Stifel Theatre

The ghost at St. Louis's Stifel Theatre introduced herself during a paranormal investigation: Rachel. Staff hear her singing warm-up scales alone in the balcony of this 1934 Art Deco theater, which the St. Louis Paranormal Research Society calls one of the most haunted buildings they have ever investigated.

The ghost at the Stifel Theatre in St. Louis introduced herself. During a spirit communication session run by the St. Louis Paranormal Research Society, an investigator asked the entity its name. A clear female voice answered: Rachel. She initiated the conversation, not them.

The building opened in 1934 as the Municipal Opera House, part of the Municipal Auditorium complex named for former St. Louis Mayor Henry Kiel. It seats 3,100 in Art Deco surroundings. The theater closed in 1991 when the adjacent Kiel Auditorium was demolished to build what is now Enterprise Center. After nearly two decades of failed reopening attempts, financing came together in 2010. On October 1, 2011, Aretha Franklin and Jay Leno headlined the grand reopening gala. The building became the Peabody Opera House, then the Stifel Theatre through a naming rights deal.

Rachel has been here since before any of those names. Staff who work alone in the building hear her singing warm-up scales in the balcony. Not humming. Singing, full voice, running through exercises like a performer getting ready for a show. When they go up to check, the balcony is empty but the sound lingers.

The working theory among employees traces Rachel to a woman who was stabbed to death by her husband in a bar just down the street in 1932, two years before the theater opened. Whether that woman and the voice in the balcony are the same person is impossible to confirm. The connection is proximity and timing, nothing more.

Rachel is not alone. Other voices have been heard joining hers, and the prevailing guess is that former performers who sang on the Stifel stage are adding themselves to the chorus. Eric Cornman, the theater's senior public safety manager, has documented at least two additional entities. The banging is what gets people's attention first. Not the settling-of-old-buildings kind. Forceful, rhythmic impacts from inside the walls, deliberate enough that they seem designed to make you stop what you're doing and listen.

Dark shapes move through the corridors and seating areas when the house lights are down, visible for a moment before they dissolve into the surrounding darkness. The St. Louis Paranormal Research Society has called the Stifel one of the most haunted buildings they have ever investigated.

The theater hosts live performances year-round. The staff have made their peace with Rachel and whatever else occupies the building after hours. She seems to enjoy the shows as much as the paying audience does, and she was here first.