Destruction of Alleged Haunted Insane Asylum of Alameda, Calif.~~~

Dear Readers,

If there is one thing I deplore is someone posting false rumors of hauntings were none exist, this building is a case in point.

Someone had posted a false story on a web site called "Shadowlands" and people chose to believe while the web masters chose to ignore warnings that the posting is very untrue.

If one is to investigate an alleged haunting, the first rule is do your research first, use local sources, the best being the local public library or chamber of commerce. Never believe web sites that post so called hauntings without verifying the information.

This was sent to me by a Paranormal investigator for my information and to post here for future information to others as well as a warning. At the investigators request I've not posted their name.

Please read and learn~~~~

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A FIERY END FOR ALLEGED “HAUNTED INSANE ASYLUM”

Date Line: Alameda, CA. March 29 - April 2, 2009


At 2:30 a.m. Sunday morning, March 29, 2009, in a pre-dawn fire of spectacularly evil beauty, the alleged Haunted Insane Asylum of Alameda met its fiery end, not with a whimper at the metallic hands of a crushing bulldozer, but in a Valhalla Glory that would make a Valkyrie proud.

Alameda firefighters responded to three separate alarms at the abandoned Army Medical Depot at the area that is currently referred to as Alameda Landing. The first two fires were classified as “nuisance” fires.

But by 2:30 a.m. early Sunday morning, the fire department confronted the building fully engulfed by a fire that refused to be extinguished, it was noted that the center core of the building was extremely hot and would not be put down, the second and third stories of the building eventually collapsed, ash flew more than 3 miles south of the fire, with heavy smoke blanketing much of the area causing breathing difficultly for many people that a Health advisory was called for everyone within a mile east of the building.

Fire Chief Ricci Zombeck stated that all 24 of the city’s on-duty firefighters were at the scene at some point during the blaze of the 150,000 foot square building. Since the building was abandoned and not slated for refurbishing or of any historical merit the plan to deal with the fire was control to prevent it from spreading, by doing this it did not place any fire personnel at risk. Fire personnel from Oakland also assisted stating that the flames could be seen well up into the Oakland Hills.

By late Monday evening, the final embers were finally smothered out, leaving a burned ruin of the old facility.

The land that it was on was not the Naval Air Station proper but an annex to it, originally part of the 1930’s Army Air Corp known as Benton Field until it was transferred to the Navy Department.

The abandon military building had a checkered past, originally built in 1941 as a hospital and dental unit for military personnel, it also distributed medical supplies and equipment to different military posts and ships in the Bay Area.

In the 1950’s the hospital portion was only sporadically used except for emergencies until a patient could be stabilized then transferred to the Oakland Oak Knoll Naval Hospital. Eventually it was used only for distribution of Medical supplies since it was next to the railroad and truck transportation terminals for Naval Air Station Alameda.

By the 1970’s its hospital and dental usage was gone with the downsizing after the Vietnam War, with much of the medical usage transferred to the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital located in Oakland. The building continued to be used to distribute medical supplies through out NAS Alameda, its ships and other military locations in a more than 100 mile radius, by that time it was known as the FICS Admin building, since the administration for said distribution was controlled within that building.

By the mid 1990’s with the base closures going on through out the United States, NAS Alameda was officially closed and the now-known FICS Administration Building was abandoned, the warehouses just on the other side of the railroad tracks were rented out to different private companies to truck their various goods around the Bay Area and other locations. The rail road tracks had fallen into disuse during the 1980’s since rail service was no longer needed to service the Naval Air Station.

With the building being abandoned it was a prime target for graffiti vandals, teenagers looking to do mischief and drug users who used it as a hide out to deal drugs and to shoot up. Rumor had it that on several occasions’ bodies of drug users was found in the building, having died from drug overdose.

In late 2006 the FISC building started on its last and final phase, that it was a haunted insane asylum.

Posted on the web site known as “Shadowlands” was this imaginative blurb:

“Alameda - Haunted Insane Asylum -. - At the intersection of Marina Village Pkwy and Mariner Square Dr, turn left and go straight. Take the first right into an industrial parking lot and you'll see the asylum straight ahead. Patients used to be tortured and killed there, and it's abandoned now. At nighttime, stand out in the front and look at the fifth window from the right on the second story. The blinds open and close themselves. Sometimes when you walk inside, you'll hear a loud scream the second you enter the door. Also, you get the chills and have the feeling that someone's behind you. When you're inside, you will hear screaming coming from a distant room in the house. Down in the basement there are ropes that people used to hang themselves with. Even during the day, if you take pictures occasionally there will be orbs or even a glowing, ghostly figure in the picture.”

Soon this false rumor spread over the internet, with a high degree of interest among the local youth.

According to one retired navy person R. H. (name withheld), who started a business in ship and building clean up, he had gone through the building in 2005 to put a bid in to clean it out, knowing the building when it was in working operation and after his examination of it, prior to bidding, he stated to this writer that the description given in the “Shadowlands” post was entirely false, a total fiction, most likely invented by a teen’s over active imagination.

Said one very frustrated Librarian Technician who requested not to be named,
“You get these idiot people just believing this out of hand without researching anything properly, I had a woman come in mid-April 2007 and she insisted that it was a ‘haunted insane asylum’ when I told her what it really was she refused to believe me and when I told her where the real mental hospital was located she refused to believe even more. Then she had the nerve to tell me that she could ‘feel the pain of those trapped souls’, I can tell you where that pain was and it was in her head. And to top it off she said that there were needles all over the place, when I told her that it was used by dopers she still refused to believe me!”

This female amateur ghost hunter was not the only one, the same technician was asked to speak to two young men less than 2 months later, who had gone to investigate it and was met with the same reaction from these young men “…complete refusal to listen to the truth and total disregard for their own safety.”

Finally when the technician found out that it was on “Shadowlands” and was told that “since it’s on that site, that it must be true,” by several of these non-trained ghost hunters, she e-mailed the web masters 3 times, demanding that the posting be removed, that it was false story and was placing a lot of people in danger, instead the web masters of “Shadowlands” put up this disclaimer:

“October 2007 Warning: as with every haunted place on this site; make sure you get permission to investigate. Trespassing is a crime. You could get arrested or worse, hurt. Be smart, courteous, and be legal.”

But the trespassing continued, with young people going there on a dare. One couple, who requested anominty, decided to ride over one evening just to look at the building safely from the outside and maybe take photos to see if they could capture orbs, and EVP but instead were confronted by 3 very real and very rough looking men, not security guards. These men demanded that the couple come over to them; thinking they were drug dealers the couple left quickly.

Some ghost hunters had gone over to take pictures at other times and see if they could also capture EVP, (electronic voice phenomena) without entering the grounds deeming that the building was unsafe, but the results were inconclusive.

Security officers for BOBAC C.F.S., the company that rents the warehouses, have often been frustrated by the actions of trespassers and on several occasions over the past few years had to call the local fire department to quickly put out nuisance fires.

During the times that the base and annex area were still under military control before the final transfer to City of Alameda hands, the military police and then the local police had to be called out for the same reasons.

The same Library Technician researched the exact location of the original mental hospital which she had discovered was located 3 miles south of the FSIC building. According to her findings a privately run mental asylum was located on what is now Park Street on the East side of the street bordered by Park and Everett Streets and Central and Webb avenues; at that time Santa Clara Avenue did not run completely through to High Street.

The hospital for the mentally insane called the Alameda Park Asylum, was owned and operated by Doctors Eustace Trenor and Joseph C. Tucker; the doctors had purchased the property from A. A. Cohen when it was Cohen’s Park Hotel. The doctors operated it from about 1861 to December of 1870, when it closed down; the empty building was destroyed in a fire that occurred on January 31, 1871. The land was later portioned off and Dr. Tucker built a three story Victorian style office building on the corner of what is now Santa Clara Avenue and Park Street, Park Street was in fact named for the Sanatorium, perhaps the only time a street was named for an insane asylum. In the 1930’s the Tucker building, as it was later called, was remodeled to reflect the popular art moderne style of the times and currently houses La Piñata Restaurant.

In October of 2008, a series of lectures were started at the Alameda Free Library dealing with the history of Alameda. Since October was associated with ghosts, the first lecture was about hauntings in Alameda both real and imagined and as part of the imagined portion of the lecture, the FISC building was featured to demonstrate how falsehoods can create ghostly hauntings when none is there. This was done in the hopes of putting the rumor of it being what it wasn’t to rest, unfortunately it didn’t succeed. The name and false legend stuck until its fiery end.

According to one of the security company’s officials, at approximately 10:30 p.m. late Saturday evening, March 28, the officer on duty called the Alameda Fire Department to report a fire at the abandoned building. It was quickly put out, but by about Midnight the same evening the fire Department was called out again, and again put the fire out.

When the third and final call came in early Sunday morning, at 2:30 a.m. the fire department found the building fully engulfed in flames. Recent reports say that witnesses saw two people quickly leaving the building before the final fire. Fire Investigators say that the fire is of suspicious origins since there was no electrical or gas connections working and the possibility of an accelerant may have been used. It is this writers’ belief that since the building was slated to be soon demolished that the investigation may not go further.

It is also this writers’ belief that since there were 3 fires all within the same night at the same location with the final one being successful, that there was a person or persons unknown who had made a determined effort in seeking to destroy this building well before it’s demolition date. It is hoped that Alameda and Oakland does not have to deal with a mentally unbalanced “fire bug” on their hands, but since it was reported that at least two people were seen leaving the building, there is several other theories that have been bandied about by local citizens; that it may have been homeless people trying to get warm, drug users possibly freebasing, teenagers seeking to do some serious damage on a dare, or perhaps someone hired to destroy the building.

Until the Fire Investigators complete their findings those theories are speculation.

By Summer of 2009 if not sooner, what is left of the alleged “Haunted Insane Asylum of Alameda” will be no more, torn down and hauled way as so much burnt debris. Hopefully its alleged ghosts finally laid to rest, hopefully its false tales of hauntings, horrible and terrifying to fade away to some dim forgotten memory; or will they?

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