Haunted Collector – The Sanitarium & Firehouse Phantom – S01E04

For this episode John investigates a house that sits on the site of a former sanitarium. The owner claims to see apparitions walking around the house and has felt hands pushing down on her. The claims go so far as to say a little girl was scratched repeatedly by an unseen force. Judging from the stories it sounds like a whole lot of activity is going on.

Aimee talks to a witness who sets up the old sanitarium like it was from a horror movie. People would go to there but would never be seen again. Groceries were never delivered there. And there was an ill tempered woman who kept people away. I’m surprised there was no mention of a swamp creature.

As John and Aimee investigate the house the digital recorders keep cutting out when they go near an old poor table. This doesn’t happen once, or even twice, but multiple times and with different recorders. Unfortunately, nothing really comes of this. I was expecting all sorts of things to happen in this area but all they got was the word "suffer" when they got the recorder working several feet away. Was the recorder malfunctioning? Is there something sinister in that corner? It seems like we were set up for a whole lot of nothing with that one.

For some reason John wants to have a look in the crawl space and sends Brian in there to check it out. He finds some broken glass that ends up being the remnants of a poison bottle. Keep in mind poison bottles were very common during this era. Mice and other rodents carried horrible disease so people laid out the poison like Pez candy to get rid of them.

The bottle is what John takes to his museum and puts under glass.

The Firehouse:

Next John investigates a firehouse in Pueblo Colorado (a town I used to live in) where there are reports of fire trucks driving themselves. They’ve also had several veteran firefighters die while on duty and there is a report of a boy falling down the fire pole.

The fire truck story sounds a bit suspect so it was good to see John debunk that. That model truck could shake violently as it idled and could release the brake. Obviously the truck could then take without a driver.

The team uses something called the Ghost Box which I assume is the same thing as the Spirit Box we’ve seen used on Ghost Adventures so frequently. As it runs Brian and Chris feel they’re talking to William who used to work there. William wants to speak with John. Unfortunately when they get him the conversation is pretty much over. They get the word "blaze" and not much else.

As they investigate they come across a bookshelf which has a broach in it. It’s a mourning broach and could have been worn by a widow of a firefighter. They feel this is the item to take out of the station and off it goes to John’s museum.

There were some interesting aspects to this episode. I really liked the debunking they did with this one. They didn’t take the story of the truck at face value and when they saw the little cars had moved while investigating the home they checked to see if the floor was level and found out it wasn’t. I still think the daytime sweep is something other investigators need to take up. Checking out the location by day seems like a pretty smart idea.

The thing I didn’t like is how the items John felt were the source of the problem were handled. Both of these items point to a problem I brought up before. All John does is put a glass cover over the. Why couldn’t he do the same thing for the owners and give the items back? Sure, giving a broken glass bottle back would be pretty pointless, but that broach belonged to someone and is a symbol of their loss, it seems like they should treat it like the heirloom it is and leave it in the firehouse not display it as some haunted trinket.

I still don’t understand why these items are the source of the problem when John can store them just fine with no ill effects.

Other Articles of Interest:

• Haunted Collector – Uncivil Spirit & Revolutionary Ghost – S01E05
• Haunted Collector – Firestarter and Haunted Museum – S02E10
• Haunted Collector – Shadow Boxer and Ghost Storm – S03E08
• Haunted Collector – My Mother’s Ghost & Paranormal Predator – S01E02
• Haunted Collector – Burning Spirits – Ghosts of the West – S01E03
• Haunted Collector – Stirring the Dead and Ghost Writer – S02E06
• Haunted Collector – Haunted Bayou/Library Ghost – S01E01
• Haunted Collector – Haunted Villa and Spirit Springs – S02E03
• Haunted Collector – House of Pain and Antique Spirits – S03E12
• Haunted Collector – Casino Phantom and California Nightmare – S02E07