When Fears Come To Life: The Investigation of All Saints Lunatic Asylum Haunted Attraction
H.P. Lovecraft once said, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” Our fascination with the weird, the strange, and the frightening aspects of our universe has driven mankind in many aspects of their lives for centuries. Civilizations have risen and fallen all around us, and yet fear and the unknown have remained synonymous with one another through it all.
In recent decades, the passion and dedication of those in the haunted attraction business have pushed the boundaries of what defines fear and how it fuels us for entertainment. One Southern California location has done this successfully for years, and yet when the lights go out and the actors go home, something remains behind. This is the story of All Saints Lunatic Asylum.
Located in Apple Valley, CA, the isolated haunt is a constant source of entertainment and frights to delight audiences as they walk through the artfully crafted rooms the amazing cast and crew behind the haunt have put together. Whether it is the chilling children of the Nursery room or the haunting motif of the Chapel, each room elevates the fears and emotions building up within us all.
Yet what happens when the energy from those fearful moments builds up inside one location over the course of several years? With multiple events scheduled throughout the year and thousands of people roaming through these halls over time, the question remains: can a haunted attraction become the source of an actual haunting?
That was the case when we at Phenomenon Paranormal arrived at the location. Our time spent at the haunt was unique, in that the location was closed at the time due to the pandemic shutting down productions like this for a long time. Since our last investigation there, the business has thankfully reopened and anyone passing through the area is highly recommended to stop by during one of their events and check out this attraction for yourselves. It is a truly professional and entertaining venue.
After an amazing interview with one of the staff members at the location, as well as the haunt’s owner Christy, the three members of our team made our way to the Nursery for the first night of our investigation. Claims in the building have ranged from strange knocks and movement sounds in the building when no one is around, to a dark shadow moving through the halls and voices calling people’s names. There have even been instances of people being touched and figures and props moving on their own within the building after hours.
Our investigations proved to be quite fruitful. The first night was spent investigating the mannequin-filled room of The Nursery. Utilizing our equipment, (spirit box, K2 Meter, EVP Recorder, camera, etc), and some different techniques for investigation, including the Estes Method, developed by investigators Karl Pfeifer and Connor Randall, we began our 3-hour long investigation into the location. Now the evidence we found was pretty spectacular for our first night, and if you’d like to see the full investigation for yourselves, click here to watch night 1, and here to watch night 2.
Completely alone in the building save for the owner sitting in the command center of the building, each night brought with it their own unique experiences. Night 1 in the Nursery featured many shuffling noises, footsteps, voices that replied to our questions, and direct conversations utilizing the Estes Method with several different entities. Night 2 featured much of the same, and also included some shadow movement, K2 hits, and more conversations.
Now what fascinates me more aside from the incredible evidence we found was exploring the possibilities for how this building could have become haunted. So many preconceived notions exist to tell the average person what a haunting consists of. So many believe hauntings only happen when someone has died either in a home or building or has died on the property the building used to be on. Yet that’s not always the case.
We feel through our own experiences that hauntings are not relegated or only for people who have passed away on a property. There are hauntings attached to particular objects someone who has passed on felt a connection to. There are spirits or entities who can move freely through the world. There are always the possibilities that time loops or time slips exist, where the past sometimes meets the present or vice versa. No one truly knows for sure without some hard evidence pointing towards one option or another, and that rarely happens right off the bat.
What is interesting about this location, in particular, is the owner’s attention to detail, often bringing in objects to the haunt that have been used or utilized by someone who has passed on. Even in the Chapel, there is a coffin in the room that was actually once used. There are actual pieces of medical equipment that were used in surgeries, like a gurney and doctor’s chair, lining the rooms of the building. It could be possible that one of the entities we spoke with could be tied to one of these items. One man spoke of being in the Navy, and we were directed to one piece in the building that had once belonged to someone in the Navy. Not definitive, but very interesting nonetheless.
The other possibility, and something we’ve become quite fascinated with studying as of late, is the concept of a thought-form haunting. This is when enough emotions, thoughts, and feelings get built up by a collective of people long enough to actually create or “birth” an entity, even if it had never actually lived. We’ve seen some great experiments that have resulted in Estes Method Sessions in which investigators have talked with everyone from vampires to Santa Claus. With a building like this, with so much fear, emotions, and thrills filling the building constantly, could a thought-form entity have been born out of this fear? Especially the dark mass that has been seen lately in the building.
The other part of this is the belief in various faiths and belief systems. We here at Phenomenon Paranormal always respect everyone’s belief systems, even if we aren’t very religious, and yet the practices and true nature of witchcraft and certain pagan belief systems have fascinated us. Yet intention has always played a key role in these practices, and there have been reports in the building that former employees once did a ritual in the building without properly closing the ritual, and the purpose of the ritual was never found, so how it impacted the energy of the building is hard to say.
Overall, the biggest thing I wanted to dispel is the notion that these hauntings are in any way “evil”. That is always the go-to for many investigators when it comes to these investigations. It is human nature to be fearful and hesitant when it comes to the unknown. Yet nothing in our investigations found anything that could be mistaken for “evil” or “scary”. Instead, we found intelligent, communicative entities that sought our attention with ease. The pandemic seemed to have stirred up a restlessness in the building as if anticipating when the energy it had gotten used to would finally be back. Other energies felt like they had gotten used to the slowed-down pace of the pandemic, and the anticipation of the reopening of the haunt seemed to rile up even more activity in the weeks and months after our last investigation.
We have a Skype call planned soon for a virtual investigation with the incredible owners of the haunt now that we have moved across the country, but our final thoughts on this amazing location are that it is rife with paranormal energy, both tied to the energies poured into the location thanks to the haunt’s audiences, and to whatever energies each artifact could be holding onto. There are so many more locations left to explore. Join us as we break down each location here on our publication, and be sure to follow our podcast and YouTube channel for more paranormal investigations, news, and theories explained!
