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3 Hour Marathon Of Terrifyingly Haunted Towns & Places · Mystery Archives Episodes

• 0:21
  For decades, Helltown has been infamous for countless legends,
• 0:26
  from satanic cults to ghostly apparitions, government
• 0:31
  experiments, and more. But what is it about this small,
• 0:35
  abandoned Ohio area that has spawned these legends?
• 0:40
  That's what we'll be diving into today here on Mystery.
• 0:43
  Archives. Helltown's history from the
• 1:23
  beginning has been shrouded in darkness.
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  Originally founded by Native American tribes in 1758, it
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  shortly became the home of a massacre in 1782 caused by inner
• 1:39
  tribe fighting and opposing sides siding with colonials.
• 1:43
  It was also located on a tribal war trail and became the site of
• 1:48
  several bloody battles early on, battles which led to a number of
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  Native American burial sites on the land.
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  The lands would later be resettled in Eighteen O 6 and
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  what would become known as Hell Town would encompass 3 towns all
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  together. It's these tumultuous beginnings
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  that seem to have laid the groundwork for the stories we
• 2:10
  hear today. From here, we will cover the
• 2:13
  various legends associated with Hell Town.
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  It's hard to decipher fact from fiction or even put a timeline
• 2:20
  to where these stories came from, but I'll do my best with
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  the information that I've gained.
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  But first, to begin to understand Hell Town, we must
• 2:30
  understand why the area was abandoned.
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  And to do this, we must take a glimpse into the past.
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  The year was 1974 and a man named William Bird Cell was the
• 2:43
  National Recreational Superintendent who had recently
• 2:47
  been tasked by then president. Ford.
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  To establish a national recreation area in the Cayuga
• 2:53
  Valley where Hell Town was located.
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  Little did the people know that this man would soon become their
• 3:01
  worst enemy. A town meeting was called
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  shortly after Bird Cell arrived and it was in this meeting that
• 3:08
  the people were informed that they had to sell their homes to
• 3:11
  the government whether they liked it or not.
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  This life changing event was not up for negotiation and these
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  purchases were essentially going to be made at fire sale prices
• 3:26
  with little to no recourse at the time.
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  Many people simply did what they were told to do, despite the
• 3:32
  anger, frustration and sadness at the entire situation.
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  But several citizens, despite the risk, outright refused to
• 3:41
  leave their homes. They wanted to know just why and
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  for what reason. They had no other choice other
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  than to sell what in most circumstances was their entire
• 3:51
  life's. Work.
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  For next to nothing and over the course of the next couple
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  months, many were given conflicting and confusing
• 3:59
  reasons, and some weren't given any reasons at all.
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  And this for a short period, seemed to keep Bird Cell at Bay
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  until he reached an inevitable boiling point.
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  The army soon invaded the valley and began forcibly removing
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  residents from their homes, after which they sealed off the
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  town and began boarding up, burning down and demolishing
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  homes. The angered citizens eventually
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  ended up in court with the Department of Interiors, whose
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  head at the time was sympathetic to their situation and ordered a
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  halt to the operation after it was found that these homes had
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  been purchased illegally. Many of the residents were
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  contacted about purchasing their old homesteads back, but the
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  majority had nothing to go home to, so Helltown remained a ghost
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  town. As for William Birdsell, his
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  shady dealings with the whole situation ended, rather
• 5:00
  ironically, just weeks before the end of the program.
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  He was set to be transferred to a different part of the country
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  for a new assignment, and as he was cleaning out his desk from
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  the command post in Hell Town, he died of a heart attack and
• 5:16
  could never truly leave. During the time in which the
• 5:21
  area has been abandoned, there's been many rumors and legends.
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  I'll try my best to at least touch upon the majority of them
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  that I could find. The army, as a result of the
• 5:33
  siege, was frequently dealing with squatters, criminals, and
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  citizens refusing to leave their homes during the occupation held
• 5:41
  down, and it's rumored that during this time soldiers had
• 5:45
  run insurance with serial killers, cult members, and even
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  mutated creatures. It can't be confirmed, but it's
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  been said that multiple people went missing both during the
• 5:57
  Army's time there and after they vacated the area in regards to
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  serial killers and criminals. The area's famous End of the
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  World Rd. named after its steep drop into the woods, was known
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  for being a haven for thieves and killers back in the early
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  settlement days. And perhaps it never truly
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  stopped being that there are lots of abandoned buildings in
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  Hell Town, from an old slaughterhouse to a.
• 6:24
  Morgue. A VA hospital and more.
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  But as far as Colts are concerned, there are tons of
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  stories centered around dark hooded figures chanting strange
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  things out in the woods, particularly at night, and it
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  seems that a lot of them are also associated with the
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  abandoned church. The real church, dubbed Satan's
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  Church often gets confused for the Mother of Sorrows Parish due
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  to the Mother of Sorrows having the presence of upside down
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  crosses, also known as Saint Peter's Crosses, which are not
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  satanic and were very prevalent during that old style church
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  architecture. Mother of Sorrows Parish is
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  actually still a fully functioning church today,
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  located nearby, but groups of people who have dared to wander
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  into Hell town at night. Have reported.
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  Eerie chance and seeing groups of supposed cult members
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  carrying out some kind of ritual within the brick walls.
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  Of the Chapel. Many have claimed to have seen a
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  red candlelight coming from the basement of the old morgue.
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  This could be due to squatters, which if it was me that's the
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  last place I would choose to live, is an abandoned morgue in
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  a ghost town. But the candles seemingly go out
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  after being stared at, so whatever.
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  It is it Certainly. Sounds spooky in regards to
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  mutated creatures. There's many conspiracies as to
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  why people were forced to sell their homes, and many say it
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  wasn't due to the government wanting to turn the valley into
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  a National Park or recreational area.
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  There were confirmed reports. Of a sulphuric smell wafting
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  throughout prior to the government showing up and
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  sealing off the town. Many think that this was due to
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  illegal chemical dumping happening at the local dump,
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  which is certainly plausible. Crazier theories, however,
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  speculate that there is some sort of underground pass located
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  beneath Hell Town, perhaps a facility that the government
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  uses for genetic experimentation.
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  This correlates with claims of enlarged and deformed creatures
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  encountered throughout the area over the years, from half human,
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  half animal monstrosities to reports of gigantic snakes.
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  And if any of them were true, it would have to make one ponder as
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  to what could be happening deep beneath the.
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  Earth. Of this forgotten place, other
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  notable and strange happenings include that of ghostly
• 9:02
  apparitions at Gore Orphanage. Gore Orphanage, also known as
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  Light of Hope Orphanage, was an orphanage built and operated in
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  the early 1900s that mysteriously caught fire and
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  caused the deaths of 172 children and at least four known
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  adults. As a result of this horrific
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  incident, both before and after Helltown was abandoned, people
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  often reported strange apparitions and the disembodied
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  sound of children screaming. And regardless of if these
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  claims are true or not, with a tragic event such as this one
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  and makes one ponder if things such as hauntings were real,
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  this could be a case of a ripple like haunting or the traumatic
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  energy of the fateful days events playing over and over
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  again for all time. It would certainly explain the
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  repeated screams being heard in my.
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  Opinion. Another tragedy that supposedly
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  took place in the mid 1900s within the area was that of a
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  school bus of children headed to class.
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  The school bus crashed and claimed the lives of the least
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  20 children and one adult and this one, like a lot of the
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  others, was impossible to dig up information on.
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  But there is an abandoned bus in the area as seen here, and there
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  have been claims of people seeing a shadow man smoking a
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  cigarette at night within the bus only for him to dissipate.
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  After a light source. Makes contact with him.
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  The last legend I wanted to share with you today is that of
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  the Ghost House that's said to appear within the woods
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  surrounding Hell Town. This is a dimly lit structure
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  that appears within the foggy distance and if you are able to
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  make it to the door, do not go inside because once Daybreak is,
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  you can never. Leave.
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  This one certainly is one of the spookier stories to me, and who
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  knows, if anyone ever did make it inside we wouldn't be able to
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  hear what they found since they more than likely never came
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  back. There are places in this world
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  where history and nightmare blend so seamlessly that it
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  becomes impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins.
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  Uska Castle, hidden deep within the dense forests of the Czech
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  countryside, is one such place. Built atop A desolate Cliff in
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  the 13th century, Far from trade routes, villages, or any
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  strategic importance, its very existence raises more questions
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  than it answers. Why would a king construct an
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  immense fortress in the middle of nowhere?
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  Why were its walls built to guard the inside rather than
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  protect against the outside world?
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  And why, even now, does the air feel so heavy with unseen dread?
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  Locals have long whispered the answer.
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  Huska was never meant to keep invaders out.
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  It was meant to keep something else in.
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  Beneath the castle's crumbling Chapel lies the dark, ancient
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  chasm, a pit so deep that no bottom has ever been found.
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  A pit that once, according to legend, vomited forth Nightmares
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  creatures onto the earth. It was said that the castle was
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  built to seal a portal to hell itself, trapping whatever
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  horrors clawed their way toward the world of the living.
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  But stones and mortar are not perfect prisons.
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  The darkness beneath Huska Castle has never truly slept.
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  From blood chilling medieval legends, to the black rites of
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  occultists, to modern day paranormal investigations, the
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  story of Huska is a tapestry woven with fear, death, and the
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  unknown. It is a place where time
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  falters, where shadows seem thicker, where unseen forces
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  press against the veil of reality.
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  This is not just history, it is a descent.
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  Welcome to Huska Castle, the gateway to Hell.
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  Join me and my very special guest Peter Laws from Into the
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  Fog as we explore this dark and very creepy place.
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  Please also make sure you're subscribed.
• 13:40
  To both of us. Because if you enjoy my work,
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  I'm sure you'll enjoy Peter's as well, and hopefully vice versa.
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  Now let's get into the content. Hoska or Huska Castle stands
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  deep in the forest north of Prague, built in the mid 13th
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  century under the reign of Bohemian king Otakar the Second,
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  who reigned from 12:53 to 1278. Historians debate its exact
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  founding. Some believe Otakar the Second
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  ordered its construction around the 1260s, while others argue
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  that it was built shortly after his death by nobleman Hynek or
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  Henry of Duba in the 1280s. The first written record of
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  Huska dates to 1291, noting a royal Burgov posted there.
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  Uniquely, Huska Castle was not established as a typical
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  medieval fortress or feudal seed.
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  It was set in a remote, swampy woodland far from trade routes,
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  on a rocky Cliff in the Sudetes Mountains.
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  At completion, it had no occupants and seemingly no
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  practical purpose. It lacked external
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  fortifications, had no water source except a rain cistern,
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  and even lacked a kitchen. Its defensive walls curiously
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  faced inward toward its central courtyard, an anomaly that later
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  fed dark speculation about what the castle was built to contain.
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  In the late 1200s and 1300s, Huska came into the possession
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  of the Burka of Duba aristocratic family Lord Hynek
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  Burka and his sons held the castle through the 14th century,
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  even expanding their domain, notably during the Husit Wars.
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  During the early 1400s, Huska saw little conflict or damage.
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  Its Lords remained neutral, and so the castle escaped the era's
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  widespread destruction. Over the 15th and 16th
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  centuries, ownership passed among noble families, and the
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  structure received some Renaissance style updates
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  between 1584 and 1590. However, Huska was never a
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  bustling residence. By the 1700s it was largely
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  abandoned, a decaying relic overshadowed by grander estates.
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  A modest restoration in 1823 salvage the crumbling Gothic
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  architecture, and later a wealthy aristocrat.
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  Princess Hohenlohe bought the castle in 1897.
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  In 1924, it was acquired by Yosef Semenik, president of the
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  Skoda Works, who renovated it in 1929 into 1930 and used it as a
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  family retreat. Through all these centuries,
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  Huska Castle remains strangely aloof from history's mainstream
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  a quiet, brooding stone shell with an ominous reputation that
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  far outweighed its modest role in politics or war.
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  Local legend insists Huska Castle's true purpose was not
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  defensive or administrative at all.
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  But supernatural folklore dating back to its construction claims
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  the castle was built to seal a yawning chasm in the bedrock, A
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  bottomless pit that the locals believed was a gateway to hell
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  itself. According to myth, before the
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  castle's foundation was laid, villagers witnessed uncanny
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  phenomena around the rocky crevice.
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  Winged creatures and half human monsters were said to crawl out
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  of the gaping hole at night, and strange beasts proud the woods,
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  leaving blood trails in their wake.
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  The pit appeared endlessly deep attempts to fill it with rocks
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  never reached a bottom. Terrified peasants whispered
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  that dark, demonic forces emanated from this crack in the
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  earth, but they often time heard whispers coming from it when the
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  crown decided to build a castle on the spot, legend has it that
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  condemned prisoners were recruited in the most horrifying
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  way. Chronicles say that during
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  construction, prisoners sentenced to death were offered
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  a full pardon if they agreed to be lowered by rope into the
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  dreaded hole and report what lay below.
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  The first volunteer, a young man, was lowered down as
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  onlookers watched intense silence.
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  Within moments he emitted a blood curdling scream.
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  The workers hastily hauled him up and found the man in a state
• 19:01
  of utter madness and the few seconds underground.
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  His hair had turned white and his skin wrinkled as though he
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  had aged decades, raving about grotesque creatures and
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  unbearable darkness. He could hardly speak before
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  collapsing. Some versions say he died a
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  couple days later, still in terror.
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  Needless to say, no other prisoner volunteered to descend
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  after that, and the gaping Hellmouth was swiftly covered
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  over. Massive stone slabs were used to
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  cap the pit, and Huska's Chapel was built directly above that
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  infernal opening as a sacred seal.
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  Tellingly, the Chapel was dedicated to Archangel Michael,
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  the commander of Heaven's forces, who cast down Lucifer, A
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  fitting guardian to stand watch over a supposed gateway to Hell.
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  Many eerie tales grew from this foundation.
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  It was said that once Huska Castle's walls encased the pit,
• 20:14
  the nightly sightings of winged demons ceased as if the evil had
• 20:19
  been trapped below. Still, ghosts and unnatural
• 20:24
  creatures remained part of Huska's lore.
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  A black robed monk spirit is rumored to roam near the Chapel,
• 20:32
  charged with ensuring the demons stay sealed in.
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  Other reported apparitions include a giant bullfrog human
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  hybrid hopping in the courtyard, a headless horse trotting the
• 20:46
  castle, and even an old Crone who silently prowls the
• 20:52
  corridors. Locals and nearby villages long
• 20:56
  avoided the castle, believing only malevolent things dwelt
• 21:00
  there. Some claim to hear inhuman
• 21:03
  screams or a furious scratching sound under the Chapel floor, as
• 21:09
  if something underneath was desperately clawing at the
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  stones. In the 17th century, during the
• 21:18
  chaotic 30 Years War, Husca acquired a new dark tale.
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  A roving Swedish mercenary knight named Oronto allegedly
• 21:28
  took up residence in the abandoned castle, drawn by its
• 21:33
  sinister reputation. Arante was said to practice
• 21:37
  black magic and alchemy within Huskis walls, attempting to
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  harness infernal powers and concoct an elixir of eternal
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  life. He conducted bizarre experiments
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  at night, possibly trying to tap the dark energy of the sealed
• 21:55
  pit below. Aronto's occult activities so
• 21:59
  terrified the countryside that, according to legend, 2 local
• 22:04
  hunters stormed the castle one night and assassinated him in
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  his laboratory, putting an end to whatever unholy rites he was
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  conducting. Aronto's death did not dispel
• 22:17
  Huskas aura of dread, however. If anything, it reinforced the
• 22:23
  idea that only those with evil intent would dare dwell there.
• 22:30
  Another famous story emerged in the 19th century.
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  In 1836, the renowned Czech poet Carol Hynek Macha supposedly
• 22:41
  spent a night in Huska Castle, which was then in ruins.
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  Macha later wrote a letter describing A terrifying vision
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  he experienced there. He dreamt that he discovered a
• 22:54
  dark hole in Huska's courtyard and upon peering in, was
• 22:59
  suddenly transported into a strange realm.
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  He found himself in the city of Prague, but it was in the far
• 23:07
  future. The poet wandered a Prague
• 23:11
  choked and smog filled with mechanized monstrosities of
• 23:16
  technology under a dark sky. In this nightmarish futuristic
• 23:22
  vision, so the story goes, a young girl approached and
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  cryptically told him that he was in a little hell of his own
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  time. Macha then saw glowing lights
• 23:36
  and sandstone cliffs eerily resembling modern apartment
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  blocks before awakening back in the castle.
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  He was deeply disturbed, and strikingly, Macha died shortly
• 23:51
  after this incident at the age of only 25.
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  This tale has LED some to speculate that the gateway under
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  Huska may not only lead to hell, but perhaps to other dimensions
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  or times, offering fodder for the castle's mystique as a place
• 24:12
  where the normal laws of reality fray.
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  Over the centuries, Huska's sinister legends have persisted.
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  The chapel's faded facade fuels imagination. 114th century
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  painting bizarrely depicts a Centaur like female creature
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  aiming a bow with her left hand, and left-handed figures were
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  often associated with the devil and medieval lore.
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  This Pagan image, among otherwise Christian murals of
• 24:43
  Saints and angels, is often pointed out as evidence of the
• 24:47
  castle's arcane purpose. An unresolved mystery on the
• 24:52
  Chapel wall to this day, local folklore holds that Huska was
• 24:57
  built to keep something in, and the bizarre myths of half animal
• 25:02
  demons, ageless prisoners, phantom monks and time twisting
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  visions have made Huska one of Europe's most notorious
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  supernatural sites. Despite its ghostly reputation,
• 25:18
  Huska Castle mostly slumbered through the 1800s and early
• 25:22
  1900s as a private estate. That changed with the outbreak
• 25:28
  of World War 2. After National Socialist Germany
• 25:32
  occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939, the German army, the Wehrmacht,
• 25:39
  seized Huska Castle and held it through the war until 1945.
• 25:45
  Because Huska had no strategic military value, it's remote and
• 25:50
  not on transport routes, its occupation immediately sparked
• 25:55
  rumors. Locals observed that the castle
• 25:59
  was heavily guarded by Nazi S S units and off limits, and they
• 26:04
  reported strange lights and noises emanating from it at
• 26:08
  night. Whispers spread that the Nazis
• 26:12
  were conducting secret experiments inside Huska's thick
• 26:15
  walls, perhaps delving into the occult lore of the gateway to
• 26:20
  Hell beneath the Chapel. Some speculated that their
• 26:25
  scientists were trying to harness demonic powers or even
• 26:30
  reopen the Pit to Hell in hopes of exploiting supernatural
• 26:34
  forces to win the war. Others believed the castle might
• 26:39
  have been used for esoteric research or developing
• 26:43
  paranormal weapons. These theories, though
• 26:46
  fantastical, resonated because the regime notably pursued
• 26:51
  occult artifacts like the Holy Grail and Spear of Destiny and
• 26:57
  arcane research in various parts of Europe, specifically the
• 27:02
  Schuchstafel or the S S What was really happening at Huska during
• 27:07
  World War 2? Card evidence is scarce, and
• 27:11
  many records were lost or destroyed, but some documents
• 27:15
  have surfaced. In 1943, the German RSHA, or
• 27:22
  Reichmane Security Office converted Huska Castle into a
• 27:26
  secret repository codenamed Bergen, too.
• 27:31
  The castle became one of four sites in northern Bohemia used
• 27:35
  to store archives and confiscated collections from
• 27:38
  Europe. Specifically, truckloads of
• 27:41
  books and files were moved from bomb threatened libraries in
• 27:46
  Berlin and Hamburg and stashed at Huska.
• 27:50
  Notably among these were volumes on Jewish mysticism and Masonic
• 27:56
  lore, materials the Nazis had seized, possibly including the
• 28:01
  cold texts. This fuels the idea that Huska's
• 28:04
  overseers were indeed pouring over a cold literature.
• 28:09
  According to later testimonies and legend, some evidence was
• 28:14
  found after the war. Such as a cachet.
• 28:17
  Of old books on the black arts reportedly left behind, and even
• 28:22
  skeletons of German soldiers hidden under floors said to have
• 28:27
  been executed by their own and ritualistic killings.
• 28:32
  It's hard to verify such claims, but they have become a part of
• 28:36
  Huska's haunted legacy, the notion that rituals took place
• 28:42
  under the National Socialist flag.
• 28:45
  Locals noted that the Nazis mined the perimeter of the
• 28:48
  castle heavily, which they interpret as the occupiers
• 28:52
  wanting to protect something in Huska more than an ordinary
• 28:55
  site, even as Allied victory drew near.
• 29:00
  When the Germans finally fled in 1945, they left behind an aura
• 29:05
  of mystery that only magnified Huska's dark legend in the
• 29:09
  modern era. After World War 2, Huska Castle
• 29:14
  was returned to the Simon Eck family, but under Communist rule
• 29:18
  in Czechoslovakia, it was seized by the state.
• 29:22
  In the 1950's, the castle was repurposed as a repository once
• 29:27
  again, this time holding archives for Prague's National
• 29:31
  Library. By the 1970s, a chemical company
• 29:36
  even planned to use Huska as a workers Recreation Center or
• 29:41
  sanatorium. A strange fate, surely, for a
• 29:44
  place considered a portal to hell.
• 29:47
  That plan never fully materialized, but a curious
• 29:51
  event did occur. In 1974, the Czech underground
• 29:56
  rock band the Plastic People of the Universe.
• 30:00
  Dissident Artists managed to record a live album, Inside the
• 30:04
  Empty Castle, taking advantage of the acoustics and seclusion.
• 30:10
  The fact that a counterculture band sought out Huska only adds
• 30:13
  to its quirky modern history. Following the fall of communism
• 30:18
  in 1989, Husca was again given back to its rightful owners, the
• 30:23
  Simonic descendants, who then overtook restorations.
• 30:28
  By 1999, the castle was open to the public for the first time in
• 30:34
  its existence. Taurus now walk its courtyard
• 30:37
  and Chapel freely, but many swear that an oppressive
• 30:42
  atmosphere lingers. Indeed, post war visitors and
• 30:47
  staff have continued to report unearthly experiences,
• 30:52
  apparitions and uniforms, unexplained blood stains
• 30:57
  appearing and disappearing, and a pervasive feeling that unseen
• 31:02
  eyes are watching from dark corners, even after surviving
• 31:07
  real world wars and decades of neglect.
• 31:11
  Huska's malevolent reputation has only grown stronger.
• 31:16
  In recent decades, Hoska Castle has become a magnet for
• 31:20
  paranormal investigators, researchers and thrill seekers.
• 31:24
  Drawn by its ghost stories. Television crews from around the
• 31:28
  world have descended upon Hoska to explore its Gate to Hell law.
• 31:35
  In 2009, the American team from Ghost Hunters International
• 31:39
  filmed an episode on site. They documented the castle's
• 31:43
  creepy vaults and the Chapel. You'll find that in Season 2,
• 31:47
  Episode 3, titled Gates to Hell, the investigators experienced
• 31:52
  battery drains on their equipment and eerie audio
• 31:56
  recordings. One EVP that's electronic voice
• 32:00
  phenomena captured a guttural voice in an empty cell, and team
• 32:06
  members reported feeling sudden chills in the Chapel despite the
• 32:10
  summer heat, as mentioned in the episode.
• 32:14
  The following year in 2010, the UK's Most Haunted broadcast a
• 32:19
  live overnight investigation from Hosker.
• 32:23
  That crew also described disembodied footsteps and a
• 32:28
  phantom figure in black seen fleetingly on the Chapel stairs
• 32:34
  by 2013. A French paranormal series.
• 32:37
  RIP rosacea Investigations Paranormal came to Hoska to
• 32:43
  probe the Hellgate legend. Each team left with intriguing,
• 32:48
  if inconclusive evidence and explained shadows on video,
• 32:53
  mysteriously moving objects and audio anomalies.
• 32:58
  While sceptics might attribute these to the power of
• 33:01
  suggestion, even hardened investigators admitted Hoska
• 33:05
  gave them the creeps. More than most locations, local
• 33:11
  Czech researchers have also studied Hosker's hauntings.
• 33:15
  In 2014, a collaboration of Czech paranormal investigators
• 33:19
  conducted an extensive overnight vigil inside the castle.
• 33:24
  They had support from a Prague television crew and they treated
• 33:29
  Hosker as Case 7 in their files. And during this research,
• 33:34
  multiple cameras and sensors were set up from dusk until
• 33:37
  dawn. The results were unsettling. 1
• 33:42
  stationary camera was found inexplicably moved from its
• 33:46
  original position while no one was in the room.
• 33:49
  Loud bangs echoed in the Chapel around 3:00 AM, the so-called
• 33:54
  Devil's Hour. It woke a journalist who was
• 33:57
  sleeping there as a test. Investigators even found scratch
• 34:01
  marks on one team member's back the next morning, which he
• 34:05
  couldn't explain. Another reported a sudden
• 34:08
  burning pain in his chest in the middle of the night, and a red
• 34:13
  Welt appeared, only to vanish without a trace by the time they
• 34:17
  left the castle. Technical difficulties plagued
• 34:22
  the investigation as well. A full 14 hours of infrared
• 34:26
  video footage inexplicably corrupted on the storage drive,
• 34:32
  almost as if whatever lurks in Hoska did not want to be
• 34:35
  recorded. And yet the team did capture
• 34:38
  several clear Evps. 1 recording from the Chapel contained a deep
• 34:44
  voice speaking in what sounded like an archaic dialect of
• 34:47
  German or Latin, and the word serif, meaning an angelic being,
• 34:53
  was discerned in the whispering mix.
• 34:57
  Such findings have only cemented Hoska's status among paranormal
• 35:01
  enthusiasts as one of the world's most active haunted
• 35:06
  sites. Visitors and staff continue to
• 35:10
  witness inexplicable phenomena. Castle guides have testified to
• 35:16
  seeing a faceless dark figure in a monks robe gliding along the
• 35:22
  Chapel corridor. Presumably it's the legendary
• 35:25
  guardian in black keeping eternal watch.
• 35:30
  Tourists frequently feel dizzy or oppressed near the chapel's
• 35:35
  crypt, and some faint upon peering down the grated hole
• 35:40
  that legend calls the Bottomless Pit.
• 35:43
  In the courtyard, people have reported encounters with
• 35:47
  spectral animals, a giant black hound like beast that vanishes
• 35:52
  as one approaches it, and even flocks of dead birds found
• 35:57
  inexplicably strewn about after nights of stormy weather.
• 36:02
  Nearby woods are the scene of alleged sightings of hybrid
• 36:06
  creatures reminiscent of old myths.
• 36:09
  Half human, half dogs flitting between the trees of twilight.
• 36:16
  The sound of horses hooves echo on occasion even though no
• 36:19
  horses have been at Hoska for decades.
• 36:22
  That brings to mind the fabled headless horse.
• 36:25
  There are also modern reports of a ghostly woman in an old
• 36:29
  fashioned dress sobbing in the castle's green chamber and an
• 36:35
  apparition of a headless man in a blood stained shirt stumbling
• 36:40
  and near the gatehouse, possibly a victim of some forgotten
• 36:44
  mediaeval crime re enacting his death.
• 36:48
  Hosker Castle today capitalizes on its chilling legends.
• 36:53
  It hosts regular tours and even paranormal investigation nights.
• 36:58
  And yet, despite the crowds that now roam its once forbidden
• 37:02
  halls, many attest that when you find yourself alone in a corner
• 37:07
  of Hosker, an unsettling silence falls and the hair on your arms
• 37:14
  prickle. It's as if the castle remembers
• 37:19
  its ancient duty to stand guard over an unspeakable darkness,
• 37:27
  and that memory permeates the stone.
• 37:31
  From its Gothic birth as a seal on hell, through centuries of
• 37:35
  ghost stories to Nazi era mysteries and cutting edge ghost
• 37:40
  hunts, Hosker Castle offers an unparalleled tapestry of history
• 37:46
  and horror. It's chronicle interweaves
• 37:50
  verified facts with vivid folklore, providing rich
• 37:54
  inspiration for many supernatural tales.
• 37:58
  As one modern visitor put it, after a long midnight vigil
• 38:02
  within Hoska's castle, they said you leave this castle with the
• 38:06
  uneasy feeling that something followed you out, a sentiment
• 38:11
  that encapsulates why Hoska's legacy endures.
• 38:16
  Each era of Hoska's story, from medieval chronicles to modern
• 38:21
  ghost hunts, contributes a chapter to what is ultimately
• 38:24
  the enduring enigma of Hoska Castle, a place where history
• 38:30
  and the supernatural are inextricably entwined.
• 38:36
  Hoska Castle stands still, brooding against the cold winds
• 38:40
  that sweep the Czech wilderness. A silent guardian, or perhaps a
• 38:47
  silent jailer. It's ancient stones are
• 38:51
  weathered but unbroken. It's dark halls echo with
• 38:56
  centuries of whispered prayers, desperate bargains, and unseen
• 39:02
  footsteps that seem to trace the same doomed paths again and
• 39:08
  again. The bottomless pit beneath its
• 39:11
  Chapel remains sealed for now. Visitors come and go, some
• 39:17
  leaving with heavy hearts, some never able to explain the
• 39:22
  nightmares that follow them home.
• 39:25
  Equipment fails, lights flicker, voices whisper in languages no
• 39:32
  human tongue has spoken in centuries, and always deep
• 39:38
  beneath the worn flags of the Chapel.
• 39:40
  Floor. Something stirs.
• 39:44
  It waits. Time has marched past Huska
• 39:47
  Castle. Kingdoms have risen and fallen.
• 39:52
  Wars have come and gone. Yet the darkness here remains
• 39:56
  untouched, patient, eternal, and perhaps hungry.
• 40:05
  The question has never been whether the legends are true.
• 40:09
  The real question is this. How long can the seal hold?
• 40:14
  And if it should. Break what might crawl free into
• 40:18
  the world once more. What once seemed like a
• 40:27
  miraculous place to its early settlers slowly but surely
• 40:32
  collapsed under the weight of its own profits and debauchery.
• 40:38
  And it's now said that the land and all items within this
• 40:41
  abandoned town are now cursed. This is a strange tale that
• 40:47
  intertwines legend with history. This is the untold story of
• 40:53
  Bodie, California. The year was 1859, and mining
• 41:28
  had began to decline along the western slope of the Sierra
• 41:31
  Nevada. Prospectors in search of riches
• 41:35
  beyond their wildest dreams began to cross the eastern
• 41:38
  slope. One such man was named William S
• 41:43
  Bodhi. During his expedition, Bodhi
• 41:46
  would find gold near a place now known as Bodhi Bluff.
• 41:50
  He would make camp there and continue to take his chances in
• 41:54
  order to collect his riches. His supplies and food would grow
• 41:58
  scarce, but his stash of gold Nuggets was growing ever larger.
• 42:04
  Powered by his insatiable love for a better life, Bodhi
• 42:08
  continued on. However, as the year progressed
• 42:12
  and winter came over the area, he unfortunately would breathe
• 42:17
  his last. Breath.
• 42:19
  Bodhi died in a snowstorm that very winter and would later be
• 42:22
  discovered by the future inhabitants of the town that
• 42:26
  would come to bear his name. His story, in its own way, would
• 42:30
  manifest within the settlement, even down to its last days.
• 42:36
  As the search for gold continued, Bodhi's gold vein
• 42:39
  would be rediscovered and slowly but surely, a mine was
• 42:43
  established as well as a mill. The year was now 1861 and the
• 42:49
  town known as Bodie was home to 20 miners.
• 42:54
  For the next 17 years to come, its population would grow
• 42:57
  steadily, but it would remain a rather insignificant mining
• 43:01
  camp. And that was until the mill was
• 43:04
  sold. Bunker Hill Mine, as it came to
• 43:08
  be known on the West slope of Bodie Bluff, would change hands
• 43:12
  several times within the 17 years until it came into the
• 43:16
  possession of Standard Mining Company.
• 43:19
  It was originally sold because the owners of Bunker Hill Mine
• 43:22
  at the time believed that the well had run dry, so to speak,
• 43:27
  since their profits and gold discovery had been on a downward
• 43:30
  trajectory for many years. But after it was sold to
• 43:34
  Standard, it was if a miracle had taken place.
• 43:39
  Just months after the sale, a significant vein of rich gold
• 43:42
  ore was discovered. Profits as a result rose
• 43:46
  dramatically, and by 1878 Bodie's population had soared to
• 43:52
  over 5000 people. It's estimated that the mine
• 43:56
  would yield nearly $15 million worth of gold over the next 25
• 44:01
  years, profits that would be worth an estimated $400 million
• 44:06
  in today's money. Although all seem to be going
• 44:10
  great in Bodie, there were many hardships yet in store for the
• 44:14
  fledgling town and its citizens. The winter of 1878 was
• 44:19
  particularly savage. It's estimated that over 200
• 44:24
  people would lose their lives, either due to exposure,
• 44:28
  hypothermia, or disease. Others would be taken by fallen
• 44:33
  timber and one of several explosions to take place within
• 44:37
  the mines as the powder magazine mysteriously ignited.
• 44:44
  But despite the horror of the winter frost, Bodie continued to
• 44:48
  grow. People of almost every walk of
• 44:51
  life would end up there, from miners to gamblers, prostitutes
• 44:58
  and businessmen and by 1879 it had doubled in size to over
• 45:05
  10,000 residents. It had added an additional 2000
• 45:09
  buildings and before long it supported over 30 gold mines, 65
• 45:15
  salons and untold amounts of brothels, gambling halls and
• 45:20
  opium dens. Opposite the brothels, gambling
• 45:25
  and opium smoking, the town also had several churches, banks and
• 45:30
  schools. 3. Breweries within the town were
• 45:34
  day and night brewing whiskey and 100 gallon barrels because
• 45:38
  Bodhi seemed to have an insatiable thirst for alcohol.
• 45:43
  Like a perfect storm, Bodhi would soon earn a reputation for
• 45:47
  violence, lawlessness, and debauchery of every kind.
• 45:53
  Killings at times were daily events, Robberies, stick ups and
• 45:59
  street fights all became frequent occurrences as well as
• 46:03
  the town seemed to turn its back on God and worship its new found
• 46:07
  idol. 1 of gold and profit. It seemed like the good times
• 46:13
  for those who indulge themselves would never end, but they would.
• 46:20
  Given Bodie's reputation, it's perhaps not surprising that one
• 46:24
  little girl whose family was moving to the mining town
• 46:28
  reportedly prayed goodbye. God, we are going to Bodie.
• 46:35
  For all of its construction, Bodie needed vast amounts of
• 46:38
  lumber, and the problem was that there were scarce trees in the
• 46:42
  area. Soon several businessmen formed
• 46:46
  the Bodie and Benton Railroad Company in 1881 for the sole
• 46:51
  purpose of sustaining that appetite for much needed lumber.
• 46:56
  However, for the citizens of Bodie, this was not a good
• 46:59
  decision. In order to maximize profits,
• 47:03
  the company hired an expensive Chinese labor, much to the
• 47:07
  outrage of the locally unemployed.
• 47:10
  So with a large influx of cheap foreign labor, it soon helped
• 47:14
  drive the competing labor costs into the ground, not just for
• 47:19
  the railroad, but for mining as well.
• 47:22
  This marked the beginning of the end of the town.
• 47:26
  The boom was over. Just one year later, in 1882,
• 47:30
  Bodhi started to rapidly decline.
• 47:33
  Prior to 1882, there were no churches within the town, but
• 47:38
  there were two preachers, one Methodist and one Catholic, who
• 47:43
  held services in their private homes.
• 47:46
  And despite of the town's decline, 2 churches would be
• 47:49
  built in 1882, one for each of the two faiths.
• 47:54
  However, both would not end up surviving.
• 47:58
  After the merging of Bodie and the standard mining companies in
• 48:02
  1887, the town saw a brief revival in both wealth as well
• 48:08
  as population. But that too would be short
• 48:11
  lived. A series of fires would soon
• 48:14
  extinguish Bodie for good. In 1892 a fire ravaged much of
• 48:20
  the business district, further depleting the population.
• 48:25
  And in 1898 a massive fire broke out and destroyed the once
• 48:30
  prosperous mill. And although it was a slow burn,
• 48:34
  metaphorically speaking, as far as the decline of the town, the
• 48:39
  final nail in the coffin was in 1932 when a 2 year old boy who
• 48:44
  had gotten a hold of his father's matches ended up
• 48:48
  lighting a fire that would destroy 95% of all buildings
• 48:52
  left within the town. In the years to come,
• 48:56
  Prohibition and the Great Depression would entomb Bodhi,
• 49:01
  and although attempts were made to strike new gold companies,
• 49:04
  once record profits crashed. We are thus left with a tale of
• 49:10
  a city that flew too close to the sun and burned, showing that
• 49:15
  chasing prophet and vanity, debauchery and lust yielded
• 49:20
  disastrous long term consequences. after World War 2,
• 49:25
  only six people lived in the old settlement, and five of these
• 49:30
  six would soon meet strange and untimely deaths.
• 49:35
  The first was a man who seemingly went mad out of the
• 49:39
  clear blue sky. He woke up one day, loaded his
• 49:43
  pistol and shot his wife in broad daylight in the Town
• 49:47
  Center. Three men witnessed this take
• 49:50
  place and quickly took action, which would lead to the death of
• 49:54
  the man who had just killed his wife.
• 49:57
  And this is where things take a very weird turn indeed.
• 50:02
  According to each man, the ghost of the murdered man would visit
• 50:05
  them individually, tormenting them and forbidding their rest.
• 50:11
  Soon, all three would die of a mysterious and painful disease.
• 50:17
  Details on their condition are scarce, but thick and painful
• 50:22
  boils were said to envelope them, and within a matter of
• 50:26
  agonizing weeks, they would all perish.
• 50:30
  But the strange happenings didn't seem to stop with just
• 50:33
  those three men. After this, Bodhi truly became a
• 50:38
  ghost town. By 1962, after years of neglect,
• 50:43
  it was designated as State Historical Park by the state of
• 50:47
  California, and legends about this place seemingly stuck in
• 50:52
  time. One such legend is known as the
• 50:55
  Bodhi Curse. Supposedly, if visitors take
• 50:59
  anything from this town, even a Pebble, they will forever be
• 51:04
  cursed with terrible misfortune. One such victim claimed to have
• 51:08
  been struck with horrible luck and tragedy until they returned
• 51:13
  an item that they had stolen from a previous visit.
• 51:17
  And this isn't entirely speculation or superstition.
• 51:20
  However, the park's own Rangers claim it's a real phenomenon.
• 51:25
  Years ago, they began to keep a log of anyone who would offer to
• 51:28
  tell them that they were taking something from Bodie, and the
• 51:32
  log book also contains pages upon pages of those same people
• 51:37
  returning those items and claiming the notorious curse.
• 51:42
  The curse is said to be perpetuated by the ghosts that
• 51:45
  live there, who guard their riches against thieves as they
• 51:49
  are still searching for new gold.
• 51:52
  And despite the Park Rangers vouching for the happenings,
• 51:56
  many believe it's nothing more than silly superstition.
• 51:59
  But I for one wouldn't want to be the guy to.
• 52:02
  Test this out. There are many places I'd be
• 52:05
  willing to go to investigate, with Bodie being one of them,
• 52:09
  but why take the chance of destroying your life for
• 52:12
  something that wasn't yours to begin with?
• 52:15
  Another ghostly legend is that of the haunting of the JS Kane
• 52:20
  house at the corner of Green and Park streets.
• 52:25
  James Stewart Kane or JS Kane, had arrived in Bodhi when he was
• 52:29
  just 25 years old. Soon after his arrival, he
• 52:34
  entered the lumber transporting business and soon became a
• 52:37
  mogul. He would go on to own the Bodhi
• 52:41
  Bank, a leasing company, and became the primary property
• 52:46
  owner within the town. The home is said to be haunted
• 52:49
  by the restless spirit of a Chinese maid.
• 52:53
  The maid apparently loves children who visit, but hates
• 52:57
  adults. Adults sleeping in the old house
• 53:00
  have said to be awakened frightened and breathless,
• 53:04
  feeling the weight of another person sitting on their chest.
• 53:09
  Others have experienced doors opening and closing by
• 53:12
  themselves, and have even seen the apparition of the spirit
• 53:16
  herself knitting in the chair and the main room.
• 53:21
  And this isn't the only place that's claimed to be haunted
• 53:23
  that still stands there. The Mendoccini House is called
• 53:27
  home to several friendly ghosts, one who is thought to be Missus
• 53:32
  Mendoccini herself. She loved cooking large Italian
• 53:36
  meals for her family. Guests and Park Rangers alike
• 53:40
  have reported smelling delicious aromas emanating from the house.
• 53:45
  Although no one has cooked there for over 100 years, others have
• 53:51
  seen the spirit of a woman peering out of the top window of
• 53:55
  the Duchenbue house, almost as if the woman is still alive but
• 54:00
  trapped in another time, still dressed as though it's the early
• 54:04
  1900s. And yet another ghost is known
• 54:09
  as the Angel of Bodhi and her home is the Bodhi Cemetery.
• 54:14
  There is an old Angel statue that sits to guard her grave.
• 54:19
  The Angel was a three-year old little girl who was said to have
• 54:22
  been accidentally killed when she was hit in the head by a
• 54:25
  slipped miner's pickaxe. Visitors have heard giggling,
• 54:30
  feeling a small hand tugging on their pant legs, and others have
• 54:35
  seen a little girl run from tombstone to tombstone, but upon
• 54:39
  rushing to find her, there's never anyone there.
• 54:44
  Bodhi is now in a state of arrested decay.
• 54:48
  There are no permanent residents of the town except the park
• 54:51
  employees, and only about 10% of the original buildings still
• 54:55
  stand in this ghost town. There are no maps, no
• 55:00
  restaurants or recreations here. You get the real ghost town
• 55:06
  experience. So if you find yourself in
• 55:09
  California and feel like taking a walk through time, Bodie just
• 55:14
  might be the place for you. But just remember, don't take
• 55:19
  anything or you just might become its newest resident.
• 55:22
  Ghost along a section of Winding Rd.
• 55:34
  Tall rusted gates harbor dark secrets.
• 55:38
  Not an adventure for the weak, this place is known for an
• 55:42
  abundance of evil activity. As the weary wander through the
• 55:48
  rusted iron bars, the souls of the damned whisper, some will
• 55:54
  visit with wonder and others apprehension.
• 55:59
  And for good reason, for this place has spawned many legends.
• 56:05
  Stories of satanic cults, sacrifices, demonic possession,
• 56:11
  and a wide range of terrifying apparitions have allegedly
• 56:16
  revealed themselves. But are there any truth to the
• 56:19
  rumors? What are these bone chilling
• 56:23
  stories? What is it about the stretch of
• 56:26
  road in Thornton, Co that has made it so infamous?
• 56:31
  That is what we will discover here on this episode of Mystery
• 56:36
  Archives as we explore the Gates of Hell of Riverdale Rd. of
• 56:43
  Colorado. All information provided is
• 56:58
  purely speculative. I've tried my best to find any
• 57:02
  and all information I could to the best to fit the stories and
• 57:07
  or see possibly where they could have come from or if there's any
• 57:11
  truth to them. Riverdale Rd., an 11 mile path
• 57:16
  located between Thornton and Brighton Co, has been a supposed
• 57:22
  hotspot for paranormal activity for decades.
• 57:26
  The earliest rumors tell us of a nearby Native American burial
• 57:31
  ground when it was in use. It's said that the tribe placed
• 57:35
  a curse upon the land to affect those who would disturb their
• 57:40
  dead. And as we've heard numerous
• 57:43
  times before, you don't mess with Native burial grounds.
• 57:48
  Nothing good ever comes of it. More on this later.
• 57:53
  Over the years, strange entities, those seeming to be
• 57:56
  half human and half animal, have been known to permeate the path
• 58:02
  ahead. Could these creatures have been
• 58:04
  the very feared skinwalkers of native folklore?
• 58:09
  Not all is evil with this rumor, however.
• 58:12
  There are both good and evil forces at work.
• 58:15
  They say that if you see a Gray fox along the road, then a
• 58:19
  benevolent entity has. Graced your trip?
• 58:23
  But if a coyote is what you see instead of a Gray fox, the path
• 58:28
  ahead is an ominous and malevolent one.
• 58:31
  We will certainly dive back into all of these rumors later, but
• 58:36
  the lore doesn't end here. It was nicknamed Closer to
• 58:40
  Modern Times for a variety of stories over the decades, and
• 58:45
  those of which I'll cover now in no particular order.
• 58:50
  Many people were lynched upon the trees surrounding the road,
• 58:54
  and many as sacrifices, some allegedly of former slaves by
• 59:00
  racist groups and others sacrifices committed by
• 59:05
  residents of the local community long ago.
• 59:09
  Whether the groups were one and the same cannot be
• 59:12
  distinguished. The Gates of Hell was once
• 59:15
  supposedly the home of a commune of Satanist Satanists who would
• 59:21
  do anything to keep their black church and its practices the
• 59:26
  secret. If anyone questioned the
• 59:28
  leadership, or if an outsider got too close to the truth, they
• 59:33
  would simply go missing. On the North End of the road,
• 59:38
  not too far from Hwy. 7, there once stood a large house,
• 59:43
  probably what most would consider to be a mansion.
• 59:47
  But the ruins of this building, too, harbor sinister secrets.
• 59:52
  Built by a. Very wealthy man.
• 59:54
  For him and his family, the home was once quite the marvel to
• 59:58
  gaze upon, but the ability to look upon the structure would be
• 1:00:02
  short lived. Shortly after moving his family
• 1:00:06
  in, once construction was finished, the man began to
• 1:00:10
  change, growing colder, more distant and stranger.
• 1:00:17
  Located back behind the home was an underground cellar and taking
• 1:00:21
  the blood from the lives of those who had gone astray.
• 1:00:26
  It is here that they say he used black magic, riding strange
• 1:00:30
  symbols on the walls with their blood in order to try and
• 1:00:35
  conjure spirits and demons, perhaps in order to gain power
• 1:00:42
  and wealth. Behind the cellar is an old
• 1:00:45
  burnt tree which has some lore of its own as well.
• 1:00:49
  This was where some victims were supposedly hung and burned at
• 1:00:53
  the stake, leaving charred remnants. 1 fateful night as his
• 1:01:00
  family slept, the husband of the family crept up the stairs with
• 1:01:06
  an axe and without the others knowing he went room to room
• 1:01:12
  slaying his wife and his children as their blood coated
• 1:01:17
  the floors of the house. This diabolical man seemingly
• 1:01:22
  demon possessed, then took fuel and dumped it all throughout the
• 1:01:28
  house, lit it a flame, and then stepped outside to revel in pure
• 1:01:34
  madness and what he had just done.
• 1:01:37
  Was it him or a demon inside of him?
• 1:01:41
  This we'll perhaps never know, but he apparently once the home
• 1:01:45
  was partially engulfed in flames and took a rope, fastened it to
• 1:01:51
  the charred tree behind his cellar and ultimately hung
• 1:01:55
  himself, his feet dangling inches above the ground as the
• 1:02:00
  home behind him was reduced to burnt rubble.
• 1:02:04
  Other versions of the story say the man disappeared and was
• 1:02:08
  never seen or heard from again. A pale white figure of a woman
• 1:02:13
  is said to haunt the grounds now can be heard screaming some
• 1:02:17
  nights when the wind is still. Those that visit the Gates of
• 1:02:22
  Hell area have reported, as previously mentioned, seeing
• 1:02:26
  strange animals, but they also report seeing and hearing
• 1:02:30
  stranger things as well. Disembodied voices, the feeling
• 1:02:36
  of being watched in the sensation of icy hands poking
• 1:02:42
  and touching them. Another very strange phenomenon
• 1:02:46
  that's said to exist is bloody human handprints materializing
• 1:02:51
  on the street signs with no rational origin.
• 1:02:56
  This place, like many, seems downright terrifying in my
• 1:02:59
  opinion. But is there any truth to any of
• 1:03:02
  these stories, or are they just that, stories?
• 1:03:07
  Well, here's what I found following what we covered in
• 1:03:11
  order. Thornton, Co was indigenously
• 1:03:16
  inhabited by several Native American tribes, most notably
• 1:03:21
  the Arapaho and the Cheyenne. Each tribe had very different
• 1:03:26
  burial methods. The Arapaho usually buried their
• 1:03:30
  deceased on the same day that the person had died.
• 1:03:34
  The body was dressed in their finest traditional clothing and
• 1:03:38
  a spacious grave was dug into the ground.
• 1:03:41
  The person was then buried with some of their personal
• 1:03:44
  belongings, such as clothing and blankets.
• 1:03:49
  Stones and other items would be placed on top of the grave to
• 1:03:53
  mark its significance and who was buried there.
• 1:03:57
  Arguably fairly similar to how the West buries people today.
• 1:04:01
  The Cheyenne, however, had a very different method.
• 1:04:05
  It's unclear how long it took them to typically lay someone to
• 1:04:09
  rest, but their funeral customs were that they would wrap the
• 1:04:13
  deceased in shawls and blankets, they would proceed to the
• 1:04:17
  designated burial ground, and during the procession A
• 1:04:21
  bloodletting practice would take place where ponies would
• 1:04:25
  typically be killed. They are interesting to me in
• 1:04:29
  numerous ways, but they wouldn't bury their dead.
• 1:04:33
  They would instead build a scaffold of sort and lay the
• 1:04:36
  dead on top of it. This was done in the belief that
• 1:04:40
  it would accelerate the soul of the departed's passage into the
• 1:04:44
  afterlife. For practical reasons, it is
• 1:04:48
  believed that they did this in order to prevent wild animals
• 1:04:52
  from pillaging the corpse, which very well may have been the
• 1:04:56
  case, but typically the bodies would stay and sometimes decay
• 1:05:01
  and eventually fall back down to the ground.
• 1:05:04
  Now, curses did exist for both tribes, but I couldn't find any
• 1:05:08
  that specifically referenced burial sites and almost all
• 1:05:12
  people's beliefs. Disturbing the dead is
• 1:05:15
  considered very taboo. Could it perhaps be our
• 1:05:18
  collective regard for the eternal rest of those who have
• 1:05:22
  passed that have led us to the belief that a burial ground
• 1:05:26
  could indeed be cursed? Also, skinwalkers, which are
• 1:05:31
  still feared to this day, were created when a person committed
• 1:05:35
  a heinous act like the killing of a family member, and this
• 1:05:40
  would grant them supernatural powers, allowing them to
• 1:05:43
  shapeshift from a human to an animal at will.
• 1:05:48
  They often become coyotes, wolves, foxes, or bears, though
• 1:05:55
  they can transition into any animal.
• 1:05:58
  Both coyotes and foxes are allegedly the omens along the
• 1:06:02
  road containing the gates of hell.
• 1:06:05
  When it comes to the supposed lynchings that took place, I
• 1:06:09
  found this in Colorado. It was a cheap way to execute
• 1:06:14
  criminals and the majority of those that are documented,
• 1:06:18
  roughly 175 cases, were mostly the results of core rulings at
• 1:06:23
  the time, all over the state in the time being the early 20th
• 1:06:27
  century. As far as if formal slaves were
• 1:06:31
  lynched, this very possibly could have taken place, but I
• 1:06:35
  couldn't find any that were directly linked to Thornton in
• 1:06:39
  total. There were 5.
• 1:06:41
  Events that were explicitly tied to race, but many took place
• 1:06:45
  again in the early 20th century, albeit as horrific as they were.
• 1:06:51
  After 1919, lynch mobs occasionally flared up to dole
• 1:06:56
  out public justice, but as more people moved to the state,
• 1:07:01
  attitudes towards this type of behavior and action began to
• 1:07:05
  change. Therefore, public opinion as
• 1:07:08
  well as opinion of the courts moved away from this method of
• 1:07:12
  execution. When it comes to the apparent
• 1:07:15
  satanic coal commune that supposedly lived there, I
• 1:07:19
  couldn't find any evidence of them no matter where I looked.
• 1:07:23
  But obviously, if I was a secret colt and I was good at my job, I
• 1:07:28
  wouldn't have any evidence of my bloodthirsty existence on the
• 1:07:32
  Internet either. This now leads us back to the
• 1:07:35
  mansion where the name came from.
• 1:07:38
  The name Gates of Hell came from the old and rusted iron gates of
• 1:07:43
  a burned down mansion, A blaze that was the result of a madman
• 1:07:49
  who took his family out. Now there is proof of the
• 1:07:52
  mansion, who bought it, and what happened that caused it to burn
• 1:07:56
  down, but the truth is certainly less spooky than the legend.
• 1:08:01
  Before I dive into it, I wanted to also mention that it's more
• 1:08:05
  than likely that the charred tree.
• 1:08:07
  Was the result of either. The original fire or of a
• 1:08:11
  lightning strike taking place. The mansion was originally named
• 1:08:15
  the Vulpert House. Built in 1864 by a man named
• 1:08:19
  David Volbert, this two-story brick house was a fine structure
• 1:08:24
  of dignity. David, who was a very successful
• 1:08:28
  prospector along with his wife Catherine, had two daughters and
• 1:08:33
  a son. However, even though fitting the
• 1:08:37
  time frame when the madman story supposedly took place, David
• 1:08:41
  didn't go crazy and harm his family.
• 1:08:44
  He actually would go on to pass away, presumably within the
• 1:08:48
  home, at the age of 75. What happened to his family
• 1:08:52
  members is unclear, but they most likely moved on and passed
• 1:08:57
  away from natural causes. The home, as far as I can tell,
• 1:09:01
  sat vacant from the early 1900s until 1975.
• 1:09:06
  This is when a man named Doctor Hugo Rhodic and his wife Ori and
• 1:09:11
  Sally Rhodic, purchase the home, working hard on behalf of the
• 1:09:15
  Adams County Historical Society. The couple would go on to
• 1:09:19
  restore the home and live there for a short time, designating
• 1:09:23
  its status as a historical monument.
• 1:09:27
  Things seemed normal for the Road X until 1:00 AM on November
• 1:09:31
  28th, 1975. The home, which stood at 9190
• 1:09:38
  Riverdale Rd., became engulfed in flames.
• 1:09:43
  It's unclear whether or not the couple had any children or any
• 1:09:46
  that lived with them at that time, but the Rodicks would make
• 1:09:50
  it out of the blaze very much alive.
• 1:09:53
  And although the origin of the blaze was undetermined, the
• 1:09:56
  authorities at the time did determine that arson did not
• 1:10:00
  seem to be at play. Doctor Rodick would go on to
• 1:10:04
  live and ultimately passed away at the age of 102.
• 1:10:09
  It seems as though the Madman Mansion story, as I've come to
• 1:10:12
  see it, could possibly be a fictionalized amalgamation of
• 1:10:17
  both of the real stories surrounding the Vulpert House.
• 1:10:21
  The ruins of the home, as well as the original gates have since
• 1:10:25
  been demolished and the Pelican Ponds open space now sits in
• 1:10:30
  their place. Sometimes the truth isn't as fun
• 1:10:33
  as the legends that surround an area.
• 1:10:36
  And perhaps there could be more truth in some of these tales.
• 1:10:40
  Perhaps the area itself is where the veil is thinner between our
• 1:10:44
  world and the next. It's hard to say, but one thing
• 1:10:49
  is certain. The folklore of America is vast,
• 1:10:52
  creative, and entertaining, and it's incredible to see so many
• 1:10:57
  stories spawning from seemingly such an insignificant place,
• 1:11:02
  like a winding stretch of Rd. in the middle of Colorado.
• 1:11:10
  People vanish here. Cameras fail and blood runs
• 1:11:14
  cold. Those who come looking for
• 1:11:16
  answers often leave with scars they can't explain, if they
• 1:11:21
  leave at all. Locals call it cursed.
• 1:11:24
  Scientists call it an anomaly. Those who have stepped foot into
• 1:11:28
  it simply call it hell. Today, we will be covering the
• 1:11:33
  terrifying and enigmatic place simply known as Hoyabashu Forest
• 1:11:40
  here on Mystery Archives. Nestled on the outskirts of
• 1:11:56
  Klushnapoka in Transylvania, the Hoyabashu Forest is a place
• 1:12:02
  where history and horror intertwine.
• 1:12:05
  Beneath its canopy lie traces of Romania's oldest Neolithic
• 1:12:09
  settlement, a 6500. Year old burial.
• 1:12:13
  Ground and the ruins of ancient houses.
• 1:12:16
  But it is not these archaeological relics that have
• 1:12:19
  earned Hoya Bashu, its ominous name, the world's most haunted.
• 1:12:23
  Forest. That reputation comes from the
• 1:12:26
  countless modern tales of horror, which include mysterious
• 1:12:30
  disappearances, ghostly apparitions and uncanny
• 1:12:34
  phenomena that defies scientific explanation.
• 1:12:38
  Locals have long avoided this woodland.
• 1:12:41
  According to legend, centuries ago a shepherd named Bashu drove
• 1:12:45
  his flock of 200 sheep into these trees and was never seen
• 1:12:50
  again. To this day, many in Cluj
• 1:12:52
  refused to enter Hoya Bashu, whispering that those who wander
• 1:12:57
  under its twisted bows risk vanishing into thin air.
• 1:13:01
  Those brave enough to test the forest boundaries often emerge
• 1:13:05
  shaken and marked, sometimes literally.
• 1:13:09
  Visitors speak of sudden rashes and burns that rise on their
• 1:13:12
  skin, intense headaches and nausea striking without warning,
• 1:13:18
  and an overwhelming feeling that something unseen is watching you
• 1:13:22
  from the shadows. Electronic devices go haywire,
• 1:13:26
  phones die, cameras refuse to function, and compasses spend
• 1:13:31
  uselessly, as if the forest exists in a realm or North and
• 1:13:35
  South have no meaning. In older times, villagers
• 1:13:39
  attributed these disturbances to evil spirits or the devil
• 1:13:43
  himself, a curse on the land that made animals panic and
• 1:13:47
  humans flee and dread. Modern science is yet to offer a
• 1:13:52
  better explanation, which is why Hoya Basu's eerie lore only
• 1:13:56
  continues to grow. This grainy photograph of a disc
• 1:14:00
  shaped craft over the Hoya Basu clearing remains one of the
• 1:14:04
  forests most iconic mysteries. Barnea, a 45 year old military
• 1:14:10
  technician, was spending a quiet August afternoon picnicking in
• 1:14:14
  the forest with his girlfriend and two friends when the silence
• 1:14:18
  was broken by a shout. It was shortly past noon on
• 1:14:22
  August 18th of 19 68, a bright, clear day, and Barneau had
• 1:14:27
  wandered off to gather some firewood.
• 1:14:30
  His friend's urgent cries quickly made him Sprint back to
• 1:14:33
  the clearing where they'd laid their picnic.
• 1:14:36
  There, above the tree line, was a spectacular side unfolding.
• 1:14:40
  A round, metallic object hovered effortlessly in the sky,
• 1:14:45
  glinting in the sunlight. The thing was unlike any
• 1:14:48
  aircraft they knew. It was perfectly silent,
• 1:14:52
  drifting over the clearing with their hearts pounding.
• 1:14:55
  Barney raised to the 35mm camera he had brought along and managed
• 1:15:00
  to snap a sequence of three photographs through the lens.
• 1:15:04
  He watched the flying saucer circle slowly over the forest,
• 1:15:09
  then suddenly execute a strange tilting maneuver, almost a
• 1:15:13
  playful meteor tumble, before going out of sight at an
• 1:15:18
  incredible speed. In the span of a breath, the
• 1:15:21
  object was gone, sitting stunned.
• 1:15:24
  Barnea and his friends realized that they had witnessed
• 1:15:27
  something truly extraordinary, and indeed, when his photos were
• 1:15:32
  developed, they revealed a clear Dome shaped disc against the
• 1:15:36
  afternoon sky, tangible evidence that would soon thrust Hoya Basu
• 1:15:41
  Forest into the international spotlight.
• 1:15:44
  Barnea's images, published in local newspapers, gave the
• 1:15:48
  forest its first taste of global notoriety.
• 1:15:51
  UFO enthusiasts around the world were astonished.
• 1:15:55
  Here was a credible eyewitness, a sober military man, presenting
• 1:15:59
  what appeared to be one of the clearest UFO photographs ever
• 1:16:03
  taken in Romania. Yet for Emil Barnea himself, the
• 1:16:07
  encounter brought misfortune. In 1968, Romania was under a
• 1:16:12
  communist regime, deeply hostile, filed as superstitions
• 1:16:16
  and paranormal tales. Admitting that he saw an
• 1:16:19
  otherworldly craft and worse, providing photographic proof did
• 1:16:24
  not sit well with the authorities.
• 1:16:26
  Barnea was derided by his superiors, and before long, this
• 1:16:31
  upstanding technician was summarily fired from his job for
• 1:16:35
  daring to report a flying saucer.
• 1:16:37
  His sighting was officially ignored.
• 1:16:40
  There were no tabloids or TV shows in communist Romania that
• 1:16:43
  would celebrate such a story, but still the legend quietly
• 1:16:48
  grew. The photos survived, and years
• 1:16:51
  later, after the regime fell, they've resurfaced abroad.
• 1:16:54
  In 1977, Barnea's remarkable pictures were presented at a UFO
• 1:16:59
  conference in Acapulco, astonishing researchers who
• 1:17:04
  deemed them some of the most compelling UFO images ever
• 1:17:07
  captured. To this day, no one has provided
• 1:17:10
  A definitive explanation for what Barnea captured on film.
• 1:17:14
  He gained no riches or fame from it, only a footnote in the halls
• 1:17:19
  of history of the unexplained. And Barnea was not alone in
• 1:17:23
  suffering consequences for delving into the forest secrets.
• 1:17:27
  As tour guide Marius Leisa notes darkly, many of the early
• 1:17:31
  researchers who poked into the forest mysteries met unsettling
• 1:17:35
  ends, some allegedly being found not long after in psychiatric
• 1:17:40
  wards, their sanity frayed by either the state's punishment or
• 1:17:45
  something far stranger that they had encountered among those
• 1:17:48
  trees. If UF OS initially brought Hoya
• 1:17:51
  Bachu fame, it's ghosts and phantoms that cemented its
• 1:17:55
  infamy. Over the years, scores of people
• 1:17:59
  have reported encountering apparitions in these woods, pale
• 1:18:02
  figures peering out from behind gnarled trunks, shadowy
• 1:18:07
  silhouettes that flit between the trees and then dissolve into
• 1:18:11
  thin air. 1 Early explorer of the forest, biologist Alexander
• 1:18:16
  Sift, found that his camera picked up things that his eyes
• 1:18:20
  did not. In the 1950s, Sift conducted a
• 1:18:24
  series of solitary expeditions into Hoya Basu and snapped
• 1:18:29
  hundreds of photos. When he developed them in his
• 1:18:32
  darkroom, he was astonished to see unexplainable shapes in the
• 1:18:36
  frames, faces, and figures lurking in the background.
• 1:18:40
  The local villagers to whom Sift showed the images to were
• 1:18:44
  terrified. To them, it confirmed what they
• 1:18:47
  had always suspected, that spirits roamed the forest.
• 1:18:51
  Decades later, a respected chemistry professor named Adrian
• 1:18:56
  Petrut spent years studying the site and also witnessed these
• 1:19:00
  eerie visions. Petrut reported seeing misty,
• 1:19:03
  ghostly beings materializing in the darkness under trees,
• 1:19:07
  sometimes an entire spectral form, other times just a
• 1:19:11
  floating, disembodied head drifting through the gloom.
• 1:19:15
  Such a accounts, coming from educated observers as well as
• 1:19:19
  from folklore, have led many to believe that the forest is some
• 1:19:23
  kind of gateway between the world of the living and that of
• 1:19:26
  the dead. The very air in Hoya Basu seems
• 1:19:29
  charged with unseen presences, giving anyone who enters an
• 1:19:34
  immediate prickling of the skin and the sense that they are
• 1:19:37
  never truly. Alone.
• 1:19:39
  For those who wander the crooked paths of Hoya Basu Forest at
• 1:19:42
  night, it's often what you hear that provokes terror.
• 1:19:46
  Visitors frequently speak of an uncanny auditory hallucination,
• 1:19:51
  the crunch of footsteps pacing in the leaves, keeping an even
• 1:19:54
  distance just out of sight. Yet when they shine their
• 1:19:58
  flashlight towards the noise, nothing is there.
• 1:20:02
  Others describe whispers floating on the breeze, or burst
• 1:20:06
  of distant, disembodied laughter.
• 1:20:08
  Echo. Between the trees, as though
• 1:20:10
  some unseen figures are mocking their very presence, and
• 1:20:14
  occasionally the encounters turn physical.
• 1:20:18
  More than one traveler has felt an invisible hand on their
• 1:20:21
  shoulder or pushed them in the back, delivering a shock of
• 1:20:24
  adrenaline and fear. I was not entirely alone, and
• 1:20:29
  something shoved me, one visitor insisted.
• 1:20:32
  Yet no branch or route had caused their stumble.
• 1:20:36
  Tour guides have learned to take such reports seriously, as they
• 1:20:40
  occur with alarming consistency. People enter the forest brimming
• 1:20:44
  with skepticism, only to emerge pale and wide eyed, convinced
• 1:20:49
  that they were touched or even stalked by unseen entities.
• 1:20:53
  The Ford's suppressive atmosphere amplifies every fear.
• 1:20:57
  It is easy to imagine eyes watching from the dense
• 1:20:59
  undergrowth, or to misinterpret a swaying branch as a human
• 1:21:04
  figure. But in Hoya Bashu, so many
• 1:21:07
  independent witnesses have described the same phenomena,
• 1:21:10
  the same giggling echoes, the same dark silhouettes sitting on
• 1:21:14
  the edge of vision. One especially harrowing
• 1:21:18
  incident illustrates just how these experiences can feel.
• 1:21:23
  On the evening of August 18th of 1999, exactly 31 years to the
• 1:21:28
  day after Emil Barnea's UFO sighting, a group of five
• 1:21:33
  Klushnapuka locals decided to camp near the infamous central
• 1:21:37
  clearing of Hoya Basu. They had heard the legends and
• 1:21:41
  came equipped with flashlights and a healthy dose of
• 1:21:44
  skepticism. As twilight fell, however, the
• 1:21:47
  forest mood seemed to change. An unnatural coldness descended
• 1:21:51
  around them, drastic enough that the friends found themselves
• 1:21:55
  shivering on a warm summer night.
• 1:21:58
  Their compass needles began spinning erratically, and their
• 1:22:02
  GPS units flickered out. Phone batteries that were fully
• 1:22:06
  charged an hour before suddenly drained to 0, cutting off their
• 1:22:10
  connection to the outside world. Then came the footfalls.
• 1:22:15
  They were heavy, deliberate steps, trudging in a circle
• 1:22:18
  around their campsite. The group fell silent, shining
• 1:22:21
  their flashlights to the black timber line, expecting at any
• 1:22:25
  moment to catch the gleam of an animal's eyes.
• 1:22:28
  But the lights revealed nothing except gnarled tree trunks.
• 1:22:32
  The footsteps persisted, now accompanied by faint whispering
• 1:22:36
  voices and a single peel of muffled laughter that sent a
• 1:22:40
  jolt of panic through the campers.
• 1:22:43
  With their fears rising, they huddled together, back-to-back.
• 1:22:47
  That's when one of them spotted a shape between the trees, a
• 1:22:51
  fleeting shadow. Human, annoyed but impossibly
• 1:22:54
  fast, fleeting from 1 trunk to the next.
• 1:22:58
  In the distance, another cry rang out as one of the hikers
• 1:23:02
  felt a sharp pain across his forearm.
• 1:23:05
  Under the beam of the flashlight, 3 fresh scratches
• 1:23:09
  were revealed, slashed across the skin.
• 1:23:11
  It was as if an invisible claw had raked him.
• 1:23:15
  That was enough to send the party scrambling out of the
• 1:23:17
  forest and a blind, stumbling dash.
• 1:23:20
  They didn't stop running until the trees thinned and they burst
• 1:23:24
  out onto the nearest Rd. Only later, after catching their
• 1:23:28
  breaths under the safe glow of St. lamps, did they realize that
• 1:23:32
  the footsteps and whispers had ceased as abruptly as they
• 1:23:35
  began, and their previously dead phones flickered back to life,
• 1:23:40
  their batteries mysteriously restored.
• 1:23:43
  The group could only conclude conclude that something in that
• 1:23:46
  clearing had toyed with them. Their story, passed down among
• 1:23:50
  locals, has become one of the forests well known cautionary
• 1:23:54
  tales, a modern campfire story with the power even to make
• 1:23:58
  cynics reconsider a night time hike.
• 1:24:02
  Of all of Hoya Bashu's legends, perhaps the most unsettling is
• 1:24:06
  the tale of the little girl who vanished.
• 1:24:09
  The story has many variations, but most can agree on the core
• 1:24:13
  details. In the early early 1980s, as
• 1:24:16
  some tell it, a family from Kluchnapoka was picnicking in a
• 1:24:20
  sunny Meadow at the forest edge when their five year old
• 1:24:24
  daughter wandered away chasing a butterfly.
• 1:24:27
  In just a few minutes, the parents had taken their eyes off
• 1:24:31
  her. The girl had slipped past the
• 1:24:32
  tree line and into the shadows of Hoya Basu, and she did not
• 1:24:38
  come back. Distraught, the family initiated
• 1:24:42
  a massive search. The police combed every trail.
• 1:24:45
  Volunteers and shepherds scoured the woods for weeks, but not a
• 1:24:49
  single clue turned up was as if the forest had swallowed the
• 1:24:53
  child whole. Years passed.
• 1:24:56
  And then, on a misty autumn day, five years to the day of her
• 1:25:00
  disappearance, the little girl emerged from the forest at the
• 1:25:04
  same exact spot where she had vanished.
• 1:25:07
  She was calm, standing and calling for her mother as if
• 1:25:11
  nothing had happened. To the shock of it all, the girl
• 1:25:14
  had not aged a single day. She was still five years old,
• 1:25:19
  wearing the same cotton dress and shoes she had gone missing
• 1:25:23
  in. Strangest of all, the garments
• 1:25:26
  looked clean, not tattered by five years worth of elements.
• 1:25:30
  The child was taken to the hospital and investigators
• 1:25:34
  gently questioned her. She appeared healthy, unharmed
• 1:25:38
  and utterly confused. She could recall nothing of
• 1:25:41
  where she had been. In her mind, no time had passed.
• 1:25:45
  One moment she was following a butterfly into the trees and the
• 1:25:48
  next she was stepping back out. How do you explain such a case?
• 1:25:54
  Some locals conclude that Hoya Basu's supernatural forces had
• 1:25:57
  pulled the girl into a time vortex or an alternate
• 1:26:01
  dimension, holding her outside of time for five long years.
• 1:26:06
  Others, more cynically, suggest that it was all a hoax or a
• 1:26:10
  tragic mix up with another lost child.
• 1:26:13
  And in truth, there are no official records to verify this
• 1:26:16
  story. It lives on his folklore rather
• 1:26:19
  than documented fact, yet many swear it's true.
• 1:26:23
  The tale of the time traveling girl.
• 1:26:25
  It's often recounted in hushed tones by those who claim that
• 1:26:28
  the forest can bend the very rules of reality.
• 1:26:32
  Deep within Hoya Basu, even the forest vegetation appears to
• 1:26:36
  bear a curse. Trees themselves grow and
• 1:26:39
  distorted in human shapes. Trunks abruptly bend at sharp
• 1:26:44
  90° angles, then twist back upright.
• 1:26:47
  Others curl and spiral into Corkscrew patterns as if melted
• 1:26:52
  by some infernal heat and certain Groves.
• 1:26:56
  The bases of the trees bulge out like misshapen tumors and
• 1:27:00
  multiple trunks, views and arch away from the ground and eerie
• 1:27:04
  symmetry under the silvery light of the moon.
• 1:27:07
  These deformed trees cast monstrous shadows, resembling
• 1:27:11
  giant hooks or gnarled claws stretching towards the sky.
• 1:27:15
  It's no wonder that visitors describe the forest as creepy,
• 1:27:19
  even in broad daylight. One glance at these woods and
• 1:27:23
  it's easy to believe that some power warped them into such
• 1:27:26
  forms. Explanations have been
• 1:27:28
  attempted. Some scientists thought strong
• 1:27:31
  winds might have blown the young trees as they grew, or that soil
• 1:27:35
  might contain an unusual amount of radiation that mutated their
• 1:27:38
  growth patterns. But detailed investigations have
• 1:27:42
  found no clear evidence of any environmental factors to account
• 1:27:45
  for the tree's grotesque shapes. So the mystery stands.
• 1:27:49
  Amid these tortured woods lies Hoya, Basu's most famous
• 1:27:53
  landmark, a round, completely barren clearing.
• 1:27:57
  Poyana Rotunda, the round Meadow.
• 1:28:01
  Imagine hiking through dense thickets of oak and beach, the
• 1:28:04
  twilight growing deeper under the canopy, and then suddenly
• 1:28:08
  the woods just stop. You step out of the tree line
• 1:28:11
  into an open, almost perfectly circular Meadow, perhaps a few
• 1:28:16
  100 feet across. Here there are no trees at all,
• 1:28:20
  only a thick carpet of grass and wildflowers stretching under the
• 1:28:24
  open sky. The circle's edges are well
• 1:28:27
  defined, as if someone took a giant cookie cutter to the
• 1:28:30
  forest and sliced out all the trees in a neat ring.
• 1:28:33
  Yet foresters and scientists have studied the soil.
• 1:28:36
  They found no clear reason why trees refuse to grow on the
• 1:28:39
  spot. Soil samples from the clearing
• 1:28:42
  show nothing poisonous or extraordinary that could even
• 1:28:45
  contribute to causing this. Nevertheless, seedlings planted
• 1:28:49
  here wither away, and even the native grass never seems to
• 1:28:53
  overgrow. It stays at a strangely uniform
• 1:28:56
  height, as though the clearing is maintained by an invisible
• 1:29:00
  groundskeeper. Many who enter this Meadow
• 1:29:03
  report any media change in atmosphere.
• 1:29:06
  The air feels heavier, the normal chirping of birds and
• 1:29:09
  insects falls silent, and a deep hush blankets the area.
• 1:29:14
  Animals avoid it. You'll seldomly see a squirrel
• 1:29:17
  or even a butterfly cross the clearing center, and some
• 1:29:21
  visitors describe the stillness as soothing.
• 1:29:24
  But more often, it's reported as intensively foreboding, a
• 1:29:28
  silence so thick that one's own breath and heartbeat feel too
• 1:29:33
  loud. This clearing is the heart of
• 1:29:36
  Hoya Basu's mysteries. It was above this very spot that
• 1:29:40
  Emil Barnia's UFO was set to hover in 1968, and indeed, many
• 1:29:45
  later sightings also concentrate here.
• 1:29:48
  Over the years, people have captured dozens of curious
• 1:29:52
  photographs on or near the clearing, or black lights
• 1:29:55
  floating above the ground, and even white shapes that look like
• 1:29:59
  silhouettes or wraiths drifting through the trees at the
• 1:30:03
  clearings edge. Paranormal investigators
• 1:30:06
  frequently flock to this spot with measurement equipment.
• 1:30:09
  Those who bring an EMF meter, a device that detects
• 1:30:13
  electromagnetic fields, often see its spike inexplicably when
• 1:30:17
  they sweep it over the clearing. And on some nights the clearing
• 1:30:20
  is aglow with an eerie green or orange radiance.
• 1:30:24
  Photographs have shown strange colored mists hanging above the
• 1:30:27
  grass, defying most explanations.
• 1:30:31
  Compasses to go haywire here, spinning and pointing in random
• 1:30:35
  directions. Batteries drain at a frightening
• 1:30:38
  rate. Locals have even started calling
• 1:30:41
  the clearing the dead zone, not only for its lack of vegetation,
• 1:30:45
  but because of so many mechanical and electronic
• 1:30:48
  devices dying in its vicinity. Some believe the Meadow hides a
• 1:30:52
  portal to another dimension. Even tour guides like Marius
• 1:30:56
  Lazine introduced the clearing with a nervous smile, referring
• 1:31:00
  to Hoya Basu as the Bermuda Triangle of Transylvania, a
• 1:31:05
  place where people and things vanish, and where reality itself
• 1:31:10
  my. Fray at the edges for all its.
• 1:31:13
  Horrors and wonders, Hoyabashu Forest remains an enigma, a
• 1:31:17
  place that sits on the boundary between legend and reality.
• 1:31:22
  On one hand, skeptics can and do argue that there is nothing here
• 1:31:27
  beyond overactive imaginations and natural phenomena
• 1:31:31
  misinterpreted as supernatural. After all, there are no
• 1:31:34
  scientific investigations that have ever conclusively proven a
• 1:31:38
  paranormal presence in the forest.
• 1:31:40
  Researchers have logged hours of data on magnetic fields, soil
• 1:31:45
  composition, and wildlife behavior and have found nothing
• 1:31:48
  definitive that points to ghosts or aliens.
• 1:31:51
  However, they do have a hard time explaining away the sheer
• 1:31:54
  volume and consistency of the reports from the forest.
• 1:31:58
  How is it that person after person, from rural villagers in
• 1:32:02
  the 1800s to tourists all the way into 2025, describe the same
• 1:32:07
  sensations, the same unseen eyes, and the same malicious
• 1:32:11
  whispers? Perhaps the true power of Hoya
• 1:32:14
  Basu is the effect on the human psyche that it has.
• 1:32:18
  It seems as though the forest feeds on our deepest fears and
• 1:32:21
  curiosities, leaving us to wonder whether we've encountered
• 1:32:25
  something truly not of this world, or merely the ghosts of
• 1:32:29
  our own imagination. Either way, once you've walked
• 1:32:33
  among the twisted trees of Hoya Basu, you carry a piece of its
• 1:32:37
  darkness with you, A story to tell, a shiver of a memory, a
• 1:32:41
  reminder that some places are marvelously, irreducibly
• 1:32:47
  unknown. There is a place in the Venetian
• 1:32:54
  lagoon where boats will not dock, where fishermen will not
• 1:32:58
  cast their Nets, and where no tourist dares to wander.
• 1:33:03
  It lies silent beneath a tangle of vines and ash, hidden in
• 1:33:08
  plain. Sight just South of.
• 1:33:10
  Venice On clear days, you can see its crumbling bell tower
• 1:33:14
  rising like a broken finger from the water.
• 1:33:18
  Beckoning warning. This is Pavaglia Island.
• 1:33:22
  To some it's the most haunted place on earth, to others it is
• 1:33:26
  simply cursed. For over 1000 years, Pavaglia
• 1:33:30
  has absorbed everything humanity fears most.
• 1:33:34
  War, plague, madness, fire, isolation and death. 10s of
• 1:33:42
  thousands of people, perhaps over 100,000, were dragged here
• 1:33:46
  to die, like victims were burned in open pits, mentally ill were
• 1:33:52
  abandoned and crumbling wards. And according to generations of
• 1:33:57
  whispered accounts, something else lingered.
• 1:34:00
  Something not human. You may not believe in curses,
• 1:34:05
  you may not believe in demons, but after Pavaglia, you just
• 1:34:10
  might believe in something. Long before the name Pavaglia
• 1:34:17
  became synonymous with plague, madness, and death, it was
• 1:34:22
  simply an island of sanctuary. The earliest historical mentions
• 1:34:28
  of Pavaglia island date. Back to the.
• 1:34:30
  Year 421 AD, during one of the most turbulent eras in Western
• 1:34:35
  Europe's history, the final collapse of the Western Roman
• 1:34:39
  Empire. Italy, fragmented by warring
• 1:34:42
  barbarian tribes and devastated by successive invasions, was no
• 1:34:47
  longer a place of imperial order and civility.
• 1:34:51
  The once proud Roman cities of the Venetia region, Padu Este
• 1:34:57
  and Altino, had become targets of Visigoth, UNIC, and later
• 1:35:03
  Lombard Raiders. The marshy lagoons to the east,
• 1:35:07
  however, offered something that the mainland could not natural
• 1:35:11
  protection. The Venetian lagoon and expanse
• 1:35:14
  of shallow salt water dotted with muddy islets and reeds
• 1:35:19
  acted like a defensive barrier. Raiders on horseback could not
• 1:35:23
  easily maneuver in these kinds of waters, and naval attackers
• 1:35:28
  had little patience for the maze of channels that only local
• 1:35:31
  fishermen knew how to navigate. It was in this precarious
• 1:35:36
  historical moment that Pavaglia first became inhabited.
• 1:35:40
  Families fleeing the chaos of the mainland carried what few
• 1:35:43
  possessions they had and rowed eastward and flat bottomed
• 1:35:47
  boats, seeking any land not yet overrun by fire and sword.
• 1:35:53
  Among the many Islanders they settled, Murano, Torchillo and
• 1:35:59
  Burano was the humble of Popeilia, the name being derived
• 1:36:04
  from the Latin word Populus, meaning Poplar tree.
• 1:36:08
  The island was small, barely 17 acres, and it's high central
• 1:36:13
  ground and easy access to fish rich waters made it suitable for
• 1:36:17
  modest settlement. Wood instilled houses were
• 1:36:21
  erected, clustered together on the firmest patch of ground.
• 1:36:25
  These early settlers lived off lagoon fishing, salt extraction
• 1:36:30
  and limited agriculture on raised garden plots.
• 1:36:33
  Their lives were humble, but they were safe, and this
• 1:36:37
  foundation would quietly grow over the centuries.
• 1:36:41
  By the 9th century, Pavaglia had become a recognizable community
• 1:36:45
  within the broader lagoon world. While Venice itself was rising
• 1:36:50
  to international prominence as the center of commerce and naval
• 1:36:54
  power, Pavaglia remained relatively provincial, a fishing
• 1:36:59
  village, independent but tied closely to Venetian authority.
• 1:37:04
  During this time, the Republic of Venice established a network
• 1:37:08
  of administrators over the lagoon, including the
• 1:37:12
  installment of Podesta's or governors, to oversee specific
• 1:37:17
  islands. The Vaglia received its own
• 1:37:20
  podesta, suggesting a certain level of population density and
• 1:37:24
  economic growth. The island was now governed as a
• 1:37:28
  minor administrative district with the growing Republic of
• 1:37:33
  Venice. In 1379, the Republic of Venice
• 1:37:38
  faced an existential threat, a full scale.
• 1:37:41
  War. With its rival maritime empire,
• 1:37:45
  the Republic of Genoa, known as the War of Shigogia, this
• 1:37:50
  conflict was not just. About territory or trade, it was
• 1:37:54
  a struggle. For control over the
• 1:37:56
  Mediterranean itself, the Jianese fleet launched daring
• 1:38:00
  raids across the Venetian lagoon towns.
• 1:38:04
  Islanders once thought untouchable were suddenly in
• 1:38:08
  peril. Fearing bombardment or
• 1:38:10
  occupation, the Venetian authorities ordered the complete
• 1:38:14
  evacuation of Paveglia. The Paveglia Goatee packed up
• 1:38:19
  their lives, clothing, their tools, religious icons, even
• 1:38:25
  livestock, and boarded gondolas, fishing boats and cargo barges
• 1:38:31
  under escort from armed guards. They were relocated to Guadeca,
• 1:38:36
  a larger island closer to the protective walls of Venice
• 1:38:40
  itself. The war would end in 1381, with
• 1:38:44
  Venice barely victorious, but Pavaglia was not so lucky.
• 1:38:50
  When the former residents returned, they found their homes
• 1:38:54
  raised or looted, their fields salted or burned, and many of
• 1:39:00
  their graves. Desecrated.
• 1:39:03
  As well as booby trapped wells and pits left by retreating
• 1:39:07
  enemy forces. The Venetian government declined
• 1:39:11
  to fund reconstruction. The people of Pavaglia,
• 1:39:15
  demoralized and impoverished, chose not to return.
• 1:39:20
  Pavaglia was no longer a home. It had become a scar.
• 1:39:25
  In 1527, the Doge Andrea Greedy offered the island to the
• 1:39:30
  Camaldiles monks, known for their quiet devotion and
• 1:39:35
  hermetic traditions. But after a brief inspection,
• 1:39:39
  the monks declined their offer, stating that the island was too
• 1:39:43
  damaged, remote and spiritually heavy.
• 1:39:48
  In 1661, then it's tried again. Surviving descendants were
• 1:39:53
  invited back with promises of land titles, trade advantages
• 1:39:58
  and tax exemptions. That the former villagers
• 1:40:02
  declined once more. By the end of the 17th century,
• 1:40:06
  vaguely, it was almost entirely abandoned.
• 1:40:09
  Vines overtook the houses. The Church of San Vitali began
• 1:40:14
  to rot, its wooden beams collapsing.
• 1:40:18
  The bell tower, strangely untouched by time or war, became
• 1:40:22
  a silent watchtower, and fishermen began avoiding the
• 1:40:27
  island, swearing that it was cursed and still.
• 1:40:32
  The real horror had not yet begun.
• 1:40:35
  The vagueliest fall from rural Haven to Death Island was not
• 1:40:39
  swift. But.
• 1:40:40
  When it happened, it was absolute.
• 1:40:44
  By the mid 1500s, peaceful days of its residence were long past.
• 1:40:50
  The Church of San Vitali stood in eerie silence.
• 1:40:54
  Overgrown paths snaked between collapsing buildings.
• 1:40:58
  The island, once full of life, had returned to marsh and Moss.
• 1:41:04
  But in the eyes of the Venetian Republic, it was not forgotten.
• 1:41:08
  It had strategic value, just not for the living.
• 1:41:13
  Venice in the 16th century was rich beyond measure.
• 1:41:17
  Gold flowed in from the East. Art, culture and architecture
• 1:41:22
  flourished, and an unmatched Renaissance bloom.
• 1:41:26
  But this wealth came at a cost. Exposure.
• 1:41:30
  Venetian ships traded across the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and
• 1:41:35
  North Africa, and with them came disease, most notably the
• 1:41:41
  bubonic plague. The plague known as the Black
• 1:41:44
  Death had first devastated Venice in 1348, but more
• 1:41:50
  insidious waves struck in 1575 to 1577 and again in 1630.
• 1:41:59
  In each case, the death tolls were staggering.
• 1:42:02
  The 1575 outbreak alone killed more than 50,000 people, which
• 1:42:07
  was nearly 1/3 of Venice's population at the time.
• 1:42:11
  Faced with this horror, Venice became one of the first
• 1:42:14
  governments in Europe to implement an organized
• 1:42:17
  quarantine policy. Entire islands were designated
• 1:42:21
  as Lazaridi, or places where the sick and suspected could be
• 1:42:27
  isolated from the healthy. Lazarito Vicchio near the Lido
• 1:42:33
  and Lazarito Nuovo were the first, but by the late 1500s
• 1:42:38
  even those were full. The Republic needed another
• 1:42:42
  place to send the dying, and they chose Paveglia.
• 1:42:47
  The plague pits on Paveglia are unmarked, undocumented in any
• 1:42:51
  elegant script, but they are very real.
• 1:42:55
  Archaeological studies and local legends agree the island served
• 1:42:59
  as an emergency dumping ground during major outbreaks.
• 1:43:03
  Corpses were fared there in large barges from the city's
• 1:43:06
  overloaded hospitals and churches and those too sick to
• 1:43:10
  recover, but not yet dead or sent there.
• 1:43:13
  As well, historical Venetian health ordinances describe rapid
• 1:43:18
  transfer of the symptomatic to isolation islands.
• 1:43:22
  If a household reported fever, it could be detained and sent to
• 1:43:26
  the vaglia within 24. Hours.
• 1:43:29
  Often with no chance to protest, and sometimes entire families
• 1:43:35
  were sent based on a single. Cough or rash the.
• 1:43:39
  Horrors of these transfers cannot be overstated.
• 1:43:43
  There was no medical care provided to these people beyond
• 1:43:46
  crude herbal pouches and religious riots.
• 1:43:50
  The sick were dumped into makeshift wooden structures or
• 1:43:53
  even into open air barracks where they'd be exposed to the
• 1:43:57
  elements. There was no burial service that
• 1:44:01
  bodies were collected with hooks and thrown into mass graves.
• 1:44:06
  When the bodies overflowed, they were burned in great pyres.
• 1:44:11
  The smoke became visible from the canals of Venice.
• 1:44:15
  A report from 1582 by the Venetian Council of 10 mentioned
• 1:44:20
  the island of Pavaglia is to be used for the disposal of the
• 1:44:24
  pestilent dead by fire. This mandate was repeated again
• 1:44:29
  in 1630 when another major outbreak crippled the city.
• 1:44:34
  Local oral traditions add an even more macabre detail.
• 1:44:37
  The soil of Pavaglia turned black from the ash of cremated
• 1:44:41
  human remains. Some archaeologists estimate
• 1:44:44
  that over 50% of the island's topsoil is composed of burned
• 1:44:49
  bone, flesh, and ash from plague victims.
• 1:44:54
  Even more haunting, the bones still continue to wash ashore to
• 1:44:59
  this very day. By the 1700s, Paveglia's
• 1:45:03
  reputation was sealed. The island was now firmly
• 1:45:07
  associated with death, so much so that the Venetian Health
• 1:45:11
  Authority officially designated it as a quarantine checkpoint in
• 1:45:16
  1776. Every ship entering Venice had
• 1:45:20
  to stop at the Vaglia before proceeding.
• 1:45:23
  Medical officers boarded the vessels and inspected the crew
• 1:45:26
  and cargo for signs of disease. If even a single person was sick
• 1:45:32
  or if documents showed previous docking at a plague afflicted
• 1:45:36
  port, the entire ship was seized and the passengers were detained
• 1:45:41
  on Pavaglia for up to 40 days. This practice gave birth to the
• 1:45:47
  modern word quarantine, which is derived from the Italian word
• 1:45:52
  orenta giammoni, which means 40 days.
• 1:45:56
  Facilities were hastily constructed.
• 1:45:59
  They included isolation barracks, stone inspection
• 1:46:02
  buildings, docking platforms for incoming ships, wards for the
• 1:46:07
  dying, and a rudimentary incinerator for the bodies.
• 1:46:13
  The old Church of San Vitali, which had long since been
• 1:46:16
  abandoned, was raised to make room for these structures.
• 1:46:21
  The bell tower, however, remained and was retrofitted
• 1:46:26
  into a lighthouse. For decades, the Vaglia operated
• 1:46:30
  as a full quarantine colony, became known among the Venetians
• 1:46:35
  as. The port or gate.
• 1:46:38
  Of Hell In 1797, Venice fell to Napoleon Bonaparte, and under
• 1:46:44
  French rule, the quarantine system was expanded.
• 1:46:48
  The new regime, more militarized and ruthless, used Pavaglia for
• 1:46:53
  plague victims, military deserters, and prisoners with
• 1:46:58
  illness. The French not only burned the
• 1:47:00
  bodies, but they conducted mass burials using lime and sealed
• 1:47:05
  tombs. There are rumors that Napoleon
• 1:47:09
  also hid munitions on the island, using its isolation to
• 1:47:13
  store explosive stockpiles. 1 Skirmish is said to have
• 1:47:17
  occurred near Paveglia in eighteen O 5 when enemy forces
• 1:47:20
  discovered the French weapons depot and tried to seize it.
• 1:47:25
  Though little documentation remains, multiple oral histories
• 1:47:28
  from Venice's lagoon communities recall cannon fire near Paveglia
• 1:47:33
  during this time and even more deaths.
• 1:47:36
  By 1814, Napoleon's empire had fallen and the Austrians retook
• 1:47:41
  control of Venice. The plague had all but
• 1:47:44
  disappeared due to vaccination and improved hygiene.
• 1:47:48
  The Lazarito was shut down. But what remained on Paveglia
• 1:47:52
  was appalling. Fields of unmarked graves.
• 1:47:56
  Collapsed buildings used to store plague bodies, Furnaces
• 1:48:01
  black with soot. Fat.
• 1:48:04
  In a heavy, choking atmosphere, described in 19th century
• 1:48:08
  journals as oppressive and vile. This is an excerpt from a
• 1:48:14
  traveler's diary from around the year 1822.
• 1:48:18
  We passed an island shrouded in black vegetation and eerie
• 1:48:22
  silence. My guide called it the Land of
• 1:48:25
  the Damned. You would not speak its name.
• 1:48:29
  The air around it seemed to change, became denser, heavier,
• 1:48:35
  as if even the seagulls avoided its shore.
• 1:48:39
  How many people really perished on Pavaglia?
• 1:48:42
  Estimates vary wildly, but conservative historians put the
• 1:48:46
  number between 80,000 and 100,000 plague victims over the
• 1:48:50
  centuries. Some Venetian records suggest it
• 1:48:54
  may be closer to 160,000, especially if one includes those
• 1:48:59
  dumped in plague years prior to official tracking.
• 1:49:03
  If accurate, that would make Paveglia one of the largest mass
• 1:49:06
  burial sites in all of Europe, and local lore seems to support
• 1:49:11
  this as well. Fishermen near the island have
• 1:49:13
  warned that those fishing should never cast Nets near Paveglia or
• 1:49:18
  else the dead will bite. Even today, bones turn up in
• 1:49:23
  sediment layers and storm surges.
• 1:49:26
  There are no headstones, no names, no prayers carved into
• 1:49:31
  marble, Only charred fragments, crumbling walls and a legend
• 1:49:37
  that was just beginning. After centuries of plague
• 1:49:41
  abandonment, the Vaglia Island might have faded into quiet
• 1:49:45
  obscurity, an overgrown footnote in Venetian history.
• 1:49:51
  But in the late 20th century, the Italian state had very
• 1:49:55
  different plans and an age obsessed with modernization and
• 1:50:00
  efficiency. The island would be reborn once
• 1:50:03
  again, not as a sanctuary, nor as a quarantine station, but as
• 1:50:09
  a dumping ground with the unwanted, the mentally ill of
• 1:50:13
  society. And with this rebirth came a
• 1:50:16
  fresh wave of suffering and whispers of something far worse.
• 1:50:22
  By the late 1800s and early 1900s, Italy, like much of
• 1:50:27
  Europe, was grappling with how to manage the growing population
• 1:50:31
  of the incurably. I'll.
• 1:50:33
  The insane and the elderly mental institutions, or asylums,
• 1:50:39
  were expanding rapidly across the country.
• 1:50:43
  In 1922, the government of the newly unified Kingdom of Italy
• 1:50:47
  authorized the conversion of Poveglia's existing structures
• 1:50:52
  into a state-run psychiatric hospital.
• 1:50:55
  The logic seemed practical at the time.
• 1:50:58
  The island was already isolated, which reduced risk of patient
• 1:51:01
  escape or public disturbance. The old military and quarantine
• 1:51:06
  buildings could be quickly repurposed, and the surrounding
• 1:51:10
  waters made it easy to patrol and control movement.
• 1:51:14
  But from the beginning, the staff complained of strange
• 1:51:18
  things happening. Reports sent to health
• 1:51:21
  administrators in Venice spoke of inexplicable moods,
• 1:51:24
  persistent patient hallucinations and an oppressive
• 1:51:28
  air that weighs upon both nurse and doctor.
• 1:51:33
  Locals who were already superstitious dubbed it the
• 1:51:37
  Island of Mad Men. The asylum operated quietly for
• 1:51:41
  nearly half a century, and unlike large urban hospitals,
• 1:51:46
  the vagueliest facility was small, secretive and
• 1:51:49
  disconnected from most of the mainland infrastructure.
• 1:51:53
  Patients were transported by barge from Venice and
• 1:51:56
  surrounding areas and disembarked on a Moss covered
• 1:52:00
  dock where rusted iron gates barred entry.
• 1:52:04
  Once inside, they joined a permanent population of
• 1:52:07
  psychiatric patients, people diagnosed with things such as
• 1:52:12
  schizophrenia, mania or severe depression, elderly patients
• 1:52:17
  with dementia or Alzheimer's, as well as what they would consider
• 1:52:22
  criminally insane people. The hospital likely peaked at
• 1:52:26
  about 150 to 200 patients, cared for by a skeletal staff of nuns,
• 1:52:32
  nurses and two or three doctors at a time.
• 1:52:36
  Remnants of this era remain today.
• 1:52:39
  They're appealing signs that still hang above doorways,
• 1:52:43
  rusting hospital beds scattered throughout overgrown wings,
• 1:52:47
  stained restraint straps still bolted the old mattress frames
• 1:52:53
  and steel cabinets filled with ancient ampules, scalpels and
• 1:52:58
  handwritten. Files.
• 1:53:00
  Most disturbingly, in the basement archives of Venice's
• 1:53:04
  municipal hospital system, there are missing patient records from
• 1:53:08
  Pavaglia. Entire ledgers from the 1930s to
• 1:53:13
  1950s are inexplicably blank. Whether this was due to war,
• 1:53:18
  damage, fire, or something more sinister, the absence of
• 1:53:23
  documentation has allowed a forest of legend to grow
• 1:53:27
  unchecked. Of all the tales to emerge from
• 1:53:30
  Bavaglia, none is more persistent or chilling than the
• 1:53:35
  legend of the mad doctor. According to local oral history
• 1:53:40
  and repeated by dozens of paranormal researchers, a lead
• 1:53:44
  physician in the 1930s became obsessed with curing mental
• 1:53:48
  illness through radical, untested procedures.
• 1:53:52
  His name is unknown. Some say he was called Doctor
• 1:53:56
  Apollo, others simply called him the Ill Doctor.
• 1:54:01
  His methods included crude lobotomies allegedly performed
• 1:54:05
  using hand drills and chisels. He would isolate patients in the
• 1:54:09
  bell tower, which became a sort of punishment chamber, and there
• 1:54:13
  would be no use of anesthesia. The screaming patients were
• 1:54:17
  instead restrained. Several former staff interviewed
• 1:54:21
  in the 1970s by paranormal journalist Andrea Lenari
• 1:54:26
  described the upper floors of the hospital as a Chamber of
• 1:54:30
  echoes, one that was filled with cries that went unanswered for
• 1:54:34
  days. One surviving note from a nun
• 1:54:38
  reads. I no longer enter the upper
• 1:54:40
  wing. The doctor conducts his work
• 1:54:43
  alone. He says he is visited by voices
• 1:54:46
  that. Guide his hands and the patients
• 1:54:50
  do not return. The bell tower, already infamous
• 1:54:54
  for its centuries old watch over plague fires, became central to
• 1:54:58
  the legend. It is said that the doctor took
• 1:55:00
  patients to the top and performed purification rituals
• 1:55:05
  under the moonlight, procedures meant to banish their madness.
• 1:55:10
  Some claim that there was no medical treatment at all, but a
• 1:55:13
  form of a cult experimentation. In recent years, the theory has
• 1:55:18
  emerged among demonology researchers that the doctor may
• 1:55:22
  have been attempting to contact something on the island, either
• 1:55:26
  the souls of plague victims or something far darker.
• 1:55:31
  Eventually, the legend claims that the doctor himself began to
• 1:55:34
  lose his mind. Patients and nurses alike
• 1:55:38
  reported seeing him speaking to empty rooms, riding symbols on
• 1:55:42
  the walls with chalk and ash, and he would later disappear for
• 1:55:47
  days, then re emerge covered in soot and blood and muttering and
• 1:55:54
  Latin phrases that no one seemed to recognize.
• 1:55:57
  Then one night, he ascended the bell tower for the last time.
• 1:56:03
  What happened next is at the core of Pavaglias ghost lore.
• 1:56:08
  Some say he leapt to his death, overwhelmed by guilt and
• 1:56:12
  madness. Others say he was pushed by one
• 1:56:16
  of his surviving patients, perhaps one driven by revenge.
• 1:56:21
  And still others insist that it was a shadowy figure that led to
• 1:56:25
  his demise, something that wasn't human at all, one that
• 1:56:30
  appeared behind him and hurled him over the edge.
• 1:56:35
  One nurse reportedly witnessed the event and claimed that he
• 1:56:38
  survived the fall but lay broken and moaning at the base of the
• 1:56:43
  tower. A black mist rose from the
• 1:56:46
  earth, witnessed by two orderlies, and choked the life
• 1:56:50
  out of him. Where he laid.
• 1:56:53
  His body was never buried, according to the lore.
• 1:56:56
  Some say that it was thrown into the furnace beneath the
• 1:56:59
  hospital. Others claim that his remains
• 1:57:02
  were sealed in the bell tower itself.
• 1:57:05
  Today, the tower stands empty but intact.
• 1:57:09
  It's stairs are rotting and it's windows are shattered.
• 1:57:15
  Yet visitors and illegal trespassers have sworn that they
• 1:57:18
  have heard screaming from its top chamber, even though the
• 1:57:21
  structure is inaccessible. Locals say that on some nights
• 1:57:27
  the bell tolls, even though it was removed in eighteen O 6 by
• 1:57:32
  1946. after World War 2, the psychiatric hospital's role
• 1:57:37
  began to shift. It was increasingly used as a
• 1:57:41
  geriatric care facility, housing elderly Venetians with dementia,
• 1:57:46
  strokes and long term conditions.
• 1:57:49
  But the reputation of the island never recovered.
• 1:57:52
  Patients frequently reported seeing shadows, hearing voices,
• 1:57:57
  and experiencing violent nightmares.
• 1:57:59
  Some claim that they were even attacked by unseen forces during
• 1:58:03
  the night. Staff reported feeling dread
• 1:58:06
  even on calm days, and several doctors transferred away after
• 1:58:11
  only months of service, citing emotional instability and a
• 1:58:15
  constant dread. Finally, in 1968, the hospital
• 1:58:20
  was abruptly closed. No official reason was given and
• 1:58:25
  all of the patients that still remained there were transferred
• 1:58:28
  elsewhere. The generators were shut off and
• 1:58:31
  the boats stopped coming. The vaglia was left once again
• 1:58:36
  to rot. Even after its closure, the
• 1:58:40
  stories persisted. A local fisherman in the 70s
• 1:58:44
  claimed that he heard a woman crying on the beach, but only
• 1:58:47
  found a child sized footprint in the sand.
• 1:58:50
  Paranormal investigations in the early 2000s captured Evps, or
• 1:58:55
  electronic voice phenomena in Italian, saying phrases like let
• 1:59:00
  them burn. And I'm not alone.
• 1:59:03
  Multiple visitors, including journalists and urban explorers,
• 1:59:08
  claimed to be overcome with violent nausea, headaches or
• 1:59:11
  fits of aggression, as though something malevolent was
• 1:59:15
  influencing their minds. The psychiatric hospital and the
• 1:59:19
  legend of the mad doctor are now woven permanently into
• 1:59:23
  Pavaglia's identity. Some say the doctor still walks
• 1:59:26
  on the island tormented. By what he.
• 1:59:30
  Did and others claim that the real horror is what he awakened
• 1:59:35
  an entity, perhaps a demonic one, that now inhabits the bell
• 1:59:40
  tower itself after the closure of Pavaglia's hospital in 1960.
• 1:59:45
  8. The island was once again left
• 1:59:48
  to decay, but unlike its earlier periods of silence, this
• 1:59:52
  abandonment was not peaceful. As nature crept over the cracked
• 1:59:57
  flagstones and vines strangled the broken windows, a new
• 2:00:01
  chapter began. 1 Not dictated by government orders or epidemic
• 2:00:07
  policy, but by legend. Fear.
• 2:00:10
  And fascination the vaguely was no longer just an island and it
• 2:00:15
  had become a myth, a warning, a dare whispered at bonfires and
• 2:00:20
  repeated by thrill seekers across continents.
• 2:00:24
  If you want to go see Hell on Earth, go to Pavaglia Island.
• 2:00:30
  Following the last evacuation in 1968, the islands docks, wards
• 2:00:35
  and bell tower were sealed off but not guarded.
• 2:00:39
  Italian authorities had no intention of redeveloping it,
• 2:00:43
  nor did they dismantle any infrastructure.
• 2:00:46
  It was simply left. To rot local.
• 2:00:49
  Residents across the lagoon began to share second hand
• 2:00:52
  accounts, strange lights, guttural voices drifting across
• 2:00:56
  the water and the phantom tolling.
• 2:01:00
  Of the bell tower. By the early 1970s, Venetian
• 2:01:05
  fishermen stopped dropping their Nets nearby.
• 2:01:08
  They would say. Don't fish there, the dead are
• 2:01:11
  too many and they don't like to be disturbed.
• 2:01:14
  And they weren't alone. The taboo grew stronger with
• 2:01:18
  each generation, and Pavaglia became a place to avoid, not out
• 2:01:23
  of superstition alone, but because of its heavy atmosphere.
• 2:01:28
  A few brave teenagers would dare each other to row across at
• 2:01:32
  night, and many returned pale and shaken.
• 2:01:36
  Others refused to speak about what they saw.
• 2:01:40
  From the 1980s onward, the Vaguelia's haunted reputation
• 2:01:44
  grew internationally, filled by reports and testimonies from
• 2:01:49
  those who had trespassed onto the island.
• 2:01:51
  Shadow figures seen in the hospital windows or walking the
• 2:01:55
  bell towers balcony. Voices and Venetian dialect
• 2:01:59
  heard calling out to non existing companions.
• 2:02:03
  Apparitions and plague Dr. robes complete with the infamous
• 2:02:07
  beaked mask. A small girl seen running along
• 2:02:10
  the shore, vanishing before the observer's eyes and burning
• 2:02:16
  smells with no fire or smoke present.
• 2:02:20
  The sound of gurneys rolling across tile floors, echoing
• 2:02:24
  through buildings long stripped of furniture, and nearly every
• 2:02:29
  account visitors describe a sudden sense of dread or
• 2:02:32
  sickness, sometimes accompanied by nausea, panic attacks or
• 2:02:37
  nosebleeds. Multiple accounts claim that
• 2:02:40
  people fainted upon entering the central courtyard or the bell
• 2:02:44
  towers threshold. A notable story from 1999 came
• 2:02:49
  from a mystery based construction team that was
• 2:02:52
  assigned to assess the island for potential redevelopment.
• 2:02:56
  Three workers entered the asylum and left within one hour, 1
• 2:03:01
  later, told a local reporter. It was like the walls were.
• 2:03:04
  Breathing, we heard whispers loud enough to be people, but we
• 2:03:09
  were alone. I felt watched like pray I'll
• 2:03:14
  never go back. The island's legend exploded
• 2:03:18
  internationally after the American paranormal television
• 2:03:21
  show Ghost Adventures featured Pavaglia in a 2009 episode.
• 2:03:27
  Zach Beggins, host of the series, claimed that the island
• 2:03:31
  had the most concentrated paranormal activity that he had
• 2:03:34
  ever encountered. The crew received special
• 2:03:37
  permission from the Italian government to spend the night
• 2:03:40
  alone on the island, a privilege granted to almost no one before
• 2:03:45
  or since. Their investigation included
• 2:03:49
  captured Evps in Italian and Latin, a moment of alleged
• 2:03:55
  possession where Zach shouted incoherently and seemed to be
• 2:03:59
  overtaken by rage, unexplained loud bangs and voices along with
• 2:04:05
  object movements, and a chair that was thrown across the room
• 2:04:10
  by an invisible. Force.
• 2:04:12
  The crew fled the island in panic by morning, and the
• 2:04:15
  episode became one of their most viewed and controversial to
• 2:04:19
  date. From then on, the Vaguelia was
• 2:04:21
  considered by many to be the most haunted island in the
• 2:04:26
  world. In 2014 the Italian government,
• 2:04:30
  strapped for cash amid economic crisis, began exploring ways to
• 2:04:34
  generate income from unused state property.
• 2:04:38
  The Vaglia, long abandoned and costing maintenance fees, was
• 2:04:43
  listed for lease auction. The plan was to offer a 99 year
• 2:04:48
  lease to a private developer on the condition that they
• 2:04:52
  redeveloped the island in a way that preserved historical
• 2:04:55
  structures. The starting bid was around
• 2:04:59
  €500,000, or roughly 704 thousand U.S. dollars.
• 2:05:05
  A Venetian entrepreneur, Luigi Brugnaro, submitted the highest
• 2:05:10
  bid and won the riots. He proposed building a luxury
• 2:05:14
  hotel or Wellness retreat, complete with spa and private
• 2:05:18
  docks, But outrage quickly followed.
• 2:05:22
  A local movement known as Pavaglia for Everyone rose in
• 2:05:26
  protest, raising funds and public support to stop the
• 2:05:30
  privatization of the island. They demanded paveglia be
• 2:05:34
  preserved as a historical and cultural site, not a playground
• 2:05:40
  for the elites. Their campaign gained traction,
• 2:05:44
  and as a result, the government canceled the lease.
• 2:05:48
  Ironically, Brugnaro would go on to become mayor of Venice, but
• 2:05:52
  officially renounced any claims to Paveglia, perhaps recognizing
• 2:05:56
  its controversial nature. And to this day, no private or
• 2:06:01
  public development has been approved.
• 2:06:04
  Today, Paveglia is closed to the public.
• 2:06:07
  It is illegal to set foot on the island without express
• 2:06:10
  government permission. The buildings are collapsing,
• 2:06:14
  riddled with rot, roots and wildlife.
• 2:06:18
  Trees grow out of staircases and Ivy chokes the windows.
• 2:06:23
  Still, that doesn't stop trespassers.
• 2:06:27
  Urban explorers from Italy, Germany and America have
• 2:06:31
  illegally boated in under the cover of darkness.
• 2:06:35
  Some leave shaken and silent, and others post blurry videos of
• 2:06:41
  shadowy figures, EMF readings and disembodied cries on the
• 2:06:46
  Internet. Here's what's been documented in
• 2:06:49
  recent years. Bones found near the old furnace
• 2:06:52
  exposed by storms, apparitions allegedly captured an infrared
• 2:06:57
  and night vision. Cameras in the bell tower,
• 2:07:00
  multiple audio anomalies, especially near the plague pits
• 2:07:04
  and psychiatric wards. EMF surges in rooms with no
• 2:07:08
  wiring and visitors possessed or overcome with violence and
• 2:07:14
  confusion, particularly near the old surgical theater.
• 2:07:18
  The locals still warned that there are things that live there
• 2:07:23
  and they're not people, not anymore.
• 2:07:26
  Parapsychologists and demonologists studying the site
• 2:07:30
  offer several hypothesis as to what could be happening there.
• 2:07:34
  Residual hauntings, centuries of death imprinted psychic energy
• 2:07:39
  that's made its way into the soil, intelligent spirits, some
• 2:07:43
  souls that have remained trapped and are aware, and vengeful.
• 2:07:48
  Demonic activity, the belief that something non human was
• 2:07:52
  awakened, possibly during the Doctor's experiments, and the
• 2:07:57
  thin veil theory that the sheer scale of suffering caused a
• 2:08:01
  permanent tear between this world and the next.
• 2:08:05
  As one prominent Italian exorcist put it in 2006, if
• 2:08:09
  there was a place that invites the devil, it is Pivaglia.
• 2:08:14
  Archaeologists have confirmed that plague layers containing
• 2:08:17
  charred bones extend beneath nearly every major structure.
• 2:08:21
  The island's soil is not normal. It's composed of centuries of
• 2:08:26
  ash, lime and human bone. There is no official mass grave
• 2:08:31
  marker, no memorial, and no protective oversight.
• 2:08:36
  Pyvaglia is in essence, an open grave.
• 2:08:40
  With every storm pasteurizes closer to the surface, and
• 2:08:44
  perhaps so do the dead. There are places in the world
• 2:08:49
  where horror clings like fog, and Pavaglia is among said
• 2:08:54
  places. What separates Pavaglia is that
• 2:08:58
  it's pain spans centuries. The first plague victims thrown
• 2:09:03
  into mass graves, to the condemned souls in a mad
• 2:09:06
  doctor's asylum, to the voiceless thousands burned
• 2:09:11
  without burial, to the modern generations too afraid even say
• 2:09:16
  its name. It's not merely haunted, it's
• 2:09:20
  tainted, saturated, and possibly even cursed.
• 2:09:26
  Some believe that it is an open gate, a tear in the veil between
• 2:09:31
  worlds. Others believe it is simply the
• 2:09:34
  cost of forgetting. When a place becomes a garbage
• 2:09:38
  dump for the sick and insane, history will not be kind in
• 2:09:42
  return. Whatever the truth is, however,
• 2:09:46
  the Vaglia continues to endure. To some, it is the most haunted
• 2:09:51
  place on earth, and to others, just another place.
• 2:09:57
  You may not believe in curses. You may not believe in demons.
• 2:10:02
  As I mentioned in the beginning, after Pavaglia, you just might
• 2:10:06
  believe in something behind the towering stone walls of Ohio's
• 2:10:17
  most infamous prison. The dead still serve their time.
• 2:10:22
  Welcome to the Ohio State Reformatory, a place where
• 2:10:27
  shadows crawl across cellblock walls, where whispers echo from
• 2:10:33
  solitary confinement, and where the scent of roses signals A
• 2:10:38
  ghostly presence watching you from the dark.
• 2:10:43
  From violent deaths and demonic sightings, to one of the most
• 2:10:48
  haunted places in America. This is no ordinary prison.
• 2:10:53
  This is Mansfield, and it's inmates may be long gone, but
• 2:10:58
  they never truly left. In order to tell this story
• 2:11:04
  properly, we must first start at the very beginning with its
• 2:11:10
  history. The story of the Ohio State
• 2:11:13
  Reformatory begins amid the turmoil of the Civil War in
• 2:11:19
  1862. The site in Mansfield, OH, was
• 2:11:23
  Camp Mordecai Bardley, a training ground for Union
• 2:11:27
  soldiers. After the war.
• 2:11:30
  Mansfield leaders lobbied for a new state prison on that very
• 2:11:34
  field. In 1867, the city raised $10,000
• 2:11:40
  to buy 30 acres and the state added 20,000 more dollars for
• 2:11:45
  another 150 more acres. This would become the
• 2:11:49
  Intermediate Penitentiary, envisioned as a halfway point
• 2:11:54
  between the Juvenile Reform School and the State
• 2:11:57
  Penitentiary, a place for young first time offenders rather than
• 2:12:03
  hardened criminals. Construction officially
• 2:12:06
  commenced with a grand cornerstone ceremony on November
• 2:12:10
  4th of 1886. A crowd of 15,000 gathered for a
• 2:12:16
  parade and speeches by dignitaries including former
• 2:12:21
  President Rutherford B Hayes. The prison's architect, Levi T
• 2:12:26
  Schofield of Cleveland, took inspiration from German castles
• 2:12:30
  for a design that was at once intimidating.
• 2:12:34
  The imposing structure blended Victorian Gothic, Richard
• 2:12:39
  Sodian, Romanesque and Queen Anne styles, its stone facade
• 2:12:44
  evoking a fortress like castle meant to encourage inmates back
• 2:12:49
  to a rebirth of their spiritual lives, away from their sinful
• 2:12:54
  lifestyle and toward repentance. By 1896, the main cell blocks in
• 2:13:01
  Administration building were finally ready for use.
• 2:13:05
  On September 15th, 1896, the Ohio State Reformatory, or OSR
• 2:13:12
  as it was renamed in 1891, opened its doors to the 1st 150
• 2:13:18
  inmates who arrived by train from Columbus.
• 2:13:22
  Locals turned out to watch the procession of prisoners in
• 2:13:25
  striped uniforms, and the newcomers obligingly waved and
• 2:13:30
  cracked jokes as they marched to the train and then to their new
• 2:13:34
  cells. The prison was not even finished
• 2:13:38
  yet. Those first inmates were
• 2:13:40
  immediately put to work mixing concrete, digging the sewer
• 2:13:44
  lines and erecting a 25 foot Stonewall around the 15 acre
• 2:13:48
  complex. Construction of the sprawling
• 2:13:52
  facility would not be fully complete until 1910.
• 2:13:56
  Supervising architect FF Schnitzer, whose name is on the
• 2:14:00
  cornerstone, was honored in 1896 with the silver inkwell for
• 2:14:06
  overseeing the monumental project.
• 2:14:09
  When finally done, the Reformatory was one of the most
• 2:14:13
  expensive and striking prisons of its era, and it was
• 2:14:17
  considered to be one of the best in the country at the time it
• 2:14:21
  was built. Under its first wardens, the
• 2:14:24
  Ohio State Reformatory pursued an optimistic mission of
• 2:14:28
  rehabilitation. It accepted young men who had
• 2:14:32
  committed moderately serious crimes but were deemed
• 2:14:35
  salvageable, inmates too old for juvenile corrections but more
• 2:14:41
  minor than those that sent others to the Ohio State
• 2:14:44
  Penitentiary. The institution truly aimed to
• 2:14:48
  reform rather than merely punish, and in practice that
• 2:14:52
  meant a strict but progressive regimen.
• 2:14:55
  Inmates attended Chapel for religious instruction or given
• 2:15:00
  education and academic subjects and learn trades like plumbing,
• 2:15:05
  engineering, or carpentry to prepare them for an honest
• 2:15:09
  living. Most men were sentenced to an
• 2:15:12
  indefinite 18 month term. If they demonstrated good
• 2:15:16
  behavior and self improvement, they could be paroled after that
• 2:15:20
  period. If not, they were kept another
• 2:15:24
  18 months for further reform. In the early years, this
• 2:15:29
  approach appeared successful. OSR reportedly boasted one of
• 2:15:34
  the lowest recidivism rates in the nation as many first timers
• 2:15:38
  left and took advantage of their second chances in life instead
• 2:15:43
  of reoffending the prisons. Castle, like architecture with
• 2:15:48
  its grand arched entry and light filled corridors, was intended
• 2:15:52
  to inspire inmates rather than crush their spirits.
• 2:15:57
  For several decades, Ohio State Reformatory was held up as a
• 2:16:01
  model, a place that must not only penalize, but furnish the
• 2:16:06
  incentive for convicts to remake themselves into law abiding
• 2:16:10
  citizens. But beneath this veneer of hope,
• 2:16:14
  however, discipline was strict and the penalties for
• 2:16:18
  disobedience could be harsh. Solitary confinement, also known
• 2:16:24
  as the whole, awaited rule Breakers.
• 2:16:28
  Inmates worked long hours in prison industries and on the
• 2:16:31
  prison's farm, and still no major disturbances marred the
• 2:16:36
  early decades. There were even a few light
• 2:16:39
  hearted moments. In 1921, two clever young
• 2:16:43
  inmates managed to run a counterfeiting ring inside OSR,
• 2:16:47
  printing fake $5 bills and slipping them to the guards to
• 2:16:52
  spend outside. They were caught by a suspicious
• 2:16:55
  Superintendent and handed over to federal authorities upon
• 2:16:59
  release. Such stories aside, most
• 2:17:03
  prisoners did their time quietly and earned their release.
• 2:17:07
  By the late 1920s, however, two ominous trends were developing.
• 2:17:12
  The inmate population was rising and a new class of more
• 2:17:16
  dangerous prisoners was appearing within OS Rs walls.
• 2:17:22
  In April 1930, tragedy struck the Ohio State Penitentiary in
• 2:17:26
  Columbus. A horrific fire tore through
• 2:17:30
  that overcrowded penitentiary, killing 320 inmates trapped in
• 2:17:36
  their cells. The thought of being trapped and
• 2:17:39
  burning to death is an absolute nightmare scenario in my
• 2:17:44
  opinion, and one of the worst ways one could go.
• 2:17:48
  It remains one of the worst prison disasters in U.S. history
• 2:17:53
  to date. In the aftermath, surviving
• 2:17:56
  convicts from Columbus had to be dispersed to other prisons.
• 2:18:01
  Many of those transferees were hardened, violent men.
• 2:18:06
  The worst of the worst, rapists, murderers, lifers, and Ohio
• 2:18:12
  State Reformatory was forced to take in hundreds of them.
• 2:18:17
  This influx in 1930 to 31 utterly changed the character of
• 2:18:22
  the facility forever. The serene reform school for
• 2:18:27
  wayward youth now housed seasoned criminals, gangsters,
• 2:18:32
  and desperate repeat offenders. The population swelled well
• 2:18:36
  beyond the prisons design capacity and conditions quickly
• 2:18:40
  deteriorated. Cells built for one now held
• 2:18:44
  two, even three men in the bunks.
• 2:18:47
  Resources were strained and tensions ran high.
• 2:18:52
  As one paranormal tour guide later observed of OS Rs mid
• 2:18:56
  century turn, men who were incarcerated here had terrible
• 2:19:00
  pasts and had a terrible time here.
• 2:19:04
  There was a lot of violence in the cell blocks.
• 2:19:08
  On November 2nd, 1926, just prior to the Columbus fire
• 2:19:13
  influx, a 72 year old night watchman named Urban Wilford was
• 2:19:19
  posted at the Westgate when a recently paroled former inmate
• 2:19:23
  crept back into the prison. The ex-con named Philip Orlick
• 2:19:29
  had returned armed with a revolver, determined to break
• 2:19:33
  out a friend who was still inside.
• 2:19:36
  Wilford surprised Orlick during the attempted prison break and
• 2:19:40
  was fatally shot in the struggle.
• 2:19:44
  Orlich fled, but authorities captured him two months later.
• 2:19:49
  He died in the electric chair at the Ohio penitentiary the
• 2:19:53
  following year. Wilford's killing sent a shock
• 2:19:57
  through the staff. It was a grim first for the
• 2:20:00
  reformatory, and unfortunately not the last.
• 2:20:05
  Less than six years later, on October 2nd, 1932, Officer Frank
• 2:20:11
  Hanger was making the rounds near the solitary confinement
• 2:20:14
  block when he stumbled upon an escape plot in progress.
• 2:20:19
  A dozen inmates crammed into the hole after a failed riot or
• 2:20:24
  disciplinary roundup had managed to overpower a guard and were
• 2:20:29
  attempting A breakout. Unarmed and alone, anger tried
• 2:20:34
  to stop the group. The prisoner swarmed him and one
• 2:20:39
  struck hanger in the head with an iron bar, inflicting a mortal
• 2:20:43
  wound. The 48 year old guard died as a
• 2:20:47
  result of his injuries. The escape attempt was squashed
• 2:20:51
  and all 12 conspirators were brought under control. 2
• 2:20:55
  ringleaders, Merrill Chandler and Chester Proboski were
• 2:20:59
  convicted of Hanger's murder and were executed in the electric
• 2:21:03
  chair in 1935. To this day, some say, the
• 2:21:08
  spirit of the guard still stalks the solitary ranges.
• 2:21:13
  Visitors on ghost tours claim an unseen presence sometimes jabs
• 2:21:17
  them with a night stick in the darkness, as if a guard killed
• 2:21:21
  in solitary confinement back in 1932.
• 2:21:25
  We're still doing his rounds. Such tales, though unverifiable,
• 2:21:31
  highlight the lasting shadows these violent episodes left on
• 2:21:34
  the prison. And more on that later.
• 2:21:38
  By 1933, inspectors and journalists were noting that
• 2:21:42
  Ohio State Reformatory had become dangerously overcrowded
• 2:21:47
  and unsanitary. Cells intended for one man now
• 2:21:51
  held 2 or even 3 inmates in double Decker and triple Decker
• 2:21:55
  bungs. Disease spread easily in the
• 2:21:58
  Thai quarters and inmates idled under lockdown for long hours
• 2:22:03
  due to staffing shortages, breeding frustration and
• 2:22:07
  conflict. The lofty reform ideals of the
• 2:22:11
  early 1900s we're now giving way to the brutal realities of an
• 2:22:15
  overfilled penitentiary. Yet even as OS Rs conditions
• 2:22:20
  worsened, a reform minded administration tried to maintain
• 2:22:24
  some humanity. From 1935 to 1959 was Arthur
• 2:22:30
  Lewis Glacke, a former Mansfield police officer and a politically
• 2:22:35
  connected appointee who surprisingly proved both
• 2:22:38
  principled and progressive. Warden Black Key was widely
• 2:22:43
  respected by staff and prisoners.
• 2:22:46
  He introduced small quality of life improvements.
• 2:22:49
  Famously, he installed a system to pipe and music so that radio
• 2:22:54
  tunes would echo down the cell blocks, easing the oppressive
• 2:22:58
  silence. Blackie's tenure stabilized the
• 2:23:01
  institution for a time, but even he could not prevent the next
• 2:23:05
  wave of bloodshed that arrived in the late 1940s.
• 2:23:11
  On a warm July night in 1948, two recently paroled OSR inmates
• 2:23:16
  unleashed one of the most shocking crime sprees in Ohio
• 2:23:19
  history. Robert Daniels, age 24, and John
• 2:23:24
  West, age 23, admit his cellmates at the reformatory
• 2:23:29
  upon release, instead of going straight, they teamed up and
• 2:23:34
  armed themselves, later telling police that they felt abused by
• 2:23:38
  the prison and wanted revenge. On July 10th, 1948, Daniels and
• 2:23:45
  Wes robbed and murdered a Tavern owner in Columbus, then killed
• 2:23:49
  an elderly man the next day at a tourist camp.
• 2:23:54
  Flush with stolen guns and a getaway car, the pair then set
• 2:23:59
  their sights on Mansfield. In Daniel's own words, they
• 2:24:04
  drove to the Ohio State Reformatory, intending to target
• 2:24:07
  a specific guard, one who had mistreated them, a man they
• 2:24:12
  called Red Harris. Failing to find Harris, the
• 2:24:17
  vengeful ex prisoners turned their attention to another OSR
• 2:24:20
  employee, 50 year old John Neeble, the farm Superintendent
• 2:24:25
  who lived with his family on the Reformatory's Honor Farm just
• 2:24:29
  outside the main compound. In the early hours of July 21st,
• 2:24:35
  1948, Weston Daniels knocked on the door of the Neeble farmhouse
• 2:24:40
  under the pretense of car trouble.
• 2:24:43
  When Superintendent Neeble answered, they pushed inside at
• 2:24:47
  gunpoint. They gathered Neeble's wife
• 2:24:50
  Nolana and a 20 year old daughter, Phyllis from upstairs
• 2:24:55
  and force the terrified family into the criminal's car.
• 2:24:59
  As they drove the hostages out of town.
• 2:25:02
  Daniels cruelly ordered the family to strip off all of their
• 2:25:06
  clothes and throw them out the car windows, an act meant to
• 2:25:10
  degrade and prevent escape. Finally on a secluded country
• 2:25:16
  Rd. by a cornfield on Fleming Falls Rd. the car stopped.
• 2:25:22
  In the pre dawn darkness Daniels marched John Nolana and Phyllis
• 2:25:28
  Neeble out into the high corn. He lined the parents and
• 2:25:32
  daughter up side by side and one by one shot each of them in the
• 2:25:38
  head with a stolen Mauser pistol.
• 2:25:41
  The cold blooded execution of the Neeble family sent shock
• 2:25:45
  waves through Ohio. The Mad Dog Killers, as the
• 2:25:49
  press soon dubbed Weston Daniels, fled the scene and
• 2:25:53
  continued their rampage. They hijacked a truck carrying
• 2:25:57
  new cars, murdering 2 more men in the process, A farmer in
• 2:26:03
  Tiffin and a truck driver from Michigan who refused to hand
• 2:26:07
  over his keys. A massive manhunt spanned the
• 2:26:11
  state, one of the largest in Ohio's history, and less than
• 2:26:16
  two weeks after the first murder, on July 23rd, the
• 2:26:20
  fugitives were spotted at a roadblock near Van Wert.
• 2:26:25
  In a final shootout, John West was killed by police gunfire and
• 2:26:30
  Robert Daniels was captured alive.
• 2:26:33
  The reign of terror lasted 13 days and left 7 victims dead,
• 2:26:38
  including OSR staff member John Neeble and his family.
• 2:26:43
  Daniel showed no remorse. He was tried, convicted, and in
• 2:26:48
  January 1949 he sat in Ohio's electric chair to pay with his
• 2:26:54
  own life. The horrific Neeble family
• 2:26:58
  murders cast a long shadow over the Mansfield Reformatory.
• 2:27:02
  Inside the prison, inmates whispered that the place was
• 2:27:06
  cursed. Administrators tightened
• 2:27:09
  security on the Honor Farm and reconsidered parolee policy.
• 2:27:15
  The very next year brought another tragedy within OS Rs
• 2:27:18
  walls, this one an eerie incident.
• 2:27:22
  On November 5th, 1950, Warden Glacke's wife Helen was upstairs
• 2:27:28
  in the warden's private apartment, which was part of the
• 2:27:31
  administration wing, getting ready for church.
• 2:27:35
  She opened a closet to retrieve her jewelry box, not realizing a
• 2:27:39
  loaded revolver was hidden on the shelf.
• 2:27:43
  As Helen moved the box, the 32 caliber pistols slipped out and
• 2:27:49
  hit the floor, discharging a bullet.
• 2:27:52
  The shot struck Helen in the chest.
• 2:27:56
  Hearing the bang, Warden Arthur Glacke rushed to find his wife
• 2:28:00
  collapsed and bleeding on the bedroom floor.
• 2:28:04
  The prison doctor was summoned and Helen was erased to
• 2:28:07
  Mansfield General Hospital. She never regained
• 2:28:10
  consciousness. In the early hours of Tuesday,
• 2:28:14
  November 7th of 1950, Helen Bauer Glacke succumbed to her
• 2:28:19
  wound at age 54. Her death was ruled an accident.
• 2:28:25
  The bullet had pierced her left lung, leading to pneumonia.
• 2:28:29
  Nevertheless, dark rumors swirled among inmates at the
• 2:28:33
  warden's quarters was haunted by grief.
• 2:28:36
  Arthur Glacke carried on his warden for 9 more years
• 2:28:40
  following this event. The colleagues noted that he was
• 2:28:43
  never quite the same after losing Helen.
• 2:28:47
  On February 10th, 1959, Glaki himself died suddenly at the age
• 2:28:52
  of 62 of a massive heart attack in his office at the
• 2:28:56
  Reformatory. After nearly 25 years at the
• 2:29:00
  helm, the reformer warden's era was over, and with it, the last
• 2:29:05
  vestiges of the old idealism seemed to fade.
• 2:29:10
  To this day, some visitors claim Warden Glacke and his beloved
• 2:29:14
  Helen never really left OSR. People touring the
• 2:29:18
  administration wing often report unexplained cold drafts or
• 2:29:23
  electronic devices inexplicably malfunctioning in the old living
• 2:29:27
  quarters. In a bathroom with pink tiles,
• 2:29:31
  Helen's favorite color, visitors and guides have smelled the
• 2:29:34
  strong scent of floral perfume where no source exists.
• 2:29:40
  Several have even glimpsed the figure of a woman in that area
• 2:29:44
  or in the former library, a lady in early 20th century dress who
• 2:29:50
  vanishes when approached. These experiences are attributed
• 2:29:55
  to Helen Glacke's ghost lingering lovingly in the home
• 2:29:59
  where she unfortunately met her tragic end.
• 2:30:03
  Such tales, of course, again are unverified, but they persist as
• 2:30:08
  a part of the prison's lore. By the mid 1950's, the Ohio
• 2:30:13
  State Reformatory had earned A reputation for harsh and
• 2:30:17
  inhumane living conditions. The population pressures
• 2:30:21
  continued to mount, and in 1955, a prisoner in OS Rs E Block,
• 2:30:27
  despairing of his fate, took his own life in his cell via
• 2:30:32
  hanging, one of many events to occur over the years.
• 2:30:37
  A few years later, another inmate committed a horrifying
• 2:30:41
  act of self destruction. He doused himself in turpentine,
• 2:30:46
  likely stolen from the prison paint shop, and set himself on
• 2:30:50
  fire, dying in agony. Such incidents underscored the
• 2:30:56
  mental breakdown and hopelessness afflicting many
• 2:30:59
  incarcerated men. Then, in 1957, violence exploded
• 2:31:06
  in a way that revealed just how extreme the conditions had
• 2:31:09
  become. A prison riot erupted.
• 2:31:13
  The counts vary on the cause, but the result was a large
• 2:31:17
  number of rebellious inmates being rounded up for discipline.
• 2:31:21
  In response, OS Rs officials decided to make an example of
• 2:31:25
  the troublemakers. Approximately 120 prisoners were
• 2:31:30
  crammed into The Hole, the tiny solitary confinement dungeon,
• 2:31:35
  for 30 days. This area had only 20 solitary
• 2:31:39
  cells, each intended for one man in total darkness, with 120 men
• 2:31:46
  to punish, guards jammed 6 inmates per cell on average, A
• 2:31:51
  dank, pitch dark place of confinement where the men slept
• 2:31:55
  on bare concrete floors. They were denied light, adequate
• 2:32:00
  food or sanitation, and many of these prisoners began to lose
• 2:32:05
  their sanity after weeks in isolation.
• 2:32:09
  According to later rumors, at least one inmate was murdered by
• 2:32:13
  his cell mates in the hole during that hellish month, his
• 2:32:17
  body allegedly hidden under bedding for days before guards
• 2:32:21
  discovered the crime. Whether or not that murder truly
• 2:32:24
  occurred, the 1957 solitary punishment was very real, and it
• 2:32:30
  exemplified the brutality that had seeped into the
• 2:32:33
  reformatory's operations. Each veteran staff began to
• 2:32:37
  agree that OSR had become a nightmare.
• 2:32:41
  Official reports in the early 1960s documented peeling paint,
• 2:32:46
  rampant mildew, and vermin infestations.
• 2:32:50
  Overcrowding was so bad that at times single inmate cells held
• 2:32:55
  up to six men at a time. During disciplinary crackdowns,
• 2:33:00
  a culture of violence pervaded the cell blocks.
• 2:33:03
  Inmates fashioned Shanks and fought each other.
• 2:33:07
  Gangs preyed on the weak. Beatings and even rapes were not
• 2:33:12
  uncommon. One inmate, as legend holds, was
• 2:33:16
  so terrified of his predatory cellmate that he waited until
• 2:33:20
  the man slept and then slipped A noose around his neck,
• 2:33:24
  strangling him to death in the night.
• 2:33:27
  Another time, two men entered A solitary cell, but only one came
• 2:33:32
  out alive. The survivor had killed and then
• 2:33:36
  stuffed the other's corpse under the bunk.
• 2:33:40
  These are the kinds of gruesome tales that haunted OS Rs
• 2:33:43
  reputation. Life in the reformatory could be
• 2:33:47
  agony filled with hate, violence, and insanity, and many
• 2:33:53
  who died there carried those dark emotions to the grave.
• 2:33:58
  The 1960s brought a shift in state policy that sealed OS Rs
• 2:34:02
  fate. In the early 60s, Ohio withdrew
• 2:34:06
  support from the reformatory model of indeterminate
• 2:34:10
  sentencing and education. The idea of gentle
• 2:34:13
  rehabilitation had fallen out of political favor amid a
• 2:34:17
  nationwide spike in crime. Instead, Ohio State Reformatory
• 2:34:22
  was formally converted into a full maximum security prison, a
• 2:34:27
  function it was never fully intended for.
• 2:34:31
  As one account notes bluntly, by 1969 OSR was housing inmates
• 2:34:37
  convicted of first and second degree murder, lifers with no
• 2:34:41
  chance of parole. The tender young first timers of
• 2:34:46
  1896 were long gone and in their place were career criminals and
• 2:34:52
  the most dangerous offenders in the state.
• 2:34:55
  With minimal funding for upgrades, the RT aging facility
• 2:35:00
  slid further into disrepair while trying to confine a more
• 2:35:04
  violent population. Fires broke out, guards were
• 2:35:09
  killed, and men took their own lives as a result of the
• 2:35:13
  conditions. One of those fires may have been
• 2:35:17
  a 1968 blaze that damaged a wing of the reformatory.
• 2:35:23
  The details are scarce. Each year, more inmates
• 2:35:26
  attempted to escape or riot. In 1971 alone, there were dozens
• 2:35:32
  of assaults on staff and several jailbreak attempts.
• 2:35:38
  It was as if the Grandstone Prison itself was rebelling
• 2:35:42
  against its purpose. This castle, built to uplift
• 2:35:46
  souls, had become a cauldron of despair.
• 2:35:51
  By the 1970s, public outrage over prison conditions were
• 2:35:54
  growing louder. The final push came from outside
• 2:35:58
  advocates. The Council for Human Dignity, a
• 2:36:02
  coalition of civic and religious groups, took up the inmates
• 2:36:06
  cause and with the help of some former prisoners, they filed a
• 2:36:10
  federal class action lawsuit in 1978 on behalf of the 2200 men
• 2:36:16
  confined in Ohio State Reformatory.
• 2:36:20
  The suit alleged that being packed into brutalizing and
• 2:36:23
  inhumane conditions at OSR violated the prisoners
• 2:36:27
  constitutional riots. After years winding through the
• 2:36:31
  courts, the case Boyd versus Denton was ultimately settled in
• 2:36:36
  the inmates favor. In 1983, U.S.
• 2:36:40
  District Judge Frank Batisti approved a consent decree
• 2:36:44
  ordering that the antiquated reformatory be closed.
• 2:36:49
  The state was given a deadline of December 31st, 1986 to shut
• 2:36:55
  OS RS's doors for good, by which time a new modern prison would
• 2:36:59
  be built to replace it. The end of the Ohio State
• 2:37:03
  Reformatory was now on the horizon.
• 2:37:06
  Despite the court order, bureaucratic delays and
• 2:37:10
  construction problems slowed the opening of the replacement
• 2:37:13
  prison, the Mansfield Correctional Institution or
• 2:37:17
  Mansi. Thus, the old reformatory
• 2:37:21
  remained in operation past the 1986 deadline, forcing Judge
• 2:37:25
  Batista to extend the closure date.
• 2:37:29
  For the inmates and guards who had endured a few extra years in
• 2:37:32
  OSR, it was a bitter extension of misery.
• 2:37:36
  Finally, in the summer of 1990, the last prisoners were moved
• 2:37:40
  out. On December 31st, 1990, the Ohio
• 2:37:45
  State Reformatory officially closed its doors as a state
• 2:37:49
  prison. After 94 years of continuous
• 2:37:52
  use, the Intermediate Penitentiary was no more.
• 2:37:57
  In total, over 150,000 inmates had done time at OSR during its
• 2:38:03
  existence. More than 200 men died within
• 2:38:06
  its walls from illness, murder or self harm.
• 2:38:11
  The empty cell blocks were left silent, save for the scurrying
• 2:38:15
  of rodents and the occasional trespasser.
• 2:38:20
  For several years, the massive Victorian prison sat abandoned
• 2:38:24
  and decaying. Nature and vandalism began to
• 2:38:27
  take their toll. Paint peeled, plaster fell and
• 2:38:32
  windows broke. The state of Ohio, which still
• 2:38:35
  owned the property, saw the old prison as a liability.
• 2:38:40
  In 1993, a film crew arrived in Mansfield with an entirely
• 2:38:45
  different vision for the site. Director Frank Darabont had
• 2:38:49
  chosen the defunct reformatory as the primary filming location
• 2:38:54
  for the movie Shawshank Redemption, a prison drama set
• 2:38:57
  in the 1940s. For three months in the summer
• 2:39:01
  of 1993, Hollywood lights and cameras brought life back to OS
• 2:39:05
  Rs dark halls. Once finished, the movie was
• 2:39:09
  released in 1994, became a beloved classic and put the
• 2:39:14
  Mansfield Reformatory on the cultural map for millions who
• 2:39:18
  marveled at the Gothic architecture on film.
• 2:39:21
  Almost immediately after Shawshank finished filming, the
• 2:39:25
  state proceeded with demolishing parts of the old complex in 1994
• 2:39:30
  to 95. All the outbuildings, the mess
• 2:39:34
  hall, hospital, workshops and the enormous concrete perimeter
• 2:39:38
  wall were all torn down. The land was needed for the
• 2:39:42
  adjacent new correctional institution next door.
• 2:39:46
  It seemed likely that the iconic main structure of OSR might be
• 2:39:49
  slated for the Wrecking Ball as well.
• 2:39:52
  But a group of local preservationists and history
• 2:39:54
  enthusiasts sprang into action. They formed the Mansfield
• 2:39:58
  Reformatory Preservation Society, or MRPS, in 1995.
• 2:40:04
  And convinced the state to sell some of the historic prison for
• 2:40:08
  the token price of $1.00. Thanks to the grassroots effort,
• 2:40:13
  the grand old building with its six tier cell blocks, Chapel and
• 2:40:17
  administration offices was saved from demolition at the 11th
• 2:40:22
  hour. The reformatory had been added
• 2:40:25
  to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
• 2:40:30
  This was while it was still operating, which helped under
• 2:40:33
  score its historical significance.
• 2:40:36
  And now, under MRPS stewardship, plans began to stabilize to
• 2:40:42
  restore the crumbling facility. In the late 1990s, volunteers
• 2:40:48
  and contractors labored to clean out debris and make the
• 2:40:51
  reformatory safe for visitors. They patched roofs, removed
• 2:40:55
  asbestos, and rebuilt damaged sections.
• 2:40:59
  The Warden's residence was fully restored to its 1950s
• 2:41:02
  appearance, and the central Guard room between the east and
• 2:41:06
  West cell blocks was refurbished to its former grandeur.
• 2:41:11
  By the early 2000's, the Mansfield Reformatory
• 2:41:14
  Preservation Society had officially opened the site for
• 2:41:18
  guided tours. What began as small local
• 2:41:21
  history tours soon blossomed into a major tourist attraction.
• 2:41:27
  Today, more than 120,000 people visit annually, exploring the
• 2:41:32
  250,000 square feet of prison space, from the rusting cell
• 2:41:38
  tiers to the very spooky basement.
• 2:41:41
  The Reformatory houses multiple museums under its roof as well,
• 2:41:45
  filled with all sorts of artifacts from Ohio's prisons,
• 2:41:49
  as well as a Shawshank Redemption museum displaying
• 2:41:52
  props and set pieces from the movie.
• 2:41:56
  Meanwhile, the dramatic ambiance of OSR continued to draw film
• 2:42:00
  makers and even musicians. Even before Shawshank 2,
• 2:42:05
  Hollywood productions had shot scenes at the actor prison.
• 2:42:09
  Harry and Walter go to New York in 1975 in the Kurt Russell
• 2:42:14
  Sylvester Stallone action movie Tango and Cash in 1989.
• 2:42:19
  Both use the Reformatory as a backdrop while it was still an
• 2:42:23
  operating prison. After Shawshank made the site
• 2:42:27
  famous, more productions followed.
• 2:42:30
  Harrison Ford's Air Force One in 1997 filmed its opening Russian
• 2:42:35
  prison break sequence at OSR in 1996.
• 2:42:39
  Music artists also found inspiration there.
• 2:42:42
  Rock band Godsmack shot their video for their song Awake and
• 2:42:46
  the Dark Cell Blocks in 2000. Rapper Lil Wayne filmed parts of
• 2:42:50
  his Go DJ video inside the prison stone corridors to the
• 2:42:55
  tourism and Hollywood interest. The once moldering prison had
• 2:43:00
  thus found a new life as a vibrant museum and cultural
• 2:43:04
  venue. However, the echoes of the past
• 2:43:08
  were just around the corner. A place as old and blood stained
• 2:43:12
  as the Ohio State Reformatory naturally attracts ghost
• 2:43:16
  stories. With over 100 years of anguish
• 2:43:20
  and death concentrated in one structure, OSR has earned A
• 2:43:24
  reputation as one of America's most haunted sites.
• 2:43:29
  Even during the prison's operation, rumors circulated
• 2:43:32
  among the inmates of something otherworldly lurking in the cell
• 2:43:36
  blocks. Prisoners reported being woken
• 2:43:40
  up at night by unseen hands grabbing at them in the dark, or
• 2:43:45
  by the clanking of phantom chains and keys.
• 2:43:48
  When the guards on duty were stationary, men would whisper
• 2:43:52
  about strange moaning sounds and empty cells and corridors.
• 2:43:56
  Some were so frightened they barely slept.
• 2:44:00
  As one Modern article wrote, complaints were recorded of
• 2:44:04
  invisible hands, along with unsettling noises keeping them
• 2:44:08
  awake. And in those days, guards too,
• 2:44:12
  occasionally admitted to feeling that they weren't alone on the
• 2:44:15
  tears. During late night watches, these
• 2:44:19
  accounts were usually kept quiet.
• 2:44:21
  Ghostly Lore. After the prison closed and tour
• 2:44:25
  guides began leading nightly ghost hunts, the trickle of
• 2:44:28
  stories became a flood. Paranormal investigators flocked
• 2:44:33
  to Mansfield to test their courage in the infamous cell
• 2:44:36
  blocks and solitary cells. The reformatory has since been
• 2:44:41
  featured on countless ghost hunting TV shows.
• 2:44:44
  Ghost Adventures. Sci Fi's Ghost Hunters and many,
• 2:44:49
  many others of all filmed episodes inside OSR.
• 2:44:53
  These investigators and thousands of amateur visitors
• 2:44:57
  consistently report similarly eerie phenomena.
• 2:45:01
  Common experiences include disembodied footsteps echoing
• 2:45:05
  down cell ranges that are completely empty, sudden pockets
• 2:45:10
  of frigid air on hot summer days, and shadowy human figures
• 2:45:16
  fleeting at the edges of 1's vision.
• 2:45:19
  Audible voices are frequently captured on recorders, sometimes
• 2:45:24
  faint whispers, and other times blood curdling screams or growls
• 2:45:30
  that have no logical source. Many people claim to have been
• 2:45:34
  touched or even shoved by invisible forces.
• 2:45:38
  Tour guides have reported being poked, having their hair pulled,
• 2:45:43
  or even feeling a hand over their shoulder when no one was
• 2:45:48
  near. On at least one occasion, A
• 2:45:52
  visitor was seemingly pushed on a catwalk, as if some restless
• 2:45:56
  soul relished a bit of cruelty. Flashlights and cameras are
• 2:46:01
  known to malfunction mysteriously, especially in the
• 2:46:04
  hot spots like the infirmatory and solitary cells.
• 2:46:10
  Certain areas of the prison have developed their own ghostly
• 2:46:12
  reputations. The administrative wing, where
• 2:46:16
  Warden Glacke's quarters were, is one such hot spot, not only
• 2:46:21
  due to Helen's alleged presence with her flowery perfume, but
• 2:46:26
  also because people sense the warden himself.
• 2:46:30
  Some nights a figure in a suit has been seen peering out of
• 2:46:34
  Arthur Glacke's old office window, only to vanish when
• 2:46:39
  approached. The prison hospital on the 3rd
• 2:46:42
  floor is another epicenter. Here, hundreds died over the
• 2:46:47
  decades from tuberculosis, influenza and neglect, as well
• 2:46:53
  as injuries. Visitors often see flickering
• 2:46:56
  shapes or moving shadows in the informatory doorways, and many
• 2:47:02
  feel an oppressive sadness or nausea in the former sick ward.
• 2:47:07
  Electronic equipment frequently goes haywire in the Infirmary,
• 2:47:11
  as if the spirits of feverish inmates still linger or they had
• 2:47:16
  drawn their last breaths. Directly above the infirmatory
• 2:47:20
  sits the old Chapel. Despite being a place of
• 2:47:23
  worship, the Chapel now has an unsettling aura.
• 2:47:28
  Both guides and guests have witnessed A mysterious man who
• 2:47:32
  peeks out from behind doors in the Chapel balcony and quickly
• 2:47:37
  ducks away. At first they assume it's a
• 2:47:40
  living person playing a prank, yet when they investigate, the
• 2:47:45
  balcony is empty. This playful apparition in the
• 2:47:49
  Chapel remains unidentified, but is seen so often that some staff
• 2:47:55
  have nicknamed him the Creeper. Down in the cell blocks, nearly
• 2:48:01
  every corner has a story. Cell 13 on the 4th tier, to pick
• 2:48:06
  one example, is feared for an inexplicable sense of dread that
• 2:48:10
  develops in anyone who steps inside.
• 2:48:14
  The most dreaded location of all, however, is the whole the
• 2:48:19
  solitary confinement dungeon located in the basement.
• 2:48:23
  Here, in near total darkness, countless inmates suffered and
• 2:48:29
  some perished. The Hole is widely cited as the
• 2:48:32
  most sinister location in the old person, a place saturated
• 2:48:37
  with negative energy. Visitors today report instant
• 2:48:41
  goosebumps and nausea upon descending into the Holes
• 2:48:45
  corridor. Many refused to go inside the
• 2:48:48
  tiny cells at all. Those who do often regret it.
• 2:48:53
  People have emerged pale and shaking, claiming that they felt
• 2:48:57
  something in there with them. Investigators have recorded
• 2:49:01
  disturbing cries and pleas on their audio equipment in the
• 2:49:05
  hole, and no one else was present.
• 2:49:08
  Others have heard distinct footsteps tapping on the
• 2:49:11
  concrete behind them, though no figure was visible.
• 2:49:16
  A few particularly brave or foolhardy individuals have even
• 2:49:20
  attempted to spend the night alone in the hole cells during
• 2:49:24
  overnight ghost hunts. They usually don't last too long
• 2:49:28
  before fleeing. As one author vividly put it, 1
• 2:49:32
  does not need any psychic abilities to feel the intense
• 2:49:35
  energies of this area. The history that has been
• 2:49:38
  imprinted on the stone walls of the whole seems to be making its
• 2:49:42
  presence known to anyone who dares venture there.
• 2:49:46
  Whether these sensations are purely psychological or truly
• 2:49:50
  paranormal, they are powerful and consistent.
• 2:49:55
  Not all of OS Rs ghostly lore is so ominous, however.
• 2:49:59
  There are also tales of a forlorn, boyish spirit in the
• 2:50:02
  basement, thought to be an adolescent inmate who was beaten
• 2:50:06
  to death in a long ago torture session.
• 2:50:09
  People occasionally see a fleeting figure of a man in
• 2:50:12
  tattered 1930s style prison garb wandering the dim service
• 2:50:17
  tunnels. If addressed, he reportedly
• 2:50:20
  vanishes or runs off into the shadows.
• 2:50:24
  And one anecdote, A guide sitting alone in an empty
• 2:50:28
  cellblock, heard the distant chiming of church bells, a
• 2:50:31
  peculiar sound inside of a stone prison.
• 2:50:35
  Moments later, he smelled the distinct odor of a campfire,
• 2:50:39
  even though nothing was burning. A visiting investigator
• 2:50:44
  interpreted these as ghostly traces of the 1930 Ohio
• 2:50:48
  Penitentiary fire victims, he said.
• 2:50:52
  You know how your clothes smell after sitting around a campfire.
• 2:50:56
  If inmates came here from the fire with their clothes all
• 2:50:59
  smoky, I believe that's what it is.
• 2:51:02
  Indeed, many of the paranormal happenings seem to be tied to
• 2:51:06
  specific historical events. The.
• 2:51:08
  Growls and malevolent feelings in the whole echo the cruelty of
• 2:51:13
  the 1957 riot punishment. The apparition of a guard in the
• 2:51:17
  corridor evokes the fallen officer hanger from 1932.
• 2:51:23
  The faint smell of gunpowder and a woman's weeping heard in the
• 2:51:27
  administration area recalls Helen Glatkey's tragic shooting.
• 2:51:32
  In this way, the Ohio State Reformatory's violent and
• 2:51:37
  painful events of their individual pasts appear to
• 2:51:41
  replay themselves in uncanny ways, imprinting the environment
• 2:51:46
  with residual hauntings. Despite countless
• 2:51:50
  investigations, none of these paranormal claims can be proven
• 2:51:54
  with certainty. No ghost has ever been
• 2:51:57
  definitively recorded at OSR, and skeptics suggest that
• 2:52:02
  natural explanations such as echoes, drafts, and imagination
• 2:52:07
  underlie many experiences. The reformatory staff are
• 2:52:11
  careful to distinguish legend from fact.
• 2:52:15
  The documented history of OSR is tragic enough on its own,
• 2:52:18
  without embellishment. Yet even pragmatic tour guides
• 2:52:23
  have been known to admit that this place held a lot of
• 2:52:26
  violence and a lot of suffering, And if anywhere might be
• 2:52:30
  haunted, perhaps it's here. Haley.
• 2:52:35
  Statham Kitzler, a historian who works at the prison, candidly
• 2:52:39
  calls OSR the most haunted place in America.
• 2:52:44
  If it's not the most, it's up there for sure.
• 2:52:47
  She recounts how, while sitting alone in the empty
• 2:52:50
  administrative wing, she distinctly heard footsteps
• 2:52:54
  ascending the stairs to the guard room when no one else was
• 2:52:59
  there. Greg Fettikik, a seasoned
• 2:53:02
  paranormal investigator, attests that Ohio State reformatory is
• 2:53:07
  one of the eeriest places to be skeptic Before he came, he.
• 2:53:12
  Said that I'd never. Seen an apparition or shadow
• 2:53:15
  person before until one night I was sitting right there in OSR.
• 2:53:22
  He watched in disbelief as a shadowy figure climbed a prison
• 2:53:26
  stairwell, turned and walked down a hallway before fading
• 2:53:31
  away. As he sat, astonished, he then
• 2:53:35
  heard a deep growl emanate from a nearby room.
• 2:53:39
  This was then followed by the inexplicable sound of distant
• 2:53:43
  church bells ringing inside the cell block.
• 2:53:46
  Moments like these have convinced many investigators
• 2:53:49
  that some of OSR's former residents may indeed linger in
• 2:53:54
  spiritual form. Of course, such claims remain
• 2:53:58
  claims the ghosts of Ohio State Reformatory or anywhere cannot
• 2:54:04
  be booked for an interview or truly definitively measured.
• 2:54:08
  But. They live in an abundant
• 2:54:10
  anecdotes. And in the popular imagination,
• 2:54:14
  and potentially in our reality. For visitors, the line between
• 2:54:19
  history and legend at Mansfield is part of the thrill.
• 2:54:23
  One can stand in the very cornfield where the Neeble
• 2:54:26
  family meant their end, then later stand in the dim cell
• 2:54:31
  where an unknown prisoner scratched his name into the
• 2:54:33
  brick. The MRPS has embraced this dual
• 2:54:37
  identity of the site. It is at once a sobering
• 2:54:41
  historic landmark and a celebrated paranormal
• 2:54:45
  destination. By day one can tour the prison
• 2:54:49
  as a historian or film fan, and by night one can prowl the
• 2:54:54
  Cellars with an EMF meter hunting for spectres.
• 2:54:58
  Both experiences speak of the reformatory's unique lure.
• 2:55:04
  The saga of the Ohio State Reformatory is a classic
• 2:55:07
  American tale of rise, fall and rebirth.
• 2:55:13
  It began with 19th century optimism, a palace like prison
• 2:55:17
  meant to reform wayward men. It witnessed nearly a century of
• 2:55:22
  triumphs and horrors, the hopeful beginnings, the dark
• 2:55:28
  turning point in the 1930's, the bloodshed of mid century and the
• 2:55:34
  decay and brutality that ultimately shut it down, and its
• 2:55:38
  abandonment that narrowly escaped destruction, only to be
• 2:55:42
  saved by those who value its story.
• 2:55:46
  Now it stands preserved, A hulking limestone monument.
• 2:55:50
  To the. Past within its echoing cell
• 2:55:53
  blocks, one can still feel the weight of lives that have passed
• 2:55:57
  through it. The 16 year old first offender
• 2:56:00
  trembling on intake. The cynical career criminal
• 2:56:04
  plotting escape. The guard making his final round
• 2:56:09
  one fateful night. The warden cradling his dying
• 2:56:13
  wife. The prisoners cheering a moment
• 2:56:17
  of freedom as they left this place forever.
• 2:56:22
  All these moments are frozen in the reformatory stones.
• 2:56:26
  Perhaps This is why the legend holds that not all things have
• 2:56:30
  moved on. Today, a visitor to Mansfield
• 2:56:34
  can walk the same cells where blood was once spilled, then
• 2:56:38
  perhaps feel a cold touch on their shoulder that makes them
• 2:56:42
  wonder. You can admire the beautiful
• 2:56:44
  stone Chapel where convicts once sang hymns, and you might catch
• 2:56:50
  a glimpse of a phantom figure watching you from the balcony.
• 2:56:55
  The Ohio State Reformatory leaves it up to each guest to
• 2:56:58
  decide what is real. As you exit through the metal
• 2:57:02
  doors and into the Ohio sunshine, one thing is certain.
• 2:57:07
  The presence of the past is palpable here.
• 2:57:11
  The grand old prison on Reformatory Road stands as both
• 2:57:15
  a historical time capsule and, as many believe, a spiritual
• 2:57:20
  lockup where no soul is getting out.
• 2:57:24
  Its story continues to captivate a chronicle of darkness and
• 2:57:29
  redemption written in brick, iron, and perhaps, and echoes
• 2:57:36
  from beyond the grave. There's a place deep more than
• 2:57:53
  just history. They hold secrets.
• 2:57:57
  A place where time seems to pause, the trees lean in to
• 2:58:03
  listen, and the air itself feels wrong.
• 2:58:07
  This is Old Alton Bridge, better known by the name that chills to
• 2:58:12
  the bone, Goatman's Bridge, a place where history, folklore,
• 2:58:20
  and true terror collide. Tonight, I'll walk you through
• 2:58:24
  what's haunted past, the horrifying legend at its center,
• 2:58:30
  and the disturbing accounts of those who dared to tempt fate.
• 2:58:35
  If you think you know the story, think again, because the Goat
• 2:58:39
  Man is more than just a tale, he's a warning.
• 2:58:48
  Our story begins long before the legend ever took shape.
• 2:58:54
  In 1884, Old Alton Bridge was constructed as a one lane iron
• 2:59:00
  Truss bridge spanning Hickory Creek in Denton County.
• 2:59:05
  Designed by the King Iron Bridge Manufacturing Company, it
• 2:59:10
  connected the city of Denton with the now abandoned town of
• 2:59:14
  Alton. Alton, once a county seat in the
• 2:59:18
  mid 1800s, faded into obscurity after just a few years.
• 2:59:24
  It was a short lived frontier town that saw the rise and fall
• 2:59:29
  of local politics before vanishing all that remains
• 2:59:33
  today. Our cemetery, some scattered
• 2:59:37
  historical records, and this rusting monument to a forgotten
• 2:59:42
  era. The bridge was once a critical
• 2:59:46
  connection between Denton and other communities supporting
• 2:59:50
  wagon and later automobile traffic.
• 2:59:54
  It was narrow, too narrow for two cars to cross
• 2:59:58
  simultaneously, so drivers were instructed to honk their horns
• 3:00:03
  before entering. This quirk would later evolve
• 3:00:07
  into part of the ritual honking. Knocking and calling out for
• 3:00:14
  something unseen. By the 1990's, the bridge showed
• 3:00:19
  its age. A modern concrete bridge was
• 3:00:22
  built nearby, rerouting traffic and sealing the fate of Old
• 3:00:28
  Alton Bridge. It was closed to vehicles in
• 3:00:32
  2001 and preserved as a pedestrian crossing, serving as
• 3:00:38
  a historical landmark and a quiet footpath for nature
• 3:00:42
  enthusiasts. But as the road grew still,
• 3:00:46
  something ancient stirred beneath the iron whispers,
• 3:00:53
  sightings and stories began to spread louder, darker and more
• 3:01:00
  frequent. Something was waiting.
• 3:01:05
  The story that gave the bridge its infamous nickname begins
• 3:01:09
  with tragedy and hate. According to local legend, in
• 3:01:15
  the 1930s, an African American goat farmer named Oscar Washburn
• 3:01:21
  lived near the bridge. He was known for the quality of
• 3:01:25
  his livestock, his products, and the integrity of his business.
• 3:01:31
  Proud of his work, he posted a wooden sign on the bridge that
• 3:01:36
  read this way to the Goat Man. But success in that time and
• 3:01:42
  that place came with danger. Washburn's prosperity and
• 3:01:47
  defiance of social norms drew the attention of local alleged
• 3:01:51
  members of the Ku Klux Klan. 1 summer night, they crossed the
• 3:01:57
  bridge without headlights, stalked the area, and then
• 3:02:03
  stormed his home. Although Washburn fought back as
• 3:02:07
  hard as he could, he was outnumbered.
• 3:02:11
  They dragged him to the bridge, tied a noose around his neck,
• 3:02:17
  and threw him over the side. Expecting a series of struggled
• 3:02:21
  gasps, they instead heard nothing.
• 3:02:26
  When they looked over the edge, Washburn was nowhere to be
• 3:02:30
  found. No splash, no thrashing, just an
• 3:02:36
  empty rope swaying in the breeze.
• 3:02:40
  Panicked, the mob returned to his property and frantically
• 3:02:44
  searched for him, but their efforts were ultimately
• 3:02:48
  fruitless. However, inside the house
• 3:02:53
  resided Washburn's wife and children.
• 3:02:57
  Unable to carry out their original mission, they instead
• 3:03:01
  turned their hateful energy towards his family.
• 3:03:05
  Although details are hazy at best, they somehow were able to
• 3:03:10
  lock them inside the house by barricading them and with the
• 3:03:14
  strike of a flame, lit the home on fire.
• 3:03:18
  Within minutes, Washburn's family's screams were
• 3:03:22
  extinguished as the home burnt to embers.
• 3:03:27
  The once proud farmer, Oscar Washburn, was never seen again.
• 3:03:34
  However, something else, something unearthly, seemed to
• 3:03:38
  take his place. Witnesses soon began to report a
• 3:03:43
  terrifying creature lurking near the bridge, a being with the
• 3:03:48
  body of a man and the head of a goat, eyes glowing red, hooved
• 3:03:56
  feet stomping across the bridge in the dead of night.
• 3:04:02
  They said he was a spirit of vengeance, a soul wronged by
• 3:04:06
  evil returned to punish the wicked.
• 3:04:10
  But not everyone agrees on the origin.
• 3:04:14
  Another story stretches even further back to the 1860s.
• 3:04:20
  During the chaos of the Civil War, a man named Jack Kendall,
• 3:04:25
  possibly at that time a freed man, was lynched by a group of
• 3:04:29
  outlaws. Upon the gruesome act, the ropes
• 3:04:34
  severed his head, which plunged into the waters below.
• 3:04:40
  Moments later, the body rose, resurrected by dark forces.
• 3:04:47
  Kendall, or what became of him rather.
• 3:04:51
  Then. Searched and found a suitable
• 3:04:53
  replacement for his head. He found severed and then placed
• 3:04:59
  the head of a goat upon his neck.
• 3:05:04
  From that day forward, the area was considered cursed.
• 3:05:08
  Some believe this earlier entity fused with Oscar Washburn
• 3:05:13
  spirit. Others believe the Goat Man is
• 3:05:16
  something older still, something demonic.
• 3:05:21
  Whether man, myth or monster, the Goat Man's story does not
• 3:05:26
  end in the past. It continues to this very day.
• 3:05:33
  The stories began as whispers, then screams.
• 3:05:38
  Teenagers dared each other to visit.
• 3:05:40
  At. Midnight couples parked nearby,
• 3:05:44
  only to flee in terror. Paranormal investigators brought
• 3:05:49
  their cameras, their meters, their courage, and still they
• 3:05:56
  too ran. Some reports seeing a tall,
• 3:05:59
  muscular figure covered in dark fur with long twisted horns.
• 3:06:06
  Others describe glowing red eyes staring from the tree line.
• 3:06:12
  Visitors hear phantom hoof beats clattering across the wooden
• 3:06:16
  bridge, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, as if something
• 3:06:23
  is stalking them unseen. Hands tug at clothing, claw
• 3:06:28
  marks appear on backs and hair stands up on end.
• 3:06:34
  Breaths have even been known to fog in the summer heat.
• 3:06:39
  One woman said she heard her name whispered in her ear, only
• 3:06:44
  to turn and find no one behind her.
• 3:06:47
  Another man found his phone camera disabled when he tried to
• 3:06:52
  record, and when he finally left, his footage was overridden
• 3:06:58
  by static. Multiple Evps, otherwise known
• 3:07:03
  as electronic voice phenomena, in what they've captured is
• 3:07:07
  disturbing. From.
• 3:07:10
  Growling voices saying come back to crying children, to women
• 3:07:15
  sobbing, and even what has sounded like a goat screaming in
• 3:07:22
  agony. There are many rituals to
• 3:07:26
  supposedly summon the goat man, but this is one of the most
• 3:07:30
  infamous. Upon visiting the bridge, one
• 3:07:35
  must knock three times on the steel rails, say his name and
• 3:07:41
  then wait. Some say the air changes, the
• 3:07:46
  temperature drops, others say nothing happens at all and tell
• 3:07:52
  their home. 1 Teen reported seeing hoof.
• 3:07:56
  Prints in. Her driveway the next morning,
• 3:07:59
  another said. She was followed by a horned
• 3:08:03
  shadow. For weeks, she'd wake up
• 3:08:07
  screaming. Scratches also appeared on her
• 3:08:12
  arms. Paranormal teams have
• 3:08:15
  experienced battery drains, unexplained interference and
• 3:08:20
  equipment malfunctions. Some refuse to return after what
• 3:08:26
  they saw. There is another entity that has
• 3:08:30
  been seen at the bridge as well. Certainly at this point, a
• 3:08:35
  lesser known figure, the woman in white as she is called, is a
• 3:08:41
  translucent figure that is sometimes seen crying beside the
• 3:08:45
  bridge. Some say that she's Washburn's
• 3:08:49
  wife, still searching for her lost children for all of
• 3:08:54
  eternity. When approached, she disappears,
• 3:08:59
  or worse, she screams in your face.
• 3:09:05
  And then there are the missing visitors who have vanished.
• 3:09:10
  Cars have been found empty there, phones that have been
• 3:09:14
  left recording but with no sign of their owners, and footprints
• 3:09:20
  that stop in the middle of the bridge.
• 3:09:24
  Whether goat man or a ghost, something lurks there.
• 3:09:29
  And this something does not want to be disturbed.
• 3:09:34
  While the legend terrifies, real events near the bridge have
• 3:09:38
  raised deeper concerns. In 2018, a 17 year old named
• 3:09:44
  Lermont Stowers Jones was found dead near the bridge.
• 3:09:49
  The official ruling was accidental drowning, but many in
• 3:09:54
  the community weren't exactly convinced.
• 3:09:58
  The case drew media attention, with some pointing to the
• 3:10:02
  bridge's history of violence. In 2023, another man, Alan
• 3:10:09
  Wilson, was found shot to death in the gravel lot near the
• 3:10:14
  bridge. His murder remains unsolved.
• 3:10:19
  To many, these modern tragedies echo the past.
• 3:10:24
  Whether supernatural or symbolic, the bridge has become
• 3:10:29
  a place where death lingers and yet people still come.
• 3:10:35
  Paranormal TV shows like Ghost Adventures and BuzzFeed Unsolved
• 3:10:41
  have featured the bridge, with some of their team members
• 3:10:45
  leaving shaken, leaving with voices captured on tape and
• 3:10:50
  figures seen in the shadows, and the feeling of a heavy presence
• 3:10:55
  pressing down on their chests. Ghost tours now include the
• 3:10:59
  bridge on their nightly routes, and locals warn not to go there
• 3:11:04
  alone. And fair warning, it seems as
• 3:11:08
  though local authorities have increased their patrols of the
• 3:11:11
  area, especially around Halloween.
• 3:11:16
  Despite or because of its reputation, Goat Man's Bridge
• 3:11:20
  has become one of the most haunted locations in Texas, and
• 3:11:25
  allegedly, the Goat Man is more active than ever.
• 3:11:30
  So what is the Goat Man? A tormented spirit.
• 3:11:34
  A vengeful ghost, a demon summoned by occult rituals.
• 3:11:40
  Some believe that it could be a tulpa or a manifestation of
• 3:11:45
  belief itself, shaped by decades of fear and storytelling.
• 3:11:53
  Others think it's a warning left by the past, a reminder of
• 3:11:58
  atrocities that must not be forgotten.
• 3:12:02
  Local legends say the Goat Man only harms those who come with
• 3:12:06
  hate in their hearts, that his vengeance is specific, targeted
• 3:12:13
  and moral. Others believe that he or it has
• 3:12:18
  no rules, only rage. But whether rooted in justice,
• 3:12:24
  voodoo, or hell itself, the Goat Man is allegedly more than myth.
• 3:12:32
  It is a presence, a predator, a protector.
• 3:12:37
  And it is watching. So now that you know the
• 3:12:42
  supposed truth, would you cross the bridge?
• 3:12:45
  Would you knock three times? Would you speak his name?
• 3:12:52
  Thank you for joining me on this journey into the unknown.
• 3:12:55
  If you enjoyed this exploration into real life horror, be sure
• 3:13:00
  to like, subscribe, and share your thoughts in the comments
• 3:13:04
  below. Have you visited Goat Man's
• 3:13:06
  bridge? If so, what did you see?
• 3:13:10
  How did it make you feel? And if you do ever find yourself
• 3:13:14
  in Denton County, think twice before stepping onto that
• 3:13:18
  bridge, because the Goat Man just might be watching.