EL DORADO – Spirit Seekers Paranormal Investigation, Research and Intervention Team spent last night searching the historic Rialto theater in downtown El Dorado for evidence of paranormal activity and unexplained phenomena.

The Rialto, built in 1929 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986, has long been rumored to be haunted. Former employees have reported unexplained shadows and sounds, strange apparitions and even the scent of a woman’s perfume.

Richard Mason, current owner of the Rialto and a local author, has been gathering such stories for a book about the Rialto’s shadowy reputation. He recently hired noted psychic Carol Pate to visit the building, and preliminary findings during her investigation of the building indicated the presence of several spirits.

Spirit Seekers, headed by Alan “Buz” Lowe, became interested in the Rialto’s history when he was in El Dorado last October for a speaking engagement. The Rialto was under lease at that time, and the theater’s management declined his offer of an investigation. However, the theater is no longer under lease, and Mason was pleased to allow the investigation to take place at this time, Lowe said.

Spirit Seekers, a 501(c)3 non-profit agency based in central Arkansas, is “committed to the research, documentation, education and investigation of ghostly phenomena recorded through EVP, digital, film and video photography,” according to the group’s website, www.thespiritseekers.org. The group, which has won several awards from well-known paranormal organizations, maintains that “our spirits enter into another plane of existence upon physical death. For any number of reasons, some have elected to stay here or have been anchored here, unable to move on,” the website reads.

As part of the team’s commitment to proving the existence of paranormal activity, Lowe said the investigations require scientific evidence of any unusual phenomena. To ensure that all information gathered is accurate, Spirit Seekers, which does not charge for its services, uses a variety of technological devices, he said, and the investigation of the Rialto will be documented in the same manner.

“We’ll be using primarily hand-held stuff. We’ve got our normal infrared equipment, night vision, video cameras, digital cameras,” said Lowe. “We’ll be doing EVPS later on and see what we can get.”

Lowe said the group would also use a “parabolic ear” and a “Frank’s box,” which is a device known as “a telephone to the dead,” according to Haunted Times Magazine. The box, first devised by Thomas Edison, is composed of used parts from various electronic devices and allows for “two-way communication with the other side.” Lowe, however, said he was not fully confident in the powers of the machine.

“Edison said in his lifetime that if he could live long enough, he’d make a device to talk to the dead,” said Lowe. “He didn’t live long enough, and now this guy has the patent on it and thinks he’s got it fine-tuned. We’ve got a knock-off of it that we got from him, and we’ll see what it does. I don’t have much confidence in it, but we’ll see.”

Lowe said part of the investigation process is to research the history of the location, although the information found is not shared with the team members until after the investigation is complete.
“I have read all I can find about the Rialto. The original building was built 1918-ish,” he said. “The Rialto was built over that. It’s a theater in a theater. I don’t know what the reason was for building over the original, but Richard Mason thinks it may have been the oil boom, when they just leveled everything and built it all over again. None of that information has been shared with the team because we don’t want to taint the investigation.”

Lowe said he found several references to an actress around the stage area and a “hot spot” upstairs near a mirror outside the women’s bathroom.

“There’s a girl that comes out of the bathroom, looks in the mirror and goes back in the bathroom, over and over again, which is what we call a residual haunting,” he said, noting that a residual haunting “plays out like movie or an imprint on time” while an intelligent haunting can interact with people. “If it’s intelligent, it can pull your hair, talk to you, it interacts with you.”

Although the actual investigation had not begun at press time, Angela Lowe, co-founder of Spirit Seekers and wife of Alan Lowe, said her preliminary impressions did reveal a sensation of “being in a crowd.”

“It’s a beautiful building, first of all, but it does feel like it’s full of people. There’s been a lot of past activity,” she said. “Later, when it’s quiet and I can sit and meditate and open my mind to the spirit world, I’ll know more.”

Angela Lowe clarified that her psychic findings will not be used as “proof” in the Rialto investigation. “You’ve got to have scientific evidence to back up your findings. We don’t just rely on psychic impressions,” she said. “I don’t even know any of the history because I don’t want to be influenced.”

Angela Lowe said she generally operates the digital cameras during the investigations and makes EVPs, or electronic voice phenomena, to record sounds made by spirits.
“We’ve gotten some great pictures in our investigations. For EVPS, we can eliminate background noises, and sometimes we can actually communicate,” she said.

Angela Lowe said psychic powers are not required to witness a ghostly presence, but an open mind is a necessity.  “Anybody can see them. I think we’re all born in touch with the spirit world, but we convince our kids it’s their imaginations or it’s not real, and we’re taught to block that side of ourselves,” she said. “For the die-hard skeptics, it’s harder for them because they aren’t open to it. You have to be willing to accept it and allow yourself to experience it.”

A report of Spirit Seeker’s findings at the Rialto will not be available for a couple of weeks, said Alan Lowe. The team must first analyze the data and carefully review the research before any findings are released, he said. The News-Times will report on the findings when they become available.