Paranormal State: My Journey into the Unknown (44 page)

We tried to pick the best locations for our camera, but nothing showed up on video. We did get some unusual sounds, footsteps, and a howling of some sort, but couldn’t determine if it was wind. It was definitely windy. We had a thunderstorm at one point.

We also heard some strong, clear footsteps from the first floor. Those came out clearly on the tape. We knew no one was there, but the floor was locked because prisoner records were being held there, so we couldn’t track it down.

I heard really loud, bizarre sounds coming from a locked room. I was able to have someone from the staff unlock the door. Once they did, I kicked it in.

All at once, all these birds came flying out. It was a really intense, creepy scene.

During his walk-through, Chip had sensed a very negative, nasty presence, a male he felt had hurt a lot of people during his time there. It was possible this was one of the abusers. One of the goals for this Dead Time was to try to contact him.

Chip believes he did, but it was very intense. He grabbed his throat and seemed to be in pain. “He’s choking her,” he said.

“Who?” I asked.

“You know.”

“What’s the name of the person near Chip now?” I asked.

“Fuck you!” came the response. The energy became too intense. He called for Lorraine. I asked if he wanted out. “Yes.”

Chip concluded that Lucy died trying to protect the people there.

Whether this other spirit was an abuser or the demon, it seemed to me that this was the time to rally the trapped spirits. I told them that if they wanted help, they had to ask for it. “You need to be determined. You need to be strong. You can get out of this place.” Basically I said the same sorts of things I say to human clients when I’m trying to empower them. Here I wanted to empower the spirits.

Chip suggested we all focus on making a circle of energy, then draw the spirits into that circle, and send them up. Eilfie, with the group in the basement, asked the spirits to move upstairs to us.

As part of the effort, we chanted the St. Michael prayer:

Saint Michael the archangel,

Defend us in battle,

Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.

May God rebuke him, we humbly pray,

And do Thou, oh prince of the heavenly host,

By the divine power of God,

Cast into Hell Satan and all evil spirits

Who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

I told any spirits that if they wanted to leave, they could. “There’s a door here now. You’re all free to go.”

I have no way of measuring, but I genuinely felt we’d managed to open a path for them. Afterward, there were fewer reports of activity. With so many spirits, so many forgotten people, you can’t be sure, but I felt we did something at least for some of them. When it comes to the spirit world, it’s hard to measure what’s actually effective. Maybe just the thought and act of bringing people together to honor their memory and to acknowledge their suffering was enough? Maybe it’s truly is that simple, though it’s something we living rarely do. Maybe that’s all it takes to give them closure.

As for the memorial, we had contacted the local newspapers and tried very hard to get the word out, but essentially it was announced the final day, the day we did it. Despite the short notice, we managed to bring a good number of people from the town for this final ceremony. There were many who’d worked there, or knew someone who’d died there. Four faiths were represented: Catholic, Muslim, Presbyterian, and Jewish. I hope we helped the people there move on with dignity. By acknowledging them I hope in some small way we corrected some of the mistakes of the past. I found it very moving, the best ending we could’ve had, not only for the episode, but also for the season.

Others have done good work on behalf of Willard’s unknown patients. When patients arrived, their belongings were checked in and put in an attic. When they were renovating the place for the prison, some staff members and a museum curator wanted to preserve some of the artifacts. They went up to the attic and found scores of suitcases from a span of a hundred years. They were all literally forgotten, until the staff found them. They helped put together a traveling museum exhibit, and there’s an online version at www.suitcaseexhibit.org/indexhasflash.html.

As for the first season of
Paranormal State
, there was a small “that’s a wrap” ceremony I actually missed. Eilfie and I had gone back down to the basement, to place blessed medallions in the four corners. Sometimes the job is more important than the fanfare.

One other thing happened, which I mentioned earlier, providing a darker coda for the season. Through Chris, Frank’s Box gave me a warning from the demons. It said, “Watch out, I’m going to come after your family.” I thought the worst of the attacks were over, but apparently the box said, “No, we’ve got a lot more planned for you.” The way Chris delivered it, the demon said it would get my soul when I least expected it, that there were other cases I’d be called to, that they wanted me to go to, and that they’d be waiting.

Nothing’s happened to my family since, but that night I was truly scared. I made jokes, but I was freaked out. I wanted to call Chip to talk to him more about it. Eventually I just told myself there was nothing I could do.

Obviously you can respect the information, but other than being frightened, there’s not much you can do. I did call my family the next day and said, “Hey, just be careful.”

Originally, we planned to spend the night, but we decided against it. We didn’t feel safe in the building. It wasn’t just the prisoners. Everyone in town knew we were there. We could have our equipment locked up, but if we wanted to be locked up as well, we wouldn’t have been able to get out. So I was like, “I don’t know about this.” Instead, everyone went back home.

There’s a nice song over the closing credits, “In the Shadows,” by Sofi Bonde. It was written just for that episode, to give us a good send-off. At the time, the show’s future was uncertain, but this had been a two-and-a-half-year project, a two-and-a-half-year journey. Even if it wasn’t the series finale, obviously things were going to change. To cover the possibilities, the final episode text is phrased as if it might be the end of the series:

PRS now receives more cases than ever . . . They remain committed to their mission statement: To Trust, Honor, and Always Seek the Truth.

A S
HORT
H
ISTORY OF
W
ILLARD
A
SYLUM

The area that was to become Willard Asylum first opened as an agricultural college in 1860. It closed a few years later when most of its staff went off to fight in the Civil War. In 1869, Dr. Sylvester D. Willard, after studying the poor treatment of the insane, wanted to convert it to an asylum. As he was addressing the state legislature, he had a heart attack and died, but the new institution was named after him.

Willard wasn’t the kind of asylum you hear about in horror movies. They weren’t doing experiments or treating people badly. In fact, it was a first step in treating the mentally disabled more humanely. On October 13, 1869, the first patient, Mary Rote, arrived—naked and in a cage. Prior to that, she’d been chained for ten years without a bed or clothing. At Willard, she was allowed to clothe and feed herself. While it wasn’t the same standard of care we expect today, it was an improvement.

It didn’t always work out that way though. As the asylum grew, by the late 1880s, people were running sightseeing tours. Tourists would take boats to the grounds where they’d eat picnic lunches while making fun of the patients. The situation became such a problem that Willard was surrounded with barbed wire, gates were installed, and additional security was hired. It wasn’t to protect people from the patients, but to protect the patients from the gawkers.

By the 1890s, Willard housed 2,000 patients at a time, covered two hundred acres, and had seventy buildings. At one point it was the largest asylum in the country. At its height in the 1960s it held 3,500 patients. Shortly after, the invention of antipsychotic medication combined with a lack of funding brought Willard into a slow decline, until finally there were only 135 patients left. Because it was keeping the town alive, though, it remained open until 1995, when it became a state prison and drug treatment facility.

F
RANK’S
B
OX
E
XPLAINED BY
J
OSH
L
IGHT

The concept is relatively simple. If it sounds like a broken radio, that’s because it more or less is. The box generates a random voltage and the base acts as an antenna allowing it to tune in to A.M. frequencies. The signal is filtered for the audio, which is amplified and fed through a speaker, which, in turn, is received by a microphone connected to either another speaker or a line out for your listening pleasure.

As for how it “works,” my first thought is that the device, by changing stations quickly, acts as a biased noise generator. The theory is that entities can use the noise to form words and phrases. My second thought is that spirits may influence the random voltage generator to use existing voices on radio broadcasts.

Both theories have huge holes. In the first case, like EVPs, the “words” are very subjective. Unless a large group spontaneously picks out the same words, the data is meaningless. On the other hand, some claim successful results from this very method.

The second theory is even worse. For a spirit to be able to use a radio broadcast, it must first access all the possibilities and, second, hear them at least a few seconds into the
future
in order to determine what
will
be said. Third, it must be able to influence the voltage to select the station that’s about to have the phrase it wants to communicate.

There’s a third theory: It doesn’t work. Frank’s Box then becomes a tool a psychic can focus their conscious mind upon to allow their other talents to come through. That makes it much like rubbing a stone or crystal, or watching
Plan 9 from Outer Space
.

That final theory relies less on science and more on psychic phenomena, which is just as questionable as the existence of entities in the first place. You can’t hire the Jersey Devil to track down Bigfoot. Since the box conforms to what the inventor wanted it to do, in that sense, it does indeed “work.” But by now you see the degree of my skepticism. How was it different from employing a spirit board?

Though little that we heard was instantly recognizable, there were a few instances when something relatively distinct came through. The trouble was that Chris constantly interpreted the messages, making it nearly impossible to remove the element of suggestion.

Not everyone was present during each session, though, so we had some objectivity. We had at least three PRS members listening on headphones to the recorded audio, and then writing down what they heard (if anything). Each reviewer marked the appropriate time, folded the paper, and placed it in a secure location for later tallying.

The results cannot be shared due to the availability of some of these clips on the PRS forums. Once more it’s all about suggestibility. Despite my skepticism and reservations, it’s truly nice to see someone injecting new life into the paranormal field.

Chapter 23
The Beginning

All of a sudden, I’d be the one being asked the questions.

The majority of this book deals with the cases and the film crew, but a third factor in my journey as an investigator was coming into play in a big way. Despite a few interviews here and there, up through “Requiem” we were all unknown. Beginning with “Asylum,” though, the first rumblings of A&E’s impressive press tour could be heard. For instance, a local TV station covered our investigation, but I wasn’t allowed to speak with them because my first “official” interview had been promised to a major news show. Press tours were about to start; trailers were running in theaters; billboards went up. With the cases to focus on, I hadn’t been thinking much about the show coming out.

Even as we finished “Asylum,” it all seemed very far away. The end of season 1.5 was very calm, understated. No big party, just a thank you. Our producer said something like, “The show comes out in three and a half weeks. Let’s hope this was a great end.”

Then we packed up and started the six-hour drive to college. As the sun was about to set, suddenly it became scary. All at once I felt I was on my own, a feeling that was echoed physically, because production was no longer around.

After we got back to State College, we found a bar and drank a bit in silence. We’d finished shooting the day before Heather’s birthday. We shared some memories and laughed a bit, but I was beginning to feel a little nervous.