Waverly Hills Sanatorium
September 23, 2023 | Midnight to 6:00am
Waverly Hills Sanatorium is one of those locations that is an absolute mecca for the paranormal community. It's known to be one of the most haunted buildings in the country, and for good reason. The estimates range quite dramatically, but the number of deaths generally believed to have occurred here during its operation are between 6,000 and 63,000 people. Some historians even estimate it could be upwards of around 120,000 deaths due to records issues.
Even at that lowest estimate, 6,000 deaths is still a staggering number
of people to have died in any given location. So from the perspective of the paranormal,
that's a lot of potential for activity. And this is where our first ever
ghost hunt took place.
The current owners of the facility offer a range of tour types - from daytime historic tours, to evening flashlight tours, all the way up through private investigations if your team is brave enough to tackle all 180,000 square-feet of it on your own. I caught an excellent deal for a 6-hour public investigation on a random weekend in September and had to spring for it. The event would entail 6 hours of free-roam style investigation, beginning with a quick group tour for locational awareness, and then you are turned loose to do as you please (within the context of the event rules, of course).
As mentioned above, the tour was really just for your locational awareness around the facility. Starting at midnight, the guides took us to all the hot spots known for paranormal activity and gave us a brief rundown of what happened in each area, who is known to have died in (or currently occupy) each spot, and what kind of activity that spot is known for. While we did get brief historical notes between each hot spot, the guides kept it focused on the paranormal aspect since the event was a group investigation. For as large as the facility is, and for how much walking we did, the initial tour lasted only about 30 minutes total.
Then they turned us loose. The whole group that night was about 35-37 people. Having never done anything like this before, we didn't know what to expect. And being introverts, our worry was that it was going to be a loud, obnoxious affair with rowdy people ruining the mood. However, I say this without exaggerating: 37 people spread out across that huge of a building meant the two of us were practically alone. We did come across other small groups on occasion as we traveled to and from different hot spots, but for the most part we were on our own, doing our own thing.
The nurse station on the second floor is reported to be one of the hot spots for activity, so I wanted us to start there. The equipment we had with us included a REM Pod, K-II EMF detector, a pair of flashlights, some light-up cat toys ("cat balls"), and a voice recorder. We set up the REM Pod on the floor in front of the nurse station, and the flashlights and K-II on one of the window sills (the nurse station was enclosed in glass). Then it was time to break the ice — we addressed the space by introducing ourselves and explaining why we were there. Being first-timers, it did feel odd being alone in a space and effectively talking to nothing, but after showing how the twist-on, twist-off style flashlights worked, I asked if anyone could make their presence known to us, and one of the flashlights turned on immediately. Either that flashlight was going haywire, or we were not alone.
I went in already being a believer. I've had my fair share of unexplainable occurrences before
this event to be pulled out the skeptic camp. But in the moment, when you're intentionally setting
out to interact with the paranormal world, it's still rather astonishing to see that flashlight
turn on. We all want the fancy, expensive ghost hunting equipment to go off, but the flashlight
is special to me: it's just a flashlight. A lightbulb, some copper, and a battery.
Whether there's physical interaction occurring (twisting the top to turn it on/off), or some kind
of energy work is involved in completing the circuit, there's very little left on the table for
an explanation. Sure, you can start thinking about other possible explanations — pressure changes,
temperature changes, and so on, and those would all be 100% valid. But when it starts responding
to questions in an on=yes, off=no conversation style, you realize a story is being told
that is beyond explanation.
By this time, we were joined by another couple. They saw us from a distance interrogating our flashlights and asked if they could piggy back, and we welcomed their company. We included them on the questions, and it was very nice having a few more sets of eyes to watch out for things. The questions we continued to ask suggested that we were speaking to a male doctor, and he was possibly going through his rounds. He answered that he was happy, he got to visit his family, and he did not die onsite. He also indicated that we may have been interrupting his work, so we cut the conversation there. These answers seemed to indicate that we were possibly experiencing a mix between residual and intelligent activity. Unfortunately, no other devices went off to corroborate the activity we were getting out of the flashlights, but the activity we got out of the flashlights was incredible and immediately made the whole trip worth it. At one point during our questioning, we saw the ceiling inside the nurse station light up with a faint green glow. We thought maybe another team left a piece of equipment behind, or there was some bit of powered hardware in the room with an LED on it, but we investigated the room and found nothing to be the source of the light. The room was also far enough in the interior of the building that no one could shine a light from the parking lot outside and hit that ceiling.
For our next hot spot, we wanted to see if we could visit William. William is
reported to be the spirit of a homeless gentleman that made a deal with the building owners to
shelter in the building for the winter some time after it shut down operations as a TB hospital.
It is said that he met a particularly heinous end, having been beaten to death with a hammer and
left at the bottom of one of the elevator shafts. We found the elevator and set up our flashlights
again, one on top of a trash can near the elevator door, and one in the hallway entrance to the
room he sheltered in. We got responses to our questions (via flashlight again), but it didn't
seem like we were talking to William. Instead, the answers we received seemed to suggest we were
talking to a young child, possibly a little boy. The spirits of children are
known to roam the facility, so it certainly was plausible that was the case here. At that point,
we introduced some cat balls to the area, setting one on top of the trash can next to the flashlight.
We tried to get the spirit to interact with the cat ball, but to no avail. The flashlight kept
turning on, possibly suggesting the two items were too close to each other, or that the spirit was
just otherwise more interested in the flashlight. Regardless, we were surprised by some additional
activity in the form of some light tapping on the trash can. The trash can was
one of those small aluminum cans, so the tapping sound was very distinct.
We continued in this manner in several other locations (like the infamous "Body Chute"),
really only getting more flashlight activity. Something I've gleaned from other investigators is that if
a location is known to be haunted, but none of your fancy ghost hunting equipment is going off, it's
possible that the spirits just don't know what the equipment is, and/or are hesitent to interact with
anything unfamiliar to them. Which is absolutely fair — beyond the flashlights, nothing we had
existed until 40-50 years after the TB hospital shut down. Additionally, especially in this case,
context might provide other clues. Our equipment might have been reminiscent of medical equipment,
which might have been a negatively triggering factor.
However, this isn't to say we were bored of the flashlight activity. Hardly so! We wrapped up the investigation with two of the most interesting interactions of the night. The first of which was the 4th floor surgery suite. We initially began our flashlight conversation in the surgery room itself, but only got a few rather strained interactions. Another active spot, the recovery ward, was right across the hallway, so we decided to split up into pairs to see if we could get any kind of activity coming and going between surgery and recovery. And it turns out, that was the ticket! Restarting the questioning from our two spots, we got an incredibly intelligent response to a complex question I asked regarding activating a particular flashlight. And then both flashlights started going crazy. We experienced both flashlights rapidly turning on and off for several minutes. We continued to ask questions, and the flurry of activity would slow to allow for an occassional answer, but would quickly go back to the rapid on/off activity. We believe, like at the nurse station, we were experiencing a mix between residual and intelligent activity simultaneously.
The second of the two most interesting interactions of the night occurred on our last stop, the
children's ward on the 5th floor. As before, it was more flashlight interactions,
and this time around the responses we got suggested we were talking to a young child,
younger than before. We even found we had to alter our language to get more activity.
The more child-like our language got, the stronger the interactions we got. For example, a 3-year old
child might not know what a "flashlight" is, but they might know what a "toy" is. Additionally, the
interaction with the flashlight itself was notably different in the children's ward. In other areas
of the facility, the on/off action was a lot stronger, more forceful. By comparison, in the children's
ward it was a lot more labored, as if it was physically difficult to turn. Certainly, all manner of
explanations could account for that difference — rubber gaskets loosening, different friction on the
resting surface, etc. But the location, the moment, and the context of the whole night tell a more
heart-wrenching story: a tiny child, made weak from tuberculosis having difficulty playing with the
toy we brought them. During our questioning, we set the K-II next to the flashlight, hoping to get
some kind of activity (thinking "new toy!"), but didn't get anything on it. Until we did.
It was coming up on 6am, the end of the event, and we had to pack up and get out of Dodge. We were
saying that it was time for us to leave and that we needed to collect our stuff, and as I reached
for the K-II, the LED indicator spiked up into the yellow. In the moment, it felt like the child
had a little panicked burst of energy as if to say "No! Don't go!" It was truly an emotional end
to such an incredible and eye-opening experience.
As we were leaving, we found that we were actually one of the last small groups there. Apparently most people opted to leave earlier in the night during one of the designated exit times, meaning that for the last 2 hours of the night, we were one of possibly two or three groups in the building (staff aside). Doing this event at Waverly Hills Sanatorium was an incredible experience. On paper, we were part of a "group event" with 35 other people. But the reality of the night was that for our first time ghost hunting, we were a group of four fledgeling investigators roaming around one of the most haunted buildings on the planet, practically alone. It couldn't have been a better first time experience in my opinion. Well worth the road trip, the shady motel, and the wrecked sleep schedule.
This is the first entry to our series of investigation writeups. This one is rather wordy, but I'm a
bit of a story teller. In my writing, I try to be as articulate and accurate as possible, often to a
fault — I'm sure there's lots I can work on for next time. I already know I wrote more about our
interpretations than our objective findings, and that may throw off
some readers. As we do more investigations, our writeup style will certainly change. We'll add more
photos, possibly whole galleries, and hopefully some videos as well. Behind the scenes, we are looking
at starting up a YouTube channel, if only for hosting the videos that we'll share here.
So be on the lookout for changes in future writeups!
by David Reimer, posted January 9, 2024