Ghost Hunting Part 1-Waverly Hills Sanatorium

On August 19th, 2007- A group of Midwestern ghost hunters will venture into haunted territory. Myself, and nine other amateur ghost hunters will explore the haunted halls, rooms and even an area that is well known as the "body chute" at Waverly Hills Sanitorium. Even though the hospital is now vacant and dilapidated, essence of life still remains within its walls and spirits often roam the hallways of the empty hospital. Our team will investigate the sanitorium in an effort to prove or disprove that spirits still linger inside the building and on the grounds. Our hope is to find substantial proof through digital photographs, video footage, E.V.P. -Electronic Voice Phenomenon, and eye witness accounts.

Waverly Hills has been investigated by some of the most notorious ghost hunters and was featured on an episode of T.A.P.S.- also know as The Atlantic Paranormal Society , in 2006 and was deemed by the investigators to be truly haunted and probably one of the most haunted places they have ever encountered. Many people that have investigated the property have claimed that it is very actively haunted. The building is open to tours. Currently all weekend overnight stays are full. The owners began booking tours early this year in January and the dates are full. Our group is fortunate enough to be visiting on a weekend after a paranormal fair is being held. The place will most likely be even more charged with ghostly atmosphere. Although most of the building is open for tours...Some areas of the building are not open to "safety" reasons.

One group of investigators has written a book detailing their experiences and were even allowed the opportunity to go into one of the locked areas. Keith Age, Jay Gravatte & Troy Taylor wrote a novel called "So There I Was". Their chilling account tells of high levels of paranormal activity on the fourth floor of the building that was kept locked from other visitors. This group was given special permission to tour that area. What they encountered...was stranger than fiction. One of the group members, Keith, was hit by a flying plastic pop bottle that came out of nowhere. Then shortly after he was hit in the side of the head by a falling ceiling light. He tried to back up and get out of the room he was in and heard a scraping across the concrete floor, it was a brick that was sliding along the floor from the opposite side of the room. He turned to run away and the brick hit him in the lower back. Later that night...the crew saw a full apparition of a man in a white shirt and pants. It was not the first...or last time the ghost would be seen on the fourth floor.

The hospital opened as a Tuberculosis center in 1910, with only forty patients. The number of patients grew exponentially by the 1920's. At that time there was no cure for the disease and the number of patient deaths was inconceivable. Dead bodies were taken quickly to what is called the "draining room" and hung from hooks on the ceiling. The room had a drain that was located in the center of the floor so bodily fluids could drain through the floor after the bodies were cut from sternum to groin in an effort to fit as many bodies as possible on gurneys and then finally into the hearses. The bodies had to be taken quickly by train away from the hospital. The number of deaths at the hospital escalated so rapidly that the staff changed their delivery methods and began to transport the bodies to the train through an area that is now known as the "body chute". The body chute was a tunnel that was used as a steam tunnel originally and also acted as a passage way for staff to walk through during winter months instead of treking across the grounds. The tunnel was coverted into the "body chute" to transfer bodies in gurneys to the train and kept the patients from seeing the large number of bodies being taken from the hospital. The use of the "body chute" was a last ditch effort to keep up moral among the living.

Waverly Hills has a traumatic history of death, despair, and hopelessness, and even tales of patient abuse when it operated as Woodhaven Geriatric Sanitarium and was consequently shut down in the 1970's.t is not difficult to imagine that many spirits may still dwell in the building, after their souls were sucked into the great beyond prematurely by a horrific disease. Not only has it been rumored that lost patients still wander helplessly through the building, but staff have been seen in the building as well. A nurse committed suicide in one of the rooms, #502 by hanging herself, and another committed suicide by jumping from a high window near room #502. Both nurses supposedly could not handle the death around them...or perhaps they were just victims of the death that enveloped the place.

I personally have spoken to the current owners of the building and some of the current tour guides who have offered infomation regarding their encounters with the resident spirits. It has been said that no one who visits Waverly Hills...walks away without some kind of hard evidence. My team and I plan to bring some evidence back with us, weather it be photographs or video images...so that we might share with others our proof of life beyond the grave.