I've worked as a correctional officer for a long time, I've worked at facilities in Texas and in Michigan. The oldest prison I've ever worked at just recently started to close in Michigan and it got me thinking about all the paranormal experiences I've had there and in the other prisons of worked at. I'd like to share with all of you some of the more notable paranormal experiences that I've had while working in these prisons.
First off I'd like to say that I never really believed in ghosts before I started working as a correctional officer. I started off working in Texas at an intake facility. I worked night shifts 12 hours from 6pm to 6am. The first experience that I ever had was working on a lower security housing unit. When finishing a round I was chatting with my partner and I heard a loud banging sound. It was at like 3am at this point. No prisoners should be out of their bunks. I asked my partner if they new what the banging was. They being an older officer told me bluntly that the unit we were working was haunted. They told me the sound was coming from a door of one of small quiet cells in a hallway not directly visible from the officer station and about how a prisoner had died in one. The prisoner allegedly died because the officers working there at the time had given them a sack of food when it was lunch time for prisoners and the prisoner had choked on the food and died. I really didn't believe that the unit was haunted so I decided to go look at this door. The sound volume increased as I got closer to the door. The door itself was visibly shaking as if someone was pounding on it. There was nothing that could have been causing the door to shake like it was. I was at a loss for words. Later that night I checked the door again and there was a steamed up hand print visble on the glass of the doors window.
Another experience I had was at the same facility but at a different housing unit. It was around 1-2am and I was sitting inside the officer station watching the cameras and talking to my partner. I look at one of the cameras and clearly see a prisoner sitting at a table in the day room. I turn my head to look at the day room and no one is sitting at the table I just saw on camera. I ask my partner to go check it out because no one is supposed to be out of bed yet. I roll back the time on the camera to see if I could see where the prisoner might have gone, the prisoner on the camera literally slowly fades away and vanishes completely. My partner comes back into the officer station and we both watch this video over and over. Later on that same night during one of my rounds I notice a wet floor sign that got left out, I return it to the porter closet. I get back to the officer station and look back to where the porter closet is and see the same wet floor sign left out. I ask my partner if they are playing a joke on me or something because I just put the sign away, partner denies doing anything with it. I go back out and make sure I put the sign back in the closet and lock the door. Get back the officer station, wet floor sign right there in the open again. My partner and I are both watching this wet floor sign now. It starts to tip over on one end very slowly, two of its legs off the ground. The sign then slams itself to the ground, it then proceeded to slide quickly up the hallway and then back to infront of the closet door before ceasing all movement. My partner and I refused to come out of the officer station for the rest of the night because we were scared shitless.
One more notable one from Texas. I was working in an ad seg unit, really high security unit for prisoners that get in fights and cause a lot of problems repeatedly. We had a prisoner who was sitting in one of our close observation cells, these cells are usually used for people who threaten harming themselves. In the summertime prisoners will sometimes just say they are suicidal to be put in one of these cells because they are a lot cooler and are near ac vents that the normal housing units don't have. The prisoner told me that this was what they were doing and that they didn't want to cause any problems. Later on that night one of my partners and I were watching cameras and all the sudden we see a shadow moving across the floor. Eventually it come to the close observation cell and disappears under the door. This is where it gets a little crazy. I do a round and check on the close observation cell. The prisoner is pacing in the cell. I ask the prisoner if they are okay and the prisoner tells me that something doesn't feel right and that they are hearing voices that aren't there. I try to calm them down and eventually they do and lay on the bed. Later on my partner calls for assistance because the prisoner had bit in the skin of their own wrists causing them to bleed, held them above their head and allegedly was speaking in tongues.
When I started working at prisons in Michigan I worked at a prison that's now closing, it was built back in 1877 and is one of the oldest prisons still operating in all of the United States. There were so many small experiences that I've had here. Doors would slam, you'd hear voices, cold chills. The first really notable experience I had was around Christmas time on third shift. I was working the oldest unit on the facility, usually we don't have prisoners there but we had opened the unit to separate prisoners during the covid pandemic. I didn't have a partner due to how short staffed we were so one of the other officers setup a tv for me to keep me entertained because I'd be really far away from all the other units and get bored with no one to talk to. I do rounds for most of the night watching tv in between them. I suddenly hear a banging noise from a door that leads to a hallway that takes you all the way to an even older unused condemned part of the prison. I open the door and take a look down the hallway. A cold breeze hits me and suddenly my arm hairs stand on end. I close the door throughly creeped out. I go and sit down and start watching tv again. The tv starts flipping through channels rapidly and then stops on static. I have to get moved to a different unit because I'm scared shitless.
One day on third shift my work friend and I were working positions that allowed us to have a lot of free time and no prisoners to watch. We decided to explore the prison. We explored the tunnels that went underneath the prison, the old barns, the old unstaffed gun towers. We eventually decided to go look at the old condemned part of the prison from my earlier experience. There was a big metal gate that was about halfway down the hallway that had to be opened by a big skeleton key. We get back to the old condemned part and my friend tells me about how this part was supposed to be the old segregation. We had to use flashlights to see because this section is so old its not powered. The energy back there I won't ever forget, just being there filled me with a feeling of dread. I ask my friend to head back and we start to head back down to where the hallway to the gate was. My friends flashlight suddenly dies. We make it to the hallway barely able to see anything in the almost pitch blackness. We hear something running after us, so we start running up the hallway too. My friend fumbles with the key as we hear it getting closer. We get the gate open and sprint out of there. Later on I noticed that my friend had red claw marks all over his arms.
Well thats all I got for you all. Hope you enjoy reading about these.
