Eastern State Penitentary

Eastern State Penitentary

Built in 1829 in a spooky Gothic style with 30' walls, many consider Eastern State in Philly to be the first true penitentiary ever constructed. Oddly, it was built as part of a Quaker inspired penal reformation to help rehab prisoners.

It didn't seem to meet with much success with the 80,000 felons that occupied its' cells at one time or another, including hard core crooks like Slick Willie Sutton, who died there in a tunnel cave-in during an escape try, and Scarface Al Capone.

Prisoners at Eastern State had a toilet, table, bunk and Bible in their cells, in which they were locked all but one hour a day. When the inmates did leave their cells, a black hood would be placed over their head so they couldn't see any other prisoners as they walked through the halls of the prison. Any form of communication between inmates was strictly forbidden, and if violated cost the con some time in the hole on half rations of food and water.

Inmates lived a life of monastic solitude and would only get a glimpse of sunlight, known as "The Eye of God" which came through a tiny slit in the prison ceiling.

After being shut down in 1971, it's now operated as a ghoulish museum of sorts by the Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Society as a National Historic Landmark.

The facility has been kept in "preserved ruin," meaning that no significant attempts have been made for renovations or upkeep. Guests are asked to sign a liability waiver and several sections remain closed to the public.

It has a great Halloween tour called Terror Behind the Walls. The prison's a must on the list of every ghost hunting organization in the region and been featured in many books, articles, and on TV. That's because the prison is still run by the inmates.

As early as the 1940's employees and prisoners alike began reporting unusual activity within the prison's walls. Visitors have reported hearing footsteps in the long, dark corridors and wails that come from from empty cells.

One ghosthunter, on the stairs that lead to a catwalk, was shooting some photos when a voice from nowhere said, "You don't have to take a damn picture." Just moments later, the same voice added "I'm lonely..."

Cell Block 6 has reported sightings of shadowy forms gliding against the wall and flitting in and out of cells, and Cell Block 13 also has reports of shadow people. Cell Block 12 features the echoes of voices laughing hysterically. It also holds the spook of the Soap Lady, a female dressed in white that appears in the shower area.

The TAPS team found a shadowy spirit dressed in a dark cloak and light trousers haunting the cellblock, too.

In Cell Block 4, a locksmith was surrounded by floating apparitions and faces crying out to him. In the older cellblocks, a featureless dark figure has been reported many times, standing deathly still and watching the visitors. He disappears if you get too close to him. He's the most widely reported spirit in the building.

A voice has been reported from the prison greenhouse, saying "hello" to visitors. Death Row has also been the scene of eerie encounters with the same shadowy figures commonly seen by others throughout the prison structure.

The spook of a mobster that Al Capone ordered gunned down on St. Valentine's Day, Jimmy Clark (Bugs Moran's brother-in-law), is said to have followed him to Eastern. Capone could be heard screaming in his cell at night for "Jimmy" to leave him alone. Clark's ghost followed him when he was released, too, and Capone's bodyguards at his HQ, Chicago's Lexington Hotel, would often hear the same cry for "Jimmy" to go away.

He went so far as to call a psychic, Alice Britt, to get rid of Clark’s vengeful spirit. The ensuing seance didn't work. Hymie Cornish, Capone’s aide, also saw the ghost. He entered Capone’s apartment once and spotted a tall man standing near the window. He demanded to know the man’s name but the shadowy figure stepped behind a curtain. Cornish called two bodyguards in, but a search of the room found no one there but Capone, who insisted the vision had been Clark.

Years later, a dying Capone would say that Jimmy Clark was following him to the grave.

The image of a former turnkey who had his throat slashed by an inmate has been seen, as have maids in white dresses (We're not sure how they got there. We didn't think the prisoners had room service.) The wraith of a guard in the watch tower has been spotted often, and the sounds of a barking dog have been heard from the same area.

Most of this paranormal activity started after the deserted prison became a public attraction. ESPHS manager Devon Gillian believes it's because all the visitors have disturbed the prison's many spirits, who are upset over the change in jailhouse routine.

One thing's for sure. When you did your stretch at Eastern, you weren't doing easy time. And forget about parole, even in the afterlife. Once they slammed the iron doors behind you, you weren't going anywhere - ever.

Crystal Skulls

Crystal Skull from Wikipedia

Every so often we deviate from the Keystone path, and this post takes one of those side trips. After watching History and Sci-Fi Channel programs about Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skulls, we thought we'd see whassup with them. Here's the H&H answer, based on an AP article and our crackerjack research skills (i.e., Google), with a link to a meatier story below:

The legend goes that the ancient Maya possessed 13 crystal skulls which, when united, hold the power of saving the Earth.

New-agers have linked the skulls to the Maya "Long Count" calendar that ends on December 21, 2012, when it reaches the final day of a 5,126-year cycle. According to the tale, all 13 skulls must be reunited and lined up together to prevent the world from falling off its axis.

Don't laugh. It could happen, and already has once. Recent work by geologists Adam Maloof of Princeton and Galen Halverson of Paul Sabatier University found that the north pole shifted more than 50 degrees (about the distance between Alaska and the equator) some 800 million years ago during the Precambrian time period. But it took about 20 million years to wander that far afield. Science is often stranger than spooks. But back to the skulls.

They were hidden all over the earth by the wily Mayan priests. Seven are believed found and in private or institutional collections, with another half dozen yet to be discovered. The catch - mankind must be morally and mentally ready to use them in our time of need. That's a tough one, given our current track record.

Others believe that they act like crystal balls and you can see images of the past and future in them. Some think they are ET or Atlantean communication devices, like computer chips, that hold our origins, history and perhaps destiny, but that humans can't quite figure out how to turn them on yet. There are those that claim the skulls are powerful physical and spiritual healing tools.

Experts dismiss the hundreds of existing crystal skulls as fakes that were probably made by shady antiquities traders in the 19th century. But Mayan priests worship the skulls, even today, and real-life skull hunters still search for them. Go figure.

The story of the skulls stretches over continents and many decades, and may even hold more twists and turns than the tale portrayed by Indiana Jones, while every bit as mercenary.

Few of today's crystal skulls can be dated any further back than the 1860s, when Europe was swept by a rage for pre-Hispanic "relics."

Frenchman Eugene Boban, a colorful rascal with a checkered past and murky political ties, set up a store to supply the relics market after the French invaded Mexico. Eventually he carted his skulls to New York, Paris and Mexico City, selling them to private collectors.

Buyers were told that the skulls were made by the Mayas, whose civilization peaked between 300 and 900 A.D. But no crystal skull has ever been excavated from a documented Mesoamerican archaeological dig. Caveat emptor, hey?

Some believe the skulls can emit and focus light, project visions, heal, and even influence natural forces. Today, these beliefs persist in the jungles of southern Mexico among the Lacandon, the last of the Mayas, some of whom still worship the skulls. Even they don't know where they came from originally.

Thousands of miles away in Washington, Jane MacLaren Walsh keeps one of the skulls in her office at the Smithsonian Institution. She doubts the ancient Mayans ever worshipped any such skulls.

An anthropologist and antiquities sleuth, she has spent more than a decade studying the better known skulls, like the ones acquired by the British Museum and Paris' Quai Branly museum over a century ago, as well as the Smithsonian's own skull.

She says they are artistically unlike pre-Hispanic depictions of death's heads, and often show microscopic markings from fairly modern cutting tools.

"None of them is ancient," Walsh said. About their touted powers, she notes wryly: "I've been sitting in fairly close proximity to one of the skulls for about 16 years, and I have not witnessed anything like what people say."

The British Museum keeps a skull in its collection largely as a curiosity, listing its pedigree as "probably European, 19th century."

It's possible that the near-human sized fakes may have been inspired by two real crystal skulls now on display at Mexico City's renowned National Anthropology Museum. One was purchased in 1874 for 28 pesos by the museum from Mexican collector Luis Costantino, and another for 30 pesos in 1880.

Much smaller and less perfectly carved than the ones held at the museums in Europe, these jewelry-sized trinkets, about an inch in height and made of milky rather than clear crystal, are in the Aztec and Oaxaca collections. The museum classifies them as either late pre-Hispanic or early colonial.

These smaller crystal skulls may have been genuine Mesoamerican beads that were later carved into a skull shape. They might also reflect Latino Catholic culture. At least one skull has been found attached to the base of a crucifix, that being the Catholic symbolism for Golgotha, the "place of the skull." Or they could just be macabre jewelry. Quetzelcoatl and the gang ain't telling.

At least those skulls are the real McCoys, originally used as necklace pendants and ornaments by the natives in one form or another. They may have been the height of Maya chic, but supernatural...well, we'll find out in a few years - 2012, to be exact.

This tale was taken from CNN.
Here's an article by Skeptoid regarding the skulls.

The Fiddling Ghost of Mahoning Valley

Two men who worked on the Rochester & Pittsburgh railroad being built through 19th century Indiana County shared a small house. One of them was an avid fiddler who played the local dances, barn-raisings, and other social events of the day.

He played his tunes at home, too, early in the morning and late at night. He showed no consideration at all for his roomie, who apparently didn't share his love of fiddle music.

The manic fiddler was found stabbed to death one day by fellow railroaders after he didn't show up for work. His fiddle was smashed to pieces and the bow snapped in two. His roommate was nowhere to be found, no doubt off to quieter (and further from the long reach of the law) locales.

It's said you can see the old fiddler on the roof of his deserted house, still sawing away to this day. You can even hear his weird, eerie melody floating through the air. He's been called the noisiest ghost in Indiana County.

One report places this haunting in Smicksburg, but the original site of the town has been razed so the spook doesn't have a roof left to fiddle from there. Besides, it's not likely the Amish farmers would be hosting English railroaders in their tight knit community, though they may still be tapping a foot to his tunes.

Many of the region's folk tales, including this one, are set down in That's What Happened by local folklorist Frances Strong Helman. Regional historian George Swetnam also related this story in a long ago edition of the now defunct Pittsburgh Press.

Devil's Den

Devil's Den after Gettysburg from Sons of the South
(photo by Alexander Gardner, 1863)

The Devil's Den, located between Big and Little Round Tops on the Gettysburg battlefield, was a spook hot spot long before the Civil War. The rock strewn locale allegedly got its' name from an elusive monster snake that was said to inhabit the boulders, called "The Devil" by the locals. It was supposed to also be a Native American ceremonial site, and the early settlers reported Indian ghosts and the sound of "war whoops" among the rocks.

Another story concerns Pauline Noel, a young woman that literally lost her her head in a wagon crash there. Her headless ghost has been reported seen, and some say if you run across her, she'll try to take yours, too (actually, the legend is she'll try to eat it, but without a head of her own...) Its' also said that her name, P. Noel, was carved into the rocks by her spook so that she's never forgotten. It's thought that if you trace the engraved name with your finger, her ghost is likely to appear.

It's also a place where cameras quite often malfunction as a sort of curse brought about because of the ghoulish moving and posing of bodies by Civil War photographers. There have also been alleged sightings of battle reenactments by the spook soldiers, and the sight of ghostly snipers, gangs of roaming graycoats, and the sounds of gunfire have been commonly reported.

The most famous spook is that of the Texan reb who's been seen by many, serving as a sort of a tourist guide and happily posing for pictures (although when developed, his figure is missing.) Once he was described to a park ranger as a barefoot hippie because of his floppy hat and loose shirt - the uniform of the Texas Confederate regiment.

The areas between Devil's Den and the Round Tops were known as The Valley of Death and Slaughter Pen, and some troops seem to be stuck in an endless loop of reliving the battle - and their deaths, in America's most senseless and brutal war.

Grand Midway Hotel

The Grand Midway Hotel from Kerouac Fest

The Grand Midway Hotel is located in Windber, Somerset County. It isn't a public hotel, but an artists co-op owned by film maker Blair Murphy. He made the move from LA to Windber when he won the hotel in an E-Bay auction. The turn of the century, 33 room building is plenty roomy enough for the artists, who host an annual Kerouac Fest, and their ghostly guests.

Blair's had a posse of psychic investigators stop by, and so far they've found rhyming Sarah, a young girl with long curly hair in a white pinafore with a doll, a girl in the wall, another that won't show herself, and heard various voices.

Sarah told psychic Voxx “609, come and see me anytime – I play in riddle and in rhyme – my father killed me, what a crime.” Voxx believes that 609 is spook speak for the year she died, 1906. The next ghost, responding to Patty Wilson's questioning, told her she had been hiding in the wall since 1929. Rosemary Eileen Guiley and Adam Blai got another woman's spirit to blurt “I can't help you if you can't see me,” after repeated requests to show herself.

The Ghost Research Foundation investigated the Hotel, and left with the following impressions: A spirit called the Professor lurks in the second floor office. He has a liking for Anne Rice books on the shelf. When they entered the “Canopy Room”, they felt intense cold and heard a spook say “We are not leaving!” They sensed a strong female presence there, which was not too surprising as the place was once a bordello. They also felt that the basement had a body or two buried in it at one time.

That's how it is with those E-Bay purchases. You have to take the house as is, no returns.