[imagesource: Phoenix Paranormal South Africa]

It’s October, and Halloween is around the corner, so we might as well look into some local paranormal activity to up the spook factor.

Any paranormal investigator worth their salt has to go running around a ‘lunatic’ asylum at some point. It’s like a rite of passage.

For the record, we don’t use the word ‘lunatic’ to describe people with mental health conditions any longer because it’s offensive and the moon has nothing to do with it, but it sure sounds good when you’re trying to creep people out.

This is why it has been applied to what South Africa’s very own ghost hunters, Phoenix Paranormal South Africa, are calling the “most haunted building in South Africa” – an asylum in Gauteng that is still operational.

For the sake of business, and to stop other paranormal enthusiasts from invading the grounds, the asylum has asked to remain anonymous.

The building in question isn’t the functioning mental health institution. It’s on the grounds, complete with some unmarked graves and other hallmarks of a haunted house. It was built in the late 1800s, which everyone knows is a century with some seriously suspect treatments for the mentally ill.

Here’s Talkspace with a quote from journalist Nellie Bly, who went undercover at the Blackwell Island Insane Asylum in New York in 1887:

“For crying the nurses beat me with a broom-handle and jumped on me,” described one patient to Bly. “Then they tied my hands and feet, and throwing a sheet over my head, twisted it tightly around my throat, so I could not scream, and thus put me in a bathtub filled with cold water. They held me under until I gave up every hope and became senseless.”

I doubt South African asylums were kinder.

Anyway, back to Phoenix Paranormal South Africa, which conducted an investigation of the Gauteng asylum just before lockdown.

Check out the video below, before we hear a bit more about their experiences:

Business Insider SA spoke with Charmaine Roos, co-founder of the group:

“We believe that the many deaths and suicides that took place within this building, created the most haunted building that we have ever set foot in,” said Roos…

“Staff and visitors report having run-ins with the spirits of these tormented souls which were once treated there as well as of nurses. Many of those experiences include the ghost of a red-haired nurse who would tend to patients, but once you look up into her face, she allegedly has no eyes.”

Other ghosts on the property supposedly include a nun who “still treats patients” (I’m sure there’s a health code violation in there somewhere), a laughing ghost in a tree, and a figure who insists on wearing silver boots.

Is it even a paranormal investigation without some Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP) recordings? The team says they captured the voice of someone asking why they were there:

The voice has been identified as male. Maybe it’s the fabulous guy with the silver boots?

[source:businessinsider]