Recently we spent the weekend in Gettysburg. This time we spent more time on being “tourists” but still managed to hit some of our favorite spots. Little Round Top and Devils Den at 6am Saturday morning for example. No one, or shall I say very few people tend to venture out that early so makes for some very quiet sessions other than mother nature.

This article is about a couple personal experiences there that I have shared with Angie and others in our group who dared brave the early mornings and late nights in Gettysburg National Battlefield Park. There isn’t any “proof” I can roll out from audio, video or pictures about our experiences there but it is these experiences that are the backbone of why we go back year after year.

Our first personal experience there has happened several times over the years. Every time for us has been during those early morning excursions where we have been on Little Round Top overlooking Devils Den. This time, there was about 6 or so of us spread out across the top, Angie and I were finishing up an EVP session well off to the left away from everyone and as we started back we heard a boom.
Not an earth rattling sound but it did have a concussion to it, more like a “boom-boom” sound. It was the unmistaken sound of a cannon. We didn’t think much of it being the many reenactments that go on there daily. We met with the others and found out that everyone heard the cannon and some on the other side of us heard “cracking” sounds like a rifle firing.

Intrigued now we set out to find a park ranger and happen upon one towards one of the entrances. When we asked about possible reenactment firing cannons we were told no one can fire in the park before 10am. He asked us why and we told him where we were, he just smiled and walked away.

In our most recent visit in May we again had a personal experience at another spot we like to go to. It was around 10pm and we were at Sachs Bridge. We were walking up and down the bridge, no one on the bridge except Angie, Jeremy and I. We stopped to do an EVP session about halfway across. Angie asked whose shadow was that behind Jeremy when it just disappeared. There were 6 of us there total and everyone else was accounted for standing at the start of the bridge.

As we started to finish our way across the bridge, I saw a shadow of a person that seemed to lean against the end of the bridge and when I started to slowly walk towards it and tell everyone to look, it too disappeared. We did get hits on the Mel Meter intermittently throughout the time we were there as well.

Could I ever “prove” these experiences to anyone, no but I will not forget them. Between the Mel going off (audio as of this writing still has to be listened too) and both of us seeing shadows in the opposite direction from where we knew people were standing, it was an amazing experience.

So how do you top being talked to by someone who turns out not to be there? I wasn’t sure we could really, but once everyone got back we put our DVR set up on the third floor and another surrounding the nurses’ station around ICU.

I put a trap camera in the clinic with a recorder, and we had another set up in the hall way in the geriatrics hall. As of this writing I have not gone over the recording placed by the trap camera in the clinic but do have two stories about how these cameras’s functioned.

First off, a trap camera for those who may not know, are the cameras that you see hunters use where they place them on a tree and set them to take multiple pictures when movement sets them off. I assume they have other uses but since I got them at the sporting goods store in the hunting section, this is how I relate to them. This one will also tell you the temperature as well as the moon phase on each picture.

Mine was set to take 5 successive pictures when activated. I turned it on and walked in front, I saw the light blink and the infrared lights on indicating it had taken its set of pictures, and I left it. The second camera, which is from another investigator, was set up the same way. Around 4am I retrieve the trap camera in the clinic and the back panel said “full” instead of displaying the number of pictures taken. I showed this to two other investigators with me and we were excited the 2g memory stick was full.

When the second camera was placed, it was noted the batteries were low but we had hoped to get a few shots before they actually expired, we had an IR camera pointing this way as well so we left it as is. The second camera when retrieved showed no pictures taken at all. Though we thought a little strange, we attributed it to the batteries and satisfied with the fact mine was full.

First thing Sunday I put the memory stick from my camera in the computer, I have never had one come back full and was excited to see what was there. After a few seconds of loading, I was shocked to see not a single picture was on the stick. None had been taken. Disappointed, I reloaded the stick in the camera and cut it on ad placed in on the floor beside me, a minute or so later I picked it up and had 15 pictures taken of me at my deck.

What conclusion can I draw from this? Nothing really unfortunately, I can’t rule out camera malfunction or user error. I can attest to personally seeing the camera take a picture in the beginning but cannot tell you I looked to see if the picture counter had registered them, I can also attest to the counter saying “Full” and I have not seen that before, but could have been a malfunction all together. I can tell you this for sure, it makes going back there much more interesting.
The night was full of experiences. KII’s going off as you walk down a hallway. Not just a couple lights blink but all the way over to red, several times real fast then gone. Mel meters registering high readings for brief periods then nothing, it was as if the hospital was still functioning at high capacity and you were getting readings of people as they pass by.

Two on our team saw a black shadow in a surgical room we were all in, we heard doors to the open stairway that were already closed, close again. Two investigators were touched and you could not escape the feelings of sadness, dread and loneliness as you walked through some of the areas.

We are scheduling an event there for early next year that I would highly suggest anyone with an interest in paranormal to attend and investigate with us. If you have a group already and can’t wait, contact Cindy Lydick, the absolute wonderful director of the hospital and set something up yourself.

Address:
1100 Holly Avenue
South Pittsburg TN 37380 USA

Email address: paranormalcasemanager@yahoo.com
Phone: 423-591-0344

We are still going through tons of videos a have a few audio clips left to listen too. We are posting the EVP’s in our forum so check back there to get updated information.

Most Haunted Places in America: Old South Pittsburg Hospital

The excitement has been building up for this for weeks, an overnight investigation at the Old South Pittsburg Hospital. Not only were we going to be able to have the whole hospital to ourselves, but sleep there as well. 3 floors, one basement and 68,000 sq. ft. full of history and documented activity all ready to be explored and monitored.

First a little history behind the place where we would be spending the night investigating. The hospital was built in 1959 and known as the South Pittsburg Municipal Hospital (SPMH). It was founded by four doctors and as it grew, several additions were added in up till 1980. This hospital served the community and surrounding areas of S. Pittsburg until 1998.

South Pittsburg Municipal Hospital closed its doors in late September of 1998 when the controversial new 95,000 sq. ft. Grandview Medical Center was built in nearby Jasper. The old hospital was eventually bought by Dr. Hayes who had close ties to the Old South Pittsburg Hospital and it wasn’t long before the paranormal activity started.

Luckily for us, Dr. Hayes started letting paranormal groups to investigate the hospital about three years ago. It is that decision that has made the hospital a great place to go experience a wide range of paranormal activity. Some of the claims are, full body apparitions, black shadows, disembodied voices, doors opening and closing and footsteps.

Though we cannot speak directly to all these claims during our visit, we can attest to most of them. Old South Pittsburg Hospital didn’t disappoint! We will be posting about our personal experiences in the hospital that night as well as posting our findings as we go through all the audio and video we collected during our over 12 hour stay.

We all arrived at the hospital early for a walk through with the director of the hospital, Cindy Lydick. Before we initially went in I took some pictures of the outside of the building, as I went to get a couple shots of the front the feeling hit me. You know the one, someone is watching. In this case though I thought more than one and all coming from the third floor, which would hold significance later on during the initial walk through.

Cindy toured us through all three floors and the basement and even during the day, you needed flashlights in some areas and to be honest, it was creepy in a few spots.
We toured the geriatrics hall, emergency room, clinic area, ICU, nursing area, pharmacy, medical records area and down a back stairwell to what they call a speaker room with donated church pews in it that now is used to conduct classes and lectures during events. This was just one floor and at this point we thought we would have to tie ropes to everyone to not get lost and bread crumbs to the room we were sleeping in. This place was huge.

Then it was up to the third floor. It was hot up there but as soon as the doors opened from the stairway, you could feel more than heat coming at you. On this floor were 5 surgical rooms, a baby viewing room and the psychiatric ward. Remember the feeling of being watched from up here when I was taking pictures? Now that feeling was everywhere around me. Daylight beaming through the windows across the front rooms and still I wanted nothing more than to leave as soon as I could. After that a quick walk through the basement kitchen and we re-grouped at the front, left for a quick dinner and back to set up equipment and get rolling.

This is where our first personal experience started. Angela and I were the first back and decided to set up the laptop and try to connect to the hospital wireless internet. Both of us were standing in a room about 8 by 8 behind the main room we were going to use as a base for the evening. Two florescent tube lights were lying on this small table and I moved them to the corner of the room so we could use it for the laptop.

As I placed the lights in the corner a male voice sounding like it was right behind us says, “Be Careful”. Angela and I immediately look at each other with that “Did you hear that!” face and quickly darted out the room and around the hall to see who was there…no one. We walked further down the hall, probably over 150 feet, around the corner (another 50 ft) and to the room Cindy was in. Neither her nor her husband claimed to be talking about anything, much less telling us from across the hospital to be careful.

This was going to be a fun and interesting night!