6. The Elevator Game
One of the weird things Elisa Lam does in her last moments caught on film was to punch buttons in the elevator. Was she randomly punching buttons or was she playing the Elevator Game?
Who knows, and who knows if it’s just an urban legend or if it works and allows the rider to travel between spiritual dimensions, but what better place to try it than the Cecil?
Zak gives it a go and is suddenly taken to the 7th floor.
He’s not the only one to suddenly have the elevator decide to head to that floor, which happens to be the floor serial killer Jack Unterweger stayed on. Speaking of…
5. The Serial Killers
Not one but two serial killers stayed at the Cecil over the years. The first was Richard Ramirez, a.k.a. the “Night Stalker.”
But it also drew a second one, Jack Unterweger, who killed at least three sex workers during his stay there. (He was there under the pretense that he was researching Richard Ramirez for a documentary or a book or something.)
Unterweger was caught in Austria and killed himself after being convicted. One of the people Michael Parry picks up on calls himself “Jack.” Michael even tells Zak that Jack has a message for him: “He got him.”
Soon after, Zak got a scratch on his neck and a mark on his eye. Was that what Jack meant? Did he do that to Zak? Is that how he got him?
4. The Deaths (Both Suicides and Murders)
One thing the Cecil Hotel has seen way more than it’s fair share of is tragedies, both suicides and murders. The most notorious and recent is the unsolved mystery of Elisa Lam, but they also shared some other very sad deaths.
The three that I found most disturbing were the lady who threw her baby out of a window, the jumper who landed on the Cecil’s marquee, and the other lady who landed on a man on the sidewalk below and ended up killing him too.
3. The Equipment
If you like seeing what type of gadgets and equipment ghost hunters use, and you’re a fan of Ghost Adventures, then you know that they have all kinds of “weapons” in their arsenal. They use a ton of different equipment for this investigation, including:
- Polterpods
- Paranormal Puck
- Spirit boxes
- A special APF Processor that Gary Galka created especially for Zak
- SLS camera
- A full spectrum cameras
- A laser scope grid
And I’m pretty sure no matter what they used, they captured activity. It seemed that way at least. Speaking of…
2. The Evidence
If you like to see what activity is caught on ghost hunting shows, you will not be disappointed by what they capture in this episode. They get a little bit of everything, such as
- Screaming
- Disembodied voices
- Spirit box responses
- Light anomalies
- A faucet turning on by itself (and not just a trickle but a full-on stream of water)
- Loud noises and bangs
- Shadows and shadow figures
- A picture of an unexplained figure lurking in a hallway
That last one really got me. Here are two screenshots I took from the episode of the figure they caught:
I have some more thoughts and observations about this. I’ll be sharing them in another post because this was super trippy.
1. Elisa Lam
The Elisa Lam mystery is chilling. My skin never fails to crawl seeing her strange behavior in the elevator in what is perhaps moments before she died.
I was a little worried about how they might handle this aspect of the hotel’s dark history because while it is sensational and the kind of story horror fans love, it’s also extremely tragic. If she didn’t put herself in that water tank, that means someone else did and her killer got away with murder.
How did Ghost Adventures do handling it?
Pretty well actually. I felt they were sensitive and respectful. They dedicated the first part of the special to her story and trying to make contact with her spirit. Perhaps they even did?
They did get some interesting Polterpod responses, even one they claim said her name. That’s not what I heard, but thanks to the power of suggestibility, yes. I can see how it sounds like that.
But as far as finding out who killed her and how she ended up in the water tank? Nope. They did not solve that mystery.
For More Info
Ghost Adventures: Cecil Hotel is streaming now on discovery+.
Check-In
Which location do you think is the scariest one the Ghost Adventures crew has investigated?
Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.
Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.
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They’ve investigated SO many places. It’s hard to choose. The Nevada Goldfield hotel sticks in my head, though. I thought it was scary how everyone’s emotions were affected during the investigation.
You are right. They have been just about everywhere! Poveglia Island was the other place that creeped me out, but was the Goldfield Hotel the very first place they ever produced a doc at? Like before they became a TV show? But it then was what launched them into one? Because if so, that place always stuck with me too.