'Hotel Paranormal' Episode 1: Demonic forces and sinister ghosts in spine-chilling tales from haunted hotel rooms
"Many believe the world strikes a perfect balance between darkness and light," husky and mellifluous voice of the narrator, Dan Aykroyd, leads us into the season premiere of Travel Channel's new show, 'Hotel Paranormal'. He continues, "But if that's true, it means that for every angel, there's a demon, and for every protective spirit, there's a predator."
The new series centers on real-life testimonials from patrons who in their lifetime, experienced some inexplicable and supernatural phenomena whilst they found lodging in a hotel room. Every episode of the series is a dramatized sequence of the true story coupled with expert opinions from paranormal investigators, with the 'Ghostbuster' alum's voice guiding us into the narrative. The first episode centers on paranormal experiences of Frank Ramirez, Aaron Tapley and Patricia Stark.
Frank Ramirez
Ramirez, a salesman, frequents hotels as his job requires him to be on the move. In 2017, he found lodging for the night in a rugged-looking hotel on the outskirts of a Texan city. The hotel has welcomed thousands of travelers for 50 years since it has been in service. Checking in at the lobby, he received the key for Room 38. He was really tired and wanted to go to sleep but as he was getting ready for bed, strange occurrences in the room had him unnerved.
The room phone repeatedly popped off its cradle on its own, even after he put it back in its place. He realized something was very wrong and felt a chill crawl down his spine. After convincing himself that he was alone in his room, he had been lounging on his bed when he noticed out of his periphery, a plastic cup levitating in the air. He instantly grabbed his cellphone and turned the camera on to start recording. A spooked Ramirez finally approached the front desk and had his room changed, while the receptionist reassured him that the hotel would keep that room closed until it was blessed.
Ramirez's sleep that night was very disturbed and he checked out of the hotel hours before dawn broke. Packing up his stuff, he started his drive back home. But throughout his journey, he was scared that whatever was in the hotel room had followed him and would constantly peer at behind him. So he took a picture of the backseat. The next morning, he took a second look at the picture he had clicked and noticed that there indeed was something behind him.
Ramirez suddenly began displaying aggressive behavior and directed it towards his family, which was atypical of him. He had been possessed by a malicious spirit. A psychic medium he had contacted to discuss the photo called to talk to him and claimed to hear a voice speaking over him. He burst into a coughing fit and felt his throat being squeezed by an intangible force.
The psychic medium urged him to go to approach a priest, and a family member took him to church. He felt a heavy pressure in the pit of his stomach when he was in the place of worship, and remembered coughing incessantly while screaming and yelling. After he was exorcised, he had no recollection of what had happened to him. Later, a stranger who saw the video that he had posted on Facebook, contacted him to tell him that her 22-year-old daughter, who matched the same physical attributes of the entity as in Ramirez's picture, was killed in that hotel room.
Aaron Tapley
In 2014, Aaron Tapley visited Rome, a city that has existed for over 3000 years, while on a school trip. His group found lodging in a century-old hotel in one of the city's ancient quarters that has been run by the same family for three generations. Tapley and a male friend shared a single room, while three other girls shared an adjacent one. The two teenagers were only getting ready to turn in for the night after an exhausting day exploring the historical city when he heard his girlfriends in the other room screaming in fright. They immediately ran towards the screams, finding the girls cowering behind the door, as they pointed to the bed and claimed something was on it.
A trip that was supposed to be a fun and relaxing time with his friends turned into a horrific experience when he found chunks of long dark hair scattered under the sheets of the bed and eyelashes spread on the pillow. The only credible explanation that Tapley had was that it was a prank being pulled by the staff. Then he noticed that the closet door had a small drawing of an eye etched on it.
Paranormal investigator, Linda Zimmermann described it as "a kind of a gateway, something to prevent this evil or demonic force from getting to the world of the living." There was something going on, and Tapley wanted to get to the bottom of it. Tapley and his friend erased the drawing hoping it would help the girls sleep at night but that proved to be more dangerous than he thought.
He finally managed to pry the closet open and a "frigid gust of wind" suddenly washed over him, filling him with a sense of dread and anxiety. They were physically pushed backward and Tapley realized something was indeed locked inside the closet. They quickly scrambled out, sought out their chaperone and led him back to the room, to show him what they'd seen. But when they returned, the room looked untouched, as if nothing had ever happened there and Tapley couldn't fathom it.
Things only became more strange in the early hours of the next morning, when he woke up and saw his friend sitting up in bed. Despite Tapley calling out to him, the friend remained unresponsive but sat upright looking in his direction. He turned away for a few seconds only to find that his friend had suddenly vanished, and then heard sounds of scratching coming from the vents above him. His friend returned later, telling him he'd been talking to his family using the Wifi connection in the lobby.
Patricia Stark
Patricia Stark, a veteran broadcast journalist had lost her way in the backroads of rural Connecticut in 2014. By the time she finally found her hotel, she realized it was a grand infrastructure based in an isolated location. She was the only checked-in guest in the entire building. Stark had been catching up on some work on her laptop when suddenly, she felt her quilt being pulled away from her followed by a compression on the space next to her as if someone sat down on her bed.
She knew she wasn't imagining it, but a thorough check of the room told her everything was at it had been. She knew it wasn't another person that was in the bedroom with her. She managed to drift off to sleep but woke up in the middle of the night feeling like something was trying to wrap itself around her. She was fighting against the force that was holding her down. Stark described it as the feeling of being assaulted, and there was no one around to hear her screams.
Michael J. Worden, a paranormal investigator and author, explained that the transitory aspect of a hotel definitely plays into the reason why they tend to be much more haunted. In comparison, a house that is haunted has been inhabited by residents for decades which means it is the same people. Our defenses towards the paranormal are lowered when we're tired, he added. Being tired opens you up to experiences that you might have not normally been open to. The spirit in Ramirez's hotel room was clearly strong enough to manipulate the physical environment around him.
'Hotel Paranormal' will air on Saturdays at 10/9c on Travel Channel.