Chronicles of a paranormal investigator: Aradale

I have spent almost 15 years investigating locations across Australia. While I often write about paranormal investigating, I don’t necessarily share much about my adventures. I thought it was time to crack open the journal and share some of my experiences in this series called: Chronicles of a paranormal investigator. In today’s edition, I visit Aradale Lunatic Asylum.

Photo: 2019: Admin Building at Aradale. I am not sure what is going on with my overall outfit choice. I was clearly still going through the finding myself phase after having young kids!

Aradale is one of those locations that just gets you excited about being a paranormal investigator.  For me, the grand opulence of the building and tragic history of a lunatic asylum makes me draw comparisons to the reboot of the movie House on Haunted Hill.  In fact, my official Aradale ‘theme song’ is sweet dreams by Marylin Manson which was also the title track for that exact movie.  With that song in mind, I will never forget the first time I visited Aradale in April of 2014. 

Months of planning had finally come to fruition and the excitement was electric.  It had to be, because for myself it is a 3-hour drive just to get there.  It is in the middle of nowhere and in a region where if it gets cold, it gets ice cold.  I was to stay for an overnight investigation in the middle of winter and drive the long drive home straight afterward with no sleep, so it really was pure passion and excitement that was driving this visit.  It certainly was not going to be easy.

The anticipation slowly built during the long drive and I remember going down the long highway and seeing high up on the hill a white large mansion like structure in the distance perched up on the top of what looked like a mountain.  I quickly realised it was Aradale.  It really was a house on haunted hill!  I turned right into the road leading into the complex and passed the guard’s tower and through the front gate.  Night had now fallen, and I was driving up a long dark driveway lined with trees.  I had my theme song playing, setting the tone knowing that any moment I would see the beautiful grand building as I reached the top of the hill.  I remember how excited I was to finally be at a location I considered to be a bucket list location.  This is a location people from all over the World want to visit and here I was about to investigate it!  

Once I walked inside the large gates, all I could see was large white structures surrounding me. Walking inside the buildings themselves was quite overwhelming.  They certainly had a ‘feel’ to them, but there was also a sense of impending doom.  I was used to being in locations that you could easily navigate.  Aradale is not like that.  Aradale is like a maze.  One wrong turn and you are completely lost.  Hallways upon hallways intertwining across split levels and one building joining onto another, it would be very easy to get lost and disorientated.  If you are in the dark and alone, panic could easily set in.  Each hallway looked exactly the same lined with cells each side with a small slit in the doors you could see inside.  I was then struck with a sense of reality.  You see as paranormal investigators, we often become quite detached from the brutal history of some of our locations.  It can be easy to forget the horrible conditions and tortures that real people endured in places just like this.  Reading the history about a location is one thing, however seeing the rooms horrendous acts occurred in and even seeing some of the tools used to perform barbaric procedures gives you a huge amount of perspective.  One can only imagine what some of these poor souls had to endure.  

Read my article: Tales of Aradale: Horrifying Procedures

On this particular night, I started my investigation in the Men’s ward, which many people report having intense experiences in.  While it seems a few things were happening for them, for me it wasn’t until I reached the Women’s ward that I started to experience anything.  Maybe it is because I myself am a woman?  Maybe it is because with a lot of the medical conditions I have now, back in the early 1900’s I could have been locked up at a place like this, diagnosed with a case of hysteria?  Maybe my energy connected in some way?  As soon as I walked in, I was hit with a range of emotions.  Fear, sadness, grief, and anxiety.  I am the kind of person that will happily walk around in the dark without a flashlight, however on this occasion, I couldn’t walk one step in front of me alone.  I was absolutely petrified, and I couldn’t put a finger on why.  I felt like I wanted to throw up.  I felt like I wanted to cry, in fact I remember fighting back tears.  I just wanted comfort and someone to hug me.  I didn’t have any kind of ‘profound’ paranormal experience such as hearing a voice or being touched etc, but in some way, I had emotionally tapped into the energy of the building.  It was a feeling I had never felt before.  A connection I cannot explain.  That in itself I guess could be described as somewhat ‘paranormal’.

I soon made my way into the administration building.  It is one of those memorable spots because of the large stained-glass window looking over the grounds of Aradale.  There was even a rumoured suicide in this room, where people report a lot of strange experiences.  It was just outside this room where I had an experience that left me shaken for the rest of the night. I was in the hallway just outside with another investigator. My husband had joined this investigation which was extra special because he doesn’t normally investigate with me, but given the reputation of Aradale, he just had to come.  He was in the beautiful stained-glass room taking some photos with a converted digital camera.  As I looked down the hallway, I could see what looked like a male figure standing in the doorway at the end of the hall.  Suddenly, this figure started moving.  I actually remember saying “I think it’s moving!”.  Next thing I knew, I was overcome with a feeling of intense panic as this figure came hurtling towards us as if it was running.  It looked like a talk dark skinny shadow man.  I know that sounds cliché but that is exactly what it looked like.  The other investigator grabbed my hand and dragged me into the stained-glass room where my husband and another investigator were, and closed the door.  She had seen and experienced the same thing as me.  After we told them what happened, my husband ran out into the hall to see if anyone was there.  He couldn’t see anything but said he felt like he was surrounded by energy.  The hairs were standing up on his arms.  He grabbed the digital camera and started taking photos.  Of course, he caught nothing on film, but the moment is forever etched in my memory.

One of the photos snapped by hubby in the hallway. 

Sometimes it is a shame when something like this happens towards the beginning of the night.  It wasn’t even midnight and yet I had felt like I had been chased out of the building. The rest of night seemed rather quiet and calm.  I spent my time exploring the other buildings, including what were some peaceful moments in the morgue trays with my husband. It’s funny because often people think of a morgue as being one of the most haunted places because of the amount of dead bodies that have been through.  In the case of Aradale, you have over 13000 deaths.  When you think about it though, why would it be haunted?  It isn’t where something traumatic has happened, it isn’t where someone has passed, it is just a place to store a physical body.  The energy or consciousness that was once in that body has now gone.  It left the body somewhere else, likely in one of the wards.  The thought of lying in the chiller is scarier than actually doing it.  Some people can’t get their heads around that part.  I recall posting a photo of me on Facebook lying in the chiller which I ended up removing because a lot of my friends (who didn’t really know I was into the paranormal) wrote horrible comments that I was “disturbed” and “what is wrong with you?”.  Now, when you post these kinds of photos, people think differently.  It just shows how much the perception around the paranormal has changed.  

By around 4am, the cold had hit, the adrenaline had run out, I was tired, I was cranky, and I knew I had a 3-hour drive home ahead of me to pick up my young children who were not going to let me sleep.  My husband who has a bad knee was in pain, he was cold, and we were both over it.  While we had some great experiences early on, the rest of the night was pretty uneventful.  We left at around 7 am, tired but proud that we had been to our bucket list location. What followed were weeks of reviewing photos, audio and video, and while we may have caught a few interesting things, it was the personal experiences that stuck most.  For me, it was that feeling when I entered the Women’s ward.  It was a feeling I long craved in the following years.  Aradale was so far away and seemed like such a coordinated effort to get there.  I wanted to return; I just didn’t know when that would be. 

A couple of years had passed, and I was finally able to go back to Aradale, something I was able to do on a more frequent basis with the team from Australian Paranormal Society, who at the time were hosting regular investigations there each month.  It also helped that my children were now a bit older, so I could handle the long sleepless nights a bit better.  While the novelty was never the same as that very first night, I still always get the same excitement driving up that driveway, listening to ‘Sweet Dreams’.  No two nights were ever the same, and while some were highly active and others pretty quiet, there is one particular night that really sticks out.  

I was really excited to be going to Aradale on this night as I had been hosting a lot of investigations for guests at other locations.  This time was different because I was a guest.  I didn’t have to run a tour or entertain a group of people.  I could join in the fun and let loose a little bit I guess without having to worry if we were sticking to time or if everyone was happy.  There was no pressure.  I could sit back and see what was happening.  My favourite part about paranormal investigating is the art of observation.  I don’t use equipment; I just sit back, watch and wait.  I watch people and wait to see what happens around me.  I find this gives you a really unique perspective because in some ways, you are removed from the adrenaline of a situation so you can see not only what is really happening, but you also tend to see or pick up things that others may not notice.  They say your senses are the most valuable tool that a person could have.  I believe this.

The most profound moment however, was something that not just I experienced, but a group of 10 people all witnessed and experienced it together, making it all the more special and validating because I knew it was not just me.  I had mentioned to Bill from APS who was running the tour that I hadn’t been able to visit the Women’s ward since my very first investigation at Aradale years earlier.  I was yearning to reconnect and feel that emotional energy I had felt the very first time I visited ward.  He had promised me earlier in the night that if we had time we would visit, so long as there wasn’t another group in the area.  Aradale is such a large place with over 60 different buildings.  It means that there are often multiple groups of tours running at the same time and it is run with such precision that you don’t even know the other groups are there.  A strict route and timetable are followed to ensure that groups don’t bump into each other and so that another group does not contaminate any evidence of the other.  Looking at the route, Bill noticed that there were no other groups in the area and the Women’s ward was free so we could go in.  We walked in via the bottom floor.  We were all silent, looking around, waiting to start our session, we heard a lot of voices and talking outside the building.  It almost sounds like a bit of laughter and carrying on and the voices sounded female.  We figured that it was another group, so Bill stuck his head outside the door to make sure we were not interrupting anyone or that they were not supposed to be in the Women’s ward.  There was no one around anywhere.  We thought it was a little strange we didn’t see anyone but carried on.  We then heard loud noises directly above us.  It sounded like loud footsteps above us as if several people were walking.  We also heard muffled voices, which were all women.  We thought that the voices we heard outside moments earlier must have been another group and they have entered the building from another entrance and gone straight to the next floor.  We quietly left because we didn’t want to interrupt what they were doing.  We called it a night and went straight back to the main building, where we were met by one of the Aradale crew who was coordinating the groups for the night.  Bill handed him back the keys and told him that we had just been in the Women’s ward, but we heard the other group on the floor above us, so we left because we didn’t want to disturb them.  He looked confused.  “There is no group in the Women’s ward” he said.  The one and only other group was down at the morgue on the other side of the property.  “I watched them walk down there” he continued.  No one had been in the Women’s ward.   I have also investigated in many parts of Aradale before and even when groups are split between levels, you don’t tend to hear the people walking above you.  It took a few moments for us to register that maybe there was more to this experience than we realised.  We all looked at each other and I remember saying

“This is why I love Aradale!”.  

Did we interrupt the ladies of the women’s ward when we weren’t supposed to be there?  We will never know.  The one thing I do know is that Aradale is one of my favourite locations.  The energy, the feeling and the atmosphere are something that must be experienced.  Whether or not what goes on there is paranormal almost seems like it doesn’t matter.  There is a connection I feel with the place, especially in the Women’s ward.  I may not ever get that exact feeling ever again, but the connection will remain with me for life.  This is why I love Aradale!

Read another article I have written about a special night at Aradale with Australian Paranormal Society in 2017

The human pendulum

You can visit Aradale for Ghost Tour or Paranormal Investigation with Eerie Tours: https://www.eerietours.com.au/

For a day time walking historical tour, book with the Friends of J Ward which you can bundle with a visit to J Ward https://www.jward.org.au/