Ghost Hunting at the Medieval Torture Museum: Good or bad?

CONTENT WARNING! Many of the exhibits at the Medieval Torture Museum contain explicit and graphic depictions of torture devices and methods. This post contains examples of some. Reader discretion is advised.

---

“I think I’m going to go hunt ghosts at the Medieval Torture Museum,” I said when my husband asked what I planned to do while he attended his conference.

That made him pause and raise an eyebrow. But only briefly. When left to explore on my own, it’s not uncommon for me to check out something sinister or macabre.

He shrugged and said, “Well, I hope you have fun. Thank you for sparing me that experience.”

YW, honey.

We’d walked past the Medieval Torture Museum a time or two on previous trips to Chicago, but it wasn’t a place that interested him. In fact, I’d forgotten it was someplace I wanted to go.

Before visiting—or in some cases, like this one, revisiting—a city, I often use Atlas Obscura to find unusual places to jaunt to. (Or I recheck my list to see what I haven’t yet.) I’d ticked off most things during previous visits, but my FOMO was nagging me. So I Googled “best things to do in Chicago,” which led me to Tripadvisor’s list of Top 10 best Chicago museums.

A lot were ones Atlas Obscura also noted, but curiously AO didn’t list the torture museum, which had great reviews. An average of 5.0 out of 620 reviews. In fact, not only does it rank in Tripadvisor’s Top 10 Chicago museums, but it also ranks in the Top 10 for things to do in Chicago, period.

And I hadn’t been yet? Yeah. That had to be remedied.

Plus, I was immensely curious to know what it was like to ghost hunt in a torture museum. Especially when I discovered you could hunt ghosts there anytime, meaning during a daytime or a nighttime visit.

Except, as keen as I am on the paranormal, I actually detest ghost hunting. The TV shows make it look so exciting, but it’s anything but. It’s a lot of sitting around for hours and hours, usually late at night, waiting for something to happen. Normally, nothing does.

However, if ghost hunting were as easy, fun, and informative as it was at the Medieval Torture Museum, I’d do it all the time.

The Medieval Torture Museum makes ghost hunting easy.

I was insanely curious how it would work. Would there be a tour guide of some sort? Did they give you special equipment? And how much extra would it cost? Because if it was too much, I might have to pass.

Amazingly, it was included with the price of admission. All I had to do was download their free app. In addition to the Ghost Hunting Experience, they also had an Audio Guide in the app that narrated a lot (if not all) of the exhibits with interesting extra information and backstories. It was also excellent and well worth the listen, but the ghost hunting was a hoot.

Once I figured out how to work the ghost detector, that is, which I didn’t do right away. In fact, it wasn’t until I was reviewing video back in my hotel room that I realized, “Whoops. I cheated myself!”

Because that’s the other cool thing the app does: records photos and videos right to your phone!

How the Ghost Hunting Experience works.

The ghost detector looked very official with its green-tinged, almost night vision-like screen display. At the bottom, there were a few monitors, including a ghost radar that showed a red blip when a ghost was near and an EVP sound wave.

“Walk around slowly to detect supernatural entities,” the app instructed when I first opened it.

I struggled to find anything at first. It tells you when it detects a ghost, as we’ll soon see, but it also tells you when you’ve passed one up. Which, again, I struggled with the first time because I was going too fast and not paying attention to the helpful arrows pointing me toward the ghosts.

When it detects a ghost, it lets you know with a bar at the top of your screen that says, “Ghost was detected.” It also includes the ghost’s age. If you tap the “Open Legend” button, a new screen pops up with information about the ghost’s name and story.

After I caught the first ghost, I moved or took too long, and the button disappeared before I could click it. I figured out how to tap the legend the second (or maybe it was the third time), but there were a couple of app nuances I didn’t appreciate on my first visit.

If you’re wondering, “First visit?” Good catch. Yes. I went back the next day to hunt ghosts again when I realized how much I’d missed.

For one, I’d totally missed the directional arrows that tell you which way to turn to “capture” a ghost. For another, you can also actually “see” the floating phantasms. As long as you move carefully and slowly enough, which, again, I didn’t during my first visit. I was just waving my phone around haphazardly, hoping to catch something.

And then, when there are no more ghosts to catch, you get a message about that, too.

Needless to say, once I understood I’d misused the ghost detector, my second visit was much more successful. I caught a lot of ghosts!

The Ghosts of the Medieval Torture Museum

I don’t know how many ghosts haunt the museum. On the first visit, I didn’t catch as many as on the second visit. I caught these three on both visits:

• The Salem false witness, 329 years old
• The Blinded Architect, 303 years old
• The Forgotten Pirate, 280 years old

It was actually the Forgotten Pirate why I went back. Upon reviewing my video, I caught a brief glimpse of him. That’s how I realized you could see the ghosts. I got a much better view of him on my second visit.

But it was the first two, the Salem false witness and the Blinded Architect, that made me realize that, in true ghostly fashion, the ghosts of the Medieval Torture Museum move around.

On the first visit, I found the Salem false witness near the Witch Scales. But on the second visit, she was in an earlier part of the museum.

Same goes for the Blinded Architect. The first time, he was the last ghost I found in the small hallway before you head down the stairs to exit. He was in one of the third or fourth rooms the second visit.

Including the three I found on the first visit, I found seven more on the second visit, for a total of 10.

The oldest was the Ghost of John Dragfoot (720 years old). The second oldest was the Wheeled Rights Defender (535 years old).

The youngest ghost was Warm-Me-Up Mary (222 years old). I think she was my favorite. I liked her “vibe.” She seemed friendly and fun and looked like she was about to start dancing. I also dug her groovy nightcap.

Here are the other ghosts I found:

• Joe the Nicker, 375 years old
• The Ghost of the Bloody Countess, 409 years old
• Josephine the Herbalist, 440 years old
• The Inquisitor Who Slipped, 429 years old

Thomas the Executioner (a.k.a. The Most Elusive Ghost)

There was one ghost in particular I was looking for that I didn’t find. When you first launch the Ghost Hunting Experience, it advises you to watch for the “most terrifying apparition of them all – the ghost of Thomas the Executioner.”

He’s the other reason I went back for a second time. I’d missed him the first time.

Then, all of a sudden, it happened. I found an apparition wielding an axe. The other ones didn’t do much besides float. This one made a chopping motion with his bladed weapon. It had to be Thomas, right? Is that why they deemed him the most terrifying of them all?

I eagerly clicked on his legend, only to find out that, no. It wasn’t Thomas. It was Lucas, the Inquisitor who slipped. He died from hitting his head on the floor.

Oh well. Guess I’ll have to try again next time we go to Chicago. Maybe the third time will be the charm?

Watch the Inquisitor Swing His Blade

For More Info

In addition to Chicago, the Medieval Torture Museum also has locations in Los Angeles, California, and St. Augustine, Florida. Visit https://medievaltorturemuseum.com.

Tickets can also be purchased via Viator.

Medieval Torture Museum Ticket with Audio Guide and Ghost Hunting

Check-In

Have you ever visited any of the Medieval Torture Museum locations?