Castillo Idiarte Borda: the scream over the radios and my name on the Spirit Box

In Montevideo there's a castle that many consider one of the most haunted places in Uruguay: the Castillo Idiarte Borda. A president and his family were going to live there, but history didn't let them. I walked through it on tours with other people, where things happened that have no easy explanation, and I went back at night to investigate it and see whether the paranormal phenomenon was as real as people say.

Note: the video is in Spanish. This page is the full story in English.

The castle the president never lived in

The castle is the former country house of Juan Idiarte Borda, president of Uruguay, in the Lezica area of Montevideo. It is a declared National Historic Monument.

Idiarte Borda never got to live there. On 25 August 1897, leaving the Te Deum at Montevideo's Cathedral, he was shot dead by Avelino Arredondo, long before the castle was finished. He is the only Uruguayan president to have been assassinated in office.

The legends

• Idiarte Borda's widow used to say she would see him in the castle's hallways, even though he never lived there.
• The portrait of the former president whose eyes, they say, follow you. That's the more comical one.
• The impaled man in the tower, one of the castle's most famous stories.
• The bloodied man: during an event, a woman went to the ground-floor bathroom and found a man covered in blood lying on the floor.
• And stories of possessions, foul smells and people who felt very ill in some of the rooms upstairs.

What I lived through on the tours

For years we took people to see the castle on tours, and things happened there that I can't explain.

The scream over the radios. One night, with about 15 people, we were on the staircase. We had radios to talk to the other team, and suddenly a child started talking over the radios, and then screaming. We all heard it. It was extremely strange.

The piano. On another tour at the castle, the piano was heard: one key, played once, and there was nobody there.

The night investigation

I always say the same thing: years ago I saw the paranormal with fear and terror as its pillars. Then I understood that fear and terror come from misinformation and from not controlling the situation. That's why there are no staged scares in this investigation: there's information, documentation, and a request to you to doubt my work.

The ground floor. We went in dark and silent. I left a motion-activated camera and a sound recorder near the bathroom from the legend and the piano, and asked that, if anyone was there, they play the piano or touch the equipment. On the ground floor I didn't feel anything uncomfortable, just a huge echo. And that caught my attention, because on other visits the noises, sounds and smells there were constant.

The upper floors. In a room where many people had felt very ill before, the meter picked up an electromagnetic field. The first thing was to rule things out: there were outlets nearby, so I put that reading down to electricity, not a ghost.

The Spirit Box. The most curious thing of the night was the SB7: it said my name many times, and you can hear it clearly. I asked for names, asked them to tell me what two plus two is, and left them a new device with lights to touch. You can see and hear all of it in the video.

"The number of responses on the Spirit Box and the field meter make me understand that the paranormal activity in this castle is real. Not to the extent the legends tell, but I have no grounds to rule them out either."

What I take with me

For me, the Castillo Idiarte Borda is one of the investigations with the most evidence I've had: a child's scream over the radios heard by fifteen people, a piano key played with nobody near it, and my name repeated on the Spirit Box. I couldn't confirm the bloodiest legends, but I can't rule them out either. And as always, I ask you the same thing: don't believe what you see, doubt, and draw your own conclusions.

The video (in Spanish)

If you visit

The castle is in Montevideo, in the Lezica area, and is a National Historic Monument. Check visiting details beforehand, and as always, be respectful.

🔦 Did you see the flashlight on the home page? One of the hidden recordings is the scream over the radios at this castle: look for the phrase "A child?".