Ghost Caught on Tape Proof of a Haunted Hotel?

Here’s a video of a ghost caught on tape in one of my most favorite places: a hotel.

It doesn’t have to be a specific hotel. (This one happens to be a Wingate in Illinois supposedly.) I just like hotels that are haunted. (It’s why I added a Haunted Hotels section to the site after all.) But that’s what I mean by favorite places. I love me some haunted hotels!

At any rate, I first heard about this ghost caught on tape video while listening to 107.5 the River, a local radio station here in Nashville. Madison said she didn’t really believe in ghosts until she saw this video. She also said she posted it on the radio station’s site for us to check out. The second I got home I looked it up.

After I watched, I clicked through to the YouTube link to see what kind of information was posted along with it.

Because I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.

It sucked me in from the start with the security guy checking out the screams from a room that’s supposed to be empty.

However, it also set off some alarms.

The first one was: how did the people who got this footage get it at all?

Then it seemed a little fishy and maybe staged. It said it had not been edited, but there’s clearly been some editing done. How else to explain how they show shots of the other security cameras before flashing back to the one pointing on the room?

Here’s what I found out about the video: It was posted by Jimmynut22 and was published on September 4, 2012 with this description:

This video was submitted to us by the hotel security manager who was standing watch on September 14, 2003 at a WINGATE HOTEL in Illinois. His voice can be heard in the background of the recording.

According to him, people staying at the hotel began calling in noise complaints to the front desk with reports of loud screaming coming from the 2nd floor–particularly room #209. There is no known history to the room according to our investigation. However, upon further review, we found that over the years, multiple complaints of “strange noises” were reported to be coming from the room. This is the only known recording of it.

Eeek! September 14? That’s my birthday!

Has no bearing on any of this. Just a weird thing to come across. Wouldn’t you make mention if it was your birthday?

I was curious to see if I could find out which hotel it happened in. Didn’t. (I was planning on listing Wingates in Illinois below, but there are 200 of them. Just know if you stay at a Wingate in Illinois and are assigned Room 209 you might get a room with a boo.)

However, I did come across an excellent article on GhostTheory about this ghost caught on tape: Video: Could This Be Real Paranormal Activity?

The post’s author, Scott, also tried to figure out which hotel it was, and even went so far as to read TripAdvisor reviews dating back to the time when this event occurred (a.k.a. my birthday in 2003) to see if he could find complaints matching those discussed in the YouTube video’s description.

Now that’s what I call research!

He didn’t quite find what he was looking for, but that’s okay. His article dissecting this video is worth the read.

Some of his assessment mirrors an excellent skeptical comment left on the video by ndgambella:

why would a hotel record their security walkies… i’ve worked many security jobs and this isn’t a job that would do that.. also, i’ve worked in hotels and they would never put the main camera like that, not that angle, the hallways yes, but not a camera randomly positioned at 1 room….. FAKE

One of the fishy things I was thinking was but wasn’t able to verbalize until I read ndgambella’s comment was, “Why was the one guy’s voice recorded but not the woman he was speaking to?”

Um, maybe because there’s a good chance the conversation was never actually recorded? (Something else that may have been edited in?)

Take a look at the video. See what you think. Pay particular attention to around :42 (right before the hall light starts to flicker).