Moment in Oddity - Agar Art Contest (Suggested by: Chelsea Flowers)
Some say that art is in the eye of the beholder. It can take many forms and utilize many different media. Art can be created by drawing with pencil and ink, or painted in oil, acrylic or watercolors. Sculptures can be made out of too many materials to name. Art can be digital or mixed media and encompass numerous techniques. There is a very unique method of 'painting' that is celebrated globally every year by the American Society for Microbiology, also known as ASM. This is the Agar Art Contest. The individually designed pieces of art are created in petri dishes which are filled with a jelly-like 'agar' that is a nutrient rich food source for microbes. You heard that right, the art itself is made up of different colored microbes. Microbes is a broad label to describe different microscopic organisms. Some examples are fungi, protists and viruses. When the microbes are grown in a petri dish they develop into different colors over 24-72 hours. Serratia creates bright red, Bacillus is a warm yellow, Chromobacterium is a deep violet and so on. Participants carefully inoculate different parts of their petri dishes with different microbes and after a couple of days, their art comes to life! ***The process kind of reminds me of glazing pottery since you can't really see the finished colors until after firing. The ASM Agar Art contest was first held in 2015 and continues through today. We definitely encourage listeners to look up some examples of the entries. They are truly incredible. While the art is beautiful, creating it with microscopic bacterias and viruses, certainly is odd.
Rolling Hills Asylum
Rolling Hills Asylum in East Bethany, New York was once known as the Old Country Home and served as the Genesee County Poor Farm for decades. The main building spans over 60,000 square feet with a subterranean tunnel and has stood for almost 200 years. It saw its share of tragedies and hardship through the years. Today, it serves as a museum and paranormal hotspot, featuring tours and investigations. This is said to be one of the most haunted locations anywhere in the world. Join us for the history and hauntings of Rolling Hills Asylum.
Bethany in New York was first settled in 1803 and was a part of the town of Batavia. This was a Roman name for part of the Netherlands. These towns are all referenced as hamlets and have never had large populations. A stagecoach tavern sat on the property that the Genesee County Board of Supervisors bought to establish the Genesee County Poor Farm. They had made the decision to build the poor farm during a meeting on December 4, 1826. An official announcement was placed in the Batavia Times on December 9, 1826 and read, "Notice is hereby given that the Genesee County Poorhouse will be ready for the reception of paupers on the first day of January 1827...The Overseers of the Poor of the several towns of the County of Genesee are requested, in all cases of removal of paupers to the county poorhouse, to send with them their clothing, beds, bedding and such other articles belonging to the paupers as may be necessary and useful to them." The original main building that still stands today was built in 1827 on the Kirkbride Plan and in the Gothic Revival style of architecture. So it has that long multi-wing look that helped to segregate all the different populations that would be housed here. Lots of windows provided plenty of light.
We've talked about several poor houses on HGB. These were basically cast-off houses for widows, orphans, the elderly, the disabled, mentally ill and lesser criminals. The term "farm" was appropriate though as these were indeed farms that were self-sufficient and the people who lived there, the inmates, all participated in running things. This could include raising of Holsteins, ducks, chickens, pigs, draft horses, and raising crops. Genesee County Poor Farm also had a bakery where jams and pastries were sold and there was also a coffin shop. So come on down to the poor farm to buy your final resting place!
In 1828, it was decided that the property needed to be used to house not just the poor, but the mentally ill, so a stone building was constructed next to the main building and the mentally ill and minor criminals were put there. The mentally ill would be moved to a different facility in 1887. The property grew as more land was acquired until it covered 200 acres. The asylum's superintendent in 1915, George Fleming, put forward the effort to plant trees around the property to create wooded areas. He planted 31,000 trees and in the 1920s, the state of New York provided more trees and help with planting. This continued for a decade until there were over 169,000 trees on the property. This is now Genesee County Park & Forest hat everyone can enjoy. In 1938, the Genesee County Infirmary was added as a general hospital. For the time, the hospital was very modern. It was not only fire proof - the first building in the county with that claim - but it was one of
the most contemporary facilities at the time. The Genesee County Nursing Home would be the new iteration for the property in 1964. It ran that way until it closed in
1974. There would be three private owners after that from 1980 to 2009. Sharon Coyle bought Rolling Hills in 2009. She said, "I gave up my home, my marriage, everything, and moved 3,000
miles out to Western New York, with just one suit case and not much
else, except gumption, drive, fostering the dreams and aspirations of
saving this historically rich and architecturally beautiful property,
now encompassing just a little over 11 acres, 60,000 sq. ft of main
buildings and several out buildings." And she is still there today, preserving the site and running events.
There was a cemetery here, but it has been lost to time. People who died at Rolling Hills without family, were laid to rest on the property. There are no formal records left, but a document from 1886 read, "The burying ground we have improved by building a fence in front and grading and leveling the ground as much as could be done without injury to the graves." Fortunately, a memorial was placed in the Genesee County Park in 2004 after five headstones, dated from 1887 to 1888, were found.
There are many stories of tragedy connected to Rolling Hills, as is the case for every poor farm and asylum we have covered. Roy was a long-term resident of Rolling Hills. He had been born into a prominent banking family in New York and he was born with a blip in his genetic code that left him with extreme gigantism. Roy's hands and feet were incredibly big and the left side of his face was deformed. His family didn't want a circus freak show in their family, so he was dumped at the asylum when he was twelve years old. Roy grew to a height that was well over seven feet. He actually thrived at the asylum and was described by everyone as having as big heart to go with his stature and he was kind - so important in this world. He loved to listen to opera music. Roy remained at Rolling Hills his entire life until he passed at the age of 52. The psych ward and solitary confinement had iron brackets, more than likely to help control unruly patients. There are reports that people in these areas were treated cruelly.
Rolling Hills is considered in the top 10 of haunted locations in America and has made appearances on nearly every paranormal show on cable and YouTube. And finally, we are covering it! The list of what people experience here is vast. A man wearing a suit has been seen standing in doorways, typically by Intake. A tour guide named Jay was taking a group through and everyone heard audibly, "Thank You" in the infirmary. People have witnessed a ball roll out of a door, turn in direction and come back into the room through another door - all on its own. A book was lifted off a table and slammed back down. Doors are heard slamming all the time.
There are several ghosts here. Our kind-hearted Roy is here. Weird NJ shared, "Sharon tells a story about running into a rat in the infirmary about two months after moving into Rolling Hills. Terrified by it, she screamed and ran away. The very next day she found the rat dead on the stairs, blood oozing from its mouth as if its neck had been broken. On the wall above the rat was a giant bloody handprint. Sharon believes that the ghost of Roy witnessed her distress and killed the rat for her." Roy is most often seen as a large shadow man. There was an elderly blind woman here named Hattie who would yell out "hello" to get the attention of nurses and this female "hello" has been captured on EVP. Sharon herself captured this and played it for a former nurse at the facility and she recognized it as being Hattie. And there was a mean nurse who may still be walking the halls. She was known as Nurse Emmie and she was cruel. Inmates and staff alike were afraid of her and tried to avoid her because they believed she could put curses on people. EVP captures of a cackly-like laugh have been attributed to Nurse Emmie. A number of EVPs have been captured over the years. EVPs have been caught many, many times of a woman screaming. When Sharon moved in an old antique washing machine and asked Queenie what she thought, an EVP of a woman said, "Happy with it." Another time they asked Chuck, who was with him and an EVP said "Erin."
A woman said that she had come all the way from California and the Spirit Box said, "Grateful." Jay and Drew, who worked on the crew of Rolling Hills in 2017, were conducting an EVP session and specifically trying to talk to the spirit Cecil. They asked him if he would like them to bring him a sledgehammer to finish taking down a wall he had once been working on and he answered, "No, that's ok."
The superintendent we mentioned earlier who planted all the trees, George, well he ended up getting really sick and he had a couple of strokes and had to be given a tracheotomy and he was cared for at the asylum. He did pass away here. People claim to hear him growling or making a gutteral noise because of the tracheotomy. There is a chair in George's room that people will sit in and they feel they're being touched on their shoulder or on top of their head. People will open the closet door in there and if they go inside, sometimes the door will be closed on them and the handle will be held. George has been caught on EVP laughing when this happens.
Kurt Filipiak visited in 2010 and wrote, "Three years ago myself and my two friends, Bobby and Tommy, were in the Christmas room doing EVPs and when we reviewed the audio, we discovered an EVP that said, "kill them." Interesting EVP here: https://www.tiktok.com/@groundedparanormal/video/7024971238351179013?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7519268673312622135
Just like Waverly Hills with its fourth floor of shadows, Rolling Hills has its own Shadow Hallway too. This is on the Second Floor of the East Wing, in the old men’s dormitory. Sharon told Weird NJ, "This is where we see a lot of shadow people. When you look down toward the infirmary section you start to see shadow people, and they could look like you and I, solid, they can be light grey, medium grey, dark grey or pitch black. They could be normal human shaped or anamorphous shapes. They come in and out of doorways, walk across the hall. Sometimes they’ll poke an arm or a leg out, sometimes they crawl on the floor, and that can be creepy, especially if you’re sitting on the floor during an investigation and one is coming at you––because you can actually see the shadow moving toward you."
The Morgue had two large walk-in refrigerators where bodies were stored and this area is rife with activity. More than 1,000 died at Rolling Hills. People have been shoved in here. Disembodied voices have been heard.
On the website, Sharon shares this along with several clips, "I wanted to share the results of an experiment I've been doing at Rolling Hills Asylum in conjunction with George Lopez, of Port Orange Paranormal Society on March 5, 2011 (the night after Roy's birthday) via his Blog Talk show - DEAD AIR. The experiment consisted of George and I conducting a live dual spirit box/Frank's box session broadcasting live from Florida. George has four people in the spirit world whom he communicates with regularly: Amanda - former team member who was killed in a car accident 2 yrs ago. Gabriel - Amanda's friend who is in spirit world and helped to cross Amanda. Collette - George's Spirit Guide. Michael - George's Spirit Guide. George communicated to all four, through his Spirit Box live on the radio. I then called in from RHA and put him on speaker phone as I used my Frank's Box (#87) in Shadow People Hallway. Both FL and RHA recorded the session. George then sent his four spirit contacts to RHA where he provided test questions - many of the answers we'd heard audibly (some were clearer during playback). For instance, George asked Amanda to say Rolling Hills Asylum three times if she had made it up here - and she did! We heard her say "Rolling Hills. Rolling Hills. Rolling Hills." Amazing! While in the Shadow people hallway I had asked the spirits to call out one of our names (one of the living) in the hall, "Sharon Coyle" was heard clearly by all. When I asked for a second name - we couldn't hear it audibly - but upon play back you hear "Damn it! That's who I know!". The experiment consisted of three parts: the 1st part - talking to George's spirits in FLA; the 2nd part was sending George's people to RHA and communicating with them and the RHA spirits together at RHA; and finally, the 3rd part was sending George's spirits back home to FLA accompanied by Roy and communicating with them via George's Spirit box. Over all we had over 200 direct responses! This included, interactions between living and spirit as well as interactions between spirit and spirit - all in a three hour period! It was truly amazing!!"
Mike from New Jersey Paranormal Research wrote, "We were just went up the stairs by the office area and started looking in rooms for a digital recorder we had left, when we caught this loud 'Please stay in your room' then 'It's nothing' we didn't hear these things when we recorded them only on playback."
Past Intel on YouTube posted a video from their investigation in 2010. They said, "Several Groups of investigators went to Rolling Hills Asylum in Bethany NY. We decided to try communicating with the Spirits using a Frank's Box also known as a Ghost Box. During the live session we picked up a word or two, but after listening to the session a few days later, I found that we had several answers, and when one of our investigator coughed/sneezed we had an INTELLIGENT response ( Bless you and Gesundheit ) I was tickled pink to say the least! check out the video, and PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT as to what you think." (Bookmarked)
Celestial Spirit Investigators wrote in 2011, "We had an amazing night! had about 45 minute K2 session in the shock therapy room and the most EXCITING part of the evening was we turned on the phantom of the opera and low and behold out came Roy. he was wonderful to see him swaying back and forth to the music."
Username Ghost Encounters wrote on Reddit, "In the morgue, there was an autopsy table I think it was where people claimed that there was a heaviness on their chest when they laid down on it. I laid on the table and didn't feel anything. There was a suit hanging on a string nearby that if you asked questions about people in the room, the suit would turn in that person's direction. When a few other people entered the morgue they asked if the suit would turn to my Mom and I. It was still and nobody had moved it then it slowly turned toward my Mom and I and stopped. When I was laying on the table, it hadn't moved at all. But now it was turning towards us. Pretty creepy but I wanted to see some more parts of the building and kept moving."
Cake Nibbler wrote on Reddit, "My friend was pushing me around in a wheelchair when I saw a black shadow person run across the hall but bending in ways people shouldn’t bend, so I got up and froze and to my surprise my friend just goes “what someone just crossed the hall” and I said something along the lines of “that wasn’t human” and we proceeded to debate if it was a person or not and we realized we can easily just clear the hall room by room and see if anyone was on the floor with us. After searching the wing we realized not only was there no one was in the room we saw it run into, no one was even in entire wing."
Gibbenz wrote on Reddit, " I really only had one strange and inexplicable experience while I was there, and it came in Nurse Emma's room upstairs. To make a long story short, I knocked on the door frame, introduced myself, and sat in a chair and attempted to speak to her in German for about ten minutes. My brother refused to enter the room and remained in the doorway. While I was in there nothing happened, but I did feel rather comfortable being in there, unlike other areas in the building. Now here's where it gets strange. As I was leaving the room I said, "Danke. Guten Nacht, Emma." Just after I said it I heard what sounded like a slight shuffle from the closet and I turned to see the door move about an inch. I'd be lying through my teeth if I said that chills didn't instantly run through me haha. I just kind of stood there, whispered for my brother to come back, then walked away. Man, it was really weird. Other than that I thought I saw a shadow pass into a room at the end of the shadow hallway, but I'm going to chalk that up to my eyes and the poor lighting playing tricks on me. I also had eerie feelings on some rooms compared to others, but you can take that as you will."
Username S-81_Music posted on Reddit about a ghost hunt they participated in at Rolling Hills last year. They wrote, " Anyways, the main reason for this post is because I am quite unsure what I have captured in this photo. Mind you, the building was pitch black as the ghost hunt took place from 7pm-11pm, so the reason it appears bright is due to my iPhone 11's flash. Pictured to the right is my grandfather entering a room and my grandmother was already in the room. I am 100% certain that we were on the second floor at the time, but am not entirely sure what room I was looking at when I snapped this photo. I will provide both images; the photo straight from my iPhone 11, and the edited photo. Just for some context, I specifically squared up the end of the hallway to raise the exposure 5 stops and try and do some significant noise reduction. I am curious if this is one of those instances where your phone's camera creates artifacts or random patterns of noise or not." Here is the first picture and then the second picture.
Interesting TikTok (48 seconds in) https://www.tiktok.com/@heelsandhalo/video/7471522965943897375?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7519268673312622135
Rolling Hills seems to be an incredibly active place with a wide variety of paranormal activity. Are Roy and George and several others who lived much of their lives here and who passed away in the building, still here? Is Rolling Hills Asylum haunted? That is for you to decide.
