JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The seat that was once called “The Holy Grail of paranormal investigation” has returned to The Florida Theatre.
The theatre’s famous “Ghost Seat” returned safely home after being refurbished as part of the theatre’s current seating renovation.
The supernatural seat was initially discovered to be haunted in 2010 when the CW17 show 'Local Haunts' captured images of an apparition of a man sitting in the balcony, in Section 500, Row E, Seat 2.
Steve Christian, who led the team in the investigation, said the occurrence was are rare as finding the Holy Grail.
The SyFy Channel show Fact or Faked later conducted their own paranormal investigation and found “zero proof” that the Local Haunts video was faked.
Creepy.
Jill Cook-Richards, a psychic consultant, has claimed that while at the theatre a male ghost spoke to her and said he wanted to be called “J”. She said that J, or perhaps Jay, was might have been there to protect Joe Collier, the building’s maintenance manager at the time. This has led some to speculate that Jay was a former building manager himself.
The Florida Times-Union reports that others believe that the theatre is haunted by a former organist who used to work there but later killed himself.
Whatever the case may be, the theatre wanted to preserve this piece of ghostly history for future generations to enjoy.
As the Theatre moved forward with plans to install new seating this past fall, the venue decided that the “Ghost Seat” and its companion seat would be the only seats in the Theatre to be restored and reinstalled.
Looks like this ghost can now bring a plus one.
These special seats returned to the Theatre this week and will be reinstalled just in time for the Theatre’s long-awaited reopening this December.
The Florida Theatre’s first event in December is Big Bad Voodoo Daddy’s Wild and Swingin’ Holiday Party on Wednesday, December 9 at 8:00 p.m. Tickets can be purchased by visiting floridatheatre.com.