The following is some of my first paranormal experiences, or at the least what cemented my love for the paranormal, ultimately leading to me becoming a paranormal investigator. This blog isn't so much a history of the old Sugar Mill but the retelling of events that lead to what I do now.
The year was 2002 and I was about to turn 20. My punk rock semi nomadic self living in Longmont, Colorado to be with a long distance girlfriend, and at the time fiance. Having always loved history I spent my free time roaming old places in the mountains exploring everything I could find or spending long nights playing the Vampire roll playing game at Dennys with friends.
Working at Fazolis my manager told me about a place called the Sugar Mill just on the edge of town. (Later we found out supposibly he had accidently blown up one of the walls in the building when he was young..) A couple co-worker friends and I decided to go check it out.
Arriving later in the evening we were all excited and cautious. The darkness cloaked the sheer expanse of the huge building. All we could see was a brick wall full of windows, half of which missed glass. A chain link fence went around the property with a small cut leading to a trail in the overgrown yard. I ducked through, my heart racing, and made it to a open window at the end of the trail.
Now a little context to the first thing we encountered. Around this time there were stories going around that Satanist were stealing people's pets to use as sacrifices. Around 2 years prior I had started practicing and learning everything I could about Wicca and Shamanism, and what we found in the first room just about made me leave. I wouldn't go back to the place without some spiritual protection.
A poor black cat was sprawled out in the middle of the floor. Not to get to graphic.. on its back belly open.. nailed to the floor in a ritualistic manor. It's insides visible to all. Now if this was a satanic thing or just some sick people pretending I could not say, but it left us all even more uneasy. We sat for a long time in silence waiting for some athame weilding psycho to jump out if the shadows.
After hyping up our courage we began to explore. Finding an absolutely giant building full of huge vats they had crushed sugar beats. Multi level offices with a room full of mechanical parts and a shop. Finding our way back outside to house sized tanks, with a black sugary liquid in pools under them. Half joking to calm our nerves about how many bodies might be hidden in the pools. An old limousine was parked next to the containers, windows smashed, we joked thats what the mobsters drove the bodies here in. None of us brave enough to check the trunk.
Needless to say I was obsessed with the Sugar Mill. Over the next year I explored every inch of the place, both with friends and alone. Most of it is a vague hazy memory I can't picture anymore. Except for a couple life changing events that are burned into my psyche and the orgins of my explorations deeper into the occult and paranormal. Thats what this blog is about, not so much the exploring of the building.
The first event and the end to a relationship. This is something I've only eluded to vaguely and not told the whole story of events to many people. At the time I was in a relationship with my ex fiance. We lived in a small apartment and both were practicing Wiccans. I won't share much out of respect for her, but somethings I need to for context. She had very bad Bi-polar and it was something we had been working through with some issues. Before I get ahead of myself I need to start at the Sugar Mill.
My friend and I were exploring one night like we often did. Suddenly we saw a flashlight shine in through a window. Being on the second floor we chose to stay silent in order to see if it was the police, other explorers, or worse people up to no good. Hearing one of us shift the person with the flashlight began to angerly yell. Realizing it was either the police or someone up to no good, my friend I were quick. Diving into one if the old vats they used to smash sugar beats, the inside space close to a small bathroom in size. We were able to climb down the inside as angry stomps rang out and a flashlight shone all over. We hid for more than an hour while it sounded like two angry men searched around the place. We still don't know if they were police, drug addicts, or Satanists. After making it out of the building the lack of police cars made us figure it was one of the later.
After this event I went and picked up my then fiance. Out of respect because things eventually ended with is being friends I want to be careful with all I share, but things need to be. She had never gone with me to explore the Sugar Mill partly because at the time she was dancing at a gentleman's club and worked. At the time I told people it didn't bother me but after some reflection it probably did. Being one of the many reasons for tension in our relationship, along with her bi-polar disorder leading to dramatic mood swings.
This is where the strangeness enters. Being pagan we had something dark claiming to affect us. The night of the escape it claimed to have followed me from the Sugar Mill. Did the two men send something to follow me or affect me? Little things began to happen after that night. One night we did a ritual and I cast a circle for protection in an attempt to rid the thing. My then fiance would blow up over the smallest things because of her disorder. Leaving the circle to console her I found she had grabbed a rather large kitchen knife. I have a very faint scar on my arm to this day from the that night.
Things fortunately ended in a non violent manner (minus the arm cut) and we moved apart that night. She got the help she needed and we remained friends but were no longer a couple. Now weather this was something dark affecting us or just the stress of things, I don't know. I ended up living in my car and at the Lyons campgrounds for a number of months before moving in with my coworkers and friends.
Fast forward to the end of 2003. We had continued exploring the Sugar Mill and I took precautions spiritually. I was about to turn 21 and my friend from work and I were taking another coworker to the Sugar Mill. She had never been and by this time we knew most of the place like the back of our hand. Except for one section where the stairs had fallen down long ago. We found an old like conveyor belt scoffolding section that led to that area. The plan that night was to climb it to explore the last area we hadn't been to.
We arrived just as the sun went down behind the mountains. Being we were all twenty somethings and just getting off work (and it being Colorado) we decided to hang out at the car and smoke a joint waiting for it to be fully dark. Sitting across the road from the large building out of sight we just joked and talked about what we were going to attempt.
Suddenly a figure came walking down the street. We grew quiet as a lady around our age swifly moved along the chain link fence of the building. She was wearing shorts and to our confusion was barefoot! Our first assumption being she was a druggie trying to find a place to partake. We sat and watched as she ran up to the fence, not where the hole was we all went through. Suddenly she was on the otherside of the fence. Almost like she phased through it! All of us stared in silence our jaws on the floor as the lady made her way into the building without a flashlight! In complete darkness at this point. Not believing what we just saw we ran to the spot in the fence she crossed, only to find no holes or way through.
We spent the next hour or so trying to wrap our minds around what we just witnessed and pacing the street looking for any sign of a light inside the building. Wanting to make sure if the lady came out we saw her or if she was in there we saw that. The whole time not hearing a noise or seeing anything to say she was even there.
After a time we built up enough courage to go inside. We had a mission to get to that small section we hadn't explored. Cautiously we made our way inside the building, bracing ourselves, hoping to not find the young lady. We never did see her again as we made our way to the conveyor belt.
The belt itself was huge, large enough for us to easily walk up and to the roof of the section we needed to get to. It was evident lots of other people had been there and we were a little stumped we hadn't found it before in the many other times there. We explored the area and showed off the cool things of the building to our coworker, being the first time she had been there.
We found a ladder down into a small room, the last room we hadn't been to. Over all it wasn't that big of an area, maybe the size of a decent master bedroom. Shining our lights the first thing we noticed was all the satanic symbols covering the walls. This wasn't strange to a point because the building had graffiti, but it was much more ritualistic symbols then I've ever seen. The space also had a strange buzz to it and sound seemed to be muted. Almost like the space was larger then it was. Overall it gave all three of us a bad feeling and after 30 min of looking around we were ready to get out.
Now for the cherry on top so to speak. After climbing the ladder out of the strange room we checked the time. What to us was only 30 min, we had been down in that room for over 2 hours! How is that even possible? We all wracked our brains trying to place the timeline. We saw the strange ghost lady at around 6pm. Made our way up the conveyor belt around 7:30. Went down the ladder at 8pm, I for sure checked my phone.. we just walked around the room looking at the strange graffiti for not that long. 30min tops! I looked down the hole to make sure the room wasn't even that big.. it was now almost 11:30pm! What the actual fuck just happened was all any of us could say as we hurriedly made our way of the building. Spending the rest of the week trying in vain to figure it out.
After that we didn't go back that much to the Sugar Mill. Partly because we had explored the building from top to bottom and mostly because of that crazy night. I had gone back a couple times with a new camera but it was better sealed up and I didn't go inside. These are the pictures you see in this blog. I was starting the whole paranormal investigating without actually knowing or calling it that, looking to capture the ghost girl.
One of my trips back to take photos I ran into a sheriff. He was polite since I wasn't inside the building and we got to talking. I guess shortly after the before mentioned night the cops had been called to the Sugar Mill. They went in with one of their police dogs to try and get people out of the building but didn't find anyone. Sadly durring the search the dog had walked up an unstable stair case and fell to his death. After that they sealed up any entrance they could find into the building.
Knowing there had been many deaths while the Mill ran and a few after in its abandoned state I began to research the paranormal more. Growing up never missing an episode of the X-Files and being curious in such things, my experiences at the Sugar Mill sparked my lifelong search for paranormal. It has been a hobby I've done here and there on many urban exploring adventures or keeping an eye out for Bigfoot while in Wyoming, and ultimately what led me to dive head first in to investigating 4 years ago. Here is to exploring many more places and all of our search into the paranormal.
What started you into the paranormal? I'd love to hear your stories! Let me know down in the comments or our forum.
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