FT263

One reason that ghosts have yet to be proven to exist is that the ‘evidence’ for most hauntings is notoriously ambiguous – much of it consists of odd feelings, quasi- (or wholly) fictional ghost stories, unclear photos of faces or orbs, and brief glimpses of perceived oddities. Ghosts, if they exist, seem to be remarkably adept at not leaving much credible evidence of their presence behind.

The KiMo theatre ghost, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is a notable except­ion. According to several sources, it’s a unique case in the history of hauntings in the American Southwest (and perhaps the world) – a site where unexplained poltergeist activity was witnessed not by just one or two people, but instead by hundreds, even thousands. The resident poltergeist famously (and supernaturally) ruined at least one play here, and possibly others.

The KiMo was built in downtown Albuquerque in 1926 and opened its doors the following year. Its architecture is unique, combining Art Deco style with Native American motifs, thus creating one of the city’s best-known landmarks. The KiMo is also the best-known haunted theatre in the American Southwest, its resident ghost the subject of dozens of articles and book chapters, and even the odd investigation by local ghost hunters. Despite its notoriety, a close investigation into the ghost had never been conducted until I examined the case in 2008.


A MEMORABLE PERFORMANCE
Jewel Sanchez, who spent 14 years working at the KiMo from 1979, gave one account of the night that a ghost sabotaged the performance of a famous play. In an interview with ghost story collector Antonio Garcez for his book Adobe Angels: The Ghosts of Albuquerque, Sanchez said: “On Christmas Day in 1974 there was a performance of some sort, and… all sorts of weird and negative stuff began to happen. Anything that could go wrong, did go wrong.”

Of course, in any public performance, nothing goes perfectly, but what happened that day could only have a supernatural explanation. “Props which had been well-anchored to the floor toppled over, as if intentionally pushed by invisible hands. Electrical cables blew up in a storm of sparks and flashes… While going through the live performance, [the actors] tripped and fell over an invisible object. Some actors stated that their fall felt as if it was caused by a pair of invisible hands that quickly but firmly pushed them to the floor.”

The occurrences seemed to closely fit that of a poltergeist (German for “noisy ghost”), a spiritual entity said to move objects through the air, make loud noises or sounds, and cause general mischief.

Dan Mayfield, a reporter for the Albuquerque Journal newspaper, further described the mysterious events: “The entire cast forgot to show up. Stage lights were popping. Once they got there, actors forgot lines, and doors and windows were flying open.” According to Scott Johnson, a writer for a website called Dreadcentral.com, “Light bulbs popped for no reason, sending glass down from the light rigs and onto the actors. Doors would open and close, seemingly by themselves, and many of the actors were locked in their dressing rooms. Several fell while making their entrances, claiming later to have been ‘tripped.’”

The KiMo case includes one of the most famous examples of public poltergeist activity on record. Alleged ghostly activity is usually experienced by only one person – to have a whole theatre audience witness the mysterious phenomena is very rare indeed.

But what do we make of these claims – the invisible hands, flying objects, and mysterious disasters? Is this particular ghost story a fictional tale or a real event? Unfortun­ately, writers on the subject have done little or no investigation, simply passing along the stories as fact. This is a common problem with books containing “true accounts” of ghosts: most authors are content to simply record and publish the stories without doing even the most basic research to find out if they are true or not (see, for example, my investigation into the White Witch of Rose Hall; FT239:44–49).

It seemed that all the accounts of the KiMo ghost were third-hand stories, similar to the FOAF (“friend of a friend”) tales that fascinate folklorists and frustrate investigat­ors. As I researched, I began to suspect that the story was entirely apocryphal. I had investigated many ghost reports that began with seemingly solid evidence yet, after some investigation, were soon explained as folklore, misinformation, and error. But the case took an intriguing turn when I located an eyewitness – someone credible who could verify these supposedly supernatural events.


EYEWITNESS TO A POLTERGEIST
Dennis Potter, the KiMo’s current technical manager, was there on that fateful day in 1974. The disastrous performance could not be dismissed as mere superstition, and Potter confirmed the basic story and added many details he had seen with his own eyes.

“It was just before Christmas, and the New Mexico Repertory Theater Company did A Christmas Carol,” Potter explained. The dir­ector, Andrew Shea, noticed some doughnuts that had been strung up against the brick wall at the back of the stage and ordered them removed. The doughnuts came off the walls and into the garbage. Shea could not know that his act would doom the play – for the doughnuts had been left as an offering to a vengeful poltergeist.

“About 10 or 15 minutes into the show, weird things started going wrong,” Potter remembered. “People were forgetting their lines, people were tripping and falling on stage, odd pieces of equipment would fall from the ceiling, light bulbs exploded. Electrical cables fell down… light gels came off and fluttered down during dramatic moments. They were having trouble getting through the show. Windows and doors on the set were either not opening, or were opening when they weren’t supposed to. It was just really weird. They almost literally didn’t get through the show, there were so many disruptions.”

Finally, the show somehow managed to wrap up and the series of mysterious disasters came to an end. The cast and crew, stunned by their ordeal, blamed the director for tossing the doughnuts and rousing the ghost’s ire. According to Potter, the director apologised to everyone, then bought more doughnuts and strung them up all over the building. This tasty offering apparently appeased the ghost, for the next performance went without a hitch. From then on, says Potter, doughnuts were left for the poltergeist, though some years ago they were moved to a small shrine near the dressing rooms; here, a collection of offerings, ranging from toys to theatre tickets to ballerina shoes, is left for the ghost.

Potter and others believe they know exactly who the spirit was (or had been): a six-year-old boy named Bobby Darnall. Though the ruined play was said to have occurred in 1974, the story really begins with a tragic explosion some 23 years earlier.


THE GHOST OF BOBBY DARNALL
On 2 August 1951, about 1,000 people were in the theatre to see the Abbott and Costello film Comin’ Round the Mountain when a water heater exploded into the lobby. Chunks of plaster, scalding steam, and glass shot into the air. When the dust and chaos had settled, eight people were injured; several were treated for fractured arms and legs. One man, Cpl Mike Tullio, had severe cuts and abrasions covering his body that “resembled shotgun wounds”. His face was heavily lacerated, and the blast cost him his right eye.

Frank Ellis, 18 at the time, described the explosion: “I was sitting about four rows from the back. [The film] had just started. All of a sudden I heard a boom. After that people were getting up and running. Some were screaming. After that some men came running in the theatre yelling ‘Quiet!’ I did the same. A lady was lying on the floor; she must have had a broken leg. ‘Am I dead? Am I dead?’ she kept saying.”

Tragically, the most seriously injured was six-year-old Robert (Bobby) Darnall Jr. Bobby had gone to the theatre with two friends, but soon became frightened by a loud siren in the film and ran from the balcony. The boiler under the stairs exploded just as Bobby entered the lobby. According to the 3 August Albuquerque Journal, “The child’s head and face were crushed as the blast hurled him into a wall.” A defective thermostat was eventually blamed for the explosion.

As they say in the theatre, the show must go on. Repairs were made, and the KiMo soon reopened. Funeral services were held for Bobby, and life got back to normal. No one thought much more about Bobby or the explos­ion that took his life until a few decades later – when Bobby returned from the grave.

Over the years, various traditions developed in the theatre, including the one in which doughnuts were left, some say as an offering for the child ghost. According to HauntedHouses.com: “In 1988, something unseen helped itself to some doughnuts which were left untouched by the living on a table in the stage area. Bite marks made by a little mouth could be seen on some of the doughnuts. To pamper their little ghost, crew members started to hang doughnuts on the water pipe that runs along the back wall of the theatre behind the stage.”

According to some, Bobby has ruined further performances since the 1974 play. Writer Scott Johnson claims that: “For a period of time, it seemed that not one performance went off without some type of disaster. Between actors locked in their dressing rooms and tripping while making their entrances, many of which were accompanied by child-like laughter, it seemed the little boy was bent on wrecking the business.” Another source at HauntedHouses.com agrees: “This scenario has happened many times. As long as treats are hung on the water pipe, everything works fine, goes smoothly, and the child ghost is happy. If his treats are taken down and not replaced, disaster happens with the technical effects. Calm is restored immediately after hanging new treats on the pipe!” This puts a new perspective on the situation, for with multiple public poltergeist incidents like these, the pool of eyewitnesses must number in the thousands, thus making the KiMo spirit disturbances the most-witnessed haunting in history.


INVESTIGATING THE CLAIMS
At first glance, the evidence that Bobby Darnall haunts the KiMo seems impressive. Hundreds of eyewitnesses (most prominently a veteran crew member still working at the theatre) saw unexplained phenomena during the ruined Christmas production. Amateur ghost hunters “investigated”, confirming the existence of something supernatural at the KiMo. All in all, the KiMo ghost story seems like a remarkable case. It’s only upon closer inspection that you realise that things are not as they seem.

The account of the disastrous production of A Christmas Carol is an important key to understanding the KiMo ghost story. It’s the first time that the ghost of Bobby Darnall was linked to mysterious occurrences at the KiMo. Perhaps more importantly, it is something tangible, something that can be verified. Something – whether Bobby’s ghost or some other poltergeist or mysterious force – ruined the production of A Christmas Carol on Christmas Day 1974.

Or did it?

The first step in unravelling the mystery was verifying this key date. According to several sources, including Antonio Garcez in his book Adobe Angels, the doomed production was held on 25 December 1974. Yet archive research reveals that on Christmas Day 1974 the theatre was advert­ised as “The Notorious KiMo, the plushest adult theatre in New Mexico”. Instead of a family-friendly production of A Christmas Carol, KiMo patrons saw a pornographic film called Teenage Fantasies.

Dennis Potter agreed that the infamous performance occurred, but instead placed it some time in the late 1980s or early 1990s. He wasn’t sure of the date – or even the decade. This seems odd for such a remarkable event; if I witnessed several hours of poltergeist activity, I’d probably remember the exact date. He also corrected another piece of misinformation: there was only ever one ghost-ruined show, not several, and they certainly haven’t occurred into the present day. The promise of thousands of eyewitnesses evaporated, but at least one audience should be able to verify it.

With some detective work, researcher Mike Smith and I narrowed down the year to 1986. We then contacted other people involved with that production of A Christmas Carol to see how they remembered the event. I spoke to Steve Schwartz, the actor who played Bob Cratchit, and asked him what he remembered about that fateful night and being assaulted by a poltergeist. His answer shocked me: “It went great. It was a wonderful performance.” Puzzled, I asked about all the mysterious phenomena that had taken place and been witnessed by him and the other actors. “That sounds like good copy,” he said, “but I can’t corroborate any of that. I don’t remember any problems like that, or any problems with the show.”

Of course, people’s memories change over time, and though Mr Schwartz didn’t recall any problems with the play, someone else might. To get a third eyewitness account, Mike Smith contacted Andrew Shea, who directed the play and whose dismissive doughnut disposal had allegedly led to the ruined performance. Shea spent eight years directing plays at the KiMo, from 1984 to 1991.

Shea also disputed Potter’s eyewitness recollection of the play: “I don’t remember it being a disaster in any way.” Asked if he recalled any of the incidents described by Potter and repeated by others – the exploding lights, the falling actors, the props moved by unseen hands, and so on – he said no. Furthermore, according to Shea, his taking down the doughnuts and then replacing them after the disastrous performance never happened. In fact, Shea had never even heard the story of the KiMo ghost until I told him about it, so he certainly hadn’t been leaving doughnuts for any ghost children. “There were no events during my eight years there that didn’t have mundane explanations… I don’t recall anything supernatural or out of the ordinary happening.”

So the play’s lead actor and the director both discredit the ghost story, as did every other cast member we could locate. A final nail in the coffin for the KiMo ghost comes from newspaper accounts of the play – or, more precisely, the lack thereof. We searched newspapers for some record of the ill-fated play. Surely such a weird and disastrous performance would have been noted, at least in passing, in the local newspapers.

The mystery deepened: there was nothing. The reviews were positive, and not one mentioned falling actors, exploding lights or ghostly activities. All the evidence points to one inescapable conclusion: The supernaturally sabotaged performance – the very genesis of the KiMo ghost story – simply did not take place.


THE POLTERGEIST SILENCED
The sole source for the poltergeist-ruined play legend turns out to be Dennis Potter. Almost certainly, the story got traction because he repeated it not as theatre-lore or FOAF-tale, but as a first-person eyewitness account; he was there that night. How is it possible that Potter is convinced that he witnessed a 90-minute public supernatural event that no one else remembers? In my opinion, Potter is not a liar, nor is he crazy; he simply did something we all do from time to time: he mis-remembered. Perhaps he told the story so many times he came to believe it.

Decades of psychological studies show that human memory is remarkably fallible. The brain is not, as we tend to suppose, a sort of tape recorder that accurately preserves what we experience. Instead, memories change over time. Psychologists know that human memory is error-prone, and we sometimes simply and honestly misremember when telling stories of our personal experiences. Until and unless we are confronted with evidence to the contrary, we will continue to confidently believe our memories. [1] Because Dennis Potter is the source of virtually all the information on the KiMo ghost, his story was repeated over the years by journalists, writers and investigators who never bothered to verify his account independently.

The revelation that the ghostly performance never happened solves one mystery but creates another: if the doughnuts weren’t left to appease Bobby Darnall after the doomed play, then where did the doughnut trad­ition come from?

Potter says the doughnut tradition had an innocent enough explanation: as happens in workplaces across the country, most days someone would get coffee and doughnuts for the cast and crew. “Usually an extra cup of coffee or doughnut would be left at the end of the day,” Potter explained. “As a joke… we’d take the doughnut and tie it up on the elect­rical conduit on the back wall.” According to Potter, Bobby’s ghost was never seen, believed to exist, nor even thought of until after the ‘doomed’ play in 1986, when a theatre tradit­ion was transformed into a ghostly tradition. There are no reports of ghostly goings-on between the 1951 death of Bobby Darnall and the (now-disproven) ruined production of A Christmas Carol in 1986; for 35 years the ghost simply didn’t exist. Bobby Darnall became part of the KiMo ghost story when a misremembered, unexplained event that never happened was connected with a real-life tragedy and mixed with a dose of typical theatre superstition.

A close examination of the newspaper archives reveals one final twist in an already bizarre case: Bobby Darnall did not die at the KiMo theatre!

According to the 2 August 1951 Albuquerque Journal, Bobby was alive when he left the theatre: “Police said the boy had a faint pulse when picked up in the theatre lobby, but he was dead on arrival at St. Joseph’s Hospital.” So the boy actually died in an ambulance somewhere on the streets of downtown Albuquerque. This is an important detail, for the ghost hunters claim that Bobby’s ghost (in the form of an orb) has been photographed at the KiMo right where he died, which is clearly impossible.

As with many supernatural claims, events that at first glance seem to be inexplicable become clear when facts are checked and analysis applied. There is simply no evidence of a ghost at the KiMo theatre – all the evidence contradicts the story, and not a shred supports it. Ultimately, it’s neither a lie nor a hoax — but nor is it true.

There are no villains here; the only decept­ion was self-deception. Overactive imaginations, factual errors, standard theatrical ghost lore and some misguided amateur ghost-hunters all helped to create the KiMo ghost. The story spread, was told and retold, hashed and rehashed, each iteration adding or omitting details without anyone bothering to check the facts.

The KiMo ghost has been the subject of New Mexico lore for at least a decade, and while some may mourn the passing of a good ghost story, no harm can come from finding out the truth. The KiMo ghost can (and, no doubt, will) live on, but as fiction, not fact.




Note
1 For an excellent discussion of memory mistakes and how false memories can be created, see books such as Memory, by Elizabeth Loftus; and Brain Fiction, by William Hirstein.


Further reading
“The Notorious KiMo”, Albuquerque Journal, 25 Dec 1974, p.C-4.
“Theater Blast Kills Boy; 7 Hurt”, Albuquerque Journal, 3 Aug 1951, pp A-1–2.
Antonio R Garcez: Adobe Angels: The Ghosts of Albuquerque, Red Rabbit Press, Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, 1994, pp20–24.
Dennis William Hauk: Haunted Places: The National Directory, Penguin Books, New York, 2002, p281.
Ellen Robson & Dianne Halicki: Haunted Highway: The Spirits of Route 66, Golden West Publishers, Phoenix, Arizona, 1999, pp116–118.
Leslie Rule: Coast to Coast Ghosts: True Stories of Hauntings Across America, Andrews McMeel, New York, 2001, p32.
Dan Mayfield: “KiMo Keeps Its Ghost Happy With Treats, Trinkets”, Albuquerque Journal, 30 May 2004.