Ghost Hunting Read online

  Obviously, the shooters had only impersonated officers of the law. It was in actuality a gangster hit. Since the victims were known associates of mobster George “Bugs” Moran, Moran pointed the finger at his rival, Al Capone, who was in Florida at the time. Naturally, Capone pointed back at him.

  The truth didn’t come out until investigators were finally able to match a bullet to a machine gun found in the home of one of Capone’s hit men. Moran was right. Capone’s men had lured the victims to the warehouse and then slaughtered them.

  One of these victims, James Clark, had been Bugs Moran’s brother-in-law. After Capone moved into Eastern State, the other inmates could hear him screaming at night for “Jimmy” to leave him alone. Having heard the details of the crime, they assumed that the ghost was Clark. Capone apparently continued to be haunted by this spirit even after his release, because his bodyguards later reported that they would hear him begging “Jimmy” to depart.

  Capone’s valet supposedly saw this apparition for himself on one occasion. Capone believed that the spirit had followed him from Eastern State, although why it would have decided to appear to him there is anyone’s guess. Perhaps the conditions were just right.

  Like any place that’s been around a long time, the prison went through waves of renovation over the years. They included the 1956 addition of a death row, with its own exercise yard for some of the country’s most dangerous men, which remained in use until 1972.

  It is estimated that upwards of 80,000 inmates were processed through Eastern State over the years. Some of them never got out. The prison now sits empty and crumbling, a National Historic Landmark open for tours, art exhibits, and a special monthlong Halloween extravaganza.

  It was an interesting venue for an investigation, no question about it—especially since Capone’s story wasn’t the only one worth checking out. After all, plenty of inmates went insane in this building. Many others died, either from abuse, old age, illness, or at the hands of other inmates.

  Staff members who work late have reported eerie sensations, the sound of footsteps in cells or corridors, strange laughter, and glimpses of fleeting things in the shape of humans. Often they were seen darting into a cell. Of considerable interest to us were the staff’s reports of a dark figure in cellblock 12 that walks the long, dank corridors or just stands still, always reeking of malevolence. Another phantom figure is sometimes spotted in the guard tower, as if one conscientious guard just can’t leave his post. A number of people who work on the ongoing restoration feel they’re being watched by someone.

  We couldn’t wait to unload our equipment and get set up. The question was where to focus our resources. The place was too big for us to cover in a single night.

  I didn’t know what to make of Capone’s experience, since that could have been his own mind playing tricks on him. Since he wasn’t around any longer, there was no way to re-create it. However, the other prison stories we had heard suggested that we had both residual and intelligent hauntings on our hands.

  A residual haunting is the most common variety. It’s as if some person or event left an impression in time the way a seal leaves its image in hot wax. The entity, when seen, may seem to be lost in a time warp. Often it seems mindless and confused or unaware. That’s because it’s not actually there, but energy from the person or event lingers nevertheless.

  In these types of hauntings, people may hear screaming, crying, footsteps, or a name being called out. They even smell perfume, or the odor of cigars or pipes. We don’t know exactly why residual hauntings take place, but we believe that they start with a violent event, like a murder, or the loss of a loved one. This creates an energy that replays itself over and over in the same place, either on an anniversary or more regularly.

  One thing to remember about residual hauntings is that they pose no danger to the observer. The entities aren’t aware that anyone is watching them. They just go about their business.

  An intelligent haunting, on the other hand, is the result of entities that are aware of their surroundings and can freely move around. So you might see an entity in cellblock 12 that then shows up in a guard tower. That makes our decision as to where to place our cameras more uncertain. You just don’t know where entities will be, although they tend to at least stay in the same building. Sometimes they can move objects, and often they will see the living and try to communicate.

  They want to be noticed, and they can do things that scare the living, particularly because—like a flashlight—they do their most noticeable work during the darkest hours of the night. They can be benign or mischievous, perhaps wanting to drive people away or wanting to deliver some piece of information that will finish their business on this side. Maybe they can’t accept the fact that they’ve died, or they’re trying to watch over someone. Whatever their reason for being there, they don’t want to leave.

  We decided to set up our four remote cameras in two places—cellblock 4 and cellblock 12—because they had the highest volume of reported activity. Our command center would be in The Rotunda. At any given moment, at least one member of the team would be there to catch anything the rest of us missed.

  Grant and I had to remind everyone that this wasn’t a Halloween tour. We were professionals. It was hard to resist being influenced by the cold, dank setting, with its crumbling walls, rows of empty cells, and dark corridors, but we had to go about our investigation as we always did—with an eye to objectivity.

  Carl Johnson went off to leave a voice recorder in one of the cells where he sensed a presence might be trying to communicate, while Brian and Dave Hobbs, one of our cameramen, approached cellblock 4 to collect EMF readings. An electromagnetic field meter shows different types of spikes for different types of energy. We believe that a certain range of spikes indicates the presence of an anomaly in the electromagnetic field.

  Grant and I were watching Brian and Dave from the monitor station when suddenly they gave a shout, wheeled, and came running the length of the cellblock back to The Rotunda. This really annoyed me, but I waited until they arrived, out of breath and wide-eyed, to hear their explanation first. They looked like they had seen a ghost—maybe several.

  “Dave had just taken a picture,” Brian explained, huffing and panting, “when a black shape went right across in front of us. It went right across my face. I saw shoulders and a head. Dave freaked and ran, and then I freaked and ran.” For some reason he thought that what he was saying would excuse his behavior.

  “You ran like a sissy,” I admonished him. “You can’t do that on an investigation.”

  Brian didn’t have a good answer for that. Instead of responding, he turned around and walked away. It was a good thing. Angry as I was, I might have said something we would both have regretted.

  Grant and I checked out the cellblock. After all, we wanted to see if there was really something there. But we couldn’t find anything.

  “The flash must have screwed up their eyes for a second,” I ventured.

  “Still,” said Grant, “you’ve got to walk out calmly. It’s unprofessional. The people who work here saw that.”

  What if we had been in somebody’s house? The last thing you want to do as an investigator of the paranormal is panic the people you’re trying to help. True, we never know what we’re going to encounter, but we’re supposed to be documenting our experiences, not fleeing from them.

  Brian eventually acknowledged that we were right. He was torn between the delight of a little kid who had gotten what he was hoping for and the calm manner of an investigator who wants to be taken seriously. For us, he had to be the latter. There was no compromise—even if the devil himself had crossed Brian’s path in cellblock 4.

  By 4: 00, we found ourselves wishing we had more time there. It was such a fascinating place, and we had barely scratched its surface. But morning was coming and we had to wrap up.

  Back at our headquarters in Warwick, Rhode Island, Steve and Brian set about analyzing our data. They found only one
anomaly, but it was an interesting one. In cellblock 12, where people had reportedly seen a dark entity either standing or darting around, our camera had picked up a mysterious image.

  It was a little vague, but it looked like someone in a dark robe approaching the camera and then turning to go back the way it came. When we measured it against the rail next to it, the figure couldn’t have been more than four feet tall—an unlikely height. We ran the footage again and again, wishing we could see it a little more clearly.

  Was it possible that someone had pulled a hoax on us? We always had to ask ourselves that question. But our team was eating at the time, and so were the penitentiary people who had stayed with us overnight. And as far as we knew, there wasn’t anyone else around.

  We kept running the image again and again, but we could not make it out any better. So we sent it out to a professional lab to have it lightened up. If we had something, we wanted to get the best image we could.

  I also made a point of congratulating Brian for finding the image. He and Steve had spent hours and hours poring through uneventful footage to pick out that one brief but promising morsel. I wanted him to know I appreciated it and that I took note of the good work he did as well as the bad.

  But even if we got a great look at the figure, it wouldn’t be enough. T.A.P.S.’ reputation was on the line here. Before we conceded that the image was evidence of a haunting, we had to do everything in our power to debunk the notion.

  That meant going back to Philadelphia. And this time, we wanted to have two full nights to run a thorough investigation.

  In other words, two more nights away from home and work—two more nights we would have to explain to our wives. But when we told Kris and Reanna that it was a matter of credibility for T.A.P.S., they understood. In fact, they found it kind of exciting that we might have gotten such a dramatic image. Go figure.

  So we drove down to Philadelphia again and set up the equipment the way we’d had it before, but we added a new item. In cellblock 12 this time, Grant and I walked side by side down the pitch-black corridor with a thermal-imaging camera, which picks up variations in temperature and offers a more discerning image than infrared.

  We also brought along more help in the form of former police officer Brian Bell, a tech-savvy guy who had been helping us with various applications back at headquarters. He had expressed a desire to go out on investigations, so we were giving him an opportunity to do so.

  Bell’s job the first night would be to man our split-screen monitor station in The Rotunda. If anything came up, he was to tell us.

  Grant and I went directly to cellblock 12, where our infrared camera had picked up the image of the cloaked figure. We checked out the structures overhead to see if someone might have been up on the third level using lights to create the image we had captured. Grant even went so far as to climb up there. But after trying every angle, we decided the idea wasn’t plausible.

  We also scanned the cellblock with our thermal camera. Almost immediately, we saw something dart by across the mouth of the corridor, but it was only a cat. A little later, we picked up a bright spot that seemed like it might be something interesting. Unfortunately, it was nothing more than a reflection.

  At the same time, Steve, Brian Harnois, and Sheri were checking out death row, also known as cellblock 15. Finding a vaporous anomaly that showed up on their still pictures, they followed it around. After taking a half-dozen photos of it, they lost it and decided to return to The Rotunda.

  Grant and I had the same idea. But when we got back to The Rotunda, we found Bell’s chair empty. He had disappeared somewhere. Now this really annoyed me. Whoever was watching the cameras had a responsibility to the team. No matter how many hours he might have to spend staring at the same image, there was a reason for it. Something important might appear at any moment—and last only a second. We had counted on Bell to do this job.

  I asked around, and it turned out that he’d gone across the street to a gym, supposedly to wash his hands. I was steamed.

  “You assigned him,” I told my partner.

  Grant nodded. He knew what I was getting at. He hates doing this kind of thing, because he just wants everyone to do their jobs, but he agreed that he’d have to have words with Bell. And he knew it would go down better if he did it instead of me, considering the mood I was in. People who must leave their posts are supposed to find substitutes so the monitors don’t go unattended. It was just one more unprofessional act by a T.A.P.S. member at this investigation, so I was aggravated.

  It was tough for Grant to address the problem, but he told Bell in no uncertain terms that we had to be able to count on him. He was not to leave his post for any reason without someone covering it. We thought he understood, but truthfully, we had no way of knowing.

  Before we knew it, we were pushing daylight. It was time to wrap up. Securing our equipment, we went back to our hotel for a few hours’ shut-eye.

  At nine o’clock, we gathered for breakfast downstairs. We had plans to make for the second night of our investigation, and we wanted everyone to be present as we made them. Everyone was on time…with one exception.

  Brian Bell.

  After waiting for half an hour, Grant and I went up to his room and knocked on his door. When he answered it, I said, “Good morning, Sunshine.”

  Grant had another talk with him. He told Bell that he kept dropping the ball. “We can’t count on you,” he said.

  I was less than optimistic that Bell would come around. In a very short time, he had established a track record, and not a good one.

  Anyway, we all had breakfast, made our plans, and showed up again at Eastern State. A little after nine o’clock, we got the enhanced video footage back from the lab. We all gathered in The Rotunda, eager to take a look at it.

  Unfortunately, the processing had only lightened the image a bit. The figure was still difficult to make out. I felt we needed more of a perspective on the situation.

  Then I got an idea. I asked Brian Harnois to pull a blanket over his shoulders so it would look like a cloak, then position himself in cellblock 12 where our camera had recorded the mysterious figure, and run forward and back again. In this way, he would be simulating what we had seen on the videotape.

  Brian complained that he couldn’t see, so he couldn’t run. Still, he did his best to cooperate. Then we compared the results with what we had in the can, but nothing in Brian’s performance even came close to replicating the image we had recorded. For one thing, he was much taller than the ghostly figure, as we had expected.

  Just after two in the morning, we all got together again in The Rotunda. All of us except…you guessed it. Brian Bell was nowhere to be found. He wouldn’t even answer his cell phone. Obviously, he had a lot to learn about teamwork, let alone ghost hunting.

  (Not long after this investigation, we let Bell go. He was just too much trouble, too high-maintenance.)

  Grant and I took one last look at cellblock 12 with our thermal-imaging camera. But it wasn’t a thermal image that grabbed us. It was a feeling of heaviness—the same one in two different places—as if we were walking through a cloud. Grant even went so far as to say he was having trouble moving his feet.

  We also saw things. Grant caught a glimpse of a shadow in the space above us. I saw one slip out of a cell and disappear. Those experiences alone were worth the trouble of returning to the penitentiary.

  We logged it all and added it to the data we had accumulated. It was about 3:30 a.m. That’s the time, worldwide, when the most paranormal activity is reported.

  When we got back to Warwick, Steve and Brian Harnois took a couple of days to go over everything. In the end, all they had to show for it were the stills they had taken on death row—the ones that showed the vaporous anomaly moving about the corridor. However, we had four separate personal experiences to go by, not to mention the footage of what we had come to believe was an apparition.

  We decided to put the footage on our website. We wanted
to see if other people were as impressed with it as we were.

  Our final report to the people who ran the penitentiary was that we believed the building was haunted. What’s more, we had had so much fun there that we wanted to visit the place again in the future.

  * * *

  GRANT’S TAKE

  It takes some work to find people who live up to what they say they can do. Lots of people are eager to go on a ghost-hunting jaunt, and they assure us they’re serious, but the tedium of the long hours deep into the night puts them to the test—and not everyone passes. Only a few will stick with us, investigation after investigation, and those are the ones we come to trust the most.

  The thing about voluntary groups is that some people interpret “voluntary” to mean it’s not as serious. To us it’s very serious. We’re driven by the desire to know what the paranormal is all about, and we rely on a team of responsible people who understand the agenda and will do their part to support us.

  * * *

  TOPTON HOUSE SEPTEMBER 2004

  The smell of roses. In a storage cellar.

  That was a new one on us. However, that was one of the claims made by Francine Gore, owner of the Topton House restaurant in Topton, Pennsylvania. Whenever one of her daughters went down into the cellar, she smelled roses.

  Gore also claimed that a mischievous entity, the spirit of a little girl who had died of pneumonia in the building back in 1870, was haunting the non-smoking dining room. It got its kicks by tripping the restaurant’s patrons, who were then puzzled as to what had tripped them. If someone left a soda on top of the bar, the girl spirit would move it out of reach.