Chasing Spirits: The Building of the Ghost Adventures Crew

by Groff, Nick

  After seven live hours, all the amazing feedback, and the thrill of seeing it all come together, I was beginning to understand just how popular we were with fans.

  People could connect with us because we’re just regular guys who put themselves in extreme situations. When it’s scary, we freak out. We’re not afraid to laugh at ourselves, and we’re willing to go the distance when it comes to exploring the most extreme haunts around.

  FUN AND PRANKS ON LOCATION

  It’s not all demons and tense moments on Ghost Adventures shoots. We have a lot of fun too. If you check out Aaron’s vlogs on our YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/gaccrew) or at my channel (www.youtube.com/NickGroffVlogs), you can see hundreds of our wackier moments.

  When you’re sitting around all day waiting for equipment to arrive, or interview subjects to show up, or you’re stuck in a hotel, you need to amuse yourself.

  BOOM AUDIO HELP

  During our shoot at Letchworth Village in New York, Zak was sitting in the front seat of the rental car trying to record voice-overs for an episode we’d already shot. With Aaron rolling his camera, I walked up to the car carrying a boom mic and dropped it over the car near the windshield so it looked like I was trying to record Zak’s audio through the glass. Aaron came around to the passenger window to catch Zak’s reaction. The whole goal was to break his concentration. At first Zak started to smile as he was trying to read a serious voice-over. Then he started to laugh. Aaron and I were cracking up. When Zak came out for a mock-interview, I kept rubbing the big fuzzy mic against his face until he chased me off.

  COOKIE TIME

  For our Valentine’s Day special at Longfellow’s Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts, we were staying at a nearby hotel that put out cookies in the lobby for the guests. It’s not like they said, “Just take one,” so I took the whole plate. It was almost one a.m. and Aaron filmed me walking down the hall with the plateful of cookies. I knocked on Zak’s hotel room door and handed him a cookie. Then I started placing chocolate chip cookies at the doorways to other people’s rooms. We were all trying not to burst out laughing. It was so late, and even though most of the rooms around us were taken by people in our production crew, we didn’t want to wake anyone else up. We were tired from a long day of filming and everything was funny at that point. The more we tried not to laugh, the funnier everything was. Everyone who’s seen this video on YouTube thinks we were all stoned. I promise you we weren’t—we were just giggly for a late-night snack. Cookie, anyone?

  SKELETON ZAK

  When we filmed Execution Rocks Lighthouse near New York City, we had a skeleton for a prop. The night before we started filming, we’d all gone to a Korean barbecue joint and Zak got serious food poisoning; I got a mild case of it. Zak was puking his guts out for two days. So I put this skeleton’s arm around my shoulder, then put Zak’s sunglasses on the skeleton. In the vlog you can watch me talking to “Skeleton Zak” about all the weight he’s lost in the last forty-eight hours. Zak moves the skeleton’s mouth with his finger as we talk about how thin he looks.

  ROOM SERVICE

  When we were staying in Jerome, Arizona, to investigate the Jerome Grand Hotel and the former Club House Hospital, Aaron decided to intrude on us. First Aaron walked in with his camera rolling as I was getting changed. I thought it was pretty funny. Then both of us went to Zak’s door, and I pretended to be room service. Zak answered the door half naked, then slammed the door in our faces. He was furious it was us. Aaron and I couldn’t stop laughing. Man, being on the road so much can make you punch-drunk sometimes.

  CHAPTER 13

  LINDA VISTA HOSPITAL:

  THE GAME CHANGER

  Once we were into the routine of filming season two of Ghost Adventures, I didn’t think there were any surprises left for me to discover when it came to ghosts. We’d investigated eight locations in the first season and had already been to a dozen more in 2009, so by now this was my full-time occupation. In so many respects it was a dream come true—working full-time in TV production and exploring my favorite topic: the paranormal. I had no idea when I arrived in East Los Angeles, California, on July 29, 2009, that my life was about to change permanently. Dreams sometimes contain nightmares.

  On that sunny July day I had already accepted the fact that ghosts exist. I had encountered them, I’d captured plenty of evidence supporting the fact that they are here, but I didn’t understand exactly what they were. It made sense that a lot of this stuff was something residual—a scene that had played out in the location at one time and now plays over and over like movie. I could buy that. I also accepted the fact that maybe some things were a projection of the mind—sometimes my mind, and sometimes another living person’s mind—even to the point where multiple people could witness the same thing. Having had the attachment experience back in Moon River Brewery, I also believed that there are masses of energy out there that can influence us. But the intelligent spirits—the ones that can communicate with you and respond to direct questions—I wanted to learn more about these entities. They are the most rare and the most elusive.

  The encounter at Linda Vista Hospital was different from any other experience I’d had before. This contact made me rethink everything. It scared the hell out of me. I still shudder when I relive that moment—those two seconds that changed everything.

  I first heard about Linda Vista from my cousin Justin. He’s always a world of information. He’d told me about an abandoned hospital that was now being used for movies and television shows because it’s in Los Angeles. I wondered how such a place could remain standing in an area where real estate must be at a premium, but once I saw it, I understood—not even an Oscar-winning Hollywood set designer could build a set this creepy and realistic. The place is gigantic, and you can visualize what it must have been like when the place was open and running as a hospital twenty-four/seven.

  I’ve got a couple of friends I play basketball with in Las Vegas who grew up in East LA. They knew about Linda Vista Hospital, and told me how the whole area is controlled by gangs. They warned me it was a rough neighborhood. I wasn’t too worried about it; nobody really bothers us when we’re out filming. Especially if they realize there’s a chance they’ll be on television.

  After being inside so many abandoned buildings I realized that buildings are entities unto themselves. The walls, floors, ceilings, decorations, and even furniture hold an imprint of human activity. When a building is in use—whether it’s an office or store or house—there’s a feeling to the place. It’s somehow alive. When a building sits empty for years, it’s a different feeling. Call it an irrational personification if you want, but I’ve felt it. The abandoned places seem to want humans inside.

  ABOUT LINDA VISTA HOSPITAL

  Hospitals are built for the sick and suffering. For many, these places are the last stop on the way to the morgue. When you consider the rough East Los Angeles neighborhood surrounding the former Linda Vista Hospital, it’s no surprise that this building has seen a heavy death toll, which may help to explain why it’s considered to be such an active and dark haunt today.

  First established in 1904 as the Santa Fe Coast Lines Hospital, the building was constructed to service Santa Fe Railroad employees. In the early decades of the twentieth century, Linda Vista grew and prospered as did the surrounding Boyle Heights neighborhood. It was rebuilt and greatly expanded in 1924, responding to the rising need for a bigger hospital in the area, and the facility prospered. A nurses’ dormitory was added with a tunnel connecting it to the main hospital.

  In 1937, the hospital changed its name to the Linda Vista Community Hospital. After the Great Depression and then World War II, East Los Angeles slowly transformed into a less affluent area. As the surrounding neighborhoods declined, the amount of violent crime rose. Linda Vista served everyone in its surrounding community, but in the 1970s and 1980s gangs moved into the region, bringing a significant increase of gunshot wound, stabbing, and beating victims into the ER. Hundreds die
d here in recent decades.

  Some of the dead were gangbangers, some were innocent victims of violent crimes, and others were the area’s sick. Many were brought to Linda Vista who didn’t survive.

  With so many poor and uninsured patients, Linda Vista Hospital struggled to stay afloat. By 1988, the hospital was forced to stop accepting ambulances in its emergency room because the facility was understaffed and the majority of patients couldn’t pay for services. A downward spiral had begun. Conditions inside deteriorated, the best doctors moved on to better hospitals, and the death toll continued to rise as the quality of care worsened.

  Officially the hospital closed because of lack of funds, though some locals will tell you it was because the doctors were mistreating patients, causing an unusually high fatality rate.

  In 1991, the last patient checked out of Linda Vista. The buildings began the rapid deterioration that comes with sitting empty. The hospital may have been lost forever if not for Hollywood. Several movies used parts of the building as a set. Scenes of blockbusters like Outbreak, End of Days, and Pearl Harbor were filmed inside Linda Vista, as was the pilot episode for ER.

  During these productions, Linda Vista’s ghostly reputation grew. Because of the expensive equipment left on the first floor during filming, security guards were hired to watch the grounds and sets overnight. They chased many a darting shadow and heard cries that unnerved some to the point of quitting their jobs.

  Though there are hundreds of accounts of dark, shadowy figures lurking the halls and rooms of the complex, there are a few spirits who seem to still be victims. A little girl’s ghost—perhaps an innocent victim of a violent crime—has been spotted in the surgical area. A young woman’s ghost has been seen on the third floor—maybe unaware that she has died. And an older orderly figure has been seen walking the halls, still tending to his duties though the patients and staff are long gone.

  Those ghosts aren’t hurting anyone. Yet there are other, darker entities sneaking through doorways and hiding in dark corners of the building. People have been touched, pushed, and frightened out of their wits.

  I felt that yearning as soon as I walked into this hospital. I had no expectations that this would be any different from any other location we’d investigated, but once I got inside I felt a chill—like I knew this place was haunted.

  I could imagine gang members from Compton and East LA being shuttled in through these doors, bleeding from stab wounds or gunshot wounds. Illegal immigrants turned away because they couldn’t afford medical treatment, left to rot and die in waiting rooms and on the sidewalks. And perhaps worst of all, the rumors of inept medical staff offering the promise of hope and healing, only to cause even more pain, suffering, and death.

  Linda Vista was our first investigation inside a medical hospital. It wasn’t just dark, foreboding energy we’d be encountering there; there was the possibility of something positive being retained as well, since hospitals can sometimes be a place for joy as well.

  During our walk-through of the building, we saw the incinerator where they used to cremate the bodies of John and Jane Does. Zak put his hand in the little box, still full of human ash and bone. That freaked me out. “What are you doing?” I said, with a mischievous grin on my face. Human remains were still here!

  As I was filming the eyewitness interviews, I felt like something was watching us, kind of lurking in the wings and checking us out. It wasn’t a feeling I’d experienced strongly before at other locations. Usually the paranormal events happened for me only during the lockdowns—when I was looking for it.

  The stories the eyewitnesses shared would send a chill down anyone’s back. Being pushed by unseen hands, hearing disembodied voices humming during EVP sessions—this place was clearly very active. And of course, when we went outside, the tour guide showed us what Zak called “the cherry on the sundae”: Linda Vista also had a mental ward on its grounds. I can still see Zak’s eyes get large in excitement when we found out about that.

  While we were interviewing two women who had captured some intriguing examples of EVP there, we decided to conduct a real-time EVP session of our own. It was the first time we ever tried it during the daytime, when we weren’t in lockdown mode. It was in the same trauma room where the women had captured their evidence, and indeed we captured the same sort of female humming noises that they’d caught. We’d been recording for only a minute or two, and there it was, sounding eerily similar to what they had caught before. We were so pumped—you could just tell there was something in that trauma room. In fact there were two trauma rooms side by side, and both of them were charged with spirit energy. With all the people who lived out their last moments in those rooms, and even those who made it out of there alive, so much of their energy must be imprinted inside.

  The walk-through and all the eyewitness testimony got us even more excited for the lockdown. We strategized how best to go about the investigation—I mean, this place was huge, and it seemed like there were reports of paranormal activity in almost every nook and cranny of the facility. It certainly didn’t disappoint us either—we got activity pretty much from the start. Even as we were setting up our static night vision cameras, we were getting anomalies appearing on the footage and EVPs coming through on the camera audio and on our digital recorders.

  During the investigation, we started off in the main hospital before traveling to the mental ward via the underground tunnel that connected the two buildings. Even there, we were getting some good stuff. But when we came back into the main hospital, that’s when the activity intensified. We started with the top floors and worked our way down to the first floor. I could feel the energy building as the night progressed. We went from capturing EVPs to hearing things with our own ears—creepy voices and weird, unexplainable sounds, like someone breathing through an oxygen mask.

  We entered the trauma rooms, and at this point I had my digital audio recorder as well as my camera going. I was standing in the place where so many victims had been laid out to await treatment. Straight in front of me was the corridor where the nurses and doctors would come in to get their tools, wash their hands, and prep for tending to their patients. Zak was standing in that corridor, filming me. I stepped in front of the room where we had captured the voice during the walk-through, and Aaron came into the other room behind me as well. My eyes began to adjust to the dark; the LCD from the camcorder was illuminating the room a bit too. I started my digital recorder and was starting to go through my whole spiel of setting up the recording for the session; telling the spirits I’m there to communicate. I looked to my left and saw nothing in the darkness. All I could see was the trauma center. But as soon as I turned my head back the other way—boom! There was a woman standing literally two feet in front of my face.

  Our eyes connected, and for once in my life I felt pure, unadulterated fear. This woman was a solid figure, but her face glowed slightly, which is why I could see her so clearly in the dark. Her skin was pale white, she had brown eyes and short brown hair, and she was wearing a hospital gown. The gown had a small floral pattern like you see on so many hospital gowns. I’ll never forget that detail. I have no way of knowing for sure, but she had kind of a 1980s/early 1990s look to her. I saw her. She saw me. We locked eyes—a deep psychic connection happened. She shouldn’t be standing there, but she was.

  When I saw her, it felt as if time had frozen. But on the video, you see me jump back very quickly, no more than two seconds. To me, it felt like a minute or two where this girl and I were just staring at one another. She reached out her arm, trying to touch me just as I was turning away. I saw her lean forward with her head slightly tilted down, and her eyes gazed up at me. It was like she was sad and reaching out for help, angry that nobody could help her.

  I don’t care how tough you think you are—if you see something like that, it’s going to freak you out. You’ll be startled, you’ll jump, no matter who you are.

  The sensation was like free falling but never being able to
hit the ground. My heart pounded like it was going to burst out of my chest. You know all those urban legends about when a person sees a ghost, and their hair turns all white and a terrified expression is permanently frozen on their face? I thought that was going to happen to me. Every nerve in my body was on fire—I had to get away from this spot now!

  The reaction I had, which Zak captured on his camera, shows the raw emotion that I felt. I can laugh at it now, but at the time, that was the face of true terror. People have criticized our show and the whole reality television genre for being forced and contrived, but there’s nothing more real than the reaction I had. That is pure reality TV right there. I couldn’t fake that for you now if I tried.

  I don’t remember much of my retreat from this woman. I saw on the footage that I pushed past Aaron to get away from her as quickly as I could. I made it to the hallway, where I started having a total freak-out. Once I’d settled down a bit, we reviewed the footage to see if we’d caught anything. What we saw on tape was nearly as mind-blowing as actually seeing her with my own two eyes.

  I had a camera facing in the direction of where the woman materialized, as did Aaron. Zak’s was facing me, filming me. So, both my and Aaron’s cameras were pointed in her direction, and right at the moment of the manifestation, they both froze. It’s like whatever energy was there knocked out the magnetic part of our mini-DV tapes and froze the film reels in time, and then picked up again once she was gone. My camera stopped right when I saw her; Aaron’s froze a split second later. It was like an energy burst had hit my camera first, then struck his, and then went out into the hallway. I still can’t understand how it happened, but I’m convinced it was so that we wouldn’t capture what I saw on film. It was meant for only me to see.