My first ghost hunt

I’m a skeptic. When it comes to spirits, death, religion, or any other metaphysical topic it’s going to take some real proof to convince me. I like to think I’m a man of logic and science. But as I think any good skeptic should be, I want to be proven wrong. I can be a believer if there is reason to believe something in the first place. Belief comes from experience so when the chance came to go ghost hunting, I said why not?

A beautiful building

What started off as a good sized group of friends ended up being four that drove to the Mansfield Reformatory in Ohio, where, besides the hauntings, movies such as the Shawshank Redemption and Air Force One have been filmed. The buildings are gorgeous old stone that could survive a bombing. Great architecture both inside and out. The prison held prisoners starting in 1910 and was in service until 1990 when it was shutdown and then not long after was turned into a tourist & ghost hunting location. Money collected from the tours goes back into restoring the prison.

There were probably around 100 people there that night to search the old prison. Some of them were casual folks like us and some were completely hardcore with more gear and equipment than people other than the real Ghost Hunters should probably have. There were a couple of hunt groups there too, all with t-shirts. I saw a group from Chicago and Michigan. One worry we had before we got there was the number of people. We figured the ghosts would be “scared” by the number of people, not to mention any sounds or movements detected could easily be written off as just someone walking down the hall. And while that did happen frequently, due to the sheer size of the facility we were able to not get tangled in a crowd.

Cell block wing

The first thing we did was take a guided tour. The guide took us around to all the cell blocks and other locations, telling us ghost stories about each one. The guide seemed like a normal dude too, he wasn’t all ghost nerded out or anything, and while his stories were well told I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. If you go into any situation looking for something that may or may not exist, chances are you’ll find it because you want to, not because you got any hard proof. A few people swore they heard ghost sounds and responses but I didn’t hear or see a thing.

But that’s OK because the best and most fun part about the hunt was just exploring. The prison was huge so there were lots of nooks and crannies and rooms to check out. I’ll admit that the whole place was super creepy once it went dark, but at no time did I feel I was in any danger - and I don’t mean ghost danger, but building danger. The group maintaining the jail have done an incredible job at keeping the place from falling apart. You could walk in almost any jail cell or room you wanted, climb as a high as you want, or as low as you want. The layout was often confusing but I knew that all the jail cells were just big loops, so you would always end up back at the starting point. Fear of getting lost was thus not a problem either.

We spent time alone in a few locations that were supposidly hot with ghost action but they failed to produce anything to make be question anything. In all honesty, just about every room that wasn’t a jail cell was very comfortable. I could have slept in any one of the rooms in the “mansion” part of the prison, where the wardens and officials spent their time. It was quiet, comfy, and the weather that night was perfect - not sweaty hot and not shiver cold.

See any ghosts?

We took photos of rooms as we wandered and I even Twittered finds throughout the night. Looking at the photos now I still don’t see anything that suggests any sort of anomaly. Maybe ghosts just don’t like Twitter. Sorry ghosts. You can check out the photos yourself and let us know if you see anything.

I could have kept exploring the prison but after five hours we had to come home. The whole night started at 8p Saturday and we left around 12:30p Sunday morning so we could get home and mind our pups before they freaked out too hard. The drive to Mansfield was about two hours and a straight shot up the freeway. I would have no problems going there again and exploring some more. Just the historical aspect of the prison is fascinating enough to keep you wandering around. Of course, if we had stayed any longer and found a nice cozy room to sit and wait for ghosts, I probably would have fallen asleep and missed it anyway. Of course, if ghosts existed and wanted to let me know, they would just wake me up.

And don’t miss our 4/30 CAVEradio show, we’ll be discussing our experience!