by Groff, Nick
As soon as I walked in there, I felt on edge. This was the second location we filmed, though it was the first to air. The reason for the switch was because of all the insane activity that happened. This place got personal really fast.
Though we were still new at Ghost Adventures, I had been on enough paranormal investigations to know that you can sit for hours with nothing happening. Bobby Mackey’s wasn’t like that. This place was active the entire night. I was wiped out by the end just trying to keep up with everything.
Even when I was taking a short break something happened. We knew from talking to witnesses that people had been assaulted in the men’s room in previous years, but you don’t think about that when you have to piss, you know? As I walked into the bathroom, suddenly I heard a loud bang that sent me running out. When we went back in with cameras, it happened again. My heart was racing the entire night. It’s so rare that things happen in the same spot just as you’re watching—that’s somehow more frightening than experiencing the paranormal in a place you don’t expect.
After the strange banging sound in the bathroom, Zak started provoking just outside the men’s room. He yelled at whatever entity might be listening when he suddenly felt a burning sensation down his back. When he lifted his shirt, we could see three scratch marks! Holy shit was the only thing I could think at this point. Banging noises and seeing shadows are passive. It happens in the building, you know? Getting scratched is a physical assault. It occurred to me for the first time that what we were doing might put me in danger. It was incredible enough that we’d already captured the banging and the scratches on camera. But there was more to come.
Down by the old well, we caught a shadow figure on camera. You have to understand that any one of these events is a once-in-a-lifetime capture for a paranormal investigator. We had it all happen on the same night.
After we were done with the shoot, Aaron said something sinister followed him home. To this day he won’t go into much detail because it’s so deeply personal. But he later admitted on camera that he believes whatever it was broke up his marriage.
The stuff we captured was so amazing that we called the network and told them they had to move that episode up to being the series premiere.
And the network did it too, which was no small feat. The first episode had to be scheduled months in advance, because of all the programming involved, the release of show information, the promotion and commercials to publicize the series, and everything like that. So it really meant a lot that the Travel Channel was willing to stick their necks out like that and move up the Mackey’s episode. It meant they put their trust in us.
We made it through filming that first season, but that’s not to say there weren’t times when I felt like I’d had enough. In fact, the seventh episode of that season, at a mental hospital in New Jersey, was when I first reached my breaking point. Filming there freaked me out. Thousands of people had died at that old place over the years, and it was very creepy.
QUESTIONS FANS ASK
How do you avoid bumping into things in complete darkness?
I do bump into things… often! I’ll show you the scars and bruises sometime. One problem with showing us walking into stuff on the show is that it will make you laugh and break the mood of the location and moment. So fortunately—or unfortunately if you’re the kind of person that likes to see us get hurt—those moments end up on the cutting room floor.
Getting into this location to film and investigate was a trick. We had to agree not to name the location in the episode because the town was afraid that tons of people would come there after seeing it on Ghost Adventures and break in at night. That’s a legit concern. The more popular our show has become, the more people want to go where we’ve gone and become part of the legend.
I can tell you now that the place was Essex County Hospital. Of course, within minutes of the episode airing, some people recognized where we were and posted the name online.
ABOUT ESSEX COUNTY HOSPITAL
Built in the late 1800s, Essex County Hospital and the surrounding buildings were constructed on hundreds of acres. The site was intended to be self-sufficient—the facility grew its own food, produced electricity, and even had its own fire department. The objective was not to financially burden the surrounding community while helping the patients live a somewhat normal life away from the torment and nightmares that waited for them inside their own minds.
In the early part of the twentieth century, psychology was still in its infancy. Practices that we’d consider barbaric today were commonplace in treating the mentally disturbed. Shock therapy, ice water baths, and even lobotomies were just some of the techniques used on psychiatric patients. Sometimes the treatments were worse than the affliction—driving some further into madness, and others to murder and suicide.
Psychiatric patients were often the unwanted of society. In some cases, the mentally disabled were abandoned by their families, leaving large institutions as their only hope for their basic needs. But life inside could be grueling, to say the least.
The hospital suffered a major catastrophe in the winter of 1917, when the hospital’s heating plant broke down. For weeks patients went without heat, and twenty-four people died within twenty days, some freezing to death in their beds. Though the hospital brought in oil-burning stoves to offer some relief from the cold, the stoves were forbidden in the criminally insane building because the administration feared the patients might use the oil to set fires.
During the Great Depression, thousands of Americans were homeless and hungry. People were having themselves committed to institutions like this one because it meant a roof over their heads, but soon these facilities became dangerously overcrowded. Hospital staff simply could not care for so many people, and the overall population suffered.
Working at the hospital was a challenge even under normal conditions. The screams, unnatural laughs, and painful moans of the patients could eat away at even the most hardened orderly’s nerves. Attempts at escape, violence among the residents, and the occasional patient abuse by staff pushed to the brink have left a permanent mark on this facility.
During the 1970s, funding for large psychiatric institutions dwindled, leaving many struggling to provide basic care. Advances in medication meant that some people could move out of institutions and back into society, but some were simply turned out onto the street, where they had to fend for themselves.
As funding and patient population declined, Essex County buildings were shut down and left to rot. Slowly the paint peeled away and the surrounding forest grew closer, threatening to swallow the land and reclaim it. Several years ago the few remaining active buildings shut their doors for good, leaving the massive complex to decay into obscurity and legend.
For years, stories have circulated about disembodied voices echoing through the empty hallways. The firehouse is said to be haunted by a former fireman who died after a tragic fall within the building. In some of the patient wards, even darker forces have been reported. The phantom cries of tormented patients seem to be a residual haunting—a kind of psychic recording that plays over and over.
Other forces are both interactive and dark. Black shadows have been seen lurking in the buildings and in the network of underground tunnels. Those who have ventured into the patient wards have reported a threatening, unwelcome feeling—these witnesses ran away and didn’t catch their breath until they were safely out of the building.
The New Jersey hospital was an intense place. It was dirty and dusty—the first time we had to use air masks—and the activity seemed to be everywhere. Some viewers found the breathing masks distracting; some even called us pussies. But seriously, when you spend days in dangerous asbestos-filled locations that are closed off to the public, your lungs fill up with that crap. You should see some of the liability waivers we’ve had to sign to get into old buildings like Essex County Hospital. I’m not a lawyer, but let me quickly sum up the gist of what these waivers say: “There’s a ton of bad
shit in this building—bad shit to breathe in, bad places to step, and weak structures. There’s a great chance you’re going to get hurt, sick, and maybe even die. You agree not to sue us for anything, ever. Have a great time! Sign here:______________________________________”
I’m in no rush to become a ghost myself, so occasionally I’m going to wear an air mask on the show.
When you get into a location where very few have gone before, it’s like whatever is inside finds you immediately because human activity is so rare.
This investigation wiped me out. Being a self-sufficient facility meant Essex had its own morgue. This was the first time I would get locked inside one of these things. Even though I’ve been a daredevil since I was a kid, this was something different for me. I went inside with my camera and audio recorder, and Zak locked me in. You know what? For the first few minutes it wasn’t a big deal. I could handle it fine. But the minutes stretched longer and longer and soon the silence was deafening. That tight space starts to mess with your mind. Now I’m hearing things—I know the sounds were in my head because my audio recorder didn’t pick them up. I’m sweating in there… I start to imagine, maybe even channel what it’s like to be a corpse inside that unforgiving box.
Then I hear the sound of shuffling feet outside the morgue door when Zak and Aaron are nowhere near me. I can hear something pushing against the metal door of the locker. Now I’m starting to sweat. My heart is racing. Later I would see from the stationary camera we’d aimed at the body locker I was in that there was a force moving the door. Inside the box I’m trying to keep cool enough to record an EVP session. I captured only one spirit voice there. It said, “Die.”
Panic is starting to set in; then I see a glowing face down by my feet and I lose it. I start kicking against the door. I can only think about getting the hell out of that box right now! Zak hears the pounding and screaming and finally runs in to let me out. That experience was some of the most intense fear I’ve ever experienced.
Once I got home, those bad feelings got worse. The location may have played some role in what I was going through, but there was much more. I edited that episode by myself, and when I got about halfway through I just felt like I couldn’t do it anymore. I was exhausted. I never would have guessed that I’d be working on a television show and be this overwhelmed. I thought there would be help with this stuff, that we’d have a support staff. The reality is we didn’t have a huge budget, so we all had to pull a lot of weight. And given that this was the seventh out of eight episodes in the first season, I wasn’t sure I could go on. I was staring at the computer doing nothing. Just staring straight ahead for minutes at a time. I felt like I had no life—nothing but work. Every muscle in my body wanted to get up, walk away, and turn off the lights behind me.
And that was just what I did. I walked away and went outside for some air. Probably the only thing that made me turn around and get back to the edit was the simple fact that I’m not a quitter. I was going to finish this fucker, and do the next episode. After that, I could rest and rethink everything. I became singularly focused to get this and the next episode done. My background in sports helped me a lot. I had flashes of those UNLV soccer tryouts where I’d physically pushed myself past the breaking point. Being a competitor has taught me that my limits are almost always in my mind—they can be overcome.
We were almost finished filming the first season when the first episode premiered. All those hours of work, the arguments, the amazing moments, the effort of the entire production team was about to come together. Friday, October 17, 2008—a day I’ll never forget. It was the best feeling in the world, seeing promos all day long on the Travel Channel, and then, as nine p.m. was drawing near, I was giddy inside. It was like watching the original documentary on the SciFi Channel… only times a hundred. We had little parties and get-togethers for the new episodes as they premiered, and I started to realize that we really did have something great. It was unique, it was gritty, it was real, and I felt like we were making our mark both as filmmakers and as paranormal investigators.
QUESTIONS FANS ASK
What has been your favorite place to investigate?
Virginia City, Nevada. Hands down. That town keeps calling me back. I feel like I have a connection with the Washoe Club. Each time I go to Virginia City I learn something new, I find some new haunt. I’ll never get tired of that place.
What I wasn’t prepared for was the level of fame that came as a result. I was used to getting recognized at paranormal events or asked to critique evidence because of the documentary, but this was a whole new level of exposure. After four or five episodes, I was starting to get recognized in public.
Let me say this: our fans rock. They are amazing, they’re dedicated, and we love them as much as they love us. But it’s still a little jarring when you’re standing at the airport in Manchester, New Hampshire—one of the tiniest airports around—and you’re getting recognized. When people are driving by in a car and start screaming “Ghost Adventures! Ghost Adventures!” out the window, it’s pretty bizarre. But at the same time it’s really cool. This thing that had started as a dream in my apartment was now a hit television show.
But I also know that fame will never change who I am. I always stick to my roots, where I came from and who I am. I’ll never say no to anybody or act like I’m too big for them. I’ll take a picture with anyone who asks, I’ll sign an autograph, because there are already too many egos in the television industry. Me, I’m just a human being like anybody else, and this is my job.
Though I did change in certain ways. I watched myself on the episodes and wanted to be better. I went from being the guy who had told Zak that I just wanted to be behind the camera, not in front of it, to being the guy who started editing myself because I felt too much of what I said sounded stupid or lame. I became conscious of what my image was going to be to the public, and started to care more about how I came out looking from this whole experience. I thought about the clothes I was wearing, what I said, and how I said it. That may sound like a compromise from keeping it raw and real, but I look at it more as wanting to put some polish on what I was already doing. If I was going to be successful at taking the audience into a haunted location with me, I didn’t want any distractions. So I took the time to think about what to say and what to wear.
We improved in front of the camera pretty quickly. We filmed a lot of videos for the Travel Channel’s Web site in which we recounted some of our experiences at a location, and those were good because it was just us and the camera. We also started doing other specials, like “Best Evidence” and “Scariest Moments.” Those helped me gain confidence too.
I learned that if you want to get better on camera you need to film yourself and watch yourself in an objective way. You’ll see your flaws pretty quickly—we all have them. We might slouch a little bit, or use too many “ums” when we talk, and that stuff can be fixed.
Life as a television personality is different from being some young guy in a documentary. You even start to look at yourself differently. For one thing, I looked back at the documentary and cringed at the shorts and stupid shirt I was wearing. I wore that? I wondered. Couldn’t I have worn some cool jeans or a cool shirt or something?
Hey, I said I didn’t change who I was as a person. That doesn’t mean I couldn’t get a better sense of style.
Besides, we must have done something right. Before the Travel Channel had aired all eight episodes in our first season, they had already decided to sign us for season two! This little documentary and now series was turning into a hit.
CHAPTER 10
WHAT’S A GHOST AND HOW DO WE FIND ONE?
The more you investigate the paranormal, the more you start to get a feel for what works and what doesn’t. Each location is different, so what works at Bobby Mackey’s Music World may not work on Poveglia Island.
One lesson Ghost Adventures has taught me is that this stuff is real, and it’s a lot more prevalent than I’d previously
thought. I’ve picked up a lot of ideas on how to investigate and how to get results from each location. Does it work every time? No. I’ve had plenty of misses, but I’ve also had a lot of successes in gathering profound evidence of spirit contact.
Going to so many haunted places has caused me to think about what might be out there and why our equipment helps us make contact.
When I was a kid, I thought a ghost was some apparition that comes into our world to scare us. That’s what ghost stories taught me, and it’s the theme that Hollywood ran with. But now I realize an apparition is only one version of the ghost experience. It’s also the most rare.
Here’s an experiment you can try right now: Think of a friend from your childhood. Go ahead—close your eyes and envision that friend. You can actually see that person. Your memory fired some electrochemical impulses in your brain that allowed you to visualize your friend. Energy made that happen.
Energy can’t be created or destroyed; it can only change forms—that’s a law of physics. Not a theory of physics—a law. It’s called the law of conservation of energy. It means that if you take an isolated system, such as a person, the energy contained in that person can’t be destroyed. It can change forms from chemical energy—like the signals that travel down your nerve pathways—into kinetic energy, the energy required to move your arm, for example, but the energy is always there.
This law makes sense to me. It means that when we die, our energy must go somewhere. The flesh and bones—the empty vessel—is left behind, but the energy survives.