Many legends, along with truth and mystery, have cursed this desolate location. These tunnels, also known as the Downingtown Tunnels, are home to various suicides, an unsolved murder and a popular teen hangout.
Within the middle tunnel
The tunnels are along Valley Creek Road, which runs along Valley Creek. The narrow road is a journey of twists and turns around every corner. They are located right outside of Downingtown, PA. Railroad tracks cross over the tunnels, which contain three tunnels, not two as the name implies.
In the summer months of 2012 we kept hearing these weird noises outside. It was after midnight, summer and the windows were open, so it was slightly quieter since most people were sleeping. The sound was a mix of a boom, a warble and some kind of hum, similar to the sounds made by the alien ships in the movie "The War of the Worlds". For the 1st week of hearing these strange noises I just assumed that it was the ships down on the docks at Philly (Delaware River) since they are literally only two blocks from my house. But my curiosity got the best of me and when I did a little more investigating I realized that the sounds were not coming from the direction of the ports, they seemed to be all over, and not in the echo way.
ELISA LAM
Born: April 30, 1991
Disappeared: January 31, 2013
Died:February 1, 2013 (aged 21)
Body Found: February 19th, 2013
A quote that Elisa seemed to favor and placed on her various social media profiles:
“You’re always haunted by the idea you’re wasting your life.” — Chuck Palahniuk
The unexplained death of Elisa Lam has fascinated the American public and the world in general because of its bizarre circumstances. On January 31st, 2013, a 21-year-old Canadian student named Elisa Lam was reported missing. She was staying in the Los Angeles hotel, The Cecil Hotel, which is known to have a notorious past. Two weeks later hotel guests complained about the water tasting funny and coming out of the facets black (just like in the movie DARK WATER 2005 (1) ), a maintenance worker was inspecting the rooftop water tanks on top of the Cecil Hotel and discovered her body.
Dark Water the movie 2005
Elisa Lam full video 4 min (Courtesy of Dennis Romero, posted 2-13-13)
Surveillance footage from the hotel's elevator which is the last known whereabouts of Elisa
Upon watching the video several times, Elisa does exhibit strange behavior. She enters the elevator, acts suspicious, keeps peeking out of the doors and hides in the corner as if she is hiding from someone. When the elevator door starts to shut, she presses the door open button. For a brief moment she steps out of the elevator and appears to be hesitant to get back in. When she does get back into the elevator she appears to press all the buttons. Some say she was trying to either trick someone that might be following her or she was playing the elevator game (2). There appears to be about 1 minute edited out of the video prior to being released to the police and then to the public.
Others state that she either had mental issues or was under the influence of drugs or alcohol. She did suffer from documented bipolar disorder and the results of her toxiology report are to follow.
Lam had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression. She had been prescribed four drugs—Wellbutrin, Lamictal, Seroquel and Effexor to deal with the condition. According to her family, she had no history of suicidal idealizations or attempts, although one report claims she had, in fact, briefly gone missing at some earlier time as well.
After Lam was removed from the tank, her body was taken to the county coroner's office to be autopsied. Two pathologists, Jason Tovar and Yulai Wang, spent four hours that afternoon dissecting her body and examining her internal organs. On February 21, the coroner's office reported that they had found her death to be an accidental drowning.
Four months later, in June, their full report was released after being postponed several times. They reported that her body had been found naked in the tank, about three-quarters full of water, with the clothes she appeared to have been wearing in the elevator video floating in the water alongside her, coated with a "sand-like particulate".
According to her autopsy report, the following items were found in the water tank with her:
1) red hooded sweatshirt; front zippering; American Apparel brand' size sx
2) green shirt; a t-shirt, light green, short sleeved, with crew neck JJM brand, size l/g
3) black shorts; Saxon brand authentic game wear, men's size m/m
4) black panties; black lace trim; Calvin Klein brand, size s/p
5) pair sandals; Birkenstocks brand, with three black fabric straps having small white dot pattern overall and two buckles; labeled with numerals that may indicate code for European sizing: 39, 55, 250, l8, m6
6) watch
7) hotel room key
The elevator in question is on the left
Lam's body was moderately decomposed, bloated and mostly greenish, with some marbling evident on the abdomen and skin separation evident. Her body was not clothed when it was found and that could lead to the speculation of sexual assault. Tovar and Wang had a rape and fingernail kit done and reported that they found no evidence of physical trauma or sexual assault.They also stated that they found no evidence to suggest that Lam had committed suicide.
Toxicology tests were done on her blood where a sufficient quantity was available. Some metabolites and traces of her prescription medication were found, consistent with blister packs and loose pills of those drugs found among her belongings, along with some nonprescription drugs such as Sinutab and ibuprofen. She had venlafaxine and metabolized buproprion in her system and both can cause halluinacions in bipolar patients.
No alcohol or recreational drugs were found in her system. Details regarding this can be found here: Click to read autopsy report
Interestingly enough, some of the kits used bore the name ELISA KITS (3 )
Obviously with any "mysterious" murder or missing persons case there is a great amount of speculation associated with it. Some think that she may have been killed by a hotel guest or an employee. While watching the video clip it appears that Elisa was playing some sort of hide and seek game with someone not visible in the video. This could either be a willing game or maybe she was in danger and trying to hide from someone.
Others interject that she may have committed suicide based on her writings on her online blog and diaries. But skeptics state that the water tower lid may have been too heavy for a slight girl to lift, climb in and then close it behind her.
The Cecil Hotel is a well known seedy place full of bad stories and a shady past. The location was the last place the Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short, was seen before her death back in 1947. The serial killer Ricahrd "Night Stalker" Ramirez also called the hotel home for a time period. Here is a brief piece concerning the hotel:
Elizabeth Short
Of course the conspiracy theories do not stop there, they further spiral into tale of the Illuminati. A quick check of of Google Maps does show that The Invisible Light Agency does reside in the building and that Anthony V, produces weapons. Their company logo is also made up of triangles as does the Illuminati's.
The Invisible Light Agency on Google Maps
The Invisible Light Agency's logo
Julie Ann Paige had this to say, "Around the time of the Elisa Lam disappearance I lived at The Alexandria Hotel, another sketchy nefarious place. I remember seeing Elisa walking up 7th crossing Spring going up towards Main. She seemed strange and out of place and caught my eye for some reason. I wondered if she was on drugs. I was shocked to later see her on the news reported as missing. I remember hearing all the sirens that Feb morning and could tell it was around the Cecil. I had this sense of dread I just knew they found her there dead."
Revisiting the suicide theory, lets take a look at some of her writings; Elisa Lam recorded some of her depression in her blog:
"Thursday
this is a lazy post
Things are going fairly well in that I am leaving the house and got myself a part time job. My room is still a mess. I haven't actually done any school work and I berate myself for being such a lazy person. Ah yes laziness.
If I weren't so lazy I would exercise.
I believe the biggest reason why I got depressed was because I stopped running in my last year of high school. Up until that point I was on the cross country and track and field team. Mind you I wasn't very good runner, but I did it. I lacked the discipline to actually train. And now I am still lacking the discipline to run or do any sport of sort.
I make up excuses. Right now the excuse is "It's too cold outside." Fair enough, I could however go to a gym. Then the excuse is "I'm self-concious and I have no idea how to weight lift."
I am not terribly self conscious of my body. I've accepted it's simply the way I am. However I am terribly self conscious of my legs. I find them disproportional to the rest of my body making me look chunkier than I am. And no matter how much I exercised, they never became any leaner. If I am not too careful, I fall into the trap of cankles.
I'm sick of the cold weather and wish for warmer weather. Warmer weather meaning dresses. Oh wait, no I don't like dresses because that means exposing my legs.
Right.
But this cold in mid March makes me eat so horribly. I have been living off of junk food and if I weren't so lazy I would actually go try to learn how to feed myself.
And if I weren't so lazy I would go learn how to do something.....like coding or whatnot. I'm falling into a pattern of going on tumblr and it's not giving me any joy actually. It's just something to do. Idling by."
One of the Illuminati connected theories was that she was investigating an invisibility cloak, as seen on her blog post from 1-12-13, and they had her killed. Do not that The Invisible Light Agency does reside within the building.
Some say that the below post to her blog is a clear indicator of her suicide intentions:
expexto patronum (4)
Depression sucks.
I have no control over my emotions. I will be angry for two minutes and then sad again. I will be happy for half an hour and then emotional again.
So far all I've done is lay on my bed and watch episodes of Chopped.
Im just waiting for it to pass."
An excerpt from her blog with a heading from a spell in the Harry Potter film
I do find it interesting that for a person that liked to write, read and blog...that if she did commit suicide, she did not leave a note.
So still to this day there is no definitive answer as to who or what may have killed Elisa. Speculation builds and grows and no light has shined down on this girl who lost her life back on that cold January day.
Here are some links to her personal social media sites:
(Chris Chaos is a long time resident of South Jersey who once again resides in and writes from Gloucester City, New Jersey. He is a filmmaker, a business owner, writer, urban explorer and investigator of the odd and weird, a proud parent, happily taken and a connoisseur of hot wings. Chris can be reached at AxisVideo@aol.com)
The Ouija Board, what is it? Is it
a source that provides a method to contact spirits, a way to contact
the recently deceased or just a child's game? The following is a
brief history, background and uses concerning the mysterious board.
In ancient times, circa 1100 AD,
there were crude primitive interpretations made that the modern Ouija
Board was fashioned after. India, Greece, Rome and Medieval Europe
all practiced and had similar methods of spirit writing.
Elijah Bond introduced the board
on July 1st, 1890 as a simple board game and parlor trick, it was
considered harmless and was not involved as a spirital board. During
World War 1, Pearl Curran popularized and thus secured the board as a
staple in the occult field.
William Fuld, Elijah's foreman,
took over production of the boards from Elijah Bond and called them
Ouija, in which he claimed it mean "good luck" in Egyptian
or "yes" as a combo of French and German. Over the years,
Fuld sued many others for trying to produce their own boards. Fuld
died in 1927, his estate sold the business to Parker Brothers, which
in turn was sold to Hasbro in 1991.
The board displays all letters of
the English alphabet, numbers 0-9, the words yes and no, hello and
goodbye, along with symbols representing the sun, moon and stars.
Players manipulate a planchette, which is a small 3-legged device
with a hole in the middle or a pointer of some sort around the board.
However, users often feel the planchette is moving of its own accord
rather than responding to their own unconscious muscle movements
(ideomotor action).
"The Ideomotor Effect" The
ideomotor effect refers to the influence of suggestion or expectation
on involuntary and unconscious motor behavior. The movement of
pointers on Ouija boards, of a facilitator's hands in facilitated
communication, of hands and arms in applied kinesiology, and of some
behaviors attributed to hypnotic suggestion, are due to ideomotor
action.
The unaware and fascinated by the
board treat it as a tool of the devil, a gateway to possession or
some other object tool to contact the dead. Some Christians feel it
is demonic, despite being debunked by common sense and the scientific
community. Many boards, along with Harry Potter books, were burned
back in 2001, in New Mexico by Christian groups who deemed them
"symbols of witchcraft". Human Life International wanted
Hasbro to be prohibited from marketing the board since they thought
they were portals to talk to spirits.
There are many stories that people
tell concerning the bad after effects of using a board, along with a
movie coming out shortly entitled OUIJA. According to Dr. Carl
Wickland, he treated cases of, "several persons whose seemingly
harmless experiences with automactic writing and the Ouija board
resulted in such wild insanity that commitment to asylums was
necessitated." back in 1924. SOURCE: Thirty Years Among the Dead
by Dr. Carl Wickland. 1924.
Many believers feel that spirits
are guiding their hands in spelling out words, but for the true test
all you have to do is blindfold the user and see if the results are
the same. Each and every (blindfolded test subject) test shows that
the accuracy of letter selection comes out garbled and in true
scrambled alphabet soup style.
But in all reality, there is no
demonic connection to the boards; the only power they have is the
power you give them. For the most part they are just ploys to
separate fools from their money.
"If there really is an
afterlife, I'll bet the best way to contact it is through a plastic,
mass-produced board game from Milton Bradley!" --Mad Magazine
"The planchette is guided by
unconscious muscular exertions like those responsible for table
movement. Nonetheless, in both cases, the illusion that the object
(table or planchette) is moving under its own control is often
extremely powerful and sufficient to convince many people that
spirits are truly at work...The unconscious muscle movements
responsible for the moving tables and Ouija board phenomena seen at
seances are examples of a class of phenomena due to what
psychologists call a dissociative state. A dissociative state is
one in which consciousness is somehow divided or cut off from some
aspects of the individual’s normal cognitive, motor, or sensory
functions." (Hines, Terence. (2003). Pseudoscience and the
Paranormal. Prometheus Books. p. 47)
An interesting side note story
from the author: "I was at a yard sale many moons again and saw
a really old, wooden, over sized Ouija Board and was afraid to ask
about the price. But after looking at it for a few minutes I finally
asked and they simply said, "$1." So I grabbed it up with
the quickness and headed home. It was a beautiful piece and I had
plans of mounting it on the wall. Looking it up online I found they
were incredibly rare and had a value of about $400-500. Sadly, due to
the various moves I had over the years the piece was lost to time."
(Chris Chaos is a long time
resident of South Jersey who once again resides in and writes from
Gloucester City, New Jersey. He is a filmmaker, a business owner,
writer, urban explorer and investigator of the odd and weird, a proud
parent, happily taken and a connoisseur of hot wings. Chris can be
reached at AxisVideo@aol.com)
