SAGINAW, MI — Over the last few years, a frightening evening at the Temple Theatre in Saginaw has become a Halloween tradition.
The Seekers team, creators of “A Haunting on Hamilton Street” parts one and two, will release their third investigation into the paranormal legends of Saginaw this November.
The new documentary, “A Haunting on Potter Street: The Potter Street Station,” will be shown at 9 p.m. Nov. 2 and 3 and at 7 p.m. Nov. 4 at the Temple Theatre, 203 N. Washington in Saginaw.
(View the extended trailer for “A Haunting on Potter Street” here.)
“The promoter added at third show because we sold out (two showings) last year and had people literally crying because they couldn’t get in,” said Julie Nunn, executive director of the Temple Theatre.
Tickets are on sale now for $17, and each ticketholder will receive a DVD copy of the film.
Nunn said tickets sell out quickly, and because the tickets are general admission, patrons line up outside the theater early to ensure they will get good seats.
“It’s not just a film or a movie, it’s an event,” Nunn said. “The energy in the theater is just amazing.”
The Seekers and rapper Steve “Prozak” Shippy and his team of paranormal investigators spent several nights at the Potter Street Station, 501 Potter, looking for the best areas to set up their equipment to record evidence of paranormal activity.
The documentary was filmed during the course of a one-night lock-in at the station.
The movie “offers a lot of history and a ton of evidence,” Shippy said. “There’s a lot of elements: history, danger and the paranormal.”
Built in 1881, the Potter Street Station was a bustling hub of activity in Saginaw. It closed in 1985 and was eventually purchased by the nonprofit Saginaw Depot Preservation Corp. in 1989. Leroy Austin, the group’s vice president, said the group hopes to restore it and turn it into a center for the arts.
In 1991, the building was heavily damaged in an unsolved arson.
The building’s history has left its mark in the form of several specters who never left, Shippy said.
“Residents around the station and some police that patrol the area claim to see a man walking up and down in front of the station,” he said. “Then he just vanishes."
Others have reported seeing a woman in white inside the station.
“Some volunteers (from the Saginaw Depot Preservation Corp.) see her while repairing the building,” Shippy said. “She will just appear in front of them and give them a little more of a scare than I think they’d like.”
One volunteer who saw the Woman in White told Austin he will not to return to the station.
Austin said he had one paranormal experience in the station.
“I’ve heard voices, but I haven’t seen anything myself,” he said.
While the crew was filming the documentary, Austin and other members of the Saginaw Depot Preservation Corp. were standing guard to make sure no one would wander in and disrupt the filming when he heard a man’s voice behind him.
“I questioned what it was,” he said. “I thought I didn’t hear it right, but very clearly someone said, ‘Find your place.’”
Other volunteers have reported hearing a murmuring crowd of voices, feeling a touch on their shoulder and feeling cold drafts when there is no wind.
These kinds of apparitions and paranormal activity are probably the result of the station's long and sometimes dark history, Shippy said.
The area surrounding the station was once filled with bars, brothels and gambling houses.
“The brawls and stabbings in that area were plentiful,” Shippy said.
Shippy said several men were injured or killed working in the station’s yard, and bodies of soldiers killed in battle were brought home to Saginaw through the station during World War I and World War II.
“I’m sure that’s where a lot of wives went to say goodbye to their husbands and never saw them again,” Austin said. “Other times, people passed away (in Saginaw) and were shipped to other places. It was a center where (bodies) were brought or received, and that could have caused some (of the activity).”
Austin said most volunteers working on the station haven’t been deterred by the strange things they have seen and heard there.
“The rest of us don’t feel there’s anything that would hurt us or anything really menacing,” he said.
Even without the spooky incidents, the station itself is an interesting piece of Saginaw history.
“It’s a photographer’s dream,” Shippy said. “It’s like going underwater and exploring the Titanic. It has this grand design and decay and a definite dark side.”
The audience will get to see an extended trailer for the team’s fourth film, which will debut in 2013.
“We decided to investigate a private residence, which we don’t usually do,” Shippy said. “This person had contacted us many times, and her claims were so outrageous, we just had to go check it out.”
The Seekers team will film its fifth investigation in February 2013 to debut in 2014.
The team experienced so much paranormal activity in its initial meeting with the woman, a single mother of two, Shippy said the members felt compelled to investigate further.
To buy tickets for “A Haunting on Potter Street,” visit www.templetheatre.com or call the box office at 989-754-7469.
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