THE WORLD'S MOST HAUNTED PLACES

THE ARADALE MENTAL HOSPITAL, ARARAT, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA

https://www.aradale.com.au/

The hospital was first opened in 1865 and was closed in 1993. It is closed to the general public. Aradale seems to attract you into its enigmatic web that pulls you.

Name tags are still present on coat hooks and lockers. People were sent here when there was nowhere else for them to go to and they were sent here to die. Many of the people housed here had problems like being mentally retarded or had problems like schizophrenia*, fragile X and retardation. Some had Downes syndrome. These people were trapped in wrecked bodies. Many visitors including social clubs and researchers are interested in visiting the site with one thing in mind – to be spooked by the old hospital. This resulted in a place with a wealth of attention-grabbing ghost stories. It is easy to find yourself disorientated due to the labyrinth of cells and walls. The place characterizes a site abandoned in a hurry due to some apocalyptic event.

HISTORY: 

The hospital was built in 1860 by subcontractors and not by the patients as many believed. The Asylum was styled on the English style of architecture and has been built to house the insane. This expression was used for anyone who had some type of melancholy, depression or uncertainty of life. Doctors resorted to all sorts of barbaric and eccentric treatments back in the 1800's that resulting in a huge death toll and a microscopic amount of patients being cured. The most common treatments were electro convulsive therapy, lobotomies and insulin induced coma. A great deal of patients admitted to Aradale however, were not officially "insane". On 28 October 1867 the first patients were first being admitted to Aradale, and after its closure in 1993, most of the patients have been relocated to FairfieldHospital. It was built as like a town inside a town and even had its own market gardens and a piggery. It consisted of over 500 staff members at its peak. The complex consists of 63 buildings, the oldest being build in 1860 and the most up-to-date, the forensic unit built in 1991. It is located in Heath Street.

In 1960 – 1970 it became an Experimental Hospital for the mentally retarded. It had an 85% mortality rate.The asylum soon took a turn for the poorer and housed the criminally insane in the newly built Psychiatric Forensics Hospital opened in 1991. It was closed in 1997 after many of the staff resigned and it could no longer be staffed or kept open. It remains undamaged with an unbearable smell of some chemical. After its closure it housed female prisoners until 2001.

HAUNTINGS: 

No substantiation of actual hauntings have been claimed, but there are odd areas that give off strange feelings that people come across when touring through the building, the obvious spots being the morgue, the male and female wards and the Forensic Hospital. The hauntings reported so far include crying, moaning, footsteps and black/dark figures. There is a reported room that overpowers everyone who enters it, mainly feeling lightheaded, weighed down and having headaches or weird feelings. Reports of nurses wearing white uniforms have been made on numerous occasions as well as the usual strange noises.

WOMEN'S HARD CASE UNIT: 

People have complained about becoming progressively more nauseated when they were on the upper level of the Woman's Hard Case Unit and experienced a feeling of lightheadedness. Upon entry of the door to the W.H.C.U. you get a feeling of being swamped by emotion and horror and as if there is an invisible wall that would obstruct you to enter the building. One has the sensation of losing control over oneself and one's actions. Camera and electronic equipment would play up and it's really abnormal when more than one fully charged digital cameras would fail to turn on. Temperatures are known to drop as far as 10˚C lower than the ambient temperature. The place is also cursed by an overpowering smell of rotten flesh. In the toilet area EMF (Electro Magnetic Field) readings spiked at an invariable level when they were taken by paranormal researchers. Usually when theses readings are picked up they are irregular.