Lillian Collins Hospital - Turlock, California

Originally the Sierra Building

In the 1920’s, this was a small town hospital that cared for the citizens of Turlock, California. According to a recent ghost hunting expedition done by American Paranormal Investigations, it seems that the building still cares for their spirits, though both their bodies and the hospital are long gone.

Built in 1918, The Lillian Collins Hospital was located in what is now the Sierra Building and currently contains Coldwell Banker Endsley & Associates. The hospital was best known for the doctor who created the MedicAlert bracelet when his daughter (who also happened to be the granddaughter of the hospital’s founder) had an allergic reaction to a drug while there in 1953. The hospital, which only had 40 rooms in the two-story building, eventually became too small for the city and was abandoned. In 1994, it was purchased by Bob Endsley and the downstairs was completely remodeled. The upstairs was left the way it was, and local charities used the space to host a haunted house fundraiser. It was during these fundraisers that the odd goings on in the building were first noticed.

While preparing for a haunted house event items would go missing when left alone for only a few moments. Cold breezes, footsteps, unexplained noises, and even unpleasant physical feelings have been reported. The owner of the building has had the motion detectors go off when no one was there. The events coinciding with the annual haunted house fundraisers ceased earlier this decade, but the strange happenings did not. That was when Endsley contacted API.

The investigation, which included video, photography, psychics, Electronic Voice Phenomena recordings, as well as a group whose purpose was to find logical causes for some of the stranger things discovered, came away with plenty of evidence that the hospital was still up and running on the second floor.

On video, they asked a spirit to come closer to their electro-magnetic field device. The EMF device recorded a dramatic spike in its levels. Geiger counter readings flared and diminished within moments and without the investigator moving.

Each and every photo captured orbs, or balls of light, somewhere on the photograph. But the truly amazing piece of evidence is the 11 second recording of a beautiful voice singing a French lullaby. The investigator was alone at the time. This recording is one of the longest pieces of EVP ever to be captured.

Other EVPs recorded were of female and male voices talking to each other, as well as male voices communicating with the investigators. One of the investigators said that the sounds on the tape remind him of what he’d expect from a 1920’s hospital.

Dark, human shaped masses were seen floating throughout the building and some investigators felt nauseated while on the second floor, feeling better when they returned downstairs.

The investigators sent to unmask the ghosts were only able to explain away the cold breezes as drafts from windows. The rest seem to be of truly supernatural origins.