Fright Investigations

Case #5: Eastern State Penitentiary

* Did the paranormal activity begin after the Hodgson girls play with a ouija board?

Yes, at least according to the real Janet Hodgson, who says that she and her sister Margaret played with a Ouija board just before the start of the supernatural activity.

* Did dozens of crosses in the house turn upside down?

No, that was only portrayed in The Conjuring 2.

* There are real recordings in which Janet can be heard conveying a message via a guttural voice that supposedly belonged to an old man who had died in the living room of the house several years before the events. According to those recordings, how did the man die?

"Just before I died, I went blind," said the voice, "and then I had a hemorrhage and I fell asleep and I died in the chair in the corner downstairs."

With its looming, gloomy high stone walls, crumbling corridors, and narrow cells that once housed thousands of hardened criminals, Eastern State Penitentiary made it to the top of the list of the most haunted places in the USA. Its 191-year history is full of suicide, madness, disease, murder, and torture made it easy to imagine the spirits of troubled souls left behind to roam its abandoned halls.

Eastern State Penitentiary opened its doors in Philadelphia in 1829. Prisoners were kept in strict solitary confinement, forbidden to speak to anyone but the chaplain and cellblock guards. Over the years, gangsters such as Al Capone and 'Slick Willie' Sutton called Eastern State home, and many of them made headlines trying to escape.

The harsh punishments used on prisoners are enough to make you shiver even without seeing a ghost. Prisoners spent 23 hours a day in their cells with only two, half-hour exercise breaks. Every two weeks, they were taken from their cells to bathe—but were forced to wear hoods so they couldn't see where they were going or catch a glimpse of another inmate. Prisoners caught speaking were swiftly punished. Some were left in a dark cell and fed bread and water, while others were confined to a straitjacket and gagged.

Not surprisingly, the penitentiary has been studied extensively for paranormal activity and it was featured on the Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures and Most Haunted Live, Syfy's Ghost Hunters, and MTV's Fear. Dozens of paranormal researchers visit every year and report that it's a hub of supernatural activity. One of the tour guides even said, "It's a lot harder to find a believer than it is to find a skeptic here. We at Eastern State do not claim that the prison is haunted. We run a ."

In 1970, after multiple riots, major escapes, and thousands of more prisoners than the penitentiary had been originally constructed to handle, Eastern State closed its doors.

Today, the penitentiary is a fascinating, preserved ruin that turned into a historic landmark and attraction.

Now, it's time for the new fright investigation. Tag your friends and invite them to the investigation.

There are many stories of eerie experiences told by visitors, staff, guards, and inmates that have corroborated each other since the 1940s. Only one of the stories listed below is completely wrong, which one is it?

1. A visitor claimed that he heard scratching and wailing noises coming out one of the stark cells. They later discovered that a prisoner committed suicide within the walls of that same cell.

2. Cellblock 12 is known for echoing voices and cackling; Cellblock 6 for shadowy figures darting along the walls; Cellblock 4 for visions of ghostly faces.

3. Many people have reported seeing a silhouette of a guard in one of the towers.

4. A man who was helping maintain the crumbling old locks at the prison claimed that once, a foreign force gripped him so tightly that he was unable to move. He said tormented faces appeared on the cell walls and that one form beckoned to him.