Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum Part II

My paranormal tour of the asylum next took me through the auditorium. I immediately heard the sound of multiple basketballs bouncing. I interrupted Kaylie's prepared speech about the goings on in the room and told her this. She said "yes, in addition to this being an auditorium, this was a room where patients could come and play. There's a shuffleboard space against the wall, and they would also play basketball." Plenty of paranormal activity has happened in this room, including during the filming of the show "Expedition X." I personally recommend the episode where they investigate this building if you haven't seen it. Kaylie mentioned this and I recalled watching it. Really interesting stuff! She also told the story of how the local high school would host their senior prom in this room, while the building was still in operation as a hospital! Imagine attending your senior prom with a bunch of ghosts! While documented evidence of paranormal activity in this room had previously been recorded, I didn't sense any active ghosts in the room with us, so we moved on. 

Next came the wards for the criminally insane - both the men's and the women's wards had documented paranormal activity. As a note, there wasn't a ward I toured that hadn't had some documented evidence of ghost activity, though some spaces are historically more investigated than others. The residual energies from the men's ward were oozing down the stairs like thick syrup. I felt it as soon as Kaylie opened the door to the stairwell. As I stepped foot on the floor, I was given the impression of one of the patients here. He was a mustachioed man who had a penchant for strangulation. He murdered multiple women via this method - and at least one man. I got the feeling these murders happened sometime in the late 70's early 80's. I informed Kaylie of this - this man wasn't a ghost that made a regular appearance in this ward. His name began with the letter M. Something like Mike, Mark, or Matt. It wasn't completely clear to me. I mentioned this to Kaylie and let her know that they might want to ask him his name with a spirit box the next time they investigate. As we walked through the women's ward for the criminally insane, I got the distinct impression that there were a lot of patients who had schizophrenia. Unfortunately that is a mental illness that has a long history of institutionalized patients. It wasn't until the early 90's that safe medication was available for patients suffering from this condition. Kaylie said the nurses in this ward were encouraged to enter in twos, walking back to back to avoid an ambush and assault. Yikes. I hadn't realized until that moment that with a few exceptions (like the isolation rooms) while patients were in the institution and had their own rooms, they were free to wander the hallways during daytime hours. 

The 4th floor housed the wards for men and women who suffered from alcoholism. The men's ward is particularly active during paranormal investigations. Several resident ghosts like to engage with people. Daniel, who Kaylie called the 'trickster', made himself known to the two of us. As I was standing outside a room where I originally detected him, down the hall a door slammed shut. Kaylie said she had never heard or seen it be closed that hard before. Unfortunately I wasn't recording video when I walked back down the hall to capture the evidence, but as I did so, the door closed halfway. I did capture the door move again after Kaylie's prompt. You can see that in the video. 

We finished the walk through of the 4th floor wards and returned to the first floor. One of the wings on this floor had been faithfully restored to what it would have looked like back in the late 1800's early 1900's. This was the trustee's ward. Family members of trustees that needed to be institutionalized were held here. Kaylie showed me a photograph that captured a man standing at the end of the hallway. I was hoping to capture a photo of him but he didn't show up for me, but I could sense him hanging around. About halfway down the corridor I got chills and vertigo. The ghost who had been photographed stood in my path and I walked right through him! That's one way to make an appearance. Even though it's happened to me on more than one occasion, I'm not particularly fond of ghosts passing through me. This ghost was an orderly in the hospital and worked on one of the wings upstairs. When I asked him why he was hanging out down on this particular floor, he said "look how nice it is!" I tried to get his name. When I said the name "Jason," his response to me was "close enough."

The last ward I toured was Ward 4. I knew there had to be a source of the dark energy present on the grounds and in the building early on when Kaylie mentioned that there were many documented cases of doppelgangers. That's never good. Doppelgangers are not benign energies. They're very low frequency energies meant to entice fear and anxiety in people. Kaylie mentioned that none of the tour guides liked to enter Ward 4 alone. The vibe was definitely different here than anywhere else in the building. As we walked down the hall, Kaylie told me about the spirit of 'a little girl' who liked to hang out in the last room on the left at the end of the hallway. "I'm telling you right now, that's no little girl," I said to her. "Also, there's a demon hanging out in here somewhere. And a portal." Kaylie said all the staff knew that the spirit that dupes people into thinking it's a little girl was in fact something *not that*, but the staff were not allowed to say that to the public. Well, there's no fooling a medium. I finally found the location of the portal. It was on the right side of the hallway toward the end. It was large! It ran from the far side of that bench on the right in the image to nearly the end of where this picture stops. That explained all of the negative activity! I still also sensed the demon, but my protection pushed it into the last room on the right side. Unfortunately that's how we were exiting the building. I took a moment to reinforce my self protection and just said "welp. I'm going to pretend like it's not there." As I stepped into the room I felt it recoil against the corner. Thank my spirit team for that! 

My spirit team always has a purpose for guiding me to go to places. Generally speaking, they're not likely to send me somewhere just to be a tourist. The asylum was yet another example of a place I was meant to go. I'm always grateful any time I have the opportunity to help a ghost cross into the spirit world, and this was no exception. Once the tour concluded, I returned to the bench I used next to the museum to revisit the woman who presented herself to me. I had promised I would get the rest of her story. To my surprise, she was no longer there! The other ghosts in the room told me that she had left. Whether that meant she crossed (which is what I suspected) or just went to another location in the building is up for debate. I'd like to think that she just needed to have someone hear her story, and then she was satisfied to go. Sometimes it happens like that. I've witnessed a portal spontaneously open for a ghost to cross after they told me their story. It's likely that's what happened in this case.