Tag Archives: arkansas ghost tours

Every October here in Eureka Springs, a historic village of 2,000 in the Arkansas Ozarks, the 1886 Crescent Hotel and Spa becomes the epicenter of heightened paranormal activity. Even though encounters with hotel “guests who check out but never leave” are experienced the year-round in this mountaintop spa resort, experiences not easily explained in this Historic Hotel of America seem to increase exponentially during the weeks just prior to Halloween.

Empirical experiences disclosed to the hotel’s nightly ghost tour guides might tend to legitimize The Crescent’s claim of being “America’s Most Haunted Hotel”. Here are six of those recently reported experiences in the guide’s own words:

o “Of late, some people on my ghost tours are getting touched, poked, and pinched. Nothing harsh, mind you, just gentle touches and nudges. One of the most extraordinary recent happenings took place when one tour was being seated in the morgue (a leftover from when the hotel was purchased and utilized as an alleged cancer-curing hospital by a charlatan named Norman Baker in the late 1930s). We heard a loud squeaking sound and the large, heavy, sliding door behind the seating area moved several inches ‘on its own’ on the rusty track from which it was suspended. We all practically jumped out of our skins! We all wondered which ghost in the morgue did that!”

o “A three-year-old girl who came on the tour with her family started saying, ‘Bye-bye, baby. Bye-bye, baby’ and waving goodbye in one certain direction as we exited the morgue. No one could see to whom she was speaking. She had been silent the entire tour until that point and then she kept looking directly at one ‘empty’ point in the room saying ‘Bye-bye, baby.’ over and over again. Her father, the one carrying her, was impressed since he already believed in ghosts.”

o “Apparently some girls in the morgue during one of my recent tours asked the EMF meter (electromagnetic field reader used by many as a ‘ghost meter’) if Michael (an Irish stonemason who fell to his death during hotel construction) was listening. The meter responded in the affirmative. Their next question involved whether Michael preferred brunettes, blondes, or gingers. At the mention of ginger hair, the EMF reader went crazy-fast. So, in the minds of those witnesses, it is official that Michael, said to be a well-known ladies’ man even in his ghostly state, likes redheads the best!”

o “My sister-in-law stayed at The Crescent about a year ago and the Jacuzzi and tub water kept turning itself on and off even after getting out of the tub. It happened about three times, coincidentally each and every time she would post ‘This better not happen again on her Facebook page. The timing of it was almost comical. She called the bellman and asked him about it and he said it doesn’t usually happen in her room but has happened in several other rooms. She joked that The Crescent must be an ‘equal ghost room visitation opportunity’ hotel since you never know where things will happen when a spirit’s energy starts moving around.”

o “Recently, I got a rather unexpected reaction from a couple on my tour. It was during my explanation of Norman Baker’s suite, the one he used while operating his hospital. I mentioned that he had two giant St. Bernard dogs for protection. The lady next to me snapped her head in my direction with wide and startled eyes. She then looked at her husband pointedly as if in silent communication. I smiled and stopped and asked if she had a question. She said that they stayed in that room the night before and that they kept hearing scratching noises in the stairwell outside the door all night. They kept telling themselves that it was nothing, nothing. But, when she heard about those huge dogs she said that she was afraid to stay in their same room again that evening. I assured her that nothing bad has ever happened to any of our hotel guests, only that they sometimes hear or see odd things.”

o “ “One night, right after our tours had ended, a young woman who had been on one of my tours came running out of the bathroom telling me, ‘I just went in the bathroom and as soon as the door shut behind me I proclaimed out loud that I didn’t believe any of this! And immediately after I had said that water started pouring out of the ceiling! I couldn’t get out of there fast enough!’ I investigated to find the sprinkler head and the floor were both wet but had no flowing water. Maintenance could not explain how or why it happened. Needless to say, she had turned from cynic to ghost believer in the space of just a few short moments.”

“October is a wonderful and crazy month for The Crescent,” said Bill Ott, the hotel’s director of communications. “People love the dual reason for a visit at this time: awesome fall color and a chance to have a close encounter with one or more of our previous guests who have ‘crossed over’.”

“Interest around the world in our paranormality seems to grow during October. Numerous international and national radio and television stations call or come by the hotel for an October interview. For that same reason, many of the nationally-released television network programs like ‘Ghost Hunters’ seem to replay their Crescent episodes more often during the tenth month of the year,” Ott concluded.

This may be why the thousands of guests who step inside the 129-year-old five-story limestone structure during the 30 days leading up to Halloween will inevitably inquire at check-in, “Is the Crescent really haunted?” Desk clerks reply with, “Please let us know when you check out.”

For more information on the paranormal aspect of the 1886 Crescent Hotel and Spa, go to americasmosthauntedhotel.com.

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Unexplained Happenings At America’s Most Haunted Hotel

October 22, 2015

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When Marty and Elise Roenigk purchased the Crescent Hotel in 1997, they inherited a confused association with the paranormal and what seemed to be a hundred years worth of ghost stories. At that time, years before the TAPS Team of the popular SyFy Network’s Ghost Hunters program paid a visit to this Historic Hotel of America, many hotel owners might have hesitated to publicize the fact that their establishment was haunted, but the Roegniks were interested and decided to take a different approach.

That path was to restore the hotel as a destination spa resort but also pursue what many had claimed: the 1886 Crescent Hotel was America’s Most Haunted Hotel. A key part of that early pursuit included Mr. Roenigk pursuing and hiring two certified mediums, Ken Fugate and Carroll Heath, both of San Francisco CA natives, to “read” the building. Their findings, plus the startling number of repeated sightings that had been recorded over the decades, became the basis of what has become the nightly Crescent Hotel Ghost Tour. It is only now, however, that one of the most compelling discoveries from that initial reading has become ever so clear.

Jack Moyer, hotel general manager for the Roenigk Era, recounted, “I clearly remember Carroll Heath stating that he had discovered a portal to ‘the other side’ for those who are on the same ‘frequency’.” Moyer, a skeptic at the time, laughed and continued, “I remember asking myself ‘what were we thinking’ trying to explore this unexplained world. But after more than a decade of working around the paranormal, I now assuredly recognize how many people truly connect to the spirits here at the Crescent. And there is a new and specific reason why.”

Moyer’s reason is the fact that after 18 years he has been confronted with the realm of a chilling coincidence that caused the original portal discovery to resurface. It started with dialogue involving Moyer and current hotel ghost tour manager Keith Scales.

“Keith came to me to share a concern about a phenomenon that had been reoccurring on his nightly tours,” Moyer explained. “That phenomenon included multiple guests who had grown faint, with a few passing out briefly, at the same tour stop with no reasonable explanation. Then Scales described the location and it was the area that had been indentified as a portal more than a decade ago by Heath.”

“Scales then took me to the place and pinpointed the portal phenomenon as happening just outside the hotel’s ‘annex’ entrance, exactly where Heath had identified the location of his portal years ago,” Moyer disclosed.

This phenomenon has guests suddenly turning pale, falling against and then sliding down the wall in a faint. Although the loss of consciousness does not last very long and complete recovery is immediate, it tends to further substantiate the hotel’s legendary supernatural connection to the paranormal.

Moyer went on to say, “What made that moment most chilling was when Keith and I realized that this portal was directly above the ‘morgue’ located in the bottom level of the hotel.”

Now in its seventeenth year, the ghost tour of the 1886 Crescent Hotel continues to increase in popularity. Paranormal evidence in the form of personal experiences, orb sightings and other anomalous photography keeps coming in, oftentimes on the tours themselves lending credence to the ghostly legend.

“That legend continues to grow as yet another phenomenon is recognized, one that occurs with uncanny frequency about every couple of weeks or so,” Scales added. “What makes it legendary is that seems to rise up in a vertical plane from the notorious Norman Baker’s morgue.” (It should be noted that Norman Baker from Muscatine IA purchased the hotel in 1937 and operated it as a “cancer curing” hospital until late 1939 when he was arrested for mail fraud.)

Scales was quick to point out the Crescent Hotel is super-cautious about accepting events as supernatural. He stated that 95 percent of reported paranormal phenomena can be explained by normal means but there is always a residue, maybe five percent of experiences, that defy explanation, “We don’t know why some people have a tendency to faint at this particular place, we only know that they do at the place where activity of various kinds has been reported over decades. ”

Both Moyer and Scales agree that the most curious fact is that this event has never been known to occur anywhere else on the tour except at this one, specific location, a location that sits directly above the infamous morgue.

“Whether there are portals to other realities here at the 1886 Crescent Hotel or not, no one can say, confirm, nor deny,” Moyer concluded. “It’s all part of the mysterious, unexplained happenings of America’s Most Haunted Hotel.”

Other paranormal encounters and photographed images may be found at AmericasMostHauntedHotel.com.

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Spirits of the Basin

August 5, 2015

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America’s Most Haunted tour guides have begun investigation of the Basin Park Hotel in downtown Eureka Springs with a launch of the Spirits of the Basin Tour. Our tour guides run daily investigations of the long rumored spirits within this 1905 landmark hotel that has already uncovered evidence of the paranormal.

Video of Energy (orbs) in Basin Speakeasy Cave:

Testimonials:

“Guests in room 309 reported they awoke at 4am to see a 6 foot tall man wearing boots, spurs, and a duster standing at the foot of their bed.”

“I stopped by my room to put some powder in my shoes. I distinctly remembered the powder being the last thing I packed before leaving my home. However, the powder was nowhere to be found. I left the room to go shopping downtown. I purchased a simple silver ring and placed it on the nightstand along with my watch, glasses and loose change, then went to sleep. The next morning the ring was nowhere to be found. After searching everywhere around the bed and shifting through the luggage items I gave up. I raised my arms up into the air and said aloud, “When you finish playing with the ring, please return it to me.” Two weeks later, while sweeping my home, the ring appeared in the path of the floor that I was sweeping.”

“Last winter I was doing room checks on the second floor, no guests were around. I had checked the north hall and turned the corner into the hall, towards the front of the hotel, when I heard a door slam behind me down the north hall. I checked the hall again but there wasn’t any unlocked doors nor anyone there. I proceeded to the South hall, as I started walking down the hall I heard what sounded like someone jiggling a door knob. This is the only time I have ever been unnerved in the Basin.”

It is important to know that while the America’s most haunted tour guides continue to investigate the Basin Park Hotel, the spirits tour covers more than just the ghostly experiences. The tour captures all of the history and colorful characters who stayed, worked and died at the 1905 historic property. Tours are Tuesday–Sunday throughout the year (tours will only be offered Th-Sun from 8/16-9/6)– inviting guest to explore the legendary Basin Park Hotel, from the Crow’s Nest to the underground cave, and experience the spirits – living, dead and 92 proof .