The first seemingly unexplained disturbance took place just before 6 p.m. April 14. The store's security camera captures an amorphous shadow at the restaurant's dishwashing station that slowly forms into what looks like a person and drifts off screen. The video shows the feet of a Maid-Rite employee at the edge of the frame, but the employee told (restaurant owner Pat) Orr she saw nothing unusual.So Pat Orr reached out to a team of experts to help figure out what's happening at her restaurant. She contacted a local group of paranormal researchers called Iowa City Ghost Hunters and they are now investigating the restaurant.
"It looks like it's coming out (from underneath the cooler), goes across the floor and up over the dishwasher," Orr said. "But, you see, I can't make a shadow here. I don't know. I don't know what it is."
Orr acknowledged the figure could have been an insect on the camera lens.
Then, at about 10 a.m. April 19, another security camera shows a stack of Styrofoam cups sliding off a shelf and hitting a worker in the head, while another stack falls sideways as if it was pushed.
Another night, Orr was alone in the office doing paperwork when he heard a metal spatula fall to the ground, he said. "It was on the cooler at the end of kitchen, and I found it on the floor in the middle of the kitchen in front of the fryer," as if it had been flung across the room, Orr said.
According to the Iowa City Press-Citizen, the paranormal investigators have been researching the history of the property to determine what kinds of businesses have operated there. It's worth noting that neighboring lots once featured a funeral home and an ambulance garage. The Iowa City Ghost Hunter has also been at the restaurant and trying to provoke and communicate with the dead.
Unfortunately, they all signed a confidentiality agreement that prevents them from disclosing the results of this investigation.