It is that time of year to get your scare on! Yep, October is the month for spooks and goblins to be wandering the streets in hopes of administering a whole lot of fear in us mere humans.

Well, for those that believe.

According to a United States government survey conducted in 2021, 41% of Americans believe in ghosts, the other 59% are too afraid to say either way.

“What if I’m wrong and Casper shows up in my bedroom floating around angrily?” one participant may have asked.

So, with October here, I thought I’d check in with my buddy, Cody Dare, of The New Reality, to learn what haunts I needed to check out.

“Dude, you gotta go to the All Saints Lunatic Asylum in Apple Valley,” Cody said. “There’s a lot of paranormal action going on there.”

Halls you may not want to enter

It has also been a professional Haunted House in the High Desert for the past eight years. Of course it is haunted - it is supposed to be.

Can’t be a lunatic asylum if all the patients are sitting around in Lazy-boys watching sit-coms and telling each other they are fine.

Nope, a lunatic asylum has to be a place of horror, torture, grief, terror, and all the other things that make people afraid to enter. No one is afraid to enter a lunatic asylum that resembles something like Friends.

“Oh, Rachel,” Monica may say. “You look just horrible with that leather mask strapped to your face while bound to a shopping cart.”

Rachel will only snarl and drool, but we all know it will work out for the best by the end of the episode.

Never saw this in 'Friends'

I drove to Apple Valley to check out this lunatic asylum, making sure I took my get out of asylum free card with me - just in case.

Christy and Richard Cerreto, the owners of the All Saints Lunatic Asylum met me at the double glass doors of their haunting business.

They were normal looking people. Not sure what I was expecting, but a couple who enjoy scaring the bejesus out of people may have looked like they had just exited a wild rage of Alice Cooper enthusiasts.

Nope, and to boot, they are college professors. Perhaps the place is haunted - making demons appear like well-educated humans.

How dastardly!

Actually, the couple were a lovely duo who just like to be surrounded by ghoulish and bloody exhibits.

“It started at our home,” Christy explained. “We love Halloween and would sit on our front porch handing out candy and scaring the trick-or-treaters.”

“Then it branched out to a maze of fear in our backyard for the neighbor children,” Richard chimed in.

I was wondering if this was my cue that it was time to leave. I’ve seen too many films where this could go wrong - I was just hoping there wasn’t a shed I’d hide in and learn it was full of chainsaws.

“We don’t use chainsaws here,” Christy reassured me.

Huh? I thought I had just said that quietly inside my own head.

No chain saws, but ....

Prior to showing up for my personal tour of the fear factory, I had contacted Cody Dare and Shawn Warren from The New Reality - the paranormal investigative group.

“All Saints Lunatic Asylum has always given me an uneasiness, a feeling of darkness, and never feeling alone,” Cody shared with me. Now, Shawn is pretty amazing when it comes to the paranormal stuff - him being a psychic medium and all - not sure what that means, but he is good at it.

He continued. “You can feel the oppression as soon as you walk into the door, always making me feel disoriented.”

Nervous? Just talk to the nurse at the asylum

Richard, Christy and I were in the lobby, where visitors to their macabre realm check in, and I did not feel any of the things Cody or Shawn had shared with me.

Then again, I generally state when someone insults me, “You hurt my feeling.” Perhaps I left that feeling by the glass entry doors.

“The New Reality has been here,” Christy commented. “It was awesome to see how professional they are.”

Richard nodded. “They always try to find a logical reason for any strange occurrences, then they can rule them out.”

And that is the case for legitimate paranormal investigators. At least 95% of weird stuff can be put down as wind, clouds, imagination, or other issues which may be nothing. It is the remaining 5% that cannot be explained that intrigues these investigators of the unknown.

It is much like when my beautiful wife, Laureen, shops and tells me she is saving money by buying a whole lot of stuff we don’t need because it is on sale.

Cody takes more of an intuitive empath approach - again, no idea what that means.

“The place is off the charts with paranormal activity. There is something very dark in the chapel room.”

The asylum is broken up into many rooms. There is the administrative room, the morgue, the children's room, the hospital room, the dentist office, the chapel, the Sasquatch cage, and so much more to entertain and delight.

Welcome to the Asylum

“When the crew was here,” Christy started, “They were conducting an EVP and clearly a doll was directing one of the female members to choose a certain doll in the room. When she chose the wrong doll, the voice told her ‘no’ and directed her to the correct one.”

For the neophytes, an EVP is in reference to an electronic voice phenomena which are sounds found on electronic recordings that are interpreted as spirit voices.

Though I have been on an investigation with Cody and Shawn, I still have no idea what that means except in layman terms it may be when Betelgeuse insults us and we can hear him.

“Sorry, Betelgeuse, but I left my feeling at the door,” I may return.

I asked both Richard and Christy if the building in which the asylum is located in Apple Valley was built on some sort of sacred Native American land. Perhaps an old western cemetery? Perhaps a devil worshiping pond?

“Nope,” Richard replied. “A stripmall built in the 1970s. I think there was a butcher shop here, a church and who knows.”

A butcher shop. Hmm.

“Cody got struck by a screw, right into his chest,” Christy told me. 

Haunted casket?

“I’ve stepped on nails, right through my foot when I was picking up dog poop in the backyard,” I replied.

She stared at me. “No, when they were filming by the casket, Cody was conducting a sensory deprivation when suddenly a screw flew at him from the casket, right into his chest.”

I nodded as if I understood.

“They caught it on tape,” Richard shared.

At that point the tour through all the rooms was conducted by my guests and it was enlightening, thrilling, and terrifying. But, I am not going into detail since I would not want to ruin the surprise for any potential visitors.

Besides, I had my eyes closed most of the time. When I saw Granny rocking in her wheelchair with a face that would terrify Jeffrey Dahmer, I knew this place was the real thing.

And here's Granny

As I learned during the tour, pretty much everything within the walls of the asylum are antiques acquired from actual places where folks may have not been treated as well as they should have been while alive, or even after death.

Could it be that it is not the actual building where the asylum is located that is haunted but the artifacts contained there? Does the very existence of these items conjure up dark energy that then releases itself on unsuspecting humans? Does the culmination of all these objects together in one place open the portal to the underworld? Is this where the beginning meets the end?

I don’t know - but it is very cool.

Just before I left, Richard pointed out a slew, or should I say a slaying of awards earned by his and Christy’s haunted enterprise. It was quite impressive: best live theater, best innovative business, best place to work, best place to have a birthday party, and my favorite - best place to wet your pants in public.

Lots of spooky awards

Did I feel any paranormal activities while at the asylum?

Nope, but that does not mean there isn’t. I know this though, wandering those dark halls and viewing actual pieces obtained from real asylums, mortuaries, hospitals, morgues, and who knows where else, there could be very well stuff happening there no one can explain.

Perhaps there is some sort of energy present at this asylum. Perhaps there is not - but, the only way to find out personally is to visit.

And no, I am not a paid spokesperson for the All Saints Lunatic Asylum. In fact, both Richard and Christy asked me to come back when it was open for guests for free. I turned them down.

I like my pants dry.

For more information: http://www.allsaintsasylum.com/

Catch Cody and Shawn on their Youtube channel - The New Reality Paranormal 

 

Is the Mizpah Hotel haunted?

A few years ago, Laureen and I drove through Tonopah, Nevada on the way to see one of our daughters in Idaho. The town was founded around 1900 when a rich silver deposit was located in the nearby hills.

And that silver was founded by nothing more than serendipitous luck. 

Turns out that a miner, Jim Butler, was looking for a lost burro and had to spend the night hunkered below a rock outcropping. The next morning he located the burro, and picked up a large rock to heave it out of frustration.

“Wait,” he is rumored to have said to himself. “This rock is plenty heavy. I think I will have it assayed instead of just chucking it.”

In fact, that certain rock started the second richest silver strike in the state’s history, only behind the Comstock Lode near Virginia City.

Tonopah is the county seat of Nye County and is about midway between Las Vegas and Reno at the junction of U.S. Route 6 and U.S. Route 95. It’s a small town of just over two thousand folks, according to a 2019 statistic from the US Census Bureau.

We could only stay a couple of hours but learned a few things about this little berg during that time.

Wyatt Earp arrived in 1902 and opened the Northern Saloon. Hugh Bradner, the physicist, invented the neoprene wetsuit had lived there. Tasker Oddie, the 12th governor of Nevada and United States Senator lived there. And, Dennis Avner, also known as the Stalking Cat died in Tonopah in 2012 – he was the guy who had fourteen facial surgeries (body modifications) to make his face look like an actual feline.

So, there was a lot to this town – and, it is haunted.

Words can not explain this - really!

According to tonopahnevada.com, the whole town has ghosts and goblins hanging around.

There’s the prank loving ghost, George ‘Devil’ Davis, who plays gags on people at the Tonopah Liquor Company.

 

Then there is Bina Verrault, who left New York City under nefarious reasons, and ended up dying in Tonopah – she loves to stare out the windows of the Tonopah Historic Mining Park’s visitor’s center.

Then there is the cemetery which is haunted right next door to the infamous Clown Motel. Strange lights, full body apparitions, and weird noises can be heard coming from the cemetery.

Tonopah cemetery, next to the Clown Motel

But, isn’t a clown motel creepy enough without worrying about supernatural goings-on in the grave yard?

“Dad, I think that clown opening our door has a machete in his hand.”

“Not to worry, son, I’m only concerned about white orbs floating menacingly about the Old Tonopah Cemetery.”

And, according to USA Today 10Best Reader’s Choice Award in 2018, the Mizpah Hotel in Tonopah, Nevada was voted the most haunted hotel in America.

Hotel Mizpah, Tonopah

So haunted, that many paranormal professionals have visited this town in the south-western part of Nevada to investigate the numerous sightings of things with no explanations.

This hotel really has tales to tell.

Three of the most famous other-worldly residents at the hotel is the Lady in Red, who was stabbed and strangled between rooms 502 and 504 on the fifth floor. Then there are some children who are heard and seen running around the third floor and then just disappear into thin air. And finally, a murdered miner or robber hanging around in the basement – not really hanging there, more like, just hanging out.

Lady in Red suite at the Mizpah Hotel, Tonopah

“We’ve got to come back and book a room on the fifth floor,” I stated to Laureen, as we sauntered through the lobby of the gorgeous hotel.

The Mizpah Hotel was started in 1907, and was going to be the center-piece for the entire region. Architect, Morrill J. Curtis designed the large hotel and for a cost of over two hundred thousand dollars when completed in 1908, the town had their grand hotel.

It had fifty rooms, two restaurants, a bar and other rooms for meeting and social functions. Everything went well for the town and hotel, but like most mining communities, there is always an end to the gold and silver ore bonanza. By 1920 the population had dwindled, with miners looking for the next big strike.

Tonopah hung on with the induction of dollars from the military from the Tonopah Test Range, which was also used for the development of the F-117 Nighthawk. In 2014, a solar energy company dumped millions into the economy by constructing a solar plant nearby.

But, there wasn’t quite enough business to keep the Mizpah Hotel from closing, which it did in 1999 and fell into disrepair. An enterprising couple, Fred and Nancy Cline bought the vacant hotel for two hundred thousand dollars and retrofitted it to its former glory.

They did a marvelous job.

As we walked around the hotel, it felt as though we had stepped back more than a hundred years in time. The lobby, the reception desk, the wide stairways, and every other area in the hotel is painstakingly stunning.

Lobby at the Mizpah Hotel in Tonopah

We had to stay – but we didn’t. Time was not on our side that trip, but we made a vow to spend the night in this haunted place the following year.

Nope, Covid-19 struck and that idea floated away like a paper boat in the gutter.

Well, on a recent trip through Nevada, sans Laureen – her schedule is a lot busier than mine – our friend, Paul Bakas, and I decided to see if the hotel is really haunted.

I contacted one guy, who I knew could give me the information I needed for this venture, and I got more than I needed to book a room at the hotel.

According to Cody Dare, from the paranormal investigating team of New Reality 11, they had a lot of action while filming a television episode at the Mizpah Hotel in the spring of 2021.

Cody Dare and his partner Shawn Warren on an investigation

“The basement is no joke. There is an old miner down there, very tall and very territorial. Lots of activity there. Lady in red, we didn’t catch much, but we did feel her presence there.”

I nodded at Paul. “I’m booking room 504.”

He was silent for a moment. “That’s kind of creepy. Trying to sleep in a room where there may be a ghost wandering around.”

“It is cool,” I returned.

Unfortunately, the room wasn’t available, and had a waiting list of about a year, according to the front desk clerk, Brittany.

“Everyone wants that room,” she said. “Weird, how people would want to sleep in a room a woman may have been killed in or near.”

“Yeah, that is weird,” I replied. We got a suite on the second floor and I put Laureen’s name on the waiting list.

All this ghost talk got me thirsty, so we stopped at the long dark polished wood bar on the first floor of the hotel for an adult libation.

Gorgeous bar in Mizpah Hotel in Tonopah

Alex, the bartender then shared some ghostly history of the hotel. There was plenty for at least two rounds of libations, we weren’t driving.

“I don’t believe in that stuff,” she stated. “But, I’ll tell you, I don’t like going into the basement.”

“I know, all those stairs going down that you have to come back up again,” I replied.

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Alex said. “There’s just this strange feeling I get down there. As if someone is watching me. I usually ask someone else to get whatever I need, so I don’t have to experience those feelings.”

Cody Dare was correct, there was a lot of activity in the basement.

My plans were solid – stay up and be on the watch for anything out of the ordinary.

I spent the evening sitting in the large and wide hallway outside of the room, but no ghosts or paranormal activity greeted me. After midnight, I called the investigation over – I was tired.

In the morning, just prior to our leaving, we headed upstairs to the fifth floor, to snap some photos of room 504. I brought my phone, since it took excellent photos. Just being past six, no one was stirring, not even a mouse.

Stairwell at the Mizpah Hotel, Tonopah

I shot a few photos – looked at them – and felt the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

“Look at this,” I stated to Paul.

As I ran wiped back through the five shots I had taken of the door, there was nothing but a tenth-of-second view of the door and then the screen went blue. Each and every one of the photos.

“I think you may have shot a video too,” Paul said.

So happened I had, a short one by accident. The hair went even higher on the back of my neck.

There was the door, with a greenish hue plainly seen at the bottom of the door, and then a loud crashing sound.

No one in the hall, but a loud crash and light below door

There was no one else in the hallway but Paul and me. 

“Did you hear anything when I took those photos?” I asked.

“No, but I think it’s time to go,” Paul replied.

It was and we did.

Did I witness a paranormal activity? I don’t know, but just before heading downstairs, I took another couple of photos of the hallway away from the door, and not an issue. Each one came out clear and bright.

Is the hotel haunted? Again, I don’t know but when Laureen’s reservation comes up next year – perhaps we’ll find out.