This Paranormal Life - #279 Haunted DEATH SLIDE - The Waverly Hills Sanatorium

Episode Date: September 6, 2022

What would it take for you to explore deep into a haunted and cursed abandoned hospital? £10? £10,000? The promise of eternal life? A packet of Hob Nobs? For the protagonist of this story, it was only an insatiable thirst to uncover the paranormal that drove him inside Waverly Hills Sanatorium, where he found much more than he bargained for. But is it truly paranormal, or just the ghostly memory of a dark time in medical history? There's only one way to find out.Support us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to weekly bonus episodes!Buy Official TPL Merch! -  thisparanormallife.com/storeMedium articlehttps://medium.com/truly-adventurous/project-poltergeist-745f2d498849Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunityAdvertise on This Paranormal Life via Gumball.fmResearch by Amy GrisdaleEdited by Louis BlatherwickIntro music by www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How can we stop our nightmares from becoming true? Can a person be haunted by ghost peppers? Answers to these questions and more on This Paranormal Life! Hey! Heyo! Welcome back to This Paranormal Life. Welcome to the podcast, everybody. It is Tuesday.

That is the day of the week where here on This Paranormal Life we drop a new episode. And every week we investigate a different paranormal tale and get to the bottom of whether it's truly paranormal or not. It's a comedy paranormal podcast also. It is. Sometimes we make jokes. Even though we're talking about serious subject matter, alright? Things that aren't funny, guys, okay? So like a ghost scaring someone so badly that they shit themselves. Right.

You think that's funny? Right. Not at all. You think that's something to laugh about? No. That's a traumatic experience. We have to know. Or like a werewolf jumping out of a bush and making a grown man shit himself.

Right. Incidents like that are no laughing matter. The chupacabra attacking a man, biting him on the testes, sending him to the emergency room. Where he, you guessed it, it shit himself on arrival yeah just out of sheer fear there are a lot of serious stuff happens and we have to be respectful to that of course so those will not be the kind of things we'll be joking about today uh rory another serious thing is i feel like my voice is going to add a little bit of gravitas yeah you got a sexy voice thing going on today we late night we late night we did and night. We did. And

you know, we won't rant about it for too long at the start of the podcast, but it is worth bringing up that we about 12 hours ago just performed our biggest live show ever here in London. Absolutely. It was insane. It was an amazing show. A little stressful. I'll admit the whole day was a little bit stressful. Okay. Well, don't put a diner on the cold things. It was an amazing show. A little stressful. I'll admit, the whole day was a little bit stressful. Okay, well, don't put a darner on the cold thing. It was an extremely exuberant celebration. It's been over three years since we have a live show, so you just want to keep it light and just celebrate things. I thought I was going to be living the rock and roll lifestyle, when in reality, I was standing outside, surrounded by merch boxes, eating pasta with a fork that I made out of cardboard.

Okay, we were a bit pushed for the time schedule. Yeah, there was no time to eat. There was no time to do soundcheck. You went to go get changed in your dressing room and bugs came out of your clothes. Yeah, there was a bit of a running gag about, not to say that things were not going well behind the scenes, but you did refer to it as being plague-like, biblical plague-like. It was straight up biblical. And indeed, locusts, bugs started falling out of my wardrobe.

But the show itself was incredible. Afterwards, we hung around. I think we were taking pictures and stuff for three hours after the show. Three straight hours. Then we packed up all the merch boxes went outside and i was like oh what a great night where's the uber guys guys and then the whole gang essentially takes a left into this seedy little bar uh we're playing um drum and bass at ear splitting volumes so loud um where we began phase two of this This Part of My Life live in London.

We stayed there for, it must have been a couple hours. Until they kicked us out very aggressively. Yeah, and then I go, awesome, that was great. Where's the Uber, guys? Uber? To be clear, the team took another left. Took another left, went to another bar that was open until 3 a.m. Oh, yeah, Shout out Simmons.

So instead of having the classy night that I thought I was going to have where I retire, back to my apartment, catch an early night's sleep, I stayed out till 3 a.m., got pretty drunk, then came home very late at night, took off all of my clothes and ate an entire birthday cake so you did get to be a rock star after all it was a pretty rock star yeah it wasn't even my birthday either that was a prop that kit and i had used in a video that we were shooting that week so it was used cake it was not it was not fresh cake it wasn't um it was a fantastic show uh just really um beautiful and amazing to do that after so long after covid after lockdown and after three years since our last live show and we really can't wait to do it again and in different geographic locations it was amazing and it was so cool to

meet people in person who listened to the podcast uh because you, it's all types of people. It was dads. It was children. It was boyfriends and girlfriends. It was... Babies? No babies. Okay. I hope not.

My God, I would be worrying if there was a baby in there. Yeah, it was fantastic. But if you want to hear more about our ongoing tour, which we are in the middle of, you know,

why not check out patreon.com? The After Party episodes are coming out every week and we've kind of been discussing it a lot over there. On the main episode, right here, right now, it's time to get in to today's investigation. Let's go! Rory, on today's episode, we have the pleasure of revisiting the year 2002. What were you up to at that point in time?

I think I'd recently discovered masturbation, So I have my hands full, brother. Jesus, man. I don't know, 2002. What were you in 2002? I think I was like 11 or 12 years old. Politically, going through some turmoil. As a collective Western society, we were in the aftermath of 9-11.

Sure. Personally, discovering my own body. Otherwise, probably playing football outside and playing video games inside. Yeah. In 2003, I remember vividly because I was pitching in Poland for Ireland's national little league baseball team. That's actually pretty cool. That's how I can, that's one benchmark I can remember from my childhood. That's pretty awesome. Until your career was ruined by the Dublin Gorilla Man incident.

Now I can never play again. He lost his nerve that day on the pitch. That might have been what we were getting up to in 2002, but it wasn't the case for the protagonist of today's story. Troy, as we're going to call him today, was up to something far cooler, a bit of urban exploration. That September, he'd made his way to Kentucky

to visit the then little-known Waverly Hills Sanatorium to have a look around. Ooh, it was a dark and stormy night. It had been pouring down all day long, and he was grateful to get inside to escape it. The old building was certainly spooky and Troy felt he would have found it unsettling even on the brightest of summer days. Troy's a maniac. This is a terrible idea. Why in the middle of a thunderstorm would you go,

I'm going to go check out the old sanatorium. Right. This seems like a good time to go there. It's a movie trope, isn't it? You're out just having a walk and then you have to shelter from the rain in an abandoned building. Yeah. He should know better. Go when it's sunny. It came as no surprise to him that it was unsettling, of course, because this structure had a long history of paranormal phenomena. But we'll get to that later.

Despite the pounding downfall outside, the building was almost silent. The only sounds beside his own footsteps were occasional raindrops leaking through the battered old roof. Beautiful. He paced the long corridors, looking in as many rooms as he could. Some were firmly locked, which only added to the mystery. The building was five stories high, and he made his way up methodically. He passed the kitchen and cafeteria, various patient rooms, and even the morgue. Oh, wait, for a sanatorium? That's not right. There shouldn't be a morgue in a sanatorium. This is Troy talking to himself. Something ain't right about this building. He passed it all. The kitchen, the living rooms, the patient's residence, the murder hole.

Wait a second. Hospitals don't normally have vats filled with alien goo and experimental creatures. At the end of each long corridor, he clambered up the steep, dusty steps to reach the next level. But he was in such a hurry to get to the top that he skipped the fourth floor entirely. Now eventually he reached the fifth and final floor. Almost immediately opposite the stairwell was a room marked 502. His heart leapt with excitement. He'd heard all about room 502 in his research. You see, Troy wasn't just some teenager, Rory, bursting into old buildings for kicks.

He's a paranormal professional, just like us. All right, it's starting to make sense why he went in the stormy conditions. Because if you're investigating the paranormal, there's a time and a place to do it. Right. As we've said, the paranormal hour for one, approximately 3 a.m. Yeah, we did a little bit of urban exploring for the first time in our lives a few weeks ago. We did. Let me tell you, I get it, folks.

I didn't before, but as soon as we went into this old abandoned mansion, it was really cool. It's really fun to just explore these creepy places. Absolutely. There's something about it that just taps into like a human instinct of curiosity that even though it is creepy, curiosity is like overrides it yeah the room in question is said to be where most of the unexplained activity occurs he scurried across the threshold with his heart pounding he half expected to feel a presence immediately but as

he paced around the echoey room his heart began to sink it wasn't any different than any of the other treatment rooms he'd been in on the floors below. He stood still, held his breath, hoping to hear disembodied footsteps or the creak of a door like other people had reported. After a while, he gave up. He quietly wandered back out of the room, crestfallen. He checked out the rest of the corridor, though, poking his head around the doors of each ward hoping for something scary to happen but alas there was nothing you're in an abandoned sanatorium that alone should be the experience he's a bit like a famous uh rock climber his nerves are so shot from exploring the paranormal over the years that he feels nothing yeah yeah he's like oh orbs boring yeah there's demons kind of clawing out from the walls like go home and he's like i thought they'd be bigger yeah he's like the

emf reader is barely going up yeah whereas me i live such a comfortable life if you just pop a balloon behind me my heart rate jumps to 200 beats per minute yeah you need a cup of tea it takes me weeks to come down off of that high i once got given an extra chicken nugget in my sick chicken nugget box at mcdonald's and i'm still buzzing off of that that was 2002 masturbation and the extra nugget. It was a big year. Well, he started walking back down the stairwell. But on his way, he remembered, hold on a second, I missed the fourth floor. So to leave no stone unturned,

he decided to give it a go. What was there to lose? After taking a single step, he felt the whole atmosphere shift. He got the distinct feeling of something strange in the air. He wasn't a psychic or anything, but there was something different about this floor. Excitement was swelling in his chest. Now the creaky old building felt electric, almost alive. Within seconds, eerie things started to happen. He could hear the unmistakable sound of doors slamming in the distance down the hallway. The doors were so heavy and old he knew there was no way it was the wind.

It occurred to him that he might not be alone in the building, which terrified him in a totally new and different way. What does he want? What does he want out of this? What can you possibly gain? It's the f***ing teddy bear story. My brain isn't working. It's Gold f***ing teddy bear story My brain isn't working It's Goldilocks

Oh, this floor is too haunted Oh, this floor is not haunted enough Oh, oh no You are about to be eaten by a bear, sir Yeah There is no good You are trespassing I don't, I just

I'm struggling to understand What will make this man happy Right, I mean Rory, we should know this as paranormal investigators. It is, of course, money, fame. It is capturing evidence on camera and selling it to the highest bidder. That's true, yeah. I mean, has he come here with equipment? I'm not sure, actually.

I do, I think he is a little bit of a thrill seeker as well. Rory, if you thought this guy was nuts before, at this point he comes to a door that says caution no entry uh this wing of the building has been severely damaged and uh is not accessible for safety reasons right he opened the door and continued for an urban explorer that's like the sexiest sign that you can find. It's like, you know, do not come in here. This shit is ghastly. It has fallen apart.

It's a mess. You're going to die if you enter this room. Right, there's carbon monoxide leaking from every corner of this building. Yeah, Troy's borderline salivating at this point. This is his dream. He even turned off his flashlight at this point. Now the only thing illuminating his path was the dim glow of distant city lights coming in through the windows. As he got closer and closer to the end, he began to see dark shapes darting around in his peripheral vision.

He wasn't sure if his eyes were playing tricks on him. He kept looking left and right, just in case. As he approached the big windows, he turned his head to check on his right. From this vantage point, he could see most of the way down the corridor lined with patient rooms. One of the closest doorways to him was wide open with a faint light shining through it. As he looked, a figure appeared in the frame, and this time it was no trick of the light. It was definitely there because it was blocking the light that caught his eye in the first place. This mysterious man didn't look at Troy, but continued out into the hall and entered the room on the opposite side.

Troy let out a frightened yelp and jumped back in terror, fumbling with his torch to turn it back on. The man had been wearing a long white jacket, just like a doctor's lab coat. white jacket, just like a doctor's lab coat. Though gripped with fear, his paranormal investigator curiosity got the best of him and he decided to follow the man into this second room. Oh, for God's sakes. As he said, this might not have even been

a paranormal experience. There could just be a psychopath roaming the halls in a white lab coat. Alright, well, you should be able to tell the difference. You should, if you're a paranormal investigator, you should be able to tell the difference. Because you're a paranormal investigator, you should be able to tell the difference. Because one of those motherfuckers is probably floating and transparent. And the other one's probably making a lot of noise.

It's like, he saw a ghost in the corner of the building wearing a burlap sack, shooting up heroin. It's like, I think there's just someone living in the abandoned building. Yeah, if your ghost is doing things like coughing and tripping up over shit as he walks, he's probably not a ghost. He's like, I've been in the sanatorium. Sorry, the sanatorium. I've been here for many years. I don't think you're a spirit. Spirits don't usually misspeak.

You got any beer, dude? He ventured forward nonetheless, his flashlight beam shaking violently in his trembling hand. He entered the room, but it was a dead end. There was no way out of the small chamber, and yet it was completely empty. Whoever had just disappeared into this room moments previously had now vanished completely. He'd always been sceptical about ghosts, but he isn't anymore. Rory, this is but one tale of a paranormal investigator's experience

wandering the halls of the Waverly Hills Sanatorium. I was a little judgmental at the start, but hey, fair play to this paranormal investigator for seeing a spirit and not taken off in the other direction. I mean, Troy really followed through with the investigation. Absolutely. I mean, you go that far, I guess you got to try and do it. We don't do a lot of investigations in the real world for this very reason. If I was in this sanatorium and saw a man floating in a lab coat, I would probably

throw myself down the stairs hoping I die by the time I hit the bottom because I don't know what's going to happen when I'm in this building, but I just don't want to be alive anymore. Right, I would just pick up a bunch of broken glass in one of these abandoned rooms, just start eating it, just start chewing it.

It's the closest thing to a suicide pill. I'm opening up that door that said, do not go in, there is no floor. Just dropping three stories. That is truly, truly terrifying. It is like, as you say, Roy, we don't have a ton of experience. The few places I've been in that have a creepy atmosphere on this level, you know, I would not have the cojones to venture this far into the building. Yeah. It's funny, you know, because we talk a little bit about urban exploring and we did go see that allegedly haunted mansion in Northern Ireland,

but I don't remember if you remember this or were a part of it when we were growing up in Northern Ireland, but do you remember when we all just lived in that abandoned house? What? I guess you weren't. Do you remember that? Well, here's where the story gets a little juicy folks let's put abandoned in quotation marks because we all thought it was

abandoned i don't know if the statute of limitations is up on whatever you're about to say uh yeah it was that house in our hometown that we all kind of lived in for a while thinking it was abandoned until one day the owners came home while we were in it. I don't remember this at all. You never heard this story before? I have selectively blocked this out. Oh my, it was insane. It was one of these things where, you know, you discovered it as a kid and you were like, hey, let's keep this on the down low, just so it's like only our closest friends that know about it. We've basically got a little hideout you know, you discovered it as a kid and you were like, Hey, let's keep this on the download. Just so it's like only, only our closest friends that know about it. We've basically got a little hide

out. And then you come back later that night and it's like, yeah, I told everyone and we're having a party here in three hours. And it would just, it was wild. Uh, and then one day, um, people came to the house, grown people, while everyone was inside. And it was like a bug bomb going off. Like people were jumping like out of windows, scuttering out of like the garage. It was insane. So I don't know,

technically urban exploring. It's squatting. It's completely illegal. The judge said breaking and entering. I don't know if that's like a paranormal term the judge was like it wasn't abandoned you drank their milk

out of the fridge it wasn't remotely abandoned the best part was I think someone in the house was taking a shit when the owners came so he had to be like it's like the worst thing

that could possibly happen right it's like everyone's like go we have to leave and your pants are by your ankles. there's nothing you can really do. You got to kind of ride out that experience. You just got to go.

Yeah. It was intense. At this point, you're pretending the place is haunted. You're yelling from your squatting position on the toilet. Whoa. Don't come in. Don't come in here.

Also, throw me some toilet paper We're out So Roy this place is called Waverly Hills Sanatorium These days it's known around the world For being one of the most haunted locations In all of America

And for good reason It's got a dark and twisted history That began all the way back in the 1800s This was the era that the United States Was plagued by tuberculosis, also known as the White Death. Ooh. It was as horrific as it was contagious,

i.e. very. What are the symptoms of tuberculosis? I don't actually know. In my head, it's something like bonitis, where you just turn into like a twisted mess. It is a sad and devastating disease. It basically just destroys your lungs in particular. Oh, so it's not even like a spooky disease?

No. It's not the spooky aspect of the story. Okay. That's pretty spooky. Now, at the turn of the century, Louisville, Kentucky had the highest TB death rate in the country. It was rampaging through the state, claiming whole families and sometimes entire towns. Soon, they constructed a hospital to tackle the problem. The plan was to try out some experimental cures.

Oh, boy. And if all else failed, they could isolate the infectious patients to try and stop the spread. Nothing good has ever happened after using the term experimental cures. Well, I feel like we've changed that now to like trials, clinical trials. Okay. Experimental cures has a real dark history to it. Well, it's like an oxymoron. It's like, well, is it a cure or is it an experiment?

Yeah, that's like saying, yeah, we built this building on the mountain so we could try out some psycho medicine. Don't call it that. It's like medicine, but if it was in the X Games. Yeah. Got to think outside the box. What if we ate rats? No, no. You're going to love what's coming.

Oh, boy. The hospital was built in 1910, and in 1924, they named it Waverly Hills, after the school that sat on the same site. It could accommodate more than 400 patients and was one of the country's most well-equipped hospitals of the day. Despite its fantastic facilities, the vast majority of patients that were admitted died within its walls. Okay, but they had tuberculosis. That's right. The vast majority of patients that were admitted died within its walls. Okay.

But they had tuberculosis. That's right. The only treatment available at the time was basically fresh air. It was believed that breathing fresh outdoor air could help clear your lungs. So patients were placed in lounge chairs out in the grounds or up on the roof, whatever the weather. It sounds like one of those things that are like, I'm so sorry you have tuberculosis, so we recommend just getting some fresh air.

It's like, oh, will that cure the disease? No, you're just going to want to enjoy what time you have left. Right. Just get some fresh air, go to the park, watch a sunset. Yeah, yeah. You're not long for this world. Treatments include reading this list of 10 books you got to read before you die. Saying goodbye to your loved ones. Yeah. So even during

winter, sometimes patients would be sat in the roof of the Waverly Sanatorium, trapped under a layer of snow. Oh my God. Just open a window. There were sun rooms where patients' lungs were exposed to artificial light, thought to kill bacteria, but it had little effect. The last resort treatments of the day involved invasive surgeries that most did not recover from. A few did make miraculous recoveries, but most left the hospital in a coffin. Yikes. In fact, they literally had a chute leading out the back of the hospital where they would fire bodies into waiting train carriages. Shut up!

To save the incoming patients a glimpse of their probable fate. That's a fun way to enter the afterlife. Via slide. Via water slide, yeah. I get the idea. Yeah. For sure. It's not very, it's kind of inhumane.

There's also a matter of time until word gets out about the death chute. Also, can you imagine like, you know, someday the person of a bitch who has to put the coffins down the chute, he like drops his glasses and is like, oh, just gotta reach in and grab all. Down this 300 foot slide into a carriage. I mean, I've talked about this story on the podcast before But I went down my own death chute once The time I was at a play park in McDonald's And I jumped to go down a slide Banged my head on the roof

Blacked out And went And my limp body slid down into the ball pit Where I sank to the bottom And the friction of the slide pulls your trousers down, exposing you to all the children. And you were 26 years old at this point. Yeah, I'm talking about last night's live show.

This is what happened. So I've experienced the death slide and I would not recommend it. Now, estimates of the numbers of people that died on site vary greatly. The highest figures I've seen are tens of thousands, but it was probably closer to 6,000. That's still a lot of people. A lot of people. And this may be the reason this place is haunted today. Now, I will say we have investigated similar buildings slash organizations on this podcast before, but a lot of them are dark and haunted because it's like it was a hospital where people could come get cured and when they go to the hospital the staff are like oh we ain't

gonna cure you we're gonna do our own horrible shit where it sounds like this place at least had good intentions yeah oh absolutely i mean this was a legit hospital. They pumped a bunch of money into it to try and solve a problem. They were losing, like we said, entire tons. They pumped a bunch of money into it. The slide was primo, genuinely well-constructed. We ran out of money. So the best treatment is fresh air. Thankfully, thank God. They're like, yeah, don't worry guys the cure's waiting uh just down the other end of that slide go on in i get your screams it just leads to an incinerator yeah hop on down now thank god new developments in tb treatments meant that the hospital was no longer needed

after the early 60s so it became an old age home for a while. At one point, a guy tried to build the world's largest statue of Jesus on top of the building. He wanted... On top of the building? He wanted to beat the Rio de Janeiro Christ the Redeemer statue.

What? So he said, all right, we need to raise $12 million to build this thing. He raised $3,000, which he should have ponied up at least that himself. Yeah, if you're trying to follow through on an idea that big. Like, if you're not willing to put your own skin in the game for that one, I'm not going to put money towards it. I like the idea, yeah, that the size of the Jesus has to be relative

to the amount of haunted souls. They're like, we're going to need some sort of Optimus Prime-sized Jesus. Godzilla-level Jesus statue. Which is great, you know? I'm a big fan of Jesus. He did a lot of good shit.

I really hope when he comes back, he's the size of a planet. I think he's done the humble thing once. You know, he's done the like, hey, I'm a man just like you guys. You cut me, I bleed, you know. Time to not be so humble. Time to come back as a fucking transformer. Laser vision.

Yeah. Yeah. Wrath of God. Jetpack. Yeah. Basically Boba Fett, but from heaven. Jesus, coming back as a bounty hunter. In Mandalorian armor.

Yeah. Not that he needs it. So by the early 2000s, around the time of our story today, it had fallen into complete disrepair. Only frequented by people like us, Rory, actively looking for the paranormal. So what else has happened there? There's the classic opening and closing of doors, odd noises, disembodied footsteps, passersby noticing lights in the window during years-long periods

in which there was supposedly no electricity in the building. That's creepy. The speed at which I'm rattling through these will hopefully give you an idea of just how much paranormal activity there is. Yeah, I feel like any one of these

could be part of the episode. Those who ventured inside reported ghostly stomping around and the smell of fresh bread from the old kitchen. That one's quite nice. It's pretty cool. Bread and slides?

This is great. It feels like a little bit of a honey trap, though, doesn't it? It's something creepy about ghosts baking fresh Subway sandwiches to lure you in. Right, yeah. And then presumably kill you and shove you down the chute. It's true. You can't, the smell of rusty blood isn't going to get people to enter the building. So you've got to get them in with those fresh cookies.

blood isn't going to get people to enter the building. So you've got to get them in with those fresh cookies. The door in the kitchen can be seen swinging as if there's a busy team of invisible staff in the middle of food service. People also say they've seen a hearse appear around the back of the building to drop off coffins. Once the hospital was bought for restoration,

volunteers working inside had objects thrown at them, were struck by unseen hands, and saw apparitions in doorways and corridors. Oh my god. But that's not all. There's a little girl who can be seen running up and down the solarium on the third floor. Others have seen a young boy with a leather ball. Even more chillingly, a woman with bleeding wrists cries out for help from the shady corners of the sanatorium.

Cool, that's dark. The man in a white coat has been sighted on several occasions, just like Troy saw. There are a couple of entities that have been seen so many times, they actually have names. Firstly, there's Lois. Whoa! She and her sister were patients. Her sister made a full recovery, but Lois wasn't so lucky. She has been seen in the doorway of her former room.

And I even have a photograph of her. Wow. It's a bit grainy, granted. All right. Oh, shit. God damn. Okay, this is a picture of a dark, creepy hallway. It's borderline black and white. It's extremely creepy.

Amongst the many rooms off to the sides of the corridors, there is just a woman who looks like she's standing there looking straight at the camera. Yeah, it's pretty clear, isn't it? Pretty night and day. Yeah, that is terrifying. I do not like that. I do not like that at all. we described i get one glimpse i sprint and run headfirst into the shoot i like that they

gave her a name because usually if a spirit is popular enough that it has a title it's usually something based on their appearance like the lady in black yeah or the man with the hat yeah these guys are popping around so much they're just like this is mark yeah there's andy there's dandy the whole gang yeah how you doing guys oh doing great fresh bread on the way yeah you know i can't eat the ghost bread it smells good though william is supposedly the spirit of a homeless man and his dog that lived in the building after it was abandoned. Once it was sold to the current owners, he was asked to move on, but they let him stay for the rest of the winter as he had nowhere else to go. A few months later, his body was found at the bottom of the elevator shaft,

rumored to be murdered by Satanists. Oh, my God. At least by Satanists. Oh my God. At least put them down the slide. There's a system in place, guys. We're not advocating for murder here in any way, shape, or form. No. Nor the hiding of evidence. It's all illegal.

But as Roy says, there is a facility and a system. At least use it. Another character known to frequent the halls of the hospital is a demonic creature known simply as the Creeper. Okay, this guy does not have a name. He's known as the Creeper. It's an evil four-legged monster from the underworld that scuttles around the premises.

Yeah, that'll do it. It crawls up the walls and the ceilings. It's been spotted so many times that Research Raming was actually able to find an entire Facebook thread dedicated to people's sightings of it. I love the paranormal investigator who showed up and he's like meeting all the ghosts

and it's like, wow, nice to meet you, Margaret. Nice to meet you, Julian. And you will be the creeper. And he's like, my name's Terry. Just call me Terry. Yeah, because I like to crawl. Sure, but that's like not my whole personality. I'm a good bowler.

I was when I was alive. Ghosts are like, you're pretty creepy. Pretty creepy, Terry. For example, one tour guide working at the hospital said, the first time I encountered the creeper, I was coming out of a doorway. I was with a tour group about to take a break on the rooftop. We'd just finished a walkthrough of room 502, so I went through it again, just checking for stragglers. I didn't find anyone, so I stepped back through the doorway.

I looked down and stopped, realizing there was an object the size of a long trash bag right at my feet. It was so close I almost fell over it. Next thing I know, it moved. I was in shock as the black object scurried to the left of the room and disappeared into the darkness. I will say, that does sound slightly like a giant rat or a raccoon. Or a big spider, yes. Or the creeper. Another commenter said, yes. Or the Creeper. Another commenter said,

I seen the Creeper in the fourth floor. They tell you not to shine your flashlight up on the ceiling because of the bats. I had a feeling something was there. I did it and a dark mass dropped from the ceiling and got up like the T-1000 in Terminator 2 and flew past me and my brother's co-worker. Whoa! I had a static feeling through my body. The other guy fell on me. I confronted it

and it grabbed my ankle. I will never forget that. Holy shit. I want to return in the future to see if I see him again. I mean, they called him the Creeper, but it sounds like he's got a lot of shit going on. He's hanging upside down like Batman. He'll just grab your throat now and again.

Don't worry. I've mentioned this room 502 quite enough times, and maybe I should tell you why it's such a big deal. The fifth floor of this hospital consisted of two nurses' stations, 501 and 502. The legend goes that a nurse was found dead in room 502 back in 1928 aged only 29 at the time of her death it was suggested she may have even been murdered by a doctor that she worked alongside yikes disturbingly just four years later another nurse killed herself by leaping from the window of the very same room.

I feel like I've heard that story from every single haunted building ever in the entire world. There's always a nurse or a nun that jumped from a window and died. They even said that about our school in Northern Ireland. As far as I can tell, there are no official records of either death. Okay. That said, the reputation remains about room 502. I think there's an abandoned house in Port Shirt where they say a young boy died after running out of the bathroom taking a shit.

This is a trope. It is a trope. this is a trope it is a trope yeah that a building like let's go back

to let's say the remember that building in like downtown LA and we looked at like the tiktokers who investigated this building

the Cecil Hotel the Cecil yeah you know look at that place look at this place look at any abandoned building

or haunted building we've covered before there's always a room oh the oh you're staying in the room oh yeah i mean i get it very often there'll be one bad thing you know like serial killers have stayed in certain rooms of let's say the cecil or whatever but um but yeah it's almost like you can't have a sanatorium without room 502 yeah the room where all the bad shit went down.

Bearing in mind that there's a man called the Creeper who just has free roam over the whole place. I don't think anyone said he was a man. I think he was some kind of Studio Ghibli-esque shadow being. It doesn't sound like he belongs to 502. It sounds like he goes walkabouts. Yeah. Yeah, he wasn't a nun that jumped out the window or something no and the thing is

this is a building that it is possible to go and explore like i say these paranormal investigators have been going and checking it out now unfortunately rory some internet-based paranormal investigators have actually beat us to the case really uh and researcher amy god bless her she sat down to watch a 90 minute youtube YouTube video created by some paranormal investigators on YouTube to see what came out of it. Which I think even from our perspective is just interesting to see. And even for our listeners, if they're curious, they can go and check it out to see the kinds of things that one apparently does to see if there is paranormal activity, you know. Well, there's so many ghosts in this building that we're on a first-name basis with a lot of them. So if people are going there and being able to see all these creatures,

doctors in lab coats, lights going on, a hearse delivering coffins, usually I'd be skeptical of a 90-minute video about evidence, but maybe there's just that much going on. Will I show you a clip of their findings? Absolutely. So this is the YouTubers Sam and Colby. You can come up to this red light here and touch it. Or you can stand there.

Right as you said that. Right as you said that. Right as you said that. Holy. I literally have goosebumps everywhere. Thank you. Being polite at least. So I guess they're talking to the spirits and they've got a bunch of kind of detection devices.

What? Alright, that doesn't look like a piece of paranormal equipment. That looks like a bouncy ball. What the f*** is going on? Alright, stop the video, start the video. This thing never goes on. Look, I'm not saying these guys aren't legit.

I don't know that Rory has ever asked to just simply stop a pizza. I'm sure that what they're using is some sort of legitimate paranormal activity measuring devices. But it looks like these people have just scattered a toy box on the floor. They're like, a noise is going off. They're like, what the f***? Like pointing at a slinky they've put down. Just being like, that's the slinky never slinks. Oh my God.

There's like a ball with neon lights flashing that they're like, it's, oh my God, your name is William, the ball's lighting up. Like there's just so much random shit. One of them looks like a ticker tape little thing. It's so weird. There's something,

as you say, I'm sure they're legit, but there does feel something rigged about hooking up a creepy music box as some kind of paranormal detection. It's like, well, of course, if the music box goes off, it's going to feel creepy.

A hundred percent. Yeah. This is why as a paranormal investigator, you do one thing at a time, you know? If you're confident in the level of paranormal activity, you get out the Ouija board. You get out your EMF reader. Maybe scan some audio sounds that you pick up.

These guys have just gone scattered with it. Like, let's throw everything at the wall and see what goes off. It's, you know, I thought it was interesting to look at because, you know, we always talk about this. Like, obviously, we investigate the paranormal right here in the comfort of our studio. Yeah. And not doing the dirty work, getting our hands dirty on location necessarily week to week like these guys. So it's kind of surprising when you realize that these guys are not like what we talk about,

kind of going around and snapping photos of ghosts walking down the hallway, which is what you'd be led to believe is possible by all the sightings. But they kind of have to resort to just like waving emf readers around and if there's an electrical signal like that's the proof of the ghost and it's like well that's fine but we've heard that the creeper will grab you by the leg and drag you into another room so right what are we really looking for here yeah and you know when people think about a paranormal investigator uh i think trench coat i think uh sunglasses i think paranormal hunting equipment that is legitimate and is designed to pick up tiny tiny little details on a site you have a problem with a slinky? I just wanted to be clear that the investigators we watched,

I would say they're more investigators slash YouTubers. Okay, sure. Borderline Logan, the Paul brothers. Right, they have haircuts. They have nice haircuts. Yeah, whoa, whoa, what is that? Whoa! The thumbnails are like the shocked faces behind buildings. So there's a bit of like extra hype thrown into this thing.

Sure, there was some dramatic music alongside the slinky slinking. But this essentially brings us up to the present day, Rory. The present day in which the Waverly Hills Sanatorium is currently owned by Tina and Charlie Mattingly, who run it as a haunted attraction. Wow. So I guess if our listeners are interested, or we are, we could go see it. So presumably they've found a way to rebuild at least a safe path through the establishment. Yeah, absolutely.

I don't think it was so decrepit that the entire thing is dangerous. I think it was just maybe bits of it. Okay, absolutely. I don't think it was so decrepit that the entire thing is dangerous. I think it was just maybe bits of it. Okay. Okay. I would love to go see this. That would be incredible. But Rory, at the end of every episode of This Paranormal Life, we have to decide whether the case we just discussed is paranormal or not. So talking about the Waverly Hills Sanatorium, looking back at some of the witness testimony, some of the, let's face it, pretty varied things that have been seen there. And I think our one piece of physical evidence being the photograph of Lois. What are you thinking today? That's true. That's true. I was going to lambast you about the lack of evidence, but I forgot about the grainy woman that you showed me in the photograph. Pretty good. I mean, witness testimony, by the way,

was Troy at the start of this entire podcast. I don't think we have many more than that. Was that all there was? Oh, well, someone said they got grabbed by the creeper. There was at least three people. One guy said it ran like the T-1000 from Terminator 2. Yeah, I tried to forget that. There was a tour guide.

Sure. Mostly Troy. I just think a building like this, if it really does have that amount of paranormal activity. Where's the death slide? Where's the picture of the death slide? Apparently it's mostly filled with spiders. Okay. That is, I.

Which is terrifying. Yeah, that's genuinely more scary to me now. Okay, fair enough. I would not go down that either. I don't know. I just want a little bit more. I mean, it seems like this thing is pretty easy to access as well. It's not like you have to break in and try and sneak around and get footage.

You can take a tour of it professionally. So how do the people who not even organize the tour have more convincing paranormal evidence? I don't know what you want me to say, man. I had a very, very brief line of defense. I'm out of luck. I honestly thought the creeper would win you over. I really did.

The creeper, I will give it bonus points. Kudos, if not a yes, for being kind of cool and fun. You know, I never even really questioned this, which I probably should have right at the start, but you called it a sanatorium. Yes. But it was used to treat tuberculosis? Sure.

That's not what sanatorium means, right? What does it mean exactly? I thought sanatorium means, right? What does it mean, exactly? I thought sanatorium was for, like... No, sanatorium is an antiquated name for a specialized hospital for the treatment of specific diseases. Oh, okay. Oh, all right, yeah.

Because I see what you're saying. You're saying, like, sana feels like it should be in sanatorium. In sanatorium, yeah. An insane asylum. I thought it was an asylum, yes. But okay, no, right, fine. Yeah, I mean, that's why it feels creepy

because it's like, I mean, if you have to build a sanatorium, things have gone badly wrong. It's like it's a hospital just for one thing. Yeah. Let's not beat around the bush today, Rory. We're going to come down on a yes or a no. Do you think the Waverly Hills Sanatorium

is paranormal and haunted to this very day? I love the story, mostly because of this setting. As I said, we've done a few stories based around creepy old buildings like this, old hospitals, old sanatoriums and asylums. But unfortunately, because a lot of the bad shit happened in the past and the buildings are mostly shut down and overrun and they're a bit of a mess now. It's hard for people to explore and spend enough time there to get some really convincing paranormal evidence. And that's kind of what we're seeing today. Aside from a very grainy picture of apparently a ghost woman, who was just a woman, by the way, folks, she wasn't transparent. She wasn't glowing. It was just a woman standing in a building.

Aside from that, I'm not really seeing enough evidence here today for me to say that this is truly paranormal. Well said, Rory. I think that is more than fair today. I think we have a double no on our hands. Error. Until we are able to go to the sanatorium ourselves. Yeah. In future.

Guys, sorry, sorry to deliver you such a sour note of a podcast. Yikes. A double no. I hope it was still worth listening to. Maybe you've enjoyed learning about Waverly Hills Sanatorium. Maybe you're in the area. You can go check it out yourself. If you have your own thoughts or experiences about it,

why not let us know? You know know the usual places this paranormal life podcast at gmail.com write to us on twitter at this para life and so on i really like the idea of the death slide i feel like we could implement that in the paranormal commune anyway we don't have an issue we don't have that many bodies we're sorry we don't have sorry we don't have any bodies we've got a healthy healthy population but obviously some people drank some contaminated water recently and we do have the antidote

you just have to go down the antidote slide yeah right and at the end of that you're going to be just fine get some fresh air before you do and watch the sunset and then go down the antidote slide. Like I say, I hope you enjoyed this week's investigation. If you cannot wait until Tuesday for another brand new episode of This Paranormal Life,

did you know that there's a different type of slide you can take? Ooh. It's called the Patreon slide. Right, right. It's bolted shut, but you just slide a crisp $5 note into the vending machine at the top of the slide. It opens up and at the bottom isn't a miserable train full of bodies. Like the antidote slide.

Whoa. It is, in fact, a beautifully cushioned landing full of hundreds of bonus episodes, after parties and bonus content. It's like that f***ed up boat they take in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, where it's like the rowers keep rowing and like content is being beamed into your eyes with like a rainbow pattern. You come out the other side, just a different person because you've been bombarded by so much grade A quality paranormal content. That's it.

This Paranormal Life normally only comes out every week. So, you know, you've got to wait to get your fix, but at least you think you do. But if you head over

to patreon.com, there is five more episodes a month. Whoa! Available. Too many! For download immediately. There's a bunch of other awards including our limited edition is five more episodes a month. Whoa! Available. Too many. For download immediately.

There's a bunch of other rewards, including our limited edition Night of the Commune coin. Yeah. Our monthly raffle and more. And there's even a certain tier where we'll give you a shout out right here on the podcast. That's what we're going to do right now.

Wow. So, hey, special thank you to Matt Simmers. Some people, when they get stressed, Rory, they boil over. Matt just simmers. Oh, very cool. What does that mean? He's just a little stressed? Yeah, he's not cool.

He's not cool about it. He's just, he only goes through life at a just permanent level of low level stress. Yeah, it would almost be better if he just exploded. Right, and then just get it out of his system. But he's always just on edge. I'm just not happy about it.'s the old blood pressure matt thanks also to holly hoggan holly hoggan banged her noggin jumping down the antidote slide which uh it works out pretty well holly because you don't want to be conscious when you reach the bottom all right all right

i'm just saying she rory style lost consciousness and landed at the bottom. Thanks also to Inspire Design. I think this might be a first for the commune. A design agency, presumably. Wow. Becoming a patron of the show. I mean, we do need to improve the signage around the commune. All our street signs, road signs, traffic signs.

They are all handwritten by us with sharpies on pieces of A4 paper. Yeah, written in the Ibn language, which many people can't read. So it's a confusing place. I think everyone, including us, can't read it. I made a lot of the symbols up.

So yeah, we're going to need your help. Thanks to Melissa Gilroy. Melissa Chilroy. Melissa Chillroy. They go through life never getting stressed out. Always keeping it chill. That's for the best. It's a pretty good way to be, you know? Wake up one night, the house is on fire.

Well. Hey, you know, whatever. Go back to bed, honey. Well, don't go back to bed. Put your feet up. Relax. Keep it chill. Thanks to Kirk. They call him kirk the smirk because he's always got a cheeky little grin on his face which sounds nice

but it has landed him in jail multiple times yeah because anytime he's at a crime scene he's got that little grin and they're like well he did it yeah arrest him and the next thing you know he's in front of the judge he He's still smirking. It's like, you little mother f***er, go to jail. 20 years. 20 years for stealing

that Mars bar because of the smirk. Thanks to Karsten Back. Guess who's back, back, back, back again. Karsten's back in jail

on account of a terrible smirk that he was born with. Another smirker? Mm-hmm. Guys, time and place. Do not smirk while you're in the electric chair. Oh, wow.

Dark. Thanks to Mika. Mika the Seeker. Mika has been wandering through the desert, trying to find the commune, trying to find the antidote to what ails them. Which is a bit awkward, but, uh... It's fine. It's fine.

Right this way, Mika. You're gonna tell them about the slide? About what really happens on the Which is a bit awkward, but... No, it's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Yeah. Oh, right this way, Mika. You're going to tell them about the slide? Yeah. About what really happens on the slide? That you reach the promised land. Hey, yeah. You've reached the promised land.

You really have. It's time for you to rest. Internally. Yes. The screams you hear are screams of fun, like a water slide. Thanks to Will. Come on down to Will's Pills. Whatever you need in a pill form, Will can make it for you.

Okay. We're not even talking about medicine here. We're talking sandwiches. Condensed down to the size of a friggin' pea. Like a BLT or something? Oh, yeah. Made to the size of a Tic Tac. Is that why?

It's mostly for military operations. So people can eat entire subway sandwiches in one gulp. He's doing pretty well for himself. Clearly got a fat military contract out of it. He calls it the pillitary. Thanks also to Jamie Grogan.

Jamie, can you make the commune rivers flow again? Because we're experiencing a bit of a drought. And that's why a lot of people have resorted from drinking from the contamination zones. Which is, yes, why the antidote slide has been chock-a-block recently. Yes. So if you could make the rivers flow again, we'd really appreciate it. Thanks to Savvy.

Savvy the Navigator. Savvy has been navigating those lost souls looking for the commune antidote slide they've been hearing all about for a long time. Savvy, we're gonna have to have a word. You're gonna, like, the slide's full. It's not what they think.

I don't want to give too much away, but it's not what they think. You're giving so much away by even saying that. It's the opposite of what they think. So if you could just navigate them to somewhere that's not so contaminated, they'd be doing a lot better. Honestly, if you just give them a loaded gun, they'd be better off. It's the opposite of what they think. I can't say any more.

You said so much. Thanks to Brian Cunningham. If it isn't crying Brian, a gentleman so in touch with his emotions that anything will set him off. I'm just like, Brian, dude, you look amazing today. He's like, so what? I didn't look good yesterday?

It's like, Brian, no, I'm just trying to compliment you, dude. Goddamn compliment. Because I think you're a good friend of mine, but not a best friend? Oh, he's crying again. Brian. Brian, I'm just trying to do that. Alright, your shoes are

cool. What about my socks? Jesus, man. Thanks, lastly, but not leastly, today, to Mark Fester Steed. Mark Fester sleed pretty fast down the antidote slide. He sleed faster than anyone I've ever seen before. He wanted the cure. And he got it in a way.

In a way, he achieved peace yeah part of me thinks that he knew exactly what was waiting for him because i hadn't even put up the sign yet to say antidote slide and he just went down it right he gave me a wink as he jumped in but hey thank you mark thank you to everyone we've shouted out today and everyone we will be in the coming weeks and months we're getting through names uh as fast as we can so thanks for bearing with us guys we will of course be back on tuesday with a brand new paranormal tale hope you enjoyed this one and we'll be back on friday with an after party over on patreon and this month's bonus episode later in the month oh my goodness whoa i'm fired up let's

just go again let's do another one now what yeah i just i don't know episode i feel like i so i had a coffee before we started recording i've been pretty low energy this whole podcast but i think it's kicking in now terrible time let's go so what did you say about the crawler he's like a bat or something we gave it a double no. We could dig it up. Dig it up. Let's go again. All right. I think we're going to have to park this. What else did they see?

All right. We're going to have to park this energy for next time. Okay. Live fast, investigate, and die young, guys. Love you guys.