A Haunting in Rural Arkansas

Location: Woodruff County Hospital, McCrory, AR

Date: November 21, 2017

Two nights before Thanksgiving five of us met up at an abandoned hospital in rural Arkansas to investigate claims of some very active spirits at the old Woodruff County Hospital. The hospital dates back to the 1960s, and has also been used as a nursing/rehabilitation center. In recent years the building has been mostly vacant, but a portion of it has been kept in use by a local farmer, Mr. S. Peebles, as temporary housing for migrant field workers.

Photo courtesy of S. Peebles

Over the summer Don received a photo that was taken by a worker staying at the hospital.  The photo appears to contain a partial body apparition of a woman reflected in a window. The workers reported seeing this woman as well as a man in what appeared to be a white doctor’s coat and a young boy in the portion of the building they were using. At first these encounters were so frightening that many of the workers avoided the building. When the harvest season ended and the workers moved out of the building for the winter, we decided to see if we could find any evidence to validate these stories.

Green haze in the break room. 

We stayed at the building for only a few hours, but we got some interesting results in that short time. In particular, we had quite a bit of activity in the wing that was most recently inhabited, especially at the end of the hall near the nurses’ station. Photos taken in this area of the building often contained a green haze that didn’t appear elsewhere. At least three of us had our flashlights turned on and off in this hall, and on two separate occasions, John’s flashlight was turned off and he was unable to turn in back on for at least a minute. Beverly felt something tap her on the hand while standing at the nurses’ station during one of these flashlight episodes.

Fast moving orb in the gift shop.

At one point, while in the old gift shop, Mitch saw an orb coming towards him on his camera screen. He was able to snap a photo of it as it flew past him towards the ceiling. He captured only one other orb, and it appeared in the hallway near a room that was fairly active. The room was located  down the hall from the break room where the apparition was first photographed. On more than one occasion during the night we heard noises coming from this room, such as metal chairs clinking, but we could never find the source.  Beverly noted some higher EMF readings in this room, and her flashlight was also turned on and off multiple times in this room.

Second orb captured in hallway between break room and nurses' station.

We captured three EVPs during our time at the hospital. The first occurred only about 20 minutes into the investigation. When we arrived, the hospital was open so all of us besides John went inside to walk around and scope out the building while we waited for Mr. Peebles to arrive and give us a quick rundown on the place. When Mr. Peebles arrived we went to meet him, and as we walked down the hall towards him, Mitch and Don fell behind while shutting down the audio recorder. While they were looking for the power button on our newest recorder, a female voice is heard very loudly saying “Hey, Hey”. Just before the very clear “Hey, Hey,” another voice can be heard saying something like “good God.” Given the circumstances, it sounded like the female voice may have been greeting Mr. Peebles, but we can’t be sure.

It’s also worth noting that while all of this occurred, John was standing outside by the car. Just before we started back down the hall to meet Mr. Peebles, John said he could see our flashlights in the windows at the opposite end of the building, but he also saw something else – a tall shadow figure standing at the closest entrance of the building.

Green haze in the hallway. 

The second EVP was captured while Mitch and Don were off on their own exploring some of the older portions of the building. After Don turned off the “Ghost Box” they had been using, he inquired whether anyone was there and wanted to talk now that the room was quieter. A very breathy voice whispered what sounds like “help me.”

The final EVP was caught during a rather active part of the evening. We had all gathered near the nurses’ station after Don walked down there alone and something started turning off his flashlight. As we were standing there, we noticed that the heavy tarp blocking off the older wings of the building from the recently used wing was moving. Although the movement was most likely explained by a draft or difference in air temperature between areas, it caught our attention at one point in particular when Mitch pulled the tarp out about a foot to see what would happen. Rather than gently falling back into place as it had been doing, the tarp was jerked backwards in a several quick motions. During this incident, John wandered back down the hall towards the breakroom alone. About halfway down the hall his flashlight was shut off and wouldn’t turn back on. He could hear movement down the hall but wasn’t able to see what it was without his light. At the same time, a male voice said “Hey, folks” and then laughter can be heard. These voices were coming from the far end of the hall where John had heard movement, because they were also picked up much more faintly on a second recorder that was located around the corner from this hall.

While we didn’t personally encounter the apparitions that workers had lived with all summer, we did get enough activity to convince us that some of the building’s old inhabitants seem to still be around.

All of these EVPs can be heard in the clip below. 

Hayley.

Upcoming Investigation in Arkansas

The team will be conducting an investigation this fall at the old Woodruff County Hospital in McCrory, Arkansas. Not much is known about the history of the facility at this point - the building was operated as a hospital since the 1960s or 1970s and later became a nursing home under the name John Davis Woodruff Center. The building has been out of use for the past few years.

This location was brought to our attention this summer when an acquaintance leased the facility. He provided the photo below, which was taken in one of the break rooms at the hospital and appears to show a partial-body apparition in the glass. This is just one of the many encounters that have occurred at the hospital since it was leased. When the weather cools down we look forward to spending some time at the facility and learning about its long-term residents.

Photo Courtesy of S. Peebles.

Recent Residential Investigation

Not long ago, a local resident approached us about investigating some occurrences at his house.  The homeowner said he believed the house was haunted—so haunted, he said, that his wife (who was actually the house’s owner) had moved out and refused to return. Whatever it was, she said, was suffocating her and hurting her.

We didn’t know much about the house’s history, only that it was built in the seventies and its only other occupants had been an older couple.  The wife had died while they were living in the house, but we aren’t positive she died in the house; the husband left shortly after she was gone.  

So we approached this investigation with little certainty of who might be disturbing the resident and his wife.  Could it be the old wife?  Or could it be something that was following the resident’s wife?

We did not bring all our equipment.  There were three of us, more than enough to cover a fairly small house, and we thus did not feel it was necessary to set up an alarming amount of electronics.  

My parents primarily used voice recorders, and I set about taking pictures.  

Ultimately, the house proved itself occupied by something.

We gathered the following pieces of evidence during our investigation: I captured orbs in three photographs.

The first orb is a smudge of what looks like light in motion, moving across the front of the TV cabinet in the living room.  



The second is more significant.  About halfway through the investigation, the resident’s wife and her daughter showed up to see if they could put on display some of the occurrences that had been taking place.  We went back to the master bedroom with them, because we had felt it was the most disturbed room in the house, and the resident’s wife confirmed this as well.  While we were standing in this room with voice recorders, attempting to communicate with her tormentor, I took a picture that revealed a very clear orb hovering just over her head.

The third orb was captured during similar circumstances.  Close to the end of the investigation, my dad was standing in the living room with a voice recorder asking the presence about a theory the resident’s family had come up with: that the old wife had died of a stroke.  During this question session, I took a few pictures…  And in one of them, directly in front of my dad, was the largest and clearest orb of the night.  

The last piece of evidence we captured was shortly after this, as we were all gathered around the dining table with a voice recorder, attempting to communicate with the presence one last time.  We assured the presence that if it really was the old wife, we now understood what she’d gone through, and she would see her husband soon if she would go on.  We then told her goodbye…  And we captured a very clear word, “Bye,” on the voice recorder that was not spoken by any of the people at that table.

Does this prove our theory was right?  No.  But it does prove that something was there, listening to us, attempting to communicate with us.  
And maybe now it’s gone.