Central Terminal, Buffalo, NY

This weekend we traveled to Buffalo, NY to experience the Buffalo wing festival and found ourselves submerged in what was once a high-traffic train station--Central Terminal. Designed by Alfred T. Fellheimer (the same architect who designed the world-famous Grand Central Station of Manhattan, NY) this station ran from 1929 to 1979 when it was abandoned and left in disrepair. Since then, it has been passed from person to person in hopes of full restoration. The station has appeared in many TV programs and movies, including Ghost Hunter, which investigated the spiritual activity of the main building. According to the program, a great deal of spirit activity was identified in the main building. My crew and I investigated the secondary buildings.

At one point we were descending a flight of unstable stairs and I felt something on my shoulder. I turned around and snapped a picture (which came out blurry, of course!). My friend also snapped a picture at that moment and saw a distinct orb behind me. Notice the look in my husbands face when he heard what I felt. Other than that, it was pretty uneventful. Dangerous and creepy though it was. It is not advised that anyone should enter this property as we found out it was private property later and it is VERY dangerous! At some points the stairs dissappear for several flights!

There are, however, several events held in the main building, fundraisers, tours, and even ghost hunts.

Here are a few snap shots of some of the cool things we saw.

Cedarcrest Asylum, Attempt # 2

After chickening out of our first attempt at Cedarcrest Insane Asylum, the crew decided to have another go. We preped by buying a new old school compass as an electromagnetic detector, packing our flashlights with shinny new batteries and breaking out the EVP recorder.

With new found courage we drove to the hospital and did a drive-by--finding to our dismay, a cop and three girls outside the building. Discouraged, but not giving up, we decided to head to the local watering hole for some liquid courage.

A half hour later, close to dusk, we piled back into the car and attempted another drive-by. The coast was clear. We parked the car, gathered our gear and headed up to the building, courage in hand!

Scaling the fence was so much easier in the spring weather!

We entered the building and explored EVERY room!

Kris' head and upper torso were missing in this picture...

Conclusion:

Our first attempt was much more active than this one. We felt at ease until the third floor, where Kris and I felt anxious. Other than a few odd light streaking on photos taken, nothing was found. On the third floor, Kris experienced rapid compass spinning that lasted only a second, but ended before we could record it. EVP revealed nothing conclusive.

Although this place is pretty creapy and houses many bats and other critters, it seems to lack conclusive activity...a tad disappointing.

Hoosac Tunnel, Mass

We went out of jurisdiction into Massachusetts to explore a haunted tunnel. It is a 4.75 mile railroad tunnel in the western aspect of Mass that passes through the Hoosac Range, an extension of Vermont's Green Mountains.

Work began in 1848 and was completed 27 years later.

On October 17, 1867, the most tragic accident occurred while digging the tunnel's 1,028 foot vertical exhaust shaft, or central shaft. A lighted candle hoisted up ignited naphtha fumes which triggered an explosion. When a rescue team was sent down the shaft to recover survivors, no were found. However, some survivors made a make-shift raft to survive the water used to put out the tunnel fire, but died from asphyxiation before they could escape.

It was those lost to the explosion that are said to haunt "The Bloody Pit".....

100ft into the pit!!

Looking into the spooky tunnel

We went in anyway...

Erika and Feryl outside the tunnel

A view of the tracks over troubled water

Built in 1877

Conclusion:

We traveled about 2 miles into the cave and never found the central shaft. There was little activity. We ended up turning around for fear of acquiring "the black lung" from smoggy coal smoke.

We were unable to catch any activity on film, but do need to venture back to explore further.

Cedarcrest Mental Asylum

After exploring the Little People Village, the crew was famished and drove down the road to Maggie McFly's for lunch. Over French Onion Soup we discussed the Cedarcrest Mental Asylum in Berlin, and concluded that we would "drive by" to scope out the grounds.

We parked in a functioning parking lot and hiked over to the abandoned building. As we approached we heard a high pitched buzzing sound that added to eerie feel. The building was surrounded by a 10 foot fence that posted "No Trespassing" signs. We instantly felt like we shouldn't be there, duh.


Erika, having driven an hour and a half to get there, was the first to jump the fence. Then Kris, Feryl and me. (My sister, Kelly, her husband, Tim, and my dog, Milo, went back to wait in the car). We looked for an easily accessible entrance and in doing so heard a bizarre howling sound. Needless to say, it scared the crap out of us. We entered into the basement level, Erika first again. What we saw was beyond us; bed frames piled high to the ceiling and chicken wire fencing lined the main room. The place was pitch black. We exited the lower level after cornering ourselves and found a new entrance further along the building to another part of the asylum. I was the first one in this time. This room was well lit and at the farthest end had a large double doorway that lead to one of the creepiest hallways we have ever seen.


My husband Kris thought it would be "funny" to push Erika into the hallway, and in doing so, angered something; there was a loud thud on one of the upper levels, that caused us all to turn on a dime and run for the door, pushing one another out of the way. Some ghost hunters we are. Erika was the first to scale the fence. We were all amazed at how quickly she climbed (like a spider monkey).

We headed back to the car where Kelly and Tim waited as a quick getaway in case the cops arrived and relayed our spooky story to them. Enjoy the pictures.



Hooded figure in the top left hand corner


















Orb above the bed frames




















Chair facing the wall at the end of this hallway

Little People Village

This past Saturday we decided to visit Little People's Village in Middlebury. Legand has it, that a man and wife settled here in a hand-fashioned stone house. Soon after moving in, the wife began seeing fairies in the woods outside their house. She asked her compliant husband to build them small houses, and later a throne, as she was the queen of the fairies. The man and woman died in the house, and it is said that the voices of the little people can be heard when walking the grounds.

Another source states that the houses were part of an attraction en route to Quassy Lake Resort in the early 1900s, and the large stone house was the gift shop. Believe what you will.

We amateur ghost hunters, my sister and her husband walked the long access road at the end of Old Waterbury Road and found to our left the Little People Village and of course the throne--none of which was creepy or gave us unsettling feelings. We explored the grounds and found many unusual things, but nothing spooky. Here are some pictures of the grounds and our brave crew!

The large stone house

Inside the stone house

Perhaps a root cellar

The Beginning

Fellow amateur hunters, Erika and Feryl, asked us to accompany them to a camping/wine trail adventure at the Housatonic Meadows State Park--in November. There were few people around, the only other campers clearly wanted to be left alone. The office was closed when we got there and upon exploration the bathrooms were locked! With an optomistic spirit, we set forth to explore the grounds after establishing our camp site. The grounds were covered entirely with leaves, and overcast skies and rushing Housatonic River added to the eerie feeling.

My husband, Kris, told our friends about the local legend of Dudleyville as we explored the grounds and quickly peeked their interest. Erika suggested finding out more from the locals as we explored the wineries nearby. We all piled into Feryl's car and headed to our first winery.

We hit three wineries and tasted many types of wine, and in the midst of our excitement for these tasty beverages, forgot to ask about Dudleyville--fail! We headed back to camp, slightly disappointed. One the way we stopped at a local package store for matches (we forgot to bring some), and inside we found more FREE samples of wine! The owner of the store was very kind in sharing a taste, and talked freely about the various wineries around Litchfield County. With his loose tongue, I figured he would freely offer information about Dudleyville, but asking him was a mistake. He told us to not trespass, and that he would not talk about the place. I tired to pry farther, but insulted him in doing so and he walked away.

After apologizing for the intrusion, we left the store, matches in hand. Erika and Feryl headed to the car and Kris and I went next door to a tile store to try our luck there. The women running the store, knew nothing. Disappointed, yet again, we dragged back to the car. Feryl found online (with his iphone), that Dudleyville was located at the end of Dark Entry Rd. (creepy!) With this and a new optimism in hand, we headed out of the driveway, and to our great surprise, found Dark Entry Rd. staring us in the face! It was across the street from the package store!

Of course, we ventured up the long and steep winding road to the top, where we were greeted by a gravel road and the entrance to what we thought would be Dudleyville. At this point there was no sign that said private property, no trespassing, no parking, etc. We felt completely safe to park here a hike the trail--and we did.

The trail was beautiful, peaceful, and followed a cute stream. To the right of the trail was a flagstone wall that seemed to be marking boundaries of some sort. We hiked on, hopeful to find some evidence of Dudleyville. About midway through our hike, we stumbled upon more wall that cut through the stream, creating a waterfall. It looked like a dam of some sort, and it was as we later found, the Dudleyville dam. We stumbled further into the woods, finding nothing more than more flagstone wall and abundant "no trespassing signs" (oops).

Discouraged, and with little daylight left, we headed back to our campsite. The remainder of our camping was relaxing, and relatively uneventful, as camping should be. We played Circle of Death by the fire and fell asleep, snuggled and freezing in our sleeping bags. The next morning we cleaned up camp and left home. After hours of research, both Erika and I found that we were actually in Dudleyville! Posted are some pictures of our adventure (taken by Feryl).

This adventure started our fascination with haunted Connecticut.

For more information on the history of Dudleyville visit the following links

http://www.spookyfiles.com/USA,-Connecticut,-Dudleytown-or-Dudleyville/

http://www.ghostvillage.com/legends/dudleytown.shtml