Ghosts at Sandwich Opera House? Illinois Paranormalists on the hunt

SANDWICH – There’s nothing spooky about 16-year-old Evan Ekstrom, except for an experience he called strange this weekend while ghost hunting at Sandwich Opera House.

The Batavia teen recounted twice hearing spirits calling out the name of his late grandfather, Jack, through a box radio frequency sweep scanner.

“I thought it was weird,” Ekstrom said.

Ekstrom was one of 12 participants in Friday’s ghost hunting event put on by The Illinois Paranormalists at the Sandwich Opera House.

Paul Schmidt, team lead for The Illinois Paranormalists, said the Sandwich Opera House is really as haunted as people say it is, despite those that try to debunk the idea.

“It’s known to be haunted for a while,” Schmidt said.

Schmidt has a theory about why the opera house is haunted.

“It could be the land,” he said. “Sometimes people build things on land that was already haunted.”

It remains unclear why the opera house is haunted.

Debra Shey, lead investigator for The Illinois Paranormalists, said the ghost hunting club’s job is to collect evidence to prove that paranormal activity exists.

“We never know,” Shey said. “That’s why we do this. We’re trying to find out why.”

Schmidt acknowledged why some people may struggle to see the Sandwich Opera House as haunted and said it is easy to pinpoint why this may be the case.

“Places are haunted that nobody ever died there,” Schmidt said. “As far as I know, nobody did ever die here. You get the factor that people did enjoy being here.”

Ekstrom said he is glad he decided to go ghost hunting. The Paranormalists hosted two nights of ghost hunting at the opera house this weekend, in time for Halloween.

“I thought it’d be cool to possibly interact with ghosts, maybe see something interesting,” Ekstrom said.

Shey said she hopes people take away the beauty of the opera house after taking part in the ghost hunting event.

“I want them to know more about the building and the significance of it in the community,” she said. “It’s just such a fantastic building.”