By: Cody Sharpe
Being in emergency medicine you see all kinds of injuries and more tragically death, which always had me wondering, what happens after we die and is it true, do we stick around if we have unfinished business? I am a National Registered EMT and up until last October I was on track to being a paramedic, literally two months away from completing the program, however that changed. I decided to play it safe and went back to my logistics job where I can focus more time answering the question, what happens when we die? We as humans fear death because it’s the unknown, the only thing in life that is absolute. Death doesn’t have to be a negative thing. I personally think that death can be a beautiful thing.
I have always been fascinated with the paranormal, growing up in a small town in Ohio with really not much to do, I decided to read books like “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” or even “Haunted Ohio” to further my curiosity. June 2000 had me questioning many things when the night before the passing of my grandfather, I had a dream he passed. It was that Father’s Day 2000, my father called me, crying that Grandpa Sharpe had passed. Was this just my 10-year-old brain processing the fact he was sick or was it something more? This is a question that I want to answer, I may never get that answer but that isn’t going to stop me from trying to figure it out.
I, throughout the years, always had weird feelings in certain places. I could feel the energy of rooms or places. I remembering looking at a house for sale once, I was in the basement and felt a dark presence, only to learn days later that someone had been chained up and murdered in that very basement. I also can feel people out, like I can sense if people are evil or not. I have been told on many occasions; “Oh this person is a great person!” just for them to backstab the person I have warned, is it being sensitive or being a good judge of character? I will let you; the reader decide that one.
So, I have decided to start “The Sharpe Side of Paranormal” to answer these questions. I joined a public paranormal investigation with my wife last July at the Indiana State Sanatorium and from there, I was hooked. The whole night was a crazy experience. While we were waiting for the groups to get together, I took a peek on the kitchen between the nursing home and the residential building, I immediately felt dread and a bit nauseous. I told the one tour guide and she advised me that she had the same feeling in there. Now I was part of a group of about 15 people during our group rotations. We started on the 3rd floor of the psychiatric hospital; I kept getting bad feelings about the place and then the most shocking thing happened to me, or at least at the time it was. I was standing next another member of the group when a shadow figure just came out of a room and rushed in between us before disappearing.
The night progressed to the point where our group was in the nursing home section of the building. We were doing exercises in the dark, including the walk down the hallway solo, in the dark, while I was waiting for my turn, something grabbed my right leg. There was nothing by me, the nearest person was about 10 feet away. So, when it was my turn, I got maybe 5 feet before I chickened out. We then did another experiment, they placed each of us in the doorway of the rooms spaced out, in the dark, but I was placed in the middle of the nurse’s station. That was until I started screaming because I saw a white misty figure come out of the linen closet attached to the nurse’s station. My wife to this day loves to make fun of me because of it and I really don’t blame her. She is braver when it comes to stuff like this, anyway I digress.
So, our tour guides decided to sit me in a chair in the intersection of the 4 hallways which gave several other people in the group the perfect view to see a white nurse figure come out of the nurse’s station, walk right up to me, place its hand on my shoulder, and then just disappear. This would be my first real experience with an entity making physical contact with me. It felt cold, which was crazy because it was a warm July evening. This wouldn’t be my last experience with this figure, my follow-up visit in April, I was in the middle of an Estes session when someone in the group told me they saw a white figure standing behind me, of course I was sitting in front of the nurse’s station facing down the hallway. This has left many questions, who is that nurse? Why does she keep trying to communicate with me? Is it the fact I was in the medical field? Is it the fact I can feel their presence? These are the questions I am out here trying to answer.
Indiana State Sanatorium has this dark and heavy feeling to it. Considering the tragic history of the location, thousands of people came there to die, many allegedly buried in unmarked graves. While this is not 100% certain, it does raise many questions. Combined that with the fact many patients were abused and neglected, this leaves them with the desire to reach out. The spirits at Indiana State Sanatorium take a bit to warm up to strangers but you need to be careful that you don’t make them angry. I remember during my visit in April we were doing a dual Estes Session with me asking the questions. While I was asking the questions I started taking still photographs with my digital camera and I will have to admit that it totally freaked me out when we got the response, “Pictures” I then asked the spirits if it was okay for me to take their photograph, to which they replied, “No.” It then quickly went downhill, when I asked if they wanted us to leave and we got the response, “Yes” and then from the other person, “Right now!”
That was probably the most intelligent responses I have personally experienced. What crosses the line is when people keep pushing the spirits after they have been warned to stop. This causes the whole experience to be negative and could lead to where the spirits do not want to interact with people anymore. We are guest in their home, we should treat it as such. This is again, very similar to healthcare.
I just recently went on my 3rd ever paranormal investigation at Poasttown Elementary School in Middletown, Ohio. It was a completely different vibe; it wasn’t as dark as Indiana State Sanatorium. The spirits there started early, making noises and setting off trigger devices. It felt like the spirits there wanted to play games and mischievous, as opposed to being malevolent. Going to these locations and reaching out to these lost souls, giving them the chance to tell their story and finally be heard. This is what is important to me, the history of the building and the forever inhabitants of it. The spirits at Poasttown loved the trigger devices, they kept playing with the cat balls, motion lights, and any other device that we deployed.
I have seen groups go into these buildings and be so disrespectful to the building and the spirits themselves, which reminds me a lot of the healthcare industry. I saw other providers treat patients terribly and that’s not right. Everyone, including spirits just want to be treated with dignity. They didn’t choose to be stuck there forever but we as investigators have the opportunity to communicate with them and share their story with the world. I feel giving those that are in the afterlife the opportunity to share their story, might give them the closure that they deserve.Being in emergency medicine you see all kinds of injuries and more tragically death, which always had me wondering, what happens after we die and is it true, do we stick around if we have unfinished business? I am a National Registered EMT and up until last October I was on track to being a paramedic, literally two months away from completing the program, however that changed. I decided to play it safe and went back to my logistics job where I can focus more time answering the question, what happens when we die? We as humans fear death because it’s the unknown, the only thing in life that is absolute. Death doesn’t have to be a negative thing. I personally think that death can be a beautiful thing.
I have always been fascinated with the paranormal, growing up in a small town in Ohio with really not much to do, I decided to read books like “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” or even “Haunted Ohio” to further my curiosity. June 2000 had me questioning many things when the night before the passing of my grandfather, I had a dream he passed. It was that Father’s Day 2000, my father called me, crying that Grandpa Sharpe had passed. Was this just my 10-year-old brain processing the fact he was sick or was it something more? This is a question that I want to answer, I may never get that answer but that isn’t going to stop me from trying to figure it out.
I, throughout the years, always had weird feelings in certain places. I could feel the energy of rooms or places. I remembering looking at a house for sale once, I was in the basement and felt a dark presence, only to learn days later that someone had been chained up and murdered in that very basement. I also can feel people out, like I can sense if people are evil or not. I have been told on many occasions; “Oh this person is a great person!” just for them to backstab the person I have warned, is it being sensitive or being a good judge of character? I will let you; the reader decide that one.
So, I have decided to start “The Sharpe Side of Paranormal” to answer these questions. I joined a public paranormal investigation with my wife last July at the Indiana State Sanatorium and from there, I was hooked. The whole night was a crazy experience. While we were waiting for the groups to get together, I took a peek on the kitchen between the nursing home and the residential building, I immediately felt dread and a bit nauseous. I told the one tour guide and she advised me that she had the same feeling in there. Now I was part of a group of about 15 people during our group rotations. We started on the 3rd floor of the psychiatric hospital; I kept getting bad feelings about the place and then the most shocking thing happened to me, or at least at the time it was. I was standing next another member of the group when a shadow figure just came out of a room and rushed in between us before disappearing.
The night progressed to the point where our group was in the nursing home section of the building. We were doing exercises in the dark, including the walk down the hallway solo, in the dark, while I was waiting for my turn, something grabbed my right leg. There was nothing by me, the nearest person was about 10 feet away. So, when it was my turn, I got maybe 5 feet before I chickened out. We then did another experiment, they placed each of us in the doorway of the rooms spaced out, in the dark, but I was placed in the middle of the nurse’s station. That was until I started screaming because I saw a white misty figure come out of the linen closet attached to the nurse’s station. My wife to this day loves to make fun of me because of it and I really don’t blame her. She is braver when it comes to stuff like this, anyway I digress.
So, our tour guides decided to sit me in a chair in the intersection of the 4 hallways which gave several other people in the group the perfect view to see a white nurse figure come out of the nurse’s station, walk right up to me, place its hand on my shoulder, and then just disappear. This would be my first real experience with an entity making physical contact with me. It felt cold, which was crazy because it was a warm July evening. This wouldn’t be my last experience with this figure, my follow-up visit in April, I was in the middle of an Estes session when someone in the group told me they saw a white figure standing behind me, of course I was sitting in front of the nurse’s station facing down the hallway. This has left many questions, who is that nurse? Why does she keep trying to communicate with me? Is it the fact I was in the medical field? Is it the fact I can feel their presence? These are the questions I am out here trying to answer.
Indiana State Sanatorium has this dark and heavy feeling to it. Considering the tragic history of the location, thousands of people came there to die, many allegedly buried in unmarked graves. While this is not 100% certain, it does raise many questions. Combined that with the fact many patients were abused and neglected, this leaves them with the desire to reach out. The spirits at Indiana State Sanatorium take a bit to warm up to strangers but you need to be careful that you don’t make them angry. I remember during my visit in April we were doing a dual Estes Session with me asking the questions. While I was asking the questions I started taking still photographs with my digital camera and I will have to admit that it totally freaked me out when we got the response, “Pictures” I then asked the spirits if it was okay for me to take their photograph, to which they replied, “No.” It then quickly went downhill, when I asked if they wanted us to leave and we got the response, “Yes” and then from the other person, “Right now!”
That was probably the most intelligent responses I have personally experienced. What crosses the line is when people keep pushing the spirits after they have been warned to stop. This causes the whole experience to be negative and could lead to where the spirits do not want to interact with people anymore. We are guest in their home, we should treat it as such. This is again, very similar to healthcare.
I just recently went on my 3rd ever paranormal investigation at Poasttown Elementary School in Middletown, Ohio. It was a completely different vibe; it wasn’t as dark as Indiana State Sanatorium. The spirits there started early, making noises and setting off trigger devices. It felt like the spirits there wanted to play games and mischievous, as opposed to being malevolent. Going to these locations and reaching out to these lost souls, giving them the chance to tell their story and finally be heard. This is what is important to me, the history of the building and the forever inhabitants of it. The spirits at Poasttown loved the trigger devices, they kept playing with the cat balls, motion lights, and any other device that we deployed.
I have seen groups go into these buildings and be so disrespectful to the building and the spirits themselves, which reminds me a lot of the healthcare industry. I saw other providers treat patients terribly and that’s not right. Everyone, including spirits just want to be treated with dignity. They didn’t choose to be stuck there forever but we as investigators have the opportunity to communicate with them and share their story with the world. I feel giving those that are in the afterlife the opportunity to share their story, might give them the closure that they deserve.
