SALAMANCA — Saturday was National Ghost Hunting Day — a day that psychics and paranormal investigators hopes will encourage historic preservation, as well as paranormal unity and research — and educate the public about the historic sites, skills and techniques used in their field.
It’s a day when people around the country joined together to seek out mysteries and explore the unknown — and some Western New Yorkers were happy to join in. While many locals are aware of allegedly haunted venues in our area, the Westwood Sanitarium, at 71 Prospect Ave. in Salamanca, has stayed under the radar — but that might all be changing.
The Moon Family — Chris, his wife Dee Garcia-Moon and his mother, Paulette “Momma” Moon — arrived at Wildwood Friday night to live-stream the first half of the investigation for their online show, “Ghost Box Chronicles.”
“Last night (at Wildwood) was one of the best investigations we’ve ever done,” Momma said.
Chris Moon agreed, saying they saw things Friday night that he didn’t even know could be done.
The show “is extremely unique as the majority of the footage is filmed over Facebook Live with the audience participating in the actual investigation so that none of the evidence can be faked or altered in any way,” according to the show’s Facebook page. Footage from the two nights can be viewed at thespiritrealm.net.
With that introduction, the 18 people gathered there went down to the bath house — a basement room where patients were once treated with electric battery baths — for the first half of the night, Ghost Hunter University.
Chris Moon warned those in attendance that during live-streaming Friday night, a spirit voice yelled “Stop it,” instructing them to leave the room. He asked anyone who felt anything out of the ordinary to immediately stop the presentation by raising their hand.
Originally, Chris Moon said, people looked to lakes and ponds for visions of those who had passed on, called skrying. Skrying is done on any reflective surfaces that may show an image. Oracles of the Dead, believed to be a gateway for spirits to interact with live beings, were built specifically for that purpose in ancient times. Persons would be shut in for a lengthy time and then let out into bright sunlight and many said they saw visions — we know now it was just sensory deprivation.
Chris Moon and Dee Garcia- Moon talked of other devices and methods used over thousands of years to detect the dead — crystal balls, spirit dousing, automatic writing, Ouija boards, mediums and séances. They
warned of the dangers of using some of the devices, posing possibilities that a “dark entity” may use it to interact and gain power.
Jule Klopp, of Eden, raised her hand and the presentation stopped. She had broken into a sweat, while others were chilled by the basement air. Klopp said she kept feeling someone touching her face. Attempts to get a spirit to interact went unheeded.
Chris Moon continued with an explanation of the ghost, or spirit, box, also called Frank’s box in honor of its designer Frank Sumption. While there are many knock-offs of the ghost box on the market now, the original is used “to facilitate real-time, two-way communication with the spirit world,” according to Chris Moon, and was built around 2002. It’s based on Thomas Edison’s designs for his “telephone to the dead,” — many people don’t know that Thomas Edison was a spiritualist and was very involved with psychic energy.
“We’ve had the upstairs, the spirits will come in and talk to us through the spirit box and with the touching,” Elisabeth Wagatha, Laurie’s daughter, said. “Me and my mom were here by ourselves the one day and there was something walking on the stairs, we could hear the footsteps and then we heard something getting thrown somewhere.”
The ghost box is what Chris Moon uses to communicate during the Moon’s paranormal investigations – and it was time to hear it work.
THE TEAM MOVED upstairs to the first floor. In the front bedroom, the Moons said a man named Ed said he was 20, but wouldn’t answer how old he was upon first arriving at Wildwood. He said Lydia, a woman who wouldn’t speak to Chris or Dee Garcia-Moon the night before until Mamma Moon arrived, wasn’t there. She had been assisted by Mamma Friday night to go over to the other side and was gone for good. When asked if there were any other spirits in the room, Ed replied that he was there and when the group prepared to move on, he swore, not wanting them to leave.
In a second floor bedroom, an entity calling herself Miranda said the “nurses were still helping us” and that she was hurt, continuing on to say that Laurie, who she identified as a nurse, was “bringing all the kids into the room.” Miranda said there 12 spirits mingling there with the living.
In another bedroom, Sophie was willing to talk and when asked how old she was. “I’m dead,” she replied and said it was 1917. The oldest person in the room was “too old,” according to Sophie, saying “1910.”
“Big Ted” arrived, saying that he worked “down basement,” meaning the bath house. He didn’t like being there. When someone asked if Dr. Perry, one of the founders of the Sanitarium was there, Big Ted said that Dr. Perry was right behind us — everyone in the room turned to look.
In another second-floor bedroom, a girl spirit was happy to be communicating, although she seemed to take offense when asked if any of the toys or dolls in the room were hers. “Big girl,” she replied, and refused to say anything more.
In a third floor bedroom, a young girl named Eva spoke through the ghost box as well. When asked how many entities were in the room with them, she replied that there were hundreds. She said too many tragedies had happened there, with people being locked in the room and one person who was shot. When asked why they stayed, she replied that there was a “darker one holding us here … he’s crazy.”
Those in the room said they started to feel uncomfortable and the air was becoming close. Eva said the dark one was named “Red” – suddenly Dee Garcia-Moon, and a participant named Dee, simultaneously felt Red squeezing their shoulder harder and harder — it was time to leave the third floor.
“Whenever we get that dark entity that comes around, the best thing to do is just shut down,” Chris Moon explained. “From what we found last night, sometimes when you’re dealing with a lot of pain, a lot of suffering, a lot of untimely deaths, dark entities will actually take advantage of the situation and they’ll kind of creep in and start feeding on the anger, the sadness and the depression … when we addressed it, it got very angry and told us to stop.”
“I don’t like the third floor,” Cory Teti, of Buffalo, said. He had been in the house before. “The third floor here is the only place in the house I feel any sort of discomfort … “I’ve been pushed down the stairs. I’ve been scratched … I don’t consider that bad but other people might.”
Harvey Collazo, of Cattaraugus, felt something on his chest Saturday night and he agreed with Teti. “One day I went to the third floor with my heavy metal music just blaring and I saw a shadow that shuffled across the room.”
Despite that, “I’m here to help the house … to make the house as original as possible,” Teti said.
That’s why Laurie Wagatha, of Napoli, who owns Wildwood Sanitarium, “was so compelled (to buy it) … I thought about it 24/7,” Wagatha said after taking a look at the property. “I knew it wanted to be back to a healing place.”
Brenda Rickert, of Buffalo, agreed with Laurie Wagatha and Teti. “I love that they are all about helping people— getting spirits to go,” Rickert said, speaking of the Moon family.
While this was the first time that the Moon Family visited Wildwood, other paranormal groups have been to the site — The Travel Channel is featuring the house as the final episode of “America’s Most Terrifying Places” Oct. 28. Wildwood is also on Paranormal Lockdown Season 3, which hasn’t been released in the U.S. yet, although a seven-minute clip entitled “Is There An Evil Poltergeist Haunting This House?” can be seen on the station’s YouTube channel.
