My Date with the Dead: The Basement

After catching some fresh air it was time to head back into the Mayflower and check out some of the other floors. Since the other teams were already inside investigating the first and second floors so we made the decision to head to the basement to try and keep the number of people to a minimum on each floor as the ghosts seemed to favor smaller crowds.

We had been told that there was a spirit that frequented the basement who had done some not so nice things during his time there. He was believed to be a maintenance man who would often take out his anger and frustration on patients that he felt deserved it. The team leaders called him “Mr. King” and in the Haunted History special he is referred to as “Clark.” I have not found an exact name in any research I have done, but have learned that such a spirit does seem to exist. We descended the stairs and were relieved to feel about a ten degree difference between the basement and the third floor. As we made our way to the area where the “maintenance ghost” was said to spend much of his time we passed by a room with some strange apparatus in it. At first glance there appeared to be the rib cage of some sort of carcass. I did a double take. I reassured myself they would not have left a rotting carcass in the building, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel some uneasiness on this floor when compared to the third floor we had just explored.

Creepy apparatus in one room of the basement

We made our way into one of the larger rooms of the basement, turned out all the lights and tried to summon the maintenance ghost man. The ovilus spoke out the word “silver” but we really had no idea why. I fumbled my way into the boiler room and stood there in the pitch black while the rest of my team hung out in a circle in the larger room. As I stood there alone in the dark I felt as though something was watching me from behind. For the most part, not al lot seemed to frighten me about Pennhurst, this room was one of the few exceptions. Being that I really didn’t like the vibe I was getting I turned around, snapped a quick picture capturing whatever my flash on my cell phone would allow, then re joined my group in the main room.

Basement Boiler Room – one of the few rooms that made me feel uneasy

Not having had much luck with the ovilus the team decided to try a different approach and whipped out the hand held infrared detector (the fancy name for this gadget has escaped me at the moment). This device is utilized to pick up on hot and cold spots in the room. When pointed at a live human they show up as a fiery red silhouette on the screen. A spirit or any other ghostly apparition would show up blue.

As one of the crew from SJSS operated the device and pointed it towards the opposing wall, I slowly walked over and stood by the wall he was scanning. As I was walking he told me to stop in a specific spot. He then said that there was something right in front of me. I stood in my place while the others huddled around the device and all nodded in agreement that there was, in fact, a “blue man” standing in front of me. I put out my hand and made a gesture as if I wanted to shake the “blue man’s” hand. I even went so far as to say “I’m Melissa, pleased to meet you.” The rest of my team said that it looked like we wee shaking hands – which did not freak me out, but what did kind of give me chills was that there was a cold spot where I stuck my hand. I stuck my hand to the right, room temp. Stuck my hand on the left, room temp. Stuck my hand back out in front of me… cold.

I informed my team that something felt cold in front of me. This prompted one of my friends to come over and check things out for himself. As he approached, the man from SJSS said that now there were two “blue people” on the screen of the device. My friend and I started moving around and as we did so, the “blue people” were said to have looked as though they were dancing. This prompted the other SJSS crew member to come over and inspect; as she did it was reported that there were now THREE blue people on the device. As the woman stepped away only two blue images were seen again.

It was decided that what was being picked up on the device were not ghosts, but most likely “heat shadows” from us, DEBUNKED. I was a bit disappointed as I thought I had shaken hands with a ghost. I am still not sure how to explain the cold spot I felt in front of me as there were no doors nor windows with any type of draft coming in. No one else had stuck their hands in the spot I had mentioned so for now I guess that question will go unanswered.

After the let down of only seeing “heat shadows” we left that room and made our way to a playroom on the basement level. In the hallway leading to the playroom were some old toys; among them a creepy old baby doll, full of dirt and neglect, sitting on a chair, and a Fisher Price airplane believed to belong to a boy named Howie. It has been rumored that Howie’s plane has been seen to move all by itself. It was also rumored that you could hear the voices of children on audio playbacks that had been recorded in the playroom.

Creepy baby doll (top)

Howie’s Fisher Price airplane (bottom)

We spent sometime in the playroom trying to get some of the children to play games with us. There was a checkers board with some pieces lying on the floor so I sat down and moved a few of the discs around on the board to see if it interested any spirit children. No one seemed interested in playing tonight. As I looked around the room I saw therapy mats and some bars hanging from the ceiling that looked almost like a trapeze. I began to wonder if this was also utilized as a physical therapy room for the children. A solid 15 minutes had passed and no kiddies wanted to come out and play. Not going to lie, I was beginning to get a little depressed… not only was I having trouble meeting nice guys to date, but even ghost children didn’t seem interested in me. We made our way back up the stairs to the first floor and opted to head back outside for another break before investigating the first and second floors.

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