Wasn't at Briar Hill last weekend but this is right up my street so I had to comment.
The detail that jumps out at me is the timing. Shadow figures tend to cluster around locations with sustained emotional residue - and a sanitarium ticks every box. Years of fear, confusion, disorientation baked into the walls. If you're seeing movement in peripheral vision specifically, that's consistent with almost every credible report I've read.
Quick question for those who were there: did the figures appear to have defined edges or were they more of a smeared, blurred shape? That distinction matters. Defined edges suggest something interactive and potentially intelligent. Blurred shapes lean more toward residual activity - essentially a recording playing on loop.
I've been cross-referencing shadow figure sightings with NDE accounts for a while now, and there's a genuinely strange overlap in the descriptions people use. That recognition of presence before visual confirmation keeps appearing in both sets of reports.
For anyone planning a return visit, I'd strongly recommend running a full-spectrum camera alongside your standard kit. I use a GoPro Hero modified for IR, paired with an Olympus LS-P4 for audio capture. If these figures are showing up visually, there's a reasonable chance something's registering on the audio end too.
Who else was there? Would love a proper breakdown of locations within the building where sightings occurred.