The Stanley Hotel has been featured on Ghost Hunters before and many people, including the Ghost Hunters have encountered strange and possibly paranormal activities there. The hotel has a history of being haunted and was the inspiration for Stephen King's The Shining. So needless to say, getting the opportunity to tour parts of the hotel with the Ghost Hunters was quite a treat.
We were all staying at The Stanley so everyone was already a bit on edge about the whole ghost thing throughout the weekend. Add that to the gallons of Red Bull and sugary soda that was supplied to us just prior to the late-night ghost hunt and most of us were about ready to jump out of our skin at the slightest unexpected sound or movement. As a bonus, Amanda Tapping (Stargate Atlantis, Sanctuary), Gabriel Pimentel (Scare Tactics, My Name Is Earl), and Travis Draft (Scare Tactics) were among our group so that made things all the more interesting and a bit surreal, considering we were wandering down creepy, dark hallways together in the middle of the night.
During the tour, we were guided down the unlit halls of the fourth floor of the Stanley Hotel's main building as well as the Manor House next door. As the tour was mostly in the dark, we weren't able to take any pictures or get video, unfortunately but the experience was pretty creepy even though I consider myself to be skeptical when it comes to the whole ghost thing.
Our first stop on the tour was a room on the fourth floor of the main building where people have claimed to see a little girl playing and a red ball that appears and disappears out of nowhere. Kris Williams was in that room to tell us a bit the things that have been seen there. She also had a K2 device that is supposed to light up when there's a change in the electromagnetic field. Williams mentioned that she wasn't as skilled with this device as Jason and Grant were. And as it turned out, the device didn't show much activity while we were in the room but considering this was the first stop on the tour, most of us were pretty amped up and it's entirely possible that whatever spirit might have been lingering there wasn't interested in entertaining a bunch of rowdy tourists.
Kris Williams was very polite and patient with us. She drew the line though when one of the people in our group wanted to do a séance. While Kris didn’t object to any of us doing it, she wanted no part of it and politely refused to participate. I have to respect the woman for not playing along even to entertain us. To me it showed how seriously she takes her job. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the whole séance thing myself. It seemed a bit over the top but I didn’t object when everyone started to take each others hands. As I was standing between Amanda Tapping and Travis Draft at the time, both of them took my hands and the whole surreal-factor jumped up a few notches. Nothing like standing in a dark hotel room holding hands with a couple of Sci Fi stars. In case you’re interested, neither of them had sweaty palms. Anyway, the séance never happened. Maybe no one knew how to do it without the aid of a Ouija board or some other Parker Brothers game to aid in the ceremony.
Next on the tour, we headed off to room 401. This is the room that Jason stayed in previously. If you haven't watched Ghost Hunters regularly, you may have missed it but during one of their visits to the hotel, Jason experienced a closet door shutting and latching for no apparent reason during the night and he also had a glass shatter on his nightstand while he was sleeping. Jason and Grant were here to recant this story and use the K2 device as well as a thermal camera, which measures temperatures in the room. They did get someone/thing to communicate with us through the K2. The thing lit-up when they asked certain yes or no questions. It also seemed to know how many of us were in the room. Now, I'm not entirely sure if their success with the K2 had to do with their skill with the device, as Kris mentioned to us earlier or what but for our tour, the device lighting up in response to their questions was the only "solid" thing we managed to see in terms of actually getting any ghost activity.
Neither Dave Tango nor Steve Gonsalves, whom we met with later in the Manor House, use the device. Steve said that he didn't think the K2 was all that reliable. I wish we would have had the opportunity to talk to Grant and Jason about the device more after hearing that. During the Manor House portion of the tour we walked down a spooky, dark corridor where Dave said some strange things had occurred. In fact, that very night during an earlier tour he said all of the lights (including the exit-signs) went out for no apparent reason and there was some loud banging coming from the end of the hallway. Nothing happened while we were there, though some people did claim to see a shadow in the dark. Earlier, Kris explained to us that sometimes they see shadows in the dark. She described it as "darker than dark" and apparently it takes a form so you can see where it begins and ends. I didn't see a shadow.
The last stop on the tour was the room in the Manor House where the table shook (this took place in a previous episode of Ghost Hunters.). Absolutely nothing happened while we were in there but we did get to play with the thermal camera some more and hang out with Steve Gonsalves. Both he and Dave Tango are really sweet guys and it was obvious that they love what they do.
One of the things Dave brought up was how much time they spend going over footage of the places they investigate. What we see in the show is a very (very) condensed version of what’s really taped. Dave said they have to watch the tapes in real time to make sure they catch anything that could be a ghost or paranormal activity. This often means sitting in front of a monitor for hours, staring at video of a room, waiting for something (or nothing) to happen. A sound. A shadow. Anything. What they do or don’t find gets cut down and crammed into a half-hour episode for our entertainment. What we see is really only a sample of their hard work and determination.
Another thing that we heard a lot from all of the Ghost Hunters is that they need to see/experience things for themselves in order to truly believe it. All of them expressed a great amount of trust and respect in each other and none implied that they didn’t believe the others when they shared their experiences. It’s more that in order to believe that a ghost or paranormal thing is the real deal, they have to have a personal encounter with it. That’s the impression that I got, anyway and I respect their skepticism.
Over all, while we didn’t get to see any ghosts, I enjoyed the hunt. If anything, it gave us the opportunity to get a better idea of how these guys operate. I wasn’t a regular viewer of the series prior to this experience so I didn’t really know what to expect from these people. My impression is that the ghost hunters are intelligent, down to earth men and women who spend part of their days (and nights) in search of the truth behind possible hauntings and investigating paranormal events in the hopes of learning more about the things that go bump in the night.
None of them came off the slightest-bit fame-hungry or for lack of a better term, like some weirdo conspiracy theorist that thinks every weird noise or shadow is a ghost. There are things that happen in this world that are unexplained. People do see, hear and otherwise experience things that suggest that there might be ghosts or other beings of a paranormal nature in our midst and the ghost hunters are willing to dedicate their time to look into them and share their findings with us. So, while I can’t say that the ghost hunt changed my own personal beliefs in the possibility of ghosts, I do respect what these guys do and have a newfound appreciation not only for the series but for the men and women involved in it.
