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The next destination for Ghost Adventures is the San Haven Sanatorium in North Dakota. It was opened in 1912 for tuberculosis patients. Like other facilities, it was a losing battle and became the last stop for hundreds of patients. Plenty of men, women and children all lost their lives. However, does that loss make it haunted? According to Zak, the location is "infested with ghosts."

Claims of the paranormal include a woman being scratched, the usual, unproven claims of Satanic rituals, the sighting of the devil in car headlights, and that evil creeps up from the basement. Sadly, there was a more recent death, that of an investigator who fell down the elevator shaft. Instead of taking it as an accident, Zak puts out the idea he was pushed by unseen forces.

As Zak interviews and asks leading questions to Julie about the scratches she got, she and her husband claim something possessed her after the event as she wasn’t the same person In fact, she hasn’t stepped foot on the ground until Zak shows up and then she has no problem going in.

While looking around one of the buildings, Zak makes the usual comment of feeling anxiety and heaviness. Once outside the building, Zak is handed a small hatchet, which he immediately claims was used in Satanic rituals. He says it’s a demonic battery and throws it into the abandoned building. Of course, there is nothing to suggest that axe was used for anything nefarious.

To get the investigation started, Zak sends Jay down into the tunnels under the buildings. This looks to be the body chute where patients were carted away. Aaron goes to the basement, which is riddled with debris. Everyone admits the place is crumbling and falling apart and might just collapse at any minute.

When it’s time for the main investigation, Zak boldly states they have one goal for this investigation – to find the evil in the building and pick a fight with it. Bold words that will come back to bite him right in the ass.

The building is filled with the usual bangs, pops, cracks and sounds of falling debris. Despite saying the building is crumbling, they keep claiming something is being thrown at them.

On the upper floors, Zak and Aaron hear footsteps coming up the stairs. It sounds like evil is coming right toward them. So what does Zak do? He runs the other way and calls to Aaron for help. This happens again when Zak sets up a static camera. While doing so, he sees something, drops the camera and runs. For someone who called for a showdown with evil, Zak certainly isn’t standing his ground.

While roaming through the building, Zak demonstrates how the teen met with his accident. The elevator isn’t sealed off in any way and there are no barriers on the upper floors. Zak almost walks off the building. Clearly this isn’t the work of evil, it’s not seeing where you’re going.

As the investigation continues, both Aaron and Billy say they feel heaviness on their chests. Aaron nearly has a panic attack as they end up back by the tunnels. And once again, even though the building is crumbling and littered with debris, Aaron says a piece of wood is thrown at him. This is the last straw and Aaron runs around in a fit.

That brings the investigation to close, but there is one more event. As Aaron and Zak start to walk away, there is a loud bang and crash. This is most likely a piece of the building falling, or perhaps someone throwing something at it. However, what do we get from Zak who wanted to taunt evil? He runs way. Again.

Now let’s look at the statement Zak made at the beginning. The building is "infested" with ghost, so they should have dozens of pieces of evidence, right? There were no scratches or attacks. Nothing shoved them down the stairs. A Satanic figure didn’t present itself. They hear pieces of the building creaking and crumbling. And they heard what sounded like a bottle shifting, most likely from an animals nosing through the trash.

Further, what is supposed to account for all this evil? What event or person sparked this? Did the hundreds of cases of tuberculosis make it evil? Is it the Indian connection Zak is desperately trying to draw? The Satanic rituals there is no evidence of? The children’s cemetery that seems to be a couple miles down the road?

For a seeming den of evil, this building didn’t produce much.

Other Articles of Interest:

• Ghost Adventures – Albion Normal School – S15E09
• Ghost Adventures – Mizpah Hotel – S05E02
• Paranormal Lockdown – St. Ignatius Hospital – S02E04
• Ghost Adventures – Palace Saloon – S13E03
• Ghost Adventures – Norblad Hostel – S16E11
• Ghost Adventures – Mackay Mansion – S13E02
• Ghost Adventures – The Domes of Casa Grande – S12E09
• Ghost Adventures – Prospect Place
• Ghost Adventures – Crazy Town – S07E13
• Ghost Adventures – Route 666 – S13E06 – Part 1

We’re off to Porterville, California to visit the Zalud House Museum which houses a haunted chair. It is said that William Brooks was shot and killed by Julia Howe. The chair was not originally in the home, but has since been brought there. Heather Huerta, the curator of the museum, believes there is a negative and dark energy associated with the chair and that the museum is haunted. It’s not just Heather who feels negative energy from the chair, her husband Benny says he’s channeling the negative energy.

While looking over the house before the investigation, Zak sits in the famed chair and feels pains in his chest and back. Benny says the spirits talk to him when he touches the chair. However, Jeff Edwards, who is the actual owner of the chair, doesn’t believe the chair is of any danger and if the museum doesn’t want it, he’ll take it back.

As Zak and Jay look up old records, they come across a newspaper article where Julia says a subconscious mind was at work and guided her hand. Zak feels the chair is dangerous and has the intent to cause harm. He also believes that Benny is on the verge of being oppressed by dueling negative forces.

For the investigation we waste a heck of a lot of time with Zak ordering Aaron to sit in the chair and Aaron saying he won’t. This is utterly juvenile because Aaron does sit in the stupid chair. And guess what? He doesn’t feel a thing. Nothing happens. However, the Ovilus spits out the words, Trap and Female.

Zak brings out the SLS and gets a figure on the screen. He sits in the chair again and says he has quick chest pains. He gets worked up and declares he’s going to take the chair outside. He asks for a sign from the Zalud family so he can remove the chair. In response, he hears a female voice.

But, now it’s time to turn the table. Instead of focusing on the negative energy, he wants to focus on the family. He and Billy bring out he Paranormal Puck and get sidetracked by what they call negative responses. For example, when asked, "what will you do if we remove the chair?" Zak gets "table" and "homicide."

Then it’s time for Billy to sit in the chair. It should come as no surprise that he feels sick and dizzy, the same symptoms he’s had for the last dozen episodes. During this time, Zak takes full spectrum photos and gets a blur over Billy. Upon seeing this, Billy loses his mind and runs to another room. When they find him, Billy says something is wrong and he’s going to black out. As you would expect, Zak sees an orb move around and enter Billy, who is now having a panic attack.

Instead of Zak or anyone else removing the chair, Zak does a cleansing ritual to try and restore balance in the house.

As you watch this episode, listen to a few key phrases from Zak. He talks about the darkness that’s infested this house. He says the chair contains the violence of the murder. That Benny is oppressed by dueling forces. That Benny enables and channels the negative energy. He repeatedly suggest the idea of violence and darkness and thus the museum is a haven for evil.

Zak has adopted the mentality of a zealot from the 1700s. The demonic hides behind every corner. Places and objects are "infested" with evil and he’s the only one that can save these people. He now sees light orbs everywhere. When you repeatedly try to convince people something is demonic, when you emphatically embrace something as dark-even before you step foot inside, that’s exactly what you’re going to find even when it’s not there.

Zak has basically become a hypochondriac of the paranormal. He doesn’t look at anything objectively or with a questioning mind. The places he visits are "infested" with dark energy. Notice how many times he’s used "infested" and "oppressed" in the last few seasons.

That aside, what evidence do we have? Nothing more than feelings from Zak, who always feels the demonic and Billy and Aaron who seem to get sick in just about every episode these days.

Other Articles of Interest:

• Ghost Adventures – Reseda House of Evil – S13E04
• Ghost Adventures – Museum of the Mountain West – S15E10
• Ghost Adventures – Wolf Creek Inn – S15E13
• Ghost Adventures – Hotel Leger – S16E05
• Ghost Adventures – Heritage Junction – S09E06
• Ghost Adventures – Kennedy Mine – S16E03
• Ghost Adventures – St Anne’s Retreat – S13E08
• Ghost Adventures – The Haunted Museum (Old Wengert Mansion) – S12E13
• Ghost Adventures – The Exorcist House – S08E07
• Ghost Adventures – Silent Movie Theater – S14E05

The next Ghost Adventures episode takes us to Montana and the Twin Bridges Orphanage. Things immediately start off with Zak asking people if they’re afraid of the darker side of hauntings. Before we even step foot inside, Zak is laying the foundation for a demonic encounter. The idea of an orphanage never paints the picture of a contented child or happy memories, but Zak is wildly jumping the gun.

Twin Bridges was opened in 1894 and boarded around 5000 children until it was closed in 1975. Most of us would associate an orphanage with cruelty and poor living conditions, and regrettably, this place lives up to that image in every respect.

We hear stories about children getting whipped for wetting the bed. Children were dropped off at the door by parents who couldn’t take care of them. They were forced to do labor the adults should have handled. And this is confirmed by Janie Wasman, a wretch of a human being, who gleefully acknowledges she stuck a boy’s head in the toilet because he kept sighing at her. She has no qualms admitting that story and even laughs at a few others she holds back. It’s pretty clear she took pleasure in emotional and physical abuse. And she wasn’t the only one. There is a journal entry by a boy who was whipped on a daily basis and the matron set herself a goal to make a strong willed boy cry. When she broke him, she smiled at her achievement.

Besides the abuse, there were the usual cases of disease that took the lives of the children. On multiple occasions, the facility would be quarantined. Several children were buried on the property, but their headstones have since been lost. There is however a small plaque in the local cemetery listing their names. Small conciliation.

There is no doubt the matrons of the orphanage were the worst kind of people, but does that make this place haunted? And what evidence do they have? There are claims of children singing and Kurtis says he saw phantom children playing basketball. That’s all they have, but it hasn’t stopped Zak from saying there is dark energy lurking.

For the investigation, they split up into two groups, with Billy and Jay going to the gymnasium, while Zak and Aaron go to the largest building called The Castle.

Within the castle, Zak hears footsteps, and sees the footprints of a child. However, when a pigeon flies out and makes Zak soil himself, he has to admit the demonic energy they’ve been experiencing is just an animal. And much to his chagrin, the footprints turn out to be those of a raccoon. This also confirms that so many of the other cases where Zak hears footsteps and scratching can easily be attributed to animals living in abandoned buildings.

Over in the gym, Billy claims to see a shadow figure and as we should expect by now, Zak points out light anomalies floating around. But as they head to the pool area, things get exciting. They hear the sound of children’s voices and a ball rolls out of the supply closet and falls in the water. Once there, it miraculously moves on command. To add to the excitement, the Ovilus says the name Carol, followed by the words, twist, laugh and cleansing. Zak takes this to mean his twisted  position on the pool ladder.

A ball moving in a water is not a paranormal event. Neither is that ball rolling out of supply closet.

It’s a pretty massive stretch to tie that all together, but Zak is a master of stretching his theory to fit his evidence. While there may have been sounds of laughter, which could have come from anywhere, despite Zak saying they’re in the middle of nowhere, there are no signs of the demonic that Zak tried to sell in the beginning.

The only evil in the orphanage were the mentally unbalanced and hateful employees who took pleasure in mental and physical abuse. But take comfort. By looking at Janie, cancer is eating away at her miserable life.

Other Articles of Interest:

• Haunted Highway – Louisiana Swamp Woman and Pioneer Cemetery – S01E05
• Ghost Adventures – Pythian Castle – S15E11
• Stranded – Burn Brae Mansion – S01E04
• Haunted History – Ghosts of Gettysburg – S01E02
• Paranormal State – Do Bad Things – S05E10
• Ghost Adventures – Reseda House of Evil – S13E04
• Ghost Adventures – Yost Theater and Ritz Hotel – S08E05
• Ghost Adventures – Black Dahlia House – S12E01
• Ghost Adventures – Excalibur Nightclub and Bachelor’s Grove Cemetery – S07E02
• Children of the Grave