Ghost Hunting at South Pittsburgh Hospital in Tennessee

Hiding in the verdant hills of Southern Tennessee, hidden in the rural landscape of the South is a famously haunted hospital  that was once the South Pittsburg hospital.  Situated  at the base of a hill by the housing projects the old hospital decays.   You would expect it to be a silent place, filled with ghosts and old tears, but it is strangely alive, living someplace on the edge of a surreal dream.

The hospital is broken and decaying and filled with random odds and ends that don't always fit the setting.  The smell when you step in the door is so overwhelming I almost turned and headed to the first Holiday Inn available, but I pushed forward because the place was so surreal it felt like it belonged in a Tim Burton film rather that part of the real world.  This hospital isn't dead, despite the decay.   When you pull into the parking lot the front entrance has been taken over by an antique store.   Fountains and water features cover the steps that lead up to what used to be the main entrance to the hospital.   This sound of running water cuts through the loud music blaring out of the projects across the street.   It cuts through the broken, overgrown parking lot and adds a magic to the hospital that looms above it.   Only a small portion of the hospital is taken by the antique shop, and the rest sits empty, glaring out at you with vacant windows.

To enter the ghost hunting section of the hospital you must drive past the housing projects to the back of the hospital, which is pressed right up against a very steep and very large hill.   You enter through the emergency room doors.   The emergency room waiting room has been converted into a large sitting room that seems like a temple to Tim Burton.  Movie posters and art celebrating his movies line the walls.  After you get over the the heat, you move forward into a hall  with an alpha romeo parked in it.  Pressing on is imperative at this point as the oddness of the place only grows with every step forward.  

I was then introduced to the hospital's keepers.   A family lives in an apartment amidst all the rubble and stench with their little boy giving ghost hunting teams access to this strange place.   This little family was interesting and their story I will save for another day.   The ghost hunting team I joined was lead by Steve from Southern Ghosts.   His team were very professional and set up their many infrared cameras, DVRs, EVPs, etc at different points throughout the dark hospital.  Electricity was limited to only a few rooms so flashlights were imperative.   I will discuss the actual ghost hunting in more detail later too.

Exploring the hospital was like walking through a horror movie.  Walls molded and pealed.  Junk sat cluttered in rooms.  The clothes of the dead had never been removed from the hospital and sat piled up in the rooms people had died in.   As we travelled from room to room the KP and EVP meters went off from time to time, indicating some supernatural presence.  The darkness grew and stretched and your eyes played trick on you turning shadows into monsters.   The trigger items left to record paranormal activity moved.   A pair of little girls boots flipped. There was a strange mattress in the basement that lit up the EVP's like a Christmas Tree.   The hospital wrapped around a courtyard with a gazebo and an incomplete fountain that was overgrown and filled with mangy looking dogs that barked at you when your light shone out the window.  At night, when you wonder alone,  the sounds of the water outside fill the dead silence and the whispers you hear could be formed from a collection of your imagination and the ever running water. 

I was lucky enough to go to this hospital with Courtney from Haunt Jaunts!   I just hope I get to ghost hunt with her sometime again soon she was a really joy to meet and work with.  She was even more wonderful in person and I know she will have some very interesting things to say about our journey into darkness.   So,  over the next week I am going to post blogs about the different aspects of our trip to South Pittsburgh.   If you still crave more, visit http://www.hauntjaunts.com/ to hear Courtney's take on the visit.    Also visit http://www.southernghosts.com/ to see the ghost hunting data collected at the site.  Keep an eye on http://www.ghosteyes.com/ for more information too.  Tomorrow I will blog about the ghost hunting itself and then I will blog about the amazing family that calls this bizarre place home!!  

On a side note,,,, Unfortunately,  I never got to sleep here because the sleeping arrangements here were not good.   Most of the team stayed to ghost hunt all night, but I retired to the Comfort Inn at 3am and put my pj's on there.

Tasek Lawyer

This one was sent in an attachment. Careful with attachments. They are always full of icky things. This one was okay. Except it was full of phish.


Tasek Iron & Steel Foundry Sdn Bhd.
25 Jalan Persiaran miranti,
46050 Petaling Jaya, Selangor
Malaysia.

Classified information, Please acknowledge receipt.
We are a company based in Malaysia. Exclusively we engage in the business of Import/Export and manufacturer's representative of various types of raw materials steels & coils for industrial use. Our target market is premised on Demography and Geography. However, our company has Accounts Receivable or Receivable delinquency from several firms and individuals in the U.S. The inability to receive these A/R has affected our cash inflow. In fact, our revenues have dwindled and this has negatively affected our operations and organizational goals.

To balance our cash inflow, we had to restructure our discounts, in spite of the attractive discounts, these firms and individuals have violated the payment terms. Hence, we are seeking your services as a legal representative in the U.S. to ensure that our delinquent and payment dues are settled.

We are incapacitated by distance and also impeded from taking direct litigations. We therefore wish to summon your courage to act on our behalf by initiating the aforementioned litigation but you should employ Mediation approach before a possible law suit. Below are the services we hope your firm can render to us.

1. Provide consultation and legal advice on delinquent payments
2. Advise us on mediation or possible lawsuit
3. Receive the said funds from the individuals and firms and keep in a trust account on our behalf until requested by our company.

Best regards,

Mr. Koh Chau.
Group Secretary
Tasek Iron & Steel Foundry Sdn Bhd.
koh-chau@hotmail.my

Teamwork

Following on from the subject of community I began to wonder about the principle of teamwork. You see I've always thought of myself as a team person. I emphasise this in any interviews I attend – “I'm a team player, I'll do anything anything for the team”. I have no inflated ego and I've always loved any activity that involves working together with other people and it's as a team member rather than a community-minded person that I see myself. But then I began to wonder what the difference is. I suppose teamwork always invokes a youthful, sporting image whereas working for the community sounds like digging some pensioner's garden or litter picking.

Then I realised that is how I view writing – as a sport. You need things like determination, persistence and stamina for both. Like sport - I write because I enjoy it. Like sport – I'm not brilliant at it but I've won a bit of money. Like sport – it's a great topic of conversation. The list goes on. The idea of writing in an unfamiliar genre is similar to runners doing a bit of cycling or cyclists going for a swim – it makes a change and gets you out of your comfort zone.

You all probably have alternative ways of looking at your writing. Maybe as a collection of recipes with different styles relating to various flavours. Perhaps you look on your stories as babies – you give birth to them, nurture them and you have your favourites. It could be that this is happening in your subconscious and you need to think about how you view your craft. It might be that you have a more interesting slant on this. If so, you're probably a better writer than I am.

Lord of the Rings Attorney

From: Peter Jackson
Subject: Debt collection Inquiry
Date: July 30, 2010 12:47:39 PM PDT

I am Peter Jackson. I am contacting this firm in regards to the
$750,000.00 (Seven Hundered and Fifty Thousand Dollars) I inherited
from my late father. The money is currently with one of the executors
to the estate of my late father who resides in your jurisdiction.
After my Father's Will was opened and read, the executor advised me he
knows of a good investment to put the money into and in six months my
money would be ready plus interest, and he subsequently brought some
contract papers for me to sign. I was too heart broken mourning my Dad
at the time to ask too many questions and I went ahead to sign the
documents. I am hereby requesting your firm to assist in collecting
the money from him since he is un-willing to give me back the money
for no apparent reason.

Sincerely,

Peter Jackson.

What PJ's Does One Bring to Stay in a Horrifically Haunted Hospital?

A group of regional paranormal travelers and investigators recently invited me to stay with them at a very haunted hospital in South Pittsburgh's Tennessee. This team includes people that are much more experienced than me.   It includes Jeremy Morgan of Rocket City Paranormal (RCP_GatorFan on twitter), Ghosteyes_Steve, Courtney Moroch from Haunt Jaunts, and GhostEyes_Angie.  This sounded like a fun night so I said yes.   I'm not sure I knew what I was in for.  I think I still don't know what I'm in for.

This kind of feels like that opening scene in every horror movie when the protagonist does something no one in their right mind would do.   That scene when the heroine decides the most haunted hospital in the country would be a great place for a birthday party.  Or the scene when the group of kids decide to go into the old abandoned ghost house on a dare.  I guess I'm that idiot.  The sad thing is, what scares me most is that no one else is planning on sleeping or even bringing Pajamas.  I love sleeping and putting my pajamas on at the end of the day is what I look forward to most in the world, and now I don't even know what pajamas to bring or if I should even bring them at all.

 I googled the South Pittsburgh Hospital to try to begin to understand what I was in for and maybe make myself scared of more than the pj situation.   I found an article in which the hospital's owner's son is interviewed and he describes the haunting.  "Telephones will ring when there's no power, you'll have things fly at you, you'll have little girls, as they've caught on tape, saying 'play with me, why won't anyone play with me'," he says.   The hospital has no power and apparently lights still flicker on and off.  Some members of the Ghost Hunter's team did investigation there and found many things that couldn't be explained.

I'm still more worried about sleep and pj's. 

Anyhow,  outside of that,  I can't wait.  I'm hoping that a little girl will ask me to play and I won't be to sleepy to say sure and pull out a deck of cards.  I will be twittering from the hospital all night long.   Friday night is going to be a long night. 

Ghosts and Goosebumps

I have been really enjoying a collection of Alabama Ghost Stories lately called Ghosts and Goosebumps by Jack and Olivia Solomon.  It is essentially a collection of ghost stories from Alabama told in first person, collected from letters.   I've been enjoying these stories so much, I thought I would share a few.

Enchanted Trees

There was a man who had the power to put a spell on trees.  He had several children and every time one was born, he would plant a fruit tree.  Because of this spell he put on the fruit trees, every time one of the children would die the tree planted for that child would die too.  He had one son who had gone to join the services.  A few months later, the tree planted for the son began to die so they knew their son was dead.  Sure enough, two days later they received word that he had been killed..... told by Mary Glenn Merritt

The Bewitched Hunter

Once a man was out hunting squirrels.  He had killed two when he walked up on an old woman washing clothes.  She asked him for one of the squirrels and he said no.   He said he would kill another one for her and she said he would never kill another squirrel again.   The man walked into the woods and began hunting.  He shot, but couldn't hit a single squirrel.  Days and weeks went by and he wasn't able to hit a single thing he shot at.

He got worried and told a Friend about what had happened.  His friend told him that if he carved an outline of a woman on a green tree and drive a twenty -penny spoke into he heart for nine day that on the ninth day the witch would die and the spell would be broken.  He performed this ritual and after he could shoot and hit his targets as good as he ever could.... told by J.D Fowler

Flaming Lady

Just outside the city limits of Dothan there is a place where a man used to live who had a beautiful wife.  She had been unfaithful to him, so he took her and chained her to the bridge.  The chains can still be heard rattling when you drive a car over the bridge.  After she died he burned her.  If you drive up in the driveway you can see it still burning on a post.  No one can go up to the burning head and put it out because he will shoot anyone who tries to come within range.  So, anyone can see where he has his flaming lady...told by Judy Jones.

Phantom Cats: Omens of Death?

I was reading a book called Ghosts and Goosebumps this morning.   It is a collection of Alabama ghost stories and folklore.  One of the stories that stood out to me was told by an Alabama woman named Peggy Ham.  In her story a big white cat just appeared in her sister's room while her sister was sick.   No one saw it when it came in and everyone tried to drive the cat from the room.  There was nothing they could do to scare the cat away.  The next day the sick child died and the cat was gone.   After the funeral the family moved t another place.  In about a month another child got sick just like the first child.   One night,  the same cat appeared again.  No one saw where the cat came in.  The cat appeared three nights in a row and then it vanished.  On the third nigh the second child died.  The cat was never seen again.

In a previous blog,  I discussed a mutilated cat ghost that has been seen at Oxenby Manor.  This phantom cat was the ghost of a cat that had been tortured and killed in order to be cruel to a little boy.  The cat ghost was frequently seen at Oxenby Manor and always came just prior to some one's death.

I have also discussed Oscar the Therapy Cat in a previous blog.  I read the book Oscar the Therapy Cat  and it followed the interesting story of a cat that lives in a nursing home and always lays on the bed of patients just prior to their death.  Many doctors and scientists have tried to prove that Oscar is responding to changes in body temperature or some physical, tangible manifestation of death, but they have been unable to.  Oscar predicts death.

These three case studies lead me to my question.  Are phantom cats omens of death?  I know Oscar isn't a phantom, but he still seems to be able to predict death.  Can cats sense death and once they have died to they continue to predict death?   It seems to me that through the many cases of phantom cats I've read about this is the case.  I am by no means an authority on cat ghosts, but it seems that if you see one,   you should definitely make your peace.