Ghost Hunting at Haunted Hill View Manor December 2023

Witch City Paranormal went to Hill View Manor for a private investigation in December 2023. We've been to Hill View a number of times and will attest that there are reasons this spot is our #1 on the list of haunts we've been to. They've had some really tough competition that I can tell you about in another post. Where have we been? Are there places other than Salem, MA? Yes, and we will tell you about some of our faves and top recommendations both around Salem and the country in our upcoming posts!

Is there evidence?

I'm not going to lie and tell you I have any evidence from Hill View specifically that will unequivocally make you a believer if you weren't. In fact, that's not my goal. To be honest, my goal isn't to convert you so I really don't care if you believe or not. In fact, my best, most tangible evidence of paranormal activity is not from Hill View. It is however from another place in PA, ironically. I can share that story and evidence with you in another story soon.

So what makes Hill View so great?

I can sum it up in two words - personal experiences. Personal experiences that were so profound I literally found myself at a loss for words trying to process what my eyes had just seen. Almost every time we have gone we have had something extraordinary happen. That's extremely rare in a haunted location, so you ask yourself, could they be "faking" it? Any legitimate investigator would ask that question. My answer is no. Each personal experience we had was debunked at the time we had it with no alternative explanation. They are the real deal. That building is just incredibly haunted, in my opinion.

Personal Experience #1 - The Nurses Are Still on Duty

It was our very first time at Hill View. I decided to go for a public. Hill View had been at the top of my bucket list for places in the states for a long time. It's a long drive into a rural part of PA so I really put it off. We only went the first time when we had another investigation booked close by. I chose a public because their privates are very pricey. I heard it was great but I wasn't willing to part with that much cash for a place I've never seen and could possibly be disappointed in. Let's face it; it's just an old nursing home. How haunted could it be?

When we arrived for the public we were pleasantly surprised to learn there were only 5 other people (2 groups of 2 and a single person) there to investigate. After the tour we all went our own way. One group of 2 tired out after a couple of hours and left. We weren't sure where the others were at this point but we decided we wanted to spend the final 90 minutes on floor 2. As we came out of the stairwell and onto the floor we heard a loud buzzing sound - almost like a dull alarm of sorts. We expected to hear an announcement, maybe something was wrong or we were being asked to leave the building? We immediately stopped and waited in the hall where we were when it went off. Nothing happened. No one came. After a few minutes we thought that was odd and continued on towards Jeffery's room, which was our destination.

When we reached Jeffrey's room we found the single investigator in there packing her things to leave. She asked us what room we were just in. We told her we came from the third floor and didn't come into any rooms on this floor yet. She laughed and asked, are you sure you didn't go in and pull a nurses alarm? All of a sudden we realized what that sound was. I assured her we hadn't been in any rooms. We went down to the nurses station where it is able to be determined what in room the alarm had been triggered. The room where the alarm was pulled was between where we were in the hall and where she was. No living person would have made it in there without having had passed either her or us. Now I can't say for certain that she didn't pull that alarm, however she seemed rather surprised that we hadn't. So is this the big personal experience? No. But it leads up to it so it's worth mentioning.

After this the single investigator packed her gear and left. That left us and another group of 2 who were no where to be seen at this point. We set up some gear in the hall outside of Jeffrey's room and proceeded to ask some questions. My daughter was standing with her back to one wall looking towards the nurses station and I was standing with my back against the opposite wall looking towards Jeffrey's room. I announced that I was looking for a nurse and asked if someone could show me where the nurses station was. After a few moments I heard a very odd sound from my daughter like she was searching for a word. When I looked at her she pointed toward the nurses station. I saw an extremely bright - almost like an LED light - in the shape of a flashlight beam shoot towards the door of the nurses station. I immediately looked at her and said that's not you, right? I wanted to make sure she didn't have her phone out or a flashlight. She had nothing in her hands and really was looking stunned. We watched for a few seconds longer. All of a sudden more bright beams of light came. Now I'm speaking out loud and I said - ok that's the other investigators, they must have really bright lights. I'm expecting to see them come into sight at any moment. I'm waiting for what felt like a few minutes but it was probably only 30 seconds. Then the lights enter the nurses station and disappear. We hear a clicking noise and footsteps as if someone is shutting something off and exiting the room but we see no one.

Now the shock has started to wear off and we need to investigate what the heck this was. We immediately run into the nurses station and try to turn on lights to see if we can mimic the lights we saw. There is an old very dim and dull light that you can turn on but it in no way resembled what we saw. As we were standing there we heard voices as if a conversation was being had between men. At this point we were a little exasperated and didn't know if someone was pranking us. So my daughter started yelling "HELLO!!" We received a very clear male response - the voice was so clear we could hear the dialect in his voice indicating that he was likely an African American man. He said "Hello?" as if wondering why were were yelling. It sounded like he was standing right in front of us, however, we were still worried someone must be pranking us because this was shocking. We immediately started running into every room yelling - "Is someone here? Is there another investigator here?" A few minutes later we hear voices coming from the hallway by the stairwell. The 2 investigators came around the corner and I immediately asked where they have been. They said they were on the first floor and heard us yelling so they came up to see if we were ok. They had not been on the second floor at all.

Personal Experience #2 - The Patients are Watching

This experience happened on this last trip to Hill View in December. We had booked a private for just our group so there were only 3 of us in the entire building for 8 hours. Pricey, but a holiday present to ourselves as we have come to love Hill View. We were on the third floor and seemed to be getting quite a bit of activity on our rem pods, which rarely go off. There appeared to be movement in the corridor just outside the nurses station as if someone was leaving their room and walking into the hall then back into their room. We were hearing footsteps so we set up a rem pod in the room then one in the hall and you could watch as they would trigger one then trigger the next. We were having some difficulty with the camera recording. It would record for a few moments then shut off and it kept doing it repeatedly so we had to keep trying to fix it. As we were turning on a flashlight to fix it the beam of light quickly flashed into the corridor between the rooms and you could see the figure of an elderly woman washed in white wearing a nightgown watching us curiously. She was only there for a split second before you could no longer see her but in the moment you could see her there was no question what you were looking at as you could see her grey hair and nightgown. The whole image of her was illuminating white.

As we marveled over what we had seen, asking were we just crazy or did we really see what we think we saw, we walked into some of the other rooms in that corridor. We had given up on the camera at the point. We just couldn't get it to record for some strange reason. I was standing in the hallway reading the plaque for the man whose room it was when I got the distinct smell of an elderly mans after shave and body odor. Kevin wasn't far so I asked him to quickly come over to see if he could smell it as well. He corroborated it and said he smelled the same thing. He was the only man with us and he certainly wasn't smelling like that.

We have had multiple other personal experiences at Hill View including shadow figures, EVPs, disembodied footsteps and unexplainable sounds; not to mention hits on our equipment. I've yet to come across an EVP that is good enough to clean up and share with you here. Although, I do have some from some other places that I will share soon! Hint: Waverly Hills! I will share more with evidence soon. For now, I hope you liked or can relate to my real life ghost story!