The Songbird of Waverly Hills

I spent a number of years as co-founder and lead investigator for a paranormal group in northern Indiana. We weren’t a large group, but we had a few dedicated regular members who allowed us to keep it going for a number of years. We went to a bunch of places in Indiana, Ohio, and even Illinois throughout the time we were active, but the most interesting and probably most well-known place we went was located in Kentucky. That place was the old Waverly Hills Sanitarium in Louisville; one of the most famous haunted places in the country. It was technically our first ever investigation as a group and was a pretty big thing to try and tackle for a new team, but we did it more for the experience than the evidence gathering. And most of us just wanted to start off big with a location that everyone has heard of. Waverly Hills has special events every weekend in which groups of forty can come and walk around all night; we signed up and headed down for a Saturday investigation.
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When pulling up to the building for the first time, the sheer size of it really gets to you first. You have to drive up this twisting, turning road next to a golf course and by the time we arrived, it was already dark. Once you make that final turn, Waverly just hits you with its enormousness. I remember thinking “Wow, this is going to be intense!” And that was an understatement! The owners and groundskeepers of the complex started off by giving us a quick rundown of the rules and how the night would work. The forty people would each split in to two groups of twenty and would spend half the night on either the third, forth, and fifth floors followed by the basement and first floor and then would all switch in the middle of the eight hours. We then got a quick tour and I realized that it was going to be hard to see in some areas. The moon was out at full force, so we at least had the moonlight coming through the windows; and flashlights, of course. I was also carrying my personal digital recorder and had it running from the moment they released us to when we finally packed up to leave in the morning.
 
The amount of rooms and hallways at Waverly can be pretty overwhelming, and it took us a while to get settled in. I wanted to spend some time just walking around and seeing if I could spot something. I didn’t think much about my recorder, other than that I had it on and would eventually have to listen to all of the tape to see if we caught anything. Our group was on the third floor, which is where a spirit of a little boy named Timmy is rumored to haunt. People leave balls for him to play with on the floor and he is known to push them around in front of people. A couple of the girls in our group tried to get him to move a ball, but we did not notice any movements. So we eventually found one of the old patient rooms to sit down in and try to hear or see anything. The place was very gloomy and dark, just as you’d expect it to be.
 
We had been sitting in that same room for about thirty minutes, when we heard the sound of shuffling footsteps making their way down the hallway towards our room. Moments later, a couple of women poked their heads in the doorway and asked us “Did you guys see the little girl in the dress walk by?” None of had seen anything pass by the door and the two women seemed surprised that we hadn’t. They said that she was skipping down the hallway and went right past us. We weren’t sure what to think of that, since we had not seen anything. We sort of just figured that they had either seen something that they thought was a little girl or were just making the story up. I just put it out of my mind and continued on with the rest of the night.
 
By the end of the eight hours, we were all pretty tired but Waverly was an amazing experience. I did not have anything happen to me and I did not see anything, but I was happy to just have had the chance to spend a night in that awesome building. During the next two weeks or so, I avoided uploading and listening to all of the tape from that night. I figured that since nothing happened during the night, I was probably not going to find anything on the recordings. But once I finally listened to the recordings, I learned that I was dead wrong in those regards. I had captured not just one, but over a dozen different Class A EVPs of everything from children saying “cheese” to people screaming down an abandoned hallway. But by far the most memorable recording I captured was that of a little girl.
 
​I was able to hear, plain as day, the sound of a young girl singing and following me around as I walked the hallways. She was humming a little tune and singing both near and far from us at different times. I looked at the time of the recording and it happened just before we sat down in that room. I then remembered what those two ladies asked us and knew that they were actually telling the truth and saw her. I did not get a chance to see her, but I did get to hear her lovely voice. She seemed very happy, which was a nice thing to know, since Waverly had such a dark history. I feel as though she was just glad to have someone to spend time with and sing for; I was lucky in those regards.
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