This was originally conceived to be a single note. As I started to write it I began to realize if I tried to condense it too much then I was certain to leave out some details and truthfully it's became sort of a writing exercise for me. Furthermore, as I started reviewing the evidence last night I encountered some "noteworthy" (get it) items. So ... to make this easy, in the event you're not interested in certain parts, or any of it for that matter, I have titled each section so you can skip along as you wish.
Enjoy!
Why the Asylum...?
As someone who almost certainly would not, under any circumstance, pursue anything even remotely paranormal I would have to classify this adventure as a somewhat cathartic experience. Facing one's fears has to be one of the most common primal urges that plague us throughout our lives; especially for me. Having been traumatized at a young age by my older brother (whom I love dearly by the way, but was maybe just a bit misguided in his youth) who locked me in dark rooms for long periods of time, dangled me off the roof of a two story home by my ankles, and just generally terrorized me for a number of years, I have dealt with various fears associated with the dark, heights, and the paranormal.
Time has a way of healing many wounds, and with age we tend to deal with childish things in a more adult manner, but no matter how deeply we try to bury those fears that shaped us growing up we never truly overcome those we do not face.
Even until recently it was not uncommon for a program like Ghost Hunters to sometimes evoke an "uneasy" feeling for me while watching under certain circumstances. That fact not withstanding I was still intrigued by the idea of pursuing a paranormal experience.
When I discovered that TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society) regularly conducted fan investigations across the country I began to watch the schedule of upcoming events until I found a location that was near enough to attend..., thus the trip to the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.
Preparing for the hunt...
First of all, it is important to have an understanding of the sheer enormity of this structure. Without actually being there it is difficult to grasp. With 242,000 square feet (5-1/2 acres) under roof, the four-story main hospital building is the oldest, and largest hand-cut stone masonry building in the United States, and second only to the Kremlin in the world.
The entrance of the main building also houses a fifth floor with a huge looming clock tower above it that's spire reaches a height of 200 feet to the tip. Built in an architectural style known as the Kirkbride plan, the building branches out several hundred feet to the east and west of the main entrance into two long rambling wings, or wards (4 total) arranged in a receding staggered formation. At each end of the last wing of the first floor there is yet another long single story wing, each with three separate wings of its own extending perpendicular to it; all in all creating a huge expanse to explore.
After checking in at the Asylum with my daughter, Tabitha, a meet and greet with the TAPS celebrities (Steve Gonsalves, Dave Tango, and Amy Bruni), a presentation by Amy on the origin of ghost hunting in general, and a Q&A session with Steve and Tango, our group, one of five, was paired with Steve to lead us into our first investigation.
Enter the Asylum...
Having no idea how this was going to play out our group of 22 followed Steve and the Trans-Allegheny guides to the back entrance to the first floor common area. Since the east wings were designated for administrative and event organization only the west wing of the first floor was open to us for investigation. Upon entering the first ward we were given a description of the basic floor layout, a brief history of the paranormal activity, a few tips on investigation methods, and much to my surprise, released with an hour of unfettered access to the entire wing to conduct our own investigation.
Try to imagine being placed into a corridor several hundred feet long only dimly lit by the eerie red glow of exit signs, roughly 16 to 18 feet wide, with numerous doors on either side leading into rooms that ranged from the size of a small bathroom to that of a large meeting room. Some of these rooms were completely void of light, while others were bathed in the soft glow of the waning moon as it shown through the windows.
It took Tabitha and me a few minutes to fully embrace the situation at hand before we ventured off into the darkness to begin our search for the paranormal. Our tools for this undertaking consisted of an HD digital camcorder set for low light with an external infrared light source, a digital recorder, and a small flashlight with separate white, red, and blue light sources.
As a group we had been asked to try and avoid the use of flashlights as much as possible; especially around other investigators so as not to interfere with, or diminish their experience. For the most part people did their very best to comply with that request with only occasional splashes of light filling the corridor to illuminate their path.
Tabitha and I quickly discovered that the presence of ambient light wasn't nearly enough for the night setting on my camcorder to work properly, and the vast openness of the wards was too great for my external infrared light source to sufficiently fill.
Basically ... we were recording darkness.
Luckily for us the use of red and blue lights was acceptable since the light was very concentrated, and not apt to interfere with other investigators. That is unless we, or they, happened into each other's immediate area.
The first floor was pretty much trial and error for the first forty minutes or so. We found ourselves fumbling in the dark for power buttons on the equipment, and trying our best not to tread on an area that had all ready been staked out and was in use by another group. By the time we had started to make progress in these areas we had made our way as far into the furthest west ward as we possibly could.
Time had dwindled quickly on our first floor investigation at this point so we decided to make our way back toward the first ward where we had originally entered. As we moved through what is referred to as "The Civil War Area" (the long single story wing furthest west of the main entrance) Tabitha stopped abruptly and asked me to shine the light at her feet. In this wide open room, supported by columns spaced roughly 25 feet in each direction, she had been struck in the shin, about half way between her ankle and knee, by something. Lying at her foot we discovered a piece of broken tile roughly the size of a quarter. As far as we could tell this was the only thing close enough to her that could have struck her, and there was no one in the immediate vicinity that could have thrown it. We could find no cause, or explanation for how this chunk of tile could have struck her the way, and where it did.
It's important to note this building was constructed between the years 1858 to 1881, and was a working hospital until 1994. It was closed because of the state of disrepair at that time, and has since fallen into an even greater state of deterioration. With that in mind the building is strewn with pieces of broken tile, peeling paint from walls and ceilings, as well as various other small pieces of debris.
Having left The Civil War Area feeling somewhat invigorated by the possibility that something otherworldly had interacted with us we passed through the second ward and into the first intent on visiting Lilly's room.
Lilly, we had been told during the highlights of the first floor activity, was a child patient who had lived on the first floor. The purported activity associated with Lilly included full body apparitions, interaction through toys and flashlights, and disembodied or electronic voice capture.
We waited patiently until the group in her room had finished and then entered to start our own investigation. At this point we had just a few minutes until it was time to meet up with the rest of the group and proceed to the second floor. Tabitha and I quickly arranged the toys that were in the room (two rubber balls of different sizes, and a balloon) on a chair positioned against the opposite side wall. Then we trained the camcorder on the chair, and started the digital recorder for an EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) session.
If you've ever watched the show you know there are some basic questions, and or requests that the investigators always ask. We followed that same pattern asking questions like; is there is anyone here? Can you tell us your name? Can you move one of the balls, or the balloon for us? Feel free to touch Tabitha...that sort of thing. After a few minutes, and no visual, or audible responses time eventually ran out and we had to hurry to rejoin rest of the group.
As far as visually, to the naked eye, we didn't see anything, nor did we hear anything audible at that time. Notice...I said at "that time".
First Floor Evidence...
I have yet to review the visual evidence, but I don't really expect it to yield any results on the first floor simply because up until we entered Lilly's room we were still figuring things out with the video. But upon listening to the digital recorder, the forth EVP … Lilly's room, there are three very distinct childlike voices directly following a question. The first two responses are indistinct at this point, and will require additional analysis, but the third is a clear succinct answer to a direct question.
Next, The Second Floor...
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