For Paula, who started investigating in 2020, it would be her tenth time touring the building. For Teresa, Dave and I, it would be the first.
And while the other three had plenty of experience, it would be my first time on a ghost hunt, period.
The four of us met in the lobby of the restaurant on an overcast October night. Normal folk were having Italian eats over checkered countertops, likely unaware as to what lurked throughout the rest of the building.
Dave had two bags of audio recording gear. Paula had a backpack full of devices. Between them, there were electromagnetic field (EMF) detectors, a radiating electro-magnetic (REM) pod, a motion detector, a spirit box and a handful of digital recorders to capture electronic voice phenomenon, or EVP.
Each of us wore attire apropos of our adventure that night: Paula was in P3 gear; Teresa represented her group, Hindsight Paranormal; Dave wore a Ghost Ranch shirt; and me, I had on a novelty cryptid tee that I bought in Point Pleasant, W. Va.
We were quite obviously not there to indulge in 15-Layer Lasagna.
Still on edge from the thought of our upcoming investigation, I asked Paula if the Spaghetti Warehouse was pretty spiritually active.
“It is slowly unraveling itself to be, yes,” Paula said. “Each time we’re coming, we’re getting a little bit more, a little bit different.”
Paula approaches investigations with a practicality, focusing on the group tour aspects and the history of the locations, providing context for why there might be activity there.
But because I’d never done any investigating before, I asked how likely it was that I’d take something home with me.
“I knew that’s where you were going!” Teresa blurted, demonstrating herself as a medium.
“This place is not going to hurt you,” Paula added. “You will not be scratched, attached, possessed … that is all Zak Bagans.”
That wouldn’t be the last time Bagans — the dramatic and frequently-possessed host of the Travel Channel’s “Ghost Adventures” — would be ragged on for his histrionics.
Paula, Dave and Teresa all teach classes on the paranormal, and were very amenable on this neophyte’s first rodeo. Most of my anxieties dissipated as we stood in the lobby of the bustling Italian restaurant. I’m sure the aromas had something to do with that.
The manager gave Paula the key to the outside door, which accesses the upstairs floors. Paula lent me a flashlight that didn’t leave my grip for the next two hours. It was only seldom turned off. The group left the restaurant and opened up a door to a metal staircase, the only area that had a working light bulb.
Debris laid in piles around the second floor. Live electrical wires precariously hung from the ceiling. The only illumination came through the windows via nearby streetlamps, and the direct beams of our flashlights.
Paula, having given several tours and knowing the history of the building, held off on telling us the facts. This gave Teresa a chance to feel the baseline energy of the area without tipping her off.
Meanwhile, Dave set up various EVP recorders, dictating the time and date into them before leaving them to record. I was told not to whisper, as those can come off as false EVPs in the review process.
Coming from an engineering background, Dave is the most skeptical of the bunch. He likes working with raw data, countering Teresa’s claircognizance on the other end of the spectrum.
“It does have a creepy feel to it, doesn’t it?” Dave said, as we stood next to a bottomless elevator shaft. Sometimes even non-mediums use their gut senses.
But while I wouldn’t necessarily have a sleepover at the Spaghetti Warehouse, on the basis of that one room we’d explored so far, I wasn’t getting the creeps from it just yet.
As Teresa roamed the floor in solitaire, Paula and I made our rounds through the back hallways, momentarily poking into various bathrooms and downtrodden office spaces. She eventually told me, in confidence, that we were standing in what was once a gentlemen’s club. And, at another time, what was the first of three floors of bowling alleys.
Teresa continued on her search to a back room, where she said she felt the sensation of being trapped.
“Sometimes I feel the residual energy,” she told me. “If it’s strong enough, it’ll leave an imprint. If she was scared enough, her fear will still be there.”
Teresa then asked if the space was once a recording studio.
“Not a recording studio,” Paula said, “but I know why you’re hearing music.”
So, we skip floors three and four, and head straight to the fifth, the sight of the ballroom and the big band music that once played there.
When we arrive, monolithic ornate columns appear to hold up the ceiling. The fifth floor, unlike the second, is mostly made up of one great room.
The gang starts posting up their respective EMF detectors, to see if they can get a read on any stirred up energy.
In the center of the dance floor, Dave sets out two EMF tripwires, which change color depending on if anything passes over them. In between the strands, he does the “flashlight experiment,” placing four flashlights in a row, all on the verge of being on and off. Like everything else, it’s a communication tool.
He also sets out a few flashing cat balls on the far side of the dance floor. Along with being cheap toys for felines, they can also detect unusual energy surges.
Paula plays a Glenn Miller tune on a bluetooth speaker, circa the era the ballroom was in heavy use, in the hopes that the spirits occupying the room would put on their dancing shoes. But with only slight light blips, it seemed the dancers were a bit timid that night.
When the song ended, Paula started to tell us some background.
The building was completed in 1916. Spaghetti Warehouse didn’t roll in until 1980, with plenty of different uses between dance club and baked ziti. But it wasn’t the food, jazz or bowling balls that caused the apparent restless spirits; it was the 800 bodies that were once buried there.
As Dayton was being developed around the early 20th century, the cemetery at that location was eventually paved over. At the time, families were contacted and given the option (i.e. no alternative but) to relocate their relatives at rest, many opting for plots at Woodland Cemetery. Others weren’t so lucky, thus buildings and parking garages were built over top of them.
It’s rumored that bones are still discovered every time there’s construction in that area.
Paula then turned to apps on her phone, Spirit Talker and Necrophonic. From my understanding, the apps assume the environment of the room and report any oddities through AI generated voices, radio signals and nonsensical guttural sounds — all ostensibly communique from the other side.
As the three investigators stood back, politely prodding the spirits, words and phrases like “you must leave,” “four lights,” “arrest” and “they buried me here” came through the speaker. Paula pointed out a specific tone of a child, saying that he’s often “not allowed” on the fifth floor.
My eyes kept darting to a dark corner of the room, as if someone that we couldn’t see was watching us. Teresa confirmed the sensation, saying that a motionless and stern figure was a little peeved we were in that space.
But without much activity from the detectors, the gang packed up their gear and headed back downstairs.
On the second floor, Dave picked up his audio recorders that he’d review later that night. Paula then escorted us to a room of cubicles with abandoned boxes of DVDs, books, clothing and mouse droppings. I found a Dungeons & Dragons starter kit from 1990 and debated whether it was worth the risk of taking it — and possibly, say, a demon — home with me.
“Do you have any objections if Brandon takes this?” Teresa asked the room.
“If you have no objections, just stay quiet,” Dave added.
The room stayed quiet. I had a new D&D kit.
As our investigation was wrapping up, we explored one final room: the library. It has no books in it.
Teresa walked around the room and had a vision of a woman in a ruffled dress. No name came to mind but the letter “M” did.
Paula, thrilled, produced a drawing from a previous medium. The drawing was of a ruffled dress with “name M” written above it.
And while nothing touched or scratched me, yelled into my ear, those closing moments could make a believer out of a skeptic.
The basement of the Spaghetti Warehouse is said to be the most haunted part of the building. Much to the chagrin of my initial hesitations, I was a little disappointed we couldn’t go down there. The restaurant was about to close. Rain check.
I came to the investigation with many anxieties, and left feeling like it’s something I immediately wanted to do again. Maybe it was the adrenaline of slowly walking through detritus, hoping to have an experience with something paranormal. Maybe it was just the thrill of the hunt.
Standing in the trolley of the Spaghetti Warehouse, having just taken a group photo, we, as they say, “shut it down.”
I repeated after Paula:
“Thank you Spaghetti Warehouse for sharing your spirits with us tonight. But you all must stay here. You cannot come home with me. You cannot attach to any of my belongings. And I promise to come visit again.”
I think I meant it.
I smudged my apartment with Palo Santo on the off chance that something did trail me after my first — and likely not last — paranormal investigation.
Contact this contributing writer at branberry100@gmail.com.
More info: facebook.com/PaulasParaProject
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