Golden Ghost: The Goldfield Hotel

There is a hotel in the Nevada desert that has stood guest-less for over 60 years, looming over the once prosperous and bustling boom-town of Goldfield. Aptly named the Goldfield Hotel, this stone and brick behemoth of the desert happens to be very haunted.

It was built on the site where two previous incarnations had burned to the ground. Phoenix rising from the dust in gleaming granite and brick glory during a gold-fueled, wild-west heyday. But no sooner than the hotel was built did the gold start to dry up and the town begin to die. And the once-lavish hotel began to fade away. Still, despite a series of fires and floods that have ravaged the town over time, the Goldfield Hotel remains, a little rough around the edges, but virtually unscathed after all these years. The strong, silent type with a mysterious past.

Many ghosts are said to haunt the Goldfield, including a young woman named Elizabeth, who, as the story goes, was a prostitute that became pregnant with the hotel owner’s child. Rumor has it that she was chained to a radiator in Room 109 and left for dead, and her baby thrown down the mine shaft that runs underneath the hotel. But Elizabeth is only one of many spirits suspected to roam the long, dark hallways of this stone oasis of sorts. In fact, the hotel is claimed by psychics to be one of 7 portals to the other side. In addition, its haunted reputation has been fueled by TV and film coverage from shows like FOX’s “Scariest Places on Earth” and the “Ghost Adventures” documentary and series.

To enter the Goldfield Hotel is to be swallowed up by a living, breathing entity. Gulp. Smack. And there you are, in the belly of the beast. Inside, the air is thick with ancient dust, creating an otherworldly lens through which the outside world disappears. An initial calm gives way almost immediately to an uneasy certainty that you are being watched by a host of unidentified eyes. Eyes that have known this place for a very, very long time. And you know that not only are they watching you, but they knew you were coming. The quiet air of the lobby is filled with an awkward politeness. You feel welcome, but you can’t escape the undercurrent of unease. Inside the Goldfield Hotel, the feeling persists that the very fabric of reality could simply unravel at any moment.

Inside the Goldfield, we experienced events not quite like any we had experienced before. The level of activity and the seeming intelligence of it not only stunned us but at times, frightened us. There were moments during our investigation where we investigators knew that we were not the ones in control, and the feeling was terrifying.

Sitting on the 4th floor at the T-junction of two hallways while footsteps approached from both the front and the sides. Getting ready to roll a rubber ball down the hall and having pebbles thrown and rolled at us instead. In fact we had pebbles thrown on 2 separate floors. Growls. Growls? Yes, audible growling sounds. Intelligent growling sounds no less. Audible direct responses to questioning. Sounds of objects moving around us, with no visible or physical explanation. Many times it felt as though something was toying with us. Not knowing who or what that something was, was unsettling to say the least. Bangs, crashes, creaking, groaning, shuffling, mysterious lights, K-2 hits, disembodied voices, music, laughter and shadows. This was one very active location.

While some of what we experienced will have to be filed in the “personal experiences” category, we were able to capture a surprising amount of evidence (not all of which will fit in this one post, so stay tuned for more), and we invite you to judge for yourselves, beginning with the following 6 audio clips.

For those of us who were there, there is no question as to whether the Goldfield Hotel is haunted, but what we are left wondering is, by how many, who and why?

-LMH

***Note*** You will want to listen to the following EVP’s with headphones on and volume up.

EVP 1 – Step Out Into the Corridor

There were 3 of us in the hotel, and we were standing together in the basement at the t-junction of 2 hallways. We were calling down the hallway because we were hearing odd noises from down there – growls, bangs, movement, voices… it had been raining, so you can also hear dripping. In this clip, Brian asks whoever or whatever was communicating with us to step out into the corridor and we hear a voice that sounds a bit like a whispery growl say “yeah” in response.

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EVP 2 – Hello?

Same corridor, again with the 3 of us standing together and calling down to something that seemed to be communicating with us. Layla says “hello?” and a couple of seconds later, what sounds like a male disembodied voice says “hello?” back.

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EVP 3 – Laughter / Teasing

This was captured in between the lobby and the dining room. Disembodied laughter and then childlike teasing noises underneath Brian’s voice. This was not audible to us at the time it occurred, but appeared on our recorded audio.

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EVP 4 – Unexplained Movement in the Basement

The 3 of us were in a room in the basement near the old elevator shaft, and we caught these unexplainable shuffling noises from within the room.

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EVP 5 – Are You One of the Miners?

Another clip from the basement, after the rains. Here, Grant asks “Are you one of the miners that was wrongfully cheated out of your money?” The response is an almost electronic sounding ‘yes’ that was not audible at the time.

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EVP 6 – I’m Not Understanding You

This was taken in the lobby. The response, which was not heard by us at the time, sounds to us like a disembodied male voice saying “yeah you are.”

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Stay tuned for video from our Goldfield Investigation…

~~
*Note* We were honored to have the opportunity to investigate the Goldfield. Unfortunately, due to an increase in trespassing at the hotel, they are not currently open for tours or investigations. If the break-ins stop, they may re-open to tours in the future, but in the meantime, they are seriously cracking down on violators. For more information visit: thegoldfieldhotel.wordpress.com Please preserve this historic hotel and do not attempt to trespass!

Return to Alcatraz: A Night on The Rock

Los Angeles Paranormal Association returned to Alcatraz in mid-September to participate in an event that few have the opportunity to experience – an overnight investigation of the infamous former penitentiary. Yes, we spent the night on The Rock! Special thanks to Mark and Debby Constantino for allowing us to tag along, and also to the crew from Altered States Paranormal Radio (Dave Harvey, Kristin Ballman and Tom Durant). Thanks also to comic Mike Brody and to Terry Campbell of the Haunted Wolfe Manor for joining us during part of the investigation, which led to the capture of some really cool EVPs.

We began the evening with a comprehensive, behind-the-scenes tour of the island (graciously led by Ranger John and his accomplice, Ranger Roger), the highlight of which was being allowed access to the basement of the former Citadel — the oldest part of the prison (left over from ‘Fort Alcatraz’ days), and which includes the original and infamous ‘hole.’

Our official investigation later took us to various other parts of the prison, such as the isolation cells, the dining hall, the showers and the infirmary, along with the main cell blocks. It was cold, it was windy, and late in the evening it started thundering and lightning. It was intense.

It was during the storm, later in the evening in the infirmary area where we captured the following evps:

~~~

It was late, it was stormy, and there were 5 of us in our group, wandering the old infirmary hallways at Alcatraz. We had found our way into an infirmary room known as the ‘bug room,’ where mentally unstable and/or rowdy patients were kept. We were setting up and getting ready to do an EVP session, and Layla happened to have her recorder on, resting on top of a backpack. Here, you will hear the investigators talking in the background, but throughout the clip there is a loud, breathy, angry sounding, whispery voice or voices in the foreground. It’s difficult to make out everything with the various layers of sound, but we can hear a loud whispery voice say, from the beginning “op-en uuuup”, and then “out!” Then you hear investigator Mike Brody in the background saying ‘close the door’ and then Layla saying ‘yeah’ but with an angry whisper over the top of her voice. Finally a clipped, electronic-sounding, female whispery disembodied voice says “Get…out!” So the whole clip plays out like this: ‘Op-en uuuupp’ ‘Out!’ (‘close the door’ with whisper over it) (‘yeah’ with odd whisper over it) ‘Get…Out!’ You will likely have to listen several times in order to hear everything, but the disembodied voice/s seems to be talking over our background chatter throughout this entire clip.

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Later, as we walked through the infirmary hallway, Mike saw a shadow in the surgery room, so we went in and conducted an EVP session. During the session, Layla stated, ‘we know you’re here, Mike saw you,’ at which point we all audibly heard what can only be described as a loud, disembodied breath or breathy outburst. It sounded similar to the breathy voices we had captured in the bug room. Luckily, we were able to capture the strange sound on our audio. The recorded sound is less breathy but very obviously some type of outburst, and you can hear us immediately react to what we heard.

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The final clip was captured during a session in the dark room (x-ray developing room?) off of the hydrotherapy room. Robert Stroud, aka ‘the Birdman of Alcatraz’ had his own cell in the infirmary. During this EVP session, Mike had just finished asking, ‘Did you know the Birdman?’ at which point Terry asked, ‘What was he like?’ – the response sounds to us like “baaad…” *headphones required for this clip

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As with the first time we set foot on Alcatraz Island, we again set out on the ferry back to the mainland with a certainty that whatever grief, terror, pain, anger, loneliness and despair had been felt on this island many years ago – some piece of that energy remains behind, imprisoned forever on this rocky outcrop of land. We were fortunate to be going home – not everyone who’s been to Alcatraz had that chance.

*For further reading, check out Mike Brody’s account of the Alcatraz overnight at Ghostvillage.com

-LMH

Los Angeles Paranormal on Japanese TV!

LAPA made our ‘international television debut’ on August 16 when we appeared in a segment on the hit Japanese TV show “Sekai No Hate Made ItteQ.” The show name translates loosely to “Go To the Ends of the Earth,” and it is a variety show airing on Japan’s NTV network (Nippon Television). They send their roving reporters out to explore mysteries and have adventures in various corners of the world.

In this episode, they sent one of their correspondents, Japanese comedian, Daisuke Miyagawa, to the US to ride some scary rollercoasters – and to Los Angeles to visit a haunted hospital (Linda Vista) with us!

The crew were a great pleasure to work with and we had a lot of fun. We hope you get a kick out of it!

You can check it out on YouTube here: (our segment starts at 04:07)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkzM7zUvXjo&feature=player_embedded

*note: oddly enough, the scream that occurs during the intro to the hospital was not staged and was never explained…

The Ghost Ship Speaks: Star of India

The Star of India is a tremendously atmospheric ship with a long and storied past. Someone or something appears to remain behind, following visitors and apparently answering questions. But I am getting ahead of myself . . . a little history first:

“The Star of India is the world’s oldest active ship. She began her life on the stocks at Ramsey Shipyard in the Isle of Man in 1863. Iron ships were experiments of sorts then, with most vessels still being built of wood. Within five months of laying her keel, the ship was launched into her element. She bore the name Euterpe, after the Greek goddess of music.

Euterpe was a full-rigged ship and would remain so until 1901, when the Alaska Packers Association rigged her down to a barque, her present rig. She began her sailing life with two near-disastrous voyages to India. On her first trip she suffered a collision and a mutiny. On her second trip, a cyclone caught Euterpe in the Bay of Bengal, and with her topmasts cut away, she barely made port. Shortly afterward, her first captain died on board and was buried at sea.

After such a hard luck beginning, Euterpe settled down and made four more voyages to India as a cargo ship. In 1871 she was purchased by the Shaw Savill line of London and embarked on a quarter century of hauling emigrants to New Zealand, sometimes also touching Australia, California and Chile. She made 21 circumnavigations in this service, some of them lasting up to a year. It was rugged voyaging, with the little iron ship battling through terrific gales, “labouring and rolling in a most distressing manner,” according to her log.” (sdmaritime.com/contentpage.asp?contentID=48)

We were enthusiastic about investigating the Star of India, since she has such an amazing and tragic past. If ever spirits were to wander a place, this would be it. We didn’t have to wait long for the odd experiences to commence.

Layla and I started our investigation in the First Mate’s Cabin while Grant and Brian headed towards the lower decks. Seemingly out of nowhere, a puddle formed on the vinyl mat where the original bed was. This made no sense, considering that there was only one slow drip in the ceiling nowhere near the puddle. As quickly as the puddle formed, it disappeared. There was no logical source for it, and no reason for it to vanish. As we asked our questions, there were occasionally audible responses. This rattled my nerves, since it’s not often that you hear direct responses; but we were lucky enough to catch two on the clips below. I don’t know who or what was communicating with us, a source of frustration sometimes. This left us with the need to return and attempt to retrieve more information. All we know now is that the person responding was not the first mate. Who was he?

We quickly acclimated to the particular sounds of a ship: the creaking, the sea noises, and the night birds outside. I was surrounded by the musty, oily, salty smell of the ship and the ocean, and realized how sharp one’s senses become in the dark. Every place has its own scent, a peculiar mixture of organic growth and human industry, of must, paint, wood and vermin. The Star of India transported me to another reality, one where there was real danger in the everyday life and work of the ship. And then, of course, there is the question of which reality is operating when voices speak to you from the dark. The darkness on the lower decks is all-consuming and blacker in some areas than others, a fact not entirely explained by natural light sources. There is that thick, oppressive feeling that accompanies something strange, a sensation that is now familiar but no less frightening when it happens. It happened to us again on the deck below the Captain’s Quarters, below a staircase. There were footsteps above our head, so clear that we all heard them and had no doubt as to what we were hearing. Of course, there was no one upstairs. That fact never ceases to amaze me–how does this happen? How does any of this happen?

Around the time of the footsteps, I noticed that the area in front of me seemed alive with some kind of energy, and I instinctively moved forward (this is a change from the early days of ghost hunting, when I would have instinctively moved away). At that moment, I heard a slide and a tremendous crash. It was so startling, that I screamed for only the second time during an investigation. After I recovered from the shock, we quickly confirmed that we had all heard the same thing. It almost goes without saying that nothing was out of place, nothing had fallen, and that no known source of the crash could be identified.

We continued to have odd experiences on the ship that night. It seemed, once again, that something inanimate had come alive. Equally odd was how quickly the activity shut itself off–near the end of our stay there seemed to be a clear disappearance of paranormal activity: it stopped as quickly as it had started. I am always amazed how that works: you feel tremendous movement and energy all around you as you walk into a place, and then later, at some random point in the evening, it simply vanishes. Why?

The Star of India left us with at least two amazing audio clips and several personal experiences shared by the entire group. The haunted history of the ship matched our experience: the man who committed suicide in the First Mate’s Cabin may not have been the spirit communicating with us, but something was still in that room as other reports confirm. The footsteps on the lower deck match up to numerous reports from the same area. The crashes and other unexplained noises have a long history of scaring visitors.

We can’t confirm who might have spoken to us that night, but there was a clear attempt at communication. As for the crashes, bangs, raps and other odd noises, that might simply be the repetition of daily life at sea: cargo sliding around the deck, materials falling to the floor in rough seas, or even–perhaps–a permanent reminder and testament to the restless souls of the sailors who lost their lives on the Star of India, so many decades ago.

Kirsten A. Thorne

EVP Session – Star of India – First Mate’s Cabin

Los Angeles Paranormal Association recently had the privilege to investigate the world’s oldest active ship, the Star of India, formerly the Euterpe, which is moored at the Maritime Museum of San Diego. We experienced several odd occurrences during our investigation, including unexplained crashing and dragging sounds, mysterious footsteps, phantom doors creaking open, and audible disembodied voices.

Here, Kirsten and Layla were conducting an EVP session in the first mate’s cabin. Layla asked the question ‘are you the first mate?’, and we heard an audible response. At the time, we knew we had heard something odd, but we weren’t sure what we had heard – in fact we bantered back and forth about it being the other person’s stomach. Listening to the clip later, we heard what sounds to us like a male voice saying ‘no.’ **This clip is audible without headphones, but clearer with headphones.

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During the same session in the First Mate’s cabin, we noticed water dripping down from the ceiling. We were trying to identify the source of the dripping when we captured the following clip. Shortly after Kirsten says ‘but I can’t tell,’ listen for what sounds to us like a disembodied male voice.

**This clip requires headphones.

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Ghost Adventures!

Los Angeles Paranormal Association was fortunate to be asked to participate in an episode of the Ghost Adventures series, starring Zak Bagans, Nick Groff and Aaron Goodwin, and which airs on the Travel Channel. Kirsten and Layla were initially taking the guys on a tour of the location to describe our paranormal experiences from a prior investigation – but it turned into a real paranormal happening when we started hearing and experiencing some very wild things during an EVP session!! The show will air next season, which begins in October, so stay tuned for more on our amazing adventures and some TRULY AMAZING evidence…

Mission Inn, Riverside CA: Faces of the Past?

The Mission Inn in Riverside California is a magnificent Mission-Revival style hotel spanning an entire city block. The hotel began in 1876 as Christopher Columbus Miller’s family adobe and was built up over the years by Christopher’s son, Frank Miller. The hotel is on the National Registry of Historic Places, and is an architectural marvel, in addition to housing magnificent works of art from Frank Miller’s extensive collection. The Mission Inn also has a haunted reputation.

During a tour of the Mission Inn catacombs, Los Angeles Paranormal snapped this picture down a corridor. In examining the photos later, we noticed something unusual. Do you see a mysterious figure peering out from one of the alcoves on the right? There was no one in the corridor when this picture was taken. Could this be the ghost of the hotel’s eccentric original owner, Frank Miller? Or is it simply a trick of light and shadow? Mr Miller kept a vast collection of art and antique collectibles in the catacombs. He would often roam the hotel grounds and the corridors of the catacombs dressed as a Franciscan monk.

Frank Miller’s younger sister, Alice, lived at the hotel until her death in the 1940’s. It was Alice who commissioned the hotel’s famous Glockenspiel, but sadly did not live to see it’s completion. Her former room, now called Aunt Alice’s room, is reported to be one of the most haunted in the hotel. One hotel staff member we spoke to told us that staff have actually quit after having experiences in this room. Reports run the gamut from cold spots to being touched. Here is a photo of the glass door that Alice used as her front door. Interestingly, the top left pane has an unusual wearing or warping in the smoked glass that causes the effect seen below. Do you see the shape of a face in the window?

EVP – Camarillo State Hospital – Visitors (in two parts)

Part 1 –

Layla, Grant and Brian were alone in a large room at the end of one of the abandoned units. Just to give you some perspective, no one else was with us that night, and the building we were in is located in a very quiet, isolated part of the grounds. During an EVP session, Layla asked the question ‘do you like it when people come visit you?’ The three of us all heard an audible response, but couldn’t make out what the voice was saying – only that it sounded clearly like a female voice. While we were fortunate enough to capture it on our audio, we are still unable to make out what the voice is saying… the closest guess we have is something like ‘don’t need them too’. **You will need headphones for this clip…other sounds you may hear are the sound of sprinklers outside hitting a metal pipe, and the sound of water dripping. Even though it’s faint, this is a REALLY COOL evp! The voice occurs at about the :09 second mark. Crank up the volume and have a listen!!

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Part 2 –

LAPA returned to Camarillo State Hospital to the same unit a week later in order to see if we could elicit another response. It seems we did… here, Layla asks ‘do you like having visitors’ — after a long pause, we hear what sounds to us like pipes clanging – but carrying on the pipes, a voice saying ‘I’m ok.’ (around the :18sec mark)

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The Frustrations of a Ghost Hunter

Paranormal investigators face dilemmas, quandaries, and philosophical conundrums, but they also must expect tremendous frustration. We tend to forget how long it took for us to become comfortable with what, for many people, is odd or downright weird. My recent trip through the Gold Country and down the CA coast brought this issue to the forefront.

I suppose you could call it the ½ LAPA team: Ty and myself, plus investigator-in-training, The Phantom Menace (in case you can’t tell, this is not her real name). The goal was to stay in as many reputedly haunted hotels as we could. The first, Hotel Jeffrey in Coulterville, didn’t impress any of us as particularly ‘atmospheric’; in fact, we felt so comfortable there that it seemed like we were in an extension of home. Not so for the saloon; as soon as we walked in, there was an oppressive feel to it, a heavy gloom that was augmented by the locals’ dislike for strangers in town. Coulterville is no cute, touristy town filled with Wild West kitsch; it is hard baked under a relentless sun, the residents hiding out and keeping to themselves. The homes are not restored for the delight of yuppie travelers looking for an ‘authentic’ experience, but instead betray extreme economic hardship. Some of the homes appeared to be crumbling into the dust, eaten by the tentacles of blackberry vines. The cemetery was a study in tragedy: lambs adorned many of the headstones, indicating the death of a child. Women died in childbirth, men died in their 30s, and very few made it past 60.

The Phantom (referred to from now on as PM) tried to right a fallen cement vase, and in the process it fell on her pinky, badly bruising it. Earlier, Ty was convinced he saw someone walking up next to him when there was no one there. Before we left the Public Cemetery, Ty righted the vengeful cement vase, only to find it back on the ground the next morning. It all seemed somehow to fit with the general sentiment of Coulterville: leave us alone. I had a brief notion that we should buy the old Chinese General Store and retire there, but in retrospect that seems absurd. As fascinating as Coulterville was, it was never a place to call home. We moved on.

We wended our way through Mariposa, Sutter’s Mill, Placerville, Sonora, and countess other towns that used to be vibrant, rowdy, lawless places where overwhelming greed clashed with dream-shattering reality. At the National Hotel in Jamestown, (according to our tour guide, the ‘most haunted hotel in the country’) a bored and uninspired tour guide escorted us through the ex-bordello, explaining in a monotone who died where and how. It was clear that a haunted reputation kept business booming, and attracted the likes of TAPS for an investigation. Whatever might have lingered there was overshadowed by the economics of ghosts: they are good for business, so the truth of their presence is less important than the money the stories bring in.

We stayed at the (in) famous Hotel Leger in Mokelumne Hill the second night. This hotel is famous for its haunts, especially George’s Room, the owner who was murdered by his best friend over a fickle woman (there are, we discovered, many stories along this line). The saloon keep was happy to take us down to the basement where a series of tunnels had been built to help men escape their wives, since—you guessed it—the Hotel Leger was also a bordello. The hotel had actually undergone many such transformations: City Hall, Chamber of Commerce, saloon, hotel, theater, restaurant, house of ill-repute, etc. (not necessarily in that order). The stories might have been true or not; it’s almost impossible to differentiate fact from fiction when everyone has a tale to tell and history has undergone multiple interpretations based upon unreliable memories.

We conducted our first unofficial investigation that night in George’s Room and the haunted suites. All the rooms were open, which greatly aided our nocturnal meanderings. The frustration begins: when we played back our audio that night, there is a clear response to the “shave and a haircut . . .” raps. Two knocks respond to us: not once, but twice in a row!! We’re thrilled, thinking that we have great audio clips for the whole team to consider later. In addition, we heard very loud footsteps walking towards us while we’re in the room, so loud that we are thinking we need to vacate George’s room ASAP. Of course, no one is there; but we have it on audio! However, when I am listening to the clip on the computer, headphones on, ready to be blown away be George’s (or someone’s) response to my knocks and the loud footsteps, I hear . . . nothing. For some unimaginable reason, the clear responses and the footsteps have vanished from the audio clip. How can two people hear the same noises on the audio after sharing the same experience in the room, only to have it NOT BE THERE a few days later?

I don’t know. The frustration and mystery continue at a bed and breakfast in San Luis Obispo the last night of our stay. Notice I do not identify the Inn; that is part of the story. As we entered the bed and breakfast, our gracious hostess escorted us to our room, and then to five other rooms, since I wanted to see them all. At some point, I came out of the closet and told her that I was a member of a paranormal investigations team. Her response was almost wistful: “I wish we had a ghost here. I’m sure we must have something, this place is so old.” I assured her that we would check for paranormal activity later that night, since we had all of our equipment. Her demeanor changed, ever so slightly: “Just be sure that none of the guests see you.” This is, by now, a common theme: “I am fascinated by the paranormal, but I’m also embarrassed by it.” Or, it “freaks people out,” as I’ve heard on multiple occasions.

The modified investigation began around 10 PM or so, after most guests were tucked away in their rooms. The guest list indicated that there were only two parties in addition to us on the second floor, both towards the front of the old staircase. We wandered around taking EMF readings and pictures, recorders running. Nothing much happened until we went downstairs by the former owner/manager’s room, which according to our hostess is so creepy that the maid refuses to clean it. Indeed, that room was oppressive; I would not stay there. Around that hallway, the digital EMF meter started behaving erratically. It jumped up to as high as 3.6 from a baseline reading of zero. It wasn’t consistent; whatever was causing the spikes in the readings seemed to move with us and around us. We began asking questions; at one point, just when we were about to move on, P.M. says, “if there’s anyone here with us, we’d really like to hear from you,” and then the noises start. At first, it appears to be footsteps walking across a wood floor; then there are sounds of someone dragging furniture across a room. At the end of the recording, right before we run upstairs, it almost sounds like drumming fingers. We were so amazed by this that we head upstairs to find the source of it, only to realize that the rooms above us are not guest rooms, but supply closets. There are no noises upstairs, and upon returning to the downstairs hallway, there is complete silence. We have the odd noises on audio, I think, so we will astound all who hear it! Thus ends our investigation, and we are both very pleased, thinking that perhaps we have found a ghost for our hostess and her beautiful, old hotel.

Once we’re home, I send the clip to the other LAPA team members and to our hostess at the Inn. Opinions vary; some insist it’s the copper pipes in the walls and ceilings. Others have no idea, and find it intriguing. Our hostess, who was very interested in hearing the clip when I contact her by phone, informs me later that she played it for everyone at the hotel, and no one heard anything at all. Her tone is a mixture of disappointment and irritation. I have the fleeting impression that she thinks I tricked her, or worse yet, that she had been a victim of a nut case with an EMF meter. I tell her that audio clips tend to degrade in quality when they are sent out over email, and that she needs headphones, but she is not impressed. I don’t know what she really thought, but I do know that several days have passed, and she has not contacted me with her impressions of the audio, after promising to listen to it with headphones at home.

Am I reading too much in to her response, or lack thereof? Probably. As an investigator of the odd and mysterious, I want others to believe that what I hear, see, or experience is real: it’s the truth, because it comes from me. I am reliable, and I am objective. End of story . . . however, it’s not the end of the story, far from it. In reality, it’s just the beginning of the story, and that story never ends. The end of the story is absolute proof that everyone can accept. That is not going to happen. Ever. It’s difficult to accept that what I perceive as ghostly footsteps might be pipes expanding in the ceiling. I don’t agree with that interpretation, but then again, I might be wrong. If fact, all of us could be wrong. There may be an answer as to the source of our multiple, fascinating EVPs and AVPs, but I am no longer sure that we will ever find that answer. That’s the dilemma, not necessarily the frustration; the frustration is how these phenomena sometimes appear to play with us.

Yes, play with us. That’s how it feels sometimes. At the site of the Rialto Historical Society, Brian and I were 100% sure that we heard a girl singing up on the stairs by the stained glass window. We both heard it; our recorders were both running; yet, neither one of us captured it. How is that possible? This has been a recent occurrence: sounds that I hear, or two people hear, are not showing up on audio. That is beyond frustrating, since it reduces what happened to a personal experience, with no evidence whatsoever. My pride is hurt; my enthusiasm is dampened; my professionalism is damaged; most of all, I start wondering if there is something wrong with me, but then I remember that other team members are having the same experience. I can’t begin to offer an explanation for it, other than shared auditory hallucinations, but that seems even more far-fetched than the “stone-tape” theory or the intelligent haunt phenomena.

Bottom line? I’m back where I started. Instead of posting multiple, amazing, convincing audio clips, I’m confronted with hours of useless data. Once again, I can’t do what I always hope to do: astound you with evidence of another world. Perhaps I should stop expecting to accomplish such a goal; maybe I have too much ego wrapped into this desire to impress people with what I found, and that could be the reason that my evidence ceases to exist when I search for it. If spirits speak, then are they possibly telling me to take myself out of the equation and be patient? I’m not the one who will reveal anything to anyone; that is an individual quest. One makes up one’s own mind, clip or no clip: I hear the footsteps of the dead, someone else hears expanding pipes, and yet a third party hears nothing at all.

And we close the loop: life and death appear to be matters of interpretation. There is no Moses and the burning bush, and even if there were, dear reader, you might tell me to put out the damn brush fire.

Kirsten A. Thorne

Camarillo: The Last Investigation?

Vandals have broken the windows and mangled some of the doors. At the same time, there are white buckets strewn about, evidence of dry wall caked on the inside; workers leave their water bottles and trawls in corners. They have installed hanging lights, smoothed some of the walls, and created more perfect doorjambs. Everywhere we wander, there are signs indicating the demise of Camarillo’s infamous state mental hospital. With relentless progress towards renovation comes the threat–or the hope, depending which side you are on–of permanent memory loss. Soon, no one will know who originally lived in this unit, why it existed, or the purpose of those odd, elongated tubs or rows of showers.

A mental hospital evokes images of terror, loss, anger, desperation and unreality. We fear madness as much as death. Insanity is it’s own kind of death, a place where the real world melts away into something chaotic and incomprehensible. Those souls incarcerated in Unit X participated in the rituals of their own versions of hell. That is what one feels walking those hallways, wandering through a darkness that has texture and smell; there is no way to avoid the feeling that not only are you being watched, you are being penetrated by something that wants you to remember it. I won’t even attempt to define the nature of what was left behind in Camarillo. It’s not something to analyze; it’s a feeling, a whole physical sensation. It is something like the beginnings of a migraine or a flu; you know that something has altered and mutated within you, yet it’s too early to know exactly what is happening. It’s the moment before you faint, or before someone attacks you from behind in the dark. You might call it presentiment, telepathy, foresight, or simple intuition.

We don’t avoid Camarillo for those reasons, although that would seem to make sense; rather, we seek it out, for there is something addictive about the buzzing, banging, murky intensity of the maze of hallways and rooms. There is a mystery around every corner, a puzzle that never allows the last piece to fall into place. The various units each served a purpose: every room was constructed with an eye towards controlling and treating a population of people considered marginal and sick. They had no freedom to wander their jail, no ability to explore the confines a place they had to call home. Perhaps our free will feels especially liberating in a place like Camarillo. We can go where they couldn’t, and more importantly, we can leave when we choose.

But soon, we may not be able to go back. Whatever hold Camarillo exerts upon us will be broken by the modernization and redefinition of those old halls. The memories will be erased by drywall and paint, by new fixtures and furniture, and mostly by the students as they fill the old recreation rooms and nurses’ stations, recreating by their very presence the mission of that place . . . and yet I wonder. Can such a transformation really take place in a meaningful way? Is there any possible way to erase the spirits of Unit X and the other vacant units, patiently awaiting their turn at respectability?

I somehow don’t think it possible. Whatever we have found there, whatever has found us, is not fooled by superficial attempts at forced amnesia. Camarillo State Hospital has found its own version of eternity, one that, like blood soaked into wood or cancerous mold in the walls, will not be erased: not by our will; not by our shame; not by our fear. There is no escape from the past. Stay there long enough, and their world will find you. When it does, make sure to lock the door behind you as you leave and don’t look back.

But you will. Again and again.

Kirsten A. Thorne