Mark Todd's Blog, page 8

#GhostHunt 9 for new book: Spruce Lodge in South Fork, CO

All this fall, winter, and early spring, we're engaged in our latest book project -- haunted hotels in western and mountainous Colorado -- and we're using our blog to share highlights about our visits (and ghost hunts) to each location. You can click on the tab just under our blog banner called "New WIP Ghost Hunt Book" for more context and a bit of backstory about the project.

This week's account is at the Spruce Lodge in South Fork, CO. 
No shortage of paranormal activity in this 90-year-old building -- ghostly touches, dogs and cats reacting strongly to unseen presences, lots of invisible footsteps, multiple apparition sightings including shadow people and full-body apparitions, electrical anomalies, cold spots, moving objects, and ghostly voices plus groans, sighs, and whispers.
But first a S/O to lodge co-owner Dee Plucinski, who gave us the run of much of the main lodge.
Even though accounts also occur in the basement and ground floor of the facility, we spent most of our time in two “unoccupied” upstairs guestrooms in the original log building. That worked for us, since all the paranormal activity has taken place in the main lodge.
We performed a sweep of the hall and rooms with our EMF meter, gathering baseline readings: 515 mG in the north end of the hallway, and 460mG in the south. (EMF stands for Electromagnetic Field, and ghosts are said to manipulate this energy as a way to manifest or communicate.)The Baxterville Room ranged from 450-470mG, and the Galbreath ranged from the 330s-360s, except the wardrobe which rose to 560mG when we opened the door. Baxterville Room
When we returned to the Baxterville Room to start our session, that door had closed – a commonly reported paranormal occurrence at the lodge. We tested the open door at various positions, but it remained stationary.

We began with an EVP session, recording our spirit box interactions, including general queries and our request to dim the flashlight we’d placed on the bed as a means of communication. Nothing happened. Lots of audio feedback and squelching sounds from the spirit box, but nothing intelligible – until we later reduced the interference and analyzed what remained.

That’s when we discovered a woman’s voice saying “we’ll see” when we asked for the flashlight dimming (in real time, the EMF meter had jumped up 90mG). Also, after asking the spirits to identify themselves, we received immediate EVP replies on the EchoVox spirit box of “Hyacinthe,” “Betty,” and “Frederick.” (EVP stands for Electronic Voice Phenomenon, sometimes occurring on audio recordings but can also be generated through a spirit box. Our EchoVox generates only random sounds -- no words -- and it's up to a spirit to assemble and create intelligible responses.) Two other words became clear when we asked who was there: “Kym,” who stood in the room, and “Dee,” the lodge owner who, at the time, worked the restaurant below us. Sometimes spirits can seem so literal! 
EVP saying "Dee"
On the recording, we also heard ourselves arguing whether or not to continue because of the squelching, followed by a woman telling us “please talk” and a different woman saying “speak.”
 EVP saying "Please talk"
Mark headed to the Galbreath Room down the hall while Kym packed up the camcorder. For a fleeting moment, she had the impression of a quill pen and inkwell on the table next to the bed. Curious, since the lodge has a reputation for revealing images from a bygone era. (Dee's husband Rob, the other owner, once saw a blonde woman wearing a teal-colored shirt and blue pants sitting on a pool table in the building’s basement. There is no pool table in that particular space, but the room did serve as a pool hall in years past.)
In the hallway, we’d noticed a mannequin wearing an old-fashioned white nightgown, parasol propped up beside it. We snapped a picture because it looked cool (more on that later).
Once in the Galbreath Room, we didn’t encounter the squelch on the spirit box, nor could we hear much else that made sense. But on request, the flashlight did dim about 25 percent, and on later analysis we found we'd captured the word “flashlight” as an EVP. 
We also detected several other words in analysis – “three” (when we’d asked how many were in the room) and “Dagwood.” And then came a final name in a voice like nothing we’d heard before, distinct and unmistakable: “DeQuin” (emphasis on the first syllable). It made no sense to us at first until we searched the Internet and discovered DeQuin is both a given and surname of European origin.
EVP saying "DeQuin"
Note position of parasol
in these two photosAs promised, back to the parasol.

After we left the Galbreath Room, we noticed the parasol now lying on the floor next to the mannequin, which stood a mere ten feet from the open guestroom door where we had worked. Neither one of us had heard it fall, nor had either of us touched the dress or parasol.

Did our footsteps jar it loose? Maybe.
Maybe not. The lodge has a recurring history of physical objects that move inexplicably.
***
The weekend after Thanksgiving, we share highlights of our visit to the Fairlamb House in Delta, CO, where previous owners used to have a skeleton (yes, literally a skeleton) in the attic.

Don't forget you can follow along during our investigations as we live-tweet from Twitter @writeinthethick. You can check out our Facebook page for updates about dates and times.

#GhostHunt No. 8 for new book: Cripple Creek's Hotel St Nicholas

All this fall and early spring, we're engaged in our latest book project -- haunted hotels in western and mountainous Colorado -- and we're using our blog to share highlights about our visits (and ghost hunts) to each location. You can click on the tab just under our blog banner called "New WIP Ghost Hunt Book" for more context and a bit of backstory about the project.
 
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This time our ghost hunt took place in Cripple Creek's 1880s Hotel St. Nicholas, which had also in its early years served as a hospital for the Sisters of Mercy.
But first a S/O to owner Susan Adelbush, who welcomed us warmly and even put us in touch with others who had experienced uncanny things at the hotel.
The building contains a lot of reported paranormal activity, including a small girl who wakes sleeping guests, a full-bodied apparition wearing a bowler hat and long duster coat, invisible children playing in the hallways, and disturbed objects.
Susan gave us a walking tour of this large sprawling hotel – all three floors – pointing out along the way where various paranormal activity had taken place, including the lounge on the first floor where the bowler-hatted apparition had walked partially *through* a patron and then on to walk through the wooden bar in front of him.
We focused, however, on the guestrooms and upstairs hallways. We started in Room One, the old nuns’ quarters (when the building was a hospital), where the same bowler-duster apparition had also appeared. The suite consisted of a sitting room with futon bed and connecting alcove and bedroom. Our EMF baselines hovered in the low 300mG range for alcove and bedroom, but higher in the sitting room – around 500mG. We decided to record a spirit box session in the sitting room. We heard very little in real time and later analysis. Perhaps the apparition had intimidated everyone, and he himself wasn’t talking.
[image error] Room 11 (note double doors)We were itching to get to Room Eleven, the old operating room when the hotel was a hospital, so we packed up and headed to the other end of the floor, up the short ramp to the room, and through the double doors – still in place from an era when hospital personnel pushed gurneys into surgery.

Initial EMF readings of 300-400mG leaped to 920mG when we began our queries using a spirit box. From there forward, the EMF remained in the 800s. No wonder – the cacophony of voices that erupted from the box made it nearly impossible to carry on a coherent conversation at first. The chatter became so disruptive we had to ask them to slow down and not all speak at once.

The voices did let up a bit, and we could pick out “hurt,” “broken,” and “sick.” When we asked one voice why he was there, the response came back “accident” followed by a puzzled woman’s voice saying, “They killed it(?)” (Listen to included YouTube clip of this event below.)


We encountered that phrase again in later analysis, along with a lot more we hadn’t detected in real time. At one point, we felt like spectators to murmured exchanges between one male and two female voices that seemed to be involved in a medical procedure – “first up,” “Godfrey” (twice), “excuse me,” and “danke” (German for “thank you”) all came in rapid succession. In fact, we heard a lot of German inflections. We asked for names and got “Shultz” and “Ander,” among others. We also heard “Anne,” Stephen,” and “David,” followed by a woman’s voice saying “Dave hurts.” The word “fear” came up three times, as well as “axe,” “hit,” “lung,” and the phrase “I watched it.” (Listen to YouTube below.)  When we asked who else occupied the room, a woman’s voice offered, “Kym,” suggesting awareness of our own presence.



Even in real time during the on-site session, we began to feel auditory overload using the spirit box, so we trotted over to Room Six. This had once served as a ward room. The first utterance we heard from the box was a child’s voice, sounding like a play shout – the first time in any investigation we'd heard a child's voice on our spirit box. Other voices soon drowned out that first one and, no matter how many times we asked the child to speak again, we never heard it. In later analysis, we isolated a number of clear utterances in response to our other queries. We had asked if someone could turn off the flashlight, getting an immediate “no” in a man’s voice. When Kym asked why not, a woman responded, “...weak...” We asked for names and received “Opfer” (German for “victim”) and “Bob” twice. In response to our question of what happened in that room, different voices said “...fear...” and “...help me.” We asked what scared them and a woman’s voice responded, “Murphy.”  Right before we left the room, a man with a German accent said, “Good luck.”
[image error] Third-floor hallwayOur final stop was up the stairs to the third floor hallway. This area had received comments about invisible children playing outside guestrooms. The EMF readings in the hall were in the 590mG range with little fluctuation during that session. We asked for someone to use the energy of the flashlight to turn off the light, and a voice responded, “No.” We asked who was there and got “...me...” soon followed by “Bob” and “Fred.” We again detected German inflections and asked in that language if any of the spirits were from Germany. The reply was “ja.” Later analysis confirmed “ja” again, followed by “Deutsch.”
During our time at the hotel, we never encountered the apparition in bowler hat and duster. Or maybe that was the German spirit? We hope future amateur ghosthunters using our guide book will have the “good luck” to see him themselves.

***

Next week, we share highlights of our ghost hunt to South Fork's Spruce Lodge, where we encountered types of paranormal activity we'd yet to experience!

Don't forget you can follow along during our investigations as we live-tweet from Twitter @writeinthethick. You can check out our Facebook page for updates about dates and times.

#GhostHunt No. 7 for new book: Linda Goodman's Miracle Inn (formerly Last Dollar Inn)

All this fall and early spring, we're engaged in our latest book project -- haunted hotels in western and mountainous Colorado -- and we're using our blog to share highlights about our visits (and ghost hunts) to each location. You can click on the tab just under our blog banner called "New WIP Ghost Hunt Book" for more context and a bit of backstory about the project.



This time, we report on Linda Goodman’s Miracle Inn (formerly Last Dollar Inn) in Cripple Creek.

But first a S/O to Jason Barton and Sofia Balas, the charming and welcoming owners of the inn. We found them to be as much of a class act as their lovely haunted digs.

The inn gets its new name from former owner Linda Goodman, a psychic and author much engaged with spiritual and other worldly dimensions. And her room is one of the most haunted locations on the premises. But then, so are the other rooms on the second floor nearby, one of which once served as Nikola Tesla's boarding room for a time. Perhaps just as intriguing is the notion that the basement may be a portal to other dimensions. (We didn't visit that underground vicinity for the book since it's not open to guests. Can't blame the owners: wouldn't want anyone to wander off!) The premises have reports of full-body apparitions, footsteps, ghostly touches, and moving objects.
Goodman's stained-glass windowJason and Sofia told us the inn’s paranormal activity occurred in the original building to the west of a newer adjoining addition, primarily in the upstairs guestrooms and hallway. We hoped to conduct our first investigation in the Linda Goodman Room. Just the night before, alas, those accommodations became occupied by a last-minute booking. We still had two rooms with recent reported activity down that hallway, so we started in the Womack Room right next to Goodman’s former quarters.
The EMF baseline registered 440-460mG, same as the adjacent hallway. We turned on a flashlight and asked spirits to create a flicker or turn it off. At that moment, the EMF jumped to 620 mG, but the flashlight remained steady.
We then asked the apparition reported to have walked through the closet door in that room to show itself or give us a sign. No takers.
We had better luck with the EchoVox Spirit Box, which spit out a continuous stream of words. On later EVP analysis, we discovered multiple words that related directly to the hotel: “Sofia” (clearly our innkeeper’s name) twice – once in a man’s voice and once in a woman’s – and then “house … forever” in a woman’s voice, and also the name “Linda.” Toward the end of the session, we heard “done” three times. At the time of the original recording, we had only heard “leave” clearly, which we took as a dismissal.
So we packed up our gear and moved into the Leland Feitz Room, where Nikola Tesla had once stayed. Our baseline EMF readings were 490-500s mG.  We also had a 50 percent battery drain in our voice recorder within minutes (ironic, since it was Tesla's room!) Not uncommon in investigations where there is a strong paranormal presence. Our camcorder shut down twice – that isunusual. Our Spirit Box was strangely quiet compared to the previous room, only giving us the words "baseball" and "help Feitz" (rhyming with "feats" instead of “fights,” so maybe not the right name – unless his name was also sometimes pronounced the other way by folks who don't/didn't know German pronunciation). We heard a few other utterances, including possible names, but we couldn't confirm or agree on what they said. Later EVP analysis revealed nothing more. Feitz Room (Tesla's former digs)We flipped on the flashlight – but it wouldn’t respond. Mark took it into the hall and tore it apart, checked the batteries, and reassembled. This time it worked but no spirits responded to our requests to dim or turn it off. Leaving the flashlight on, we returned to the Womack Room. Bam, the light turned off. Thinking we had faulty equipment, Mark stepped back into the hall again and the flashlight worked. He stepped back into the Womack Room. Dead. Back into the hall again, on. Back in the Womack Room, dead. We decided this deserved another EVP session. We asked if spirits were messing with our equipment and got an immediate “yeah.” (We had no other malfunctions using this flashlight in our subsequent investigations.) We heard nothing else definitive from the EchoVox until we returned home and analyzed the recording, where we discovered a woman’s voice saying, “flash[-something]” and later a man’s voice declaring “enough of this.”
Personally, we hadn’t had enough of this, but we seemed to have worn out our welcome for that session. When we earlier asked the closet door apparition for a sign, maybe we got one after all through the recurring electrical anomalies. ***Next week, we share highlights of our visit to another Cripple Creek location, the Hotel St. Nicholas – a former hospital and still hosting ghostly residents from that earlier era!

Don't forget you can follow along during our investigations as we live-tweet from Twitter @writeinthethick. You can check out our Facebook page for updates about dates and times.
 

#GhostHunt No. 7 for new book: Miracle Inn (formerly Last Dollar Inn)

All this fall and early spring, we're engaged in our latest book project -- haunted hotels in western and mountainous Colorado -- and we're using our blog to share highlights about our visits (and ghost hunts) to each location. You can click on the tab just under our blog banner called "New WIP Ghost Hunt Book" for more context and a bit of backstory about the project.



This time, we report on Linda Goodman’s Miracle Inn (formerly Last Dollar Inn) in Cripple Creek.

But first a S/O to Jason Barton and Sofia Balas, the charming and welcoming owners of the inn. We found them to be as much of a class act as their lovely haunted digs.

The inn gets its new name from former owner Linda Goodman, a psychic and author much engaged with spiritual and other worldly dimensions. And her room is one of the most haunted locations on the premises. But then, so are the other rooms on the second floor nearby, one of which once served as Nikola Tesla's boarding room for a time. Perhaps just as intriguing is the notion that the basement may be a portal to other dimensions. (We didn't visit that underground vicinity for the book since it's not open to guests. Can't blame the owners: wouldn't want anyone to wander off!) The premises have reports of full-body apparitions, footsteps, ghostly touches, and moving objects.
Goodman's stained-glass window
Jason and Sofia told us the inn’s paranormal activity occurred in the original building to the west of a neweradjoining addition, primarily in the upstairs guestrooms and hallway. We hoped to conduct our first investigation in the Linda Goodman Room. Just the night before, alas, those accommodations became occupied by a last-minute booking. We still had two rooms with recent reported activity down that hallway, so we started in the Womack Room right next to Goodman’s former quarters.

The EMF baseline registered 440-460mG, same as the adjacent hallway. We turned on a flashlight and asked spirits to create a flicker or turn it off. At that moment, the EMF jumped to 620 mG, but the flashlight remained steady.
We then asked the apparition reported to had walked through the closet door in that room to show itself or give us a sign. No takers.
We had better luck with the EchoVox Spirit Box, which spit out a continuous stream of words. On later EVP analysis, we discovered multiple words that related directly to the hotel: “Sofia” (clearly our innkeeper’s name) twice – once in a man’s voice and once in a woman’s – and then “house … forever” in a woman’s voice, and also the name “Linda.” Toward the end of the session, we heard “done” three times. At the time of the original recording, we had only heard “leave” clearly, which we took as a dismissal.
So we packed up our gear and moved into the Leland Feitz Room, where Nikola Tesla had once stayed. Our baseline EMF readings were 490-500s mG.  We also had a 50 percent battery drain in our voice recorder within minutes (ironic, since it was Tesla's room!) Not uncommon in investigations where there is a strong paranormal presence. Our camcorder shut down twice – that isunusual. Our Spirit Box was strangely quiet compared to the previous room, only giving us the words "baseball" and "help Feitz" (rhyming with "feats" instead of “fights,” so maybe not the right name – unless his name was also sometimes pronounced the other way by folks who don't/didn't know German pronunciation). We heard a few other utterances, including possible names, but we couldn't confirm or agree on what they said. Later EVP analysis revealed nothing more. Feitz Room (Tesla's former digs)We flipped on the flashlight – but it wouldn’t respond. Mark took it into the hall and tore it apart, checked the batteries, and reassembled. This time it worked but no spirits responded to our requests to dim or turn it off. Leaving the flashlight on, we returned to the Womack Room. Bam, the light turned off. Thinking we had faulty equipment, Mark stepped back into the hall again and the flashlight worked. He stepped back into the Womack Room. Dead. Back into the hall again, on. Back in the Womack Room, dead. We decided this deserved another EVP session. We asked if spirits were messing with our equipment and got an immediate “yeah.” (We had no other malfunctions using this flashlight in our subsequent investigations.) We heard nothing else definitive from the EchoVox until we returned home and analyzed the recording, where we discovered a woman’s voice saying, “flash[-something]” and later a man’s voice declaring “enough of this.”
Personally, we hadn’t had enough of this, but we seemed to have worn out our welcome for that session. When we earlier asked the closet door apparition for a sign, maybe we got one after all through the recurring electrical anomalies. ***Next week, we share highlights of our visit to another Cripple Creek location, the Hotel St. Nicholas – a former hospital and still hosting ghostly residents from that earlier era!

Don't forget you can follow along during our investigations as we live-tweet from Twitter @writeinthethick. You can check out our Facebook page for updates about dates and times.
 

#GhostHunt No. 6 for new book: the *very* haunted Hotel Norwood

All this fall and early spring, we're engaged in our latest book project -- haunted hotels in western and mountainous Colorado -- and we're using our blog to share highlights about our visits (and ghost hunts) to each location. You can click on the tab just under our blog banner called "New WIP Ghost Hunt Book" for more context and a bit of backstory about the project.

This time, we report on the *very* haunted Hotel Norwood.


But first a S/O to owner/manager Logan Tease and his very friendly and helpful staff.

The Hotel Norwood did not disappoint. Our ghost hunt team this time included “bug and ghost magnate” Egan Kelso, our oldest daughter. She’d experienced multiple paranormal experiences before, making her a good candidate for flushing out ghosts at the hotel. 
Hotel owner Logan gave us a tour of the whole facility, pointing out those rooms on the second-floor with reported paranormal activity. During that initial tour, we walked through a cold spot in the west wing’s Room Twelve – an early promising start, which made us eager to return there.
Nonetheless, we wanted to be systematic, so we started on the east wing rooms above the lobby. We took a variety of baseline EMF readings (EMF stands for Eletromagnetic Field, and ghosts are said to interfere with this natural force field to make their presence known), starting with Room One, where a handprint on the bed had occurred; and Room Six, with an account of a guest having his bedcovers pulled down on repeated nights. No meter spikes in those rooms while we were there, so we tried EVP sessions in both, but with no results. (EVP stands for Electronic Voice Phenomenon, and is an audio recording that sometimes produces spirit voices not always audible to the ear in real time.)
Next we entered the door into Room Two and hadn’t taken three steps before a coffee cup tumbled off the table and hit the wall behind it. That really caught our attention. We’d have dismissed it as vibration from a slamming door, but the nearby door remained open. Kym’s EMF meter (set for micro Teslas) jumped from 30 to 356 μT, and both Kym’s and Egan’s Spirit Boxes began squawking. Egan’s seemed to establish a train of thought, spitting out in rapid succession the words “follow,” “instinct,” “dining room,” “kitchen,” and “cook.” We took that as a cue, packed up our stuff, and headed downstairs to the dining room and kitchen.
Dining room where we felt presenceThere’s nothing scientific about the next observation, but Egan and Kym immediately felt a presence in the room. Egan said the feeling resembled the haunted feeling growing up  in our old two-story log cabin (see our earlier blog on that experience). She walked straight toward one corner next to an old bookshelf filled with antique volumes, telling us, “Stand right here.” In turn, we both did, and we each had the sensation of goose bumps and raised hair. 
When Egan’s Spirit Box blurted out “kitchen” again, Kym and Egan followed that suggestion while Mark stayed behind to do an EVP session in the corner, which produced the recording of a whispered voice saying, “Help me.” The ghost of former kitchen help, possibly the cook?
In the meantime, Kym and Egan staked out the kitchen, where Egan’s Spirit Box soon announced, “Stay.” The room and nearby parking lot were too noisy to try EVPs. Plus the kitchen was so filled with pipes and cooking equipment they decided not to bother with EMF readings because all the metal might artificially skew those measurements. 
Since we were right below Room Twelve at this point, we decided to go up a flight and focus on the cold spot we’d noticed earlier.
Found cold spot by armoireThe cold column of air was still there, in the same spot between the wardrobe armoire and bed, an easily discernible region we could all walk into and out of. No open windows or draft, and the air all around it was much warmer. And that’s when the conversation really kicked in. We asked the spirit to communicate by turning on a flashlight we placed on the floor in the cold spot. Before long, Egan’s Spirit Box chirped, “trying” and then “practicing, while Kym’s EMF meter soared from 30 to 350 μT and then back to 30 μT afterwards. 
We asked the spirit for a name and immediately got, “Leah.” The three of us starting talking about what was happening, but the Spirit Box announced “quiet.” The flashlight never turned on. But when Kym asked if we were talking to Leah, the box immediately repeated, “Leah.” Our later analysis of the EVP session in that room brought out a woman’s voice that said, “Stay,” a repeat of the Spirit Box in the kitchen directly below.And in case Egan didn’t know where she was when she stepped into the restroom next door, her Spirit Box told her, “bathroom.” This happened right after our visit with Leah.
Our final investigation focused across the stairwell in Room Nine. Within minutes, Egan’s Spirit Box said, “flashlight.” This time we turned it on and asked the presence in the room to turn it off. With no delay, the light flashed off, then began blinking, and finally diminished the 160-lumen strength to a barely visible glow. At the same time, Kym’s EMF meter shot up to an astounding 1071 μT from a baseline of 23. Egan’s phone battery drained 50 percent during this episode. Afterward, we tested the flashlight to see if it, too, had drained, but it came back on at full strength. (Later we repeatedly retested the flashlight at home, and it never blinked or dimmed.)

Rm 9, where flashlight turned off on requestEgan asked the spirit to identify itself, and she got a quick response from her Spirit Box that said, “Jack.” We asked its circumstances, and Mark’s Spirit Box said, “guess.” But we also received some clues: “bush,” “dive,” “alone.” We found no EVPs from Room Nine.
We’d had so many rooms to investigate we’d decided not to keep setting up and tearing down the camcorder. In retrospect, we wish we had – particularly during the flashlight episode.
We almost felt guilty packing up to leave later that day. The spirit in Room Nine was alone, the one in Room Twelve wanted us to stay, and the cook in the dining room had asked for help. But it was time to go.

* * *

Next week, we share highlights of our visit to  Cripple Creek’s Miracle Inn (formerly Last Dollar Inn), which may have a portal between worlds on the premises!

Don't forget you can follow along during our investigations as we live-tweet from Twitter @writeinthethick. You can check out our Facebook page for updates about dates and times.

#GhostHunt No. 5 for new book - The Twin Lakes Inn

All this fall and early spring, we're engaged in our latest book project -- haunted hotels in western and mountainous Colorado -- and we're using our blog to share highlights about our visits (and ghost hunts) to each location. For more context and a bit of back story about the project, you can click on the tab just under our blog banner called "New WIP Ghost Hunt Book."


This time, we report on The Twin Lakes Inn on the road toward Independence Pass -- already closed for the season, but that doesn't stop the permanent residents from staying on!

But first a S/O to GM-chief chef Matt Roberts, owners Marji & Doug Nash and Mark Graff, plus bartender Andy Wald. All were on hand during our time there, each making us feel welcome!

The inn has a reputation for guests hearing the invisible footfalls of heavy boots tromping up and down the upstairs hallway, and housekeeping sometimes finds the impressions of hands and fannies on freshly made beds. One previous owner of the inn saw the apparition of a cowboy standing in a doorway. And in the mid-1980s, a former guest we talked to recounted attending a séance in a second-floor room during a Halloween party, where seven people witnessed the apparitions of a man and a woman with a dress printed in pink Polka dots. The other attendees of the séance reported the same experience, right down to the pink dots. Another guest reported seeing a ghost in the upstairs corridor, and still another saw shadowy arms in one of the rooms.

Lady of the Evening "Dora"Since the inn had already closed for the season, we had the advantage of access to all the rooms. We started in “Dora’s Room." A plaque just outside in the hallway described Dora as “a Lady of the Evening,” intelligent and refined, and who’d plied her trade in that room. Attempting to speak to Dora, we had EMF (Electromagnetic Field) spikes while inviting her to communicate with us through the Spirit Box and during an EVP session. The box produced words of a fashion-conscious demeanor: “gloves” and “hat” – both suggesting important accessories during her era. Conversely, the box also said “resent,” “miss,” and “wreck.” Perhaps implying the loss of her worldly life or events we'll never know? 
Our EVP session in that room also seemed to reveal a recreated moment from the past that included what sounded like a sharp report from a gun followed by a woman shouting, “Help!” We never got a clear sense of whether our interaction involved Dora or some other resident spirit.
Across the hall, we investigated the “Twin Peaks Room,” where our audio recorder repeatedly shut off while trying to conduct an EVP session, and Mark’s Spirit Box also locked up almost as soon as we entered – puzzling, since the two devices worked fine both before and after this room. Kym’s Spirit Box managed only a few words: “listen,” “special,” “fuzzy,” and “sound.” When we later reviewed for EVPs, we did listen but heard no special sounds, and the track was just fuzzy!
Where cowboy apparition appearedThen we set up in the “Mount Elbert Room,” scene of the cowboy apparition, taking photos and running the camcorder in the doorway where the figure reportedly stood. The Spirit Box gave us “speak,” “thirteen,” and “sacrilege.” And subsequent EVP analysis produced a human voice uttering two syllables, but neither of us could make out the words.
We enjoyed our time there. The inn has a rich history of paranormal activity and deserves further investigation. And the spectacular views make it worth returning for another chance to interact with what inn manager Matt calls the “permanent residents.”

*** Next week, we share highlights of our visit to the Hotel Norwood, where we encounter our strongest physical evidence yet of ghostly interactions!  

Don't forget you can follow along during our investigations as we live-tweet from Twitter @writeinthethick. You can check out our Facebook page for updates about dates and times.

#Ghosthunt No. 4 for new book: Forest Queen Hotel in Crested Butte

This time, we report on the Forest Queen Hotel in Crested Butte, where Kym got more interaction than she bargained for!

First, a S/O to GM Dave Coleman, hotel manager Meghan Driscoll, and the whole staff -- all who made us feel welcome!

We began by interviewing the staff in the restaurant below the hotel. They had lots to say and recommended we focus our investigations on Rooms One, Four, and Six.
We had the unusual advantage of arriving on a day when the hotel was unoccupied, and the manager gave us a master key to the entire second floor of guest rooms. Then she left us to our own devices, literally.
Opening the rooms, we peered inside each and took baseline readings, which ranged from 200-460mG. In the hallway, we noted the smell of old smoke, like the aftermath of charred timbers. Later we asked one of the restaurant staff about it, and she said she and the cook had noticed the same odd odor for the first time that very morning.
From the hallway, we entered Room Six and immediately stopped in our tracks, asking each other if the room felt weird. The space raised the hair on both of our necks. We returned to Room One to organize our equipment. In the meantime, we decided to let the video camera roll inside Room Six. But before we opened our videocam case in the creepy room, we discovered one of the bed pillows now on the floor. We exchanged glances and harmonized strains of the Twilight Zone tune.
Back in Room One, we started an EVP session, followed by EMF and Spirit Box readings. The EMF meter registered 300-500mG while we worked, once spiking to 700 mG near the foot of the brass bed (and nowhere else over the rest of the brass). At the same time, the Spirit Box chattered away, including such intriguing words as “burning” (twice), “death,” and “explosive.” We experienced similar phenomena in Room Four: the Spirit Box announcing “game,” “innocence,” and “gate” (twice), but no significant EMF spikes. We’d expected more activity since this room was the reputed home of a late 1800s prostitute named Thelma, who'd thrown herself out that bedroom window.
With some trepidation, we reentered Room Six – and here we hit the Mother Lode. Both our EMF meters   went off the charts, Mark’s sounding high-pitched beeps and Kym’s emitting a siren alert and once flashing an odd orb on the meter display we’d never seen before. Most of the room revealed hotspots, particularly on and around the bed. We conducted an EVP session, asking for a sign of any spirit’s presence. At that moment, one of the table lamps flickered just once (the only flicker to take place that day). Afterwards, Kym turned on her Spirit Box, which produced the words “horse,” “rifle,” “room,” “”burning,” and “fire.”

Kym went back to Room One to retrieve the rest of our equipment and found the door shut and locked. We’d left it wide open. (To be fair, the bedroom window was open, but no breeze blew through the second floor.) In the meantime, Mark started his Spirit Box in Room Six, which seemed strangely quiet. It said only two words: “secret” and “Kym.” 
Needless to say, Kym felt a little disturbed by the direct reference. More so, since she confessed she’d felt the sensation of dragging hobble ropes or shackles around her ankles as soon as we entered the second floor: Each step would pull at the right ankle while the left one felt a pinch. The feeling persisted most of the time we remained in the hotel but stopped as soon as we left the building. Let’s get this straight – Kym has always been the “Scully” of the investigations: pragmatic, rational, skeptical. 
About that time, we both heard footsteps in the hallway and a door slam. We peered out, expecting to see the manager, but we were alone. And all the doors remained open.
We’d had enough for one day and didn’t scout out the other rooms as carefully.
Our later analyses detected no anomalies in the videos and no orbs in the photos. However, we did identify one EVP of a woman’s voice in Room Four, but neither of us could make out what the four or five syllables actually said.
One more thing to report: When we got home, Kym found a red straight-line
bruise on the inside of her left ankle, which we photographed before it faded within a couple of hours. This was exactly where she'd felt the pinches while inside the Forest Queen.

Next week, we share highlights of our visit to The Twin Lakes Inn, on the road to Independence Pass -- already closed for the season, but that doesn't stop the permanent hotel residents from staying on!
 
Don't forget you can follow along during our investigations as we live-tweet from Twitter @writeinthethick. You can check out our Facebook page for updates about dates and times.

#Ghosthunt No. 3 for new book at Fairplay Hand Hotel

The Hand Hotel looks down on the Platte River
We're still having fun ghosthunting for the new creative nonfiction book and, next stop, the historic Hand Hotel in Fairplay, Colorado.
The Hand Hotel has a fair amount of paranormal activity, with reports of full-body apparitions manifesting on the second-floor hallway (see picture later in this post), little girls appearing in the vicinity of the staircase, faces appearing on at least one guest room mirror, child-size imprints on freshly made beds, and a hand-biting ghost dog that haunts the basement.
We took our cue from a hotel scrapbook reporting on guest accounts of the Hotel's paranormal happenings -- plus receptionist Twyla’s experiences -- and decided to set up our base of operations in Room 6, which displayed a door faceplate called “Mattie Silks.” This infamous lady of the night hailed from the Front Range in the late Nineteenth Century, but with reported enterprises in Fairplay. The room’s furnishings reflected typical brothel décor with lavish red wallpaper, brass bed, and several mirrors.
Room 6We wanted that room because of Twyla’s sighting of a semi-transparent apparition standing just inside the windowpanes. Room 6 was also near one end of the hallway, which gave us a quiet place to conduct our investigation.

Kym disappeared to scout out the premises, so Mark set to work recording audio for possible EVPs (Electronic Voice Phenomena). Later analysis revealed two sequences of voices on the recording, following Mark’s requests for interaction. Both were clearly of the same woman with a lilting voice, but neither one of us could make out exactly what she said. Kym’s impression was she spoke the word “baby” in the utterance. Not an unlikely reference for a room named after a brothel madam or the life of the soiled doves who worked the brothels in that era.

In the meantime, Kym had chatted up another guest out on the balcony, a woman who’d visited the Hand Hotel on three separate occasions. She told Kym that each room she’d tried had a different personality, and she suggested we look in on the one near the head of the stairs on the second floor. 
We trotted down to the other room – unoccupied, door open – and … yes, it definitely had a different vibe. Was it due to a resident ghost or just the room’s distinct décor? Twyla  assured us the hotel ghosts wandered promiscuously (our word, not hers) from room to room, so maybe the impression was just ours. And the other guest’s.
Captured by another guestBack in our own room, the Spirit Box seemed fixated on a "table," which it repeated a number of times. There were two small tables located in the room, but we couldn't detect if one was more significant than the other. No orbs appeared on photographs, and the EMF meter didn't spike near either of the tables.The meter did, however, spike when Kym sat on the bed. Base readings in the room in general hovered near 300 mG compared to the bed, which jumped to 500+ mG intermittently during our investigation.We also set up our video camera in the room, pointing it at the infamous window and letting it run while we conducted Spirit Box and EVP sessions. But review of the footage revealed no further anomalies. To be fair, the videocam had to battle a fair amount of glare. In retrospect, we wish we'd set it up for a while in the shotgun hallway outside the door, where other guests had reported so much activity. But that day we also didn’t get much of a jump beyond the baseline EMF readings in that corridor of the hotel. That’s certainly the location of the great photo of the apparition included here.We asked to visit the basement but learned it was off-limits except to employees. That was okay with us since we preferred not to be bitten by the ghost dog (yes, that's one of the reports from another ghosthunting operation!)Loved this place, and we think we'll give it another try sometime when the ghosts want to come out and play. Next time, we'll report on the Forest Queen Hotel in Crested Butte, where Kym got more interaction than she bargained for!
Don't forget you can follow along during our investigations as we live-tweet from Twitter @writeinthethick. You can check out our Facebook page for updates about dates and times.

#Ghosthunt for new book at Fairplay Hand Hotel

The Hand Hotel looks down on the Platte River
We're still having fun ghosthunting for the new creative nonfiction book and, next stop, the historic Hand Hotel in Fairplay, Colorado.
The Hand Hotel has a fair amount of paranormal activity, with reports of full-body apparitions manifesting on the second-floor hallway (see picture later in this post), little girls appearing in the vicinity of the staircase, faces appearing on at least one guest room mirror, child-size imprints on freshly made beds, and a hand-biting ghost dog that haunts the basement.
We took our cue from a hotel scrapbook reporting on guest accounts of the Hotel's paranormal happenings -- plus receptionist Twyla’s experiences -- and decided to set up our base of operations in Room 6, which displayed a door faceplate called “Mattie Silks.” This infamous lady of the night hailed from the Front Range in the late Nineteenth Century, but with reported enterprises in Fairplay. The room’s furnishings reflected typical brothel décor with lavish red wallpaper, brass bed, and several mirrors.
Room 6We wanted that room because of Twyla’s sighting of a semi-transparent apparition standing just inside the windowpanes. Room 6 was also near one end of the hallway, which gave us a quiet place to conduct our investigation.

Kym disappeared to scout out the premises, so Mark set to work recording audio for possible EVPs (Electronic Voice Phenomena). Later analysis revealed two sequences of voices on the recording, following Mark’s requests for interaction. Both were clearly of the same woman with a lilting voice, but neither one of us could make out exactly what she said. Kym’s impression was she spoke the word “baby” in the utterance. Not an unlikely reference for a room named after a brothel madam or the life of the soiled doves who worked the brothels in that era.

In the meantime, Kym had chatted up another guest out on the balcony, a woman who’d visited the Hand Hotel on three separate occasions. She told Kym that each room she’d tried had a different personality, and she suggested we look in on the one near the head of the stairs on the second floor. 
We trotted down to the other room – unoccupied, door open – and … yes, it definitely had a different vibe. Was it due to a resident ghost or just the room’s distinct décor? Twyla  assured us the hotel ghosts wandered promiscuously (our word, not hers) from room to room, so maybe the impression was just ours. And the other guest’s.
Captured by another guestBack in our own room, the Spirit Box seemed fixated on a "table," which it repeated a number of times. There were two small tables located in the room, but we couldn't detect if one was more significant than the other. No orbs appeared on photographs, and the EMF meter didn't spike near either of the tables.The meter did, however, spike when Kym sat on the bed. Base readings in the room in general hovered near 300 mG compared to the bed, which jumped to 500+ mG intermittently during our investigation.We also set up our video camera in the room, pointing it at the infamous window and letting it run while we conducted Spirit Box and EVP sessions. But review of the footage revealed no further anomalies. To be fair, the videocam had to battle a fair amount of glare. In retrospect, we wish we'd set it up for a while in the shotgun hallway outside the door, where other guests had reported so much activity. But that day we also didn’t get much of a jump beyond the baseline EMF readings in that corridor of the hotel. That’s certainly the location of the great photo of the apparition included here.We asked to visit the basement but learned it was off-limits except to employees. That was okay with us since we preferred not to be bitten by the ghost dog (yes, that's one of the reports from another ghosthunting operation!)Loved this place, and we think we'll give it another try sometime when the ghosts want to come out and play. Next time, we'll report on the Forest Queen Hotel in Crested Butte, where Kym got more interaction than she bargained for!
Don't forget you can follow along during our investigations as we live-tweet from Twitter @writeinthethick. You can check out our Facebook page for updates about dates and times.

#GhostHunt No. 2: the historic Fairplay Hotel

The third investigation for the latest book, our paranormal "nonfiction" on haunted hotels in mountainous Colorado, took place at the Fairplay Hotel in South Park.

And a shout-out to all the gracious staff (esp. Megan, Beth, Julie, and Sara) and the willingness of hotel owner Lorna Arnold, who opened up the entire hotel to our visit.

Hotel consultant Steve Lake described the current hotel as "much improved and improving." But the place retains the look and charm of a hundred-year-old building, including the installment of the original Silverheels brothel/saloon bar from the nearby 1870s ghost town of Alma (and including original bullet holes from that rowdier era).

Local ghost "Julia"More important to us, the Fairplay Hotel retains evidence of several persistent "residents."

And most notable of these is "Julia," a soiled dove who lived and died on the premises. Some say she died violently, perhaps even by her own hand. Staff reports she still nonetheless dances in the hallways at night.

Lucky for us, the hotel let us set up in her old, ahem, haunts -- Room 205. In fact, Julia seemed to insist: the night before we arrived, the key to her room disappeared and the front desk couldn't rent the room out. Guess she was waiting for us.

In 205, we used our array of ghosthunting gizmos to see if we could establish her presence -- Spirit Box, EMF meter, an EVP session, and video camera footage.

The Spirit Box recorded multiple words that described the room as well as our various activities ("room," "bed," "shower" -- the 205 suite included that modern convenience -- as well as "videotape," while we recorded). We also got two instances of "knife" -- a reference to how she died?

Once we had a baseline EMF reading, Kym's meter spiked multiple times on the northern of the two beds and even the chair between the beds, suggesting goings-on we couldn't see. And when we afterwards analyzed our voice recordings, in which we invited her to talk to us during the EMF sessions, we found a whispered response: "I don't want to talk to you."

If only we'd known!

Julia is not the only resident ghost. Lorna showed us a stool in the bar which came from the Alma saloon. She said they placed a half-full glass of beer on the bar in front of the stool and invited the Silverheels madam who'd owned the relocated furnishings to drink up in welcome to the new digs. Then they locked the doors for the night.

Next morning, they found the glass empty and the stool turned around.

Staff report many other goings-on -- mostly playful, if sometimes disruptive to work -- as do many of the guests who stay at the hotel.

But you'll have to wait for the book to get the full report!

Oh, one more encounter: Kym *almost* saw her first ghost! Staffer Beth told us just a couple nights earlier she'd seen the apparition of an old-time cowboy just outside the bar. When we had lunch in the adjoining dining room during our visit, Kym saw a cowboy through the lace windows who seemed to disappear. No such luck: he turned out to be flesh-n-blood and took a turn toward a bar stool she couldn't see through the lace. Maybe next time.

In the next three weeks, we'll visit five other haunted establishments, reporting on each as we work our way across mountainous Colorado.

Feel free to "join us" for our on-site investigations, when we live-tweet what we encounter as we encounter (and with pics) on our Twitter page @writeinthethick.

Wish us luck!