By John Searles and Vijai Singh
Ghost Hunting: The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, West Virginia, rumored to be haunted, is the site of Saturday night ghost hunting tours.
Everyone has a ghost story, or at least that's how it has always seemed to me. My mother's best friend used to tell a doozy about a soldier she met when she was a bookkeeper in the Air Force. He claimed to be a ghost, then proved it by walking into the middle of a moonlit airfield and disappearing before her eyes. Another friend of my mother's used to bring over a Ouija board when she baby-sat for me. As that plastic pointer whizzed around the board (with seemingly little help from her fingers), she spoke of the messages that the spirit world sent to her on a regular basis.
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The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, W.Va., was built between 1858 and 1881 to serve as a mental hospital.
Blame my mother's friends, blame the hundreds of people who have since answered my favorite question, "Do you believe in ghosts?" with tales of lost loved ones appearing at the foot of their bed or disembodied voices heard in some shadowy hallway. But for as long as I can remember, I've been desperately searching for my own ghost story to tell.
That is how I ended up listening for suspicious sounds in the middle of the night at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, W.Va. The building is rumored to be a hotbed of paranormal activity, and it is easy to understand why. Constructed between 1858 and 1881 to accommodate 250 patients, it housed nearly 10 times that number by the 1950s. They were a discontented bunch, and not just because they were in a mental hospital — many had been severely mistreated by other violent residents and a few were eventually murdered by them.
The place closed in 1994 (a more modern facility was built in the state), but Weston Mental Hospital, as it was known, has been reborn. Inspired in part by the demand created by popular shows like "Ghost Hunters" and films like "Paranormal Activity," the asylum has for the last six years offered public tours with increasing frequency. A sample includes "October Ghost Hunt" (six and a half hours for $100), "Medical/Forensics/Geriatrics Ghost Hunt" (six and a half hours for $100) and even the fast and budget-friendly "Flashlight Tours" (30 minutes for $10).
There were so many options that I called the phone number listed on the asylum's Web site, trans-alleghenylunaticasylum.com, and asked Rebecca, the rough-voiced woman who picked up, which tour would give me my best chance of encountering a spirit. "The 9-to-5 tour," she said. "That's when the best stuff happens around here."
For $100, overnight visitors break into groups and are assigned a guide to tour the four floors and multiple wards of the asylum, attempting to make contact with the spirit world along the way. As if that wasn't promising enough, in the wee hours of the morning, visitors are allowed to wander free, staying up until dawn, in search of ghosts.
Enthralled, I asked Rebecca if there was anything more I could do to up my chances, before spitting out an idea, "What if I brought someone with me, and we camped out in the most haunted part of the building?"
"I'd know just where to put you," she said, giving me an offer that she said was exclusive. "The ward where patients recovered from lobotomies. It's off limits to everyone else. No electricity. No running water. I'm going to make you sign a waiver, cuz if one of you breaks a leg running from a ghost, I ain't going to be responsible. Got it?"
I pretended to think things over, though the truth was Rebecca had me at lobotomies.
A week later, the gothic asylum loomed before me as I rolled up the long drive toward the front doors. Beside me, my boyfriend, Thomas, made the sign of the cross for easily the fifth time since we'd left Manhattan early that morning. When I first told him about the trip, he made it clear I'd have to find some other sucker to come along. Like everybody else, Thomas already had his ghost story — something to do with a door inexplicably slamming in his father's basement. But after I ticked down a roster of friends, all of whom flat-out refused, Thomas reluctantly agreed to come along. To keep us safe, he brought a pendant blessed by Mother Teresa.
We arrived hours early, and the place was mostly deserted. Waiting for us on a rocker outside the entrance was Miss Sue, a nurse who actually worked at the place from 1966 to 1990. As if to prove it, she wore an old nurse's uniform. Instead of taking us to the lobotomy recovery room, she deposited us in a former office that was freshly painted and had electricity. No self-respecting ghost would be found there, I thought.
John Searles is the author of the new novel "Help for the Haunted."
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