Male Speaker: The Devil's
Stairs is a rock formation
beside a highway in Ashe
County, North Carolina.
The rocks are among the oldest
in North America.
But the Devil's Stairs are
man-made.
They were formed when a work
crew blasted the mountain to
make way for a new railway
line.
The man who lit the fuse
tripped as he was running away
from the blast and was
blown to bits. Ever since then
strange things have
happened around the Devil's
Stairs.
Darren Fowler: I remember the
story from when I was growing
up, my grandmother told me.
We've lived here for five
generations.
The minister from our church
was on his way home one Sunday
night.
It was fall, it was a cold
night, and as he headed down
the road he came to the
area known as the Devil's
Stairs and he saw a hitchhiker
on the side of the road.
It was a man wearing a long
black trench coat and a hat of
sorts.
He stopped and offered the man
a ride.
So he got in the back seat but
was silent.
After a few miles the minister
tried to ease the situation by
making conversation.
He wanted to know where the
man was going, where he's
from, but the passenger
was silent.
Finally, the minister turned
around looked him right in the
eye and saw to his
shock fiery glowing eyes.
He pulled over the car
immediately because he wanted
to get whoever or
whatever it was out and to his
second shock the back seat was
empty, there was
no one there.
Male Speaker: Does the devil
himself walk the hills of
North Carolina?
The spot known for almost a
century as the Devil's Stairs
has been the sight of
strange and frightening
encounters, death, and bad
luck.
David Young: Brian, Mary, and
I decided to go camping at the
Devil's Staircase
and we did it every year just
to spook ourselves out.
I brought my guitar along this
time, I'd taken some lessons
so I decided to do
Kumbayah type action down
there.
And all of a sudden while I
was playing the guitar Brian
got really cold.
It was weird, you needed a
jacket that night but weren't
shivering and he was
shivering all over.
So I grabbed the blanket and
brought it over to him, put it
around him, and as
soon as the blanket touched
his body I heard this music
singing, just like old
gospel singing.
It was really weird.
Mary and I decided to go
looking around and see what it
was and we were walking
into the forest and the deeper
we got into the woods the
louder the music got.
The minute I shone my
flashlight onto the woods the
music completely stopped.
I walked over to Brian and he
was instantly warm again.
So I figured that gospel music
made them cold or something.
We never went back to the
Devil's Stairs though, it sure
freaked us out.
Male Speaker: The road around
the Devil's Stairs is full of
sharp twists and turns
and you can't drive through it
quickly.
One night a stranger to the
area was going too fast and
missed the curve at
Buffalo Creek Bridge. His car
spun out and crashed, killing
the driver.
There have been numerous fatal
accidents on that stretch of
road.
Cheryl Ellis: I was on my way
home from work and as I turned
on to Palmer Drive I
saw this man walk slowly out
of the woods.
He came up to my car and
slammed his hands down on my
hood and the next instant
he was gone.
And then I looked in my
rearview mirror and he was in
my back seat.
I turned around quickly but he
was gone.
David Gurney: My name is David
Gurney. I'm with PAN in North
Carolina,
a non-profit scientific
research organization
dedicated to investigating
paranormal activities.
These are my fellow teammates
Noel McCreath and Michael
McCreath.
We're at Warrensville, North
Carolina at the sight of the
Devil's Staircase now
recording.
Tell us your name.
Where are you from?
Why are you still here?
Give us some sort of sign if
you're here.
Okay, we just had something
interesting happen.
The microphone that I'm using
suddenly stopped working for
some reason.
A lot of times whenever we go
into a paranormal location or
a location where
paranormal activity has been
reported we will get strange
equipment failures -
these entities need energy to
manifest in some way whether
either visually or
audibly and so what they do is
they --
supposedly the way the
hypothesis goes is that they
draw energy out of their
surroundings.
Noel McCreath: The impression
I get here is just of an
African-American-Indian
male, probably in his 20's to
late 20's.
It's either warm weather or
he's been working very hard,
his shirt is open.
This is what I'm getting
intuitively but it wasn't like
it was the happiest or
easiest job or way to make
money.
I'm not sure if he's
interactive or residual
because I just get an
impression
of him.
David Gurney: When the rocks
fissured, when they were
blasting it created sort of
an interesting geological
phenomenon. Unfortunately
during that blasting
a gentleman was killed. Since
then there have been reports
of
people would be driving down
the road, they'd see someone
walking along the road,
the driver would stop, let him
in. They'd continue down the
road and then
all of a sudden the guy would
vanish from the back seat of
their car.
Jennifer Quinn: So it was a
perfect night, crisp clear,
the sky was clear,
you could see the moon, and I
decided that I was going to go
take a walk.
It was beautiful outside, it
was a little cold, but I could
bear it.
Part of the way across the
bridge I thought I heard a
baby start to cry.
It sounded like it was coming
off the bridge. And I just
kind of looked over the side
to see if there was anything
down there. I suddenly felt
like somebody was
watching me.
I kind of turned to where I
felt like somebody was looking
at me and there was
a woman there. So I started to
back away a little bit
and she started to follow me.
I turned around and she was
gone.
It's the scariest thing I've
ever been through.
Male Speaker: This specter who
pursues people seen near the
bridge at the Devil's
Stairs is said to be the ghost
of a young woman who had a
baby out of wedlock.
The unknown woman apparently
in utter despair threw her
baby off the bridge into
the water below. She was never
seen alive again.
People said she committed
suicide.
Noel McCreath: What I'm
getting is - and I don't know
the correct term for it - at
that time the crew chief of
this guy was a very determined
guy, a very hard guy.
I can feel just his
determination and going to
make a hole in this rock.
They encountered difficulties,
yes, but it seemed like a job
they weren't going to
get done easily.
David Gurney: This recorder
was completely empty when I
started recording
and this particular model can
record for 27 hours worth of
audio.
We've only been out here for a
couple of hours and it
suddenly registered as full.
Some interesting things
happened - I had a couple of
instances of equipment
failure, one with the mic that
I was using while I was asking
questions during
recording but hopefully
recording EVPs,
that's something that is
certainly that is happened in
the past.
Also Noel was able to get the
impression of an
African-American male.
She was not aware of the
history of the sight and she
got the impression of an
African-American male who was
working here and unfortunately
was killed.
Through historical evidence it
was noted that the person who
was killed during the
dynamiting was an
African-American male so that
provides corroboration and
that's
exactly what we look for.
Male Speaker: A blasting
accident kills a worker.
Did the man-made destruction
released an evil so profound
that it roused the devil?
Are the tales of ghostly
passengers and demons seen in
the rearview mirror merely
superstition?
If you ask the locals they'd
all say evil lurks at the
Devil's Stairs.
Wilmington, North Carolina is
a port town whose history
dates back to the 1700's.
And like most ports it has a
rowdy history that has left
its mark on the city
to this day.
Of all the haunted locations
the most troubling is the
place where the city's
first gallows stood.
Lew Musser: Sitting here in
the Price-Gause House
otherwise known as the
Hanging House.
This house was built over a
hanging ground.
They did all the public
hangings in Wilmington from
1800 to 1855 on the lot
where this house stands now.
So when Dr. William Price
built this
house a lot of these
unfortunate individuals that
have hit the end of
a road were buried and now
they're in here haunting this
place.
Neil Harrison: Approximately a
year ago my wife and I had
heard about the
Wilmington Ghost Tours and I'm
very skeptical of these types
of things,
I'm not really a believer but
she insisted that we go.
And we walked up to the middle
of town and he was describing
this old house that
was supposedly have been the
place where they hung
criminals in the 1800's.
Male Speaker: This was a
hanging ground. Dr. William
Price, a very practical
and moneyed man, built a house
on the hanging ground.
He thought "Just because a
couple of hundred people got
hanged there that won't
affect my home, that won't
affect my family life."
Neil Harrison: He was talking
about the house being these
spirits from these
criminals that had been hung
had entered the house and I
wasn't sure but the more
he talked the more he sounded
believable but I'm not still
not - I'm very skeptical
about those types of things -
but when he walked away I
looked up at the second
story window and something or
someone had written HELP.
At that particular time I
called the guy back and I say
"There's something up
there, someone has written
HELP on the window."
Male Speaker: Yes, someone or
something.
Lew Musser: And then I looked
up and then I saw it and I
said "They're going to have
to get help from somebody
else"
and I went on my merry way.
And they were sort of
insistent that we
help whoever or whatever it
was and I told them, I said
"You go up there and help
them and you're going to be
writing help on the window."
I said "You better come on"
and they came with me.
Neil Harrison: At that
particular time I became a
believer, there is such a
thing,
because I was not
hallucinating or anything, I
saw it and I don't really know
how to explain it, but it was
there.
Male Speaker: The gallows of
Wilmington, North Carolina
took the lives of hundreds.
The house now standing on the
property is an architectural
firm by day and at night
no one has been able to stay
there.
In fact people regularly
experience ghostly phenomena
simply stepping off the
sidewalk and onto the grounds.
John Hirchak: There's actually
a secret that goes long with
this property.
You see many of the men,
women, and children who were
hung here at these
gallows came from other ports
of call and with no one to
claim their bodies or pay
for burial expense they simply
dug trenches all around here
and buried them
for free.
And then in 1860, just a few
years after they moved the
gallows a few blocks east
of here, away from the
ever-encroaching downtown, Dr.
William Price, against the
advice of his friends, built
his family home here.
And one summer the Prices had
a niece sent to visit them.
She raced upstairs to her
bedroom and in the room was an
old vanity with
a beautiful mirror which she
was enthralled with. And she
sat in front of that mirror
and she went about brushing
her hair.
While she was brushing her
hair she started to feel
fingers running through
the back of her hair. She
turned to find no one in the
room.
When she turned back to the
mirror there was a gauzy image
of a man, a young man,
standing in that mirror.
Other times the family would
be upstairs sleeping late in
the evening and they
would hear sounds coming from
the downstairs.
Sometimes they'd hear voices,
other times they'd hear
furnishings as they were being
dragged about the lower
floors.
They had many different
experiences with these sounds
and they also included
scratching noises that were
periodically heard coming from
inside of the walls.
In 1996 Hurricane Fran ripped
through this area.
The hurricane did extensive
damage. It closed off most of
our beaches here.
And an architect that worked
here, BMS Architects, lived at
Carolina beach.
The people here at the
architectural firm said that
he would sleep on the second
floor.
They already had electricity
here.
So he set up his bed on the
second floor in one of the
offices.
One night he was startled
awake by sounds coming from
below the floor.
What he heard was furnishings
as they were being dragged
back and forth.
And this alarmed him but the
sounds grew and grew and grew
to a point where he
could take it no longer.
Finally he forced himself out
of the house, racing down the
stairs, out the
back door, got in his car, and
he drove up to Walmart.
He slept in the Walmart
parking lot, returning the
next morning at 8 am.
Of course he returned wearing
his pajamas because that's the
way he ran out of the house.
Lew Musser: The Hanging House
was getting a national
reputation as a haunted house
and scientific groups have
been in touch about it and
paranormal societies they all
want to know about this one
house.
Well I had a medium on my tour
one night
but he just wanted to go back
and see it on his own.
So I took him back to the
house, it was just the two of
us, we were walking back
around the side of the house.
It was absolutely freezing
back there. He was going "Cold
pockets."
He goes "Is that always
there?" and he's pointing up
at one of the windows.
I looked and I saw this old
lantern burning in the room,
same window where
they wrote HELP on a prior
occasion, flickering away.
We stood and watched that
thing for 10 minutes, but that
was like jaws of slab
dropped down. This is great.
It put a shiver up my spine
I'll never forget, so eery
looking.
John Hirchak: One evening I
was in the home alone, I was
helping out with
a fundraiser, and while I was
here I was carrying a box into
the front parlor and I
was bringing the box in I had
a breath of pipe tobacco blown
into my face.
I had heard about the pipe
tobacco odor experiences but I
never had it happen myself.
I wasn't sure exactly what to
do, I walked around the room
sniffing the air trying to
figure out where the odor
exactly was coming from and
that's when I stumbled
across the rocking chair. It
was rocking back and forth a
good four
inches and there was no one in
the chair. So rightfully I
panicked and I ran out of
the house and these odors
which still persist to this
day may appear to be
strange however they were the
same last request of many of
those how perished here.
One evening my wife and I were
here for an event at this home
and while we were here
she took a stroll to the back
of the house with a friend.
While they were back there
they noticed a shadowy figure
through the windows.
They panicked and they came
racing to me and I came to the
back of the home to
investigate but I couldn't
find any shadowy figure there.
Later on I came into the home
and I searched the whole area
and there was no
one in here.
The shadowy figure has been
seen in this home. There have
been images of an old man's
face that had been seen in
windows, certainly the shadowy
figure a figure in
black and that seems to run
from the back of the house to
the side of the house.
A few years ago a couple of
reporters received permission
to spend the night at
this home to do a story on the
unusual occurrences here.
While they were here they set
up a recorder in the front
parlor.
Later that evening they
decided to go out and take a
cigarette break so they put
the
recorder on Record.
They went outside and returned
20 minutes later.
When they rewound the tape,
put it on Play, part way into
it they heard a male
voice runt and say "Help me."
This was quite startling but
no more startling when they
heard another voice
from directly behind them
saying the exact same thing.
The two panicked, turned
around, found no one there.
However, a moment later a
solid oak conference table in
that room began to
pound up and down on the
floor.
The two reporters flew out of
that room.
People often ask where they
can go to experience ghosts in
Wilmington.
Of course the prime location
we feel is the old Gallows
Hill home, BMS Architects.
It is the most actively
haunted home in Wilmington.
We experience things here
weekly on our tours and it
hasn't stopped in seven years
now.
Lew Musser: Totally paranormal
scene that really worked well
for my tour and I
appreciate the spirits'
cooperating in that manner.
Male Speaker: Can you actually
bring ghosts into your house.
It's long been believed that
some ghosts are attached to
furniture.
But what happens when the
artifacts you bring home is
from a cemetery?
Roxanne Wentworth of
Wappingers Falls, New York,
brought home a beautiful pair
of
iron gates that were being
discarded by her local
cemetery and discovered
a terrifying secret.
Roxanne Wentworth: It was very
strange how we came to get the
cemetery gates
because we were putting
flowers on the grave for the
anniversary of someone
before their family arrived
and we brought in the flowers
there.
And we went to the back of the
cemetery and around that way
to get to the grave site.
And there were these big old
iron gates I hadn't seen in
maybe 20, 30 years.
So I left a note on the
maintenance shed for someone
to please call me in regards
to the gate.
It started snowing really hard
but two hours later on that
Sunday morning I had
a phone call "Come and get the
gates, they're yours."
Linda Sue Zimmerman: We're now
standing at the actual sight
of the cemetery gates
which are in front of the
driveway. When I'm standing in
this direction I'm
getting 0.1, 0.2 but if I just
turn 90 degrees I'm up to 1.7
which is one of the
highest, 1.8, one of the
highest readings we've got
tonight, 1.9, 2, 2.1.
So here I am almost directly
between the gates and there
seems to be an energy
pattern going between the
gates up the driveway.
The farther I move in towards
the driveway past the gates -
1.4, 1.3, 1 - so
you can see I'm just beyond
the level of the gates now,
about 0.8, and I know the
farther I move up the driveway
the lower the readings will
be.
So for some reason there is a
strong measurable
electromagnetic field between
these gates like an energy
field moving in towards the
property.
Roxanne Wentworth: The gates
were delivered right outside
my front door.
I had a handy man bring them
and he just put them right in
the yard outside the
front door until I could hire
someone to install them.
That night when I was upstairs
I heard somebody coming up my
stairs.
There was very, very loud
squeaking on my stairways.
And I thought I had a burglar.
I was convinced. My bedroom
door was shut and the night
line was one but I was so
terror stricken I couldn't
move, I couldn't speak,
I couldn't scream, I couldn't
do anything. I just knew that
when that door opened
something really bad was going
to happen.
After the noise stopped going
up the stairs nothing
happened.
The door didn't open, I didn't
hear any more feet, nothing.
But within maybe 30 seconds
now something had my by the
back of the hair and was
dragging me backwards off the
bed. I couldn't speak but in
my mind I was
yelling "Let go, let go, let
go."
So I forced my head to turn
and when I eliminated space
between his hand and the
bed pillow it couldn't exist
anymore and it went away,
there was nothing in the
room and the door was still
shut.
Male Speaker: A terrifying
midnight encounter with an
invisible assailant.
Roxanne Wentworth was a woman
who's not easily frightened.
She's a correctional officer.
She knows how to take care of
herself.
But on this night she brought
something on to her property
and seemingly opened
the door to a different world.
Lori Lee Milkovich: From the
Wappingers Rural Cemetery
delivered a few years ago
and that night she had told us
that she was grabbed by the
hair and dragged across
the bed by somebody that she
couldn't see.
And I knew from what she said
she wouldn't be able to stay
here at night
anymore so I ended up spending
the nights with her.
Roxanne Wentworth: I'm not
going to remove the gates.
I've been asked why I don't do
that.
A lot of people think that if
I remove the gates I remove
the problem but no
one's been able to validate
that for me or prove to me
that that would eliminate the
problem, that the pathway
wouldn't still remain.
And that if the pathway did
still remain if I might
experience some angry spirits
because I had the gates
removed so I honor the gates.
Linda Sue Zimmerman: I think
bringing the portal between
the living and the dead to
your front yard is an
invitation to these spirits
and obviously as the activity
began that very night it has
become an opening to spirit
world.
Roxanne Wentworth: At one time
we had some investigators come
in the beginning
when these kind of things were
happening and we noticed that
they were using simple
handheld tape recorders
speaking to whatever spirits
were out there and then
when they would play them back
later there would be a voice
in between our voice
and so we went out and got
handheld tape recorders and
started recording ourselves.
Lori Lee Milkovich: I'd go out
there with a handheld audio
recorder and I'd ask them
"What's your name?" and I'd
talk to them like I'd be
talking
to anyone who would be sitting
down talking next to me and
when I'd come
inside I'd rewind the tape and
I play it back and you'd be
able to hear their voice.
Linda Sue Zimmerman: EVPs are
electronic voice phenomena
where tape recordings are
played back to see if there
are any sounds that the human
ear did not pick up.
Sometimes they are put through
computers and enhanced.
Other times if you're lucky
you get clear voices and
sounds just on the tape on
enhanced.
Lori Lee Milkovich: This
particular voice I believe to
be a woman saying "We're
women."
I also got a little child
saying "I came out of the
coffin."
Roxanne Wentworth: We seemed
to notice an awful lot of
activity around a mulberry
tree that we have in the
backyard. When we used the
recorders and hold them
up in the air we get a lot of
children up in that tree that
are answering us or
making comments like they're
looking up at us or they're
giving us their names,
Dennis for instance. We also
have gotten ectoplasm which
is what we believe to be the
spirit pulling its energy
together and then coming out
of
that orb into kind of what we
call sloppy Casper - a very
active tree.
Lori Lee Milkovich: What I'm
doing is recording on an audio
cassette tape,
standard audio cassette tape,
to try to get voice of people
from beyond and I'm
using a digital camera from
time to time to click pictures
to see if there's anyone
in the yard with us. Linda Sue
Zimmerman: Just a bit of
a spike right here.
Lori, do you want to take a
picture over here? I just got
a spike.
The EMF meter measures
electromagnetic fields. And
for whatever reasons when
apparitions
are around you get measurable
electromagnetic fields and
this meter
is sensitive enough to pick
those fields up. So what I try
to do is walk slowly back
and forth across the grounds
and see if we do get any
spikes and we just had one or
two little spikes.
Generally of there's a spirit
in a locked location you will
get consistent readings
for that spot but this just
goes to prove how things move
around this area because
I'm getting readings in many
different locations coming and
going.
Because now there's a
10-degree difference from
about 10 feet to my left to
right in
front of me, we're at 45. This
direction we're reading 56
degrees,
about 10 feet away to my left,
but when I just move a few
feet over this 44,
45 degrees so a 10-degree
difference over the span of
about 12 feet is rather
impressive.
We just had a big spike right
- wow, getting a little chilly
here.
I'm just covered in goose
bumps right now. The meter
went way up.
It went to about 1.2 and the
reading should be zero or 0.1
when we're in an
open area such as this so that
was a significant hit and it
was one of those
spots when you hit it kind of
goes through you, the cold
goes through you, 1.2 again,
and I didn't even move the
meter so there's something
going on right here.
Roxanne Wentworth: We had an
incident upstairs in the other
bedroom where my
daughter went up to get
something and she noticed from
her bedroom doorway there
were closet drawers wide open
and that the light was on
inside.
We never leave that closet
open because we have a cat.
So Lori went over to her
bedside stand and she picked
up the tape recorder which had
just become routine for us,
took that over to the closet
door and noticed that the
suitcase had been placed in
the doorway.
She turned the recorder on and
she explained to anyone that
might be
listening that she had seen
the door open, the light on,
and the suitcase in the
middle and was anybody there.
Then she paused to give them a
chance to respond and then she
told them that they
had to please go outside now.
When she played the recording
back after she said "Is there
anyone here?"
two children answered.
One said yes and one said no.
Lori Lee Milkovich: The
recording here a few years
back I was at the mulberry
tree
in the backyard where we've
had some activity and I asked
"Are you well today,
Robert?" because that's one of
the names that we had gotten
on the property as
being one of the people that's
here and I got the response
"Mrs. Anderson?"
The strange thing about that
particular voice is when they
said "Mrs.
Anderson" and I listened to it
on tape I realized that my
mom's last middle name was
Anderson.
Linda Sue Zimmerman: We're in
the garage now where I
personally had gotten probably
the most activity in my
investigations at least.
The first time we were asking
for something to make its
presence known
and the meter alarm went off,
the EMF meter, and we also
heard the sounds,
something moving around on the
walls around us.
We're asking that anything
that is here give us some sign
of your presence.
What was that? Can we see what
was over here,
something just dropped?
This?
Unidentified Female Speaker:
What is it?
Linda Sue Zimmerman: Rope.
Do you know where this was?
Unidentified Female Speaker:
No, but it
would have been - on this
shelf is where it would have
been.
There's no way to hang it over
the area where it happened.
Linda Sue Zimmerman: All
right, so I have the meter set
up and I'm just going to see
if there's any activity and
I'm also filming in night
vision and we'll see if
we get anything. All right, I
see that it's moving slightly.
Okay, so it is a much more
sensitive meter and it is
picking up something.
I can hear the sound is
increasing and the needle's
moving a little more so
there's definitely something
right in this area. Can you
make a noise like you made
last time?
Is somebody moving behind the
garage here?
When we were moving around did
somebody touched my right
shoulder?
I felt a distinct tap on my
right shoulder. I turned
around to look to see who was
touching my shoulder.
It was just one tap on the
right shoulder.
I'm getting that crawling skin
feeling again.
The meter's spiked a little.
The tap on the shoulder
definitely got my attention.
I'm at full alert here now.
Roxanne Wentworth: Is anybody
sensing or getting a feeling
about anything?
Linda Sue Zimmerman: The
camera just went out.
My camera just went dead
again. This is the second time
tonight.
I had a fresh battery in it
before and it went out.
Okay, just as I'm looking at
my dead camera the meter had
spiked up to 1.8
and now it's back down to 0.1
so something's happening in
this spot.
Lori Lee Milkovich: That was
not me.
Linda Sue Zimmerman: This, was
this down here before?
Unidentified Female Speaker:
No, it was not. Linda Sue
Zimmerman: Where was this?
Unidentified Female Speaker:
Probably in the shelf.
Linda Sue Zimmerman: Well
that's an interesting sign.
Unidentified Female Speaker:
Yes, it sure is. Linda Sue
Zimmerman: We asked for
something to be moved so you
think this is what fell on to
the - can you make the
meter, make a sound again.
Lori Lee Milkovich: There's a
big orb on the ceiling over by
Linda.
Linda, are you getting any
readings over there?
Linda Sue Zimmerman: Just
dropped six degrees and then
went back up again.
Whatever is going on is
happening in this few feet
here.
Lori Lee Milkovich: I myself
didn't really believe in this
kind of thing
before I started experiencing
it for myself but now that
I've actually lived it
for a few years there's no
question in my mind that
things happen around here.
We here banging on pipes in
the basement and people
walking around in a room that
neither my mom nor I were in
at that time.
We go out there and I take
pictures and I can capture
them on digital camera and the
more I see the more I know
that there are other folks
here so I talk to them and I
communicate with them and let
them know that we remember
them and we appreciate
them being here.
Roxanne Wentworth: We're
hoping that the gates don't
just create a way to enter.
We're hoping that they might
also create an exit.
Male Speaker: It could be said
that the gates that open on to
a cemetery are
a metaphorical door between
the living and the dead.
But at the gates at Roxanne
Wentworth's house, gates that
stood for almost
a century at the local
cemetery, become a literal
portal for the restless
spirits to
move between their world and
ours.
Roxanne and her daughter,
Lori, believe that's exactly
what's happening.
In the meantime the haunting
continues and for now the
gates still stand.
The deserted hulk of what was
once the Waverly Hills
Sanatorium in Louisville,
Kentucky stands like a decayed
fortress, stripped of its
powers to heal the sick.
It's ruins are a magnet for
would be ghost hunters who
hope to catch a glimpse
of the spirits believed to be
lingering there.
Beth Ann Hendrix: I was
hearing a lot of rumors about
Waverly Hills since I was in
tenth grade.
So my girlfriends and I we had
to go check it out.
The place itself looks
something out of a horror
movie.
We decided to go in and walked
up and down the hallways and
looked through some rooms.
Male Speaker: The building is
a maze of rooms and hallways
spreading over several
acres, ravaged by time and
vandals,
but evidence of its former use
still exists.
The scratch marks on the
basement walls suggests it was
a place of confinement.
Beth Ann Hendrix: On one of
the floors, one of the rooms
there looked like
something like blood stains
and then we heard like someone
was walking up around
the floor upstairs.
We tried to find a way out but
the door went into another
hallway.
We kept walking and looking
for another way out and it
seemed like someone was
following us, we heard
footsteps. We turned around
and there was definitely
no one there.
We looked around and searched
harder and finally found a way
out.
When we got outside I decided
to take a picture just to
prove that we were there
and show all of our friends.
I first saw her through the
lens of my camera, she was
standing on the third
floor, ten years old, a little
girl standing on the third
floor staring
directly at us.
I pointed her out to my
friend, we looked at each
other amazed.
What was a little girl doing
out here?
We knew something was
definitely wrong with this
picture and so we took off.
Male Speaker: The ghostly girl
in the window has been seen by
many people over
the decades but nobody knows
who she was. Was she the child
of a staff member or of
a TB patient or was she
herself a patient who perished
here.
Male Speaker: In 1910 Waverly
Hills Hospital, a wooden
two-story building with
40 beds, opened on one of the
highest hills in South
Jefferson County.
It was built to contain the
ravaging disease of
tuberculosis.
At that time Louisville,
Kentucky had the highest
tuberculosis death rate in the
country, probably due to the
fact that the town was built
on low lying swamp land
where the TB bacteria could
breed easily.
Male Speaker: This is the
second visit here by
paranormal investigators Keith
Age
and his team from Louisville
Ghost Hunting Society.
They go directly to the fifth
floor where on their first
trip they had sensed great
anguish and suffering.
Keith Age: Room 502 is
probably the most notorious
room in Waverly.
It's supposed to have been
held for satanic rites.
Also what we do k now is one
of the head nurses here did
hang herself in this room
for different reasons and
another one supposedly jumped
off the balcony from the
other side.
Now why they do this we don't
know. Now what we've had
happen to us the first
time we came in here in 2001,
we walked into this room and
we walked into
basically a hot spot. It went
from 86 degrees to 96 degrees
in
about three seconds. We had to
get out because it was getting
hotter and hotter. This was
one of the rooms where we've
had
actually an EMF meter
basically disintegrate in our
hands.
We sent it back to the
manufacturer and he's like
"Whatever you got you just
walked in to so much power, it
just couldn't handle it."
Are you guys ready?
Male Speaker: Tonight they
will see if they can isolate
and identify the ghostly
activity reported here.
Keith Age: When we first
walked in my EMF meter, a
brand new meter, the battery
decided just to quit and as
we're in here it decided to
start working again so we're
having a few malfunctions
which usually is conducive to
paranormal activity.
So we're going to see if we
can get any more as we go
around the building.
We're heading down on the
fourth floor.
We've had of interesting
things that had happened.
Male Speaker: Paranormal
investigators from Louisville
Ghost Hunting Society have
come to the Waverly Hills
Sanatorium to record the
spirit presence of the many
people who suffered and died
here.
Male Speaker: If you look down
on the screen you can see them
all moving around.
Can you see them?
A whole bunch of them around
right over there. Male
Speaker: And what do those
represent?
Male Speaker: It's just that
manifestation of the energy,
the way they
manifest their energy.
I can see quite a few moving
down right now.
So we've got some activity
right there.
Keith Age: This is the place
where every kid in Louisville,
Kentucky comes to be
scared or to take a girlfriend
or whatever and everybody
claims to have broken in the
way really.
The first year we were up here
we heard just blood curling
screams and pounding
coming from this floor.
The guards and the owners
[inaudible] and there were
these three teenage boys
right here just standing here.
We got here and we know one of
them had
an ax.
What was really cool was
they're going - we couldn't
get out, they wouldn't leave
us alone, no matter where we
turned they wouldn't leave us.
Now at that point after we
looked at the door, this solid
steel door, and if you
look right here they were
pounding on this door with
this ax.
The only problem was there's
no lock holding this door.
If the door were swung then
they wouldn't give you these
clean cuts.
If they had been leaning up
against the wall it have
bounced and you still
wouldn't have a clean cut.
So whatever it was that these
boys were scared of it was
enough to where this door
would not budge, it wouldn't
let them out,
and they couldn't get out and
they were terrified,
petrified, they could not
leave.
There was a big black cat
moving all around.
Male Speaker: Mentally
unstable TB patients were
housed on the fifth floor of
the Waverly Hills Hospital.
Nurses here worked grueling
18-hour shifts
with the sickest, most pitiest
patients. It was the wrong
place for two thrill
seeking adventurers to hang
around.
Randy Holmes: Me and a friend
of mine were just going in,
wanting to hang out,
and see if we could get any
action around this whole
place.
And we ended up going up to
the fifth floor and we were
just basically hanging
out and chatting and talking
and nothing out of the
ordinary.
Then we started hearing all
these weird sounds and the
building started to get
a little bit cooler and the
coldness just kind of kept
slipping in and the wind was
blowing through the walls and
we were both getting kind of
jumpy so we decided it was
time to leave.
Suddenly we heard this loud
sound, it was like a sound of
a chair being slammed to
the ground. It was so loud it
seemed like it was in
the same room with us. We were
the only two in there and we
just
sat and we listened but we
didn't hear anything else.
And then suddenly the next
thing we heard, it was
definitely directed towards
us, it wasn't just some
arbitrary sound, this was a
sound of like a voice that was
restricted, just gasping out
"Get out, get out"
and after we heard that we
didn't want to hear anything
else.
So I started running and I got
out the door first but my
friend the door slammed
shut on his ankle and he got
caught and he couldn't get
away.
And I was just so scared I
just kept running and I had to
leave him behind
and he eventually got through
and he was just hobbling,
trying to catch up with me.
We were just scared to death.
Male Speaker: Two events
dating back to the sanatorium
days make room 502
a particular hotspot for ghost
activity.
Both are bitter remnants of
the building's tragic past.
In 1928 the head nurse was
found in room 502 hanging from
a light fixture, a chair
kicked to the floor as she
took her last breath.
Then in 1932 another nurse who
worked there jumped tragically
to her death from
the balcony that leads from
room 502.
Two women dead by their own
hand, both dedicated to
healing the sick and insane
in room 502.
Perhaps it was too much misery
to witness yet it seems they
are forever doomed to
stalk the place where they
worked and died.
Keith Age: This is also the
area where we give tours.
This is where we stop and
people do actually can see
these things in the hallway.
This is where I actually got
hit with a piece of cement
during one of these tours.
I was showing the young lady,
she couldn't actually see the
stuff so I'm
trying to help her and what
you do is you basically drop
your eyes and let your eyes
just go out of focus and see
everything at once. And as
we're standing here talking
this
hunk of cement came flying
through and it basically
smacked me in the head and I
got
six stitches out of it.
Male Speaker: So while you
guys were standing there
talking there were a bunch
of them swirling right behind
where Keith was standing.
So what we do is just
generally following this
around, they could stay ahead
of us
down this hallway and then
when you guys started walking
back and we started
following back down this way.
Female Speaker: We had a small
figure, almost a childlike
figure, standing in the
doorway.
Male Speaker: The temperature
dropped down, it was dropping
drastically,
until we turned on all the
lights and just as we turned
on all the lights the
temperature
shot back up and we had
temperature.
Keith Age: What we saw when we
were talking about the small
image was actually
against this door and when we
catch the shadow a lot of
times they're catching
through this [inaudible] room
here.
My phone just turned off, I'll
turn it off a third time,
that's things that
happen up here.
Things that happen with phones
up here, if they go off in
here you answer them,
a lot of times they will melt,
they will just burn up.
My phone's been turned off
since we entered the building
and as you all heard
it just went off a minute ago.
I turned it off again in the
hallway
and it just rang again. So now
it's off for the third time so
that's just part of this
building. And it just got cold
in here.
Beth Ann Hendrix: We dared
each other to go in there and
the first person to get
scared and leave loses.
We went up through the woods
and we walked through the main
entrance and up
and down the hallways.
Male Speaker: A few months
after their first visit Beth
Ann Hendrix and her
friends came back to Waverly
Hills to test their courage
once more.
The trip started out as a bit
of a lark but as they made
their way through the
vast labyrinth of gaping
hallways things got more and
more weird.
The girls sensed they were
being followed by an unseen
presence.
Beth Ann Hendrix: Then we
heard this clicking sound and
the sound of metal
scraping against the floor,
the wall, I'm not sure which
one.
And then we saw her.
When I saw her she was dressed
in white and scrambling around
on the floor.
Her wrists were bleeding.
At that point I knew it
couldn't be real.
Keith Age: We're down to 42
degrees right now right here,
right here in front of me.
Female Speaker: It's freezing.
Keith Age: This is the room
where we first got the most
violent activity that
we ever caught.
As we were giving a tour here
one night, there was about 20
people in here, my back
was to the wall and I was
facing this way,
and from the side over here I
got hit with a Mountain Dew
bottle so I'm thinking
someone in here is just
messing with me, part of the
tour.
As I'm looking over there what
was left of the fluorescent
light fixture which
is where these wires are
actually part of that was here
decided to swing down and it
basically rang my bell, just
hit me full force on the face.
As I'm standing here I'm
hearing people go "Wow, cool,
check it out."
I'm hearing concrete sounds
and what it is is the concrete
off the floor is now
sliding this way and hitting
me in the wall over there and
before that section of
the wall fell down you could
actually see where it hit the
concrete so hard it took
chunks out of the concrete.
And everybody here was like
"Wow, cool" and I'm going
"Let's get out of here, this
hurts"
and this was a hydro treatment
room.
Male Speaker: The batteries in
here are fairly fresh and they
just died which
is fairly common.
When you're doing ghost
hunting bring lots of
batteries.
Keith Age: I would not stand
in front of the door, I'd come
all the way in.
Male Speaker: The door's
little.
What tends to happen in this
room is this door will shut on
its own.
Female Speaker: I'm freezing.
Male Speaker: It's dropping on
me too.
Female Speaker: Yes, I'm real
cold. Keith Age: 46 - again
this is kind of [inaudible]
with paranormal activity. We
know it's an actual 52 degrees
outside
but I actually see my breath
now in front of me.
Female Speaker: In this room
they did several different
operations or procedures.
One was called an auto
pneumothorax and what they
would do is they would go in
and manually collapse a lung.
They make an incision between
a couple of
ribs, stick in a tube, and
collapse a lung.
What they believed was that if
they gave the lung time to
rest -
Keith Age: Again we were just
standing here talking and as
Renee was explaining
what went on in this room the
door decided to shut on its
own.
I didn't see it, I had my back
to it, I heard it, we all
turned around.
Male Speaker: I had my back to
it and there was no rush of
air, there was no
draft or anything.
Male Speaker: The temperature
also. Keith Age: Yes, the
temperature was
actually dropping at that
point. When we hit it it was
like 44 degrees
and again right now we're 51,
50, so it's naturally going
down but it shouldn't have
dropped that far down.
Mark Christoph: The last time
I was here we definitely had a
sense of being
followed and watched
everywhere we went.
We saw a figure darting
between the doors and looking
around the corners and peering
through the windows.
We were investigating in the
operating room, I hadn't
noticed anything there so I
went out into the hallway and
I became aware of two men who
apparently had been
following us from room to room
and floor to floor.
One of them was the lab coat
man which I had heard about
and another was another
man who apparently had joined
him as he came up the
stairwell.
Later on I went downstairs and
I was taking some time with
some photos on the
walkway out here by myself.
While I was taking the photos
I heard a sound directly
behind me and it sounded
like someone had stepped on
some broken plaster.
And I turned around and
standing directly behind me
was lab coat man with his
hands
in his pockets and just
watching me.
The event scared the crap out
of me because I was not
prepared for that.
Male Speaker: Silver Run in
Richie County, West Virginia,
looks like a ghost
town today but a century ago
it was a busy railway town and
believe it or not a town
with a ghost even then.
Folks around here believe that
this tunnel is haunted by a
phantom traveler
still lingering from those
days.
These paranormal investigators
have been here before.
They felt an overwhelming
presence of somebody who tried
to scare them away.
Kristall Chambers: My friend
Tom Moore and I had decided to
go do a little
impromptu investigation of the
Silver Run tunnel to
investigate the haunting
there,
just to do a little exploring,
just the two of us.
It was a warm night but as we
got closer to it the air began
to get really cold.
And we were snapping some
pictures and when the light
would flash and light up
the tunnel you could see.
Tom Moore: It was a very
unusual night for us.
The tunnel got icy cold real
quick.
As we were taking photos this
lady who had long dark hair
and a white gown on she
began appearing to us.
Kristall Chambers: And when I
would snap my camera the flash
would illuminate the
tunnel and I saw the ghost.
Tom Moore: And she began
screaming to us as if she
didn't want us inside the
tunnel.
And at that time Kristall had
backed up into a wall and I
had noticed that and I
took hold of Kristall and at
that time I felt that we
should actually move on
and leave the tunnel. Kristall
Chambers: I looked over to Tom
as he reached out and grabbed
me and he saw her too and that
was amazing to know
that this was really
happening, this was going on
with someone besides just me,
that what I was saying was
real, and it was terrifying.
We decided we had to leave. We
couldn't stay and investigate,
just the two of us, right now.
We'll have to go back with my
investigative unit at some
point in the
future, I had to gather my
courage a little bit.
Male Speaker: The weeds have
taken over the once thriving
town of Silver Run
and the rail corridor that
shuttled trains between
Grafton and Parkersburg has
been
turned into recreational
trails.
But long ago something
happened here that none of the
old timers around here will
ever forget.
They'd seen the ghost of a
black haired beauty and
they've been seeing her ever
since.
Male Speaker: It was late in
August under a harvest moon,
the engineer on BNO's
night train was drinking
coffee to stay alert.
He had done the run a hundred
times before.
Just as he rounded the bend
into the Silver Run tunnel,
tunnel number 19,
he saw a woman dead ahead
standing on the tracks.
He blasted the whistle but she
was frozen to the spot.
Frantically the engineer
applied the brakes.
A second before impact she
flew up and disappeared into
the foggy night.
The engineer feared the worst,
he imagined the horror of
finding her body
ravaged by the train, her
white skin spattered with
blood.
He searched everywhere but
there was no sign of a body.
Had it been just an
apparition?
When he pulled in into the 6th
Street station in Parkersburg
the engineer raced
to report what happened.
Engineer: You wouldn't believe
what I just saw.
This girl she just stepped
right in front of the cab, I
swear to God I killed her,
and I didn't find her body
anywhere. Male Speaker: It's
all right, I've been
getting reports about this all
night. I believe you.
Engineer: You believe me? I
didn't kill her.
She's not dead?
Susan Sheppard: My grandmother
told me, as the story goes,
there was a young woman
riding the train into
Parkersburg to meet her
betrothed.
Male Speaker: The people of
Parkersburg claimed that this
young woman whose name
is unknown was riding the
train to meet and marry her
fianc.
She was a small town girl and
was nervous about travelling
this long distance.
But she may have had another
suitor, a very jealous one,
who did not look kindly
upon her intended marriage.
The conductor eased the young
woman's fears and helped
settle her on the train,
not realizing this would be
the last time he'd see her.
The woman's proudest
possession was a necklace
given to her by her betrothed.
It would be crucial to
discovering what happened to
her.
Susan Sheppard: Now many say
that young lady was murdered.
Male Speaker: That night as
the train made its way through
the dark the jealous
suitor, they theorized, took
his revenge for being rejected
by the woman he loved.
Later, when the conductor
returned he told the police
there was no sign of the
girl, all that remained was
her luggage and her diary,
which she had been writing
in up to the moment of her
disappearance.
Susan Sheppard: Others say she
simply jumped off the train,
for whatever reason
she vanished, and many believe
her to be that ghost of Silver
Run.