Fort Chaffee

Built in 1941, this 72,000-acre military base trained WWII troops and later held thousands of Cuban refugees during the 1980 Mariel boatlift, resulting in a major riot.

Fort Chaffee sprawls across thousands of acres near Fort Smith in Sebastian County, Arkansas, a military installation whose history spans World War II, the Cold War, and some of the most turbulent refugee crises of the twentieth century. Groundbreaking for the facility — originally designated Camp Chaffee — occurred on September 20, 1941, just weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor. The installation was named after Major General Adna R. Chaffee Jr., an artillery officer who championed armored warfare during World War I. Construction took sixteen months, and the base officially activated on March 27, 1942. During the war years, Fort Chaffee trained three armored divisions — the Sixth, Fourteenth, and Sixteenth — and housed approximately 3,000 German prisoners of war from 1943 to 1946. The Fifth Armored Division was stationed there from 1948 to 1957, and the installation received its formal fort designation on March 21, 1956. During the Vietnam War era, the facility served as a test site for tactical defoliants including Agent Orange.

Fort Chaffee's most famous visitor was Elvis Presley, who in 1958 received his first military haircut in Building 803 during his three-day induction before shipping to Fort Hood, Texas. But the events that shaped the fort's haunted reputation came later. Between 1975 and 1976, Fort Chaffee processed 50,809 Southeast Asian refugees fleeing the fall of Saigon. Beginning May 6, 1980, the facility became a resettlement center for Cuban refugees arriving during the Mariel boatlift, eventually processing 25,390 Cubans over two years. Three weeks after the Cuban operations began, a significant riot erupted — refugees burned two buildings, state troopers deployed tear gas, and eighty-four Cubans were jailed. The violence, desperation, and death that occurred during these operations left an imprint that, according to those who have investigated the site, has never fully dissipated.

The paranormal activity at Fort Chaffee centers on the former hospital complex, the barracks, and scattered buildings across the installation. The hospital was the most investigated location before a devastating fire in January 2008 destroyed 150 buildings across the base, including much of the hospital complex. In the pediatric ward, where hand-painted teddy bears and clowns still decorated the walls, visitors reported being brushed against by unseen hands — a light touch on the arm as though a small patient were reaching out. In the obstetrics and gynecology section, voices were heard asking for help in rooms that had stood empty for decades. The psychiatric ward, with its steel doors and separate solitary confinement spaces behind barred entrances, generated reports of shadow figures seen moving within the cells. Investigators noted that equipment malfunctioned consistently in the ward, with cameras failing and audio recorders producing inexplicable interference.

The barracks where Cuban refugees were held produced some of the most intense experiences. Disembodied voices were recorded telling investigators to "shut up" and to "get out." An overwhelming empathic sensation of violence and hatred permeated the area, with visitors reporting sudden onsets of fear, nausea, and an unshakable feeling of not being wanted. Balls of light were both observed with the naked eye and captured in photographs, moving through the barracks with apparent purpose. Partial apparitions — a hand, an arm, the outline of a figure that never fully materialized — were reported repeatedly.

The Ghost Adventures television crew investigated Fort Chaffee for Season 5, Episode 10, documenting their findings in the barracks and hospital areas. The Frank Allen house on the installation was singled out as having particularly strong activity. A second fire in August 2011 destroyed additional structures, including more of the barracks and hospital buildings that had been the primary sites of paranormal investigation. Much of what made Fort Chaffee one of Arkansas's most actively investigated haunted locations now exists only in the reports and recordings made before the fires consumed it. The remaining portions of the installation continue to serve as the Fort Chaffee Maneuver Training Center under the Arkansas National Guard, while the surrounding land has been redeveloped as Chaffee Crossing.