Eloise

Hello fellow ghost hunters! I apologize for this (and possibly a few upcoming blogs) running late. My computer has decided to get itself a virus, and the only thing Google now does for me is redirect to useless websites. So, until I can get it fixed, I'll be updating from my roommate's lovely old computer (whose keyboard doesn't seem to like the comma button). In any case, American Haunts will keep on running until someone pries technology from my cold, dead hands. Even then, I'm sure I'll be around enough to haunt them until they give it back.

Anyway! Onto today's featured haunted location. My roommate (the lovely CK Coburn who keeps a blog over here ) and I are moving from Ann Arbor a little closer to all of our friends. As it turns out, we're moving to Westland, one of the most haunted cities in the state. Who knew, right? As we were exploring things to do and see in that part of Michigan, CK found the Eloise Sanatorium. As you can imagine, we were sucked in immediately to the rich, dark history and hauntings Eloise has to offer. And while we do have plans to check out the asylum in person, I thought I'd do a little research and write a blog before we got there. And so, without further ado, welcome to Eloise.



Eloise got its beginnings as a poor farm near Detroit in 1832. In fact, it wasn't even located at its current address until 1839. It was still a Count Poor House, until it began accepting tuberculosis patients for outdoor therapy later in the century. Before it became Eloise, the Sanatorium was in the middle of nowhere. So far out that only 35 patients moved with the building when it relocated. By the time the building gained its unusual name, several other government services had sprung up around it. A post office (carrying the name Eloise) and the railroad soon made their homes adjacent to the Sanatorium.

Eloise got its name from the only living child of the President of the Board. When the post office was sent to the Sanatorium (to aid in the receiving of supplies to the area), it was on the stipulation that all new post offices were to have incredibly short names. So, the president tossed in his suggestion and got a resounding "sure, why not?" On July, 20 1894 the post office (and subsequently the sanatorium) became Eloise.

During its height, Eloise was a full-functioning poor farm, general hospital and insane asylum. In the 1830's it was also home to a school district for all the children of patients who had died from cholera or other diseases in the poor house. Additions and new buildings were constantly being added on from around 1840 until 1929. All in all, there were close to 78 buildings total. The hospital ran until 1979. Today the Kay Beard building and little museum are open to the public (but as far as we've found, there isn't much keeping anyone out of the property besides signs).


What goes on here?

Well, like with any asylum in the 1800's and early-mid 1900's, a lot of really bad things happened in Eloise. The standards apply here- patients were overcrowded. They were beaten and given rudimentary and often unsafe treatments. In the 50's electro-shock therapy was common, and patients were treated with a variety of chemicals. The conditions were unsanitary, and life in Eloise wasn't pleasant for anyone. Attached to the asylum is a cemetery, with over 7,000 patients buried next to the buildings they most likely resented the most. All in all, it's things like this that make for spectacular, if saddening, hauntings.

It seems that everything under the "haunting" umbrella happens here. Workers and thrill-seekers hear disembodied voices all over the property. Growls are heard by the playground set up for the patients' children. Lights turn on and off on their own. There are reports of a woman's apparition floating in the corridors of the upper floors, and on the roof of the Kay Beard building. Many people have captured photos of things they can't explain, voices on recorders and video of strange sights. In fact, go to Ghost Watchers for a sampling of strange pictures taken at Eloise.

I'm incredibly nervous and excited to try my hand at ghost hunting inside (or at least close to) Eloise. I hope to bring you much better detail on the activities inside Eloise, and maybe even a video or EVP recording. My adventure won't be a for a few months (the weather is still far too cold to be out at night. I'm a SoCal wimp), but hopefully I can wiggle my way in and take some great pictures for you! Until then, below I've posted a few places to learn more, see some videos and stills, and get the nerve up to exploring for yourself! Enjoy, and as always, thanks for reading!


The best place to start is here:  Tales of Eloise
Strange USA
Haunted USA
Detroit News

Pictures (seen on the blog):
http://www.johnsontat.com
http://apps.detnews.com/apps/history/index.php?id=106
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=C544C00AD17A399B (youtube videos about Eloise)

Look to the Skies: UFO Phenomena

For my Culture and Personality class, I will be writing a term paper on Mass Hysteria, with specific focus on the UFO phenomenon. In light of that, I thought I would devote at least one blog, if not a few, to a couple of major events in the UFO community. Everyone has heard of Roswell, of course, but not everyone knows of the Arnold Report, the Airship hysteria of 1897, or the Battle of Los Angeles (not the movie, but close). I would like to highlight these and perhaps a few others. Let's get started, shall we?

First, the Kenneth Arnold UFO sighting happened in 1947, in the skies above Mt. Rainier, Washington. Before Arnold's report, UFOs weren't very high on the human radar. America had gone through the panic of Orson Welles' War of the Worlds Halloween broadcast back in 1938, but since then the idea of aliens had taken a back burner to the second World War. When Arnold saw nine unidentified objects flying through the air "like a saucer would," America was introduced to the flying saucer and ran with it. Ufoevidence.org has several articles outlining the report Arnold made to the Air Force and other inquirers:

"At around 3:00 in the afternoon, he was flying at about 9,000 feet, near Mount Rainier, when a flash of light caught his eye. He turned and saw a procession of nine very strange objects flying from north to south in front of his plane. They were flat and rather heel-shaped, very shiny, and they moved erratically, like a "saucer would if you skipped it across water." 


Since then, Arnold's report has been criticized by skeptics the world over. But, what UFO experience hasn't been? In any case, this is the one that started it all...

After his initial report, America (and the world) were kicked into panic-mode. "Flying saucers" were everywhere. There was no going back now. America had UFO fever.



Far before the idea of flying saucers came about, however, Americans in the northern states were hysterical over something they could only describe as an Airship. Now, all of us in the Steampunk community know all about airships. For us, they're the main form of travel in an alternate Victorian world, more elegant than airplanes or helicopters. These are not, however, our main form of travel. In fact, even in 1897 these weren't the way to travel. But residents from California to Michigan saw something in the sky from a period of 1896-97.

With over 1500 reports from individuals, the mystery airships have become the best-documented paranormal phenomenon from antiquity. It seems there wasn't a person alive who didn't witness some mystery flying in the skies during this chunk of time. But what did they really see?

Wikipedia has way more than I thought on the subject of the mystery airships. It seems Sacramento and San Francisco were the first to report strange flying objects in the skies over California. Witnesses reported seeing a dark object behind a very bright light. Shouts of orders were heard from the ground, as well as singing. A man named Lowry reported two men pedaling to keep the aircraft aloft, and above them something like a passenger compartment.

Similar reports were given all over the continental US. One man even claimed to talk to two nude pilots from Mars. A lot of the reports claim to have seen crashes and airships on the ground, and one even describes the "pilot" telling about a device that let him shrink the airship enough to fit in his pocket! Most of the reports are honestly funny. "anonymous, but reliable" witnesses, nude pilots, even a woman strapped to a chair as a prisoner were told to various newspapers all over the country. At this point, most researchers believe these were all lies, hoaxes, or a serious of personal airships people weren't familiar with. Whatever the case, there wasn't a person alive in the US who hadn't seen the mysterious airships.

The last event isn't well known to the general population, either. In fact, most of the residents from the city in which it happened have no clue that such a thing took place. At the height of the second World War, 1942, a mysterious object was spotted by citizens and military officers alike over the coast of Los Angeles, California. At first officers thought we (I'm from there, after all) were being attacked by the Japanese. It was disturbing enough that a blackout was called for the city, and dozens of rounds of anti-aircraft bullets were fired on the object.

The Los Angeles Times has had two articles on the incident, one from 1942 and the other from 2011:

"No one knows what, if anything, the GIs saw in the early morning hours when their antiaircraft batteries opened fire. And after more than 1,000 antiaircraft and .50-caliber machine gun rounds were expended, there was no evidence that they had hit any targets. A single moment of the incident was preserved in a dramatic photo that ran in the next day’s Los Angeles Times, the image of several searchlight beams converged on a single point in the night sky above Culver City. Over the years that photo became legend among UFO-ologists who maintain the searchlights were trained on an alien spaceship, and that the photo is evidence of an extra-terrestrial visitation."

 This could have been an actual raid, a fake raid used to scare the 2,000,000 residents of LA, or any number of things. It seems that no one has been satisfied with the explanations offered by officials. So what was it? We might not ever know.



What we do know is that there have been thousands of reports on unidentified flying objects spanning the globe for (at this point) over a hundred years. The verdict is still out on every single one of those reports, but the truth is out there somewhere.

If you've got any UFO stories of your own, feel free to email me, or leave them in the comments section! I would love to hear them!


http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case511.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_airship#Specific_cases
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2011/03/tv-skeptic-fact-or-faked-paranormal-files-the-real-battle-of-la.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Los_Angeles
http://www.mufon.com/
http://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/

Kalamazoo and Ghost Tour, two!

This is late, I know, but I was living it up at Cedar Point's Halloweekends, getting as scared as possible before Halloween night! I've been informed that Cedar Points is haunted by more than just Screamsters. Perhaps we'll take a look at that later on in the cold months to come. For now, I do believe I need to finish up the ghost tour my roommate and I took October 14th.


 What Goes on Here?

We last left off with the murder of Louis Shilling down on Portage st. Now let's visit the Corner Bar, a popular hangout for college students from WMU. Before it became the local hangout of dozens of kids after class, the Corner Bar was a Bowling Alley (read: Speakeasy). Yup, they made illegal booze right in the heart of the Midwest. Well, it's said that a young boy who worked at the bowling alley as a pin setter got caught in the machine in day. He unfortunately died, but fortunately haunts the Corner Bar to this day. Employees have seen him in the kitchen, and without cause plates and utensils have been flung to the floor.

A little drive down the road brings you into Augusta. Here is the Brooks Lodge, a great place to go for food and drinks (or so I hear), but it also seems to be filled with another kind of spirit. This was once the Upjohn vacation home. There was space enough for everyone here, including the mistress. After the family sold the home, it was turned into the Brooks Lodge. There have been several investigations of this place, with especially good collections of evidence. We were told of a few EVPs (electronic voice phenomena) captured by the team.
                            They were asking questions in the house, and discovered that two unseen entities were having a conversation amongst themselves. Half the conversation was garbled, but the ther voice was strong and could be heard answering the muffled voice with "Yes, I know." "It's okay." and "I don't care." These are not Dr. Upjohn, however. The team was given that definite answer during one of  their EVP sessions.


The Park Club on Rose and South streets was a merging of three different men's clubs (sorry ladies) in 1904. It is still used a dinner club now, with only the finest served. We weren't told many details, but our guide did say there was plenty of spirit activity here. Perhaps the members of this dinner club don't want to spook newcomers too badly.

The State Theatre is haunted, as well, but this is not a surprise to any of us, is it? It is a theatre after all.

There is indeed an Indian burial mound in Bronson Park! It has been confirmed through very careful probing and excavations of the site. If you check it out, please be courteous and remember that this is a sacred part of Kalamazoo.


Last, but certainly not least is the Civic Auditorium, facing the burial mound mentioned above. It was built in the 1900's by none other than Dr. Upjohn, for his daughter who couldn't get enough of live theatre. Perhaps a little surprising, however, is that she is not the one strolling the stage after dark. Thelma was an avid theatre goer right until until her death in the 1960's. Even after her death, pieces of her remain throughout the auditorium. She donated all of her possessions to the prop department, and they still use them today for various shows. She even saved them herself from a water pipe that burst in the prop room in the basement of the auditorium. When employees got down there to clean up the mess of soaked and damaged props, they were shocked to find that every single one had been moved and saved from drowning! No one had even known the pipe had burst until the morning!

I would like to thank the Ghosts of Kalamazoo tour guides (Heather, Blair, Bob, Mike #1, Jamie and Mike #2) for the fantastic tour they put on. They managed to get a lot of great information across in a short amount of time, and did it well! Can't wait to see you next year, guys!

Below are a few websites to delve further into the haunted history of Kalamazoo:

http://www.ghostsofkalamazoo.com/
http://parkclub.net/index.php
http://www.weirdmichigan.com/hauntings.html

Note: Kalamazoo Asylum isn't in here on purpose. That will be getting its own blog in weeks to come!

Kalamazoo and Ghost Tour, too!

(The Radisson, and old Brothel [in red brick])



In a city in Michigan called Kalamazoo (you've probably heard of it many, many times), there's a great group putting on ghost tours for a great cause. I love trying out the tours in any new city, and this one was absolutely fabulous! And all for a great cause. The GKHT hold the tours as a kind of fundraiser for Warm Kids, an organization that provides winter clothing for kids in need. It's fabulous!


A mix of history and haunted, the Ghosts of Kalamzoo Historic Tour took us around downtown KZoo, starting and ending in Bronson Park. Only an hour long, this tour is packed with information on a lot of great buildings and locations in the downtown KZoo area. I took three and a half full pages of notes! With six tour guides, my roommate and I were treated to many different perspectives and historical lessons on the city of Kalamazoo. There were even some things Crysta was surprised about, which is awesome because she grew up right next door in Portage! But I'm sure you're a lot more interested in what we learned about, aren't you? Well, let's get started!
(note: Bear in mind that this is also a historic breakdown of the city. Not all locations will have something paranormal attached to them. I included the most interesting from the tour.)

What goes on here?

I'll start with the Michigan News Agency. As we learned, it's the oldest newspaper in the state of Michigan (to which my roommate replied, "suck it, Detroit!"), and began its run in 1947. It's also the second oldest building in Kalamazoo. It was the the first place in KZoo to sell Playboy. The joke is that men driving by would see the sign, and swing a U-turn into the agency just to get a copy!

Did you know Kalamzoo has a mummy? Not only does it have one, she has her very own Twitter account (@KVMMUMMY)! This isn't her greatest feat, however. Apparently she is the cause of some of the strange things going on in the museum. She likes to turn on and off lights, and my roommate relayed stories she heard when she was little of the mummy moving things around and making a mess of the museum after hours. Tut may not have a curse, but does the KZoo mummy?

The first death ever on record in the little village of Kalamazoo happened in the Kalamzoo Hotel back in 1832. You might know it as the Cosmopolitan Hotel, Burdick Hotel, or the Radisson that now occupies the spot. You might be even more familiar with the Million Dollar Fire of 1909, which took fifteen hours to put out, yet miraculously killed no one. But that doesn't lend itself to ghosts, does it? Well, no, but the shiny new Radisson has its own stories to tell.

In 2008, the legend Bobby Hatfield was found dead before a show in his room at the Radisson. Since then, there have been strange occurrences in the hotel's bar and restaurant. No one knows for sure whether the culprit is Bobby, a homeless man, a mafia murder, or General Burdick, for whom the old Hotel and the new restaurant are named for. Employees and patrons alike have reported the jukebox turning on by itself, TV's switching on to static and glasses thrown across the bar. We were warned to be on our best behaviour should we spend an evening in Old Burdick's.

The oldest building in Kalamazoo was a brothel. Anyone surprised? Me, either! The building (on Michigan Ave), was built well before 1860, and it's believed to have first been a brothel. The numbers are still on the doors! Lights here go on and off, but as far as our guide knew, nothing further has been reported. Nothing sexy going on here, folks.

Almost next door lies the old Kalamazoo Savings Bank. It's not certain, but this may have been used as a mattress storage facility for some time. What is for certain is that strange stuff happens here. Some of it was caught on film. In photographs taken of the building, figures were reported to show up in the film after its development, but no one witnessed them as the photos were being taken.

Did you know Elvis is alive and well in Kalamazoo? Well, he's there, anyway. Perhaps not well and certainly not alive. But at the Columbia building, he is definitely not forgotten. Elvis stayed in room 201 when this building was a hotel, and while it is now a bunch of offices, his presence is still welcomed in the conference room. His name is on the door, and there's even a cardboard cutout of him in the room! Unfortunately there haven't been any ghostly sightings of the King.

In the late 1800's a man named Louis Shilling was murdered on Portage st. The police, using a brand-new technique straight from science fiction, took a picture of the victim's eyes to find the killer. They believed the image of the murderer would be burned into the retinas. Unfortunately this did not work. The butcher from Shilling's company was blamed, but as he was a butcher and the stains on his apron were not indeed human blood, he was released. The tour guide didn't say anything about Mr. Shilling haunting the area, but who knows? Perhaps he's still wandering around, looking for his killer.

There's so much more to say, I'll have to continue another week! It seems, however, that Kalamzoo is quite the haunted town! Downtown alone has so many spirits making themselves known! I definitely encourage you to take the Ghosts of Kalamazoo Tour, and experience the paranormal activity that floats around KZoo. Below are some links I think you'll enjoy, and will give you a little more on the history of the city of Kalamazoo.

http://www.ghostsofkalamazoo.com/
http://www.kpl.gov/local-history/fires/burdick-hotel.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalamazoo