www.baylor.edu

By Caty Hirst

Reporter midnight_sun

With reports circulating that the Hippodrome is haunted, Brandon Burns, technical director for the Waco Performing Arts Company, agreed last fall to participate in a paranormal investigation conducted by McLennan County Paranormal Investigations (MCPI).

Mike Jacobus, founder and investigator at MCPI, said it is a Christian organization and all of the work done is pro-bono.

"We go into a place, not to prove that it is haunted, but to prove that it is not," Mike said. "Once we go in, we try to debunk what we can. What we cannot debunk is what we focus the investigation on."

Mike said they investigated the Hippodrome on Nov. 14 and Jan. 9. They confirmed Friday that the Hippodrome was haunted.

"Any time you do theater correctly, it will be haunted," Burns said. "You can't bring characters to life and expect them to go away."

Burns said he has personally experienced paranormal activity at the Hippodrome and was not surprised when the investigations deemed the building haunted.

"One of the reasons I agreed to the investigation was because I kept seeing things out of the corner of my eye when going up the stairwell," Burns said. "It is like a mob of people heading out of the building, and I see it more on one side of the building."

Mike also used to work as a night assistant manager at the Hippodrome in the 1970s when it was the Waco Theatre. There, he would play on the catwalks.

"One night we went up there and I started up the stairs," Mike said. "The guy that was with me said, 'Who is up on the catwalk?' and I said 'Well, nobody.'"

The man told Mike again that someone was looking at them.

"When I looked up, I saw a black figure looking at me," Mike said. "I walked up there to look and didn't see anything. I got chills and did not go back up there again until the second investigation."

Mike had not returned to the catwalks of the Hippodrome until January, during the investigation.

During the first investigation, MCPI found mists that were unaccounted for and they caught voices using extremely sensitive digital recorders.

When one team was leaving the area so another team could investigate, the leaving team said, "We are leaving now. Have a good show."

The response recorded was, "That you must see."

midnight_sun