Seeking Beyond Paranormal

Old South Pittsburg Hospital
Paranormal Research Center

November 1-2, 2024 | 6pm — 4am

The Claims | Equipment and Setup | The Investigation | Our Results

History

by Olivia LaRose

So far on our wesbtie, we’ve exhibited plenty of paranormal activity, ranging from famously haunted locations, to community churches, to private homes. For this adventure, we left the comfort of our beds and our favorite paranormal YouTube channels to investigate a hospital that is known to be one of the most haunted locations in the entire state of Tennessee.

The Old South Pittsburg Municipal Hospital in South Pittsburg, Tennessee, is an absolute sight to see, standing out starkly from the surrounding homes and architecture. The hospital consists of three primary floors and a basement. It originally opened in 1959 by four local South Pittsburg doctors as a general hospital, making it a relatively newer building to experience paranormal activity here in present-day.

The property is no stranger to rich history, though. The building sits on top of a naturally occurring spring that flows directly into the Tennessee River. The region immediately surrounding the spring held artifacts of thriving Native American agriculture, and later became a major source of minerals and limestone in the region, directly influencing the US railroad expansion into the Chattanooga area.

The building — seemingly rather large — contained many small wards. There was a section for doctors with routine appointments, there was a single room used for labor and delivery right across from a small handful of operation rooms that made up the surgery ward, and the emergency room was a single room with two beds. As the town of South Pittsburg grew, the hospital expanded to meet the demand for more beds and increased capabilities.

Throughout the hospital’s operation, there have been many patients who entered the building and never left. Many patients passed away in the hospital from long-term illnesses such as cancer, complications from various medical and surgical procedures, and more tragic events like injuries from freak accidents.

The hospital eventually closed in 1998, and South Pittsburg residents were redirected to the newer (and larger) Chattanooga hospital. There are some reports and old case files regarding civil suits against SPMH for medical malpractice and wrongful death, but there seems to be no indication or connection between these cases and the hospital closing.

The Claims

Claims surrounding this hospital run the gamut of paranormal activity. Some of the more typical claims include seeing full body apparitions and shadow figures (both directly and in corners of rooms), feelings of unease in specific areas, cold spots, and sounds of footsteps. There are also reports through the hospital volunteers and other paranormal investigators of medical carts, wheelchairs, IV holders, and even hospital beds moving on their own.

Reported directly from the OSPHPRC’s official website are claims of a seven-foot tall shadow figure pacing the halls of the third floor of the building, specifically in the surgery ward. Reports seem to indicate that this figure might have been a surgeon checking on patients or preparing for operations.

Directly related are more claims of spirits on the third floor communicating with the living. While the methods of communication (i.e. EVPs, Estes Method, various yes/no methodologies, etc.) are not specified, the claims state that the assumed surgeon does not want the other spirits interacting with the living.

Further mentioned on the website is a plethora of claims of activity on the hospital’s second floor. There are reports of multiple spirits all over the floor. Some spirits are presumed to be nurses making rounds on their assigned floor, one is supposedly an elderly woman who is friendly to paranormal investigators, and a small toddler who tries to play with visitors during investigations.

While the OSPHPRC’s website offers more information about a few claims of activity in the abandoned hospital, I had the opportunity to join the team and listen to some of the claims first-hand from the volunteers (my first paranormal investigation since joining the team, yay me!!). That night, there were two volunteers that stayed in the building throughout our stay and gave us a tour of the hospital before our investigation formally began. According to the volunteers, the hospital has significantly more activity than the website claims.

On the first floor, there is a major section where the hospital’s groundskeeper lived for many years, even maintaining the property after the hospital officially closed. He passed on the property, and you can supposedly find him around the property or in his former living area playing music.

Also on the first floor is the cafeteria. There are reports of certain smells and sounds coming from the kitchen, and the dining area has reports of activity as well. Specifically, there are claims of a young child spirit named Logan who stays in the dining area. Reports say that Logan always thinks it is his birthday and will openly communicate with the living if they tell him happy birthday.

On the second floor, there are a number of spirits roaming the halls that were mentioned throughout the tour. At the nurses’ desk, there are claims of a nurse named Betty who makes rounds to different hospital rooms and will stay at her desk. Down the hall in the ICU area, there are further reports of nurses in the area, supposedly checking on patients.

In the biohazard lab testing room is a spirit who many claim to have been a former doctor. Reports about this location say the spirit plays a lot of “pranks” on investigators in the area, and the spirit was dubbed the Trickster for these lighthearted and harmless scares.

On the third floor, there are claims of high levels of activity in the surgery and delivery wards, presumably because there is a lot of energy with new life and death in the area. Some claims indicate that there are surgeons in the area who may rudely push investigators out of the way due to crossing the line of contamination for surgical readiness.

There are also reports of an elderly woman patient on the third floor named Nellie. Nellie is claimed to particularly be kind around men, although she will be nice to women as well. She doesn’t like her door being closed, but it’s unclear what activity that garners.

Finally, in the emergency room, there are claims of a toddler spirit named Buddy. Some sources indicate that Buddy passed from a tragic accident in the ER, and now stays in the area and plays with investigators. He is estimated to be about 2 or 3 years old, and some sources suggest to bring toys on an investigation for him to show activity.

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Equipment and Setup

This investigation coincided with David's 40th birthday, and as part of the planning for this event, we invited Jessica's sister Sherrie out to join us on the investigation. Sherrie has been mentioned elsewhere on this website, and she's the head honcho for her team in Kansas, the Wichita Paranormal Research Society (WPRS). If you're familiar with the show Ghost Hunters and the TAPS team, WPRS is a TAPS Family member group, so bringing in that level of investigative expertise was really special. Additionally, we asked Sherrie if any of her WPRS teammates wanted to come along, and she brought her teammate and close friend Lu Ann. Furthermore, this was our historian Olivia's first ever investigation! So in total, we came with five investigators.

After the tour, our guides showed us a room on the second floor that we could use as our base camp. We brought all of our equipment with us, but given the size of the hospital, we opted for a relatively lightweight mobile setup. For this investigation, we focused on audio and visual equipment that was easy to carry - voice recorders from both Seeking Beyond and WPRS (three recorders in total), our SB7 spirit box for conducting Estes Method sessions, multiple REM Pods (including a Mel Meter and EDI from WPRS), catball toys, and WPRS' FLIR thermal imaging and active listening hardware. Whew.

At each investigative site, we set out the REM Pods and catballs in the known activity areas, such as a countertops, beds, and spots where medical equipment once sat. Then while Lu Ann monitored the FLIR and her active listening equipment, we set about doing various voice recorder sessions (in hopes of capturing EVPs) and Estes Method sessions.

We did come into this investigation with one major methodological approach — we used David's birthday as a potential trigger to hopefully raise some energy and draw out activity. While celebrating birthdays generally isn't something you associate with hospitals (let alone, those in which patients died and still reside), we figured its in our human nature to get excited for birthdays, especially knowing there were child spirits out and about. And to really push it over the top, we even brough cupcakes to make the celebration/investigation all the more official.

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The Investigation

Our methodology was largely the same as prior investigations — utilizing numerous Estes Method sessions and voice recorder sessions and employing the use of REM Pods and catballs. However, with the addition of our two WPRS guests, we also had FLIR thermal imaging and active listening at our disposal, which greatly increased our capabilities on this investigation.

Additionally, because our team grew from two to five members this time around, we opted to break up our investigation into multiple phases. The initial phase saw all of us investigating together in Nurse Betty's work area, the main second floor hallway aka Shadow Hallway), and the cafeteria. The second phase involved splitting the team into two groups to cover more ground, and to make the investigation more focused. During this second phase, David and Sherrie paired up to tackle Nellie's room and the labor and birthing room on the third floor while Jessica, Olivia, and Lu Ann investigated the caretaker's suite on the first floor. The third phase of the investigation had David and Jessica swap teams — Jessica and Sherrie returned to the caretaker's suite while David, Olivia, and Lu Ann investigated Buddy's room, and the Biohazard area.

Like our investigation of Pauly Jail, we filmed a majority of this investigation. However, there was seemingly conflicting information on what we could post until we clarified with the tour guides, so there wasn't much planning on this for story-telling. Additionally, there was no way to really plan out the investigation ahead of time, and because we split the team during the investigation, our filming equipment was split up as well. As such, our filming capabilities really met their limits this time around, but we still managed to piece together the video below in lieu of our usual investigative writeup. With all that being said, we present our investigation of the Old South Pittsburg Hospital — Enjoy!

While Sherrie and Lu Ann joined in as investigators in their own right, they also provided opportunities for us to learn from seasoned investigators. We're seven investigations in at this point, but they brought years of experience to this one and peppered in knowledge and lessons along the way. It was an incredible experience getting to investigate with them. As for Olivia, she jumped right in and had a natural knack for asking questions. Her continued readiness to learn is absolutely inspiring, and we look forward to watching her grow as our historian and fellow investigator.

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Our Results

As mentioned in the video, this investigation occurred at the end of Halloween season (specifically the day after Halloween), during which the hospital hosted numerous haunted tours. And with October being a generally busy month for tour-goers and ghost hunters alike, it follows that any potential paranormal occupants would have been rather low on energy. That being said, we still managed to capture a fair amount of activity, even if it was just crumbs by comparison. But if this is just the crumbs, we're definitely excited to return at a far less busy time of year to see what kind of activity lies in wait for us.

We'd like to thank the Old South Pittsburg Hospital Paranormal Research Center for hosting these private investigations. Keeping these facilities maintained and open makes for such unique and interesting experiences for the community to enjoy, and teams like us would never be able to investigate these places without your continued efforts. And on a more personal note, I'd like to thank my sister-in-law Sherrie and her teammate Lu Ann for making the drive from Kansas to come investigate with us. It really did make for one of the most special and memorable birthdays I've had in years, and I'm glad we have something so very intesting to bond over. And getting to investigate with TAPS Family members made the investigation all the more special as well!

by David Reimer, posted December 1, 2024

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Who We Are

Seeking Beyond Paranormal is a team of paranormal investigators based in Huntsville, Alabama. First started as a fun way to visit some of the country’s most haunted locations, Seeking Beyond now explores the realm of paranormal investigation.

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