File No: 08-06-006

                                        Location: Undisclosed location in Lackawanna County, PA
                                              Former state “insane house” for the mentally insane

Investigation Date and Duration:
October 10th, 2008   Arrive 7:00pm / Depart 2:20am  
October 11th, 2008   Arrive 8:00pm / Depart 2:15am

Location Condition:

Commercial property – this four story building is currently being used by a commercial manufacturing business. It was built in the late 1800’s as a state insane house as it was called then, now referred to as a state hospital. The 1^st floor remains in its original form complete with solitary confinement cells for the criminally insane. Many inmates have reportedly died by their own hands here.

 
Reported Activity:

Activity has been reported over many years but just within this past year two completely unrelated delivery men have witnessed a man wearing a hat standing at one of the windows on the third floor above the entrance door on two separate occasions. The business was closed at the time and no one was inside. Another person reported seeing a man wearing a hat in the second floor hallway near the break room. Loud bangs, described as sounding like a large table being overturned, was heard coming from the third floor while only two employees were in the building at the time. Upon inspection, nothing out of the ordinary could be found on the upper floors. Employees reported several accounts of being the last ones to leave at the end of the workday and upon returning the next morning, they would find a closet door near the entrance to be opened when the same employees closed it tightly the night before. A motion sensor alarm system has frequently activated in one particular area with no known cause only to be completely replaced with a new system that still activates with no apparent cause. Lights have gone off and on by themselves. Other people, including employees as well as visitors report a variety of strange feelings in the first floor area near the entrance to the restrooms. These are just a few of the reports from over the years.

 

The room shown to the right is the area in which a man wearing a hat has been witnessed by two people on different dates this year (2008). The man can be seen from outside looking down at the witnesses as they approach the entry door to the building. A man with a hat has also been observed on the first floor near the buildings break room.

This is one of the hallways that is under renovation. Many very loud noises can be heard coming from this location when no one is on the floor. Just beyond the doorway in the center of the picture, a man was killed from a work related accident.

Equipment Utilized:
DVR System with four IR cameras

Digital Cameras (4)
Digital Voice Recorders (6)
EMF gauge (6)
PC Computer

Camcorders w/night shot (5)
IR Boosters (4)

Motion detectors (2)

Investigators Present:

Day #1     Day#2
Mark           Mark
Tim             Lauren
Rich            Jenn 

Chris           Ken

Lauren         Rich

Ken             Jimmy 

Guest Investigators:
None

Technical Notes:
Computer equipment was active on the first and second floors.

Power turned off on the third and forth floors except for some electrical outlets powering exterior lights.

Location Weather:
Day#1 Warm and dry – partly cloudy and moonlit after dark

Day#2 Warm and dry – clear and moonlit after dark

The above photo to the left is the basement landing of the main stairwell in the building. The center photo is a shot taken from the fourth floor looking down. Cages were put up on the stairs after inmates started jumping to their death down these stairs onto the hard concrete floor below. The photo to the right is a shot of the basement hallway in which solitary confinement rooms were located. When these rooms were full, the cage under the stairwell (left photo) was used to keep inmates secluded.

Audio and EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon): DAY #1

EVP#1 - Recorder #4 “Digital” - Mobile audio recorder with Mark and Rich used for EVP sessions captured two possible voices. One being a higher pitched sound like a woman’s voice, the later a male sounding voice. No women were present on the fourth floor during this time. The sounds are extremely low quality and muffled. No distinguishable words are present but it sounds like a woman talking at 2 seconds and 4 seconds followed by a man’s voice saying two words or syllables at 20 seconds. Sound clips were provided to client(s) on CD format. PC speakers or headphones may be required to hear this EVP.

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This is a picture of the fourth floor hallway that is under construction where the possible EVP was recorded on a digital voice recorder.

Audio and EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) : DAY #2

No evidential audio captured.

AUDIO ANOMALIES: DAY #1

No anomalies captured.

AUDIO ANOMALIES: DAY #2

No anomalies captured.

VIDEO: Day#1 

DVR Cam1 - (1^st Floor in hallway with solitary confinement cells) No physical evidence captured on this device at the time of the investigation.
DVR Cam2 - (1^st Floor main hallway of renovated section facing doors with motion detector) No physical evidence captured on this device at the time of the investigation.
DVR Cam3 - (3^rd Floor hallway of main building) No physical evidence captured on this device at the time of the investigation.
DVR Cam4 - (3^rd Floor in room where apparition was witnessed by the window) No physical evidence captured on this device at the time of the investigation.

VIDEO: Day#2 

DVR Cam1 - (1^st Floor in hallway with solitary confinement cells) No physical evidence captured on this device at the time of the investigation.
DVR Cam2 - (1^st Floor main hallway of renovated section watching closet door and motion detector) No physical evidence captured on this device at the time of the investigation.
DVR Cam3 - (3^rd Floor corridor between main building and left wing) No physical evidence captured on this device at the time of the investigation.

DVR Cam4 - (3^rd Floor in room where apparition was witnessed by the window) No physical evidence captured on this device at the time of the investigation.

Photographs: 
No photos of evidential value discovered.

EMF (Electro Magnetic Field):

At the start of the investigation, standard baseline readings were taken within the building and the outlying areas with expected high levels near electrical sources and no significant readings throughout the rest of the building.

On DAY#1 at approx 9:27PM, EMF activity was noted on the second floor in which anomalous K-II activity was observed by Lauren and Kenny in the hallway at the end of the right wing. The KII seemingly responded to a few questions asked after instructions were given to anyone present to come close to the K-II to make it light up to answer their questions and afterwards to stop making the K-II flash once it began flashing. A short time later, Lauren and Ken returned to check this area once more and they had no EMF activity at that time. Lauren and Ken were then in the first floor office/workshop area at 12:05AM and a second period of K-II activity was reported. This time the K-II gave more of a pulsating type of reaction with the meter flashing ten times, stopping and then starting over, flashing ten more times for a few revolutions. It did not seem to react to any type of questioning. No known sources were discovered for any of the activity. Video of the activity was provided to the client.

On DAY#2 at approx 11:25PM, EMF activity was noted by Rich and Ken on the third floor “couch room” after Ken sat on the couch. High pulsating spikes were measured with the K-II EMF detector. Teams spent significant amount of time in this room the night before with no activity reported. At 12:15AM, Mark, Jim and our client were present in the same room with no activity present. Continuous sweeps of the room were made with the K-II and investigators sat on the couch with no reaction. After leaving this room and returning at 12:50AM, a period of time passed and still no activity was noted. Ken and Rich were then called to bring their K-II as a comparison to check for an equipment malfunction as an alternative explanation but shortly after their arrival, that being 01:00AM, Ken sat on the couch again, Mark stated that we were going to be leaving soon and wanted to try one more time to see if anyone was in the room with us then instructed whoever may have been there to go near the green light on the K-II to make it flash. Shortly thereafter, both teams K-II EMF meters began to measure high pulsating readings once again. After flashing pulses of ten a few times, Mark asked if there was someone in the room, could you stop making the lights flash now and the lights did stop flashing at that time. Mark checked the hallway and rooms to the right and left of the “couch room” with zero EMF readings in all locations while Kenny’s K-II continued to flash in the room. Upon re-entering the “couch room”, Mark’s K-II began to pick up EMF’S again. After several minutes of this activity, the K-II activity stopped in the room on both meters. Mark and Ken then went out into the hallway and both meters once again began to measure very high EMF readings. Mark went back into the “couch room” and zero EMF’S were present. As a comparison, a Cell Censor EMF meter and a digital EMF meter were brought in to the active EMF location in the hallway and neither EMF meter was picking up any EMF’S, only the two K-II meters. The K-II may be calibrated for a little bit different frequency but with the high levels of EMF’S detected, they should have had some type of reading but they remained at zero. No known sources were discovered for the activity and the client stated he did not have any electrical equipment that would be emitting any kind of signal or transmission. The K-II meters at this location did not react to any type of questioning but seemed to be present once again around Kenny like the night before. Video of the activity was provided to the client.

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This is a clip of the K-II activity from Day#2 on the 3^rd floor “couch room” in which the K-II seemed to react to some requests to start and stop.

The K-II flashed at 10 repetition cycles which may be some type of man-made transmission being picked up but no source could be found.

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Here is another clip from Day#1 in which the K-II can be seen cycling in repetitions of ten. Questions were asked by Ken and Lauren during 

this time but the K-II did not react. The K-II was in a workshop office on the 1^st floor.

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Left – room with the couch that seemed to have EMF activity as measured by a K-II meter when Ken sat down on Day#2 and started asking questions with Rich. When Mark and Jim tried to measure for the same readings, no activity was found until Ken and Rich returned again and two K-II units began to react. Center – is the room where Lauren and Ken had some K-II activity on Day#1. Ken seems to be the constant for the K-II activity. Photo right – this is an area in the renovated part of the building in which the apparition of the man wearing a hat was observed by a visitor. The little blue “orb” to the lower right of this picture is just dust reflecting off the blue background color.

Thermal:
N/A

Investigator Feelings / Experiences:

Lauren and Ken – while on the third floor in the main portion of the building, both Ken and Lauren heard what sounded like footsteps coming from above them on the forth floor. Upon checking with teams, no one was on the fourth floor at the time.

Mark and Jim – Upon walking down the stairwell and entering the first floor, Mark and Jim both heard what can best be described as a deep sounding grinding or growl noise. All the doors in that area were checked for noise with no matches.

Conclusion:

Investigators had a couple personal experiences, such as hearing the sound of footsteps on floors above them with no one present there and an odd, almost growl like noise in the basement that was captured by our camcorder. A possible EVP was picked up in the hallway of the fourth floor and strange EMF events took place on four different occasions. Being that this is an extremely old building that does make noise and having a lot of electrical equipment within it, there may be some unknown explanation for what we have experienced that we just haven’t discovered, but the timing of some of the experiences we had seemed to be uncanny. 

Being that the EVP was of low quality and there may have been some type of coincidental electrical frequency our K-II meters were picking up at the time, we can not say for sure that the experiences witnessed were caused by spirit or other paranormal activity and the investigation conducted over these two nights is inconclusive at this time. There were enough personal experiences and activity to warrant further investigation of this location if the clients so desires. The result of this two night investigation in no way discredits the accounts of the people who reported the activity and we believe them to be credible sources. Our investigators were not able to debunk the closet door that opens on its own nor why the motion censor activates with no apparent cause. We will continue to work with the clients and plan on returning in the future to continue our research.