Haunted Hospitals We have heard of haunted houses, haunted cemeteries and even haunted ships but you hardly ever hear of haunted hospitals. Why is this? Most hospitals are sort of like cemeteries in that they contain morgues where dead bodies are stored for short periods of time. This fact alone should lend itself to some paranormal activity, so I decided to look into this a little more deeply. Now what type of hospital would be the best to examine first I thought? Then it came to me, for paranormal purposes, what could be more appropriate than a mental hospital? I found one that is located in Clermont County in Batavia in Ohio. Not only was it a mental hospital, but it had also been a poor house, nursing home and orphanage. It was torn down in 2001 but a woman's jail was erected on the site. There is a nearby potter's field. The hospital was built in 1883 and there had been many reports of sightings of ghosts in the infirmary. When the jail was built, it extended over the cemetery. The jail is supposedly haunted by the same ghosts that occupied the hospital. It is said there were missing bodies from the graveyard when the jail was built and the spirits of these bodies are the ones haunting the jail. In England there is a very haunted hospital named the Portsmouth Memorial Hospital. There are reports of ghosts walking the staircases and even pictures being knocked off walls and tables. This haunting seems to have extended to the Portsmouth Public Library where it is said the ghost of a woman named Grace can be seen on a balcony which is closed to the public. She is not alone, there is another ghost in the place and it is the ghost of a homeless man who died in the library. Only the main building seems to be haunted. Books are being tampered with and lights are being turned on and off. St. Joseph Hospital is located in Mishawaka in Indiana. The institution dates back to 1878 when three sisters (nuns) founded it, but the actual building wasn't built until 1909. People have claimed they have seen the original founding nuns walking the halls dressed in their old fashioned habits. It seems these nuns were truly dedicated both in life and in death. Patients have even claimed these nuns have come into their rooms to check on them. The Franciscan Medical Center in Ohio, is a huge hospital that was closed in the year 2000. It is located on the west side of Dayton Ohio and was built in 1878. It is composed of seven large buildings. Cold spots that moved throughout the buildings were felt by many people. There were shadows that appeared, yet nothing was there to cause them. Could some of the former occupants of the hospital still be lurking in the hallways and on stair cases? Some people claim it is not castles or mansions that are the most haunted places but it is nursing homes. If you go by the theory the more misery a place had the more of a chance it is haunted, I guess you would have to put some nursing homes at the top of the list. There are quite a few photographs on the Internet that were taken of people in nursing homes which show abnormalities in them such as light where there shouldn't be any and even faces in the backgrounds, when no one else was in the room. A nursing home in Waverly Hills in Kentucky has experienced some really strange goings on according to visitors. A television program even picked it as one of the scariest places. The place has been closed for many years and there is no electricity, yet people claim to see a light on. Ghostly people have been seen looking out of windows and when you get inside, cold spots can be felt all over the building. Here is a new twist on these haunted hospitals. Some people are claiming they bought items at auctions from these institutions and the items themselves were haunted. The site of a former hospital at Mount Misery on Long Island in New York is said to be haunted. Over the years many strange things have taken place there. For example, for over thirty years a man carrying a basket of heads was sighted walking around the area, but no one was ever able to capture him. What made this even more intriguing was there were reports several people who went into the area were never seen again. The original hospital burnt down as did a replacement building. There have been reports of burning ghosts being seen in the area. Another hot spot in New York is King's Park Psychiatric Center. Ghosts are seen in the halls and voices are heard when there is no one present. Visitors have reported crying is sometimes heard but no one can figure out where it is coming from. This facility is very large and has been closed for years. Hospitals, nursing homes and mental institutions do have reports of hauntings. There are certainly many more than the few I have listed here. It is surprising, but Ohio seems to have more than its share of these things, but they have also had a lot of hospital closings. All those creepy abandoned buildings can lead to paranormal reports. If one were to really dig, I am sure they would find hospitals have way more than their share of ghost sightings and strange happenings. Maybe it is the fact so many suffering people have passed through these hospitals, or just the fact that they are usually in large buildings, and these buildings tend to produce more than their share of noises and sounds. Well, whatever the reason, there are quite a few reports of paranormal activity in hospitals. I should be clear on what some people believe about these hauntings if that is what they are. Some think it is nonsense and many of the things seen are just from the imaginations of the people seeing them. We do have to give some credence to this. There are people who have mental conditions and others who want to see something so bad, they do see it. Then there are those who makeup what they say they saw. There is also another class of people who believe something else. They believe somehow what is being seen are aliens who have come to this planet and are studying us. Why they would be walking around abandoned hospitals is hard to fathom.
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