Day Tour of Mansfield State Reformatory

  We decided to include this report on our Investigations page because of the amount of activity we experienced while on this tour. This tour was taken during the day, and there were several people on the tour with us. Unfortunately, we did not get the opportunity to take any recordings or video, or do any real investigating. Therefore, we can only include the pictures we took, and the feelings we experienced while there.

Location: Mansfield, Ohio

Date: Friday afternoon, August 23, 2002

Moon phase: Full

Solar Activity: geomagnetic storms, M class flares

Investigators present: Hillary M., Shonda A. There were several other non-investigators in this tour.

Equipment: Olympus C-3000 digital camera, Kodak DC280 digital camera

History: Noted architect Levi T. Scofield designed the Ohio State Reformatory, built in 1886, to resemble medieval chateaux and castles. Spiritual and uplifting architecture was intended to provide a transcendent religious experience reforming the behavior of young male prisoners.

  The East Cell Block, listed in the Guinness Book of World Records, houses the world's largest freestanding steel cellblock rising 6 tiers.

  Three major motion pictures featuring OSR were Harry and Walter Go to New York, Tango and Cash, and Shawshank Redemption.

  The mission of the Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society, cooperating with the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections, is to save this magnificent structure as a museum facility. A fund raising process of donations and grants will preserve the historic and architectural importance of OSR and infuse a sense of civic pride by bringing nationwide recognition and tourism to Mansfield.

 The Ohio State Reformatory was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.

History taken directly from: http://www.virtualmansfield.com/reformatory/index.html

Investigation: We arrived at the picturesque reformatory building at 2 p.m., and immediately joined the tour. First, we were taken into a large room on the second floor. The East and West cellblock extended off of this room. About fifteen minutes later, we were led through the second tier of the East cellblock. As the rest of the large group returned to the large center room, I hung back in the cellblock. I felt drawn to the bottom of the stairs, which led to the first floor of the cellblock, so I took a picture down the stairway. I captured an orb hovering at the bottom of the stairs, so I immediately took another picture. In this picture, I got a moving orb coming up the steps toward me! I then moved into the center room with the other tourists, where we were broken into two separate groups.
  From there, we moved into the Warden's house, which is actually attached to the prison. This is supposed to be one of the more active parts of the prison, as the Warden's wife died in the bedroom of a suspicious accident. She was reaching up to get a jewelry box off the shelf in the closet, when a loaded gun fell to the floor, discharging, and sending a bullet through her lung. The Warden himself died in the house several years later of natural causes.
We then moved into the Assistant Warden's quarters, where Shonda captured a very bright, moving orb outside the same room in which I caught an orb moving across a young man's shoulder. Then we moved into the main chapel. Many people seem to think that the chapel contains a vortex, and that it is the center of activity at the prison. That may be so, but we didn't seem to experience much there.
  When we left the chapel, we climbed down the steps of the west cellblock. At this point, I decided to make a habit out of hanging well back from the rest of the group, to see what I might catch on film after they left each area. I was on the second tier of the cellblock (the rest of the group was on the bottom floor), when I got a strangely blurry picture with a weird streak on the floor. I tried to take another picture, to see if the streak was on that one too, when my camera went dead. I kept trying to take a picture, but it simply wouldn't work. I then turned and started down the steps to join the others, when my camera when off by itself! This is the picture with the unexplainable streaks of light in it. I can't say for sure that this was a paranormal incident, but I can say that it has never happened to me before (and I spend a lot of time with my camera).
  From there, the group moved into the isolation wing. I, of course, waited till the rest of the group left, and then moved in for a closer look myself. I moved about halfway down the corridor, and looked to the dark, far end. I stood there for a couple of minutes, and kept getting a feeling about the far end of the wing. I took several pictures while standing there, and was rewarded about a minute later with a very bright orb, about ten yards away.
  Then, the group moved down to the other end of the East cellblock, and around the corner into the shower room. As I was walking down the cellblock alone, I got an overwhelming feeling that I was being followed. I turned around, and saw no one, yet I knew that there was someone standing in front of me. As I raised my camera to take a picture, I thought "I see you there, you bastard", which kind of caught me by surprise. Sure enough, there was a big, bright orb hovering right in front of me. I was so sure that I was facing an unseen presence, that I began talking to it out-loud, daring it to show itself to me, or touch me. This is not something that I usually do, but I was suddenly feeling quite aggressive. I tracked this same bright orb moving around in front of me for about ten straight pictures. Later, upon viewing the pictures, I found that I had also caught a couple of moving orbs in those pictures. I then moved into the shower room with the rest of the group. This room felt very sad, but I only got a couple of stationary orb shots here. Shonda, however, caught a very nice moving orb. Then, the tour ended.

Conclusion: I've read many remarkable things about this prison. It is truly a beautiful building, and I am very glad that it is being renovated, instead of being torn down like so many historical buildings have been. If you ever get to Mansfield, Ohio, be sure to take a tour of the place. You won't be disappointed.
  In my experience, I would have to say that this building is one of the most paranormally active sites that I have ever been to. We caught at least five moving orb shots during our two-hour tour, and those were all in broad daylight! Not to mention the many strange feelings we experienced while there. We hope to take part in an overnight at the prison sometime soon. More information can be found at http://www.mrps.org/.

Submitted by Hillary Murdoch