By Kelly Wilson
Is Casey Moore’s really haunted? Most of the staff at the Tempe neighborhood bar – located off Ninth and Ash – have personal ghost stories, some that are sure to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. And many swear up and down that something unearthly stalks this Cheers-like haunt (no pun intended).
See anything out of the ordinary in this photo?
With Halloween on the horizon, we decided to spend a Wednesday night at our favorite bar. Casey Moore’s co-owner – and our friend – Gavin Rutledge let us stake out the two upstairs rooms, which he claims are the bar’s paranormal hot spots. We set up camp and conducted an amateur investigation (think Sci-Fi’s Ghost Hunters minus the plumbers and awesome paranormal investigator equipment) from midnight to 4 a.m. waiting for something to go bump in the night.
Find out what we found and see video interviews with Casey Moore's staff after the jump.
The Ghost Hunters: New Times freelancer Kelly Wilson, Yucca Tap Room owner Rodney Hu, Liar’s Handshake front man Jared Christy and kickball teammate and friend Nicole Phillips.
Equipment: An EMF detector (which measures electromagnetic fields and which paranormal investigators use to measure a spirit’s presence), which I purchased off Ebay two years ago, and my handy reporter tape recorder.
Investigation: We took turns bouncing back and forth between the two rooms and even ventured into the tiny crawl spaces (these are usually where the action happens on Ghost Hunters) in both rooms. We were distracted from our investigation early in the night when two regulars instigated a brawl and had to be escorted off the property, but went back to work after the commotion died down.
We spent some time trying to communicate with Casey’s rumored spirits, attempting to coax them to touch us, move an object or show themselves.
Findings: We caught a few EVPs on the tape recorder, which sound like whispers over our voices. While it’s clear that the whispers aren’t any of us, it's hard to make out what it's saying. We were able to make out one. I commented that a certain corner in the blue room was very creepy to which you hear a whisper of "yeah." There's also a lot of loud breaths we recorded, which aren't us.
What's that near the fork?
The highlight of the night was when a fork abruptly fell down on the other side of the room from where we were sitting. We immediately started taking photos and were able to capture a few orbs around the fork.
Verdict: Whispers caught on a tape recorder and a fork that went flying off the table aren’t reason enough to call Casey’s haunted, but we all agree something paranormal inhabits the bar. And could you blame the spirits? Heck, if we were ghosts, we would be hanging out at this kick ass nightspot with a Stella in hand.
