From its inception in 1908 to its closing in 1973, literally thousands have gone through the gates of the Arkansas Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Booneville.When Judge Hill, Dr. Meriwether, and Senator Oldham met with then-governor George W. Donahey to present the plans for the Sanatorium, it was thought the mountain location and fresh air would be beneficial to the recovery of the infected.Between 1956 and1958, there were 3,958 patients admitted for observation and treatment. The Sanatorium was built and designed to be a self-sufficient community having Doctors offices, patient housing, chapel, cafeteria, water supply, fire department, and more.
During its peak in the early 1900s, Tuberculosis had a fatality rate of about 80 percent and many of those who passed through the gates in hopes of treatment or a cure passed on instead to another existence. The Sanatorium has been considered one of the State’s most active paranormal hotspots for many years.
Source: Reflection of Five Decades of Service, a History of the Arkansas Tuberculosis Sanatorium 1909-1959.
Notes:
Groups arrived at the Nyberg building Saturday at 7:00pm and after introductions and a background briefing, we all went through a walkthrough of the facility. Following that, the teams were assembled and given times for each floor so as to avoid confusion and contaminating the collection of data. The investigation ran until approximately 3:30am.
Evidence:
We captured numerous EVPs coming from all the floors and the basement (with the exception of the first floor). We took hundreds of photographs and over 40 hours of video and audio taping from multiple sources. Several groups conducted experiments, one with a mobile head mounted cam, one with a box using thermal communication for yes/no answers, and another creating a video HQ with cams simultaneously connected to various floors and locations via coaxial cabling. EVP listed below.
Personal Experiences:
Chuck (ESAPI): There were a lot of personal experiences that night involving many different members and groups. Highlights included doors on the fifth floor opening or shaking multiple times (one incident caught in a series of photos), audible sounds (one incident was like a tiny sounding music box), and cold spots felt in the same area by several teams. In the case of the cold spots, two different teams from different groups verified the cold spots by both personal experience and thermo coupler readings.In the basement a shadow was spotted, and quite a few EVPs were captured before and after the sighting.
Lori (APRA): Dave, Lori and Silvia were on the 5th floor at approximately 2:00 a.m. "We were sitting in the hall with our voice recorders running. Silvia and I began commenting on how cold it had gotten, all of a sudden (this is caught on the recorder).my ( Lori’s) walkie-talkie let out a deep growling sound which all three of us heard. Dave checked his walkie-talkie because we were curious why his didn’t make the same sound (Dave can be heard undoing the Velcro on his holder). Dave’s channel had changed to 22 – everyone had set their walkie-talkies to channel 1 upon arriving at Booneville."
Shortly after this Mindy, Nathan and Rick M. arrived on the 5th floor. Mindy had heard the same sound on her walkie-talkie as they were coming up the stairwell. Upon checking, Nathan discovered his walkie-talkie had also changed to channel 22.
Several other members also noted their walkie-talkies had switched to channel 22.
Upon reviewing the recording, we heard another EVP immediately after Dave unstraps his walkie-talkie. This was not heard by any of us on the 5th floor at the time.
