Location: Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
The following report was sent into our website by Ailie on Oct 31, 2012:
“I am a musician, singer/songwriter to be exact. My band use to rehearse at a local warehouse. The building housed several individual rooms that you could rent by the hour for practice. It was a long building built in the 90’s in a semi-industrial area of Burnaby, BC. Everyone pretty much knew each other and a small community of musicians grew. Over the years we saw many people come and go. Some moved on, some gave up, some became famous and some of our good friends sadly came to pass. We are like a family of sorts. When you entered the building there was a large set of stairs that went up to a second level that had two practice rooms. My band would frequently rent the largest room at the top of the stairs. To the left of the entrance was another door that lead to a large lobby area. It contained an office and another hallway that led to a door. Beyond that door was a very long hallway. On the right side of the hallway were 4 separate rehearsal rooms. They were numbered 1 – 4 with #1 being the first door on the right. On any given day there would be lots of bands practicing and several people including one of the business owners hanging around and chit-chatting.
One evening I decided to go up to the studio, not to practice but to visit as I would do from time to time. When I entered the lobby I was surprised to see that it was a very quiet night indeed. The lobby and office were empty. The room was silent, not even the hum of a guitar lingered. I didn’t think anything of it really as I noticed the white board that usually listed the names of bands rehearsing that day was squeaky clean and bare. A slow night, that’s all. I thought that perhaps one of the owners might be in the back in one of the rehearsal rooms… maybe cleaning. I walked past the office and opened the large door to the long hallway. As I turned the corner through the door, I saw a man near the other end of the hall enter the last room, Room #4. I did not recognize him but then again he was moving quickly so I did not get a chance to see who it was. All I saw was his profile as he entered the last room. He was wearing faded black jeans, a black hooded sweatshirt with the hood down and on his head he wore a black toque. Very Canadian!
I started my jaunt down the hallway following after the man, assuming that some friends were gathered back there. When I reached the end of the hall and turned to enter the room I was puzzled to see that it was dark. As I swung the partially closed door open I quickly thought to myself that someone was playing a trick on me and that they were all hiding. I flicked on the lights and immediately felt a cold chill come over me as I realized that no one was in the room. It was empty. I did an about face and went back to the office, all the while trying to figure out what I had just seen. Obviously whomever, or whatever, I saw was convincing and real enough for me to follow them to the back room. When I got back to the office I found one of the owners sitting in his chair smoking a cigarette. I began to tell him about my little experience and as I did his eyes became really big. He told me that some strange things were going on in the building and that the other owner heard a chair being dragged across the floor on the second level a few nights ago as he was locking up for the night. Since it was after the last band had left he decided to investigate to ensure no one was left in the building. And as like many other ghost stories, when he checked the rooms upstairs, he found no one.
A couple of years later we were hanging around the office and lobby area on a lovely afternoon. Someone started to take pictures using their cell phone camera. They snapped a photo of one of our good friends, Johnny. When we went to review the photo we were startled by what we saw. There in the picture, standing slightly behind Johnny, was a very ghostly image of what we can only assume to be a man. He was bald, gray in color with sunken eyes and mouth as if he was a corpse. Now, if I had not been present when the photo had been taken I would have sworn it was the trickery of Photo-shop. Or… if you have ever developed an old roll of film to find two pictures super imposed upon one another it would closely resemble the state of this photo. Johnny looked as sharp and clear as ever but this ghostly image was smokey like fog. When we investigated the other pictures on the phone we could not find any other photograph that would explain this occurrence.
I swear to you that I am not embellishing this story. It is as real as the keys I type upon. Maybe these events are just our imaginations playing tricks on us. Or maybe they are the spirits of our friends and comrades that have come and gone, letting us know they are still around.”
Michelle McKay Paranormal 