News

Paranormal team investigates San Haven

By Scott Wagar (Submitted Photos)

10/29/2013

Throughout the Halloween season local residents in Bottineau County talk about local places that might have ghosts and other entities. One question that often comes up is whether or not the buildings of San Haven are inhibited by spirits. An answer to that question just might have arrived.  

Four members of the Midwest Paranormal Files (MPF) out of Detroit Lakes, Minn., visited San Haven this summer and spent time in an investigation for paranormal activity, which they believed they found.  

The group learned about San Haven through a source (which has asked MPF to keep him nameless) that provided photos and stories of San Haven showing paranormal activity, which included a number of photos which shows shadowy figures.

To MPF, the evidence was so overwhelming from their source, they came to the Dunseith area in June and utilized their ghost hunting equipment to see if they could either prove or debunk the activity taking place there. The group’s evidence shows some interesting results.

“Since there was no power on site we stuck to the basics. I used a digital camera, a digital voice recorder and a K2 to measure EMFs (Electro Magnetic Field),” said Kelsey Opsahl, a member of MPF who was part of the investigation at San Haven. “The digital camera is used to hopefully capture images of the paranormal. The voice recorder is used mainly during EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) sessions. EVP’s are discovered during playback of our recordings and are usually voices or sounds that were not audible by the human ear and are ruled out as not another living person, animal or mechanical noise,” she continued.

“The K2 is used in paranormal investigations on the theory that entities are largely composed of energy, which may be electrically based. Though we do not use this as evidence, we do use it as a guide, especially in a place such as San Haven where there isn’t any power to generate EMF and you wouldn’t expect the K2 to register any,” she added.

Outside of Opsahl’s equipment, Jeremy Buermann carried a K2 meter, Kristy Sletta an audio recorder and Brian Halstensgaard a camera.

INVESTIGATION

“We met our hookup in Dunseith at 10 a.m. Drove a mile down the road and found San Haven State Hospital. He showed us around, mostly telling us which areas were unsafe. He also shared some stories from the nights he’d been out there. He left, and we stayed to further our tour,” Buermann said on the group’s website.

“Only an occasional flash of lights were ever seen on the K2. Further attempts to contact anyone after a flash got no response. We were there until 1 p.m. when we thought we should eat and take a nap,” she continued.

It was here that MPF encounter what they called their first real paranormal activity, but instead of the activity being discovered in one of the buildings, the entity they encountered was elsewhere.

“Upon getting in the van Kristy, Kelsey and I got in. Kristy mentioned the basement area was hard on her, very heavy feeling. Just then the DVD screen dropped down. The girls asked me (it’s his van) if that sort of thing happens a lot. It doesn’t, it’s hard to pull down on purpose because the hinge is half broke. Kristy slid the door open and asked for any spirit to leave the van. Once Brian got in we headed back to find some lunch,” Buermann said.

“About 5 p.m., we were ready to go back. We got to the van, loaded up and I tried to start the van. The battery was completely dead. I checked to see if anything was left charging, all the lights automatically turn off, nothing was left on,” Buermann continued.

“I just had the van in for an oil change where they checked the battery. The battery was like new. I never had a problem before. It took awhile but we got a security guy to give us a jump from his 4-wheeler,” Buermann went on.

“We didn’t think spirit right off the bat, but it did kind of make us wonder. Spirits are known to steal the energy from camera batteries and such things, but a car battery? Shortly after returning to the hospital the K2 meter started to go crazy, spiking to red for a sustained amount of time (red means a high level of activity),” Buermann said.

“We thought what could be causing this naturally. We were in the middle of a horse pasture. All the wiring has been stripped from the building. There hasn’t been power for over 10 years. The sun was out, with just a slight breeze. It was responding to questions, and seemed to center around me,” Buermann added.

“That’s when we started thinking we are communicating with the stow-away in the van. The K2 activity went on for over an hour, during which I asked the spirit if he (it was determined to be a boy) was the one in the van and did he drain the battery. He seemed to answer yes to both questions. The second time I asked I received the same response. I told the spirit both times that he was unwelcome in the van and that he needed to stay in San Haven and after the third time the activity stopped,” Buermann continued.

Outside of the experiences Buermann spoke about, he asked additional questions while in the room with the boy who stated he was in the van. Buermann asked if the room they were in was his, which through the K2 meter the boy stated it was. He then asked if the group should leave the boy’s room and the floor they were on and his answers were to leave the room, but not the floor.

As the session went on, the team learned that the boy had a handicap, was treated well at San Haven and died of an accident.
During the session, the group used two EMFs devices, which were synchronized at times in lighting up as Buermann asked questions. (It should be noted here that a K2 is a meter that lights up at different levels shows the strength of an energy source.)  

EVPs

The groups also spent time attempting to collect EVPs where they captured a number of voice recordings from unknown sources at the site. In one of the EVPs, Sletta asked the group if anyone had audio on. Shortly after the question was asked the EVP picked up a voice saying, “Yeah”, as in response to the question.

In another part of the hospital, the group was talking about a girl called Nina who had spray painted her name in numerous places throughout the San. As they spoke about Nina, the EVP caught a voice which said, “Nina”.

As the investigation went on through the evening, a thunderstorm came up around midnight, which ended the exploration of San Haven for the members of MPF.

RESULTS

As the group spent time at San Haven they took thousands of photos, numerous recordings and even recreated scenes from their source to see if they could capture the scene over again.

Since leaving the TB sanatorium, the group has spent hours going over their photos and recordings and disproved a few of the photos their source sent to them.

“We debunked the mist photos because we noticed when we were in the basement that the humidity actually created a mist that would swirl around in front of the IR camera and iPhone camera, which I understand is what the contact took his pictures with. Even our flashlight beam would pick up the humidity/mist,” Opsahl said.

“Another photo that was debunked was one that had a figure standing at the end of the hallway. We discovered a water heater standing up at the end of that hall. When you take a picture from afar it did look like someone was standing there but alas it wasn’t,” Opsahl added.

Buermann stated that although a couple of the photos were debunked, the shadowy figures seem to be legitimate.

“It would seem as though there are spirits roaming the complex,” Buermann said.

SAN HAVEN

San Haven opened in November of 1912 and cared for thousands of tuberculosis patients until it closed its doors in July of 1973 after antibiotics were discovered for TB.

Once antibiotics were discovered for TB, and San Haven closed, the state hospital in Grafton moved patients to San Haven and cared for mentally handicapped patients to resolve an overcrowding issue at Grafton.

Grafton cared for its patients at San Haven until 1987 when a court order closed down the facility and placed the mentally handicapped in the private sector rather then keep the patients institutionalized.

RETURNING

Whether one believes that there are ghosts or not at San Haven, the members of Midwest Paranormal Files are going to come back to San Haven to conduct another investigation.

“We will use what we’ve learned to have more specific questions. Try other methods we didn’t have time to do,” Buermann said.
“Our investigation was cut short due to the storm. It’s always great if you can go back to a location that has turned up evidence to try to get more answers,” Buermann added.

Opsahl agrees with Buermann. “There is definitely more to investigate,” she said.

To see some of the San Haven’s EMFs and EVPs from Midwest Paranormal Files, along with reading more into the members’ investigation there, go to www.paranormalfiles.org/evidence/san-haven-nd-june-2013