Dark World: Into the Shadows with the Lead Investigator of the Ghost Adventures Crew (14 page)

If there’s one constant relationship in paranormal research it’s the connection between EMF and spirits, either intelligent or residual. Almost every time paranormal activity happens, there is an increase in EMF, so it’s imperative that we understand how it works with spirits and their energy. The leading theory is that ghosts emit electromagnetic energy and cause spikes in electromagnetic fields (EMF). The common belief is that they gather energy in and send EMF out. So there is a directly proportional relationship between spirits and EMF and a simultaneous inversely proportional relationship between spirits and available energy.

As paranormal activity goes up, EMF also goes up and available energy goes down. This is a core principle of all paranormal research.

The tricky part about EMF, though, is its interaction with the human brain. Electromagnetic fields affect our perception, as does infrasound and seismic activity (just before an earthquake, millimeter waves are often released from the Earth’s crust that cause us to feel disoriented and nauseous). EMF has been associated with causing sensations of disorientation, fear, nausea, and the feeling that a presence is in a room with you. I believe people can sometimes find themselves in a high EMF (sometimes called a “Fear Cage”) and get the feeling that they’re not alone when in fact they’re caught in a high EMF and being tricked by it. So it’s possible to blame spirits for something that’s perfectly natural.

But fear not, paranormal investigators, there are ways to ensure you’re not being duped. EMF detectors and K2 meters are your best defense. They’re essential to paranormal investigation, so if you’re conducting one without these key pieces of equipment, stop now and get one. But like any piece of equipment, it’s worthless without a trained operator. An EMF detector that spikes in a dark room is just the first part of the puzzle. You have to look around at the other environmental factors to see what it means. Are there power lines or plumbing in the room that could be causing the spike? Is there a nearby power plant? How about a deep water well? What sort of materials is the building made of? Are you investigating an active building where people work or an abandoned farm in the middle of nowhere that has no electricity? These background questions have to be answered before you can interpret an EMF spike as being paranormal or not. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t.

A second or third electronic device can corroborate your evidence as truly paranormal when an EMF detector spikes. Capturing a disembodied voice on a digital recorder at the same time that a K2 meter jumps can provide a direct connection between EMF and spiritual activity. The teddy bear in the Edinburgh Vaults was a three-part event. My EMF detector spiked, a disembodied voice was caught on my digital recorder, and the bear moved all at the same time. That’s golden. The point to remember is that EMF is a naturally occurring force of nature. Just because you detect it does not mean there is paranormal activity and should not be relied upon by itself to indicate the presence of paranormal beings. But tying an EMF spike to a second piece of evidence helps prove that a ghost truly is present.

Breezes That Pass Through Us

A three-hundred-pound wrestler slams you with a twohanded shove. That’s what it felt like when I was assaulted by an ice-cold blast of air where there was no natural way it could have happened. Breezes are phenomena that can’t be recorded by any man-made measuring device (yet), but I believe are a sign of paranormal activity. Having your body blasted by a momentary pocket of air where there shouldn’t be any is frequently paranormal. I love when these hit me during an investigation because just like goose bumps, they tell me that spirits are present
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These experiences are just as good as any form of visual or audio evidence of paranormal activity.

Moments like this are nearly ironclad verification that a spirit is present, but should not be taken lightly. These breezes are the physical form of a spirit that could just be passing by you, but they could also be trying to do you harm. It’s possible that the spirit is so enraged by your presence that it is trying to kick, punch, or tackle you, but all you feel is a cold breeze.

I was once walking through the lower level of an old building where almost no air circulated when a powerful blast of air assaulted me. It felt like someone turned an ice-cold turbo jet onto my body at the same time that a train slammed into me. It lasted a mere second and happened at the same moment I captured several disembodied voices, unexplained knocks, and even a pair of growls. I was in a completely enclosed underground room with only one doorway. The air was stagnant, as undisturbed as it probably was two hundred years before. There was no possible natural air current or other source for what I felt.

The good thing about a blast of air is that it’s easy to debunk. When it happens, I look for anything that can cause air movement or a change in air pressure—an open window, open door, a vent, a return air vent, a door that opens on one side of a building when a different door is closed—anything. Obviously breezes are not as reliable as paranormal evidence when they happen outdoors. But when you’re indoors, or even underground in an enclosed room, and a blast of air that lasts only one or two seconds drives through you like a linebacker, it’s a great indicator of paranormal activity.

They’re also the most difficult to prove as being paranormal. As I said before, a lot of things can cause a sudden gust of air, so you have to make a superhuman effort to find the source of the breeze and eliminate contamination before chalking it up as paranormal. I do not know if carrying a barometer that measures air pressure would detect breezes like these, but it’s possible. The difficulty in that is breezes are very unpredictable and only happen on rare occasions. Equipment is one of the things that always helps me stay focused during an investigation. Like a pilot in a storm who loses visual references and has to rely on his gauges, I look to my Mel meter, digital recorder, video camera, and EMF detector to help me keep my way. I trust these devices to help me gather evidence. I would drop a trail of breadcrumbs, but we all know how that tale ends.

Stay Focused

Here’s a learning point for all you aspiring ghost adventurers. The investigation at Castillo de San Marcos was a learning experience for me. We all experienced multiple touches, voices, growls, and general nervousness. The activity in the dungeons was constant and is one of the few times I felt very uneasy during an investigation. We went into the dungeons hoping for one or two bits of evidence, but got bombarded with unexplained phenomena. It was the first time I had so much paranormal activity that I had to stop, get my bearings, and focus on the task at hand.

But that’s what you have to do as a paranormal investigator. You have to keep your wits and stay on course to find answers. You may find yourself in a situation where you have too much paranormal activity. When other people run, we stand our ground. It’s almost like an airplane crashing and the stewardess in your head is saying “everyone remain clam.” It’s cheesy, but good advice.

Tormented Spirits

Does the sanity of a person matter after death? If you were mentally ill in life, are you still mentally ill in death? I never thought to ask these questions until I spent some time in rural New Jersey.

Ninety acres of creepiness connected by five miles of underground confusion. That’s how I’d describe Essex County Hospital. It’s not just a huge complex of interconnected brick buildings; it’s a mini-city that reminds me of a medieval Camelot built with the intent of closing the front gate and waiting out a long siege. That or a leper colony whose patients were stowed away behind high bushes and electric fences so as to not be an eyesore on society. When you hear the stories of neglect that happened here, it’s easy to see why Essex was looked at like an ulcer on the face of an otherwise peaceful New Jersey community.

The chasm between haves and have-nots in America was never wider than during the Great Depression. Middle class families sunk into poverty while the wealthy found new opportunities to stay afloat and maintain their status. Against this backdrop, the number of patients at Essex soared. Families with status were shamed by having a mentally ill member and the everyday family simply could not afford to feed everyone. In both cases, the mentally ill and perfectly healthy were dropped on Essex’s doorstep like discarded toys that had worn out their use. The emotional torment of being left alone in the company of the truly insane must have been an abyss of sadness, especially for those who were not ill at all.

During the 1950s when mental health was still an inexact science, shock treatment, lobotomies, and water therapy (which look more like torture techniques by today’s standards) were the norm. It’s believed over ten thousand people died in this facility from neglect, exposure, failed experimental treatments, and complacency. That number still blows me away when I think about it, and I had to have my tour guide repeat that number to be sure I heard him correctly.

Essex ceased all operations in 2007 (just one year before our investigation) and was abandoned so quickly that personal items still littered the rooms as if a military invasion was coming and everyone dropped their utensils in the middle of dinner and fled the scene. One of the things that struck me at Essex was the colorful murals decorating the walls. But these weren’t the type that lighten the mood of the place and make you feel welcome. Most of them were painted by the hands of chemical abusers and the truly insane, so their dark depictions gave the casual passerby a window into the minds of the hopeless. They littered the hallways and watched your every move as if they knew something you didn’t. It was a torrent of leftover emotions and a great environment for those seeking paranormal answers like me.

The hospital had the largest volume of recorded paranormal encounters of anywhere I’d been at that time. There were literally hundreds of experiences that intrigued me from voices at night to daylight manifestations. Places like this get me charged up, but in a different way than their darker siblings. I don’t feel like I’m going in there to fight with the spirits like at Bobby Mackey’s or Moundsville Penitentiary. The only evil entities here were the administrators of the hospital—the ones who kept the patients subjugated and oppressed. On one ward of the hospital, eighty patients were cared for by two orderlies and many spent their days locked in a crib covered in their own feces and urine. Just researching the historical videos and seeing the conditions they lived in was disturbing.

At Essex it seemed like the buildings themselves moaned, like a rickety structure that sways from side to side and then settles in on itself, only with a human voice. At times I felt like Jonah in the belly of the whale listening to the groans of our beastly host. The bricks and mortar told us of their agonizing stories by releasing some of the countless cries of pain that had echoed down the hallways over the past hundred years.

I had several paranormal encounters at Essex, but never got the impression that the spirits there were malevolent or mean. I felt that they were the same way they were in life—confused and sad, maybe even mentally challenged, which again brings up the question of whether or not we cross over with our identities intact. If a person can pass away and still retain their personality and their experiences, then it stands to reason that they would behave the same way they did when they were alive.

If Jerusha still roams the halls of Longfellow Inn agonizing over her lost lover and Jonathon Widders still haunts the Houghton Mansion telling people what he did in those critical minutes after the fateful car accident, then it’s possible that mentally ill patients still spend their final days lying in agony, waiting to be taken care of at Essex County Hospital.

I’m assuming that the paranormal world is consistent, and if so, then it makes sense that if an inmate gets mad at me for being in his cell and yells at me to get out, then a patient in pain can cry out as I walk past their room whether they are sane or not. If spirits can find the energy to threaten humans when we come near, then they can find the energy to moan or scream also.

But that also muddies up the distinction between intelligent and residual hauntings. Can a spirit be classified as intelligent if it is not sane? On the flip side, can it be classified as residual if it is just a spirit who still thinks it is in its hospital bed, mentally ill or not? The spirits at Essex might even be classified as something new—an intelligent spirit who still is not aware of its surroundings and continually cries out in pain over and over again.

Moans are only one part of this group of spirits. There are others who scream out as if trying to get someone’s attention or are reliving the last moments of their lives. At the Trans- Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, West Virginia, I heard the longest and clearest scream of all my experiences. It was six seconds long and so clear that it was captured on both camera audio and a digital recorder.

Screams and crying can be characterized the same way— the emotional outbursts of those who spent their last living moments in agony, guilt, sadness, confusion, or any other turbulent mental state. I encounter these phenomena so often that it leads me to theorize that unstable spirits can’t cross over to whatever lies beyond the physical plane. Spirits with emotional baggage or unfinished business are the ones who stick around our world, while those with a clear conscience or who are at peace with their situation go to that great beyond.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—the emotional highs and lows are the hardest part of being a paranormal investigator. Those who think they can just poke around a dark building and walk away unscathed are in for a rude awakening. Contacting the spirit of a deceased person makes you question your own mental well-being and forces you to be a Johnny-on-the-spot psychiatrist. You try to empathize with the subjects and draw them out using objects or people that meant something to them while they were alive and might still. At the end of the day, it’s hard to walk away and wash your hands clean of someone who languishes in pain in between worlds and forget about it.