Real-Life X-Files (47 page)

This may be the explanation for a frequently reported type of apparition that is seen momentarily and then vanishes when the percipient looks away for an instant. For example, a New Mexico hotel, La Posada de Santa Fe—which is allegedly haunted by the spirit of Julie Staab (1844 - 1896), wife of the original builder—offers no fewer than three sightings of this type. One was reported in 1979 by an employee who was cleaning one night. Although the place was deserted, he looked up to see a translucent woman standing near a fireplace. Inexplicably, he “returned to his cleaning,” an act that one writer noted showed “remarkable composure.” Then, “when he looked up again the figure had vanished.” On another occasion a security guard showed less reserve when, seeing what he thought was Julie Staab, “He turned and ran, and when he looked back, the figure had vanished.” Yet again, a“beautifully dressed” Julie, reposing in an armchair, was seen by the hotel phone operator. However, “When she looked back at the chair a few seconds later, the ghost had vanished” (Mead 1995, 157-58). Such reports suggest that the apparition is only a mental image that occurs in a kind of reverie.

Indeed, personal experience as well as research data demonstrates that ghostly perceptions often derive from daydreams or other altered states of consciousness. Haraldsson (1988), for instance,specifically determined that apparitional sightings were linked to periodsof reverie. As well, Andrew MacKenzie (1982) demonstrated that a third of the hallucinatory cases he studied occurred either just before or after sleep, or while the percipient was in a relaxed state or concentrating on some activity like reading, or was performing routine work. The association of apparitional experiences with a dreamlike state was also reported by G.N.M. Terrell(1973). He observed that apparitions of people invariably appear fully clothed and are frequently accompanied by objects, just as they are in dreams, because the clothing and other objects are required by the apparitional drama. The three La Posada encounters are consistent with all of these research observations. That the apparitions vanish
when the observer’s gaze is shifted could be explained by the hypothesis that there verie is merely broken.

Whereas “waking-dream” type encounters are obviously more likely to be experienced by hotel guests rather than employees, the reverie or daydream type is often reported by the latter—as in all three of the La Posada examples, as well as some of the instances from the Queen Mary (Wlodarskiet al. 1995, 48, 49) and elsewhere. Hotel staff performing routine chores maybe particularly susceptible to this type of apparitional experience.

Selling Ghosts

The power of suggestion can help trigger ghostly encounters. According to noted psychologist and fellow ghost buster Robert A. Baker, “We tend to see and hear those things we believe in” (Baker and Nickell 1992,129). Even without the prompting that comes from an inn's reputation for being haunted, the mere
ambiance
of places with antique architecture and quaint decor can set the stage for spirits to debut. An example is Belhurst Castle (
figure 45.1
), a turreted stone inn in Geneva, New York, whose high-ceilinged lobby is graced with wood paneling, a large fire place, and a suit of armor to help conjure up romantic notions. Historic sites like Maine’s Kennebunk Inn (expanded from a home built in 1799); Gettysburg, Pennsylvania’s Farns worth House (constructed in 1810 and its south side pockmarked with bullet holes from the Battle of Gettysburg); and even themore recent Hotel Boulderado in Boulder, Colorado (which opened on New Year’sDay 1909 and boasts among its former guests Bat Masterson), offer the impress of history and legend. So does the Bardstown, Kentucky, Jailer's Inn, abed-and-breakfast converted from the old Nelson County Jail (built in 1819),and in Santa Fe, the historic, adobe La Fonda Inn.

The influence of setting and mood on reports of phantoms is some times acknowledged even by those who approach the subject with great credulity,although they may interpret the linkage differently. Broadcaster AndrewGreen, for example, in his treatise
Haunted Inns and Taverns
(1995), says of some copies of English pubs in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere: “A few have reproduced the ambiance so successfully that ghostly manifestations, such as might be associated with a genuine article, have occurred there.” Green opines that the “genial atmosphere” of such taverns attract sauthentic English ghosts. He seems not to consider the possibility that the setting merely influences the imaginations of those making the reports.

Figure 45.1. Belhurst Castle, an inn in Western New York, is the subject of hauntingtales and other legends.

In contrast is the knowing statement of ghost hunter Mason Winfield (1997, 176)—referring to the allegedly haunted Holiday Inn at Grand Island, New York—that “The environment of the Inn is not the gloomy, historic sort that puts people in mind of spooks.” As one who has spent an uneventful night in that resort hotel, indeed in its reputedly most haunted room 422,1 quite agree. But apparitions can occur anywhere. The Holiday Inn’s child ghost“ Tanya” apparently originated with an impressionable maid who wascleaning the fourth-floor room shortly after the hotel opened in 1973. The housekeeper suddenly glimpsed a little girl standing in the doorway and, startled, dropped a couple of drinking glasses. When she looked up again, the child was gone. As the maid tried to flee, it was reported, “somehow her cart trapped her in the room. She screamed” (Winfield 1997, 176).Her apparitional encounter seems consistent with the typical conditions we have already discussed: at the time, she was performing routine chores. As to the cart, most likely, flustered, she merely encountered it where she had left it, blocking her flight, and panicked.

Other sightings there—like that of a Canadian man who awoke to see a little girl at the foot of his bed (Safiuddin 1994)—were of the waking-dream variety. But why is it often a little girl (even if varyingly identified as age “five or six” or “about age 10” [Winfield 1997,176;Safiuddin 1994])? Those knowing about “Tanya” before their sighting may thus be influenced, while those who do not may, in light of sub sequent statements or leading questions from those to whom they report an incident, reinterpret a vague sense of presence or a shadowy form as the expected ghost child. To compound the problem, many of the reports are at second- or third-hand,or an even greater remove.

Researching tales like that of the Holiday Inn’s child specter can be illuminating. In that case, there is no evidence to support claims of “a little girl who was burned to death in a house that formerly stood on the site” (Hauck1996,291). The Grand Island historian was unable to document any deadly fire at that locale. The only known blaze at the site occurred in 1963, at which time the historic John Nice mansion had been transformed into a restaurant, and there was not a single fatality (Klingel 2000). My search of the near by White haven Cemetery, where the Nice family is buried, failed to turn up any credible candidate for the role of ghost girl, least of all one named “Tanya” —which, as census and cemetery records show, was not thename of any of John Nice's ten daughters (Linenfelser 2000).

A similar lack of substantiation characterizes many other haunting tales. Consider, for instance, the previously mentioned Belhurst Castle, located in New York’s scenic Finger Lakes region. Its colorful brochure an nounces: “Tales persist of the romantic past, of secret tunnels, hidden treasures buried in the walls and on the grounds, of ghosts and hauntings. Fact or Fancy? No one knows.” Actually the tales originated with the old mansion that previously stood on the site. No tunnel was ever found, and the stories apparently derive from a “small blind cellar” discovered beneath the old house when it was razed in 1888 to build the present “castle.” There was merely speculation that it might have served as a hidden vault for the securing of valuables. Prior to this, the dilapidated mansion “was a favorite playground of Geneva's adventure-seeking youth, who were enticed by its reputation of being haunted,” according to a
knowledgeable source, who adds, “However, there is no record ‘spooks’ were ever encountered there, or ghostly manifestations of any sort whatsoever” (Emmons 1959). Nevertheless, citing some other Belhurst tales, Robin Mead states in his
Haunted Hotels
(1995), “a property suchas Belhurst Castle ought to be surrounded by legends like this, for they complement the atmosphere of romance and add a touch of mystery.”

Several inns I have investigated have featured ghosts in their promotional materials. In addition to Belhurst Castle, they include the Hotel Boulderado, the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, and Gettysburg’s Historic Farnsworth House Inn. The latter advertises that it is “open for tours and ghost stories” : “Descend the staircase into the darkness of the stone cellar. Hear, by candlelight, tales of phantom spectres whom [sic] are still believed to haunt the town and its battle field.” These storybook ghosts may be the only ones to inhabit the inn. The owner told me emphatically that he had never seen a ghost—there or anywhere else. “I don't believe in that stuff,” he said. However, his daughter, who manages the inn, is not so skeptical, having “felt” a “presence” there. She related to me the experience of one guest who had seen a spectral figure after having gone to bed—very likely a common waking dream (Nickell 1995, 55).

The effect of new ownership has seemingly launched many hotel hauntings. Stories of ghostly events on the
Queen Mary
did not surface until after the ship became a tourist attraction in 1967 (Wlodarskiet al. 1995,13). At many other hotels, alleged paranormal events have seemedto wax and wane with changes in management. At the Holiday Inn on Grand Is land, for example, the ghost tales—beginning soon after the initial opening —were happily related by one manager. He told a ghost hunter (Myers1986,291), “Our housekeepers have stories about Tanya that could fill a book.” But a successor was “concerned with trying to improve there putation of his hotel and dispel the rumors surrounding it,” refusing “to acknowledge any paranormal happenings” (Gibson 1999).

Ghost tales may indeed be good for business. Explained an owner of one restaurant with bar, which “had a reputation for having ghosts” (Myers 1986, 228), “It was good conversation for the kind of business we’re in. I never tried to dissuade anyone.” Other proprietors may go even further. An alleged ghost at the Kennebunk Inn in Kennebunk, Maine, may have originated with the purchase of the inn by one of its earlier owners. He reportedly told a bartender one night that he was “going
to make up a story about a ghost,” presumably to promote the inn. Years later the former bartender related the story to the current owner, who in turn told me (Martin 1999). A hoax could well explain the “ghostly activity” at the Kennebunk Inn, which included “moving and flying crystal goblets, exploding wineglasses behind the bar, disarrayed silverware, and moving chairs” (Hauck 1996,198). In fact, prior to the particular change of ownership that seemed to spark the poltergeist effects, apparently “all was quiet” at the historic inn(Sit 1991). Apparently the ghost moved away when, after about fifteen years, the business was sold again. Still later owners John and Kristen Martinre opened the inn in mid-1997 and along with a tenant who had lived there for twenty years, reported no experiences (Martin 1999).

Hoaxes do occur. For example, I caught one pranking “ghost” flagrante delicto. In 1999,1 accompanied a teacher and ten high school students from Denver's Colorado Academy on an overnight stay in a “haunted” hotel. Located in the Rocky Mountains, in the old mining town of Fair play (where an art teacher conducts “ghost tours” ), the Hand Hotel was built in 1931 (
figure 45.2
). In the early evening, as we gathered in the lobby beneath mounted elk heads and bearskins, the lights of the chandelier flickered mysteriously. But the teacher and I both spied the surreptitious action of the desk clerk, whose sheepish smile acknowledged that one brief hotel mystery had been solved.

Other signs of pranking there included a “ghost” photo (displayed in a lobby album), which the clerk confided to me was staged, and some pennies placed on the back of a men's room toilet, which from time to time would secretly become rearranged to form messages—like the word “WHY?” that I encountered. This obvious running prank invited other mischief makers (like one student) to join in.

Enter “Psychis”

Ghostly presences are hyped at many inns when “psychics” visit the premises. One session at the Farnsworth House was part of a television production for Halloween, an indication of how much credibility should be afforded it. Brook dale Lodge, near Santa Cruz, California (which I investigated for a Discovery Channel documentary that aired May 24,1998), once invited Sylvia Browne. A regular on the
Montel Williams
TV show, the self-claimed clairvoyant and medium envisioned a ghost girl who she named “Sara” (Gerbracht 1998), helping to bring the total number of entities thus far “detected” at Brookdale to forty-nine—and counting (Hauck 1996, 38). Such psychics typically offer unsubstantiated, even unverifiable claims, or information that is already known. This may be gleaned in advance from research sources or obtained by the “psychic” from persons who have such knowledge through the technique of “cold reading” (an artful method of fishing for information employed by shrewd fortune-tellers). Alternatively, the psychic may make numerous pronouncements, trusting that others will count the apparent hits and ignore, or interpret appropriately, the misses.