Walking around campus or the
larger sloping grid of Ann Arbor,
it’s easy to get the sense of an ever-
present history. Plaques adorn
buildings and pop up on street
corners, boasting black and white
photographs of old marches and
speeches; campus tours recount
legends and lore long sealed into
the school’s character.
This history takes a presumably
darker turn if you stroll through
Forest Hill Cemetery, where the
mossy gravestones dotting the hills
date centuries back. Who were
these children and parents and
grandparents, now sealed away
in mausoleums or beneath grassy
statues? It seems as if something
unusual and distant has brought
them there, rather than, in reality,
the natural processes of time that
all of us can reasonably expect.
Dwelling on it long enough
can give you an eerie and often
unwelcome feeling of the uncanny.
It’s the same sensation that takes
over if you’re talking with your
friends late at night, or when you’re
reading in your favorite coffee shop
on State Street and find yourself
relating a little too much to a ghost
story. Or if you find yourself alone
in an old building late at night,
studying or working, and trying
to convince yourself you’re just
hearing things.
*
“For me, I like the lore of it,” said
Megan Muma, manager at Arbor
Brewing Company on Washington
Street. “I like thinking about
history. I like the idea that history
can affect our sensory experience
of the present. And kind of peeling
back the layers of what it is that you
observe in your day to day life, and
thinking about how that might be
related to someone else that lived a
long time ago.”
Muma has been working at the
Ann Arbor Brewpub since 2013,
and says she started hearing stories
about ghosts her first day on the
job. The haunting of the building
began with mist in the game
room and the basement, which
soon progressed to staff members
seeing a man wearing what they
described as a mailman’s uniform,
walking around the game room,
the dart area and the brewing side
of the basement.
“At some point, they figured
out that this was the location of a
murder,” Muma said.
She was referring to the murder
of Clifford Stang, an off-duty police
officer who was shot dead on the
property — at that time the Conlin
and Wetherbee Clothing Store — in
1935, after witnessing a robbery in
progress. One of the two robbers,
William “Shorty” Padgett, was
arrested a year later. The other was
never found.
Stang is perhaps the most
famous ghost of the Brewpub, but
according to Muma, he’s not the
only one. Caretaker James Gertz,
also known as Mr. Largebeat,
started working here “right when it
opened,” and claims to have seen a
Victorian woman walking through
the kitchen and the other side of
the restaurant.
“He’s an old-timey rocker from
way back in the day,” Muma said
of Gertz. “He’s really into the
paranormal and extraterrestrials
and UFOs and all that kind of stuff.
But he’s definitely spent the most
time here as an employee, and
then also spent most of the creepy
hours here. Because he’s here in
the morning, when it’s quiet and
empty.”
An impression of the Victorian
woman’s visage can be witnessed
even during the non-creepy hours
in one of the wooden booths at
the Brewpub, where another staff
member stenciled her silhouette.
“I think there are three types of
ghost-presence here,” Muma said.
“It’s the guy that was murdered,
the lady and then there’s some kind
of poltergeist activity. You know
how poltergeists are attracted to
negative energy?”
She went on to describe a student
riot that took place on the grounds
in 1908, when the building housed
the Star Theater (prior to the
Conlin and Wetherbee Clothing
Store). After learning that the
theater manager had approached
a star University of Michigan
football player with a financial offer
to “throw” a game, students hurled
bricks from a nearby construction
site at the establishment until it
was destroyed. Sixty-two arrests
were made in attempts from police,
firefighters and University officials
to end the riot, which lasted all
night.
“Actually I just learned about
it last year, when the Ann Arbor
library posted a bunch of historical
information around town,” Muma
said. “It was the site of the largest
student riot in U of M history.”
This is why — short of the
appearance
of
the
uniformed
officer or the Victorian woman —
some of the strange goings-on at
the Brewpub are tough to pin to a
single entity.
“This is a very large building,
and we have a lot of loud equipment,
but even at night, it quiets down to
a point. Sometimes you just hear
really weird stuff that doesn’t
really sound like a condenser, or a
dishwasher, or any of the brewing
equipment, ’cause you know it’s
been shut off for hours. So a lot of
staff hear sounds, or sometimes
you hear music or talking, when
you know everyone has left,”
Muma said.
One
particularly
harrowing
experience occurred in 2017, when
the old general manager arrived
to open in the morning and found
pots and pans all over the kitchen.
“He
was
understandably
upset — like, who did the worst
close ever and just threw stuff all
around the kitchen?” Muma said.
“So he started looking through
the cameras, and what he saw
was not someone doing their job
improperly, but just a lot of weird
stuff flying around at four A.M.,
after everyone had left. And kind of
flashes on the camera.”
The
security
footage
isn’t
kept for longer than five or six
months, but Muma, who has seen
this particular footage herself,
described it for me: “We have two
cameras, one that’s facing inside
the kitchen and one that’s facing
kind of toward the door ... On the
door side, there were a bunch of
flashes and weird lights. And on
the kitchen side, there was just
stuff flying off the shelf. Like, not
just getting knocked, but flying. It
was really weird and eerie to see.”
The poltergeist idea is Muma’s
personal theory, based on strange
happenings just like the pots and
pans story. But the idea of negative
energy is a compelling one, to the
point that she has done a little
research of her own.
“I tried to do a little bit of digging
into what this space was before it
was downtown Ann Arbor, and I
probably could have invested a lot
more time on it, but there wasn’t
a lot of information about whose
land it was,” Muma said. “You
know, like what colonizers came in
and did what to it. But I think that
might be another interesting area
of exploration, as to why spirits feel
trapped here, and what horrible
things happened on these grounds
before they were a business.”
With stories like the pots and
pans and the sightings of ghostly
figures, it’s no wonder Muma and
other staff members feel “creepy”
or
“watched”
when
they’re
walking around the Brewpub or
one of its three basements at night,
after everyone else has left.
“I’ve definitely been afraid here
after close, if I’m the only one in
the building and I’m locking up,
and I have to do a walk-around,
you know, making sure everything
is in its place, all the doors are
locked. And it just feels like there is
somebody here,” Muma said. “And
they’re not going to leave.”
*
So what is it that makes certain
places — a brewery, a theater, a
whole city — feel more haunted
than others? If you ask Lilly
Inverse, founding member of the
Ann Arbor Paranormal Research
Society, it has to do with the lives
and events that preceded the
ghosts: The history that fascinates
residents like Muma, before it was
history.
“In my experience, haunted
places have one thing in common:
A strong energy during the life of
those who seem to linger,” Inverse
said in an email interview with
The Daily, citing the Michigan
Firehouse Museum in Ypsilanti,
which has burned down in the past,
as one example. “Big events like
fires, battles, murders, etc., seem
to give those who were involved
the ability to return to the location
after they pass.”
Inverse founded the Ann Arbor
Paranormal
Research
Society,
which is always accepting new
volunteers, in an effort to offer
residents of Ann Arbor and beyond
objective, fact-based assessments
of
potentially
paranormal
situations.
“We just wanted to avoid
some of the big pitfalls that some
investigators fall into, as well as
offer the community the best and
most genuine service that we can,”
Inverse said.
In the Society’s investigations
— requests for which come in at
least once a week — this looks
like a very specific process. The
process
involves
conducting
an initial interview to answer
clients’ questions and learn more
about potential “hot spots” and
patterns of events, setting up a
main “base camp” area on the
haunted property, and then setting
up a digital video recorder system
(DVR), computer monitor and
video cameras.
“Once everything is set up, one
team member will sit at the DVR
base camp and watch the live video
feed,” Inverse said. “If something
pops up in the video that seems
interesting, they will mark down
the timestamp and camera number
for later review. Everyone else
will go from room to room taking
pictures, using other specialized
equipment such as EMF detectors
and MEL meters, and doing EVP
sessions.”
This process is followed by an
in-depth evidence review by the
team, resulting in a formal report
for the client. All of this is free of
charge.
In spite of, or perhaps because
of, the depth and variety of the
Society’s approach to investigation,
there are some methods that they
do not use. These include seances,
spirit boxes, phone apps, Ouija
boards and psychics. The reason
is generally a lack of reliability: If
something can be afforded a non-
paranormal explanation, such as
wishful hearing or planchette-
pushing, it’s too easily disqualified
as admissible.
“We want to be 100 percent
sure that we are offering the best
and most credible evidence to our
clients that we can,” Inverse said.
“We’re definitely not saying that
some of the methods we don’t use
can’t be used. But this field is the
target of so much skepticism as it is,
so if there is a natural explanation
for a test that we use, we can never
be sure that the result we record
is actual evidence of something
paranormal.”
Inverse
has
several
fond
experiences
and
memories
associated with the paranormal,
and notes that “everyone who
enjoys this hobby has at least
one experience that they love
recounting.” For Inverse, standouts
range from her first experience
with the paranormal — a visit to a
cemetery on Christmas Eve, where
she captured a ghostly whisper
(an Electronic Voice Phenomena,
or EVP) on a camcorder — to
her later visits to the Ohio State
Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio,
and the Waverly Hills Sanatorium
in Louisville, Kentucky.
“These places were not happy
places,” Inverse wrote of Waverly
and Mansfield. “Overcrowding,
over-extended stays in solitary
confinement and countless other
horrors
awaited
inmates
at
(Mansfield). It’s no wonder some
of them can’t find peace even in
death.”
Washtenaw County specifically
seems like a magnet for such
unresolved histories, at least if
you ask around. Muma pointed
me toward the Michigan Theater
as another spooky place where
strange noises are said to have been
heard late at night, and Inverse
adds the Firehouse Museum and
Bone Heads BBQ to the list.
“I think most cities have their
secrets, but Ann Arbor hides hers
better than most,” Inverse said.
“If you talk to many of the people
who work in the older buildings
downtown, many have stories to
tell about the strange things that
make them not want to be the last
one in the building at the end of the
night.”
*
This past fall, Ann Arbor’s litany
of public places, spanning from the
Arbor Brewing Company to the
University Bank on Washtenaw,
found a tour guide: Sivan Jones.
Around the end of September,
Jones decided it could be a good
idea to set up a haunted tour of Ann
Arbor. She did the research, going
through local history books to
investigating crimes and murders
reported by the Ann Arbor Police
Department, then figured out a
route and set up an Airbnb page.
The tours, which went through the
end of November (“the Halloween
season,” Jones called it), were an
hour and a half long, at $22 per
person. They were packed.
“You have the people who are
really into the local history, but
then you also have the people who
really love being scared,” Jones
said.
Her
research
unearthed
a
wide-ranging scale of creepiness.
Some of the stories are what
Jones deems “hearsay” accounts,
ones she’s gleaned from personal
conversations and word-of-mouth,
like the little girl who is said to
hang out in a studying cubicle
on the lower floor of the Bentley
Historical Library, or the woman
who haunts the stacks of Hatcher
Library.
“Several students have seen
her late at night,” Jones said. “And
multiple people have told me that.
Again, it’s something that you can’t
really research. I researched the
history of the library, and nothing
bad has ever happened there.”
The stories gleaned from Jones’s
research range from places like
these, personal stories that are
tough to physically confirm, to
well-documented
and
verified
instances of unsavory history. One
example is Randall Laboratory,
the University’s original medical
campus.
“They used to steal bodies,”
Jones said. “It used to be illegal
to use corpses for science, so they
would have to dig up graves ... So
they hired these shady guys, and
they would dig up the graves and
then bring it over to the medical
college and sneak it into the
building. This was for a couple
years, until it became legal.”
This isn’t necessarily proof of
paranormal activity, but it does
seem to fall into place alongside the
theories from Muma and Inverse
about what leads to a haunted
reputation: A twisted history.
So — aside from the education
of local history, or the excitement
of wanting to be scared — why
do these twisted stories so often
intrigue people?
Jones’s answer: “It starts with
a character,” she said. “People
love imagining themselves as the
person ... I have some stories from
the seventies, and people are much
more scared by those than stories
from the 1800s, because then they
can imagine themselves as that
person. It’s like it’s close to home.
And then the person goes through
something scary or something
mysterious, and then it’s never
quite resolved. So it gives you this
thrill, and you don’t know if it’s
going to happen to you.”
Often, she continued, her guests
on tours will take this habit of
imagining one’s own way into
a ghost story even farther. It is
common for tour-goers to share
their own personal stories and
anecdotes, whether from Ann
Arbor or from other places they’ve
lived.
“I really like leading the tour
to help people connect with each
other and share their stories, too.
So it’s kind of like this interactive
thing,” Jones said.
This communal exchange of
supernatural encounters hasn’t
only enhanced the tours; it’s
also affected Jones personally.
Her interest in giving tours was
sparked by her love for Halloween
and going to haunted houses with
friends, but she didn’t actually
use to believe in ghosts. Now she’s
afraid of them.
“I started out kind of being
skeptical, ’cause I work in a
science-based field,” Jones said.
“I thought it was a lot of people
with
overactive
imaginations.
But then as I went through the
tour, I kept meeting people, and
they just seemed like very logical,
smart people. Like they genuinely
had something happen to them
that could not be explained in any
other way. And honestly, I truly
do believe in — I believe in the
paranormal now, I do. Because
these people, they weren’t pulling
my leg or anything. They genuinely
saw something or felt something
or heard something, and I believe
them.”
She even went so far as setting
parameters: You’re welcome to tell
your own ghost stories on the tours
after they start back up again in
April, just as long as you don’t make
them too scary.
*
I was surprised, conducting
all of these interviews, to learn
the extent to which pockets all
around Ann Arbor are considered
haunted by their residents. Maybe
this is true of every city. But even
after living here four years, I didn’t
know beyond a general feeling
that dark and strange histories are
continually existing here — many
of them revisiting us night after
night, repeating themselves over
and over — around every corner.
They make themselves known
to expert paranormal researchers,
armed with well-tested equipment
and years’ worth of knowledge
and experience. They present
themselves also to unsuspecting
students or employees working
late in the evening, alone and just
trying to finish up a long night, but
finding themselves followed by
an unnameable other-worldliness
that just doesn’t seem to go away.
These are stories that are best
told in groups, shared and bonded
and laughed over, yet that also
seem to prey on some of our most
innate and instinctual senses of the
danger that is tied to being alone.
Yet perhaps these stories, and
the different ways they have
found into our lives — whether
we have witnessed them firsthand
ourselves or still remain skeptical
— reveal something surer about
the sense that we fail to make of
death. In a subjective sense, it
seems irrational that a story or an
experience that is unsettling by
nature could produce some kind
of joy or bring people together.
But maybe the whole point is
that there are things about living
(and maybe about living in this
city in particular) that we aren’t
meant to understand, and never
will. Sometimes all we can do is
wade through the histories that
inevitably surround us, sentient or
not, invisible but thick, and listen
honestly to the stories that we’re
telling each other.
RUCHITA IYER / DAILY
RUCHITA IYER / DAILY
Hauntings in A2: Breweries, theaters and elsewhere
LAURA DZUBAY
Daily Arts Writer
RUCHITA IYER / DAILY
B-SIDE LEAD
6B — Thursday, February 7, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com