Paranormal Poky – chilling footage could explain decades of ghost stories

Recent bizarre surveillance footage from a local high school shows some unexplained activity haunting the halls of Pocatello High School.

On Dec. 19, while the promise of winter break brought about an exodus of students emptying the halls of Poky High, there were a few who stayed behind. And one of them happened to show up on camera.

(Click here to see the footage.)

The footage shows a dark, shadow-like figure of an adult up against the drinking fountain before it walks over to the bathroom, walks back out and down the hallway.

Nationally-renowned paranormal experts and co-founders of the Scientific Paranormal Investigative Research Organization John and Lisa Brian were sent in to investigate after multiple reports came in that someone had been tampering with the lights.

“You can see that it’s not necessarily a person, but more so a translucent figure walking down the hall,” John said.

Both John and Lisa said the surveillance footage is raw, and there is no possible way someone could edit surveillance footage because of legal regulations and because it’s design is so secure.

Even students have heard the bathroom toilets flushing, and when they go in to check it out, nobody is in there.

“We have watched it multiple times and even slowed it down and really analyzed it. It’s a really great piece of footage,” Lisa said. “You can just see the lights going on and off, the police were called because of these issues going on in the building – all of that just goes to show that it wasn’t something someone just put on there, but instead it was something that really happened.”

In 2008 the Brian’s started hosting the Haunted History Tours, taking curious folks through the historic downtown buildings that have proven to be haunted after the SPIRO crew picked-up paranormal activity happening in these buildings during investigations.

But this phantom bathroom/hallway dweller is just the tip of the iceberg. During the tours, Poky High has been a hot spot because of its long history of haunting tales, stories, myths, and rumors — some true, some, not so much.

“Everything from girls having a suicide pact and hanging themselves on their lockers, to a librarian who hung herself on the chandelier, to a boy who drowned in the original swimming pool,” John said.

All of the hauntings the SPIRO crew experiences, they look into the history behind them, trying to find a back story or an explanation. All of the possible story explanations they hear, they look into the validity of those.

John said over the years, the crew found there were six confirmed deaths that happened at the school (such as the boy who drowned in the pool, so that’s why the pool was taken out).

“We ran into an elderly woman who told us the pact was a real thing, but we haven’t been able to confirm that story quite yet,” John said.

The Brians said pieces of the school have been moved around since it reopened in 1917 after the fire burned it down, and so parts of the school that were once extremely haunted have moved to other parts of the building.

For example, they said there have been theater students, teachers, and janitors who refuse to be alone in the theater or the changing room at night since they have often heard people talking or the piano playing when nobody was there. They said people often feel a dark shadow looming over the rafters which has spooked numerous students.

“People have even felt someone walking up right behind them where hairs have stood up on their neck and when they turn around, nobody is there,” Lisa said.

Both John and Lisa said during one of their investigations, some of their equipment went missing. A week later, a janitor found their equipment perched on a window sill in one of the school’s stairwells. He said the sill was so high, nobody would be able to reach it without a ladder.

Whether or not you believe in ghost stories, the Brian’s both said their purpose is not to try and convince people the supernatural is roaming about. Instead, it’s just to understand something inexplicable that has been haunting people for almost a century.

“Pocatello High School has an incredible history, and so this really opens that door to be able to talk about Pocatello High School and talk about its history and the history of our town,” Lisa said. “That’s really important to us as well, because we want to be able to share all of that stuff since we all live here, we all love our city, and so this is kind of a cool way to open our door to some history.”

To find out more on the SPIRO crew, you can visit their Facebook page here.

To find out when the Haunted History Tours will be back next October, visit the Old Town Pocatello website here.

To read more about the ghosts of Pocatello, you can view John’s book here.