JENN McKINLAY: I was going to write a post about the world's scariest places in keeping with the Halloween vibe, but then I went to Las Vegas, which to my mind was not known for being haunted. But I was wrong!
A large group of us journeyed to Lost Wages, er, I mean Las Vegas to support our friends the Gin Blossoms, who were playing the Freemont Street Experience and celebrate some life moments among our group. All good fun.
Except two of our party ended up in a haunted room. Yes, haunted. While one person was sleeping and the other was reading, a dresser drawer opened all by itself! Our friend didn't panic, thinking these things happen, buildings settle and all that. But while she was in the shower, and her partner was still sleeping, the hot water tap in the sink turned on - again - all by itself!
Being mature grown-ups, we naturally determined that the room was haunted and the speculation about who was haunting it, what would happen next and whatnot, ran rampant within the group.
This reminded me of another time when the Hub and I checked into a hotel in Jerome, Arizona. We went out to dinner and came back and to get ready for his gig. While we were changing, the door to the closet opened by itself and a stack of blankets were hurled out of it as if they had been thrown. We exchanged a look and without saying a word, grabbed our stuff and checked out.
Do I believe in ghosts? Maybe. I'm still not sure. But there was definitely something otherly about our room in Jerome and our friends' room in Vegas.
How about you, Reds and Readers? Do you believe in ghosts? Have you ever felt an otherly presence?
Scary, scary . . . .
ReplyDeleteAnd, yes, I definitely believe in ghosts. Have I felt an otherworldly presence? I cannot say that I have or, perhaps, more properly speaking, I cannot say that I remember feeling one. [You may recall my recounting of the story of the little girl ghost coming to play with the babies in the family when they were alone in their cribs . . . and of the grown-up ghost, Pearl, who lived in our house] . . . .
I do remember...*shiver*
DeleteI've never seen a ghost or felt a presence, but I believe they exist, and a friend of mine did have a ghostly experience. Here's what she told me: She had moved into a new (to her) apartment in an old Victorian that had been divided into rental units. For decor, she went around to second-hand shops, and at one, she found an old wall mirror, which she hung in the hallway entrance - a space with no windows onto the street. That night she was awakened by lights coming down the hall. Thinking she might have left a light on, she got up to investigate. The light was coming from the mirror. A closer look showed her a scene replaying over and over like a film loop: a woman in an old-fashioned dress, fluttering a lace fan, and other people in the background - all light and shadow, no color. So the next day she took the mirror back to the shop, and said she didn't want it. The man who sold it to her said, "Yeah, the people before you brought it back, too. They said there were things in it."
ReplyDeleteNow that's a ghost story!!
DeleteWhere is that mirror now? It would be perfect for a Halloween haunted house!
DeleteCreeeeepy.
Oh, wow! That's the beginning of spooky story if ever I heard one. Love it.
DeleteI tried to write a story about it, but it didn't work. But I've never forgotten it. To my knowledge, nothing like that ever happened to her again. So all the haunting must have been in the mirror. It does give me shivers a little, because we like to buy old things at second-hand stores.
DeleteKaren, this was in San Francisco, early 70s.
DeleteI'm generally a skeptic, but that doesn't mean I don't believe. I've experienced "presences" although nothing malicious. More like a sense of a loved one who has passed on watching over me. Or checking in to let me know they're all right. And like Paula, I've seen and felt pets after they passed.
ReplyDeleteSame for me except for that one weird experience.
DeleteSpooky hotel in Jerome, AZ. I am laughing.
ReplyDeleteYes, I believe in ghosts. No, I have never had an encounter. There are certainly places where I have felt a presence with no explanation. But when I hear stories like Joan's, I am certain that other beings exist.
Happy Birthday, JUDY! Have a wonderful day and dinner tonight!!!
DeleteP.S. Hope your FB access has been restored.
Judy, is it your birthday on Halloween?? happy birthday!
DeleteThanks Grace ❤️!
DeleteThanks, Roberta! ❤️
Happy Halloween birthday, Judy! Hope you have a wonderful, not scary, day!
DeleteHappy birthday, Judy!
DeleteHappy Birthday, Judy! I wish we could all join your party! Have an amazing day!
DeleteThanks, Karen! Happy Halloween 🎃 !
DeleteThank you, Edith! Have some yummy wine for me today!
Thanks, Jenn! Happy Halloween! 🎃 🎃 🎃
Happy Birthday, Judy!
DeleteDiana
Will toast you and your birthday tonight while sipping wine to stay unfrozen!
DeleteThanks, Diana, thanks, Pat. I will be toasting, too!!
DeleteJENN: Those weird happenings you experienced in Las Vegas & Jerome would have freaked me out!
ReplyDeleteYes, I do believe in ghosts. My weird hotel vibe happened while I was staying at the historic Fort Garry hotel in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Normally, I have no trouble sleeping in a new hotel/city but I was tossing & turning my first night there. Also my (dust) allergies were driving me crazy. So for the first time ever, I checked out early & switched hotels. I found out later on that several guests had creepy/scary encounters while staying there. And no, I was not staying in room 202 but still...
https://www.hauntedrooms.com/canada/haunted-places/haunted-hotels/fort-garry-hotel-winnipeg
I had a fun time (NOT!) explaining that switcheroo when submitting my travel expense claim with Environment Canada's finance division!
Thanks, Grace. Sweet of you to remember! 🎃
DeleteYes to the Facebook connection. I haven't found any reason to close that account after that one morning when it wouldn't let me comment on anything because it said that I'd reached my limit, and I hadn't been on Facebook for at least 12 hours. No fraud showed up. So, I may never know why that happened.
I do look forward to dinner out tonight but if we do get trick or treaters, I'll share my Hershey Bars;>)
Grace, as for switching hotels, some places use cleaning products that trigger my allergies. It is a good reason to switch hotels.
DeleteHmmm, I also react to many fragrances so maybe it was a combination of dust & cleaning products used at the Fort Garry that made my allergies go haywire!
DeleteFragrances in cleaning products seem to be more of a problem than perfume which has natural fragrance rather than chemical. Those plug in things give me a headache.
DeleteI can only imagine the challenge in explaining!
DeleteHappy Birthday, Judy!
DeleteDebRo
Ugh, governmental expense forms can be a pain at the best of times. I remember a ride home from the airport after a long day, and the driver was talking on his phone and I was convinced I wasn’t making it home alive. I was so happy when it was over I leapt out without getting a receipt. So I had to write a memo explaining all this to try to get reimbursed.
DeleteHappy birthday, Judy!!
DeleteThank you, DebRo, thanks Debs!! Happy Halloween 🎃 !!
DeleteOMG, the ghost cat got on the RV? that is so lucky!!
ReplyDeleteI am generally a skeptic, but leave room open to be proved. I think my dorm room was haunted in my sophomore year of college. We called him George.
ReplyDeleteDid I read that right, you have friends in the Gin Blossoms? As in "Mrs. Rita"? They got me through many nights at the newspaper when I was in college!
The Hub has known them all since he was 19 and they were all playing out in bars in Tempe and he's currently in a side hustle band with Scotty called Honeygirl. They're a great bunch of guys. Mrs. Rita is a fave tune for sure.
DeleteJenn, that’s wild! I did think I saw a ghost once. I was at a writers colony in a tiny VT village and I swore I woke up to see a young man with straight blonde hair at the foot of my bed. It happened two nights in a row. I learned a young man had died there, so after night two, I changed rooms. Spookiest experience of my life because I couldn’t move. I was literally frozen in fear. But years later I read there’s a sleep stage where if you drift half in and out of sleep, you have the sensation of being paralyzed, so I assume that’s what happened. Or… did it???
ReplyDeleteJust the thought of sleep paralysis FREAKS ME OUT.
DeleteI think, but might be wrong, that sleep paralysis is when you’re having a bad dream and you’re trying to scream and no sound comes out. (My husband is able to yell when he has a bad dream. Very fun when I’m sound asleep next to him…) — Pat S
DeleteI don't think I've ever had any ghostly experiences, but maybe it's a case of not yet, that is. Any time something even slightly odd happens to my sister she blames her daughter that died several years ago. now that her husband has also died I'm sure he'll get a share of the blame. One of the odd things that happened was that all of the smoke alarms in the house went off at once and then stopped a minute later. There had been no smoke or anything else to set them off. The oddest part was that, according to my sister, even the alarms that had been disconnected and batteries removed, but were still on the wall, sounded an alarm also. While that made a pretty good story I'm not sure I really believe that part. of course if it had happened to me I would believe it, no doubt!
ReplyDeleteI once had a baby monitor start playing the sound of the mobile that was over the Hooligan 2's crib. Only probably - the monitor in his room had been unplugged because i was moving the furniture...hmmm. Never figured that one out.
DeleteCue Twilight Zone music...nah nah nah nah...etc.
DeleteI have ghostly encounters from time to time: The Myrtles Plantation in St Francisville LA, a baby in a NOLA Air B&B (got a great short story out of that encounter), my Irish ancestor dropping by to check on me the night we returned from Ireland.
ReplyDeleteOh, I love the ancestor visit.
DeleteI think there might have been a ghost cat at my previous home--an old cottage. Sometimes when in bed, it felt as if a light weight jumped on the bed and settled next to my feet. Not scary, just startled me the first time it happened. But my older sister had a scary experience--she and her husband had built a new house in a small development on what had once been a cornfield--so no previous dwelling. The master bedroom had a walk-through closet between the bedroom and the bath. Something kept walking into the bed from the direction of the bath/closet, bumping into the bed. This happened several nights in a row. She finally told it to go away, that she was trying to sleep and it should move on to wherever it needed to go. And that was the last time it happened.
ReplyDeleteOh, that would trip me out!
DeleteSince the only ghostly encounter I've had also happened in a hotel (Thermopolis, Wyoming), it makes me wonder about dying by violence, and how hotels and motels seem to attract that kind of activity. Away from home, maybe having a tryst, maybe targeted by a stranger, maybe being on the losing end of some kind of dispute. All those ends could cause one's spirit to stay stuck in one spot.
ReplyDeleteThe cat, though. That shoots holes in my theory, doesn't it?
Cats are inherently otherly though, don't you think?
DeleteMaybe. Since I'm deathly allergic to cats I have not been around them much.
DeleteAlthough... they always seem to KNOW I can't be around them, and they are drawn to me as if magnetic. Which is why I say cats are asshats. LOL
Karen in Ohio, your comment reminded me of something I had forgotten. I did not mention this in my comment earlier.
DeleteRegarding spirits, I think that it is possible that I felt the spirits of the fallen warriors at Culloden when we were travelling in Scotland. Our tour bus meandered through the Culloden region and I suddenly started crying, I had no idea why I was crying. We were there on the exact date of the Battle of Culloden, though we were there 250 years after the Battle.
Diana
I felt that at Culloden, too, Diana. I think it's a "thin" place.
DeleteOh, wow. I kept seeing my first cat in the house after he passed. I have always felt that cats can move between dimensions so it's not surprising.
ReplyDeleteIsn't JEROME a ghost town?? I remember visiting it when I was at summer camp. Defunct mine of some sort. Happy Birthday Judy! I prefer not to believe in ghosts now that I live alone in an old and creaky house ... it moos in a high wind.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Hallie. Happy Halloween 🎃!!
DeleteI hear ya on the old creaky houses , Hallie - the only places I've lived in my forty-plus years in New England.
DeleteYes, it is. We were still unprepared. LOL.
DeleteDefinite believer. I've seen several. The first was the ghost of my first cat, Mr. Jinx. I loved that he came to visit. The second was a woman sitting in the living room of the first house I owned. She wanted to know where I put the piano. I discovered later she was the builder's wife and the room I used for a dining room, she had used for a music room. The third was the builder of the house I currently live in. Cheyenne was a wonderful guy. During his lifetime, he would show up whenever I made chocolate chip cookies. To the point that when my dad wanted to meet him, simply baked cookies. He came when they were cooling. Never failed. We returned to the house after a nine year absence. One night I got up and went to the kitchen. Cheyenne was standing at the kitchen table. He smiled, and disappeared.
ReplyDeleteThat gave me goosebumps, Kait!
DeleteWow, Kait! That is so cool!
DeleteMy hair just stood on end.
DeleteWHAT??? Ahaunted hotel? ANd you are not at the computer
ReplyDeleteRight? Obviously I need to use this.
DeleteOkay, seriously, I did NOT hit enter, let alone twice, and I am totally serious: those comments above posted themselves. TRULY. I was about to suggest that you write about the haunted hotel, but in light of recent events, see above, "Nemmine," as Pogo used to say.
ReplyDeleteHank, it's possible your computer (or phone?) is haunted. LOL
DeleteLOL.
DeleteOh, forgot to comment! I'm open to ghosts but have never experienced a haunting - that I know of. While I think spirits can be benevolent, I know it would seriously freak me out.
ReplyDeleteEven friendly presences freak me out. I'm with you.
DeleteInteresting topic today. I am laughing at myself because I woke up wondering what today's topic would be, given that today is Halloween. Maybe a topic about Halloween costumes? Then I saw this topic was about ghostly experiences. A friend and I had a conversation about watching the movie Casper the Friendly Ghost and I thought it was perfect for Halloween.
ReplyDeleteJenn, though I have seen holograms at a museum in Vienna, Austria, I do not think I have seen a "ghost" except at Disneyland's Haunted Mansion. However, I have felt an otherly presence. Sometimes I feel a tap on my shoulder and there is no one in the room. While writing my novel, there is a time when I feel like that character from Sophie Kinsella's Twenties Girl because I feel the presence of my grandmother who was one of the Bright Young Things.
QUESTION for all of the Jungle Red Writers and writers here:
While writing your novel, do you ever feel the presence of a character from your novel in the room with you?
Great topic today!
Diana
Oh, that's a brilliant question, Diana! I can honestly say yes. Especially when the character and I are at odds - when they refuse to do what the outline dictates, I think, wait, how real are you???
DeleteTotally.
DeleteI've been to haunted places but the spirits went on break when I showed up. My scary experience was when I was recuperating in my sister's bedroom in my parents' house after transplant surgery. I woke up, paralyzed with fear, to see a tall dark shadow standing at the foot of my bed. Next day I asked my sister if her bedroom was haunted. She told me one of the medications I'd been given could cause hallucinations. I quit taking that one.
ReplyDeleteGin Blossoms? Oh Jealousy!
DeleteLOL - I'll follow you down!
DeleteI'm still not sure I believe in ghosts, but I believe in the power of stories about them - last night I thought I'd read a chapter or two of THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by Shirley Jackson (btw, if your only experience is one of the movies/TV shows, do yourself a favor and read the vastly superior novel.) I was going to do a 'little reading.' Finally shut off the light at 1:30 AM!! Then in the wee hours I heard a weird tapping, groaning noise and was certain my house was haunted. Turns out it was just one of my dogs, throwing up. :-D
ReplyDeleteThat made me snort laugh, Julia! — Pat S
DeleteSo much better than the shows. Shirley Jackson was next level in the scary stories.
DeleteNo hauntings here, but I think there must be something that happens in energy or between dimensions. There are ghost stories in every culture back to the beginning of memory.
ReplyDeleteThere has to be a portal - I think cats are the only ones who can slip in and out.
DeleteOHH. And again, Jenn, you'd better use this.
DeleteI’m not sure if I believe in ghosts. But my grandfather, who was a practical, no-nonsense kind of person, said that when he was a child, there was “something” other-worldly going on in the apartment where he grew up. They would occasionally hear a voice coming from nowhere, calling “Teresa! Teresa!” Teresa was my great-grandmother’s name. She would just yell “shut up and get out of here!”’ There was something else, which happened only once, witnessed by my grandfather and his two brothers, that I can’t even begin to describe. My mom said he didn’t like to talk about it. I think there are things that we can’t explain that are happening, but I don’t know if they can be explained as ghostly activities. There’s a lot we don’t understand!
ReplyDeleteDebRo
I love the stores where people tell the spirits to go away and they do! Next time I'm in a weird place, I'm trying that!
DeleteOne morning at 4:30, my husband and I both woke up because we’d heard a weird noise. We both grabbed bats and went searching for the intruder. Thankfully we don’t keep guns in the house because we both arrived at the same junction where two hallways met at the same time and almost hit each other with the bats. I remember telling him that I had found the source of the noise and it was coming from our spare bedroom. We threw open the door and there was no one in there. I then declared that the room was haunted (using 4:30 a.m. logic!). We went back to bed and woke up to find there had been a big earthquake in LA (the Sylmar earthquake of 1994) at 4:30 a.m.! Not coincidentally, we had a gate to the backyard right outside our bedroom wall. That’s what woke us - the gate swinging with the tremors. My husband has never let me live down my ghost announcement!
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I do believe there could be ghosts, though I don’t know that I have ever experienced anything like you all have described. Unless dreams count. I dream about my late parents frequently and had a dream with our dog who had died hours before. — Pat S
The Hub is convinced that his grandparents visit him in his dreams and after my brother passed, I learned it's true. I've had several visits from my brother and they are so lovely. In the last one, he told me quite clearly that he was always with me. Always.
DeleteI have had one creepy encounter and a few benevolent ones. Years ago we went to an open house at an older Tudor house in my hometown that my dad had always admired. It desperately needed renovation but could have been very grand. The main floor was fine but the upstairs gave my sister and I some unsettling vibes. Then we went down the back stairs… very, very, very bad juju. We couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Even our very pragmatic mom felt it.
ReplyDeleteA year after she passed, my Gran-Gran checked up on us. Mom and I both sensed her and smelled her very distinctive Youth Dew/cigarettes/Aqua Net scent. I think she did it when Dad wasn’t home so as not to upset him.
Since our beloved Maine Coon Tubby passed a year and a half ago I have heard her meow several times and thought I saw her out of the corner of my eye. Not surprising that she wouldn’t leave us since she was the most loving cat ever.
That was me. Forgot to fix my name.
DeleteI swear cats are other - that's why they're always a familiar for witches. My cats have disappeared as in no where to be found and then I turn around and they're sitting right there blinking at me.
DeleteI would have checked out too! I do believe in ghosts. I've had a few things happen that just aren't easy to explain. aprilbluetx at yahoo dot com
ReplyDeleteFound out the Otesaga Hotel in Cooperstown, NY was on season 6 of Ghost Hunters after we were already there for a conference. It was the off season so the conference people were the only ones staying there and our meals were part of the package. There was no one in the room across the hall from us, yet there kept being a room service tray outside the door and at least once the door was left cracked open. There was no evidence of the room being occupied. It was creepy. My husband sort of pooh-poohed it, until he had a lengthy conversation with a long time employee of the hotel who really wouldn’t give too many details because he didn’t want to make the ghosts mad. He had definitely seen things.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.syfy.com/ghost-hunters/season-6/blogs/episode-recap-haunted-hotel?amp
I am totally watching that!!!
DeleteThere are some ghosts I'd love to see, although I haven't yet. I have felt my son's presence. I've smelled certain smells in our house before, like a cigar. But, the one appearance I could have really done without was when I was still living at home with my parents, in my late teens. A demon appeared at the end of my bed. You can say I was dreaming or hallucinating or whatever, but I know what I saw and heard. I got up and went to sleep with my mother. It never happened again, but I'm told the story here several times about my husband, my two children, and I sleeping in my parents' empty house on the floor of the living room after they had both passed. There was something bad going on in that house, some struggle that seemed to be for me, with thoughts of my father trying to protect me. My husband felt the bad vibes, too, and we scooped everybody up and went to a hotel in the middle of the night to sleep. One of my sisters also said she had a bad feeling in the basement, and the basement is where the bad vibes I felt were coming from. Oh, did I mention that when we first moved into the house, I had the weird thought come to me that I was never going to leave the house. And, on a better, lighter note, I did see a guardian angel who saved me from being run over by a car. She was dressed like and looked like a matronly nurse in what I now recognize as a 30s or 40s nurse outfit with a cape. I wouldn't have known anything about that when I was 3 or 4.
ReplyDeleteWow! Houses with bad juju freak me out. But I love the guardian angel sighting - I think I ned to start looking for them. I tend to skew scary and I could use some benevolence in my life.
DeleteDon't believe in ghosts. Do believe in Angels and God's messengers. Have had the experience from that during an accident driving in a severe snow ❄ ice storm from Wisconsin to Illinois. Wee hrs of the morning road's Hwy rds not plowed but 1 lane vs 3 lanes. A huge median island between East and West. I was doing fine when suddenly a huge truck Zoomed by me😮 but there was No 2nd lane plowed he was pushing me off into the median with his 80 mph wash😮.. But.. Suddenly because the sun was not up at 4 am under us was inches and inches of solid Ice. I began spinning. Suddenly I had head lights coming at me? Confused in the spray and snow flying I was totally disoriented. Grasping the situation I turned my wheel towards the median. It also was a huge drop down from our street level, way way down.
ReplyDeleteI went crashing and holding onto the steering wheel driving to stay in this island vs going into traffic on the other side which I was becoming more level with🙄 It was Very deep with snow, duh, who plows inside Island medians near the state borders by big curves. No idea how long it took to stop if I was crashed, Should be totaled. Husband was out of town. I was afraid to get out of my vehicle.
Oh I had gotten run down walking my dog's, My jaw was wired teeth had to be put back with metal inserts up into my nose.. I was going back to my for surgery. A few hrs from new home.🙄 So..
SUDDENLY Out of nowhere a lovely man comes in a long green cashmere coat gorgeous leather loafers asking if I need help😂😅 I am in the middle of a snow bank in the middle of an island. I said I don't have any idea what to do and explain. Everything I just wrote. The Next hour he somehow got me Out if the Snow, Out of being stuck, turned around back Up the direction I needed to be?? And on my way. When I got up onto the road I got out to thank him -but nothing he wad nowhere, no sight. By the way he Never got dirty, never got wet, snow never stuck... I noticed it then but was too frazzled over my multitude of issues, appt to get to, is my vehicle destroyed. By the way- not a scratch🤔 after hurling down crashing etc?? All in after thought did I grasp that this was a Guardian Angel .
That guardian angel was definitely watching over you! What a blessing.
Delete