Paranormal Irony: Investigation Edition

Around a month ago I took a short weekend vacation to Estes Park, Colorado and stayed in the historic Stanley Hotel. For those unfamiliar, the Stanley Hotel is the inspiration for the Overlook in Stephen King's classis horror novel, The Shining. It is also home to hundreds of tales of hauntings and attracted the esteemed scientific powerhouse, The Ghosthunters show on FX, who declared the Stanley to be the most haunted location in America. I ponied up extra cash to stay in a "guaranteed haunted room", and was assigned room 418. No joke. Here are some photos of my midnight whiskey-fueled ghost hunt. Spoiler alert: no ghosts.

This is a shot of the hallway outside of my room. The fourth floor is the "haunted" floor, with the exception of room 217. The first night I didn't sleep a wink, and only heard the occasional emo teenage girls doing makeshift seances in the hallway. I shit you not. It's not surprising that I didn't sleep well, since I NEVER do, and since the hotel has no air conditioning to preserve the "historical" and conveniently cheap nature of the property. This night I noticed something on the floor, which you can see at the bottom right...

HOLY SHIT! Wait.. Sorry folks. False alarm. Just some emo art depicting bloody mary. Close one, though. Let's continue the tour.

This is the door to "haunted" room number 428. The floor was creaking so badly that I am pretty sure we scared the ghosts away, so nothing happened. Moving on...

This is the door for room 401, where staff will tell you they don't even rent the room anymore, and the maid service refuses to enter. This is the room where one of the Ghosthunters castmembers reported a glass being broken in the night, and the closet door was caught on camera opening and closing multiple times. Sounds like non-bullshit to me.

Heading to room 217, the most famous haunted room from The Shining. Seems convenient that the most haunted room also just happens to be the room from the book where Danny gets molested by the decaying, nude old woman.

On the way to 217 you pass the grand staircase. It is gorgeous and in the day gives you a wonderful view of the mountainside. At night it is just kind of creepy with mildly disturbing portraiture.

An example of the totally not-creepy portraits in the grand staircase.

When I finally made it to the famed room 217- past midnight, mind you, I was delighted to see that the people that rented the room decided to watch tv with the lights off and the door open! They probably got sick of assholes like me creeping up to the door and trying to peer through the peep hole. So I snapped a flash photo that surely lit up their room and disturbed their peaceful night and, I won't lie here, ran away like a teenage shoplifter.

So there you have it. A pretty thorough paranormal investigation that was just like the rest of them, completely fruitless. I plan on staying at the Stanley again soon, just because I feel like maybe I missed something. Like a good night's sleep.

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