Date: 2009-03-30 15:12 Subject: An evening ghost hunting at Mansfield Prison: pics! Descriptions! The evening in full!! Security: Public Location: Toledo, OH Mood: chipper Music: CNN news

Warning: this blog is really damn long with LOTS of pics. And those pics are FREAKIN' HUGE as to give you the best reading experience I could offer.  I provide a description of the pictures before the picture itself. I hope you enjoy reading and if you want, leave a comment and if you're not a LJ user, LEAVE YOUR NAME so I know who you are! :) 

Good afternoon folks!! I trust all of you had a great weekend and are enjoying this awesome weather of snow and - wait wait wait, it was 60 last week and it's snowing now in Toledo?!!?! What the crap!  

I'm veggin' here after a fantastically awesome weekend with Mel; we celebrated our first anniversary this weekend by going on a ghost hunt at the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, OH.  We're both fans of the paranormal, each having their own unique experiences with the unknown for years and we've been talking about doing this since we met and things got serious.  We got our tickets back in early October and waited eagerly to dive into our first ghost hunt.

And it was awesome, really freakin' awesome.  We left Toledo around 4 or so and headed south towards Mansfield. After a quick stop for some fast food, we arrived at the Reformatory around 6:15 or so. 

Mansfield Reformatory.



There were other cars there waiting for the gates to open; and this is when the SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION quotes started!! And they were abundant!! I started quoting Red's line about Andy coming to Shawhank and etc. Mel and I hung around for a bit and then left to get some snacks for the hunt and whatnot.

When we got back there were far more cars there, a small convoy and the gates opened up. We got in, checked in and they gave us a pretty basic map of the prison.



We walked around the gift shop and museum quarters for a bit, where they had items from the prison's history as well as movie goodies. 

Lots of cool stuff in here.



We bought some stuff (I bought a t-shirt that has an image of the prison and says SHAWSHANK STATE PRISON and on the back it says, "Get busy livin', or get busy dying."  I also got a magnet for my fridge!)  We also started talking to a couple who was in front of us in line and whatnot.  At a bit after 8 pm, they broke us into several groups for a brief (an hour, a bit less i'd guess) guided tour through some of the main areas of activity and areas that were cool for SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION fans (which in my opinion is EVERYBODY. If you don't like that flick, God help you! hehehehe I'll post pics of those in a bit) 

During this time, they asked us who watched GHOST HUNTERS and most everybody raised their hand and they told us they'd show us where the cell was that Jay and Grant were in and had activity with (J&G marked it with a marked X).  When she asked us who watched GHOST ADVENTURES, everybody laughed and shook their heads and made a negative comment, which got me laughing cos I've thought that show has sucked since it began. Jokes started flying about the obnoxious host and his knack for being rude, mean, inviting spirits to hit his friends, and always trying to act tough. It was a hysterical ghost geek moment. 

They told us about the spirits in the administrative buildings which included the spirit of the warden's wife who was accidentally killed during a gun discharge.  Many have said to smell what was possibly her perfume as it's a strong odor of flowers. They also have the spirit of a man.....who presents himself as a small boy. Now, how/why they know this is beyond me, but regardless, if I saw the spirit of a kid, i'd flip out anyway cos ghost children scare the crap out of me.
They showed us around some of the west and east cell blocks too; they told us of a few incidents in those areas such as seeing a group of four persons walking by before disappearing and then doing it again, as if in a loop or residual haunting. She also talked about how they were communicating with a spirit in one cell that told them (I think via recording) that he couldn't leave cos the door wasn't opened far enough! He told them it was 1958 or so and when they told him it was 2009, he cut off communications with them for some reason.

A pic of the west cell block (I THINK).



The East block (I think).

 

They showed us some more areas, including a section of where part of AIR FORCE ONE was filmed and the two pieces of set used in SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, particuarly the pipes Andy crawled through and the escape route from the cell.

The sewage pipe that Andy crawled through (with a wall painting from AIR FORCE ONE in the back of it).



The passage that Andy used to get out of his cell.


 
This area was referred to as the bullpen as it connected to other parts of the prison. They also showed us the showers in the east wing where the shower scenes in SHAWSHANK were filmed and where two inmates had been killed (side note, each man was given one shower a week and you had only a minute to bathe yourself. Visitors said you could smell the cell blocks from far away in the summers). While in there, the tour guide had some dousing rods and had some activity with us there as they were moving back and forth.

They also talked to us about the importance of telling orbs from dust in our pics.  Now, orbs are thought to be smaller balls of spiritual energy and you can tell if something is an orb by zooming in on it and seeing if it has matter, a nucleus and/or a structure. Dust tends to break up when one zooms in (and HINT HINT: REMEMBER THIS FOR LATER ON!)

After 9 pm, they left us go about our merry ways. Now, mind you at this point the lights in the facility are still on. Not every place was lit, but the cell blocks were lit still at this point.

Before we got started, we bumped into the couple that was in front of us in line, Alyssa and Nick, and we decided to team up into a group of four, for well, moral support and company. hahaha They were both real cool and just as into the whole situation as we were. All of us had (between us) a few digital audio recorders, cameras and video cameras.

I had an idea to start off in the west wing of the facility as it was pretty far off and would probably be pretty empty given that lots of folks were probably going to hit the "hot spots" first.

Now, I will say this: this place is pretty massive.  It has two cell blocks, two wings, two diagonals, and an administrative building.  The structure itself is solid and they joked that only a huge bomb would knock it down.  The walls and cells themselves are another story; they're old, decrepid and peeling due to years of rotting and weather.  It made things that much more spooky and atmospheric.  

 We headed to the west wing, first floor, to the west wing showers for our first stop.  We took some pics and started to investigate; in this area, there were no lights. 

The West wing shower room



A possible orb in the West wing shower room



Another possible orb from either the "Jesus Room."

 


Now, I will say at first it was kinda silly and awkward talking to whatever was around and unseen, but it grew to be natural rather quickly. They STRESSED the importance of manners: please, thank you and kindly offering to take pics.  They told us that folks got far more results when they were polite and those who tried to provoke were met with slaps, hits, scratches, pushes, and burning sensations. We asked the usual questions about name and time and I started to ask about who was the president, did you vote for him and so forth.  If we saw things in the cells, we tried to make it particular. For example, Mel and I saw a NY Yankees sticker in a cell (we joked it was in the right place above the toilet) and we started an audio session. We asked about the Yankees, baseball, talked about the BoSox and how the Yanks had won several WS championships over the last decade.  In cells where we found old books and stuff like that, we asked about the books, reading, and so forth. Anything to try to illicit a response.

And get responses we did on MANY occasions. 

HOWEVER, I have to work my way to those incidents, so bare with me cos I don't wanna lose my train of thought!  We worked our way from the west wing through the west cell block.

The west cell block with Alyssa and Nick lookin' around.



The west cell block was jokingly called "the hilton" from inmates as it housed roughly 300 inmates, each with an individual cell and this section was warmer in the winter, cooler in the summer (which was not heated or have any AC for many years, mind you); inmates had actually reported icicles in the east block due to how cold it was in the winter.  We would walk along each level of cells (called tiers) and take random pictures, do random audio sessions in random ells and so forth.  There wasn't a real set structure of what we could do, which was awesome. 

From one of the tiers in the west block



The west block cells



One of the upper levels of the west block (and I think that's dust in the middle there)



A really decked out cell with lots of stuff left behind from the previous occupant.




We checked out the cells in the WB and then headed to the west diagonal, which included two floors of solitary and the court offices. 

Now, in talking about what happened, I'm going to discuss specific incidents in areas I can remember and then just do a brief chat about other things afterwards.  Some things such as talking in cells is fuzzy as the cells are pretty much identical and it's hard for me to remember which block. Hope this works for you folks. 

While we were making our way through the west block, the four of us divided into our groups to do seperate audio sessions several cells apart. Oh and I forgot to mention something.

At this point, the lights had been turned off, immersing the entire facility (sans the A-building, where we checked in, had bathrooms, etc), in total and utter darkness.

When Mel and I were in our cell, we heard two loud taps coming from outside our cell.  We thought it was Nick and Alyssa and carried on.  We heard them again. When we got out of the cells, we talked to Nick and Alyssa and they heard them too, thinking it was us.  We listened again and we didn't heard anybody in the cell block at that time and after a few more moments, we heard nothing and saw no flashlight beams or anything.  So, that was pretty interesting. 
Now, we make our way into solitary, which is pretty insane. 

Looking down into one of the bottom levels of solitary.


 

They had two sets of punishment: one fenced in cell and one cell that gave you NO light for 23 hours of the day; you were then given food and water for any of the solitary cells you were in. 

one of the cells that offered no light, etc.



And the lesser punishment cell.



We heard a loud bang at the end of the one of the hallways, but when Nick went to check it out, nothing was there.  We also decided to do our first lights out (we think it was here, the location is fuzzy) in the court offices. What this meant was that we'd hold an audio session in total darkness, which made things a bit spookier. This first lights out was odd cos we all felt a bit uneasy and nervous; the air felt thick.  Afterwards, we headed to the court offices and wandered around.
 
The visitation area in the court offices.



Some random painted hands in the office.




By now, it was roughly 11:45 pm and we decided to take a quick breather.
They had provided pizza and pop for all of us, so we vegged for a good 25 minutes or so. Letting our legs relax while gobbling food. And when I say "all of us" I'd say there were roughly 100 people there, hunting and what have you.  And while some may say "what?!? how did you move around?!", trust me, in some of the less popular areas, you were by yourself. You did bump into people in the cell blocks at times and in the adminstrative building, but you were pretty much alone in the other areas. 

Everybody was pretty polite and considerate and if you were doing an audio session, you just made a note about the outside noise and carried on.  The staff told us to be considerate to others, which was awesome as they didn't tolerate bullshit and if you broke rules, you tossed.  I overheard folks talking about things they had seen and they ranged from the perfume scent of the warden's wife to a woman getting her glasses knocked off and another woman pushed. 

We got back on our feet and decided to head to the east cell block. Before we headed to the block we decided to take a gander in the basement....which was by far the creepiest part of the evening.

Into the basement.



Nick had read/seen info about this part of the prison and from what he knew, there was a steam bath or something like that located in here that would be used as a means of punishing prisoners as it would burn them.  I guess a psychic saw visions of it and refused to go on or something like that.
 
A small entrance view of the huge, multi-room basement.



As soon as we made our way down there, everything changed.  We were quieter, a bit more cautious and contantly looking over our shoulders.  We all felt really nervous in there and were constantly looking over our shoulders.  We did a lights out session in there and once we started it, the furnace turned off and it was so freakin' still; words cannot describe how intense that was.  In fact, nobody could really stand it for more than 10 seconds and we'd flash our lights off and on for a few seconds before turning them off again.  We just felt not wanted down there. 

Plus, we started hearing tapping/loud noises in an area that was roped off/closed to the public, this area pictured below.



 

A picture of a "ghost" in the basement. hehehe



We really couldn't have been happier getting out there.

As we were making our way to the block, I SWORE I saw something dart past this hallway (pictured below).



 
Now, this hallway connections to another, so somebody could walk by.  The thing is, nobody was there.  When I walked by I saw something dart from the left to the right; we were moving from the right to the left, so it wasn't my reflection. Plus, it wasn't blue, the color of my fleece, it was brighter, maybe white or cream colored or something like that.  When I saw it, I kind of stood there and mumbled something of shock to myself and took off down the catwalk to see what was up; nobody was there. I inspected the hallway leading in the direction that somebody would be walking and nothing.  I ran around that section and nobody was there. By now, the rest of the group had caught up and we talked about it.


We pressed on and inspected more of the east side of the building; we tried to get into the ghost hunters cell, but that place was always packed, so we moved on to the east wing and figured we'd just work our way back to the front. 
Walking through the east block to the west wing (this probably more than likely my breath in the shot.  Since it was colder in the building, it was important to inhale before snapping a picture so your breath didn't show up on the image).




one of the smaller, more cramped cells in the east block.



The east wing also had three floors, the first being the showers that we had been shown earlier in the evening.

It was at this point that it started to storm; yes, it stormed, thunder, lightning and the whole 9 nine yards while were in a haunted prison.  You could hear nervous laughter of everybody.  I once again quoted Red from SHAWSHANK and began, "I've had some long nights in the-" and before I could finish, Mel said, "ah! dude! enough quotes!" and the four of us chuckled. The thunder seemed to echo tenfold in the showers, making it much louder.

The east wing shower room.



We took some pics and sat down on some provided benches (benches and chairs were provided all around the facility, especially in high activity areas), went lights out and started asking questions.  After some usual stuff, we asked if there was anything in the room with us to do something, make a noise to let us know it was there.

That's when he heard a sliding/shuffing slide to our left.  We sat there in darkness still, not turning on any flashlights.  Just to be sure, we asked again and sure enough, two distinct taps.  We thanked whatever it was and left, pretty excited. 

A possible orb in the showers.





We headed up to the second floor which we still don't know what exactly it was; it was marked CLOSED on the map, but we were told during the tour they had just recently re-opened it.

Second floor



.......the hell?



The third floor of the east wing was an old library and we found an old circulation desk, old books and newspapers too.

Sign in the library



Information area



Circulation Desk

 

It was pretty interesting to see how many old books were scattered around the prison. I remember seeing lots of books on learning new languages, and books on theory and sociology and things like that. 

We returned to the first level and checked out the commissary or as Ghost Hunters fans might know it: "the toilet room" which houses probably a few hundred unused spare toilets and toilet parts.  J&G jokingly referred to it as something like the mecca of plumbers or something along those lines.
 
The "toilet room."



We inspected the area and held an audio sesion at a small room that was up a few stairs, this room.


 
 
As were walking down the stairs, we heard a loud bang amongst a series of boxes and parts directly to our right; we thought that maybe Alyssa had kicked something on accident, but when we looked down, her foot was waaaaaaaaay too far away from anything.  We continued down towards the block out of the toilet room, and it happened again, this time amongst the spare toilets.  We stopped and stood still for a second and tried to get it to do something else and it didn't. 

We then made our way toward the east block for more time with it.

Some of the east block



Mel and I agreed that the west block had more of a personality as there were far more things lying around, like old books and paperwork, clothing, and some cells weren't even touched after the place was closed for good in 1990. We found legal documents, dirty pictures, food, and everything in between.

A book from the west block with what looks to be a prisoner ID number/name on it.



 

The west block seemed to be void of all that stuff for some reason.

Still, we had some happenings in there: I thought I heard whispers while passing by a cell, and I THINK this was the block where both Mel and Nick heard somebody say "psssssssst!" to them. Nick also heard somebody whisper in his ear, "Hey chief" which he was shocked to hear to say the least.  And mind you, these last mentioned happenings might have happened in the west block, but I can't recall for sure.

We inspected the east block for a bit and after several tries, FINALLY got in the Ghost Hunters cell. 

The X in black marker above the Ghost Hunters cell.




A look inside the cell itself.



We held an audio session, but nobody seemed to feel anything in there for whatever reason.

We then made our way back to the A building for a potty break and then hit the last building of the evening: administrative (the east diagonal was closed for whatever reason). This building gave us all the creeps for some reason; I was constantly looking around.

One of the landings in the admin building.




This building also gave us a feeling of uneasiness as we felt like we were being watched. We headed into what used to be the warden's living quarters. We took a seat at the table and started an audio session, asking the usual. 

The table we sat at.




I made a comment about how it must be odd for any spirits to see thousands of people walking in and out of their home.  I then decided to ask them if they were tired of us. And if they wanted us to leave to make a tapping sound.

tap tap.

I turned towards the window, so did Mel, and Nick, who had been filming in the opposite direction, shot his camera towards the window area too.  Being a man of my word, I thanked them and we left.

We then headed into a room that housed several chairs and each took a seat, with Nick sitting on the older chair while we sat on the chairs that were placed by the staff. We tried an audio session asking if anything was there and if it was there to make its prescence known to us.  I had to laugh as Alyssa asked it to close the door, to which both Mel and I thought, "WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!??" and in the dark, I could see Mel turn her head towards Alyssa, probably in shock just as I did. The door didn't close, but Mel, who was sitting close to Nick, both heard the chair shuffle a bit. 

The possible moving chair.




Alyssa and I didn't hear anything though, sadly. Mel and Alyssa did hear a voice say something to them in one of the rooms in this building though; they couldn't make it out, but they said they both heard something like "yep" or "betty" or something with an E sound.

I was able to get a picture of the incredibly, uber awesome Brooks/Red pillar thing as the halfway house scenes in the film were filmed in the administrative building. 




We then headed into the chapel, where some of the prisoners used to worship. There have been sightings in there of an old lady; we didn't see anything and none of us really felt anything in there.

I did capture what I think are a few orbs in here though.




More orbs to the upper right?



We moved up to the fourth floor, which was the Tuberculosis ward (or the T.B. ward).  This is where those who were sick went to be treated or perish.  Getting up here was kinda rough as the stairwells were REALLY narrow, which was kind of crappy, but we made it through without any problems.

A shot of the T.B. ward; lots of dust, but i think some of the brighter things are maybe orbs??



We did some more searching around of the building and I took a pic of the parole room from SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION. 




And yup, I started saying to myself, "So go on and stamp your form, Sonny. And quit wasting my time."  hehehehehe 

I also took pics of the room where Andy played the "Marriage of Figaro," which was cool.

The outer door that was broken to get into Andy.



And the room itself

 


And lastly, I got a pic of some stuff in the warden's office.  I didn't get a shot of the room, rather just where he had his safe and knitted Biblical quote, of which they have a print of it.

The print and where the vault was located in the flick.



And another shot of the print (it was a pain in the ass to get a good shot with the flash reflecting off. This is my best one).

 

And I don't think I quoted anything at that point, shockingly enough. hahahahaha 

And that was the end of it.  We had spent roughly 7 to 7 1/2 hours in that prison, hunting for ghosts.  We were all really tired and had some grub in the A building for a moments before exchanging info with Alyssa and Nick. I was really happy we randomly bumped into them and what's kinda funny is that in one of the pics I took when we got out of the car, you can see them two spots over, which is kinda cool as we didn't know each other at that point. We said our goodbyes, wished our wells and started home.  It was now 4 a.m. and we got back into town around 6 a.m. and went right to sleep.  I laughed before I fell asleep though as when I closed my eyes, I could still see the beams of light that my eyes had grown familar with, using flashlights and seeing many MANY other flashlights in the prison. 

And that's the end of this. Thanks for reading and leave a comment if you'd like.  I have A LOT more pics, but i'm in the process of tagging them, so check back so you can see them when I get them finished and ready.  Also, I have about an hour and 25 minutes of audio I have to go over and I plan to start that tomorrow or tuesday. I'm hoping the audio will also help me maybe figure out my fuzzy sequence of events and if that happens, I'll make the appropriate connections.
 
Mind you, there are other things that I didn't go into detail about, such as thinking you're seeing things at the end of the cell block when you can't really say for sure if it's something paranormal or eyes playing tricks.  Also, it become pretty easy to tell a sound that was out of the ordinary from a sound that was from somebody else in the area.  I'll also mention that we seemed to get more activity when we were being goofy or cracking jokes. Mel and Alyssa were talking about prisoners being "fierce" or having lavish cells and were chuckling and that's when some voices were heard.  In the toilet room, Alyssa made a joke about the atmosphere being "shitty" to which we laughed and I did a rim shot sound.  I added that there was probably a prescence in here that was probably saying, "son of a bitch. EVERY time they're in here, somebody has to make a joke about the toilets. Every. Damn. Time." and that's when we heard the bang noise in the toilets.  Kinda interesting that we were being inappropriate in a prison, a place of rules of obedience and that's when we got some action.  

And if any of my fellow hunters are reading this and have corrections about locations or whatnot, PLEASE LET ME KNOW.  After such a long night, I could be wrong on certain things. Thanks!! I'm off.

' till next time true believers.