Kat+Stanley= awesome times to be had!

This past weekend was Frontier ParaCon at the famously haunted Stanley Hotel! The entire weekend felt like a dream; the weather was a continuous perfect blue sky with the Stanley picturesquely situated among the Rocky Mountains. For a girl from the Great Lake region, being in the mountains was wonderful and very nostalgic of living in Japan.

Over the weekend I took hours of video, which I hope to have edited and up here for everyone to see by the end of the week. During the convention I was lucky enough to stay in room #418- when I picked up my key to the room the staff member said “someone must really like you to give you this room.” I later asked Dan Gutherie, the organizer of the convention if the rooms were assigned, he replied that they were not although the room block had been reserved. It was basically a stroke of luck, serendipity, fate, what have you, that I was given this room.

Room 418 is notoriously haunted by a few different entities- and yes some interesting stuff did happen while I was there but nothing as grandiose as Jason’s breaking glass from the TAPS investigation of the hotel. The first entity said to be a frequent visitor of the room is Lord Dunraven, the scamming landowner who F.O. Stanley purchased the property from just before Dunraven was run out of town. Dunraven is mostly said to haunt rooms #407, 401, and 412 (just a few doors down) had the levitating bed in which a woman had an episode with. From asking staff members, most of the fourth floor is visited by Lord Dunraven, not just those specific rooms.

{Irish} Lord Dunraven

Kat in room 418 with the haunted closet!

The other ghost said to haunt the room is that of little “Robert” or a gaggle of spectral children. Often people hear the sounds of little kids running around on the fourth floor, have seen a red rubber ball bounce around by phantom means. In my room in particular; a little girl was tickled by a boy ghost in the room and told her mother that he was nice enough to stop when asked; in another story a man reported that he woke up tucked into bed, hospital style, although he had gone to bed with all the sheets on the floor. I must note, the 4th floor, even in the spring, is incredibly hot and can completely understand wanting to sleep with the sheets off.

Something I didn’t think about, but was face-to-face with immediately entering the room is that the ghost tours stop at 418′s door. Multiple times during the weekend I would catch a tour standing in front of my door, usually lead by Alex, one of the tour guides at the hotel.  Room #217 is equally as visited since it is Steven King’s room where he got the idea for The Shining.

Just a history note: the fourth floor was used for visiting staff of the wealthy vacationers; i.e. maids and butlers for the wealthy and their families. The children spirits are said to be the children of those maids and butlers. On Friday night I held a small 2-hour investigation in 418 and had a lot of interesting occurrences during the time. Investigators present were myself, “Spooky” Scotty Rorke, Nick and Deb Lantz, Jim, Lee, and Patty of ParaVisionz. Note: I am working on getting photos taken during the investigation, all I recorded was audio. Scotty, Deb, and Nick are all psychic-mediums; Scotty actually channels spirits (which will become an important point a little later).

Gadgets we used were a digital MEL Meter, classic KII, RF KII meter, Tri-field mater, and my Spirit Box-7. Because of the use of psychics, the investigation was subjective, but I recorded everything witnessed to hopefully compare with other investigations of that room.

We encountered three spirits that night; one being a four-year-old boy named “Robert” who was the son of a maid and single-mother who worked for one of the wealthy visitors of the Stanley. Another was a spirit named Mitchell who had been one of the original carpenters working at the Stanley, who had already passed over, but had returned to warn of cheaply done craftsmanship currently being done at the hotel. The third was Keith, Mitchell’s son, who had also passed over and had returned to retrieve his father.

During the course of the investigation we heard several knocks or bumps around the room (possibly noisy hotel neighbors walking about) and both Nick and Scotty were touched by something; Nick on the knee although he was standing, and Scotty on the forehead (he was sitting on a lounge chair). We did get a lot of KII communication through both the traditional KII meter and the RF KII, no matter where they were in the room. They seemed to correspond correctly with questions posed to the ghosts, but at the same time it is hard to rule out the possibility of cell phone interference. The walls and doors of the Stanley Hotel, as beautiful as they are, are very thin with sounds easily being heard between rooms and hallways. Numerous times we thought something was in the room when it turned out to be passers-by in the hallway.

At a point during the investigation Scotty slipped into a channeling state, and was for a brief time channeling the spirit of Mitchell Rowbus. Mr. Rowbus had been one of the carpenters working at the Stanley in 1942, thought Deb Lantz was bossy and reminded him of his mother, and really wanted to convay the message that the new construction being done is not good work. When Scotty had first gone into the channeling session, it was unexpected by everyone in the room and we thought that he may have had a medical episode- until he started talking and refused to say Scotty’s safe word (in this case the phrase “Waffle House”). Through the 10 minutes he was channeling we learned about Mitchell and his family, were given his pleas to double check the workmanship at the hotel, and then his son Keith came to collect him. Through the interview we learned that Mitchell had already crossed over but was so worried about the construction of the Stanley that he felt compelled to visit. Scotty came back through saying “Waffle House” over and over again.

What was interesting is that on Saturday Scotty, armed with the information detailed the night before, asked staff at the Stanley about Mitchell and the renovation of the Stanley. Come to find out that there had been a contractor working on the Concert Hall’s floor that had done very poor work recently and nearly ruined the original floor.

Next article, we talk about Lucy’s Room and the investigations from Saturday night of the Concert Hall!