Haunted or Hoaxed?

So...I know I promised a tutorial this week but I'm a little broke right now and feeling a little less than creative so instead, I have a a little story. 

As stated in my last post, my fiancee and I went to Arkansas this weekend to get away for a bit. While we were there, he researched and surprised me with two tickets to the Crescent hotel's ghost tour and "flickering tales" midnight folklore hour. I know, it sounds a little odd, but we love to explore and live so much more than accumulating material things. So I was ecstatic. I had never heard of the Crescent but Pate, being a HUGE fan of SciFi's Ghost Hunters of course, knew all about it (He even has a ghost detector thing like they use on the show Ghost Adventures but I won't let him use it in our apartment. We don't need any bad juju invited into our home). For those of you who have never heard of the Crescent Hotel, here is a video of the series' T.A.P.S. team doing their investigation and  link to a website explaining the history of the hotel. The videos are kind of lengthy but to REALLY be able to grasp and follow along with my experience, you need to know a little about the history.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Hotel_(Eureka_Springs,_Arkansas)

I will come back to the Crescent a little later but first, I want to give you a brief history of my own  creepy encounters....
The Dugan family (My mothers side of the family) were the first to settle in the north Texas area. The place was once known as Duganville...it then went through a couple of name changes before it ended up as Bells...what it is known as today. Until recently, I had not known the full story of my ancestors...just the tales that had been passed down through the years. It all started with my great great great great (You can probably throw a few more greats in there) aunt, Emily. She and her family settled in the unpopulated area of what is now known as Bells. What we had always been told growing up is that one day the men went out to hunt while the women and children stayed in the homestead to cook and clean. While the men were out, Emily spotted an Indian prowling around through a hole in the cabin wall. Fearful that the indian was coming to kill them, she loaded her shot gun and shot him right between the eyes. Worried that the tribe of the now deceased man might retaliate, she severed his head and tied it to the fence post to ward off any other trespassers. This story, along with the indian's skull has been passed down through my family for generations. We always joked about it (mostly because everyone was really uncomfortable with how creepy it was) and would put it in each other's beds while sleeping and scare each other with it. The house my parent's live in today was built in 1913. My grandma Katy, Grandad, and Uncle Dan lived there until they passed away and she even had her children in one of the bedrooms. Growing up, I was very close to my grandma Katy and I would stay with her nearly every day...Never the night though. No one stayed the night in that house. While it was filled with happy people and the sweet soul of my grandma Katy, there was always something a little off about it. Some kind of darkness. She always told stories of the indian and how he roamed the halls and the attic looking for his head which was kept put up in the house. She swore the skull was haunted. We would laugh and make jokes and dare each other to go into the attic and never thought much of it other than it just being a creepy house with dark carpets and furniture and a kind of stale smell to it. When my grandma Katy passed, we inherited the house..and the skull. That's where it all began. 

         Being my first experience with death, I was beside myself. I was old enough to understand it, but too young to know how to deal with it. The night after her funeral, I saw her. I remember her looking perfect. Not the frail grandma Katy I had grown up with. Someone younger, but seemingly ageless. She was glowing (I know that sounds so cliche) not like what you see on the Touched By an Angel movies...it was a different kind of glow...something that seemed to come from the inside. She told me how happy she was and that she got the letter I sent up in a balloon at her funeral (something I had worried about nonstop. I was so afraid the letter tucked in my helium-filled balloon would not make it all the way to heaven) and that everything was ok. She told me she would always be with me and that she'll see me again one day...and then she was gone. The next morning I told my mom everything and the details of the sighting were so well...detailed (for lack of a better word. I'm an art major. Not an English one) that she felt moved to write it all down. I never felt sad after that day when I thought of my grandma Katy, only happiness, and to this day, the image is still crystal clear in my mind. After we moved into the house and began the healing process, all became well again. After a couple of months we had settled in and all was going well. Grandma Katy's son, my grandfather, took the skull after she passed and tried to find a local tribe that would want it and maybe give it a proper burial, but not knowing the exact origins, there were no takers so the skull was given to us. This is when things became strange. After the skull took its place locked in the cabinet, things began to happen...things grandma Katy had warned us about. Footsteps in the attic that slowly trudged from the back of the house to the spot right over my parents bed where they laid their heads. A 911 call that was traced to the inside of our house...when no one was home and our landline had been disconnected weeks prior to the call. People knocking on the door hearing a voice telling them to come in when no one was home and the doors were locked. People hearing their names being called from other parts of the house when they were there alone. A child, only three years old at the time, who was found talking to the closet in the back room. When asked what he was doing he replied, "I'm talking to that man up in the closet. He said not to worry, he just watches. He won't hurt you". And a terrible string of sickness and bad luck that plagued our family after the skull came into our possession. After it became impossible to chalk it up to mere coincidences, my mother decided to get rid of the skull. She donated it to the Frontier Museum at Loy Lake and it is still on display today. She also decided to have the house cleansed. Things got better. The things going bump in the night fell silent and all the horrible illnesses, accidents, and other unlucky incidents melted away and seemed like nothing but a bad dream. Everyone was fine..except me. My oldest sisters moved away to college and my remaining sister and I each moved into our own rooms. I don't remember the first time I saw them. It just started happening. Every night. Three dark figures with blurred, swirly faces standing in my closet...watching me. At first, it was just in the middle of the night, in a dream-like state. I chalked it up to a recurring nightmare...an overactive imagination if you will. Then I started seeing them before I went to bed. Before I fell asleep. Just watching. The tallest and largest one in the corner, the smallest figure, only a few feet tall, and a smaller, more petite one next to it. For those of you who have never been inside an older home, the closets are a long, open strip along the length of a whole wall. They have no shelves, just a long bar for hanging clothes. I know what you're thinking...it was probably my clothes that I was seeing. I thought the same thing...so I removed them. That night, at bedtime, there they were...watching. I became so afraid of the dark that I slept with the light on...still, they watched. Darkness or light, day or night, they eventually decided to stay indefinitely. I told my parents. I was terrified to go in my room. They thought it was nothing but an overactive imagination (which is understandable because I spent the first 6 years of my life thinking I was a cat) but, being the good parents they are, they allowed me to sleep on the couch down in their room. I know, you're thinking.."they allowed you to sleep in their room..what parent wouldn't? Yeah, well..this started when I was about eleven and stayed until I was 18..its a little weird for an 18 year old to come crawl in the bed with you every night because they're afraid of the dark. I'll give you that one. Still, they let me sleep in other rooms of the house for years and for a long time I refused to go into my room at all because I knew they'd be there...watching my every move. At first, sleeping in other rooms was ok. But then I became restless. I would wake up in the middle of the night hearing my name ringing in my ear as if someone was right there next to me, with their mouth pressed against my ear. I would sleep walk and wake up in different rooms every night. Things just kept going downhill and finally, my sophomore year in high school, my mom had someone cleanse my room to give me some peace of mind. I knew it was probably all in my head, but it became so difficult to close to my eyes that I was becoming physically ill from refusing to sleep. It became so difficult for me to sleep that I was temporarily put on a sleeping aid. After the cleansing, I began to sleep in my room; however, I still didn't feel safe so I would take my sleeping pill, wait until I could barely keep my eyes open, and go back to my room and pass out. I avoided looking into my closet at all costs. I shut it out completely but even though I couldn't SEE them, I could FEEL them. Every time I walked into my room I just felt heavy. I felt like someone was laying on top of me, pressing down on my chest. I felt drained and sad and hopeless. When I left the room though, I felt ok. I felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off of my shoulders. I accepted it and moved on and just slept on the couch most of the time. My freshman year of college, I came home to visit one weekend. Some family from out of town was visiting so I got put in my room. Having been gone for several months, the fear had faded and I shut it out completely thinking it was just my mind playing tricks on me. That night I turned my tv off and rolled over. There was a man, crouching on the far side of my bed. He looked from the closet to my face and our eyes met. I could see his face as clear as day and he was just as stunned and fearful to see me as I was to see him. Being the idiot that I am, I closed my eyes and pretended like I didn't see him. Maybe he would think I was asleep and didn't see him. I finally worked up the courage to run to my parents' room and tell my father we had an intruder. He checked every closet, every room, and under every bed. Empty. He checked every door and window. Locked. There was no one in the house except for us.  I put it behind me and went back to school and everything ran smoothly...until last fall. I went into a metaphysical shop to buy some peppermint oil (which is fantastic for headaches btw..works so much better than advil. Try blue oil from Aveda if you have frequent headaches). The owner was a well-known "psychic"..whatever. I just wanted my oil. When we walked in she stared at me awhile..made me feel a little creepy...and then asked how long I had been having headaches. This was before I had said anything about looking for the oil but everyone gets headaches sooo...I wasn't impressed. I've never believed in psychics I just wanted my stupid oil. Then, she asked me how long my stomach had been bothering me...a little more personal, but it smelled like a fart in there anyways and I'm not calling any names...but Pate (my fiancee) was standing next to me. I told her the medicines I have to take for my migraines were really rough on my stomach and made it difficult to eat and then rolled my eyes so she could pick up what I was putting down...I JUST WANTED MY PEPPERMINT OIL. I guess after noticing I wasn't impressed, she felt the need to prove herself and asked "When did you start seeing into the spirit realm?" This caught my attention. Then she went on..."The people you see, are their faces blurred...kind of swirled together? Are they shadowy or do they appear to be cloaked?" OK. Creepy. But I'm not about to pay this lady to throw some stuff out there and call it "psychic vision". So I replied a simple.."yeah, something like that" and shot her a look. If she really was psychic she'd get the telepathic message I was sending saying "You're not getting a dime from me". I was kind of creeped out but still didn't think much of it until she said "..and the man you saw..was he Native American? He's with you." I'll cut my inner dialogue and turmoil and get straight to the point. This is what she told me...knowing absolutely nothing about me.
When there are strong negative feelings or something traumatic happens, that energy clings to certain things. The three people with the blurred faces...that's common for people to see. Cloaked in shadow and all emotion twisted up in the face means there was a VERY strong negative emotional connection to something in the house. She asked how I felt in their presence and I told her about the heavy feelings and anxiety and sadness. She then proceeded to tell me that these three spirits did something awful to the man I saw next to my bed. She didn't know what, but they felt so guilty that they clung to the house or something in it because they felt too troubled to move on to heaven. The man...the native american died a brutal, tragic death at the hands of these people and he lived in fear of them...inside some strange realm between living and dead. Somewhere between Earth, heaven, and hell.. having suffered such a traumatic death, he never moved on and lives in fear of these three people in my closet. She mentioned all of their souls could not move on because a piece was stuck with him. His murder and inability to move to the next life stained their souls with guilt. She said they were attached to something in the house (the skull) but picked up that I was extremely empathetic to other people and attached themselves to me, crying for help. That is why I could see them and feel them. That is why the little boy..years before my first encounter.. could see them and hear them. 
     It all made sense. They couldn't be cleansed or prayed out of the house because they weren't harmful or evil. They were my family. They were lost souls. It was ME the entire time..not my room. They sought me out and were begging for help. I asked the psychic what to do and she said to say a prayer for the man who was murdered. Find something of his...an article in an old newspaper, a piece of the skull, a story printed about his death..bury it, tell him I'm sorry for what my ancestors did to him, and tell him its ok to move on. After his spirit was free, the guilt from the others would be relieved and they could move on to their rightful place. I tried. But this happened wayyyyy back in the 1800s. There was no documentation of it. The skull had already been donated and I could not be an "indian giver"and take it back. Pun intended. But one day I saw a battered red book on my parent's book shelves in the living room. It didn't match all the other picture books for the grandkids so I pulled it out and looked at it. "A History of North Texas"...and in the index, "Bells, A New Beginning". 
This is what the article said: (in my own simple wording)
Bells was founded by the Dugan family in the early 1800s. The Dugan's, along with the Whitings and a couple of other families settled into a  small colony. Emily Dugan's brother and his son went out to hunt one morning and never came back. They found them days later lying dead and scalped. From that point on, the story matches up with the one I told you earlier..except for the fact that it mentions the indians in that area were not thought to be aggressive. However, at the same time, there were other nomadic indians moving through the area.

A large cloaked figure standing next to a small one. A child and his father. An average sized shadow next to them. Emily. A tragedy. Three murders of innocent people. 
After telling my mother about the psychic she admitted to me that she had not told me everything that happened at the cleansing. The woman, a very Godly, very spiritual woman stopped in my room. She sensed a woman who was very upset over the loss of a child. Maybe her own, maybe someone else's..but she felt a mother's loss of her precious child. She then sensed something else. Something angry. Hurt. Afraid..and she proceeded to tell it to depart from this Godly home and move on. What she didn't realize was that when she was speaking to this presence..it wasn't in English. It was an odd language with throaty tones and strange sounds thrown together...a language that sounded to my mother like that of a native american. Another family friend came over years later..another very spiritual woman..and said the house just had a good clean feeling..one of a happy family..until she got to the back of the house (where my room sits). Her description changed. 
I don't know when these things latched on to me or why. I don't know if that means they follow me everywhere I go or if they just find me when I'm at my parents house. I still wasn't sure if I believed it because it all just seems weird and hokey. There's heaven and there's hell. The end. That's what I've mostly always believed. I forgot about it all and moved on with my life and have no problems. I shut it off and I just don't stay in my room when we go to my parents' house. They're gone from my life. I don't know where they went or what happened but I shut it all out, chose not to believe it, and was freed. 

So..back to the Crescent Hotel..tired of reading yet?
We arrived and this hotel was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. It managed to keep most of its original decor and structure. As soon as we walked in it felt heavy, hard to breathe..but we were up high in the Ozarks and I'm sure the circulation in a building that old is less than up to standards. So the clock struck eight, the sun began to set, and we began our tour. First room 218, where an Irish stonemason fell to his death from the scaffold while tiling the roof of the five story museum. The Poltergeist..People have reported being pulled out of their beds in the middle of the night. Women have repeatedly reported being caressed or pinched throughout the night. We took some pictures of the door..nothing exciting.. just stories. Next, suite 3500.. the lady in white. No one seems to know her story..all that has been reported is seeing a lady, dressed in a long white gown, staring at them..sometimes even cascading down the stairs..creepy, but we didn't see anything. Room 419..the cancer patient, treated by the fraudulent Dr. Baker who injected a mixture of ground watermelon seeds, carbolic acid, brown corn silk, and alcohol..."Treatment No.5" that he claimed was proven to cure cancer. She withstood excruciating injections of this "cure" every day and died a miserable, painful death. She has remained in her room and likes it tidy. On several occasions guests have returned to this room to find their bags neatly packed and propped against the door...something no member of the staff could do without a second exit from the room ( I assure you, there is not one).
Next, the fourth floor staircase. Looking down from the fourth floor through the winding stairs allows you to see down to the very bottom floor. It made me sick and dizzy instantly. Unfortunately, when the hotel was converted into a hospital, one of the nurses' 3  year old daughter was not being watched closely enough by her sitter and fell to her death from the hole in the stair rails. People have caught pictures of the little girl but most often feel themselves being poked in the belly by what feels like a small hand. Again, we saw nothing but I think its safe to say everyone felt the sickness in the pits of their stomachs. Also, on this floor there was a steel room added at the end of the hall. People have reported hearing carts roll down the hallway in the middle of the night and only a handful of guests have reported seeing a woman in a nurses outfit rolling a gurney down the hall from the steel room...the room that held the screamers. The people who could not withstand the pain of their treatments were locked in this sound proof room and waited there until their death. Then a nurse would collect the body and wheel it down to the morgue and freezer that Dr. Baker put in the basement. This morgue was our next stop. Down a long hallway into a small dark room with an antique operating table against the far wall...Jars filled with formaldehyde lined the walls and the smell was indescribable. I instantly became sick. The guide carried an electromagnetic gauge with him throughout the tour. It beeped and spiked when we walked by walls with wires buried inside and by lights, of course..but went off throughout the tour in places that could not physically hide any kind of wire or electric current. Down in the morgue it spiked like crazy. The guide had never before experienced anything in the hotel and had worked there for nearly ten years. Upon seeing the spikes, he decided to try to have a supernatural experience of his own and turned off the lights. He asked for any spirits in the room to communicate with someone or show their presence. At first I was ok..just creeped out, but I felt like the energy detectors were just a ploy. Then I felt kind of dizzy and cold. It got worse as time went on. The guide's voice turned into an inaudible hum. The only light in the room was the energy detector blinking red..first calmly and steadily..then faster and faster. It looked so angry. I was freezing and sick to my stomach. I felt so disoriented and my ears were ringing. I was sure I was coming down with a migraine or some weird stomach bug..then the light stopped blinking completely, I felt Pate's arms wrap around me and realized that I was shaking, violently...then I blacked out. It must've only been a second or two because when my vision came back, the old lightbulb in the corner of the room was transitioning from a dull, blue light trying to warm up into a fully lit glow. The meter was still, and the guide picked it up and walked it around the room. It went off by the light...by the wall with the electric wiring...and then by me. Nowhere else in the room except right by me. He allowed me to carry it through the rest of the hotel and it continued to blink angrily. The last place we went was the balcony where a rich young woman who attended the girls' school that temporarily inhabited the hotel jumped to her death. It was later found that she was with child...an extreme taboo for the time. Her ghost has been seen cascading down the side of the building, disappearing right before she hits the ground. I didn't pay much attention because by that time I felt sick and just wanted to leave. Before we left the hotel, I needed to use the restroom. There is a restroom on the bottom floor..it was once a women's restroom but the staff became so fearful for going in there, they made the owner switch their bathroom with the men's. I couldn't find the women's bathroom and Pate insisted we go in because he hadn't seen any ghosts yet. So we went in. The lights flickered a bit. I blame it on old wiring. And Pate wanted pictures...because he was determined to be one of those people with a cool ghost story. I had my phone in my hand, so I began snapping pictures. He stood next to me and took the same ones. His pictures were empty. These are mine...

     Take a look at the small mirror behind me. A man's face, his white collar, and coat buttons.

   Stare at the first stall for a while..a woman's face, her long white dress, and her arm with her               hand folded across her belly..in front of her, a bit larger, the same man's face.

The stall on the left..a little bit beneath the top left corner of the stall..the same man. It helps if you step back and look at all the pictures.

This was an old mirror with nothing behind it. Nothing inside of it. The same man appeared in all of my pictures, just in different places..so its not just a spot on the mirror. Pate was standing next to me taking pictures and nothing showed up. Just a blur. He was watching me. 
They say you can't truly believe it until you experience it for yourself...I have always been an optimistic skeptic, I guess you could say..but now, I'm a believer. There is more out there than just us. All of it...it can't be chalked up to a million little coincidences. We are not alone. There is a spiritual world all around us. Believe what you will. You may think I'm over imaginative or a quack, but everything I have written is 100% real. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read my cooky tales and I leave you with this, a quote from a great man...

Its obvious that we don't know one millionth of one percent about anything.
-Thomas Edison
Later repeated by Albert Einstein in his own words..
 We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has to offer.
-Einstein

So you decide...haunted or hoax? These are my ghostly encounters. What are yours?

Catie *)