This Paranormal Life - 423 The Traverse City Haunted Asylum

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

On This Paranormal Life, we spend a lot of time investigating the darkest and creepiest corners of the world, and today is no exception! We’re journeying to North Michigan, to tell the tale of the The Traverse City Asylum, a once booming psychiatric hospital that’s now home to satanists, strange dark figures and even a portal to HELL… Follow us on ⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Join our Secret Society Facebook Community⁠⁠⁠ Support us on ⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife⁠⁠⁠ to get access to weekly bonus episodes! ⁠⁠⁠Buy Official TPL Merch!⁠⁠⁠ - ⁠⁠⁠thisparanormallife.com/store⁠⁠⁠ Intro music by ⁠⁠⁠www.purple-planet.com⁠⁠⁠ Edited by Philip Shacklady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Would using bug spray repel cryptids like the Mantis Man? Were the past presidents of America actually giants? That's why they had to be sealed in rocket Mount Rushmore. All of these questions you can find the answer to on this paranormal life. Welcome to this paranormal life, the greatest paranormal podcast on the internet. My name is Roy. This guy's name is Kit. We're going to dive into a brand new paranormal tale and tell you whether or not we think it really is

paranormal. I can see myself. We're filming this podcast. I can see myself on the camera because the screen's pointed back towards me. I'm starting to remember why I don't wear this shirt on camera because it looks like I'm not wearing a shirt at all. Rory's wearing a, yeah, pink to some, nude to others. Yeah. It really does look like it looks like I'm not wearing a shirt, which I actually find a little offensive to me because I would describe, and many would describe this shirt as baby bottom pink. Yeah. And the fact that that's blending my skin tone.

You're right. Yeah. But we're just going to have to roll with it today, unfortunately. So don't let my naked body throw you off, Kit. And if you are weirdly wrinkled, your body needs iron. And if any viewers are watching us on YouTube and have been watching us over the last year, there's so that we've been on YouTube, super exciting. If you guys ever think we look bad and we pick bad outfits, Just know, I agree.

I think Roy's probably had the same experience like you're having right now. I have a lot of items of clothing that I've thrown away after wearing them on the podcast because then I see the video on YouTube and I'm like, I look bad. That looks, that's a bad shirt on me. Can I throw away my face and personality too? How about that? I think it's time to throw away my voice and who I am as a person. But I can't do that, so I'm going to get rid of that shirt instead.

I want to change my clothes, my hair. face, no Bruce Springsteen. Well, I have a good excuse at least. When I come back here, I don't bring a lot of stuff with me, so I have to wear all the clothes I used to wear as a child. Yeah. Yeah. That's a pretty good excuse. You don't have an excuse.

You could have brought a house. You brought a bag. Home of the fits. I didn't say I don't like my fit. I bought this shirt this year. I like it. There's a stain. There's a big stain.

God damn it. There's a stain. We had lunch before this. Can we move on? We did. Although I want to point out, this thing is not the color of the lunch. God damn. I don't want to say what it is the color of.

No, no. All right. But we had... Kid's wife has been away for the last couple days. That's all I'm going to say. I insist we move on. So today you're joined by Baby Belly and Jiz shirt for another episode of this paranormal life. It's just food.

I'm drinking a drink right now. All right, kid. Well, we do have to dive into today's podcast. which I'm happy to say we've got a street going here of doing listener submissions. And we've got another great one today from a listener named April Faust, who told us to investigate a location that she'd had an experience in herself. That's kind of rare. Normally our listener submissions are like,

I heard about this thing on Reddit. We have a very online audience. So for us to have an audience member who's actually gone out there and experienced something paranormal, pretty cool. All right, we got an email from a listener named April Faust, who said, Hello, Kidden, Rory. I'm really enjoying the podcast so far. I just watched your live stream this past weekend, and I really enjoyed it as well. Thank you, April.

We got this email in 2023, so I have no idea what live stream that was. But I'm glad you enjoyed it. I wonder what shirt I was wearing. They continued. You definitely don't have it anymore. They continued. I am admittedly way behind on the show. show. That's fine. We're behind on emails.

But another one of your listeners, Stephanie, Stephanie, Stephanie, Stephanie Lynn, Stephanie Lynn, Stephanie Lee. Sorry, sorry. Finish the call for you. It's because her name is Stephanie Lynn.

Stephanie Lynn introduced me to the commune. I'm absolutely addicted. I apologize if this is a repeat suggestion, but have you heard of the Traverse City State Hospital. It's an old insane asylum in northern Michigan that is now a tourist spot called the Village at Grand Traverse Commons. Two of my friends and I went there back in 2009 when only the restaurant and a handful of the first doors were open and the place had a particular

atmosphere. I've never felt anything like it or at least nothing to that degree. There was an odd pressure to the place. I don't know how else to describe it. The feeling was so heavy, in fact, that our friend who was sleeping in the back of the car and had no idea that we were even visiting the asylum, shut up out of her sleep and exclaimed, no, no, where the hell are we? Oh my God, they had like a sixth sense or something. Yeah, they just entered this demonic area and immediately were awoken from their dreams in panic. Yeah, either that or like they were just, yeah, they were in their dream, they were like in the back rooms, McDonald's or something.

Yeah. So maybe it was just unrelated. Well, April, I haven't heard of this abandoned asylum, but your story did peak my interest. So today we're going to be investigating the Traverse City State Hospital and the paranormal entities that still reside within its dark and crumbling walls. Okay. Hey, sounds like a great case.

But first, let's give you a little reminder that if you want to support this podcast, the best way to do so is over on patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life, where you can get access to a ton of amazing content. We've been creating stuff over the years for the patrons over there for a very, very long time. Check it out. You can get access to a bunch of amazing bonus episodes and merchandise. So check it out. Oh, and we're on tour.

You guys know already. we are coming to the US and Canada tour tickets available right now at This ParanormalLife.com. Check it out. Get your tickets. We are going back to the 1880s to Northern Michigan. Back then, Traverse City was known as a quaint little lumber town. But one thing I know about trees is it takes a lot longer to grow them when it does to cut them down. Another man who knew this was Perry Hansen.

He knew that the lumber business was a dying trade. So in order to keep the city relevant, Perry decided that Traverse City was the perfect place to open up a brand new insane asylum. What a swing. Not where I thought he was. I think we're going to say something to do with like, this is not a renewable resource where I'm going to have to, you know, pivot here and get into something at some other kind of material that we could use instead of trees. No, insane asylum. Just a prison for people who aren't even that. insane. Yeah, I think if anything, ironically, at a time when this term was used insane asylum,

that was probably the time where the people in there were least insane. Because they were just throwing anybody in there. They were throwing people, like poor people, people with tuberculosis, just throwing them into these asylums. Yeah, I think if you just didn't like your wife, you might just chuck her in. Oh yeah. She's been acting a little crazy recently. That's what they did. She doesn't love her husband for one. That's a little weird. She married me. So to the asylum with you, woman. Yes, kid is right. I want to preface this entire episode by saying, obviously,

we're talking today a lot about insane asylums or mental asylums. I know these terms are very outdated. We are using them today as a label to refer to specific historical institutions that were called insane asylums and were bad and did horrible things. And hey, whatever bad shit we're about to say, we're allowed to because you're listening to two future insane asylum inmates. Right. We're going to be there.

Yeah, it's, I think actually, we do spend a lot of time inside of walls with a lot of padding. And you've told me that it's soundproofing. You told me a number of times, but... Just put on this jacket, bud, just put it... Why does a guy serve dinner, lunch, and breakfast? Good order of meals. I'm not allowed, sharp objects. You're eating backwards.

Dinner, lunch, and breakfast. That's how fucking crazy I am. I eat dinner, lunch, and breakfast every day and night. I'm like, strut the jacket, bud. The arms are a little snug, but it's just, it's an ex-ass. It's an ex-ass. It's a straight jacket. Well, Perry decided to prove to the committee that his city was the best place for this new asylum.

He walked from Traverse City to Lansing, 173 miles. I mapped it out. And Google Maps said that right now it would take three days to do that walk. I feel like I missed a big piece of information. Why did he walk that far? Why did you think the town needs an asylum, bud? He's mad. Room for one more.

I read another article that claimed it took him three weeks. Yeah, it shouldn't take that long. Apparently, the committee found this somewhat endearing, so they agreed to build the asylum in traffic down. of stupid countries. So in 1885, the asylum opened. Dorms were quickly filled as patients from all over the surrounding towns were moved to the enormous new building,

capable of housing over 500 patients. You know what, Kit, I don't have it in my docks right here, but I will show you a picture of what the asylum looked like in its heyday. I'm picturing unnecessarily dramatic. Oh, you'd be right. That's something we don't do anymore. Now whenever we need a building, we're just like, four walls, that's fine. Anything would just get the walls.

Is there a door? Brilliant, that's fine. We can walk in, we can walk out, happy days. Back then, they were like, don't let them off the bus yet. Don't let the inmates off the bus yet. We haven't finished the gargoyles. Right, got to finish the gargoyles. We've got to finish about 18 to 35 gargoyles just to kind of create a foreboding sense of terror.

The architect is like, as you can see, we've got six up there already, but we just need to bring the seventh and the groundskeeper is like, there's nothing up there on the roof. He's like, all right, I think I'm actually one of the patients. Somebody, yeah, I need a room. Yeah, let me show you a picture of the asylum. Great, great. Fair enough. No gargoyles. But, you know, it just, it looks like a beautiful Ivy League university building.

Lovely, historic. Spiky. Looks good in black and white. I'm guessing it wasn't as nice in person. It stretches out kind of in every direction now in two great big wings, obviously, to house over 500 people. And it has huge grounds surrounding it, forests and paths and gardens. Yeah.

Honestly, I will say, as far as old-timey mental institutions go, this one started pretty great. James Decker Munson, who was the first superintendent, believed in the theory that beauty is thursday. therapy. And that being surrounded by a beautiful and relaxing environment was good enough to cure the issues that these patients were dealing with. Love that. Surprisingly modern way of thinking.

I know. Which meant this asylum was fitted with hiking trails, flower beds, well-maintained gardens, and most importantly, no restraints. That's great. How cool. No, no straps, no straight jackets. nothing. This was, as I said, a surprisingly very progressive institution for the time. I was expecting a kind of Mad Mac-style Thunderdome and then just kind of a big line of kind of two-by-fours. And every day the security come in, you grab a two-by-four because you're going

to need to whack a lot of people throughout the day. You know, by the end of the day, your arms are just so tired from whacking people with two-by-fours. Yeah. You know, because people are lashing out. You've got to knock them unconscious. I imagine it was just a kind of brutal, vicious miserable place to be. You were assuming, you know, the committee would come check up on everyone and they'd be like, oh, here's the new superintendent, Dr. James Munson. And he'd be like, good evening, counsel. It's like, hey, oh, Jesus, yeah.

I suppose you're here to check on the test subjects. He's like, they're not. They're patients. They're people with real issues who, didn't you say beauty is therapy? Oh, yes. Oh, yes, I did. But I think you'll find beauties in the. of the beholder.

And he, like, laughs. And he put, then he pulls a curtain to reveal like a nine foot man made out of like 13 men. It's like, shut it down. There's always, there's,

this is in beauty or therapy, Dr. Munson. Those guys always have like, Dr. Monster, is my name, technically. All right. Those guys always have pylons in the corner of the room

with electricity jumping between the pylon. Yeah, yeah. It's like, why? Why is there just, naked electricity jumping about your room. Those guys are always laughing at points in the conversation

where they shouldn't be. Yeah, exactly. I think you'll find our rooms to be a most comfortable I believe there's a blizzard rolling in tonight. Perhaps you should stay for the evening.

They're like, it's January. It is boiling outside. But no, on the contrary, as I said, this was surprisingly very progressive to the point where I kind of couldn't believe it when I read this by the time we reached the early 1900s

the Traverse City State Hospital even had a baseball team Wow, that's cool Yeah, I've actually got a picture of them here Check it out No, look at them go Do you know what they've got Yeah, I mean they look like a little rag tag team

I like their trousers are padded Their trousers are padded It's like, so they look like a normal baseball I was looking for visual clues and there wasn't really any, but they are wearing striped hats like they're in jail. That is a little prisony, yeah.

And then the tracers are patted like a cell. This could be old-timey baseball style, to be fair. Yeah. Old-timey sports gear. Do you know what the shirt stands for? It's NMA? The North Michigan Asylum. Wow.

Yeah. Amazing. I know like sometimes you'll be in like a sports competition and they'll be like, yo, do you hear this other team are crazy? I don't think anyone is showing up to a sports competition and assuming they're going to be playing against an asylum of men. I think that's honestly a good idea just for a team that isn't to do with an asylum.

Like, you played Little League baseball growing up. I did, yeah. I think to give your Little League baseball team the edge, just call them the little asylum inmates. In 1957, the asylum hired Dr. John Ferguson, who was well known by his signature move, the three-minute lobotomies. Oh, boy.

Yeah. You forget lobotomies happen. Oh, my God. I went down a really dark path looking into the history of lobotomies. Yeah. That is a truly dark time in mankind's existence.

Humanity really did that. And let me tell you, if a lobotomy was to happen, shouldn't take three minutes, shouldn't even be timed. Yeah. Why was it ever at a point where people were racing lobotomies?

And 257. 257. That's got to be a personal. Oh, amazing. Wow. Yeah, good job everyone. He's dead. He's dead, though. Oh, shit. Okay. Damn. All right. I still did it, though. He was alive when the clock stopped. Yeah. But he died after. Yeah, incredibly dark. It should take... Yeah. I don't know what to say about that. It shouldn't happen at all. But yes, yeah, I agree. It should... Look, Roy, what do you want? What do you want from these people? Sometimes... Something better. Sometimes there's a miracle drug. And sometimes the miracle drug is hacking at someone's brain. And it's not that kind of... complicated. Look, you know, it's like, it's like going to... I think it's literally brain surgery.

It's like it's like a phrase that's used to describe how complicated something is. It's like going to get a haircut. There's a mid-mat, like you would you even want, you know, a haircut shouldn't take more than if you're a bloke half an hour. Yeah. Right. I love what, but there's just a simple amount of time. It shouldn't take more. Like what are you, it's like, what are you doing in there? You play in, word rule? You know what I mean? Just get it, get in, get out. Do you imagine going to a hairdressers where it's like, um, hey, we've got our, um, we've got our, um, um, Our head barber actually, today. Stefan, he's great.

He's been here for, God, 20 years. Or we do have Dr. Ferguson, and he's got his special. Why is he a doctor? The three-minute haircut. You will be in and out of that chair with your haircut, technically, in three minutes flat. Yeah. So what do you want? It's like, it's actually a kind of permanent solution because you will be so brain-dead,

you won't want a haircut ever again. He will cut it. He'll cut it so short. It will never grow back. Yeah. So, should I just get Dr. Ferguson now? Fergie! Fergie, we got someone for the three minutes!

I don't think you should ever advertise your services on how short it takes. I guess there's very few industries, but that's a good thing. Yeah, imagine an accountant. We will do your taxes in 60 seconds flat. Right, don't. Yeah, absolutely. You're going to do them totally wrong. 60 seconds?

I owe a million pounds. You've carried way too many zeros. Why does it already feel like you're bad with numbers? Because it's definitely going to be longer than 60 seconds. Oh, and this story only gets better. If you didn't think this was concerning enough, Dr. Ferguson himself had previously been in several mental institutions. Interesting.

Which I think should disqualify you from then going on to work in them. You know, promoting internally within the company is a cool idea, but in this kind of institution, I don't know. You know, like, it's nice when like a barista can work their way up to being like district manager. Yeah. But from insane asylum patient to chief doctor. Yeah. I don't know.

It's literally the lunatics running the asylum. Right. I love it if he was being interviewed and it's like, well, how did you get the idea for your three-minute lobotomy? And it's like, well, it came to me after I was lobotomized at this very institution. And I was thought, this is actually taking quite a while. Only there was a way to speed this up. While at the Traverse City Mental Asylum, he began his own experiments that he nicknamed Tender Loving Care.

Oh, my God. Why do I think it's going to be quite the opposite? Disappointingly, when I read about what it was, I saw the words chemical restraint and decided to stop reading. What was crazier to you in dark historical terms? Lobotomies or Unix? I think maybe lobotomies. I think maybe lobotomies, yeah.

Because at least the boys who had their testicles cut off, which is what that is, look it up. Yeah. What's the musical version called? I actually forgot that's what a eunuch was. Because, yeah, a eunuch is a whole thing. But there's a word for, there's a literal, I don't know if people know this. They used to cut off people's balls. Oh, yeah, it's called marriage.

Am I right, guys? Yeah. All right, Andy Tate. That T-shirt is like a little. real tight on your bald. It's like, oh, Kit, I think you should know without procedures known as.

You've been married about five years now, haven't you? Have you? Mate? Well, when it comes to the asylums of the 1800s, Traverse City is by no means the worst, but as you can imagine, there were a lot of controversial and invasive procedures done on patients

that have now been banned across the board. Sorry, voice crack there a little bit. Maybe I saw it in puberty. Have been banned. across the board. Fortunately, as the years progressed, these types of asylums became a lot less popular,

as people started to realize this was actually quite a horrible way to treat people. As a result, the asylum closed, and the building fell into ruin. Yeah, it's tough, because even if they've got hiking trails, that doesn't make up for everything. Doesn't make it nice. Doesn't make up for all the tender loving care that took place.

Jesus. The whole idea of beauty is therapy. What the fuck happened to that? Yeah. That went away real quick by the sounds of it. The years passed and the building still remained empty. It became a popular spot for urban explorers who would walk through the many wings of the asylum and the dark tunnels below. And while it was abandoned by humans, it wasn't abandoned entirely as Traverse City Asylum went on to become one of the most hauntedly.

locations in Michigan. Okay, wondering what our paranormal connection was, we're getting a sense now. Mm-hmm. Over the years, urban explorers wandering the halls have described a huge number of strange experiences. Dark figures shifting in doorways, disembodied voices echoing through the corridors, and in extreme cases, even seeing the translucent bodies of old patients littered around the building. Wow, imagine. Some psychics who have visited the asylum even claimed to have been able to communicate with patients

who had died there many years ago. Or at the very least, patients who had their balls cut off. And maybe the most worrying part is, it's not just the building itself that's home to all this paranormal activity. There's been a number of ghost sightings underground in the tunnels. Yeah, did I mention this place had tunnels? No, you didn't. Of course it has tunnels. You heard me describe it. Yeah, it's going to have a couple tunnels. You think Mr. Ferguson didn't make a few mistakes with this three-minute lobotomy? They had to build some tunnels. There were some tunnels.

According to some reports, during renovation projects, some construction workers have seen strange figures on the grounds, resulting in a number of them refusing to return to work. That's how bad they're spooked. And if this wasn't enough, The worst is yet to come. Because if you wander the gardens by the asylum, you can find the hippie tree. What? It's the first time I've said that sentence out loud. It's been in the script for a while, but it sounds a little silly when I say out loud. I just feel a little jarred because hippies, okay, I think of them as a bit later on, but I guess that's where we are now.

We are. Is this to do with hippies as we know them? Yes, it is. Guys, long hair, waistcoats. No shirt underneath. Tucked. Jimmy Hendricks. Tucked.

LSD. Tucked deep in the woods behind the asylum. Pachuli. Tucked deep in the woods behind the asylum. Top of the morning, too. Liza, huge dead tree. Painted top to bottom in psychedelic colors. I believe that's why it's called the hippie tree.

Despite its playful name, locals have been worn to stay away, as many have felt an otherworldly and unsettling energy coming from the tree. According to local legend, if you walk in a certain direction around the tree, you can literally open a portal to hell. Whoa, why were the hippies hanging out there then? I have no idea. Yeah, they didn't know that probably.

Now, clearly we know by now that this is a pretty haunted sight. But the big mystery about it today is, what is causing all this paranormal activity to take place? You know, we've talked about some theories before, Kit, stone theory. the idea that traumatic events can be recorded in the very bricks that build a house. We also talk about laylines, paranormal lines that run under the earth, where paranormal activity is heightened in those areas. And also the fact that we're dealing with a place that probably has a lot of troubled spirits

that left this earth in some pretty bad circumstances. Yeah, classic unfinished business type ghosts. We also have a tree that leads to the devil. I don't really know what that's. When ghosts travel, do you think the airline is like, you're traveling for a leisure, business, or unfinished business? Oh, nice. They're probably flying with a spirit airlines.

Hey! Do you think when they go to check in, the people at the desk are like, do you have any baggage? And they're like, yeah, that's why I'm coming back. A lot of people died. All right. Just cool. Kit, you got a lot of questions here today

and I'm happy to say that I might have an answer an answer to what's causing all this demonic activity because on a post because in an online post about the Traverse City Asylum I don't know why going to the internet took me to my surprise and that's the answer to the question

There is a post about the asylum that might answer our questions Kit can you come up with a name a name of an individual to protect their anonymity. Stefan. Stefan said that during their last trip inside, they encountered something that terrified them to the point where they swore off ever returning again.

Around 10pm. Stefan and his buddy, Jason, made their way to the Traverse City Asylum for a little urban exploring. Everything was going great. They entered through the same window they always used and followed their regular path to one the tall jutting spires to sit by the windows that overlooked the city.

But this evening, something was a little different. The two men could smell smoke in the air, strangely, not like a campfire, but instead like incense. As the two men walked down the halls, the smell grew stronger and stronger, until they reached a room with a deep red glow emanating from the doorway. When they reached the room, they audibly gasped. Stefan said Jason gripped his arm so hard, his nails left marks on his skin. In the middle of the room was a large ring of red candles and burning incense, circling a drawing of a pintergram with the sigil of Baphomet.

I didn't know what Baffermatt looked like. Yeah, Bufemette's scary beans. Yeah. Scary business, man. I kind of, I was like, oh, is he, is he like a guy who I guess is like a little? little weird and he has maybe like crazy eyes. It is a goat. What a childlike prediction for what Baphaman would be. I don't know. I assumed he was still a guy. Well, he is a guy, kind of. No, he isn't. A guy with crazy eyes. Yo, he's got, that was your best prediction of what a demon looked like?

He's got a rack on him. Have you seen him recently? Right. Yeah, he got that. He's got like double Ds. He got that implants. Yeah, he is, he's got a lot of things going on here. Goat legs, human body with boobs, goat head, a torch kind of coming up from his head, a lot of pentagrams kind of around him. Yeah, scary looking motherfuck. You don't want him to be in the middle of anything. No, because it seems like they're trying to resurrect him from whence he came.

And I don't know where he went. In the center of the drawing was a dead, bloodied bird, surrounded by black feathers. Stefan said that before they could react, they heard a man's low voice from behind that said, Welcome, friends. Stefan and Jason took off running through the dark halls, the men shouting at them to come back. Come back. Luckily, they'd been through the building so many times they were able to escape even in the dark. Stefan said that when they reached the car, he was so scared that he puked twice in the parking lot.

Who was that? Was it Morpheus? What's up? Believe it or not, Kit, that's not the only testimony of someone experiencing satanic activity at the site. In a much less dramatic post, a user on hauntedplaces.org posted, I lived a block from the state hospital for a year. I was outside one night and I saw what looked like a satanic ritual. It really freaked me out. I watched it for a while, but I got scared and left. That doesn't, how can this place, it doesn't really feel like it's a block from anywhere?

I kind of was picturing, didn't the guy walk 170 miles to get there? Yeah, in 1880 he did. So they built high-rise apartments next door to it? Bro, you're going to find out it basically turned into high-rise apartments now. This person who posted on a hauntedplaces.org, he's like drinking aporil spritz on his balcony of his sixth floor apartment. Yeah. Just like, oh, that's funny. He zooms in on his telescopic phone lens.

Oh, that's funny. You can see another, yeah, they're doing a satanic ritual. Normally they don't do on Wednesdays, but there you go. Yeah, they're so calm. I really love in this post that the way it's worded where they say, I saw what looked like a satanic ritual. I watched it for a while. Then I got scared.

So he's like, he basically saw how much he could take. Yeah. He's like, am I into this? All right, bit sad that they killed a bird. And there's Baphimette coming. in. No, I'm out. I'm out. Nah, I'm tapping out. But this brings us back to the start of our case with our email submission from April. She visited the site of the Traverse City Hospital because, as I said, it's pretty nice now. In recent years, a huge development project essentially rebranded

the place into the village at Grand Traverse Commons, a space filled with stores, restaurants, and brand new condos. Wow, you can live there. Yeah, I. I think you can even rent Airbnb's and, like, stay in the building. That's crazy. Which is really strange, because I've seen pictures of it. And it does look nice. There's, like, shops and stuff. But even in the photos, you're like, yeah, this is an asylum.

Those are asylum walls. Asylum walls are a very specific genre of wall. They're not that hard to spot, I would say. Kind of exposed brick, awkwardly stained and painted over. But you can kind of see that. they're still crooked and weird. We need a new location for the paranormal commune. We start looking into old asylums.

Yeah. That one actually, maybe not even old asylums. If we could just buy a new one, that would help a lot. Yeah. With the kind of people that we have running around. Yeah. I think, you know, because are most of the members of the commune in saying, kinder.

Yeah. And prevention is key. Like, it's just, you know, I think it's best that for whenever they do snap and they will snap that they're already in a straight jacket. Yes. That's important. It's safe to say we don't have a baseball team. That tells you a little bit about the people that are in the commune.

They're not allowed to have bats. We tried it one day and they tried to kill Roy with the bat. Rory tried to be coach and they tried to kill on the spot. Yeah, there was a little tender loving care that day. Well, this lovely new version of the site is, of course, when our listener, April, visited. She said, other than having a weird feeling to it and a mix of everything from broken buildings to a yoga studio, it was pretty normal while we were there and we weren't expecting anything but to wander around the grounds and take photos of the old buildings. The restaurant, Tratoria Stella, spooked us a little bit with their prices,

but the tiramisu and the pizza were absolutely worth it. The old hospital had a few underground tunnels that were open to walk around, which were spooky yet really cool to see. A couple of weird things did happen, though. The first was a dark empty storage room, a little ways down the hall from the basement restaurant. It was a large, open, empty room, yet my friend felt like she got pushed out of it when she walked in.

I felt like there was absolute despair within the darkness. Wow. And I was overcome with the feeling of dread, so I didn't go in very far either. It was a different feeling from the rest of the surrounding area and an unnerving experience. But a dark room in an unfamiliar place can feel ominous to go in for anyone. This just happened to leave us with goosebumps. My friend also saw an orb in one of the restaurant's bathrooms.

Wow. What in the fancy restaurant bathroom? Not even in like a haunted corner or the tunnels or the hippie tree. No, it was by the sinks. I think it was a bubble from the soap dispenser maybe. When my friend looked into the mirror, there was an orb floating at face level that had no explainable origin. Interesting. Wow.

What do you, I want to know more about the orb. I need more details. Yeah, because orbs normally show up on camera, which is why they're most often bullshit. Yeah. Because it's just a kind of trick of the lens. But to see it just on the notch using your own eyes. Yeah. Interesting.

Usually the only kind of unexpected strangers that scare me in the bathroom are whenever you're out at like a bar or a club and they have those guys in there who are trying to like give you cologne and help you wash your hands so that you you tip them yeah i think i've told the story before the weirdest one i've ever seen was when there was a guy and he was like offering the after shave offering the deodorant and then at one point he was just holding it while everyone was washing their hands he was holding up a bottle of bleach and he was like i got bleach here it's good for Ebola. It's good for swine flu. I was like, get me out of here. To wash? To wash your hands with or to drink? I don't know. I wasn't going the way you want, Chief. You can end it here now with me.

That's crazy. She's just not that into you. Come my way. I'm glad. Maybe it still happens in some places. I just don't go to those places anymore. I haven't seen a bathroom guy in a long time. I think I've just aged out of it. Yeah. Okay. I haven't been going to bars lately. It truly is the worst experience. You are right, though. The few bars I have been to, I've been to gigs and bars recently, like in the last couple of years, and you're right, I haven't seen one since. Because I pee like a mother-fitting COVID killed it.

Well, you think they'd make them even better because people should probably be washing their hands. But it's like, but during the time of social distancing, the guy who's like, can I just stand close to everybody? Can I shake your dick after you pee, sir? It's like, yeah, he's first to go. He's not an essential worker at all either. The worst is when, because I was like, I don't need any help. This is so bad. But then you wash your hands and he already starts like, getting all the hand towels ready for you.

You're like, I just have to use this now. Then he'd be like, yeah, there you go, sir. Do you also want a lollipop? Yeah. I'm like, why would I want a bathroom lollip? I'm not a child at the doctors. No, but do you have grape? If you had grape, I'd take a grape.

But obviously, you don't. April goes on. Another interesting experience occurred while we were walking around the grounds, taking pictures of the more dilapidated buildings of the hospital. A groundskeeper came walking through the area and stopped to tell us the story of the hospital and how it had come to be closed due to a lack of funds. At the time, the hospital had no choice but to release its patients out into the grounds. And due to the Michigan winters, many of them died there. No, they didn't. You could have bust them to the nearest town, you maniac. April says, with that interesting tidbit, he wandered away.

He's like, not many survivors, just me basically. He walks off. April says overall, it was a very interesting place with lots of character. One of our photos also came out distorted, for reasons still unknown. I had vivid nightmares about encountering a ghost in the debris and graffiti-filled abandoned buildings that we were taking photos of after we returned home. She did include the photograph that she mentioned that came out, quote unquote, warped. And I didn't really know what to expect when I was looking at it. I was like, all right, you know, you take cameras quickly from different angles.

Sometimes they're going to come out a little bit weird. I've never seen a photo come out like this before. It genuinely is pretty weird. Check this out. What am I looking at? What? This is one of the photos that she took of the building. But is this the whole photo?

I think so. I mean, yeah. I mean, it's extremely warped. I mean, this is what the building would look like if you took the photo out of a moving train. Yeah. You know, that happens. If a camera is moving quickly enough, a digital camera, this is, I can remember what it's called, but there's an artifact where things are bent or misshapen. Yeah.

You'd definitely be moving pretty quickly. You'd be moving the speed of a moving car, for sure. They might have been running away from the groundskeeper when they took this one. Yeah. What Alice in Wonderland ass grounds did she wander into? What is going on? Did you go around the hippie tree, April? We told you not to go around it.

Yeah, I think your phone camera alone has been hitting the devil's cush. It kind of looks like this is a photo taken of a reflection of the building in a car window or something. Yeah. You know, it's super warped and bent. Very, very strange. But that is the end of April's evidence, her story, and our story. journey into the Traverse City Insane Asylum. You can go there now, as I said, it's restaurants and stores and I believe condos where you can stay the night if you are brave enough. It is no longer

open for urban exploring, unfortunately. I love this story because I think it's got a lot of interesting rich history to kind of talk through. A little bit dark at times, but we find ourselves left with the question as to whether or not we believe a place like this can hold on to the memories of the people who live there. And can those memories be brought back in paranormal form? Yes. Well, we have, as we mentioned, covered a few buildings like this. So this feels like familiar territory in that respect. We've covered a few old insane as they were known, old institutions like this. I don't know if any have actually been remodeled as this has. Usually they're kind of just dilapidated and horrible, which makes them,

kind of untouched in a paranormal sense, I guess part of us thinks, well, if the ghosts are residing in the walls, at least the walls haven't been refurbished and replastered and painted and then covered with Burger King, wall-mounted iPads. Yeah.

So is there a difference when a building's been remodeled like this? Does it lose any of that paranormal heritage? I don't know. Certainly we've heard a number of interesting accounts, but it's hard to know. We know that America is a much younger country than over here in Europe. And the buildings follow that trajectory too. Do you think there's any, as the investigator on this, do you think there's any possibility that just the sheer age of a building like this, fair enough,

with some of its miserable history, means that kind of any building of this age is going to be haunted to people? Maybe. I mean, is that the, is that the, The question we're dealing with today, were old-timey buildings built with magic bricks. That's why we were seeing all these old ghosts. And now we're like basically 3D printing houses. Ghosts aren't haunting those anymore. I guess the point I'm making is, you know, it kind of feels like any big building of this era in America is haunted. Yeah.

You know, whereas a building of a similar era here wouldn't even be considered that old in the first place. Would it be considered haunted? Yeah. I think a lot of, I think also just a lot of bad stuff happened in old buildings. big buildings in any kind of developed country. And that's what we're seeing today. This place, even though it was widely regarded at times as being quite progressive, there was still a lot of very bad shit that went down inside of those walls.

And I think that is the main theory is that that kind of evil and sadness and darkness is coming back in the form of ghosts and spirits. Or also you have this other theory where it's like they weren't coming back. until people came and started performing rituals inside the walls. That's why there's paranormal activity, because multiple people, as they said today, have allegedly seen occultists or Satanists performing rituals inside of the asylum,

which is probably conjuring up, stirring the pot of the paranormal. Definitely possible, although it does remind me of my investigation into the paranormal history of Led Zeppelin. And a lot of that circled around the guitarist, Jimmy Page's fascination with the occult and with some version of Satanism and these old mystical symbols and things. And we came away from that with a sense that we get from a lot of

Satanist-inspired stories where the problem with Satanism is it's kind of a one-way street. Just because you have a weird guy who draws circles on the floor or in Jimmy Page's case has mystical old devil symbols drawn on his. amplifiers on stage, doesn't mean the devil's picking up the phone. Yeah. It's kind of a one-way street. It's like, it's very cool for our story. Yeah.

But there was like summoning circles. Did any, was anything summoned? Yeah. I can technically DM Sidney today on Instagram. Doesn't mean she's writing back, you know? If paranormal investigators were looking for evidence of Sidney Sweeney and Rory's life, Rory could wear the t-shirt of a Sidney Swinney poster in the wall be damn and or 15 times a day. Uh-oh.

The EMF reader that detects Sydney Sweeney is at a zero in Rory's life in his apartment, in his car. There is no traces anywhere. We are not testing positives for the Sweeney. Yeah, yeah. So just because you see Sainess doesn't mean, as you said, there's any actual paranormal activity. Yeah, much like the Sydney-Sweeney analogy, the D. devil doesn't know these guys exist. It seems like Kit, we are kind of on the same page here for today's conclusion.

I'm happy to go first to know from me today. Yikes. Yeah, I don't know if we have any evidence of the paranormal here, physical or otherwise. So that is presumably going to be a double no on today's episode. Thank you so much, though, April, for emailing that in. Unfortunately, as we have concluded, you're a liar. probably a thief. You're banned.

No, no, no. No, no. Because nothing she said was she didn't say like, oh, I saw a ghost. There's a really pretty tree actually around the back. All right, come on. Why don't you run around that a couple times? And when a fiery hole opens up, hop right in there. Hop right in there.

And that's where you belong. I would go as far to say. She actually has been the most helpful person to suggest the case in years because she gave us evidence, a full story, first-hand testimonial. A case we'd never heard of, did a great job. I just deleted her from Patreon. All right, great.

She's gone. So she's a patron as well, supporting us financially for years. She'd actually given us, like, quite a bit of money over the years, which was amazing. It's like I deleted her and like our Patreon dropped by a zero. So I don't know how much she was paying us. What the fuck? Yeah, it must have been quite a lot. Yeah, sounds like it.

Shit. I probably should have checked out before I did it. April, get in touch. There might be a way to, like, still ban you, but maybe you could just send me the money, like, in an envelope. or something. That could work also. I don't know if I'm hungry, but since she mentioned Tiramisu, that's kind of where I've been mentally living. I've kind of been mentally in a little miniature pot with cream and kind of coffee and dusted chocolate on top. Yeah, I could have got Kit to say yes, probably, if I littered more references to Tiramisu in the podcast. Probably. Um,

but hey, there we have it. The end to our investigation into the Traverse City Insane Asylum. Thank you for submitting this. It only took us two years to cover it, but that's why it's worth emailing in your suggestions right now to this paranormal life podcast at gmail.com. So in two years, we can cover your stories. This part of my life's waiting lists are worse than an NHS hip replacement. This takes four years to get your case seen. Yeah, this is not a three-minute lobotomy. This is a two-year email response. But we're methodical. We don't make mistake. When we get around to the case, there are no mistakes, unlike the lobotomy. Kit, let's say hypothetically I was a big fan of this show.

Like, I don't know, say A-list actress Sidney-Sweeney. Where would I go to get more? Where would I go to get more of it? Right. Rory's DMs replied, you would just, if you're Siddy Swinney, I mean, you're clearly harassing her. It's fine to do that. You would just, no, it's not all. I meant, yeah, I also don't want to joke about it because we did one silly joke, one

that involved DMing me. And I got so many DMs that my phone almost exploded. So don't do that, please. Don't do that. Go to patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. Speaking of, yes, Sidney, I like the people are saying that with the Pope. Because the new Pope is American, people feel Americans naturally feel closer culturally to him than the previous Pope.

And because he's, I guess, a little bit younger. I think there's been rumors trickling out that he plays Wordle. And it's like, great, we've got a Pope who plays Wordle. Hell yeah. You know, I believe he's from Chicago. So Midwesterners are pleased. He's definitely eating a hot dog. Yeah.

Which is pretty cool. I think he's big into, oh, he's big into, yeah, it's either baseball or basketball. He's a fan. I can't remember which one. And, you know, some Chicagoites were wondering, he's from Chicago. Has he listened to Chief Keefe? Do we have a Pope? The official emissary of God.

God on Earth has he listened to Sosa by Chief Keefe? We don't know. These are the questions that we ask at the beginning of the episodes. And this is, you know, and that's where my head goes. You know, has Sidney Sweeney heard a Patreon bonus episode? Unlikely, but technically possible. Technically possible. You never know.

They say you're only like three steps away from people, right? Right. The three degrees of separation type thing. That's the one. Yeah, exactly. Every human is connected by only. three. I think I saw that the Rizzler was only three degrees from the Pope. I saw that. The Riller's only three degrees away from Hitler.

Patreon.com is the best place that you can go to get a bunch of awesome extra content, including bonus episodes, after parties, exclusive merchandise. And that's where people heard firsthand that we were going on tour this year in August. That's right. August 20, 25 is when we are docking on the beautiful, shores like our Irish ancestors before us. Not really our ancestors pretty much stayed here. Actually, I do have one ante in Eastern Canada. She left. We are docking. Yeah, baby. A North America hitting nine dates across the United States of America and one in Canada, in Toronto. It's going to be fantastic. It's going to be twice the size of our US tour last time. Yes.

And we simply cannot wait. This paranormalLife.com to get your tickets. At the time of recording, I don't know if our UK and Ireland dates have gone live yet, but they are imminent if they're not out already. But this paranormal life.com is always the place to get tour tickets. We're going to be performing in abandoned asylums all across the great country of America. Cannot wait for that. Head on number to patreon.com forward slash this paranormal to join the Patreon and This ParanormalLife.com and you can see the tour tab and get some tickets to the live shows. Thank you so much once again, April, for emailing this one in. Thank you to everyone for listening to this episode of TPL.

And of course, we will be back next week with another paranormal tale. Bye-bye!