#haunted locations

Old Idaho State Penitentiary
Boise, Idaho

Everyone knows that prisons are nearly always a magnet for paranormal activity thanks to the melting pot of emotions that soak into the walls of these buildings. Old Idaho State Penitentiary is no different and it has long been considered one of the most haunted places in Idaho.

The prison was established back in 1870 as a one cell house but it very quickly began to grew into a complex of buildings enclosed by a thick wall of sandstone. In fact, part of the prisoners sentences was mining the rock to build the very walls that kept them in!

Over 10,000 convicts have passed through the prison over the course of a century and it seems that not all of them left!

There have been several deaths on the premises including 10 executions and 110 documented deaths due to illness, murder and plain old age.

However, the conditions in this prison were horrific, with inmates being subjected to inhumane treatment so it would not be surprising if the death toll was actually much higher, and those deaths were simply not documented!

Due to the design of the prison, the cells were unbearably hot in the summer months and freezing cold in Winter, plus there was no indoor plumbing so as you might imagine there was a great deal of misery and suffering which has definitely left a mark on the prison.

There are a number of documented paranormal events that have happened in Old Idaho State Penitentiary. The most haunted spot is said to be 5 House where Idaho’s answer to Jack the Ripper, Raymond Allen Snowden was executed in 1957.

It is believed that the murderer’s soul is still haunting the prisons and grounds and he has done even since before the prison closed in the seventies.

Reports of his presence have been made by visitors, staff and prisoners alike! Whenever he draws near, the living are said to be overcome by a feeling of dread and oppression.

Snowden is by no means the only spirit at Old Idaho State Penitentiary. It is a fairly common occurrence for visitors to hear phantom footsteps echoing throughout the halls and disembodied voices are also heard fairly regularly.

Visitors participating in the regular walking tours of the old prison have also been touched and even pushed by unseen hands. There is a very strong feeling of being watched from the shadows and several shadow figures have also been spotted in a number of places around the prison.

Glenn Dale Hospital

Glenn Dale Hospital was built in 1934 to serve as a tuberculosis sanitarium. Sitting on 210 acres in Prince Georges County, Maryland has stood abandoned since 1982. When it was closed permanently due to concerns about the copious amounts of asbestos used in the construction.

The main campus of Glenn Dale consists of a Children’s hospital building and main hospital building, which are connected by a series of underground tunnels and walkways. Each of these buildings has its own morgue and both structures are close to Glenn Dale Road, which bisects the estate and makes the buildings easy fodder for local trespassers who want to match wits with the Washington, D.C Park Police, who routinely patrol the area.

Exploration of the Glenn Dale Hospital grounds is a treacherous experience and not only because the place is closed and trespassers are not suffered lightly. The portions of the buildings that are above ground are in severe disrepair, seeing that they have stood abandoned since 1982. Broken glass litters the ground, roofs and walls are collapsing under their own weight. Rusted metal and other debris litters the campus because of all of the unused hospital detritus that was left behind when the place shut down. The basement and tunnels are in the same condition but with the added hazard of standing water, which rises up to three feet in some places.

Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of exploration is the same aspect that led to the hospital’s closure, large amounts of asbestos. The few people who are allowed into Glenn Dale and this includes paranormal investigators who have gotten permission to visit always wear respirators because of the carcinogens in the air.

The haunted history of Glenn Dale Hospital is much like that of any other long-abandoned institution of similar size. After the tuberculosis epidemic faded, the hospital was repurposed to house the mentally ill. Out of this fact the legend became that the hospital was a home for the criminally insane, who were simply let loose to roam the grounds when the hospital closed. Legend has it that Glenn Dale Hospital had its own crematorium and that the odor of burning flesh still permeates the buildings. There is a smokestack on the hospital grounds but all evidence points to it only ever being used to burn refuse.

The few people who are lucky enough to explore the grounds find no lack of intriguing paranormal experiences. There are certainly the usual reports of shadow figures and unexplained sounds. The second floor of the general hospital building seems to be a hotbed of these types of activity, with reports of full-bodied apparitions in hospital gowns roaming the halls and disembodied voices either screaming or laughing maniacally. There have even been reports of a pack of ghost dogs roaming around the campus near the children’s hospital. Paranormal activity like this can certainly be found all over the Glenn Dale campus, it’s just that this particular floor seems more active than the rest.

There are a few local legends that concern haunting at the hospital that can’t be directly confirmed or denied, but they are interesting nonetheless. One of these stories concerns a patient who haunts the hospital wearing a straight jacket. He went insane having witnessed the murder of his wife and children during a home invasion. He was so wracked with guilt that he didn’t save his family that he broke into the pharmaceutical dispensary and killed himself by swallowing pills. It is this same guilt that supposedly binds his spirit to the hospital.

The second legend concerns an unnamed police officer who was called to investigate some vandalism that had occurred on the property. A while after he arrived, people in the vicinity reported hearing gunshots. When backup arrived, the officer was found in one of the patient rooms, staring blankly at a bare wall. He had emptied his gun into this wall, firing at something that no one would ever find. True or not, such stories are a vital part of the mystique of this haunted hospital.

Little People’s Village
Middlebury, CT

One of the allegedly creepiest places in Connecticut is Little People’s Village, tucked away in the woods of Middlebury. A complex of crumbling doll-sized houses and odd structures next to the remains of a stone house, it’s rumored to be the damned legacy of insanity brought on by … the little people.

One of the many versions of the story goes that back about a century ago, a man and his wife (who may or may not have been a witch) were living peacefully in Middlebury when she started seeing small fairy folk in the woods around their home. To accommodate these pixie-like creatures, she demanded her husband build a tiny village. As the years passed and the village grew, the enchantment faded into madness. The abandoned smurf-scale town is all that’s left to mark the couple’s anguished demise.

Another variation of the story is that a man living by himself in the stone house heard the voices of the little people, who commanded him to build the village. Eventually, this tale goes, he was driven nuts by the voices, which were now inside his head, and killed himself.

As such, many of the people who visit now claim it’s haunted by the spirits of the little people — or the ghosts of those tormented by them — and that strong fields of negative energy abound. Others claim that if you linger long enough, you can hear the voices of the little people yourself, and that you too will soon be plunged into insanity.

There’s also a “throne” here supposedly carved by the bewitched builder by request of the king of the little people. Local legend has it that if you sit in this cursed seat that you will die within 7 years.

The Rosenheim Poltergeist

In the fall of 1967, known German parapsychologist, Hans Bender, was called into the law offices of Sigmund Adam to investigate and account of a possible poltergeist disturbance. The activity was centered around the offices during the weekends and witnessed by several employees of the firm, including that of 19-year-old secretary Annemarie Schaberl. Upon further investigation, Bender came to the conclusion that Schaberl was to blame for the activity, accusing her of being telekinetic due to her anger of not being happy with her job and a recent breakup with her fiance. Every time she would pass thru a hallway phones would start ringing off the hook with no caller at the other end. Picture frames hanging around the office would turn a complete 360 along with heavy file cabinets and furniture misplacement.

Some of the activity was recorded but was never proven to be authentic or that Annemarie was to blame. Critics and skeptics ran articles around Bender accusing him of “fraudulent accounts” while he maintained that his findings were authentic. A pair of investigators from a German newspaper claimed that they had visited the offices and had found nylon threads attached to office fixtures and a false output on the electric current meter making the phones and lighting fixtures go crazy. We may never know if the Rosenheim Poltergeist was indeed true or just a figment of someone trying to get attention.

Visitation church
Michigan

Visitation Church was built to serve the growing Catholic population. At the time, there were 450 Catholic families within the bounds of the parish but this number rapidly grew so new areas of the church were built. The building today serves its original function as a church.

The old story about this location was known as “The legend of the bloody hand”, but after being informed by a worker of the church this story seems to be nothing more than an urban tale probably started by local children. The story is still below, but doesnt seem to hold truth.

It has been reported by people to see the image of a severed hand within the church, particularly within the sacristy and basement area. The hand is said to appear in varied levels of intensity, as some report seeing a white-ghostly like hand appear and quickly vanish, were others claim to see it as if it were physically real with blood dripping from the stump. Who the owner of the hand is and were it came from seems to remain forever unknown as many people have died close to the property.

The only unexplained happenings at the church were of the old bells which would ring on there own with no explanation until they were removed around 5 years ago.

Seven Gables Road

Dansville, Michigan

The ruins of a cursed home reportedly lie at the end of Seven Gables Road, just beyond the gate. The home once belonged to a witch that cursed the property. Soon after the witch’s death, a large family moved in, but their lives were cut tragically short. Driven mad by the curse, the father hanged his wife and children and then set the house ablaze before taking his own life. Now, people who investigate the property hear blood-curdling screams, spot faces in the trees, and smell the stench of burning flesh.

The Black Bird of Chernobyl

The Chernobyl disaster in April 1986 is arguably the worst nuclear disaster of modern times. Strangely, if reports uncovered following the end of the Cold War are to be believed, many of the plant workers and residents of the nearby town of Pripyat reported seeing a strange, bird-like figure with red eyes in the air above the town in the days leading up to the tragedy. Even stranger, many of them reported receiving strange phone calls with only mysterious noises on the other end before the line went dead.

Many also spoke of experiencing a sudden onset of nightmares. The firefighters and emergency responders who were sent into the immediate vicinity following the explosion also reported seeing a strange winged creature flying through the air, weaving in and out of the smoke while they did their best to fight the blaze and rescue any survivors.

To add even more intrigue to the alleged strange events, a strange cigar-shaped object was observed almost directly over the disaster site for several hours following the explosion. The creature became known as the Birdman of Pripyat or the Black Bird of Chernobyl. Skeptics argue that it was simply a large bird.

Shades of Death Road

 History and legend tell of the Lenni-Lenape people who used to occupy this valley; many of them died of diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis, which were rampant in the area. At one point, they were attacked by a vicious Iroquois tribe along where Shades of Death Road is located. After a horrific battle the Lenni-Lenape were slaughtered, leading many to believe that their tormented spirits haunt the area to this very day, creeping through the misty fog that blankets the valley frequently.

At some points the road runs alongside eerie Ghost Lake, which is blanketed by wispy fog and inhabited by lush foliage and an amazing array of wildlife.

Later, due to the towering, twisted trees that cast a gloomy shadow over much of the roadway, it became known to the locals as “The Shades.” Legend states that there were numerous deaths and unsolved killings along this road; many people were said to have been attacked and killed by wildcats in the region, and a series of murders plagued the area as well. The first alleged murder on Shades of Death was the unsolved slaying of a tinker along with his horse; their corpses were found discarded alongside the road. In the 1930’s, an elderly gentleman in a Model T Ford was brutally bludgeoned to death with a jack handle from his own car, presumably for a few gold coins. His murderer was never caught.

It was around this time that the local population began to refer to The Shades as “Shades of Death Road.”

In the 1940’s, two men- Leon G. Hull and William Crouse Jr.- both constructed fantastic mansions in the dark depths of the woods close to each other, near Shades of Death. By building a dam across a stream which adjoined their properties, the men created a massive lake, which they named “Ghost Lake” due to the ghostly apparitions in the fog wisping over the water. Consequently, they decided to name their property “Haunted Hollow” and the adjacent mountain “Murderer’s Mountain.”

Other reputed rumors of evil included the macabre finding of a male body that was discovered under a railroad car along the roadway, and the acts of a murderous housewife who slayed her husband, then disposed of his head and body by burying it near their home on Shades of Death Road.

During the 1990s some visitors found hundreds of Polaroid photographs scattered in woods just off the road.  Saying that most images showed a television changing channels, others showed a woman or women, blurred and somewhat difficult to identify, lying on some sort of metal object, conscious but not smiling. The magazine claims that the photos “disappeared” shortly after local police began an investigation.