MacArthur Museum

Macarthur Military History museum

7/18/2015

General Information

Investigators: Christy, Ashley, Cyrena, Gary, Kathy and Curtis

Equipment used: DVR, 6 IR video cameras, 1 full spectrum video camera, personal audio recorders, digital camera, geophone, FLIR IR Camera, Mel Meter, surface temperature thermometer and 2 KII EMF meters, Rem Pod and other person emf and recording equipment.

Claims for the building:

This building is currently a historical museum. It is manned by various employees Some of the current experiences in the home include:

Disembodied voices are heard throughout the building.
Employees who work in the building hear unfounded music.
Back in 1996, one of the employees was in her office down in the basement area working when she heard different sounds like music, laughter and talking coming from the room up above her. Puzzled, she went upstairs to see if she could find the source but she found nothing. She went back downstairs to her office and heard all the sounds again.
The second floor tower room is also an active area for paranormal activity. The second floor of the tower was turned into a theater room. One night while closing up, an employee saw an apparition of a solid man dressed in a dark uniform lying across the chairs. The employee quickly left and sent to get another person to come help her get the “person” out of the armory. The secondary employee went into the theater room with the first employee. He too saw the man. The second employee went to touch the man who was now turned around but as he did, the man faded into thin air.
An apparition of a male has been seen walking down the three-story staircase all the way down to the ground floor.
Visitors and employees have stated they have seen things being thrown, sometimes at then, but the object is usually shadowy.
Shadows of people have been seen on the walls of the old building. Two of these shadowy apparitions have been seen having a duel under the staircase down in the basement area.

There have been multiple deaths on this property.

Below is the movie documentary from our investigation here at the MacArthur Military History Museum

Historical/Factual/Relevant Info:

The MacArthur Museum of Arkansas building is one of Little Rock’s oldest buildings. It was built in 1840 and has 3-foot thick walls. It is made of brick and consists of two-stories with a three-story octagon shaped brick tower that connects inside to the other floors. It has beautiful white wooden porches that run along the sides of the building, supported by large white columns. There is also a basement that runs under the entire building.

In 1836, the same year that Arkansas became a state, it was necessary for the state to build a military

installation on the 36-acre lot in order to help protect the people from Indian attacks. There were solders and all sorts of military personnel assigned to this location. It was necessary to build officer barracks, an armory, a field hospital and other supportive structures consisting of 30 buildings in all in order to house all the military personnel. The military post was vital and as grew so an arsenal building (now the MacArthur Museum) was constructed in order to store munitions for the military post.

In May of 1861, Arkansas joined the Confederate states and fought for the south. It was then that Arkansas troops took over the post after a peaceful negotiation and agreement compromise. Arkansas Confederate troops used the arsenal tower building to repair their small arms and make gunpowder. The Confederate troops didn’t have control of the building for long because on September 11, 1863 a big battle took place between the Confederate and Union soldiers led by General Frederick Steele. The Union took control of Little Rock and the military installation and moved into the location.

There was a documented death on the property. It was that of a young 17-year old boy named David Dodd. David left Little Rock on December 29, 1863. Union soldiers took his pass as he did not plan to return to Little Rock. After spending time with his uncle, David traveled through the woods to return home but found himself lost and in the woods behind the Union lines. He was stopped in what is now west Little Rock near the Ten Mile House on Stagecoach Road and was found to be without a pass. When he was asked for identification, David showed them his small leather notebook. The Union soldiers found not only his birth certificate but also a page with dots and dashes. A Union officer had worked for the telegraph office and easily read the Morse code message, which contained exact information about Union troop strength in Little Rock.

David Dodd was arrested, convicted by a court-martial of being a spy. He was sentenced to execution by hanging. He was taken to

the Little Rock Arsenal where, according to legend, the Union General, Frederick Steele repeatedly offered to release Dodd in exchange for the name of his informant. Dodd replied, “I can give my life for my country but I cannot betray a friend.

On a bitterly cold day on January 8, 1864, Dodd was hung on the ground of his former school St. Johns’, just east of the Little Rock Arsenal. David was brought to the gallows in a large wagon and made to step off the tailgate with the noose around his neck. Because of the incompetence of the living, he didn’t fall from a high enough stage or fast enough to snap his neck because the tail gate was to low to the ground. David suffered a slow death by strangulation to the horror of both the soldiers and the 6,000 people audience and despite an effort of a soldier to lift the rope up to try to speed up the execution. David was then quickly and quietly buried at Mount Holly Cemetery. There is a memorial there dedicated

to David Dodd and a stained glass window was made in his honor, which now hangs in the museum.

After the Civil War, in 1873 the military installation was renamed Little Rock Barracks, and the buildings were mostly used to house troops until it was closed in 1890. The arsenal storage was moved somewhere else. The old arsenal building was then turned into housing for Arsenal Officers and their families. Parties and social events were also held in the largest ground floor on the east side of the building.

In 1880, Captain Arthur MacArthur was stationed at the installation for 6 months, long enough for his son, Douglas MacArthur to be born in the building. Douglas MacArthur was destined to be General of the United States Army during WWII and most of the Korean War, before he was relieved of duty by President Truman.

In 1892, a land swap was agreed to between the Federal Government and the city of Little Rock. For 1000 acres north of Little Rock, the federal

government gave this 36-acre and former military site to the city of Little Rock with the stipulation that the land would “forever exclusively be devoted to the uses and purposes of a public park.” A new military installation was built on these 1000 acres and named Fort Roots.

To create the new park, all the former barracks and support buildings were torn down, and the old arsenal building was abandoned and left to deteriorate for 50 years. Finally in 1930, money was found and the building was rescued from a slow demise. It was renovated and became the home of the city’s Museum of Natural History and Antiquities in 1942.

In 1992 the historical building once again was in need of restorations. After a more in depth renovation effort, this old arsenal building reopened

in 2001 as the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History. There are many interesting displays and historical artifacts not only from the fort year, but the military history of soldiers from Arkansas and their service in all the 20th century wars and a few from current ones.

Investigation Report

Initial Interview

Our group arrived at this location and was greeted by the night watchman. This watchman only worked in the building part time. He gave us a tour of the location but did not know of any specific areas that were active for paranormal activity. He did tell us however that he had heard strange things in the building at night and had heard that it might be haunted. After our tour with the watchman went back to his post and our group prepared for the set up.

Our group began bringing in our equipment. We decided to set up base on the 2nd floor so we could run cord cables down to the various floors. Our set up took a little bit of time but we were able to get all of our dvr cameras and equipment in place and ready to go. During our set up on the 2nd floor, we were able to record a male’s voice saying, “yeah.”

Walkthrough

We began our investigative sweeps from the very top

of the 2nd floor and began working our way downward. Right after our walk-through started, one of our audio recorders picked up a male voice saying, “yes.” We were in one particular area of the armory where it showed different memorabilia from WWII. There are two entrances/exits into this room. Christy, Kathy and Ashley were over by the south entrance when Christy and another investigator heard what sounded like something heavy being scooted across the floor. One members thought it sounded like a big heavy

equipment case being scooted across the floor. All members were upstairs with one member downstairs sitting at base watching the dvr cameras. This incident and sound was captured on our walking video cam. We also captured this “scooting object sound” on our audio recorders.

The team checked outside the room, into the hallway to see if Cyrena or the night watchman was. We wanted to make sure that either one of them had come upstairs dragging anything with them. Once we looked out into the hall we noticed that no one was there. Just to note, it also sounded like the sound had come from inside the same room where were all at but we wanted to check the hall just to be sure.

Also while on the 2nd floor on the west side of the building, over by the stairwell, Ashley was taking emf and temperature readings when she heard footsteps in the room with her. Her recount of this was captured on video.

On the 2nd floor our group was looking as some of the artifacts and informational plaques that were hanging on the walls. Kathy began reading one of the plaques when our recorders picked up the whispery voice of a male. Unfortunately we could not make out this “unknown male whisper.”

On the 2nd floor there is a theater room that has a stairwell that goes up to the old munitions room. Kathy was in the theater room by herself and was trying to investigate the claims about a shadow person being seen lying on the theater steps. She stretched out on the steps and looked upward and saw what appeared to be a white ball of light that appeared and then shot off in the distance. Kathy was in this room in complete darkness and the theater room was void of light so when she was this ball of light, it immediately captured her attention. Kathy’s account of this incident was recorded on video.

Our group investigated the old rotunda where munitions were said to be hauled up and down to each floor. There is a long stairwell curvy that goes from the 2nd floor up to the top floor of the rotunda. As Christy was walking up the stairwell, her audio recorder picked up the voice of a male spirit that said, “I'm sorry” We can only assume the spirit was referring to the equipment that Christy had in her hand.

Conclusion:

Our team feels like this location had a few intelligent spirits present, some in the building and some out on the grounds. We also felt like there was some residual energy present throughout the buildings and on the grounds. Given the past history of the building and the land, this was not surprising.

Psychic Investigator’s Comments

I am always in awe when I visit historical locations. I especially like the ones that have a lot of civil war history since I am a history buff and love that era. I was elated when I found out that my team and I would be conducting an investigation at the MacArthur Museum.

When I first walked into the location all the old war artifacts stood out and amazed me. I did feel some energy in the old building, but I felt some residual and some intelligent. Historical places a lot of time can leave behind a lot of residual energy and then sometimes some intelligent energy too. If traumatic things occur in a location, it can cause an energy imprint to be stuck in time so to speak. This energy may replay over and over again on a certain day or time. For intelligent hauntings, spirits can be earthbound to a location because of something traumatic or another incident that may have occurred that makes them not want to cross over. I found this to be true with a spirit that I encountered named, Paul.

I first encountered Paul when I was up on the 2nd floor by the side staircase that was connected to the side wing. I heard footsteps in front of me and when I looked, I saw a quick glance of a Union Civil War Soldier. Paul had been shot and killed during the Civil War time. He was brought back to this military installation to the field hospital where later he died from his injuries. Paul however did not understand that he was dead. He still saw many things as the way they were when the location was a military installation. His main concern and mission was to help other wounded soldiers get to the hospital there on the property. He relived a bit of the war in his mind daily. He told me about a really good friend of his who also was a soldier. He told me that he was trying to help get his friend who was shot, to safety. The next thing he knew, he was he blacked out and woke up in the field hospital. I did try to explain to Paul about what date it now was and that he had passed and that he could cross over if he wanted to. While I feel Paul understood what I was talking about, I sensed some confusion still about his state and all of the information he had been given.

Our group conducted a sit-down in several areas of the building. Unfortunately we experience no activity during our sit-downs. The main activity that occurred was during our sweeps. We did however get an evp recorded of a male’s voice saying, “oh you” when Christy was talking to Paul.

Wrap-Up

Our group was at this location until the early morning hours. When no further activity seemed to happen for a long while, we decided to pack up for the evening and call it a night.

evidence collected

There were 6 EVPs that was recorded during this investigation and 1 sound clips.

There were no photos and 1 video clip.