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#Brainwaves Episode 65 – 2nd Annual LIVE Halloween Investigation: Terror at the 10th Avenue Arts Center LISTEN NOW!


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It's that special time of year again, kids! Joe, Creepy, Debi, and Sarah broadcasted LIVE from a reportedly super haunted location - San Diego's 10th Avenue Arts Center - as part of their "Terror at the 10th" Halloween celebration!

It was a pretty wild damned time and you can find the Facebook Live videos right here! They're also embedded below.











Of note there was some really odd sounds happening in the room I was broadcasting from which was mainly empty. They are loud enough to be audible to the listener. They happened at the following time stamps:

2:20:36 - A loud bang
2:26:50 - Some strange scratching or "whooshing" sound
2:28:59 - Another strange scratching or "whooshing" sound

Haunted History of the 10th Avenue Arts Center via Haunted San Diego:
The 10th Tenth Avenue Arts Center is currently located at 930 10th Avenue, San Diego, California 92101, a parcel that once housed part of the First Baptist Church of San Diego (a great sized complex). The Church was conceived in the mid 1800′s; however, the original church building at Tenth Avenue and E Street was not completed until 1888. First Baptist Church eventually sold the property and moved to a new location in 1997. First Baptist Church of San Diego (FBCSD) is still in operation almost 127 years later and is now located at 5055 Governor Drive, San Diego, CA.

Claims of the Paranormal or Ghosts at the Current 10th Tenth Avenue Arts Center:
According to the 10th Avenue Arts Center website, four ghosts are suspected to haunt various portions of the building. Of the four, three of those haunts are intensely specific:

The ghost of a British lieutenant
The falling death of a girl named Missy
A suicidal, grief-stricken Baptist pastor

The suspected ghost hauntings at the 10th Tenth Avenue Arts Center gained public attention after a short interview with Association of Paranormal Studies (APS) founder Alex Matsuo on local station KPBS back in October 2012. Since then the owners of the theater have invited several local paranormal groups out to the location, possibly in an attempt to offer guided ghost tours of the location in the near future.

So, is the theater haunted, and are the historic stories accurate or just urban legends?

San Diego Haunted contacted Jeff Cotta from the 10th Avenue Arts Center website to learn more about the stories posted. This was the response, “The stories were passed on to us from some of the First Baptist Church folks as they were hauling their stuff out of the building back in ’97 (when we purchased the property).” SDH then attempted to contact the current congregation officials for First Baptist Church; unfortunately, every attempt has failed, other than basic cordiality.

We then turned back to the specific stories of Missy and the grief-stricken pastor to find any records to validate the claims. A young girl named Linda Jo “Missy” Holterhaus did die in San Diego in the correct time frame. However, it was unlikely she was the person of interest in the story (death records are pending). We were also unable to turn up any news stories about suicidal priests and/or persons falling to death at the First Baptist Church building.

Neither of the two head pastors from First Baptist Church (1958-70) killed themselves. The men lived to be 85 (John Bunyan Smith) and 94 (Pieter Smit). The story of the inspirational speech rings true but it was given by Pieter Smit and it was on the fly as he had already published his planned sermon for the week in the Evening Tribune. The fact that the story links his secretary and sermon together draws the obvious conclusion that the story refers to Pieter himself and not another lower pastor, deacon, or entity.

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DREAD Podcast NetworkBy Dread Central Podcast Network