August 4, 2008

The Man in Blue

Rate this encounter:[an error occurred while processing this directive] Kevin, Rock Rapids, Iowa, Late 2007/Early 2008

This took place in an old movie theater turned into a restaurant in a small town in northwestern, Iowa. A friend of mine, Michelle, bought this old theater the summer of 2007. It had been redone as a restaurant in the mid 1990s, and had several failed attempts before my friend bought it. There have actually been numerous things that go on here. Thing is, being in a small town in the Bible belt, few people want to talk about it. The main one is that there has been reported by numerous witnesses over the years, even as a movie theater, a man in blue that has been seen. Michelle's cousin was taking pictures right after she first opened the doors, and in one of the pictures there is a man in blue peeking out from one of the old emergency exit curtains. There was no one else in the building at the time, just Michelle and her cousin. I saw this picture, and you can see this man as clear as day, only thing is, there is no face.

There have been other things that have happened there too, but nothing quite like this next bit. One evening, just before closing time, there was a few of us chatting in the bar having a drink. The rest of the restaurant was closed up. It was Michelle, me, and two other friends that came in on occasion. As we are sitting there, the very clear sound of a baby crying was heard from the closed, darkened restaurant. This went on for a good 10 or 20 seconds. When it stopped, one of the other guys asks if we all heard that. Silently we all looked at each other and nodded. We all went into the restaurant area and turned all of the lights and searched everywhere. Mind you, this is a small town, in the middle of the week at about midnight. Nothing else is open at that time of night except for the bar a couple of blocks away.

Another time a few weeks later, Michelle's best friend was in town, so she wanted to show the place off. She was giving her the tour, showing the old apartment upstairs and the big band stage on the top floor. About ten minutes later, Michelle comes down and peeks around that corner and says, "guess who just saw Blue?" I ran over and her friend was visibly shaken. They were up in the ballroom where the bands used to play, in the dark, with just their flashlights on. Michelle was telling her a little about the place. Just then her friend sees a pair of legs walk between, just legs that faded out above the waste. I ran up with her with my camera and took some pictures, and of course nothing showed up, story of my life with that stuff. Alas, a few months ago, Michelle had to close up shop due to it being a money pit and the bank not disclosing all of the things wrong with the building. So we weren't able to do any really investigating into it. Who knows, maybe I might buy it just for that...