Because he worked in an old theater, it was easy for Michael Pulliam to explain the noises and odd occurrences that everyone else attributed to the spirit world. At least initially.
The Iao Theater in Wailuku town on Maui is 84 years old, and until recently it suffered from the kind of deterioration that left holes in the roof, rats in the walls, noisy, shaky plumbing and electrical wiring that turned lights on and off.
"I didn’t necessarily believe ghosts did not exist; I just needed more proof," Pulliam said. "I had a feeling that maybe people’s imaginations had gotten away from them."
And then he met Emma, the ghost of Iao Theater.
When the SyFy Channel airs the season finale of "Haunted Collector" on Wednesday, Emma and the theater will have a starring role in a Hawaii-based episode. The show, which also investigates a report of spirits on Lanai, will be shown at 5 p.m. on a big screen at the Iao Theater, and Pulliam expects people will be so unnerved they will get up and leave.
| WHEN TO WATCH
>> “Haunted Islands: The Ghosts of Maui County,” an episode of the SyFy Channel’s “Haunted Collector,” airs at 6 and 8 p.m. Wednesday.
>> A free screening will be held at 5 p.m. Wednesday at Iao Theater in Wailuku.
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"I would say the footage they have is easily among the best paranormal footage I have seen," Pulliam said. "It’s so startling that it will leave you with only two conclusions: We are playing an elaborate trick on you, or it is real."
When the "Haunted Collector" crew arrived in March, Pulliam had quite a story to tell. He swears it’s all true.
Pulliam, 42, is the production associate at the theater, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is used primarily for live theater and concerts. During his six years there, it always had a weird vibe, but he didn’t think much of it until he started working at night.
"As I began to be the last one out of the building, the experiences became a little more difficult for me to explain," he said. "Sometimes you would hear a noise, and the best way for me to describe it is it’s like the loud crack you hear when an earthquake starts. It appears to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time."
He would hear footsteps, too, coming from the empty, locked theater.
In March 2011 as he was closing up alone, maybe around 11:30 p.m., Pulliam saw something out of the corner of his eye. He was in the middle of the theater and off to his left, 25 feet away, Pulliam saw Emma. Coming toward him. Slowly.
"I wasn’t afraid," Pulliam said. "I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss it. I wanted to convince myself she existed."
He saw the torso of a woman about 5 feet tall and shrouded in a glowing mist. But he couldn’t see her face.
Then she walked through a low wall and dissipated like fleeting smoke. The whole encounter was measured in a handful of seconds.
"I had this overwhelming feeling she was laughing at me," he said. "But not in a scary way. It was more, ‘Do you believe me now?’"
For years, theater workers and patrons had mentioned the ghost, often describing her as sweet and friendly. Three people, on separate occasions over 20 years, even claimed she told them her name, and none was aware of the others’ stories, Pulliam said.
But they knew nothing more about her.
When Pulliam first began working at Iao Theater, which is owned by the county and run by Maui OnStage, he noticed a basketball-size concrete bulb on a corner of the building. It didn’t fit the Spanish Mission-style architecture and when he asked around, Pulliam discovered it was a time capsule put in place shortly after the theater opened in 1928.
Pulliam arranged to have the capsule opened for the "Haunted Collector" episode. Inside he found two postcards from Maui, a sterling silver barrette and a reel of 16 mm celluloid film.
When the theater’s production crew found an old projector and screened the film, which lasted about 20 seconds, Pulliam couldn’t believe what he saw. He had expected a snippet from a silent film of the era, maybe something from Charlie Chaplin. Instead, there was an attractive young woman — a 1920s-era flapper — posing for a screen test. She had dark eyes, dark hair in ringlets and dark lipstick.
No one has any idea who she was, except for Pulliam. He has no solid proof, just instinct and a feeling he had seen her once before … Emma.
