Old Montana Prison- Deerlodge, MT
TSI
TORTURED SOULS INVESTIGATIONS
MONTANA TERRITORIAL PRISON
REPORT
BY: Erik Bratlien
Our Riot Anniversary investigation to the old Montana territorial prison in Deer Lodge, Montana was on April 14th, 15th, and the 16th of 2006. We started our Ghost Tours for the season one on the 14th and one on the 15th.
The Ghost Tour on the 14th went off without a hitch, but the Ghost Tour on the 15th of April, 2006 we had an incident.
THE INCIDENT
I was only ten feet away when it happened and it looked very real to me. But (TSI) Tortured Souls Investigations was formed to try and find reasonable explanation for why things happen. Personal encounters are the hardest to prove, or disprove unless you have video evidence that everyone can look at then make up their own mind.
In the case of the night in question we had two video cameras but they were both turned off when the event happened so it is just personal accounts for the event in question. In the scientific world that just won't work we want the whole world to except what we do, but it has to be based on fact of hard evidence such as audio, video and pictures we then can present it for people to look at it and say "Yes it happened or No it did not.
We had some interesting things happen that caught us at (TSI) Tortured Souls Investigations by surprise on Saturday night April 15th, 2006,
The incident concerning a member of TSI is this I was ten feet away at the time and it looked very real at the time. I got caught up in the moment as did most everyone else, but after replaying that event with my son Kris and the door several times I believe this is what happened.
When I left the building I went down a couple of steps and to shine my flash lights on the steps so no one would fall, I heard Mary hauler "Let her go!", then again "Let her Go !" I got to the top of the stairs and Marlene looked very shaken by the whole thing. But here is where I believe fact and over active imagination intersect. When I went in I pushed the door open and the rug gave resistance so I pushed harder jamming the door farther onto the rug when we left Marlene asked Mary if she should leave the door open or close it? Mary said close it, so Marlene tried to, not being as strong as I am when she pulled the energy she used to try and pull the door off the rug she couldn't and when she reached the peak of that kinetic energy she had only one way to go and that was back into the Admin. building.
Mary seeing this automatically assumed that some unseen presents had a hold of Marlene. In fact all it was the door got extra jammed on the rug making the whole scene seem very scary. I have no doubt that Marlene feels she had a personal encounter and she did, but we are in the business to find reasonable explanations for things that happen after the excitement calms down. Outside of Maximum security we all heard a metal door shut inside when there was no one inside to do that and that is a personal experience just another ghost story.
We chased a shadow in the gun port theatre for 45 minutes that night, but in the end we were able to find out what was causing the shadow. I was very disappointed because I thought we had what I thought was amassing video footage of a shadow ghost the hardest thing to record in the Paranormal field. It turned out to be one of our infra red night vision cameras we had setup the night before was still on. Even though you couldn't't see the light it was generating, my Hi 8 video camera could and the Hi 8 my daughter was using as well. It was the shadow of a lady sitting behind me and it took us 45 minutes to find out when she moved the shadow moved I was very disappointed. Everyone has Personal experiences at the prison, I had one when I sat in the cell house waiting for everyone to come down from the tower where Lee Smart, and Jerry Miles were killed when I seen a shadow of a head and shoulders. I can't prove I seen it because I didn't have a video camera rolling to show, see there was the shadow on the wall Julie Smith seen a shadow in the gun port theatre and she said it brushed her when it went by her, she screamed, and jumped.
A writer and his editor and I, and Julie all heard a metal door slam in Max when there wasn't anyone in the there to slam the door. Kris Bratlien Co Founder of TSI had one in the cell house when he thought he heard shuffling of feet in a cell then Julie snapped a picture Kris seen a shadow and took off running leaving his sister standing there.
These are all personal encounters and they are no more real or not than any other person might have.
I could capture on video of a ghost disappearing right in front of everyone on a tour and there will still be people that feel we made it up and used a magic trick to do it.
So it is TSI's hope That this little explanation will clear everything up from that second night of Ghost Tours.
I was the nearest to the incident and it looked very real and scary to me at the time, but we can not ever present this as proof or evidence that the old Prison has Paranormal activity. We could never back it up and then we would look like we all were shams, and crack pots.
Our Investigation on the 15th of April 2006
Started at at one thirty in the morning after we setup night vision cameras in the Gun Port theatre, and outside the gun port theatre on top of the pop machine covering the entrance to the gun port theatre. We said our protective prayer before we started, we went up to the cell house.
Team members present Erik Bratlien, Kris Bratlien, Jeremy, Dee-Dee, Julie smith, Mike Rainville, Kathlene, and Ellen Baumler.
I sat in the cell house as everyone else went up to the tower of death, as I sat there the residual sounds of the Old Montana State Prison can be heard, metal doors slamming shut, hard soled shoes walking on the cement, and the sound of men's voices. You can never make anything out but you can hear men talking throughout the cell house. The first time you hear this it leaves you feeling uneasy and looking around. But this type of activity isn't't anything to worry about, over time the sounds of the old Prison have somehow imprinted themselves on the buildings, and the surrounding area. There is no scientific explanation for this but it does happen and at the Old Montana State Prison the sounds of the past have imprinted themselves.
The small group that went up into the tower came back down thirty minutes after they had gone up, Kris said there was nothing of any real importance up there, so we went to the Admin building I sat facing the Deputy Wardens office as did Jeremy we both captured orbs moving by the Deputy Wardens office. We shot video for about 3o minutes before our batteries began to drain, so we went back to the cell house. We walked around the cell house taking picture and shooting Hi 8 video. The Left side of the cell house has feeling of ill will the feeling gets worse the farther you walk into the left side of the cell house. At 2:45 a.m. Jeremy, and Dee-Dee decided they had enough and went back to their motel room. Kris snapped 190 digital pictures and he captured 7 very interesting pictures of Ecto-mist. Each Picture was stranger than the last. What made them odd is the fact the ecto- mist was colored. The first one was a deep sky blue, and the next one ranged in colors of the rainbow. We have been trying to find a cause for this but each Paranormal group we contact we get the same answer they just don't know why the Ecto-mist is colored. I have sent off the picture to TAPS of the T. V. show Ghost Hunters to see if they can help us determine why the Ecto-mist is colored. When we left for the night, our night vision cameras down in the Gun Port Theatre were left running over the night. We went back to our motel and got some sleep, next morning we went back to the old Prison and retrieved the video tapes from both night vision cameras for further study.
We setup a VCR and put the video tape from the Gun Port Theatre and started to watch the tape for any evidence of Paranormal activity. About two hours into the VHS tape we heard voices which sounded like they were coming from the cafeteria area just outside of the gun port theatre. So we marked it on the tape and watched the tape, we would get these electrical pops then we would hear the voice of what sounded like men talking and foot steps on metal stairs. Then there would be a short period of ten to fifteen minutes then another electrical pops then the sound of men talking. This went on for a period of an hour and half for a total time of 45 minutes of time you can hear voices. So we put in the other tape from just outside the gun port theatre and at the same time as on the gun port theatre VHS tape we heard the same voice at the same time on the tape, but there was no images to view on the camera, the glare from the hand railing reflected the light so it blinded the night vision camera.
THE SECOND NIGHT APRIL 16TH, 2006
Our second night started out with the incident mentioned at the top of this report, after the ghost Tours we started the Investigation with our protective prayer, we then headed to the cell house for the start of the investigation. We had several people join us on our investigation. Ed Lawrence, and Phil along with Bob and Kathleen. I stayed down in the cell house with Brooke, Marlene, Bob, and Kathleen. Kris, Mike, Julie, Ed, and Phil all went up into the tower of death on the anniversary of the 1959 prison riot led by Lee Smart, and Jerry miles.
The group that went up into the tower found nothing of interest. When they came down we walked around the cell house starting on the side that had Turkey Pete's cell. Anyone that had digital cameras took pictures, and Brooke and myself shot video with our Hi 8 video cameras revealing nothing.
When we got done with the far right side we turned the corner and started to go down the left side of the cell house. It is here that some people say they get a very uneasy feeling. I then opened a pack of Camel cigarettes and placed the of a cell door and said out load " These cigarettes were for them and they could smoke them if they wanted to." We left them there and Myself, Brooke, Marlene, and Bob all went to the Admin building, where Bob gave us a audio tour of the Admin building from the days we worked there as a Investigator, as we sat there we took a base line temp reading and found the temp inside was 44' with the doors and windows shut. In the center of the visitation room we got a temperature drop of 12 degrees, and at that moment I recorded an Orb coming out of the Deputy wardens office bouncing off the floor and disappearing. I then rewound the Hi8 video camera and showed Bob the Orb he had never seen anything like it. After about 40 minutes Kristofer, and Julie came into the Admin building to ask us if we were ready to go into the Gun port theatre yes we were.
We arrived down under the Admin building, at the Gun Port Theatre at 2:30 a.m. we walked in and sat in the theatre chairs. Turned on the Hi 8 video cameras and faced the stage area, where a shadow was reported by Julie Smith two weeks earlier. I sat in the third row back from the middle isle first seat in, my daughter Brooke sat next to me on the inside. Bob Macnally sat behind me and his wife two seat over same isle as him. Marlene and Jamie sat across the isle and four rows back of me. Kris was just outside the main entrance to the Gun Port theatre with Julie Smith, and Ed Lawrence and his editor .I watched my Hi 8 video camera and thought I had seen a shadow move but wrote it off as my shoes were casting a shadow onto the stage from being up on the seat in front of me.
Kris said good bye to Ed and editor, and I noticed that the shadow couldn't be my shoes, I had them on the floor and it was still there so I looked for what was making the shadow. We thought it was the seat in front of us, but it moved and no one in front of the camera moved matter of fact there wasn't anyone in front of the Hi8 video cameras. When Kris came into the room I asked him to come and take a look at the video screen and the strange shadow I was watching. He thought it was one of us in the theatre but I told him that there was no one in front of the camera to cast the shadow. So he went up to the stage where the shadow was. He took a temperature reading and found it to be the same as the rest of the room, and he took an EMF reading with nothing showing. But this shadow kept moving, and on several occasions it crept closer to Kris on the stage and then would back off. He came back up to see what I was watching and my daughter Brooke was recording the same exact thing as I was. As he was watching the shadow moved and everyone one seen it on the video screen, it looked like it stood up then shrunk back down. He went back up to the stage and was joined by Julie Smith. Kris and Julie were on the right side of the stage and the shadow was on the left side of the stage, all of a sudden the shadow leapt from the left side of the stage to where Kris and Julie were standing and stayed there for a few minutes then went back to where it started from. He came back to where I was sitting and he noticed that one Infra red Night vision camera in the back of the room was still on and projecting out infra red light illuminating the room for night vision cameras. It still appeared pitch dark to the naked eye, but to a night vision camera it was like day in there. Both Hi8 video cameras have night vision capability. So everyone in front of the our night vision camera were lit up and the shadow turned out to be Kathlene Macnally Bob's wife she was sitting behind me and when she moved the shadow did indeed move. There was such a drop of hearts in the room, we thought we were watching a shadow ghost one of the hardest things to record on video, we had 45 minutes of footage of what we thought was a shadow ghost but in reality turned out to be a reflection of a member of our group.
Well we are in the business to find reasonable explanations to what the activity is, and in this instance we were able to solve it 100% accurately.
EVIDENCE
1) 190 photos taken the first night, and six fantastic ecto mist picture of colored ecto mist that are very much unexplainable at the is time from the first night.
2) two video tapes in two different positions picking up the same audio at the same time. The sound of the cafeteria full of men talking, and the sound of hard soled shoe shoes on cement. Over a time period of 1 hour and 45 minutes we have about 30 minutes of this audio, but no video pictures to go along with the audio from the first night.
3) 175 photos taken the second night and four photos with ecto mist in them.
