Clifton 5 theater Paranormal Investigation

717 Washington Street,Huntingdon PA 16652

20 November, 2021

Description

Paranormal Investigation and Psychic readings, dinner and a movie at a haunted location. Join us for a night at the Clifton 5 Theater come investigate with Mustafa Gatollari from the hit TV Show Ghost Hunters featured on A&E, along the side of world renowned psychic April Busset "The Psychic Housewife of New Jersey" she is celebrity psychic and was featured on the Travel Channel TV show "The Holzer Files. PROCEDES GO TOWARD KEEPING THE CLIFTON 5 THEATER OPEN. The life and times of the Clifton 5 (the movie theatre in local downtown Huntingdon) play out like one of the movies we might go to see there today. The site it stands on has seen everything from rampaging fires to bomb threats to traveling theatre performances to floods to grand re-openings pulling in throngs of people to meetings of secret societies. Behind its recently revamped art-deco marquee thrums a history so potent some say it still walks among us; ghost sightings at the Clifton 5 are (perhaps unsurprisingly, given its history) so frequent that ghost hunters have been called in from across the state. Its vibrant, stirring past, hidden just behind its vintage 20th-century theater decor, all but begs to be told. The Opera House stood for 18 years, from 1883 to 1901 (with only a brief pause for a minor fire in the first year of its opening), and its electric chandelier shone incandescently over audiences of up to 1,500 enjoying popular plays with subjects such as New York and the Wild West. Five local businesses plied their trade and multiple fraternal organizations, including Freemasons, met within its walls. This arguably made Washington Street a cultural and business center of the town, according to local historian Nancy S. Shedd. Unfortunately, this was not to last. The theater portion of the Opera House building suffered financial struggles; the manager struggled to attract traveling shows, and as Huntingdon County residents began to move out west, patronage declined further. It went through a series of openings, closings, and changes in ownership. Finally, the Opera House came to a sad end on December 19th, 1901: the biggest fire “in the history of the borough,” according to The Huntingdon Globe, all but razed it to the ground. The origin of the fire is unknown, but the same newspaper reported that “some attribute it to crossed electric light wires, others to defective flues, while the impression gains credence among some that it was due to an overheated stove in one of the dressing rooms.” The fire was put out about four hours after it started, but it was too late for the building. Thankfully, there were no fatalities; however, local historian Elizabeth Morningstar recounted that some of the fraternal organizations “were running in there [the Opera House] when the fire was going on, pulling out all their secret stuff,” willing to risk their lives in the face of an inferno to keep their secrets safe. But the past is never far away at the Clifton 5; in fact, it may be closer than some of us think. So many people have had ghostly experiences at the site of the Clifton 5. According tp people when they asked whether the spirits there were those of an old coal furnace-firer of Washington Street and one of the previous owners. Additionally, some say that a fire in the two side auditoriums killed a man and his dog back in the day, and that they could possibly be haunting the theatre. (Listen for ghostly woofs next time you go to the Clifton 5!) One employee Mr. Peoples calls “sensitive to that kind of stuff” has seen people walking around the theatre after everyone is gone; “I’ve been there thirty-six years and nothing bad’s ever happened, but I’ve noticed some people get creeped out by what they’ve seen happen,” he says.