Pitch black rooms and dark hallways filled the Coles County Health Department building in Charleston Saturday—the only light source coming from flashlights and machines.

The building was originally the Charleston Memorial Hospital between 1957 and 1980 and housed about 50 to 70 patients at a time.

The Illinois Metaphysical and Paranormal Society and the Mattoon Investigators of Paranormal Activity let the public come in to investigate the phenomenon that took place within the building.

Becky Guymon, one of the founders of IMPS, said they had a lot of history about the building and knew there were spirits in the building.

Guymon said three members of her team and herself worked in the building and would experience different things like knocking, doors shutting and opening, lights going off and the feeling that someone is watching or behind them.

“Everybody in the building knows and most don’t care because (the spirits) are more playful than anything,” Guymon said.

The tools that were used throughout the investigation were digital voice recorders, electronic magnetic field meters, a laser grid, a ghost or spirit box and cameras.

Guymon said the recorders were used as a way to capture different sounds in the room that may not be audible at the time and acts as a journal of the investigation.

The cameras and laser grid capture pictures and shadows.

The electronic magnetic field meter captures reading of high energy and the spirit or ghost box uses radio frequencies to allow a spirit to communicate.

In one session, participants sat around a table in a conference room using a spirit box to enable spirits to answer question.

The group picked out certain things that sounded like they could be answers to the questions before moving on to the next one.

The groups of people who participated in the sessions were given a tour by flashlight before being split up in groups to participate in different types of investigations.

During the tour, Guymon gave the history of the building and told them what they have found in the past.

Guymon said they have found at least two spirits within the building.

One is an old lady who shuffles along a back hallway, which use to be patient rooms when it was a hospital.

She said women have walked by the door to the waiting area and felt like they were being watched, one of them named him John.

Juli Velazquez, a paranormal consultant, also attended the session, but was not told about the spirits within the building until she pointed them out.

“When I did a walk through I got a variation of names that came through,” Velazquez said. “One was a woman named Sarah, which (Guymon) confirmed was a name that came through on previous investigations.”

She also said she got the name David.

She said the shuffling she heard was by an old woman named Mary Ann, who was bent over with osteoporosis.

Guymon said the back corner of the building near the boiler room is one of the most active parts of the building.

Velazquez’s group did the investigation in the area using at voice recorder to catch an electronic voice phenomena.

“We heard an audible whistle twice and I actually had someone touch my back in the boiler room,” Velazquez said.

Lauren Polletta, a Manteno resident, was in Velazquez’s group and heard the whistles.

“It’s just a rush,” Polletta said. “Also seeing and experiencing things in real life versus on TV was cool.”

Polletta said she has had experiences before.

“I’m a believer, because I get little things that happen in my house here and there that are confirmed by others that I live with at different times,” Polletta said.

Guymon said she was happy that there were responses in the building.

“I’ve heard a lot of good responses, the whistles were really good,” Guymon said.

Guymon said they wanted to allow the public a chance to see what it is really like to do a paranormal investigation.

She said the things that are not shown on the TV shows are the hours of waiting that the investigators have to do before they go any responses.

“A lot of people watch the shows and think its kind of cool but never really know how to go about doing it,” Guymon said.

She said they wanted to give the public to go do something different.

“It’s the time of year where everyone is thinking about haunted houses and stuff, but they’re not thinking about actually going and doing a ghost hunt,” Guymon said.

Carolyn Fox, a Manteno resident, said she heard more than she expected to hear.

She was in Velazquez group as well.

“I watch a lot of the programs and I do believe that there are spirits that walk among us,” Fox said. “I would definitely do this again, because it’s nice to see it in person and be a part of it.”

Polletta said seeing and experiencing this stuff was a way of experiencing a possible future.

“It’s experiencing what may happen after death,” Polletta said.

Samantha McDaniel can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].