What is extremely strange about this cemetery is that the gravestones bear no names, but numbers instead. Very few of them have been substituted with some stones that are engraved with dates and names. This only happened when some relatives of the deceased decided to bear the expenses for the gravestone. The state only offered the deceased persons a white stone with a number and that was pretty much all that was on it.The hospital records keep the record of the names that are connected to each number and this is the reason several unmarked stones have some metalic veterans’ plaques.

The Ridges graveyard is the home of many Civil War veterans because at the time it was built there was a whole county full of veterans. There are some missing records between 1 to 63 in the male patients so their identity remains unknown.

Approximately two thousand individuals were buried on the grounds of the cemetery before 1972. Men and women were recorded separately. Apparently the Ohio University buried the unidentified corpses used in the medical classes in this graveyard, but it is an unknown fact if they were assigned particular numbers.

The Ridges cemetery has a well-known reputation of being haunted, which might not be that surprising, taking into account the horrible conditions the patients lived in the asylum. Most of the morbid stories center on the strange circle of graves that is taking up the corner of a tombstone layout. Perhaps there was a center stone in other times, but all that is distinguishable today is a ring of graves. The local legends say that witches make use of this circle for holding séances in. The official Ohio University explanation is that the circle was created by some pranksters several years ago and this might be the most feasible explanation.

The place is also reputed for being visited by ghosts, especially at night. In the cemetery there is a weird section that includes a handful of graves of a little creek to the right of the main cemetery. There is a bridge made of wood and on the other side of it lie several graves hidden in the woods. People were reported to have seen strange lights and heard screams in the cemetery at night.

The main asylum building is inaccessible now, but the graveyard has always been there and pretty much is accessible by anyone. It is definitely a terrifying place to visit after midnight. If you feel real adventurous, you can head up the hill and after that across the driveway to take a look at the Tuberculosis Ward, the single one abandoned building that was left untouched on the property grounds.

Many mental institutions in the United States are said to be haunted and thus The Ridges from Athens, Ohio, is no exception to that. If you have ever watched a horror movie, you must have observed that these types of buildings are presented as hulking structures with lots of cobwebs and ghosts that are waiting and haunting at each corner. The abandoned buildings are even worse when it comes to haunting rumors. The Ridges from Athens, Ohio is one of the abandoned places that are said to be powerfully haunted.

The Mental Medical Centre opened here on January 9th 1874 and it specialized in the treatment of criminally and mentally insane patients. It was then known as the Athens Lunatic Asylum. It took over six years to be built and many people thought that a nice quiet place would be a benefit for the health of the insane patients. The majority of the original patients were admitted there by court order or even by their own families. Sometimes these kinds of mental institutions paid an amount of money for every patient they registered when they were lacking them so many families entrusted them with their disturbed family members.

Everyone knew that, despite the large number of disturbed individuals residing there, The Ridges was a calm peaceful place, where patients benefited from fountains and picnics on the beautiful grounds. But this idyllic scenery would not to last a long time. The Ridges soon turned into an overcrowded institution that was treating its patients in a cruel way. Ice water baths, electroshock therapies and lobotomies become regular practices. The kinds of patients submitted to treatment also changed, because children turned their older parents over to the asylum and teenagers that were considered rebellious were brought here by their parents as well.

Several other strange things have happened at The Ridges, besides the cruel treatment applied to the patients. On the 1st of December 1978, a patient named Margaret Schilling mysteriously disappeared. The legend says she was playing hide and seek with the nurses, who got distracted and forgot to look for her. Over more than a month, on the 12th of January 1979 her body was found by a maintenance worker.

Her death was not as mysterious as the marks her body left on the floor. An imprint of her clothes and hair are perfectly visible on the floor. Some said that her body decomposed and the outline was formed because of the reaction of the corpse to the sunlight. This is not a very good explanation, though, because the stain is still there and reappears even after been cleaned up. Margaret Schilling is not the only former patient that is said to be still haunting The Ridges.

The Asylum has a cemetery where those who died were buried and there are rumors it is haunted as well. Because many of the patients were admitted at The Ridges by the court system, they had no remaining family and no persons to pay the funeral expenses. They were thus anonymously buried in simple graves with a number attached. At one area the linear shapes of the graves form a circle, which is said to be a witches’ meeting point.

The town of Mt. Nebo was mainly known for the Spiritualists who used to live in the area. The area that surrounded Ohio was full of wild animals and lightly populated by humans. Even if in the early 1800s the region was not highly inhabited, some people interested in mysticism lived there. Spiritualism was a mainstream and raising in popularity during this period of the American History.

The most known man in Mt. Nebo was Jonathon Koons, a devout atheist. He moved in the district in order to draw attention to the fake spiritualists that were living in the area but he soon found out that he believed in the words of a young girl that claimed to be connected to the other world. She pretended that she would ask questions and that she received some answers by tapping on the table. History has demonstrated since then that all these claims of numerous persons were definitely works of charlatans.

Jonathon Koons remained a believer and soon he began to claim that spirits were appearing in his home as well and he ordered the members of his family to strictly follow his actions. The alleged spirits asked him and his family to build a table in order to use it in communication with them through ghostly writing. Koons soon discovered that his oldest son and wife poses the same powers he had. The man pretended that he was holding a pen in his hand and the spirits would work through his hand to write their own words.

The spirits also convinced the family to build the Spirit Room, a cabin for their own private use. Koons had said that all the details of the room were inspired by the words dictated by the spirits. They would remain there after the family went to sleep and continued their ghostly work through the night.

Soon enough, the Koons family was famous all over the country. People were coming in pilgrimage and the locals become upset by the flocks of persons that were wandering into the town. The Koons family farm was burnt down and their children were attacked eventually by others in the are tired of the supernatural occurrences. After a period of prosecution, they decided to leave Mt. Nebo and went away to spread the word about the spirits in other places.

The legend of this family is still remember these days. when the cabin was still standing visitors would come from all over the world in order to experience their talents. When in Mt. Nebo, many people claimed that they felt ghostly hands on their skin, whispers in their ears and some instruments floating over their heads that were being played by the spirits. Some of them reported translucent hands that were writing messages at an extreme fast speed as well.

Simms Cemetery lies in Athens, Ohio and a lot of people say that it is one of the most haunted cemeteries and locations in the world as well. It is one of many cemeterieds in the area and it’s located off of Peach Ridge Road. According to a local legend, five cemeteries in the area can be connected with drawing lines in the form of a pentagram on a map. It is very helpful to note, for tourist’s relief, that almost any points on a map can be connected in such a way that they create a pentagram.

A local man, John Simms, is the one that gave the cemetery it’s name. He was one of the town officials and had a pronounced taste for capital punishment. He was known for sentenceing to death by hanging people for the most common offenses. He was also well known for the awful prejudices towards the freed slaves that were living in the area. In fact, the majority of people hanged by him were African Americans.

Locals believe that the ghost of John Simms is still wandering in the cemetery in his hooded robe, still searching for criminals. Some legends even tell that he is carrying a sickle in his hand and that he chases people who trespass away from the cemetery. Mary Roberts is another ghost figure associated with this cemetery. Allegedly, she was a witch that was buried near the plots of the Simms family and she continues to haunt his family in death to this day. This legend was demonstrated and it is not true, taking into account the fact that she was buried along with her daughter and father on a piece of land that was part of her farm, outside the cemetery.

Another popular story that surrounds Simms Cemetery involves the Hanging Tree. This is said to be the spot the infamous John Simms watched his victims being condemned to death. This tree still exists in the cemetery and there are visible spots where the ropes were once hung. It is not a pleasant thing to imagine how the poor souls took their last breath there from the tree. The tree was no longer used after 1890s. Locals claim that bodies hanging from the tree can be seen late at night.

Some people even have siad that the cemetery frequently moves itself and that it changes its location in order to elude any potential visitors. There are some stories of odd lights, of shadows moving inside and even of odd voices coming from it at night.

Simms Cemetery in Athens, Ohio is on private property and, if you want to experience ghost hunt, you need to ask for the owner permission to visit it, even though it’s less likely that you’ll get his permission to enter there at night.

The Ohio University in Athens, Ohio is perhaps the most haunted campus in the world. The place was established in 1804, a year after the statehood. It was the first institution of superior studies located west of the Appalachian Mountains. The number of allegedly haunted places on the site is quite impressive and they are added to the numerous legends regarding Athens county. Ohio University was one of the places presented in a FOX episode of the series Scariest Places on Earth.

Wilson Hall is the most famous haunted place on the campus. It is the building that most people point to when speaking about haunted Athens, Ohio. The building is apparently located in the middle of an immense pentagram consisting of five cemeteries situated in the region. The graveyards are scattered around the area and, when looked at on a map, they form a pentagram. A pentagram is the ancient occult symbol of power and magic. According to the pagan tradition, a pentagram might create safe areas free from any paranormal activity. The center is extremely important and it’s no wonder that Wilson Hall resides in the middle of this cemetery pentagram.

The pentagram myth has not been demonstrated in the case of Wilson Hall. Experts say that any five points can be united on a map in the form of a pentagram. This suggests that all the interpretations of the pentagram mystery at Wilson Hall are merely speculations.

Wilson Hall is said to be the home of a ghost that died in a mysterious way in the 1970s. He died in room 428 and years after that students residing in that room have said to hear strange sounds and hear footsteps as well as witnessing several objects moving by themselves on their own. Since these occurences the room has been closed off and was not given to any new students again.

This is perhaps the only university room in the world that is sealed and closed. The school officials have proclaimed the room uninhabitable. The story says that the female student died in a violent way in that room after practicing occult. It is said that the girl made use of the room’s energy to practice a method where the human spirit travels on its own after separating from the body. This technique is known as astral projection. The student was also rumored to have repeatedly attempted to contact the dead and that she often dabbled in sorcery practices.

Another legend tells that Wilson Hall was built on the grounds of an Indian cemetery and the spirits are of this origin. Spiritualist experts claim that the geography of the area, with the layout of peaks, mountains and valleys makes the spot very conductive to psychic energy. At the beginning of the 1980’s a newspaper researched the property in a routine examination for the institute. They discovered that Wilson Hall is built on the same location as the original site of an early cemetery of the Athens Mental Institute.

Some brave souls venturing around this structure at night have witnessed ghostly apparitions and strange sights and sounds. It is said the ghost of Peggy Harmeson still wanders around the tower today–a victim of a violent lightning strike in the late 1960’s.

In the spot where she was found there is a white spot in the shape of a human body. This has moved the fantasy of many ghost-story enthusiasts and attracted attention of the media an numerous occasions.

Carolyn Zimmermann and Unige Laskay, chemistry graduate students in the group of Glen P. Jackson at OU decided to look at the spot from a scientific point of view. Here is what was found.