Spooky season is upon us, and the 414 has its fair share of haunted history. Thankfully, the Paranormal Investigators of Milwaukee are here to explore the city’s creepiest cases.
Noah Leigh, lead investigator and founder of PIM, grew up loving all things Halloween. His passion for the paranormal started as a child and continued to blossom as he got older.
When he moved to Milwaukee for graduate school, Leigh saw a preview of the show “Ghost Hunters,” which follows a team of paranormal investigators, and decided to look for similar groups in the area. Eventually, he founded PIM in 2007 after not liking how other teams controlled and operated certain parts of their investigations.
“I thought I could maybe apply my scientific training to the field and hopefully get some better results,” Leigh said.
Now, Leigh and his four fellow investigators work to help explain the unexplainable in the Milwaukee area. They conduct free private home investigations for those who report supernatural activity, as well as guided public investigations and information sessions. For the investigations, PIM uses a variety of digital equipment and follows a methodology specific to their team.
“We come to a location, and we can debunk and find normal explanations for some of those [paranormal] things,” Leigh said. “A lot of times, people are very happy by that, because they were scared about what was going on.”
While Leigh has spent time on Marquette’s campus exploring dorms and academic buildings deemed to be haunted, he said it is often difficult to conduct what he considers an official investigation with all the students present.
However, two Marquette buildings that Leigh and PIM have explored are Johnston Hall and Humphrey Hall. The fifth floor of Johnston Hall is said to be haunted by the ghost of a Jesuit who died by suicide. Humphrey Hall used to be a children’s hospital and has a morgue in the basement.
“We’ve been [in Johnston] twice, up in a hallway where people have claimed to hear things or hear footsteps, see shadows and stuff like that,” Leigh said. “So, we’ve actually done not a private investigation, but one with students as part of a student activity.”
Draylin Pickett, a sophomore in the College of Communication and Mashuda Hall resident assistant, said Mashuda has a spooky sub-basement level that can only be reached by a certain set of stairs.
Pickett also said he heard a story from some Mashuda residents who believed they witnessed paranormal activity in the hall. Some students claimed to have seen a vintage-looking man in the elevator when the doors closed. When the doors reopened again shortly after, the residents said the man was no longer there.
“Those are claims we have. They’re hard to investigate because, without video, we’re relying on whatever that person is recalling,” Leigh said. “We’re really bad at reporting things that we think we saw or heard, and so it’s difficult to investigate.”
PIM has also investigated paranormal activity in numerous other locations around Milwaukee.
Two prominent paranormal cases in Milwaukee that Leigh mentioned are the Pfister Hotel and the Rave/Eagles Club, which is located just outside of Marquette’s campus. Leigh said he had heard about a pool in the Rave being haunted.
“There was a story–I don’t know for sure if it’s been confirmed historically–of a child that drowned in that pool,” Leigh said. “Supposedly there’s activity there.”
Regarding the Pfister Hotel, Leigh explained that guests say the elevator goes to the third floor without being called, which is the floor Mr. Pfister used to work on. Some visiting professional athletes, like Mookie Betts of the Los Angeles Dodgers, refuse to stay in the hotel’s newer towers due to fear of paranormal activity.
“The issue with both of those, I haven’t been able to get access to the buildings to try and investigate those claims thoroughly,” Leigh said. “The Pfister has just declined, and the Rave, the owners are kind of hard to get a hold of to get that permission, so that’s unfortunate.”
Leigh mentioned that college students can also engage in paranormal investigation, as long as they take certain precautions and always follow rules. The three main safety tips he emphasizes to students are to never trespass or investigate buildings without permission, plan investigations efficiently and never investigate under the influence of any substances.
PIM is hosting a public investigation near campus on Nov. 9, located at the Brumder Mansion on 30th and Wisconsin. Anyone is welcome to attend one of the two-night shifts conducting an investigation of the mansion, including. Tickets cost $45 for a two-hour session.
“It’s always interesting to go and see what might be able to find with everyone there, and just kind of show them how we do those sorts of investigations,” Leigh said.
This story was written by Mia Thurow. She can be reached at [email protected].
