound Paranormal Research (SSPR) team, who spent several hours recording video and audio along with exploring our offices and conducting electronic voice phenomena (EVP) sessions.
EVPs are sounds picked up on random radio frequencies by electronic recording devices that some believe can be interpreted as voices of spirits.
While SSPR is still analyzing the recordings from that night, their investigators did experience an unexplainable event while inside our building.
My own curiosity concerning the ghostly paranormal world started during my time in the U.S. Marine Corps back in 2011 when I was stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar north of San Diego, California.
Growing up, I was raised in a very religious Christian family. We believed in the spiritual world and afterlife. But I never really experienced anything until my time in the Corps.
Working as an F-18 mechanic, I was out working the graveyard shift on jet by myself on the flightline in between Hangars 1 and 2.
Well after midnight, I began to hear what sounded like multiple voices yelling from Hangar 1. This struck me as odd considering the squadrons normally housed in it were gone on deployment — meaning nobody was supposed to be inside.
I began walking toward the hangar, and the yelling began to sound louder, prompting me to begin running since I thought someone might need help.
As soon as I opened the hangar’s entry door, everything went dead silent and I felt a cool rush of air come out. I was officially freaked out, and immediately ran back to my supervisors at Hangar 2 to ask them what the hell just happened.
Their response? “Oh yeah, that hangar is haunted.”
It turned out I was far from the only Marine to have experienced something they couldn’t explain inside that hangar, which saw tragedy occur inside it on Dec. 22, 1969, when an F-8 crashed into it.
The F-8 crash spread jet fuel throughout the hangar which instantly ignited, killing some mechanics who were working inside of the hangar at the time and destroying the jets inside.
Others who worked in that hangar have recounted stories of doors being slammed and light switches being flipped when nobody else has been around.
Back here at The Chronicle on Saturday, though, we heard no disembodied voices or doors being slammed — but someone was scratched.
Usually accompanied by a burning sensation, phantom scratches have been experienced by many paranormal investigators, some say.
SSPR team members Patty Valdez and Casi McAllister were upstairs conducting an EVP session in The Chronicle’s conference room.
The building we’re currently in was constructed in 1947, and while The Chronicle was still a daily, the upstairs offices housed the bigwigs who ran the place.
While in the conference room, McAllister had her arms lying on top of the table while she and Valdez were conducting the session when she began to feel something.
“All of a sudden, it feels like something stings, and it’s flat against the table, like it wasn’t hanging off the edge or any of that stuff,” McAllister said. “And then a scratch appeared.”
They checked the table for splinters, burs or rough edges, but found nothing.
“That was one of those things where it's like, ‘OK, that’s odd,” Valdez added.
McAllister added while she’s been on plenty of other paranormal investigations and experienced other paranormal phenomena, this was the first time she had ever received a phantom scratch.
She received what appeared to be two separate scratches as well, both on the inside of her forearm just below her elbow.
After a few hours, SSPR packed up their equipment and went home to begin analyzing their recordings, but I stayed behind overnight to see if I could experience anything paranormal.
Despite sitting in the same conference room where McAllister received her scratch, I did not experience anything — at least that I know of.
I still have my own voice recordings and videos I took walking around to review.
Founded in 2006, the South Sound Paranormal Research Team is a nonprofit that offers investigations free of charge to residents in Washington and Oregon who believe they may be encountering hauntings or other paranormal activity.
To learn more and get in contact about organizing an investigation, visit https://www.sspri.org/.
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Look for followup coverage in the weeks ahead.
