Ravenswood
Prepare yourself for an extraordinary journey that began one year ago today. A tale of both scepticism and belief that combined science and the supernatural. My journey into the heart of Ravenswood Asylum challenged everything I thought I knew and has left me forever changed.
My name is Steve, a journalist by trade and a cynic by heart. My scepticism wasn’t rooted in ignorance but forged from my rather practical mind that sought to find physical evidence rather than relying on hearsay and out-of-focus photographs. Following the death of my sister, my mother was conned out of many thousands of pounds trying to contact her in the afterlife. That experience drove me to spend every spare moment since then debunking ghostly happenings and exposing charlatans posing as mediums. This solidified my belief in the tangible, observable world we all inhabit. However, my latest investigation was about to challenge everything I thought I knew. Curiosity, mingled with my innate scepticism, led me to accept an invitation from a local ghost-hunting team. They believed my viewpoint would lend credibility to one of their investigations. It made me the ideal candidate to join them and observe everything that happens in their exploration of the Ravenswood Asylum for the Clinically Insane.
As we approached the asylum, the crunch of gravel underneath our wheels seemed to add to the eeriness of the decrepit building before us. We parked under a large, gnarled tree. Its branches stretched out over us like a giant skeletal hand, casting elongated shadows which danced eerily in the moonlight. Climbing out of our vehicles, a sense of unease ran through us as we stood looking up at the Asylum. The clouds parted revealing a moon which hung like a ghostly lantern in the night sky. The foreboding structure of Ravenswood Asylum loomed from the darkness, its silhouette etched with a history of horror. As the wind howled, a sinister rustling amongst the trees whispered tales of the madness once confined within these crumbling walls.
And so, there I was a sceptic among believers, poised to enter the halls of the notorious asylum. The building, shrouded in a history filled with darkness and despair, stood before us as a testament to the suffering endured by its former inhabitants. Stories told of strange happenings within its walls, souls condemned, trapped, and unable to find peace in the afterlife.
As the evening’s darkness crept in around us, we circled the old asylum. The silence in the grounds was punctuated only by an owl hooting somewhere close by. Making our way around the decrepit building, attempting to acquaint ourselves with its oppressive aura, I felt an undeniable sense of dread crawl over me, goosebumps appearing on my skin despite any rational explanations.
The asylum now silhouetted against the dusky sky, a monolith of despair. Its crumbling brickwork and ivy-entwined walls seemed to pulsate with an eerie life of their own. Every instinct screamed at me to flee, yet I was rooted, captivated by the dark allure of the building which once contained the tormented minds and bodies of the clinically insane. I can’t explain why this feeling came over me. Ghosts don’t exist. We approached the dilapidated structure, the moon, casting a haunting glow on the building’s facade, its broken windows like empty eye sockets staring back at us.
“You ready for this, Steve?” asked Mark, the team’s leader. A man whose belief in the paranormal was as unwavering as my own disbelief.
“I suppose,” I replied, my voice unexpectedly betraying a hint of apprehension. It wasn’t fear of ghosts that unsettled me, but the thought of what human minds could conjure in the absence of light and reason.
Approaching the heavy wooden front door, Fiona placed a trembling hand on it and pushed, it opened, its rusty hinges groaning in protest, a corridor swallowed by shadows lay ahead. We flicked on our torches; the beams slicing through the darkness as a sudden gust of wind blew through the decrepit doorway. Dust danced in the air, hitting our lungs and forcing us to cough as we squinted through the haze. The scent of decay and mould clung to everything, a testament to many, many years of neglect.
As we crossed the threshold, the air felt colder. The shift in temperature seems to whisper of the unseen. Our footsteps echoed through the deserted corridors, a haunting drumbeat playing on my nerves. “The energy here is overwhelming,” Fiona, the team’s medium, muttered, her voice trembling slightly. “They’re aware of our presence.”
I wanted to dismiss her words, to rely on the logical explanations which always grounded me. Yet, as we delved deeper into the asylum, my belief was challenged by shadows which seemed to move of their own accord, and unexplained noises filling the empty spaces with dread.
Venturing further inside, the air grew even colder; the beam of our torches danced across peeling paint and discarded furniture, left from a bygone era.
“This place is a goldmine of activity,” intimated Fiona, her voice barely above a breath. “The spirits here seem restless tonight.”
I rolled my eyes in the darkness, it made no sense but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something unseen was watching, waiting, its stare intensely fixed on my every action. With each reluctant step I took, a cold shiver ran down my spine as if I was crossing a line into the realm of the unknown. The air was stale and the building itself seemed to pulse with a life of its own, a life wrought from many years of anguish and despair. As we delved deeper, the darkness seemed to be absorbing everything from our torch beams to our very essences.
What secrets did this place hold?
As the door creaked shut behind us, it felt as though our fate was being sealed. It then occurred to me the night had only just begun, and my scepticism was about to be tested by those silhouettes dancing just beyond the reach of our torches.
Stepping cautiously into the dim corridor, our senses were amplified, ears straining for noises that sounded like voices of the past, eyes darting to catch every fleeting shadow. We made our way to the Nurses station, where Tom pointed to the spot where a teenage girl’s life tragically ended. “This is where they found her body,” he announced, his voice carrying a gravity chilling me to the bone. “Some say it was misadventure; others say murder.”
The surrounding air seemed thick as if it had absorbed the sorrow and madness that had once lived within these walls. Despite my scepticism, I couldn’t deny the eerie mood which hung over us, a feeling of being watched, of whispers just beyond the edge of our hearing. The night stretched out before us, filled with the threat of unseen horrors and unexplained phenomena.
Fiona’s gaze fixated on the upper floor balcony, her voice trembling slightly in the vast space of the asylum. “Do any of you see that?” she said in a hushed tone, pointing upwards, her finger trembling. “It’s a face.” Her eyes widened with excitement as she stared at the apparition none of us could see. “It looked like a pale woman in white was staring at me,” she murmured.
My heart settled when Fiona finally turned away, dismissing the vision as a trick of the light. She’d been looking into a reflection in another room’s mirror, which explained why the rest of us hadn’t seen anything. A collective sigh of relief brushed through us all. We continued our cautious exploration, examining each darkened corner and hidden crevice before advancing further into the asylum’s depths.
Tom and his crew had been granted exclusive access to explore the mysterious, and reputedly haunted corridors of the asylum.
Curiosity piqued, I asked Tom, “What drew you to this place? What’s the story here?”
Tom’s face was a mask of serious contemplation as he recounted tales as chilling as the very air around us.
“Strange occurrences, inexplicable events,” he began. “Doors slamming shut, footsteps echoing in empty halls, faces glimpsed momentarily, then vanishing. People have even claimed a sense of being followed by an unseen presence, hearing ghostly voices murmuring either, ‘help!’ or ‘get out!’.”
I shook my head, a wry smile of scepticism on my face. “Surely that’s just someone’s overactive imagination at play?”
Tom nodded. “Perhaps, but hopefully tonight might change your mind. Now, let’s get set up, shall we?” he urged.
Fiona and Tom sprang into action, positioning cameras and sensors throughout the building. They were methodical, each move calculated and precise. Their equipment was state-of-the-art, designed to detect even the faintest anomalies. Despite my scepticism, I found myself drawn into their world. My curiosity increased by the prospect of uncovering something truly inexplicable.
As the night unfolded, a sense of expectancy hung in the air. Fiona and Tom, both seasoned in their field, moved with a quiet confidence. They reported witnessing unexplainable events which fuelled their determination to find the truth.
“Fiona, how did you find yourself in the field of ghost hunting?” I asked, as we waited for something to happen.
She recounted the tale of their beginnings, a call from a desperate couple plagued by what they believed to be spirits. “We spent two nights in their home but found nothing,” Fiona said, a touch of regret in her voice. “Not every investigation yields results, but we keep searching.”
Tom joined us, his presence solid and reassuring. “Stay vigilant tonight,” he advised. “You may be a sceptic now, but who knows? By morning, you might just be a believer.”
As Fiona set up a REM POD on the Nurses station, my curiosity got the better of me. “What does that do?” I asked, my voice betraying a hint of genuine interest.
Fiona calmly explained,
“The REM POD’s antenna detects energy disturbances in the electrical field which trigger it to alert us to possible contact with spirits. It signals any contact with flashing lights and an audible alarm. Any entity or object with its electromagnetic field can cause a disruption which would be detected by the REM POD. We theorise the energy lingering after death is akin to the energy we possess while alive. To set it off manually, you must come very close to the aerial or touch it, thus disrupting the electromagnetic field. Walking around or waving your hand near it won’t activate the alarm.”
Fiona demonstrated by gracefully waving her hand close to the aerial and banging the top of the desk. No lights flashed; no alarm sounded. I mimicked her action, attempting to trigger the alarm, I did indeed need to physically touch it which then caused the lights to erupt in a dance of colours, and the alarm to sound.
She offered a knowing smile before continuing. “To avoid accidentally setting off the REM POD, we need to be mindful of our mobile phones and walkie-talkies. These devices can trigger it too. This is one of the favoured tools among paranormal investigators, it can be placed in a separate area from the investigators. The REM POD then alerts them with an audio signal when it has been activated. This allows the investigators to take readings elsewhere in the building without needing to be physically present in the same room as the device.”
Mark and Janet, two other members of the ghost-hunting team, headed back to the van, which was to act as their command centre. There were cameras and recording equipment in there enabling them to watch us closely and alert us to things we might have missed. Fiona, Tom and I, along with Carl, another of the teams mediums, remained to begin the hunt for the supernatural. An eager anticipation bubbled inside me as I watched Tom extract more equipment from a large silver case.
“What’s first on the agenda?” I inquired.
“We’re starting with EVP recorders, Electronic Voice Phenomena. These are unexplained voices captured on our audio recording devices,” Tom replied, his voice steady and reassuring.
“But couldn’t the recorders just be picking up interference from local radio bands or static?” I queried, my scepticism peeking through.
“That’s always a possibility,” Tom conceded. “However, we meticulously analyse each recording to eliminate such interference. When we pose questions, we hope to receive intelligent, complex responses. Sometimes the answers we receive are so precise, they can only be attributed to spirits intelligently answering back.”
Before proceeding further, I felt the need to clarify my position. “I must apologise for any of my questions which might seem sceptical or dismissive. Please understand, it’s not my intention to offend or disrespect. As a sceptic, I can only trust what I witness first-hand and, in that way, conclude it was not being faked.”
Tom’s response came with a warm, reassuring smile. “That’s absolutely fine. We’re used to such inquiries from non-believers. It’s your prerogative to question our findings, and it’s our objective to hopefully provide you with incontrovertible evidence. Rest assured, nothing here has been, or will be, manipulated. Every sound, motion, and occurrence are being documented in the command centre. Besides Janet and Mark, who are outside, we’re alone here. Carl will later attempt to demonstrate his ability to communicate with the spirits.” Tom’s assurance was a testament to the seriousness and dedication with which they approached their craft, setting the stage for a night of exploration.
“Alright, I’m prepared whenever you are,” I said, my voice uncontrollably laced with tension.
Tom activated the voice recorder and positioned it carefully on the tabletop. “Is there anyone here who wishes to communicate with us tonight?” he inquired, his voice steady in the enveloping silence, “Can you tell us why you remain here?” After a moment’s pause, he switched off the recorder and played back the audio. We leaned in as one, a collective breath held, only to be greeted by the disappointing crackle of static.
Undeterred, Tom repeated the two questions, his voice resonating in the darkness. Again, the response was nothing but the eerie hiss of static.
Carl, with his eyes closed and head tilted, whispered, “I’m sensing nothing in this area. Perhaps we should venture to the first floor.”
“Why the first floor?” I asked, my interest rising.
“People have reported hearing unexplained voices there. Some have even said they have experienced being forcefully pushed against the walls,” Carl explained.
We reached the staircase, its form looming ominously from the gloom. Step by step, we ascended, our senses heightened, straining to catch any sound or movement. Reaching the top, Fiona grasped Carl’s arm.
“Look, down the corridor,” she said urgently, pointing towards a room on the right, “I just saw a shadow figure slip into that room.”