Living with the Dead (Part Three)

Constructed in 1902, Youngstown's Calvin Center has become
a hotbed of paranormal tourism.

The Calvin Center’s ghostly legacy began to surface only a few years ago when the owner was approached by a medium group that wanted to use the building. One of the mediums told the owner that she encountered a very hostile spirit during her visit and opted not to use the building.

Even in broad daylight, the Calvin Center in Youngstown, Ohio is a spooky and imposing structure looming over the neighborhood. On a typical Thursday night, a basketball game is going on in the first floor gymnasium and a yoga class is in progress in a small room on the second floor. In spite of the activity, the Calvin Center can seem like a dark maze of halls and stairwells, making it a favorite haunt of Daniel Hooven and Adam Kimmell of Resident Undead.

Kimmell typically does not use psychics or mediums on his show but said that he is open to the opportunity.

“I think there’s some potential there, but I understand the skepticism about it,” Kimmell said. “I look at the amount of the human brain that we actually use. What if there’s a different part of the brain that isn’t turned on for you and I but these mediums and psychics have that turned on?”

Kimmell said that in all of his investigations, the Calvin Center’s basement was the only place that frightened him so badly that he almost ran out of it. During the episode, Kimmell was placed alone in the basement with a night vision camera and his paranormal detection equipment, a segment that Resident Undead calls “the quarantine.”

“I swear I saw a shadow watching me from behind my camera,” Kimmell said. “It was about two minutes until my quarantine was over. If it had been much longer, I would have bolted out of there.”

Adam recalls the Calvin Center's basement as the most frightening
location for him personally.

It is not uncommon for subjective experiences, such as feeling frightened or experiencing goose bumps, to be presented as evidence on some paranormal shows. Kimmell believes that these experiences do not qualify as evidence but may lead investigators in the right direction.

“If you go into a room where you get the goose bumps, that could tell you that maybe it’s a good time to pull out the equipment and see,” Kimmell said. “We actually have those kinds of experiences all the time, but we cut them out of our videos, because you can’t rely on that.”

Stories of the Calvin Center's hauntings have made it a hot-spot for paranormal investigation groups, a phenomenon that Daniel Hooven calls "para-tourism."