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Real Ghost Stories Online

The Haunting of Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum | Paranormal Deep Dive

Real Ghost Stories Online

Tony Brueski

Religion & Spirituality, Natural Sciences, Science, Spirituality

4.23.6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2025

⏱️ 15 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On this episode, Tony Brueski digs into one of the darkest locations in American history—the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. Originally built as a beacon of mental health care, it quickly descended into chaos, filled with overcrowding, patient abuse, and controversial treatments like electroshock therapy and lobotomies. The horrors endured by thousands of patients left a lasting imprint, one that many believe still lingers within its crumbling walls.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Welcome to the paranormal deep dive from Real Ghost Stories Online and the Grave Talks.

0:07.1

It stands as a towering relic of a past we'd rather forget.

0:10.3

A massive stone fortress built with the promise of care, dignity, and medical innovation.

0:17.6

But the walls of the Trans-Alegany Lunatic Asylum, once known as Weston State Hospital, hold stories far darker than any treatment plan ever prescribed.

0:28.4

For over 130 years, this institution housed thousands of patients, many of whom were abandoned by society, subjected to experimental procedures that, in hindsight,

0:39.1

seem more like torture than therapy.

0:41.8

Lobotomies performed with ice picks, electroshock therapy without anesthesia, patients locked

0:47.2

away in solitary confinement for decades.

0:50.0

It was a place where suffering was routine and where those deemed unwanted by the world were left to wither away, and yet long after.

0:58.5

The asylum shut its doors in 1994.

1:02.1

The echoes of its tragic history have refused to fade.

1:06.0

Visitors today report shadowy figures darting through hallways, chilling whispers in the dead of night,

1:11.8

and doors slamming shut by unseen hands. Paranormal investigators claim this is one of the most

1:17.5

active hauntings in the United States, a site where the tormented spirits of former patients

1:22.6

may still roam, unable, or unwilling to leave. But is it truly haunted?

1:28.6

Or is there something else at play, something rooted in psychology, science, and the deep,

1:34.6

unsettling weight of history?

1:37.0

I'm Tony Bruske.

1:38.6

Let's dig in.

1:40.1

The trans-Alegany lunatic asylum was born out of good intentions.

1:43.7

In the mid-1800s, mental health treatment in America was undergoing a revolution, or at least that was the idea.

1:51.0

The philosophy of the time, led by psychiatrist Thomas' story, Kirkbride, was that individuals suffering from mental illness should be treated with fresh air, open spaces, and moral therapy, rather than

...

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