October 17, 2008
GH: Waverly Hills Sanatorium (WHS)
Hey everyone, Patrick here, and this is my first article for Skeptical Viewer. I have been talking to Logisti about doing a review of this episode for a couple reasons. First, I am from and still do live in Louisville. Second, as luck would have it, my wife and I did the WHS ghost tour one Friday night a couple/few years ago. Coincidentally, it was the Friday that TAPS wrapped up their investigation of WHS. I had just started watching the show, and joked to our guide at one point in the tour that they should have TAPS come down for an investigation. He said that they had been there the previous 2 nights, and had come back that morning for some reason. He didn't know why for sure, but said they had "found something" and wanted to do a couple more tests. I watched the show when it originally aired, and again the other night when it was the lead-in episode to the new one, and still don't know what they were testing or what they found that would have required a morning visit. Knowing what we know now, perhaps it was just re-filming of filler sections and such.
At any rate, I thought I would share my thoughts, and some observations/facts about WHS, in an effort to get some discussion going. This won't be a "review" per se, but hopefully you'll find some useful information. Also, I was a bit distracted in the last 15 minutes and haven't had a chance to re-watch that yet, so I will have to do some follow up later.
First, TAPS brings a team of 8 to investigate: Grant, Jason, Donna, Lisa (where did she go?), Kristyn G., Tango, Brian, and Steve. Despite a couple of weak links, I couldn't help thinking that this might be one of the stronger teams TAPS had ever assembled for an investigation. At the very least, they certainly brought enough people to cover this huge facility, which isn't always happening with investigations now.
They meet with one of the owners Tina Mattingly (who actually bought this property with her husband at auction for something like $20,000 as I recall, seems ridiculously low for a building with this much history). Although they did hold ghost tours there for $20 a head, this really wasn't much of a money making venture for them at the time. Everything was done by volunteers, and all the money collected was going toward putting windows in the place, most of which at the time had been installed on the lower levels. In the episode, you might have noticed every so often brand new windows in stairwells, etc. The tours would last from about 10pm to 1am, and they would have about 20-30 people in each group, with about 3 groups going each night. They also offered "overnights" for smaller groups by reservation, and would let you stay pretty much on your own until about 3am.
I was surprised at the information covered by Tina, or at least that the show depicted her covering. Before each tour, your group sat down in the room where you see Donna, Lisa, and Kristyn interviewing the WHS historian late in the episode (that wasn't in the Library as depicted on the show, but in WHS itself, you can even see "WHS" on the back of some of the chairs). There you watched a video on the history of WHS, the disease of TB, and such. There was also a video of clips from some of the horror movies filmed there. The videos and/or your guide then told each group of the 3 main hauntings in WHS: 1. Timmy, 2. the homeless man and his dog, and 3. the nurse.
During the episode, the main evidence caught (besides EVP's) by TAPS was the FLIR image of something running across the hallway. I don't know what, if any, explanation this site or any others have come up with, but I remember being pretty creeped out the first time I saw the footage. The image was hotter on the bottom, but there was definitely a "head" that was cooler that moved with the hotter image. Jason and Grant did a pretty good job of determining where this image ran across, and I thought also a pretty good job of trying to determine the height of the image. But then the show cuts to Grant saying they asked Tina about this, and it was then they were told of Timmy. This seemed to run contrary to the information given on all the ghost tours. I guess we are to believe TAPS was only informed of 2 of the 3 consistent hauntings reported there, and not told of the only one with a name used by all the volunteers and staff.
Jason and Grant go looking for whatever it was that ran across the FLIR. They look into the room they think, and don't see anything. This is where some knowledge of the layout of the building might be useful. It's been a while, but basically it is laid out as follows. The hallway you see on the upper floors has rooms coming off each side. If you think about the direction Jason and Grant were facing, then imagine that the rooms to the left were 2 person rooms, and the ones to the right were one person rooms. The rooms for 2 were for those people who were in better shape, and those rooms had doors out to an open "hallway" or balcony, that runs the length of the building. So picture 2 hallways, running parallel, one that is covered but open-aired, and the other the hallway you see in the show. The 2 person rooms again were for those who were in better shape, and the patients were wheeled out daily into the open air hallway (even in winter) because the theory at the time believed fresh air was a cure for TB. The one person rooms were tiny, had one small window, and were rooms for those from the 2 person rooms who had taken a turn for the worse and were about to die. They had a name for them, but I am drawing a blank.
The image caught on the FLIR I believe was running from the one person room to the 2 person room. It could have easily run down the open hallway into another room. I tried to get a fix on the direction Jason and Grant were looking to confirm this, and I believe I got enough of a bearing to do so.
The next group of experiences happened in the Death Chute. The ghost tours actually take you all the way down the chute, it's pretty creepy. It also might as well be an echo chamber. Many times on the tour we would stop walking and hear the echo of our footsteps behind us. I can't believe none of the TAPS team tried making an echo at all. If it wasn't an echo, the Chute is completely outside, travels through and down the surrounding woods (WHS sits on one of the highest points in Louisville). There are deer, birds, rabbits, squirrels, all kinds of animal life surrounding WHS, which could easily account for a vast array of noises.
Room 502 is where the nurse supposedly committed suicide, even though Steve keeps saying "they hung her". There are reports of women feeling uneasy, especially pregnant women (someone should have knocked up Kris W and gotten her on the show earlier, she always takes one for the team 
). Of course knowing this, women are pre-disposed to feel uneasy in that room, although none of the women on our tour felt anything at all that night.
Finally, Steve thinks he sees a person walking parallel with him in a window, and sees other shadow people as well. I can't explain the person walking along side him, but the way the building is laid out, it's easy to see how it could play tricks on your eyes. In fact, the tour we were on actually did a little demonstration of just that, using a laser beam. We were all convinced we were seeing a black mass at the end of the hallway, when in fact it turned out to be a bend in the hall and a doorway.
But the real gem of this show was a quote by Jason. Go to about 37 minutes into the episode (if you are watching a taped version with commercials) and Jason says "TAPS doesn't look at personal experiences as evidence and the main reason is we really can't show the world a personal experience. It's not video or audio, something that we are able to put out there and let others decide on." Really? Well, what the H has happened since then to change their minds!
Thanks for listening, hope some of this information proves useful, and in light of it I would love to hear what people thought of this investigation.
Filed under Ghost Hunters, Posts by Patrick
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Comments on GH: Waverly Hills Sanatorium (WHS) »
Logisti @ 4:27 pm
Thanks Patrick! It's really great to hear first-hand from someone who has actually been on-site at the location of a TAPS investigation. This is really a fascinating inside look at WHS, and gives a sense of the place we just can't get through a Television screen.
For folks looking for *this* week's episode, some yahoo scheduled a Presidential Debate to conflict with Ghost Hunters and I haven't had a chance to watch the GH episode off my DVR yet, but it's coming! — and yes! podcast too, fear not. Stephen is virtually knee-deep in spools of virtual audio tape, virtually splicing and editing like crazy.
Dr. Peter Venkman @ 5:57 pm
If you haven't seen the episode yet – watch for Steves new theory of ICVP ( Intra-Cranial Voice Phenomena )
Oubliette @ 9:55 am
Patrick-what a great post about Waverly! It's great to hear from someone who has actually been there.
As I understand it, the owners bought the place for back taxes owed on it. Nobody wanted this huge crumbling monster that would take a giant chunk of money to either knock down or rehab. Maybe it's the historian in me, but I do think we need to keep some of our old, historic buildings around to remind us of the past and also the often tragic periods such as the TB epidemic which hit Kentucky especially hard. Kind of helps us keep a sense of perspective.
I've seen a rumor that the place is going to be made into condos, but so far no verification of that. Have you heard anything to that effect?
I agree with you that TAPS was back the next morning to re-film, not debunk, certain segments. This is not unusual for a docu-drama of this type. Also, thanks for the heads-up about the research not being filmed in a library but at Waverly itself. It sure fooled me and led me to falsely believe they had done intense, outside research.
Like you, I too was fascinated, and still am, by the thermal image that looks for all the world like a child running across the hallway. It was my first impression and remains so to this day. I just wish that footage would have been passed around to various experts to re-analyse, not necessarily to debunk but add credence to what seems to be an actual figure caught by the camera.
Also, you make some good points about the shadows seen by Steve. The eyes can really play tricks in that sort of environment, which may explain why so many people have supposedly seen them.
BTW, patients were taken outside not just for fresh air but also because sunshine, which helps the body to manufacture Vitamin D, does seem to have a somewhat therapeutic effect on TB victims. Waverly was using top of the profession knowledge of the disease to try and help the patients, which is why it was THE place to go if you had TB.
Good points about the tunnel and its echoing effect. This was never addressed by GH, and constitutes a big slip up on their part. To me, any and all tunnels are creepy by nature. Psych institutions in my state (NJ) have a maze of tunnels underground that are still in use and connect all the buildings to one another but remain scary places. They do not look modern in any way, having been built in the early '50s, and this adds to the effect.
J & G have back pedaled on some of what they consider evidence, as you have pointed out. Not only personal experiences, but also the KII meter. I truly think they expressed doubt of its effectiveness during the Manson episode, and now it has become their electronic ouija board on every show. What's up with that?
Since you have been to Waverly, may I ask what is your personal opinion of the place in terms of paranormal activity? Do you believe it's haunted, or just a creepy place that stirs the imagination?
Hal @ 2:47 pm
Great report, Patrick! I especially enjoyed your suggestion on knocking up Kris Williams. She is soooo hot!;)
bill kelly @ 3:08 pm
What I found interesting about this episode is that GH goes back there for its live Halloween show but I believe doesnt hit the same spots they did on this one. VH1 did a "celebrity ghost hunt" at Waverly and went to the same places Taps did on their first visit. I believe the Chute was the only place downstairs Taps went to on the live show as Kris and Dustin spent a lot of time in the Chute.
And as someone who missed a lot of the first season i tend to watch the older episodes before the new one. There was one where Andy gets into it with Brian so J&G let Andy do more debunking. I watched my clock because though the werent looking for ghosts, they were explaining a lot of what the owners thought could be ghosts. the first 10 minutes or so were dedicated to debunking. Now you rarely see any debunking. The could have the time if we didnt have to listen for the 100,000,00 time what Steve is afraid of.
And like you said, what wasnt evidence before has become evidence by J&G. I think during the offseason they need to rewatch the first season themselves to see just how much better those seasons were. Again I believe they dont debunk as much or keep more evidence is because people wont find it as interesting. To me and maybe I am wrong, but I think sites like this would give them more of a break if they did more debunking or as they did that first season, have the guys review the evidence together instead of Steve doing one thing and Tango another.
BTW, Lisa I believe has kids and left soon after because she had a busy schedule. Paula is another who disappeared too without a reason.
Oubliette @ 3:12 pm
About reviewing evidence–why don't Jason and Grant do it themselves more often? Only one time I can recall that they made a big deal about "helping out" during the review and actually sat down to do the boring stuff.
If I hear what an EVP is one more time I think I'll SCREAM
bill kelly @ 3:28 pm
Oubliette
if you remember, they said they dont do it because they did it too many times before. Brian had missed some stuff so J&G were forced to do it themselves to see if Brian was messing up again. They feel they did their share.
Oubliette @ 8:05 am
That may be true re: Brian missing something, but there was one more recent time when they decided on a whim to go over some evidence-the reason given was that they were bored and this apparently was the only thing they could think of doing.
I personally don't buy either story. TAPS is their "baby". If I were in their position I would want to occasionally do the tedious bit because 1) I would need to keep my own skills fresh and 2) give those members of my team who are always doing this very tedious job a break. It's only human to sometimes slip up and miss something if you have hours and hours of things to review. Our eyes do become tired and we ourselves start to zone out when given a task like this. After a while, it becomes very routine, like any repetitive task.
Ideally, they all should pitch in from time to time to avoid becoming zombies with eyes clued to a screen which can result in missing small details. Not on purpose, but it's just the way our eyes and brains work.
I think the two bosses should volunteer more often for both reasons cited above. I worked for a guy who would always try to make time to help process applications for a government agency. A small group of us had about 100 to do in a day, so whenever he got a chance he would grab a bunch and help out. This not only was a relief to us but also showed that we were a true team and that he was not above doing the dirty work himself and appreciated our efforts. Just sayin…
Patrick @ 11:20 am
Thanks everyone for the kind words, and thanks to Logisti for letting me post this.
Oubliette – they did buy it for back taxes essentially, about 20K as I recall. And recently they announced plans to make it a bed and breakfast type place, but that has been scrapped due to lack of financing I think. At least for the time being. Back when TAPS was there, these plans weren't in place, or at least weren't public. So at least there wasn't any profit motive to having TAPS there (at least not an obvious one) like there have been in recent sites.
On the FLIR image, I too initially thought it looked like a child. I have been trying to think of logical things it could be. I watched again, thinking maybe it was a crewman kind of hunched over, and perhaps it was his pack/equipment that was the darker spot that moved with the obvious hot spot. Not sure that is the case though.
The other footage caught by TAPS, that clearly looked like a bat to me.
As to whether I thought the place was haunted, no I didn't. Not on the one tour I took. We are actually talking about doing another tour in the next couple of weeks. I never felt uneasy, even though the building is very creppy at night. No one else in our group did either. But again, being in a group of 20 people, with flashlights, tends to promote a comforting feeling. If I was alone in that place at night, I might come away feeling differently.
Wes @ 11:42 am
The Louisville paper had an article a few months back where the owners announced they are hoping to convert Waverly to a boutique hotel/spa. They bought the building for $225,000 in 2001. Of course, the $18 million renovation project was announced in August, so no telling how current economic conditions might be impacting the plans — I'm guessing tours will be the main revenue stream at Waverly for a while.
Stephen @ 12:44 pm
Great post, Patrick!
Logisti and I went over the WHS hallway apparition in one of the podcast episodes a while back, in episode 3.
About a minute before they show the hallway apparition, there's a FLIR shot of Tango, who's just been running. You can see that his upper body, which is insulated by a winter coat, is very cool– about 70 degrees. His legs show up at about 100 degrees.
If you look at the hallway apparition, it looks exactly the same. The legs are clearly visible. The torso is harder to see because it's much cooler. You can't see the hallway apparition's hands clearly, but if the person were wearing gloves, the match would be very, very close.
I'm not saying this was Tango. It could be anyone wearing a winter coat, and pretty much everyone there was wearing one. It could be innocent– a security guard or crew member trying to get out of the way. Or it could have been a prank, brought to us by the same person or people that brought us the dancing blob at Buffalo Central Terminal.
Patrick @ 2:06 pm
I still have not seen the dancing blob from Buffalo.
WHS sits on many acres of woods, and there is a fence that is supposed to keep out trepassers. And they have a night guard and some dogs too I think. But, as you can see from the episode, that hasn't stopped people from getting in and putting up loads of grafetti. I'm not saying it is impossible for someone to have snuck up there, but I do think it unlikely. It's more likely that image is a crew member, which is more disheartening because then TAPS has deliberately offered up false evidence.
Oubliette @ 3:21 pm
I tried like heck to picture that apparition as crew member or another person, but in all honesty, those really look like the legs of a child. The size and shape are not those of a grownup. Not discounting a living human origin, but from the first (and after many, many other views) I still see it as a child.
In this financial climate, I agree that we probably won't see any big changes made at Waverly for quite a while. I don't begrudge the owners running tours and making money, and it never appeared that they were the type to use TAPS the way some places obviously did. In fact, I wish the couple the best of luck whatever they decide to do.
Patrick @ 3:35 pm
My apologies Oubliette, I didn't mean to suggest you were thinking they were out for profit. I just know that we all have seen an increase in investigations at commercial institutions, and so I thought I would make clear to all that I didn't think Waverly was one of those. I, like you, hope they are able to save and restore the building.
Oubliette @ 4:39 pm
No problem. Tina seems to be very nice and very honest. Plus it is obvious that she and her husband have a sincere love of the place and feel it deserves its place in history.
Artquest @ 4:47 pm
I also grew up in Louisville, where WHS had a very spooky reputation with us high school kids. I never tried to creep in there, mostly because my dad had such bad memories of being a six year old kid with tuberculosis, who was sent to a similar place in 1912. He didn't talk about it much, but it was clearly a painful time in his life. The pictures they showed of the history of WHS just confimed my sense of how unpleasant his experience was. If I believed in ghosts, that would be just the right place to look for them.
It was interesting to see they're doing tours at WHS. I'm thinking I should take one the next time I'm back in town.
queen of the nerds @ 12:56 am
I am so glad I found this site. Since GH went to WHS last Halloween something has been bothering me and I wanted to see if anyone else noticed this….. They had a ball that they recorded moving. They (I think it was Jason and Grant) said that the hallway was not breezy so there was no explanation for the ball moving. But, later on during the same investigation there were two women (I can't remember their names)and they were in the same hallway. They both were saying how cold it was and that the breeze was very chilly. You could see their hair blowing. Did the wind just kick up? I would assume that most of the night was cold (and probably breezy) since they were all wearing jackets, if I remember correctly. This has bothered me for a year! My son has a ball that he leaves by our front door a lot. When a small breeze comes under the door jamb the ball will move, exactly like what we saw during that episode. That set off major red flags for me. Those types of balls do not need a lot of force to move. I can blow on it and it will move, probably because my son sits on it and it is slightly warped, lol.
Does anyone remember this or have any explanation?
Oubliette @ 7:54 am
I don't think there was anything paranormal about those balls at all.
Besides the excellent explanations you have come up with, I can remember soon after the show aired someone had written on another message board (don't remember which one and from now on I am going to save messages of this sort) that a crew member had admitted to moving the ball. He did it accidently, not knowing it was part of the "experiment". Just gave it a tap with his shoe.
Since I was reading a lot of different websites at that time, it could have been on any one of many and I didn't think to save it. But I do remember reading that post. Now, whether it's true or not, I cannot say.
But it has stuck in my mind since the episode first aired. The way things are going with GH, even if he later told J & G what happened, they wouldn't want to spoil a good piece of "evidence" by letting us in on this, would they?
Patrick @ 9:31 am
Queen,
TAPS was being a bit disingenuious when they said there was no breeze up there. First, there were no windows in that building above the first or second floor at that time. Second, WHS sits on one of the highest points in Louisville, so there aren't any wind buffers up there. And third, as you mentioned, the girls on the investigation noted the wind a couple times. It was quite windy the night we were there.
Oh, and then there's that whole the crew member admitted to kicking the ball part too.
queen of the nerds @ 12:33 pm
Oubliette/Patrick- thanks for the info. I did not know that someone had admitted kicking the ball! I know this is going to be a stupid question… did TAPS ever address that the ball evidence had been tampered? Along those same lines, why was a crew member up there by himself? Hmmmm.