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Haunted Jails & Prisons

escargot1 said:
Details, please.
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The atmosphere was totally horrible. At a supranatural feel/taste/smell level (beyond the indelible physical marks that will never bleach away).

Some of us elected not to enter the Hanging Cell at all, and I wish I'd stayed with them in the landing corridor (nb I am not squeamish....I've worked briefly in pathology labs in the past, and seen some seriously-nasty things in my life). There was also the option not to go into the drop itself, or the slab area, but I went along with the group.

Very difficult to describe the low energy. And I'm certain (well, no surprise to say, really) that this had a black atmosphere way way beyond just the pre-conditioned autosuggestion self-illusion. This place made the Chair scenes from The Green Mile look like a Disneyland backlot.

I would nearly hesitate to recommend anyone actuallly going to The Crum for a visit. Because going there maybe educates you just a little chunk too much.

Probably in the same way that when my youngsters went to Auschwitz as part of an educational trip, I couldn't bring myself to entirely-endorse the idea at all. It's not a case of such visits trivialising death: I simply happen to think that some caskets are indisputably best left unopened. We've become societally-desensitised, in so many ways, via far too many stimulii.

Bring back real revulsion, true fear and as much visceral rejection as possible (where/ when appropriate)
 
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Does anyone remember seeing a programme when they were in an old prison in the U.K. I think it might have been underground. But you saw a young girl very briefly and then she was gone. It might have been an early Most Haunted or something. I don't think they actually mentioned it. I don't really believe it was real but it was very good. I just wondered if anyone remembered it, it was some years back.
 
It's probably not a question with a very nice answer, but what would a little girl be doing in a prison? Pity they didn't address that.
 
Well back in the day they didn't care who they threw in there I suppose. The girl phantom was never mentioned. Which was odd but I suspect it was just to make us believe we'd seen something they hadn't.

Edit: I can't even find out what prison/gaol it might have been.
 
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I'm not quite sure whether this fits in this thread - but it is a military prison haunting and I couldn't find a thread about haunted prisons using the search, so... Mods, as ever, feel free to move this somewhere more appropriate.:)

Spandau prison in west Berlin was, famously, where the 'Spandau Seven' were incarcerated, with Rudolf Hess being the last prisoner remaining, until his suicide in 1987.

There are a number of tales on the internet about Sanger 3, the most isolated of the five watchtowers that surrounded the prison. From this link:

I met the Fusilier guard commander at the prison. His account filled me with a little apprehension. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, sustained shooting had been heard from one of the watchtowers. It was eventually established that it came from Tower 3. All the towers were connected to the guardroom by telephone, but the commander had been unable to get a response from the sentry in Tower 3. Not knowing what he might encounter, he went to the tower and called the sentry; still no response. Sentries were locked into their towers, so unlocking the door, climbing the steel ladder to the trap door above, throwing back the bolt, he had cautiously lifted it. He found the sentry slumped on the floor in one corner unable to speak or move, but physically unscathed. With some difficulty he was removed from the tower and taken to the British Military Hospital. For reasons thus far unknown, he had fired 12 rounds from the 20 round magazine on his SLR through the brick parapet of his tower.

The traumatised Fusilier took several days to recover and claimed that he had seen a figure coming towards him. The figure failed to respond to a challenge to halt, so he opened fire. Part of the parapet had to be rebuilt.
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And a post by "Brotherton Lad" on the arrse.co.uk message board (a thread called "Ghost Stories you've heard in the Forces" which provides a possible explanation for the haunting here.

Sangar no. 3 had the reputation of being haunted by the ghost of a French soldier who had dropped a blow-back SMG by the butt on the floor, thus killing himself.
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Another account of a sentry firing at a figure in his watchtower (maybe Sanger 3 or may not be. It might even be another account of the incident above) can be found here.

The watchtowers around this forbidding prison with its solitary guest were manned by lone guards, and their long hours of isolation were made more uncomfortable by talk that Spandau was haunted. Guard duty was rotated month by month between American, British, French and Soviet soldiers, and it was a British Army soldier who, one freezing night in the 1980s, supposedly sensed an eerie presence in his watchtower. Turning around, he saw a soldier staring silently at him. He challenged the intruder twice and, upon receiving no reply, fired three shots into the figure, which vanished into the night air.
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This thread is being established to contain postings relating to hauntings at places of incarceration / imprisonment.
 
Morning peeps tv shows and ghosts/poltergeists did any one see secret Scotland with susan calman.
She went to Kinross where the witch trails were held and up into the tower. Then there was a loud bang and she started feeling very emotional genuinely spooky I think.
About 28 minutes in. She had to get out of the room pretty quick after that
 
MorningAngel said:
It might have been an early Most Haunted or something. I don't think they actually mentioned it. I don't really believe it was real but it was very good. I just wondered if anyone remembered it, it was some years back.
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I have a similar memory. Hmmmmmm.

Maybe whatever the series was with William Woolard?
 
I've had a few abnormal managers but never a paranormal one!

Ghost of 'agitated' woman caught on camera at Bodmin Jail​

She is 'the kind of woman to avoid' said Bodmin Jail's paranormal manager

.

In the dark corridors of Cornwall's old jail, the 'ghost' of an agitated woman lurks menacingly.
Wandering around the grimy cells of Bodmin Jail, the apparition often reveals itself to visitors, who have reported feeling unsafe in her presence.
She was caught on camera by the jail's paranormal manager Kirsten Honey.
Read more: Ghost ship vanished like smoke at Porthcurno beach
"I think it is an old woman described as the hag often seen within the walls of Bodmin Jail. She doesn’t reside in one spot she wanders through the corridors," Kirsten said.
"Other people have witnessed her and felt fear or unsafe with her - she resonates a very uncomfortable feeling.

"She is extremely agitated and grumpy and would be the kind of woman to avoid."
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https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/ghost-agitated-woman-caught-camera-5545082
 
Bigphoot2 said:
I've had a few abnormal managers but never a paranormal one!


https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/ghost-agitated-woman-caught-camera-5545082
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Me and my wife had an odd experience at Bodmin Jail about five years ago. When I was inside I kept on feeling unbalanced and giddy, I remember placing my hand on the wall because I thought I was going to fall. Then I thought uneven flooring and semi darkness is probably the explanation. But even in the parts of the jail with level flooring the feeling didn’t stop.
I didn’t say anything to my wife about how I had felt and as we were leaving she said to me that she felt really uncomfortable inside the prison and felt giddy as if she was going to fall over. We were glad to leave.
 
[I've not yet been to Bodmin Jail, but have been over lots of Bodmin Moor: a really atmospheric and odd place, as is the mountain Brown Willy itself (which as an indigenous Scot, I feel is barely a hill)... and no sign for me of the eponymous 'Beast of Bodmin', or any other 'ABCs']

But I have been to Inverary Jail (just a brief 600 miles hike north of Bodmin, up into Argyll, Scotland)- and that's a seriously spooky place. Although I remain frustratedly-unwowed by one of the few pictures allegedly-capturing one of the jail's supernatural prisoners.....(and no, I don't remember what the silver bell was for)

Is this a Ghost?
A snapshot taken by a visitor to Inveraray Jail in Argyll has fuelled debate over whether the almost 200-year-old year old court house and prison is haunted.
The jail, which is recognized as one of the spookiest places in Scotland, is a popular destination for paranormal investigators, including the team for tv’s Most Haunted, who spent a night at the jail earlier this month.
Over the years many visitors to the former prison by the side of Loch Fyne in Argyll have complained of uneasy feelings, strange noises and, in some cases, taken photographs which later show unexplained images.
As the County Court anyone from the surrounding area sentenced to prison or transportation would have spent time in the jail where children as young as seven could be detained for minor crimes and subjected to whippings or pointless manual labour.
“The place in the prison that most people react to is cell 10. It doesn’t tend to be something people see so much as a feeling they get there. During the height of the X Files days we used to call it Cell X for obvious reasons,” said Gavin Dick, manager of Inveraray Jail.
“In the kitchen, which is in many ways the most unremarkable room we have had people sense that there’s someone cowering behind the door. There are various areas that cause reactions, and not just on ghost hunts.”
One woman, who visited the jail with her husband and young daughter, complained of having sensed an ‘unsettling presence’ in the prison and was surprised to discover a blurred image in one of her photographs which she didn’t notice when the picture was taken.
”We found the jail very interesting but for myself very scary,” she wrote to prison staff after the event
”I felt really ill in the old jail. As soon as I walked in my chest tightened and I felt very sick and dizzy.
”I felt as if someone was with us all the way round and was watching us. I couldn’t wait to get out
”When we got back to our guest house we looked at our photos and to our amazement there is a misty figure standing between the airing cells [in the court yard].
”We cannot explain things but we felt very strange. There is definitely something there. If we were uneasy in the daytime what must it be like at night in the pitch black?”
A recent event at Inveraray Jail, organised by paranormal research team Ghost Finders Scotland, uncovered what they believe to be good examples of Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP).
EVP, made famous in the film White Noise starring Michael Keaton, are electronic recordings that reveal sounds resembling words which many paranormal investigators interpret as the voices of ghosts.
George Allison, 61, a works manager from Glasgow, who took part in a recent ghost hunt at Inveraray jail is convinced he caught a voice on tape.
“People were talking about a ghost which had been running about in the corridor poking people in the back. When I asked if there was anyone there, and if they had hit someone, we could clearly hear a voice say ‘yes, I have’ when the tape was played back.”
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mystery%2Bjail%2Bpic.jpg

https://pressreleases.responsesource.com/news/47964/mystery-image-fuels-debate-over-jail-ghosts/
 
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I have been dragged, kicking and screaming, to a commercial ghost hunt at Oxford castle and prison in September. Not looking forward to it.
 
Lancaster Castle is said to be very haunted, it was a active jail until a few years back,
I have been locked in the condemned cell in total poke yourself in the eye darkness
but saw or felt nothing, after a hanging the body was lowered into a small courtyard
I never got to go in there but it was said no one even the hardest of prisoners liked
going there 213 were hanged . Think they do tours now I would not mind going
back if I could have a walk in that courtyard, it was a active jail when I was there and
even though it is more or less in the centre of Lancaster it was unwise to leave your
car there, the road outside was covered in glass were the visitors would turn up in a
nicked car then on the way out rob or nick another car to go home in, "shakes head
and carries on"
:omr:
 
RaM said:
Lancaster Castle is said to be very haunted, it was a active jail until a few years back,
I have been locked in the condemned cell in total poke yourself in the eye darkness
but saw or felt nothing, after a hanging the body was lowered into a small courtyard
I never got to go in there but it was said no one even the hardest of prisoners liked
going there 213 were hanged . Think they do tours now I would not mind going
back if I could have a walk in that courtyard, it was a active jail when I was there and
even though it is more or less in the centre of Lancaster it was unwise to leave your
car there, the road outside was covered in glass were the visitors would turn up in a
nicked car then on the way out rob or nick another car to go home in, "shakes head
and carries on"
:omr:
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We visited Lancaster Gaol/Court a few years ago and took the tour, fascinating.

Our guide was a tall eloquent very obviously Goth court usher wearing boots with silver decorations and mirror shades on top of his head holding back long jet black hair. :cool:

He knew his stuff! :D
 
escargot said:
Our guide was a tall eloquent very obviously Goth court usher wearing boots with silver decorations and mirror shades on top of his head holding back long jet black hair. :cool:
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I think I am in LURVE!!!!!!
 
escargot said:
He was gorgeous and highly articulate. Probably late 20s.
I bet he was a law MA student moonlighting as an usher/guide. :wink2:
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yup. Definitely LUUUUURVE! :loveu:
 
This is Old Melbourne Gaol in Victoria, Australia. Now a tourist attraction (and a good one at that) and best known as the place where our most notorious bush ranger, Ned Kelly was hanged.
My wife and I took a ghost tour there 3 years ago and it certainly has a sinister feeling to the place.
Here's a few pics including the gallows:

melb1.jpg


melb2.jpg


melb3.jpg
 
Lord Lucan said:
This is Old Melbourne Gaol in Victoria, Australia. Now a tourist attraction (and a good one at that) and best known as the place where our most notorious bush ranger, Ned Kelly was hanged.
My wife and I took a ghost tour there 3 years ago and it certainly has a sinister feeling to the place.
Here's a few pics including the gallows:

View attachment 41795

View attachment 41796

View attachment 41797
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l’d imagine that the “Exit” sign is new…

maximus otter
 
We did the tour at Alcatraz many years ago. The atmosphere there was sad rather than spooky. But then I suppose they didn't execute people there, just incarcerated them.
 
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