The Tampa Theatre in Tampa, FL is a true architectural treasure. It was opened in 1926 and is largely unchanged since that time.  Its glory has faded, but its still the best places in the Tampa Bay area to see an art film or a revival. This summer I saw Creature from the Black Lagoon there, and it was great.

A story in today’s St. Pete Times called my attention to a new activity going on at the theater — paranormal activity. Being both a skeptic and a regular at the theater I’ve long known about the ghosts that are supposed to haunt the building, but now the theater is holding a regular “Ghost Hunt,” complete with EMF meters and thermometers. It sounds incredibly silly, of course, but unlike the normal daytime tour the ghost hunt allows access to the projection booth and other features in the bowels of the theater. To me that would be well worth the price of admission, though the next tour is sold out already.

I’d like to address a couple points in the Times article.

Strand proceeds to tell the story of Fink, a.k.a. Foster “Fink” Finley, who worked as a theater projectionist for 35 years before his death in 1965. A short, balding guy who took the bus to work, Fink arrived early every morning to shave and enjoy a cup of cafe con leche.

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Fink fell ill with cancer and one day collapsed in the projection booth. Two months later, he died.

The next year, strange things started happening in the theater, according to its archives. A jingling of keys. Ghost-like apparitions. The scent of old-fashioned shaving lotion.

This is the most common ghost story associated with the Tampa Theater. (There’s also a Lady in White story, but what self-respecting building of any age doesn’t have a Lady in [White/Grey/Black, choose one] story?) Leaving aside the supernatural elements, did Foster Finley, the person, really exist? The alliterative name seems a bit suspicious, especially when there is a less common version of his story that includes companion ghosts named “Hogley Higley” and “Godfrey Gidget.” Also, the theater’s very real centenarian organist is named Rosa Rio, which could be an inspiration for the alliteration of a fictional character. I did a quick look for Mr. Finley’s obit in the Tampa Tribune and couldn’t find it, and I should have the authoritative word on that soon. I’ll update this piece with what I find. [Update - I have Foster Gaines Finley's obit, from the Dec 18th, 1965 edition of the Tampa Times. While the Tampa Theatre isn't mentioned specifically, from what little info there is I wouldn't doubt that he was an employee there. "Godfrey Gidget" and "Hogley Higley," on the other hand, remain fictional.]

One guide, Bob Pierce, said two nine-volt batteries burned up in his backpack while he was in the green room. (He assured the batteries weren’t touching.) Lea Williamson, a longtime Tampa Theatre member, took some interesting photographs of orb-like objects in the mezzanine area.

I’ve got an area on my upper thigh where I can only feel a tingling sensation because I’ve had so many nine-volt batteries burn up in my pocket, especially back in high school when I used to do lots of circuit board projects. It doesn’t take much to short them, so I’m going to call that a coincidence. As to the pictures of orbs, I say that if you only have a few pictures of orbs at the Tampa Theatre, you aren’t trying. This picture is just one of the many, many orb photos I’ve taken in the theater. Those little glowing specs are without a doubt my camera flash reflecting off dust particles floating in the air. A lot of the fixtures in the theater are at least 60 or 70 years old, so there’s no shortage of stuff shedding tiny particles. I’ve also been led to believe that some camera lenses are more likely to create these anomalies, and mine happens to be one of the worst. That plus my crappy skills, and you can see orbs in most of the pictures I take there.

As promised, Paranormal State came to visit Tampa. Sadly, I wasn’t able to be there, though it looks like it was an interesting time.

I won’t go through the whole TBO.com story, but here’s a few choice quotes and my thoughts.

“I’ve been doing this for seven years and I learned that you can’t just dismiss accounts of unexplained experiences; there are too many of them,” says Buell, who founded his Paranormal Research Society in 2001 while he was a student at Penn State University.

This reminds me of one of my favorite Dr. Karl quotes: “The plural of anecdote is not data.” A lot of poor evidence consisting mostly of people having odd feelings does not make up for the lack of good evidence. Also, “unexplained” doesn’t mean paranormal. It just means unexplained. I don’t know why that dog outside is barking, it’s unexplained. Doesn’t mean it’s barking at a ghost.

“So far on this tour, we have heard some fascinating stories and met some credible people such as a scientist, a psychologist and a prison guard,” he says. “Skeptics think these stories come from bored housewives with overactive imaginations but that’s not the case.”

I’ve never watched the show Paranormal State so I’m not sure exactly what they do, but they’re going to be in Tampa next Monday. From what I can tell from their website, it looks like the show is about helping people who have “paranormal” problems, so presumably they’ll be looking for local people to appear in future episodes. Does being surrounded by people wearing socks with sandals count as a paranormal problem?

Just a collection of stories from today’s St. Petersburg Times that caught my eye.

Writer Jerry Blizin revisits the stories he wrote about Mary Reeser back in 1951. Reeser is arguably the best documented and best known example of the non-phenomenon known as “spontaneous human combustion.” What’s interesting is that the FBI got it right at the time:

“Once the body became ignited almost complete destruction occurred from its own fatty tissues,” the FBI reported, adding that the absence of any scorching or adjacent damage was due to the fact that “heat liberated by the burning body has a tendency to rise and form a layer of hot air which never came in contact with the furnishings on the lower level.”

That’s the wick effect, since proven to be the unusual circumstance behind most of the so called spontaneous human combustion cases. Even though this good explanation has been around for more than 50 years, Reeser still shows up all the time in paranormal literature as a “mysterious” case.

Then there’s the story about a Marine reservist who attacked a priest with a tire iron. The priest, who was attacked for no other reason than pure xenophobia, reportedly doesn’t want to press charges because he wants to practice “biblical forgiveness.” I’m not sure what that means legally, but I hope the reservist is still prosecuted. Forgiveness is terrific thing to give to those who are repentant, but I’d hate to think that the priest’s interpretation of his Christian beliefs is going to allow a clearly dangerous man stay free to visit more violence on innocent people.

Finally, there’s a new bar called Club Sinn over by Williams Park, and they’re getting ready to feature scantily clad dancers. No real skeptical angle here, but I have to call attention to the following, regarding whether or not these dancers will make the bar an “adult business”:

What about a bikini, from a legal point of view? “Generally, I would say that a bikini is not a violation. There are small bikinis that are smaller than other bikinis, and those might be a violation,” said Mark Winn, the city’s chief assistant attorney. “You almost have to look at them on a case-by-case basis.”

I’m thinking that the city won’t have much trouble finding selfless public servants willing to look at each and every one of those bikinis. In context.

Yesterday the following video was posted on the Tampa Taxi Shots, by Tim Fasano. No, a Skunk Ape didn’t try to take the taxi, though that would have been cool.

I’m going to let this run without comment for right now, though I’ll be returning to the subject of Tim Fasano soon. For right now I’ll just point out the odd fact that as of this writing Mr. Fasano has posted this video on his personal site, but not on the Florida Bigfoot Hunter blog, which he also runs.