The BOO BOYS Investigate: PINZ Bowling Alley, Juneau, AK

Welcome, everyone, to the latest installment of our investigation blog series. This week, we are going to be sharing the results of our latest investigation of Juneau's only bowling alley—PINZ. PINZ is known primarily as the place to kick back, throw down some drinks, and heave large, cumbersome balls at potentially undeserving bowling pins. However—the alley has another, more mysterious reputation among the staff and management as being haunted. So, without further ado, kick back, relax, grab a snack, and let's dive into the curious case of the Haunting at PINZ Bowling Alley.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

It was a regular, fun day hanging out at the local bowling alley. I was getting my ass handed to me and claiming the bottom spot on the leaderboard. In the meantime, I was also talking to some day job co-workers about the launch of the BOO BOYS. While we were conversing, the manager came over to us and mentioned that PINZ may very well have an undead guest of their own—one they liked to call George, who they jokingly blamed whenever something would go awry. This gave me a chuckle at first, but my curiosity got the best of me, and I pressed on for more details. As I spoke more with Scott, the manager, and the alley's owner, Bob—I became more and more intrigued by all the strange accounts and potentially paranormal phenomena that had allegedly taken place at the location.

Scott told me that while working late at night, he and a co-worker both heard the bell at the bar ring by itself with no explanation for how it could have happened. I was also told that sometimes, when employees are behind the lanes of the alley with nobody else present—noises and voices can be heard coming from the intercom microphone at the front of the alley. Additionally, there have been two separate occasions in which little girls would report seeing a strange man in the women's restroom—however, upon investigation by staff, there would be nobody there. If this isn't already strange enough, there have also been reports of people being touched by unseen hands as well as lights turning off and on by themselves.

Given all the strange occurrences witnessed by staff and patrons of the bowling alley, there was no way we couldn't try to get in on this—so on October 8th, we asked if they would be willing to let us perform an investigation after closing. Much to our delight, they agreed, and we moved straight into planning mode.

Preparation

With the date of the investigation set for midnight on October 30th, we had about 3 weeks to prepare for the late-night ghost hunt. It was an all-hands on deck situation. I decided to order additional equipment especially for the occasion. The equipment that we wanted to use is listed below:

1. 02 EMF Meters

2. 01 Infrared Thermometer

3. 01 Digital Voice Recorder

4. 04 Motion balls (basically cat toys lol)

5. 01 SB-7 Spirit Box with Ambient Temperature Deviation Detection

6. 05 Infrared cameras with additional lights, two of which were stationary

(Luckily, the equipment that I ordered arrived just in time.)

The next step that I decided to take was research. I wanted an explanation as to why PINZ might be haunted. Just looking at Juneau obituaries, I was unable to find anything that might explain why there might be an invisible bowler on the premises. Despite this, there is a rumor that a patron passed away in the basement of PINZ. I was not able to verify this claim, but it was still very interesting to hear—and certainly added to the allure of this case.

The final step in preparation was coming up with the game plan for equipment placement throughout the building. Now, I'll be honest here, this was mostly improvised. We didn't plan things out too well in terms of who would be where and what tools everyone would have. However, I did know that I wanted to have two stationary cameras. One camera viewing the bar where the mysterious self-ringing bell was, and another overlooking the lanes. Along with this, I wanted to make sure that we spent ample time in the basement, the female restroom, behind the lanes where voices had been heard, and in the bar. This would allow us to conduct a variety of tests.

With the preparations completed, we eagerly awaited the next phase in our plan...

The Investigation

We arrived at the bowling alley at 23:30 on October 29th, and immediately began unpacking our equipment. After some debate on whether or not we should place a camera in the basement rather than overlooking the lanes—we decided that it might behoove us to have both upstairs so that we could have multiple angles. This would prove better for going through evidence and debunking any fluke findings. We loaded our cameras with batteries, attached our infrared lights, and placed motion balls throughout the bowling alley. Two were placed in the basement—one in the women's restroom, the other in the locker room. The other two motion balls were placed on ground level, one by the bell, and the other on a table near the lanes.

While the staff was busy cleaning up following business hours, Scott took us on a tour and shared with us some of his personal experiences with strange activities in the alley. We were shown the supply closet, boiler room, and behind the lanes. While we were behind the lanes, Scott pointed to a storage closet, saying that it might be a good location for EVP sessions. He went on to explain that he has had the lights shut-off on him without explanation. He also informed us that lane 9 has had its lighting activate without any known cause. All of this was very interesting to hear.

Shortly after our tour was concluded, Scott began to shut off all lights. This made our journey out from behind the lanes an arduous task, as we had to use our camera screens and infrared lighting to guide us through the abyssal darkness. On our way out, we had our first brush with the invisible patron...

You can see the motion ball light up on the center of the bar. It looked like our ghost was ready to play! Scott was visibly shaken by this, but for us, it breathed excitement into what we were about to embark on. The BOO BOYS brought their "A" game tonight!

Once we were all back together at the entrance, we began to branch off into groups.

Adela and Christopher began looking for irregularities in electromagnetic fields and temperatures throughout the building. They began by walking into the kitchen, allowing Chris to get a feel for some of the equipment as well as acquire some baseline readings. Some of the electronics in the kitchen area set off the equipment as expected, but there didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary going on in the area. After they were finished in the kitchen, they decided to head behind the lanes with the hope of collecting more significant readings.

Once behind the lanes, Chris once again performed EMF and infrared temperature readings. Whilst there, he decided to focus primarily on lane 9, the lane Scott told us acted the most unusual. Unfortunately, Chris and Adela didn't come across any irregularities at the time.

Ed and I decided to start in the bar area, where the motion ball had lit up. After asking a variety of questions in an attempt to elicit a response proved unfruitful, I decided to try the only other logical thing I could think of. I tried to bribe the ghost with a Coors Banquet. The response was the motion ball lighting up once again, as shown below:

Perhaps the ghost's fascination with the bell on the bar was just because they longed for the sweet, refreshing taste of a Coors Banquet (totally not sponsored)—but for now that question remains unanswered.

Once Adela and Chris made it back from behind the lanes, Chris and I decided to team up for a bit. I explained the situation with the alcoholic ghost to Chris, and together we went back to the bar for additional testing.

With the infrared thermometer in hand, I began asking if the spirit would be so kind as to have a seat in the chair toward the other side of the room. Though there were no abnormal fluctuations, this was more than likely because I had not upheld my end of the bargain by procuring a fresh Coors Banquet for the ghost… Way to go Ron. I asked if the spirit would be willing to make my EMF meter glow or give some kind of sign of its presence. Once again, this request was met by a glow at the bar:

As you can see, I slammed my fist on the bar several times trying to debunk the motion ball glowing as “Chris moving at the bar”. However, I was unable to make the ball light up again, leaving this occurrence unexplained. Following this, I decided that it might be a good idea to try using the spirit box and EMF meter in the basement—so Chris and I made our descent to the lower level hoping to capture more activity in the ladies’ restroom.

Once in the restroom, I pulled out my earbuds. I was trying to start a Spirit Box session, but unfortunately, there were some unforeseen technical issues with the volume. This rendered the earbuds useless. Due to this dilemma, I attempted to use a speaker instead—but since I am apparently a caveman and can't work a basic speaker using aux cords, this also seemed to be a waste of time. Irritated, I picked up my things and moved to then the boiler room for additional tests.

With the EMF meter and Spirit Box both in hand, I attempted to ask questions—receiving inaudible answers and no anomalous EMF spikes. Further irritated, Chris and I proceeded back up the stairs, where I pleaded with Adela to help me fix the speaker while swearing that it was no fault of my own because the speaker was "dumb."

While Chris and I were preoccupied in the bathroom, The other group decided to head to the back of the lanes.

During this time, Jerrod tried to capture EVPs whilst locked inside the small closet behind the lanes. During this session, there was nothing out of the ordinary picked up on the audio recorder, and he received no EMF spikes. He did receive one small spike whilst entering a small crawlspace above the closet, but he claimed that it was likely due to wiring. On their way out from behind the lanes, there were some notable events. Firstly, Adela claimed to see a shadowy figure dart passed them on their way out—seemingly fleeing to the back of the building. At the same time that this happened, Ed claimed he felt something tap him on his back or possibly brush by him. We didn’t realize these events occurred concurrently until later exchanging stories. During both groups' roaming search for evidence, the bar camera would pick up what appears to be a glowing orb manifesting slightly above the bell at the bar:

My initial thought upon seeing this was that it was probably a reflection of our lights against the back wall rather than an orb. I tried to debunk this by taking special care in reviewing the entirety of the footage that we had from the bar camera. Despite all of the walking that we did back and forth across the room, this was the only instance I could find where this occurs. In all instances that the lights are seen from this angle, they never appear in any way similar to the orb in the above footage. Below are two examples of how our light appear as they shine against the wall in the background:

As of right now, this case of orbs remains unexplained.

While Adela and I were preoccupied with trying to fix the speaker, Chris decided to head back down to the basement—this time following Jerrod, our resident cowboy of the darkness.

While down below, Jerrod attempted an EVP session in which he asked the spirit for answers on why it was being so quiet. He also asked why it was willing to show itself to others but not him (jelly much?). He also asked several other questions, like if the spirit died at the bowling alley, and what its name was, but to no avail. No strange or unexplained noises were found during review.

While walking into the women’s restroom, he accidentally kicked one of the motion balls, sending it rolling off into one of the stalls. After asking for the spirit to move the ball as he just had, as well as asking additional questions that were left unanswered—he and Chris began working their way back upstairs.

Thanks to Adela's handiwork with the speaker rig, I was finally able to have a proper session with the SB-7. I set up an EMF meter next to the bell and our trusty motion ball, then began recording the session. Below is a transcript of the session:

Q: Is there anyone here?

A: ...

Q: Can you try to ring the bell for me?

A: ...

Q: Do you mind us being here?

A: EEEEEE

Q: You seem a little quiet, George. Did you die here?

A: ...

Q: What are the names of the people in the back (Chris and Jerrod went back behind the lanes)

A: Abigail.

Q: We're about to turn this off. Do you have any last thoughts or things you want to say?

A: Get out

Q: Can you please tell me if you are here?

A: I'm about to be.

Q: My name is Ron. Can you say Ron?

A: ...

After securing the Spirit Box, we once again offered the spirit a seat while using the infrared thermometer, but unfortunately did not capture anything unusual. Following this testing, Adela and I decided to try our luck in the women’s restroom together. I was hoping that maybe, by bringing Adela down to shamelessly be used as bait, that perhaps we might be able to elicit a response.

The plan was simple. We had an EMF meter sitting directly in front of the stall that Adela was sitting in, hoping it might capture presence of the peeping-Tom spirit everyone calls George. We also had an infrared thermometer, camera, and voice recorder. For the next few minutes, I stood at the entrance of the restroom while Adela sat in the stall, sheepishly asking questions. This went on for a few minutes before Adela suddenly said something along the lines of "Oh Hell nah. Something just touched my leg. F*ck this sh*t, I'm out," before proceeding to bolt out the door, scramble out of the bathroom and up the stairs at a speed that would put Usain Bolt to shame.

Once we were both back upstairs, I decided that maybe I should try my luck in the closet behind the lanes. I decided to spend 5 minutes in the complete darkness of the room with nothing but my digital voice recorder and an EMF meter. As I sat alone in the void that seemed to swallow any small amount of light into its blackhole center, I began asking questions and using the digital voice recorder for EVPs. At one point, I set the EMF meter about a foot and a half away and reached my hands out. I asked that the ghost please touch my hands as it had touched both Adela and Ed previously. I made this request with the utmost respect, while terrifying visions of long, pale fingers penetrating the darkness only to wrap around my hands and pull me into the blackness, never to be seen or heard from again, flashed through my head. Despite this terrifying thought, nothing strange happened and I emerged victorious and still very much alive (I think).

Shortly after this experiment, something very interesting was caught on our bar camera:

I was ecstatic about the possibility of capturing evidence of this caliber, but I had to make sure that nothing was amiss, so I decided to check the other stationary camera to look for a logical explanation:

Dang. Never mind, just Ed's big head :|

It was a little past 02:00 when Ed and Chris announced that they were getting sleepy and wanted to go home and sleep, like a couple of weirdos. For the next 20 or so minutes, it would just be Adela, Jerrod, and myself remaining. With this in mind, I decided to take one last crack at the Spirit Box to see what I might get...

Q: Is there anybody here?

A: auauhah

Q: We're probably gonna head out soon if there's anything you want to say before we go.

A: ...

Q: Any messages from the great beyond?

A: ...

Q: How does it feel?

A: Airline (Or hairline? I don't see how either makes sense.)

Q: Why do you like the bell so much?

A: ...

Q: Are you from Vegas?

A: NoOoOo

Q: Did you die here?

A: No

Q: Do you like to bowl?

A: ...

Well, that was—ahem—interesting, I guess. The rest of the night was pretty much all clean-up, and we departed shortly after conducting the test. With that being said, I was unsatisfied with the evidence that we had gathered thus far and decided on a last-ditch effort to gather just a bit more—but you can read all about that in piece 6 of the next section!

Evidence

Let's review our evidence, shall we?

Piece 1: Spirit Box

While we mostly received silence and blatant nonsense on our experiments with the SB-7, we did receive some coherent responses that stuck out to me:

Q: Are you from Las Vegas (The location in which the bell was purchased)

A: Noooo

Q: Did you die here?

A: No

Q: Who is back there right now? (referring to the boys behind the lanes)

A: Abigail

Q: We're about to turn this off. Do you have any last thoughts or things you want to say?

A: Get out

Q: Can you please tell me if you are here?

A: I'm about to be

Piece 2: Ghostly Contact

There were a couple of instances in which members of the team claimed that they felt someone touch them. The first instance was when Edgar was walking out from behind the lanes when he felt someone touch him from behind but turned to see nobody there. The second instance was when Adela and I were conducting an EVP session in the women's restroom and she felt someone touch her leg.

Piece 3: The Motion Balls

As established, motion balls were placed throughout the bowling alley. Out of four, only one ball had instances in which it lit without explanation. As soon as the lights were cut, the bar ball lit up. Scott swore to God that he didn't touch it, and we all took his word for it. On another occasion I attempted to bribe the spirit, a technique that has worked well previously, and offered a Coors Banquet in exchange for lighting the ball. The ball lit up just before I could even finish saying "banquet." (Holy crap, this ghost just wants a drink!) A third occasion was when I was performing additional tests with Chris and Ed present, and the ball lit up again. We tested it numerous times, and the only way it would have gone off from one of us is if we caused it deliberately.

Piece 4: EMF activity

Though EMF readings were normal, and there didn't seem to be any irregularities or abnormalities—there was one instance in which the EMF meter seemed to spike as Adela was running up the basement stairs in a panic after feeling something touch her leg. It was for only a moment though. however, I am leaving no stone unturned and am considering it as evidence since it is the only time that this occurs without the culprit being wiring or surrounding electronics.

Piece 5: Orbs

Although some might suspect that the orbs seen could simply be beams from our lights, I would like to rule this theory as unlikely since this is the only time that we see these orbs appear throughout the entirety of the investigation—and whenever our light beams are seen from the bar camera, they are not focused dots, but are spread out and illuminating a large area rather than a small circular area.

Piece 6: REM-POD

As I mentioned, I was unsatisfied with the amount of evidence we had gathered. I decided to make a last-ditch effort to obtain more by leaving a digital recorder and two REM-PODs in PINZ overnight. This proved to be successful, as there were multiple shuffles and some loud banging noises heard inside the alley at multiple points throughout the night. Along with this, at approximately 6 am, one of the REM-PODs can be heard sounding off from the basement. Upon review of the alley security camera footage, the source of the noises could not be determined, and it was confirmed that nobody was inside the bowling alley when any of these occurrences took place.

BONUS piece 7: Security Camera Footage

While reviewing the footage from the night of the REM-POD experiment, there were some noteworthy things that happened. One of the computers and a separate electronic card reader turned on and off randomly on multiple occasions. Additionally, the building’s security lights were also somehow shut-off. This stood out to the manager as particularly unusual, as they are never turned off.

Conclusion

Putting it all into perspective, this actually seems like a very successful investigation. However, not all of the BOO BOYS were convinced by the aforementioned evidence. We like to vote on whether or not we believe a location is haunted, and here is a rough breakdown of our rating system (pending review)

0/5 votes - This would indicate that there is absolutely no doubt that a location is 100% ghost-free, and not at all haunted.

1/5 votes - This indicates that it is highly unlikely that a location is haunted, but certainly not guaranteed to not be haunted.

2/5 votes - This would indicate that a location could possibly be haunted, but we have insufficient evidence to support the claim thus forth—and we do not want to claim that the location is actually haunted.

3/5 votes - This indicates that it is likely that a location is haunted, though it is a very inactive spirit. This would likely be determined by orb sightings, EMF readings, REM-POD, motion balls, etc.

4/5 votes - This indicates that it is extremely likely that a location is haunted and would include supporting evidence in the form of EVPS, intelligent and clear Spirit Box responses, or any general interaction that seems to display intelligent responses, such as a spirit making a REM-POD sound off directly after requested to do so.

5/5 votes - This indicates absolute undeniability by our team that the location is haunted. The only thing that would warrant this is the capture of full-bodied apparitions on camera or poltergeist activity.

With the guidelines set, let's take a look at everyone's vote:

Jerrod votes...

Not Haunted

Edgar votes...

Haunted

Christopher votes...

Not Haunted

Ron votes...

Haunted

And for our final deciding vote, Adela who has been very much on the fence during this entire investigation has decided to vote...

HAUNTED

This makes 3/5 votes in favor of the location being haunted, making our final determination that PINZ is haunted, but the activity seems minimal—the haunting appears to be somewhat inactive. That being said, the majority has ruled it as haunted, and with the evidence that we have collected, I would say that's a pretty fair assessment. I hope you enjoyed this read, and I'd like to give a very special thank you to PINZ for allowing us the opportunity to investigate. They were awesome hosts, so go show them some love and go bowling this weekend!

-Ron :)