Scotland’s Edinburgh Vaults

Author: MaKayla Sims

Caption: Picture of Edinburgh Vaults Constuction 

The Edinburgh Vaults are a series of underground chambers located in the South Bridge in Edinburgh, Scotland. The vaults were constructed in 1788. A mysterious rumor lies that paranormal activity takes place beneath the streets of Edinburgh known as the underground city. It is said to be curse because the judge’s wife during this time was supposed to be the first to cross the bridge when it was first constructed because she was the oldest citizen, however, the woman died the day before its opening and the first person to cross the bridge was in a casket!  “The majority of the townsfolk refused point blank to cross the bridge for many years, preferring instead the awkward and impractical route through the deep valley of the Cowgate” (Palmer). After this happen, suspicion began to come about leaving fear in the minds of the residents of Edinburgh

Hidden Tour by Isabelle Vlogs 

Today, many people take tours through the underground vaults of Edinburgh. It is said that you can hear the voices of the dead in the rooms of the vaults. Tour guides often tell stories about the history of Edinburgh and the paranormal activity that is said to take place in these vaults. Many people that were in poverty or homeless found the underground city of Edinburgh to become their homes. However, due to the conditions of these homes, many died. There is a well-known story about a little 10-year-old girl named Annie that was killed in the underground city. It is said that she roams around looking for her lost doll as she wears a ‘dirty white dress and boots (Hotson). In Hotson’s article, she explains how a Japanese psychic, Aiko, encountered a moment with the spirit Annie in which she expressed being upset about her lost doll, so Aiko went and bought her another one.

Photo of William Burke and William Hare , Houlton Archive, Getty Images

In the early 1800’s, Edinburgh was the home of the infamous serial killers known as Burke and Hare. William Burke and William Hare found each other when they realized that they had interest in the medical field. However, their thoughts were extremely twisted. The two had the idea that if they could dissect the bodies of humans, they would get ahead of the medical team in Edinburgh. They began to grave-rob, which means that they dug up graves and took the bodies from caskets. When found that it was difficult to get great research from these decaying bodies, the two relied on “fresh bodies.” The two went on a killing spree, first targeting a young couple walking down the darkness beneath these streets. The two continued to “gain research” by going on a killing spree and killed 17 people in order to dissect their bodies (Top 10 Crime Duos). However, William Hare was never found guilty because there was no evidence pointing him to these vicious crimes, and he had to testify against his dear friend William Burke. Burke was found guilty and hanged in from of the town of Edinburgh. Here’s how the irony applies; Burke was publicly dissected in front of the Edinburgh Medical Center where his skeleton remains on display (Top 10 Crime Duos). 

References: 

Hotson, Elizabeth. “Exploring the Lure of Edinburgh’s Dark Tourism.” BBC News, 31 Oct. 2014. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-29832743.

Palmer, Claire. “Edinburgh Vaults.” HistoricUK, Accessed on March 23 2019. https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryMagazine/DestinationsUK/Edinburgh-Vaults/

StrangeRemains. “The Skeleton of William Burke, Body on Display.” Strange Remains, 4 Sept. 2013. https://strangeremains.com/2013/09/04/body-snatcher-on-display-william-burke/

“Top 10 Crime Duos.” Time, Accessed on March 27 2019. http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1900368_1900369_1900364,00.html

The Queen Mary

Michael Dunbar

The Queen Mary 

TheQueen Mary  ship is a museum and also a hotel now is located in Long Beach, California known for its grand size along with its number of rumored hauntings on the ship. According to Chavdar Chanev of the online articles RMS Queen Mary the Queen Mary has a twin sister ship named Queen Elizabeth which both were commissioned by the Navy to oppose the ocean liners built in Germany and France during the World War II period. The ship which was built and sailing in the 1930s was known to be bigger than the great Titanic. In 1967 the ship was withdrawn from service with thousands of transatlantic voyages then turned to a maritime museum and hotel located in Long Beach, California. During the ships time under ceased service during World War II gave shelter too over 800,000 troops and was known for carrying the most people ever on a floating vessel which was 16,683 according to Kathy Weiser from Legends of America. Along history The Queen Mary’s hotel guests had bad life ending accidents while staying on board which made the ship their last living place on earth. This would create a great amount of reporting’s from residents on board the ship of unexpected interaction with spirits during their time spent there. Information from Planet Paranormal portrays that the rumors of ghost are true because this source provides evidence such as audio and visual evidence that has been captured on the ship by investigators. Background information from Kathy Weiser on some of the ghosts that are still haunting the vessel that have been encountered is a little girl named Jackie who drowned in one of the second level pools during the ships sailing days and to this day her spirit refuses to move on. Other sightings such as in the ship’s first-class lounge, a beautiful young woman in an elegant white evening gown has often been seen dancing alone in the shadows of the corner of the room. Also while researchers who would investigate the lower part of the ship heard horrid screams and sounds of colliding ships. Further research from Tom Crawford of Ghost Source and Portal to the Paranormal provides insight that Queen Mary collided with a smaller British ship, the H.M.S. Curacao, causing the ship and its three hundred passengers to sink. Some investigators would say that the screams and hauntings are being created by the three hundred men who were killed. Many more sightings, accidents, and activity has happened along Queen Mary voyages. This is why it’s one of the top tourist attractions known today.

EVP VIDEOS: 

Queen Mary pool Female voice say's "Mommy who ist it"? and then "mom or Bob."

Queen Mary First Class Pool - Female singing)

Works Cited

Bob Davis from Planet Paranormal, Nightwatchers . 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5iXfeDpZkdw

Chanev, Chavdar. RMS Queen Mary.  Queen Mary 2 Cruises 2016, written on November 29, 2015. http://www.queenmarycruises.net/rms-queen-mary/ 

Crawford, Tom. The RMS Queen Mary. Ghost Source and Portal to the Paranormal. 14 Nov.2009. http://www.ghostsource.com/hauntings/hauntings-the-queen-mary-ship.php

Hipmunk. The Queen Mary Ship. https://assets.hipmunk.com/assets/hotel_image/v1/563526d88f3484588f865ed9.jpg

Irsay, Steve.” Queen's Haunted History Highly Documented”. Grunion Gazette, The/The Downtown Gazette (Long Beach, CA) (Published as Downtown Gazette, Long Beach, CA. October 4, 2004 http://infoweb.newsbank.com/resources/doc/nb/news/105B054F90F5AF7A?p=NewsBank

Joe and Vici Ruffulo, Investigators. Nightwatchers .13 November 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fBzArvj8gBc

Planet Paranormal. Welcome to QueenMaryShadows.com. Planet Paranormal 2014. http://www.queenmaryshadows.com/history.html 

Peter James, Bob Davis and Brian Clune. Nightwatchers. 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GX1UtYA1_mE

Ramiro Ramirez, Producer. The Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA. Ramirez Films, 2010.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Gv3epRoxzkE

Sergio Ramirez, Editor. The Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA. Ramirez Films, 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Gv3epRoxzkE

Weiser, Kathy. Ghosts of the Queen Mary in Long Beach. Legends of America, March 2013. http://www.legendsofamerica.com/ca-queenmary.html.

Links for Further Research:

Queen Mary Talking Ghost Child Jackie Speaks to Bob Davis and Brian Clune of PLPI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GX1UtYA1_mE

The link above directs you to ghost investigations on board Queen Mary by Bob Davis and Brian Clune of PLPI.

The Queen Mary: Ghost Investigation (Part 1)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Gv3epRoxzkE

This link provides one of the first investigations of the Queen Mary accused hauntings.

History Behind the Queen Mary

http://www.queenmaryshadows.com/history.html

This link will allow you to receive further knowledge behind Queen Mary’s history throughout the world.

The Haunted Hospital of Death

Darshawna Barnes-Mack

Considered one of the most haunted places in America the Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville Kentucky, is known for its horrific history of patient abuse , and it’s eerie hauntings that take place throughout the building. Be it from the open window mezzanine, to it’s death tunnel , to the haunted 5th  , and finally to the infamous suicide room (502).  The Waverly Hills Sanatorium is place full of sorrow and unsatisfied spirits. It was first built in 1924 to combat the sudden rise in America’s  tuberculosis outbreak . Unfortunately it didn't stay open for long because rumors of patient abuse found it’s way into society so it was shut down. It came back in 1926 and medical conditions did not change instead it got worse. Many medical professionals considered open air to be remedy for the red disease so nurses would sit the weakly patients on an open air patio which seemed fine , until it became winter and patients were sitting in frigid conditions. Along with this abuse many doctors experimented with a procedure where patients were cut open and three of their ribs were removed so that a balloon could be inserted into their lungs. Along with being cut open patients would experience their lungs being exposed to ultraviolet light for hours on end. 

Patients sitting in the patio while the sun and cold air were “ healing them.”

Along with this facility housing the sick it also housed the mental . Especially the mental people who had contracted tuberculosis. In 1928 The Waverly Hills Sanatorium officially took in the mental and to not mix the sick with the mental, the mental were stored away on the fifth floor. Which leads to the first and most horrific event that happened at the facility. In 1928 a nurse had an affair with a doctor out of wedlock while at the sanatorium. Due to this she became pregnant and she later contracted tuberculosis. Society in those day shunned her not only for being with child out of wedlock but also with having the disease so she used a light bulb hanging on and single wire in the middle of the room and she hung herself. 

 This was one of many deaths at the Waverly according to  the article The Haunted Hospital by mental floss.com,  it said that over 64,000 people died at the Waverly. Depression was huge factor between patients and doctors didn’t want their morals  to sink even lower by the recurrent deaths, so they built what is now known as the body chute . It was originally built underneath the hill so that workers could walk into the tunnel verses uphill to get to work, but directors of the facility used it to transport the dead in secret. Bodies were thrown in the chute which lead to a tunnel that would take them to the back end of the bottom of the hill where a hearse would collect the bodies. This part of the facility was seen as so horrific that in 2005 there was a movie inspired by it. (Death Tunnel)

 Tunnel used to smuggle bodies out of the facility , from suspecting patients. 

With all of these deaths the sanatorium was shut down but it is said that the spirits still roam and take control over the building .Examples of this would be when it closed down in 1961 and reopened as Woodhaven Geriatrics Sanitarium , which was used as a elderly care home. Once again multiple deaths of the elderly were accounted for and rumors of shock therapy surfaced to the public so once again it was shut down in 1982. After that people saw it as a bad omen so it stayed closed until 1996 where  Robert Alberhasky wanted to tear it down and make it into the largest statue of Jesus in the world. When he was turned down by the government to destroy the building he went ahead and tried to bulldoze the building , but the strangest thing happened. The building stayed in tact, it would not break down or crumble at all. After that event it stayed closed from 2001 to present day. With this said it doesn’t mean that civilians can’t go inside . The building offers haunted tours to visitors, and it happily lets ghost specialist and crew come and inspect the place  to check for hauntings . For example as seen on the show Ghost Hunters: Season 2 Episode 14 the  Ghost Hunter crew witnessed dark shadows coming towards their cameras, voices whispering to them, strange smells , and objects being thrown from various places. Because of this they deemed it haunted and many others who visited agree.

As far as Hauntings go there are many strange events and characters that happen at  facility. As told before there was the suicide of the nurse in room 502 and it is said that her ghost still haunts that room ,but along with her there is an even more insidious figure known as the Creeperwho roams the hall of the sanatorium. No one knows how he died or why he is still there but it is said that he crawls around and his presence gives the visitor a very frigid and morbid aura.(Creeper) The next hauntings are the children said to have died there. One was Timmy a boy who died there , but the one who is more prevalent is Mary . They are seen as harmless and they play around on the 5th floor. Those are some of the hauntings but there have been many more. As far as the Waverly Hill Sanatorium goes it was place full of dead spirits that were abused , mutilated and all around depressed it is seen as a fortress of evil and it will forever been seen as one of the most haunted place in America.

Works Cited and Links for Further Research:

Cryptid. “Waverly Hills Sanatorium: The Creeper and Other Ghost Stories.”Exemplore, 29 Oct. 2011,https://exemplore.com/paranormal/stories-of-the-paranormal-ghosts-of-waverly-hills-sanatorium. This article talks about the history of Waverly Hills Sanatorium.

McGowan, Doug. “Waverly Hills Sanatorium | Historic Mysteries.” Historic Mysteries, DISQUS, 18 Nov. 2015, http://www.historicmysteries.com/waverly-hills-sanatorium/.

This article gives basic information on the Sanatorium.

“Shadow Figures Infest TB Ward,” director. Travel Channel, http://www.travelchannel.com/shows/ghost-adventures/video/shadow-figures-infest-tb-ward  This is a written version of the events that happened when the Ghost Hunter visited the facility.

Staff, IMDb. “Death Tunnel.” IMDb, IMDb.com, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418627/.This article is a overview of the movie Death Tunnel which was inspired by the Waverly Sanatorium.

Staff, Syfy. “Waverly Hills.” Syfy, Syfy International, 2016.http://www.syfy.com/ghosthunters/episodes/season/2/episode/14/waverly-hills This is the video of some the Ghost Hunters Visiting Waverly Hill Sanatorium.

“The Creeper of Waverly Hills Sanatorium,” director. Youtube.com, 4 Feb. 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efse1ofwans. This video gives chilling stories of experiences with the creeper.