september 2010:
january 2011:
(second photo by earthmagnified - http://www.flickr.com/photos/earthmagnified/5428404462/)
what a difference a few months make
February 14th, 2011I’ll just leave this here…
January 1st, 2011link to Washington Post article
Possible remains of baby found at D.C. General complex
By Paul Schwartzman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 30, 2010; 10:45 PMThe underground photographer likes to explore abandoned buildings - dark, decrepit places, such as the old pathology office on the edge of the campus that once housed D.C. General Hospital.
Through an unlocked door he crept - flashlight in hand, camera around his neck - down a hallway, into an office, where he made a discovery that has sent shivers to the highest reaches of the District’s police department.
Inside a container, beneath a label that read “Babies that have been Autopsied,” the photographer saw what he is convinced are the remains of a young human life.
A “human baby,” he said. “With fingernails, hair, eyelashes, everything.”
On Thursday, after speaking to and texting with the photographer, Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier dispatched a search team, which found what he had discovered.
“We recovered what appears to be human remains, possibly that of a fetus,” said Lanier, who ordered the remains transported to the D.C. medical examiner’s office, which will perform an autopsy.
“It may take some time to get a final ruling,” the chief said. “It doesn’t appear to be a crime. It’s very sad.”
The photographer is a 40-year-old man who lives 25 miles outside the District in Maryland. During a phone interview, which was repeatedly interrupted as he worked at his day job, he declined to provide his name for fear that he will be charged with trespassing, even though Lanier said she has no interest in arresting him.
The photographer said he is part of an informal group that, as a hobby, explores abandoned government and private buildings, taking photographs and sharing them online to pay homage to historically significant sites and architecture. He declined to detail other places he has explored except to say that there are hundreds of similar locations from Florida to Pennsylvania to Illinois.
What drew him to the D.C. General campus - which once housed a large morgue - is its cultural and historical significance, he said. The hospital shut down in 2001.
“The curiosity is there for the doctors and patients. It was the focus of their life, and meanwhile it’s abandoned and forgotten,” he said.
Three weeks ago, after researching which buildings on the campus were still vacant, he drove to what he believed was once the pathology building, a three-story brick structure south of RFK Stadium and the D.C. Armory. The 67-acre D.C. General campus is now home to the medical examiner’s office, a homeless shelter, and clinics for substance abusers and people with sexually transmitted diseases.
A sign taped near one entrance of the old pathology building reads, “Funeral Directors Only.” Another sign reads, “Laboratory Entrance.”
The photographer entered through a door that was ajar, then walked into what he called the autopsy suite, a warren of offices on the ground floor. He found files and documents that had been left behind, apparently after the hospital closed.
He also found two white containers. Inside one, the photographer saw what looked like a placenta. Inside the other, he saw the remains, wrapped in moist brown paper from what appeared to be the shoulders down. He said there seemed to be a cut in the scalp, through which the skull could be seen.
“It was horrible. It looked like a baby,” the photographer said. “I have kids. I saw them being born, and that’s what it looked like. Horrible.”
The photographer said he closed the container and immediately left the building, shutting the door behind him. He said he felt a moral obligation to ensure that the remains received a proper burial, but he was not sure whom to call.
“This was left behind by someone employed by the D.C. government,” he said, “and I’m expected to contact the same people to make sure it’s laid to rest correctly?”
He called Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton’s (D) office and reported his finding to a legislative aide, who notified a D.C. Council staffer.
The photographer, having heard nothing, then called The Washington Post on Christmas Eve. The Post notified council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), whose district includes the former hospital. Wells called Lanier, who on Wednesday sent in a search team, which did not find anything.
Lanier then spoke directly to the photographer, who provided more detailed directions, and the containers were found Thursday morning.
The chief said her investigators will need to determine when the pathology building was vacated and “who was responsible for removing stuff. It will be a longer investigation.”
In the meantime, she’s not interested in bringing charges against the photographer.
“He seemed to be a compassionate, caring person,” Lanier said. “As far as I’m concerned, he provided valuable information.”
The photographer, for his part, was gratified to learn that the police had confirmed his discovery.
“A huge relief,” he said. “Now they can take care of the remains the way it should be. This baby can be laid to rest.”
BUY MY SHIT
December 8th, 2010I sold my D300 and moved up to full frame so all my DX lenses NEED TO GO.
Nikon 18-200mm VR DX f/3.5-5.6 lens - $550
Nikon 10.5mm f/2.8 DX Fisheye lens - $500
Tokina 12-24 f/4 DX lens for Nikon - $300 (ignore the Tamron lens cap, the Tokina marked one broke and I replaced it with the Tamron one instead.)
OWN YOUR VERY OWN PIECE OF KTS HISTORY!
i am such a tease
November 16th, 2010
almost done editing photos from awesome trip #245436554364.8 this year!
i’ve been slacking on updates
October 31st, 2010mostly because i’ve been out checking out awesome things like this:
more on this soon. 
:facepalm:
August 27th, 2010Amateur NC ghost hunter looking for ‘ghost train’ hit and killed by real train
By Jeff RivenbarkSTATESVILLE, NC (WBTV) - A man who was with about a dozen people who were looking for a legendary “ghost train” in Iredell County was hit by a locomotive and killed early Friday morning.
The incident happened on a train trestle at 2:45 a.m. near the 900 block of Buffalo Shoals Road.
Robin Chapman, a spokesperson for Norfolk-Southern Railroad, said the eastbound train consisted of three locomotives and no freight cars.
The train was rounding a curve and approaching a trestle over Boston Creek just prior to Buffalo Shoals Road when it struck a man on the trestle, Chapman said.
Christopher Kaiser, 29, died at the scene and two more people were injured, according to Iredell County Sheriff Phillip Redmond. Kaiser’s body was found below the trestle down a steep incline, he said.
The injured patients were airlifted to a local hospital. Their condition was not immediately known.
“During the investigation, witnesses told deputies they were at the site in hopes of seeing a ‘ghost train’,” the Iredell County sheriff’s office said in a press release.
The sheriff said the incident coincided with the anniversary of a train wreck that occurred at the same location in 1891.
Redmond said there were “12 people who were amateur ghost hunters caught on the trestle when the train rounded the bend” early Friday morning.
The train operators tried to stop the locomotives and warn the people on the trestle, Redmond said.
Most of the people on the trestle started running east and away from the train.
All of the victims were able to clear the trestle except for the fatal victim who was struck by a locomotive.
“All indications at this point are this is an accident,” Redmond said.
The sheriff’s office plans to talk with other witnesses to the accident who left the scene before deputies arrived.
I’m really excited to be here.
August 16th, 2010Can’t you tell?
kts’ European Vacation part 2
July 22nd, 2010After the long trip over to Belgium and hitting the ground running off to abandonments mANVIL, msb, and myself were pretty damn tired. We slept in at Chateau Formule 1 for most of the morning and then headed off to a wonderful lunch at Chez Delhaize (Known as Food Lion here in the states) and then off to an old saw mill. Lots of traffic and a wrong turn or two we finally found the mill. It was a lot smaller than we thought it would be and to get to it we had to quickly hop through someone’s yard, over a low fence and then around another. It was at this mill we discovered the first of many “Belgian Fences.” It seems in Belgium it is quite popular to build a fence around only part of a structure and that is “good enough” to keep people out. Since I hate fences I am very OK with the idea of a Belgian Fence.
I really don’t know much about this mill over than it was pretty old, a lot of it had collapsed, and it was in the middle of a residential neighborhood. You could hear children playing in the yard next to this place, people riding their bikes on the streets around the mill, and see people hanging up laundry in their backyards right next to this place.
While this place was small I thought it had a lot of interesting things to shoot.
I use this stuff in my car, it was pretty cool to see a 30+ year old bottle of it
This room was very dark and hard to get some shots of this thing since it was a small and narrow room yet the whole thing was pretty bad ass.
After this we headed out to see a monastery that someone had recommended to us but it was unfortunately very recently welded shut so we moved on to a nice brewery that we very much wanted to see only to find a ton of people hanging out right around the big gaping hole in the fence. We looked for another way in but found none and with the people by the big gaping hole eyeing us suspiciously we decided to come back later.
We then decided to drive back towards our hotel to see a popular abandonment, the Fort de la Chartreuse. Built in 1817 by the Dutch the fort has had a number of occupiers over the year from Belgians, Germans (twice), Americans, and then back to Belgian control. It is secured and taken care of by a caretaker who we were hoping we could talk into letting us in.
When we got there we parked and looked down the street to where the street dead ends into a gate for the fort complex. A tarp had been thrown over the gate and some barriers had been set up in front of the gate. We could hear a lot of people talking from inside the gate. We began to walk towards it only to have a car pass us filled with what looked like Russian soldiers. They honked their horn and the gate opened. Inside were more Russian soldiers wielding AK-47s and cheering for their comrades who entered the gate. Inside you could hear very Soviet era patriotic music. What the hell was going on here? Have the Russians invaded Belgium? I mean we have been a little out of the loop with the news since arriving here but you would have thought we would have heard something.
We walk up to the gate and discover the soliders are speaking French. mANVIL knowing a little bit of French started talking with them and we find out that no the Soviets haven’t regrouped and invaded Belgium, they are just some airsoft people camping out at the Fort for the weekend before they and the Yankee scum they are fighting have an all out airsoft war. They invite us in and tell us to take all the photos we want of the place.
Inside the fort is very cool, a lot of old well built brick that has held up to years and years of neglect and has lots of very cool graffiti from the various occupiers of the fort from over the years. Most of it is from around WW2 timeframe and it’s just damn too to look at.
The 3 of us spend a few hours looking over every inch of this place and also noticing how the place has changed from the photos we have seen of the place taken a few years ago. The old caretaker only let select people into the site where as his son who took over when the old caretaker passed does let in people from time to time to go paint balling or do airsoft. The trees and some buildings in shots taken by Motts, NickSan, and others who were here only a few years before are now gone, replaced by rubble and a large demolition crane. The caretaker was not there so we could not find out what the future holds for this place but from the rubble and clear cut woods it doesn’t look good.
The doors appear to have been setup to use as cover points for the coming airsoft war
With the sun fading and more airsoft soldiers running around it was time to head out. We grabbed dinner at an awesome Doner Kabob place we found near the hotel and then headed back to the hotel to get ready for the next day which would be a busy and long day of exploring with Bartje and Martino. Later that night we had a loud banging at our door and they had arrived. They quickly forced us outside of Chateau Formule 1 so we could drink some beer with them. I like beer, beer is good. Bartje opens up his cooler and tosses us some Palm beer. Things are going well until I notice that this beer is room temperature. Mmmmm room temperature beer! The 5 of us stay up late swapping stories, drinking, and generally pissing off everyone else at the Chateau Formule 1 with our loud noises and cheeky antics. We run out of beer and decided to head to bed around 12:30-1am which is a good thing since we are waking up in a few short hours to begin our awesome weekend exploring of awesome.
Europe, watch out.
Who ya gonna call?
July 22nd, 2010Who ya gonna call?
Ghost hunters scour Rossborough InnBy Saron Yitbarek
For The Diamondback
Published: Thursday, July 15, 2010“Can you tell us how old you are?” asked Alan Cohn, loudly and clearly, speaking to the potential ghost in the dark room. “What state are you from?”
An apprehensive silence blanketed the space as three certified members of the Maryland Society of Ghost Hunters and two observers crammed into a Rossborough Inn office on a Sunday night last month for an Electronic Voice Phenomena session.
The group was searching for evidence of a ghost some believe haunts the historic inn, much of which now serves as office space. Rumors abound of flickering lights in a supposedly empty room, a window opening on its own — and visits from Betty, who managed the inn during the Civil War era.
The hunters ultimately pronounced the building “not haunted” in a report released over the weekend. But they were on edge in Rossborough’s Room 304 on June 27, where a few computers sharing a desk with antique-style lamps are a small nod to modernity among the high-backed chairs and regal benches that sit on the original circa-1812 hardwood floor.
“Can you give us some sign of your presence? Can you knock?” Cohn continued to ask the ghost. Seconds later, there was a ticking noise and the room dimmed. Silence.
“Was that you?” Cohn asked a moment later.
“No, it was the motion sensor light,” said Duane Oden, a fellow ghost hunter. A nervous laugh broke the tense air.
When the questions ran out, the ghost hunters switched tactics, moving to a more ndirect way of getting a response from the presumed spirit: Civil War-era banjo music. Crackly sounds cut through the still silence.
“If you recognize this music, maybe you can give us a sign,” Cohn said. No response.
A few more unanswered questions later, the hunters moved to the next tiny room, hoping to catch some sign of paranormal activity.
They came prepared with seven members and six silver suitcases packed with equipment, ready to investigate one of the university’s historic sites.
After a quick tour of the former hotel, the group mapped out the location, set up cameras on all floors and formed a command center on the ground floor where all the video fed onto one screen. Eight small, infrared cameras hid in the corners of the different rooms, capturing as much of the space as they could.
Cohn set up small tripods, unraveled numerous cords and broke open cases of audio equipment at the foot of the narrow, creaking stairs.
“The theory is that they need some kind of sound to work with,” he said. “So they can use this equipment to make their own sound because they don’t have voices.”
The hunters also used a Mel meter, a hand-held device that detects changes in ambient temperature and electromagnetic waves — both signs of ghosts, Cohn said.
The hunters then spent two weeks poring over hours of video and audio, examining the evidence taken in each room from each camera and picking out pieces that seemed suspicious.
Rodney Whittaker, founder and president of the Maryland Society of Ghost Hunters, said his group’s equipment has captured occurrences as obviously ghostly as an unknown voice and as strange as ropes of light draped over tombstones.
But there was nothing so colorful on display at Rossborough on June 27, which he said isn’t too unusual; the group observes activities that are peculiar enough to be considered paranormal only about 30 percent of the time.
There are still more opportunities on the campus, however; the ghost hunters will be back on the campus July 15 to check for hauntings in Hornbake Library, July 23 to investigate Morrill Hall and July 25 to scour Cole Field House.
While the idea that paranormal activity is primarily demonic and terrifying may be one propagated by movies and television, Whittaker finds ghost hunting to be anything but scary.
The last time he was touched by a ghost, he described the experience as exciting.
During a ghost hunt in a bed and breakfast, something pushed his arm straight up in the air, thentook Whittaker’s camera bag and pushed it into his side.
“I was thrilled,” he said. “Most people think that you’ll freak out and run away, but you’re usually so stunned it doesn’t sink in until after.”
Cohn agrees that ghost hunting is not nearly as spooky as it is exhilarating.
“If something happens, I’m excited,” Cohn said. “But I try to stay clear-headed. I’ve had some interesting experiences but I remain objective in that way and I try not to get too caught up in everything.”
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
*cough hack cough cough cough*
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Two-alarm fire at Washington, DC’s St. Elizabeth’s Hospital
July 15th, 2010
From WUSA9.com:
About 100 DC Firefighters responded to a two-alarm fire Tuesday night at the Saint Elizabeth’s hospital campus in Southeast DC.
It is the oldest federally funded psychiatric hospital in the country.
The hospital’s most infamous resident was perhaps John Hinckley, Jr., the man who attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
The Department of Homeland Security now owns the facility.
Investigators are looking into whether lightning may have caused the fire, which was reported about 9:45pm as thunderstorms moved through the area.
The report firefighters received had flames showing on or near the roof, according to Fire and EMS spokesman Pete Piringer. Crews got the fire under control shortly before 11pm.
One firefighter from Engine 32 was injured in the course of fighting the fire and was transported to the hospital. His injuries are not believed to be serious.
This is very sad news. 
I <3 that place.
