Resident Undead is a paranormal investigation group that travels to haunted locations all over the United States and films their experiences, and the Resident Undead team go to haunted locations and recreate events that may have happened at that location to see if it stirs up any energy or paranormal activity.

“If you want to find ghosts in the state of West Virginia you don’t have to look very far because they’re all around us,” said Annie Weibel, paranormal investigator working with Resident Undead and host of RUWeebs Radio.

Resident Undead was featured on the Travel Channel about experiences at the seminary in “The Most Terrifying Places in America.”

“It’s been a trip,” Weibel said of her paranormal experiences.

Huntington native and Marshall University graduate, Weibel, has been a paranormal investigator for 10 years.

Weibel has been to many places in West Virginia to investigate paranormal activity. Her first paranormal experience occurred in the Ramsdell House in Kenova, West Virginia.

The Ramsdell House was one of the final stops on the underground railroad. Escaped slaves would swim across the Ohio river into what was then Virginia to be free.

“I do believe that the fact that it was a stop on the Underground Railroad has to do with the hauntings,” Weibel said. “We would play old slave time hymns like ‘Swing Low Sweet Chariot’ and ‘Amazing Grace’ and would get a lot of energy and interactions from that.”

Weibel’s first noticed paranormal activity in the basement of the Ramsdell House.

“I was in the basement and felt a chill come over me,” Weibel said. “Something ran its fingers through my hair.”

Weibel recorded audio during this experience to capture what paranormal investigators call Electronic Voice Phenomena. The investigators believe that ghosts or spirits can communicate and be heard through these EVP’s. 

“When I went back and listened to the recording when I say, ‘I felt something run its fingers through my hair’ you hear a man very loudly say ‘Excuse me,’” Weibel said.

Not only is West Virginia home to many ghost stories and haunted places, but the forests are full of stories of cryptid creatures, or creatures whose existence is unknown or widely disputed.

The Mothman, one of America’s most well know cryptid creatures, was seen several times in a small town in West Virginia in the 1960s.

Point Pleasant started having sightings of a large winged creature like a bat or a moth, which had large red eyes.

Reportedly along with the Mothman sightings came sightings of strange men who showed up in black sedans and wore black suits, named by locals as the Men in Black.

After the tragic Silver Bridge collapse, which killed 46 people, the creature and men vanished.

Weibel was able to tour the West Virginia Ordnance Works, a military facility that manufactured and stored trinitrotoluene (TNT) during World War II and was home to most of the Mothman sightings.

“I probably had one of the most frightening paranormal experiences that I’ve ever had that night,” Weibel said. 

The experience happened in one of many bunkers on the property.

Weibel and her boyfriend were part of a group that was able to tour some of the bunkers on the property, and they were the last of the group to leave said bunkers.

“As we turned to leave I turned to look behind me at my boyfriend and I saw someone standing behind him,” Weibel said. “The person I saw was tall, thin, very pale, was wearing a white suit, his eyes were very light blue, and he was just standing there smiling and watching.”

Based on Weibel’s description, her boyfriend believed this figure to have been a Nordic Alien.

Nordic Alien sightings started in the 50’s and have been described the same way as Weibel described her encounter.

“Do I believe in aliens? I have no idea, but that’s what I saw,” Weibel said.

Weibel and the rest of the Resident Undead team’s experiences can be viewed on their YouTube channel.

“West Virginia is a state full of history and lore,” Weibel said. “People in past times kept our stories alive by storytelling, in a way that’s also what we’re trying to do is preserve history by telling our stories and documenting what happens for future generations.”

LeAnna Owens can be contacted at [email protected].