(dramatic music) (bell rings) - What do you think (indistinct)?

Well, we're gonna try to get you to talk with us, okay?

- Yeah.

(bell rings) - You know these ain't gonna hurt you.

You know, you've talked to me before through 'em.

(bell ringing) (static buzzing) - Who's ringing the bell?

- Me.

(static buzzing) - Who's ringing the bell?

- Me.

- [Chris] Eloise Asylum, the notorious psychiatric hospital in Westland on Michigan Ave, which is often said to be among the state's most haunted places.

- Just like the living, they have characteristics about 'em that just make them individual.

Some of them tend to move very quickly.

Some of 'em tend to be a little grouchy.

- I've seen shadow figures.

I've had equipment physically moved and manipulated.

I've been touched, I've been grabbed, I've had things whisper in my ear.

- [Chris] Eloise Asylum opened in the 1830s, a complex the size of a small city, which, at its most crowded during the Great Depression, housed about 10,000 people at a time.

- It actually started as a poor house in Hamtramck in the early 1830s.

And it was in that location in Hamtramck for a couple of years, and there was a cholera pandemic or epidemic that had gone through at the time, and that really caused an increase in the admissions and the number of people that were being seen there.

And within a couple of years, they realized that they were going to need to upgrade and move somewhere else.

And at the height of operations, it was more than 70 buildings across more than 900 acres.

It was enormous.

We were pioneering in the field of x-ray.

We had one of the first diagnostic x-ray machines in the country.

So people came from Ann Arbor and Detroit and Chicago for diagnostic x-rays here.

- [Chris] Its long history also has darker chapters.

Numerous patients admitted to the psychiatric hospital died there.

It is estimated that over 7,000 people are buried in unmarked graves in the asylum's cemetery.

- The biggest problem that was usually reported and is documented in our historical records is overcrowding, overpopulation, not having enough staff.

When we first started in the 1830s, we had no modern understanding of mental health conditions or psychiatric disorders.

There were still a lot of like spiritual and supernatural connotations associated with it.

So a lot of these people were just confined to cells that were in the basements of different buildings, and they were literally just chained to the walls and forgotten about, because we, as a society and culture, we just didn't know what else to do with them, right?

And then we started developing some of these other techniques, electroshock therapy, insulin shock therapy, hydrotherapy, music therapy.

Even though we may now think of some of these treatments as being barbaric or archaic, at the time, they considered it to be cutting-edge technology.

- [Chris] Eloise closed in the 1980s.

Now, it operates as a haunt during the Halloween season, and historical tours and paranormal investigations are conducted throughout the year.

A unique place where the art of fictional scares meet genuine reports of the paranormal.

- So we have two different attractions in our haunt.

We have the first level, which is our asylum level, and then the second level, which is the sub level.

And the asylum level is actually kind of the experience of coming through an asylum.

You come in, you see the day room, you get checked in, and then towards the end of the asylum, you find our max security ward where the patients have started going a little haywire.

(nozzle hissing) And then after that, we move down into the sub-level, which is kind of more of a sci-fi, experimentation area.

- [Actor] Well, well, well, what are y'all doing back here all by yourselves?

- As you're going through the haunted house, not only do you have the actors scaring you, you have the animatronics giving you stuff, getting loud noises pushed at you, bright flashing lights, fog and all that.

There's the extra activity that we can't even plan for or account for that will definitely happen throughout the haunt still.

- What is that extra activity?

What kinds of actually ghostly or paranormal things have happened to you or the staff, the people walking through?

- When I was first an actor and you know, just in my scene for the night, you hear the same soundtrack over and over.

So you know what cries and what wails and things like that that you hear throughout the night every night.

And then sometimes there's extra sounds that you're not sure of if that's part of the track or if that's something else that might be visiting us for the time being.

Other times we have actors that, at the end of the night, have scratches on them.

We've had actors show up with bite marks the next day.

- [Chris] Have you experienced anything paranormal here yourself?

- Random chills, (laughs) I guess.

You?

- [Sid] I've heard footsteps and seen nobody there.

And then I've heard a lot of the animatronics go off, but nobody's there.

- Down in the basement, a few motion sensor lights have gone off.

It's supposed to trigger when someone walks through the haunt, so we know when to jump out.

No one's showed up at all, and sometimes they'll get stuck repeating.

- [Chris] Have you had any paranormal experiences while you're working here?

- All the time?

Almost every day, if I can count it.

Little taps on my shoulders, whispers, some footsteps behind me.

- How about you?

- I am the paranormal, baby.

- I've gotta wonder what spirits who are here might find a haunt in their home annoying or disrespectful, and what spirits might get into it and kinda vibe off the energy or what have you.

- So from what I've heard from most of our paranormal team, they actually generally enjoy the presence here and the fact that we're bringing energy back into the building and bringing people around and doing stuff and making it a lively place again.

- If you're a paranormal team, you wanna go in after the haunted attraction shuts down.

I think that energy that builds up and everything... - [Chris] My Detroit PBS colleague, Andrea Riley, spoke to Eloise's resident paranormal investigator, Kenneth Ace Taylor, before joining him on an investigation.

Baby Benny is the mascot of Ace's paranormal investigations and a trigger object for spirits to interact with.

- I didn't pick this field.

I basically, as long as I remember, experience, felt things that normally other people kind of didn't.

I'd see things and you know, and I'd just pretty much ignore it.

It wasn't something I really wanted to pursue.

It was... (exhaling) It wasn't a horrible, but I probably considered it more of a curse than a gift, until, you know, much later in life.

And this building, actually, the Eloise, it just drew me into like, wow, what is this place?

Why am I feeling the way I was feeling?

And my first visit in here was just overwhelming.

It was just, it was amazing, the feelings I had.

I was getting a lot of like "hi's" and "helps" and things that were kind of really (indistinct).

But I had planned on, you know, I did have a camera and captured my real first apparition photograph of an individual.

I just think they're passed on living people.

I mean, I've interacted with them too much, for too long.

Most of the time, you feel their presence.

I mean, nobody has to be super gifted.

Nobody has to be a medium and has to be sensitive or everything.

That's what I tell people, especially in the tours and stuff, like, "Trust your instincts."

- So the places you're going to take us, what spirits do you expect us to encounter, and what should we expect from them?

- The one room in particular, back in the very beginning there was junk and furniture and stuff all over the place.

We had put that sofa bed in there and immediately, this is my friendly grouch that I call on- - I love that.

- seemed to take possession of that bed.

All of a sudden we were getting, like when people would be sitting on it, we would be getting like, "Get up.

Get off.

Mine."

But mainly, "Get out.

Get up."

I can tell usually when he's in there.

He stands in one certain corner generally.

Two years ago, we had a group that, they were actually starting a local magazine, and they wanted to come in here with a film crew, and we went in that room.

I did sense he was there.

He had what I call marked an individual before, which basically is, people would call it a scratch.

Got her twice, boom, boom.

- Twice?

- [Chris] While none of us got scratched, we did get a lot of instrument activity in the room, including the dead bell, which rings in response to electromagnetic field activity, which spirits are said to be able to manipulate.

- Do you remember how we can ask you questions about yes?

Ring it once or no, ring it twice.

(bell ringing) - Wow, I think that's a yes.

(bell rings) Yes.

- [Chris] A spirit box is a white-noise radio through which spirits may be able to speak.

When Ace turned his on and asked who was ringing the bell, all of us heard a voice say, "Me."

(bell ringing) - Who's ringing the bell?

(static buzzing) - [Disembodied Voice] Me.

- Do you remember who I am?

(static buzzing) (bell rings) Are we in your room?

(bell rings) (static buzzing) Are you okay with us being in here?

(static buzzing) (bell rings) I'm gonna shut this one off, and I'm gonna try another one, okay?

I am gonna shut this off in five, four, three, two- - [Disembodied Voice] One.

(static buzzing) - ...three, two- - [Disembodied Voice] One.

- So it is you.

(bell ringing) You don't want me to shut that off, do you?

- [Chris] Later, after our trip through the haunt, when we were interviewing the actors, something started setting off one of the sound effects in an area of the haunt that was unattended.

- [Magnolia] You hear that alarm that's going off?

- [Chris] Yeah.

- That has to be pressed by someone, yet no one is back there.

Why is it going off?

- I came over here to check it out and see if it was some wiring issues or see if it was a technical problem.

I pulled out my flashlight, leaned in to look at it, and it stopped.

I didn't touch a single thing.

Normally, (loud rumbling) it's a button that needs to be presssed to activate that, (child crying) and it doesn't stop.

And there it goes again.

- [Chris] Was it a spirit having a bit of fun with us, or is there a more natural explanation?

We can't be sure, but it was a very interesting end to our evening at Eloise Asylum.