U.S. Hotel

Other than viewing some prior clips of anomalies filmed at the U.S. hotel, Kelly nor I had any details of where the actual activity took place here. This is especially important for Kelly, as she wants no preconceived notions of "where" or "when things happen. Our investigation was well-coordinated, and began with Kelly staying separate from another intuitive., AMG's Al Brindza, whom she has been working with on better understanding his "gift", and most importantly, protecting himself from the very real hazards such individuals face in this sort of research. Kelly was led throughout the 2 upstairs floors, which are currently unoccupied, but indeed where most of the paranormal activity in the building takes place. She was filmed in IR as this was being done, and still photos were randomly taken. This step comprised her normal "walk-through" - where she moves throughout a structure suspected of being haunted and gives her psychic impression of what is "there" - be it the more common residual energies or an actual "intelligent" spirit entity. At the U.S. Hotel, both of these were clearly present.

I will only touch briefly on Kelly's intuitive observations; these, and how they compared with both what Al Brindza has encountered in many prior visits and what the AMG has learned about the place are documented in articles written by Al and Jon McClintock. I can only say that again, Kelly certainly correlated a lot of things already known, and furthered the understanding of those who have remained here after their physical life ended. As for my personal mission, which is to record documentation of what my wife finds in a haunted location, this was met not only by capturing substantial activity on the IR camcorder, but in witnessing some of the strangest equipment malfunctions I have ever seen in 6 years as an active ghosthunter.

After her walk-through, while Kelly and Al were comparing experiences in the 2nd floor parlor set up as a "Control Room", Jon took me to a stairway leading to the 3rd floor where he explained they invariably filmed orb activity. At the same time, he mentioned that an adjacent bedroom across the hallway was also very active. I decided to locate my motion detector in this room, turning it toward the bed where Al has seen an apparition. This is where the first strange malfunction took place: I placed it on a dresser and turned the device on, and when walking away passed through the area covered by the sensor. Naturally, this set it off, but quite un-naturally, it continued to sound it's alarm even after I was out of the sensor's scope of coverage!

For some reason, we chose to ignore this, and turned our attention to the stairs. I began filming in IR while Jon stood on the stairs about 4 feet from me, and almost immediately captured several bright orbs passing by him, following a trajectory suggesting they had come down the stairs. Amazingly, one of these could be seen leaving the right side of the frame and heading for the adjacent room, but it suddenly did a 180 and started back up the steps, as if the annoying beeping of the motion detector had driven it off! Truly spectacular video evidence, which regrettably, was ultimately negated by strange malfunction number 2: My viewfinder suddenly went blank - as if I had turned the camera off! No warning, nothing - it simply shut down! Drained batteries are nothing new to me or many ghosthunters; indeed only weeks before I had experienced once again the a-too familiar drain of an almost fully charged battery at Gettysburg's mysterious Triangular Field, and area known for disrupting all sorts of cameras. I was ready to install another battery when I once again turned the camera off/on, and voila-full power! My joy was short-lived however, when rewinding to view the great action I had filmed revealed that, even though the "REC" icon was clearly displayed in the viewfinder, over 3 minutes of footage had simply not recorded!

Fortunatley, my camera worked flawlessly in the same location a bit later when Kelly took a seat on the stairs, and similar activity was filmed around her. During this, thermal readings showed a 12 deg drop as I "walked" the beam down a sequence of 4-5 stairs above her. Others present at the time also confirmed feeling the drop in temperature; the fact this a was short-lived event and not constant rules out a rational explanation such as a draft. Stangely, activity subsided once Al joined Kelly on the stairs, and all felt it was time to move on. this is where yet another strange event took place: Ben Mazur went into the room where the motion detector was still blaring it's annoying warning, and when reaching for it to retrieve it, the device turned off by itself! (I checked it late that evening in another part and it functioned in it's normal manner).

Although I have a long standing interest in the paranormal, I am basically still a skeptic. That is why I focus on gathering whatever :evidence" possible to support what my wife is saying about the place. She has worked with me on my sensitivities, but I cannot imagine ever approaching her ability to know when a spirit is present. However, when bizarre malfunctions such as I experienced this night occur, it only furthur proves to me that something is indeed there!