Ok, we checked into the 1886 Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs Arkansas which immediately reminded me of the Overlook Hotel in Steven King’s The Shining where Jack Nicholson goes bat shit crazy and tries to kill his family with an axe!
Seriously, I expected to see those two weird ghost twins to be standing by the fireplace saying “Come play with us Diana! Forever and ever and ever!”
Ok, enough with the cheesy references but seriously this place is creepy! So, we rode the elevator up to the third floor to room 313, no I am not making this up! Friends, guess what parking spot we got when we parked for breakfast yep you guessed it! Number 13! OMG I am totally freaking at this because the number 13 is kind of a sign right?
Well, we got to our room 313 and it has a really old antique lock, and the front desk had given us these big metal keys, and while I am fumbling with the door I am noticing how dark the hallways are and how the other hotel occupants are creeping, yes creeping, around like they are totally terrified. In fact the whole atmosphere of this place is very dark, I kid you not!
I mean, what do you expect when over 40 people have died here in this hotel back in 1929 and 1930? The history of the hotel is that this lunatic shyster vaudeville guy named Norman Baker decided to turn the hotel into a sanitarium cancer hospital and “cure” people of cancer even though he was not a doctor or anything close to being one. So the end result is that these pour souls died because of their faith in his flim flammery. Its no surprise that the ghosts of these folks are still here, as angry and resentful spirits.
Brit and I, as you know, come from a family line of clairvoyant Irish and Scottish women, so we were a little unsettled about what we might encounter on this trip, but we figured what the hell? We might as well go for it on this trip.
The ghost tour started on the fourth floor, with a very informative tour guide dressed up as Norman the mad doctor. Although the doctor was fake, the paranormal experiences were definitely real! I don’t know if everyone who comes to this hotel gets as much of an encounter from the spirits as we did, maybe it was because the ghosts could sense that we had a shine or something, because we got the full floor show!
The people on the tour clung together for protection, glancing nervously at each other as the guide told us about the four year old child ghost that played in the hallway near room 230, and guests have heard him saying “Its not fair!” as he bounces his ball.
Brit and I had a very oppressive feeling in this area, and as I was snapping pictures I saw later that I had caught an orb hanging child level above the carpet! At Michael’s room 218 I felt the air clear and become much lighter. Michael was a young Irishman who died on the property. It is rumored he likes pretty girls so maybe he felt we were welcome to join him!
On the second floor in the hallway Brit said she almost tripped over a cat that was wandering around, and she turned to me and said “Did you see that cat just now?” I hadn’t seen anything, but I started snapping photos and later checking, sure enough, I caught another orb right where Brit saw the cat and it was baseboard level. Spooky fact; There is a cat buried in the east lawn with a headstone, his name was Morris and he lived in the hotel for 21 years. Actually, I believe he is dwelling there still in spirit form! He must have known we were cat lovers…
During the tour we visited the basement morgue and that place you could feel way before you entered it! Brit and I have recently been to England on a Jack the Ripper tour in White Chappel, we actually stood where the bodies were found! And let me tell you, the Crescent Hotel morgue has exactly the same level of dark resentful energy!
So, the Morgue is set back inside the foundation of the hotel, it has huge stone walls with stained concrete floors. There is even a blood drain in the floor where the tour guides EMF meter always starts lighting up despite there not being any electricity in that area at all. To make matters even more ghoulish, there is a wall of body parts and other medical substances in jars that was excavated from the property. The atmosphere in this area is heavy with the feeling of anger and sadness, I didn’t get any orbs on camera here, but really you could feel the energy of what had happened so long ago.
Afterwards, Brit and I went up to the skybar and enjoyed some great music and drinks to remind ourselves that we were still among the living. That night, as we prepared for bed, we both felt like propping all of our luggage against the closet door for some reason, and later around 1 am, we were certainly glad that we did. Because we both awakened to hear thumping coming from the inside of the closet!
After saying a few protective prayers, I went back to sleep, but Brit told me she lay there waiting to get to sleep, when suddenly she saw something truly terrifying. She told me she saw the little stack of plastic cups on the dresser go flying off into the floor, and then a woman’s voice said “Damn it!”
Ok, for you non believers, there is a legend of a bad tempered Victorian lady ghost that haunts this hotel and she won’t stand for people miss-behaving on her watch, I will admit that after the ghost tour I had said a few colorful metaphors about the state of my nerves such as Holy @#*^ and WTF so it could be that we pissed off the lady ghost just a little bit, but that’s what Scoffers do…
Also much later around 3am, last but not least, I woke up and heard a faint noise that slowly strengthened as I listened and became quite clearly calliope music. I laid there, trying to explain it away, gave up, and went back to sleep. For someone who has heard a demon growl before, witnessed an exorcism and seen full bodied apparitions, this calliope music was not quite enough to keep me awake. A fun fact; the good non-doctor Norman who killed 40 plus cancer patients just happened to be the creator of the calliope, and he liked to play it up and down the hallways of the hotel when the screams of his victims became too loud to ignore.
I have only got one thing to say; if you want to experience something paranormal, just spend the night in the closet of room 313 and I am sure you will have something to write home about!
