'Portals to Hell' Season 2: Thomas House Hotel is a hotbed of shadowy hauntings and satanic rituals
Jack Osbourne and Katrina Weidman visited the Thomas House Hotel in Red Boiling Springs, Tennessee, which is believed to be haunted by people who had once graced the hotel with their physical presence. The current owners of the property have reported an increase in the slew of activities and in the latest episode of 'Portals to Hell', our favorite paranormal investigators get to the bottom of the hauntings.
In the mid-1800s, people flooded the area in a quaint little town of Tennessee where they believed that the water bubbling out of its mineral springs had medicinal properties. Word spread like wildfire around the country and the town had suddenly turned into a bustling tourist attraction. In order to accommodate the growing population of visitors, some local families invested in the hospitality sector to build hotels, of which only three remain to this day and one of them is the Thomas House Hotel.
History
The Thomas House Hotel, formerly an inn that went by the name Cloyd Hotel, was built in 1894 by Henry J Cloyd. This was when Red Boiling Springs began to flourish, courtesy of the boom of tourists who visited the town for its therapeutic mineral springs.
However, many people died after consuming the spring water they believed had healing properties. Turns out, the water was polluted by crude oil. The population drastically dropped from 1,400 to 800.
Since being established, the inn passed through several owners. One of them was a wrestler and he even kept a live bear on the property as a source of entertainment for the guests. Before Cherry and Darrell took over, the hotel was last owned and operated by a cult that was known to contact the afterlife. Parts of the property, including its archives, caught fire once in 1924 and then again in the 1990s and caused major damage to the building.
The haunting tales surrounding the hotel have become a tourist magnet and hundreds of people flock to the property every year, especially during Halloween, to experience otherworldly spooks. Since then, several paranormal investigators have come and gone through the doors of the hotel claiming that it is indeed haunted.
The Thomas House Hotel was nominated and listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 as the Cloyd Hotel.
The hauntings
The dining room, Cherry says has recently become a hotspot for paranormal activity. They have heard laughter, disembodied voices, seen fogs and even heard the piano played aloud in the room although it hasn't been plugged in. The activities have turned dark, with guests complaining about being scratched or their hair being pulled.
The hallway is one of the darker rooms in the establishment and Cherry claims people have seen shadow figures, heard voices and seen glowing orbs.
The ghosts
The hauntings in the hotel are not tied to one specific spirit. Darrell alleges that one of the ghosts haunting the property is that of R V Weston, a guest who fell off a horse in a nearby stream. He also claimed that the spirit of a little boy named Edwin, who drowned in the swimming pool, roams the hotel.
Sarah Cloyd is said to be another ghost haunting the hotel. She was a member of the Cloyd family who had come to Red Boiling Springs for its healing waters to treat what may have been appendicitis, but it was too late.
Investigation and the findings
Osbourne brought in an EDI meter, a new all-in-one equipment that detects temperature, has an EMF sensor and a geophone. Osbourne set motion sensor cameras up in his room and went to bed, but complained of a restless night plagued by 'trippy' dreams. However, he mentioned feeling an otherworldly presence in the room.
Witnesses who were interviewed claimed to have had several experiences on the property, but believe that the Pentecostal church across the road possesses a negative energy too. They have found candles and chalk in the church on many occasions, which signals that rituals may have been performed there. Cherry relayed that a preacher had hung himself in the church.
They called in Michelle Belanger, a psychic medium, for help. She was blindfolded and taken inside the church and with a sweep, she confirmed that while it was a Pentecostal church, there may not have been snake-handling but worshippers spoke in the tongue and were taken over by the spirit. She also said that the church was established with the best of intentions, but along the way it went in the wrong direction.
She affirmed that young people had been to the church intentionally to perform satanic rituals and that the church and the hotel were definitely connected because there is an interaction between the two. Belanger suggested that they hold a séance, starting with the Thomas House Hotel and then move to the church.
Belanger did a psychic sweep of the dark hallway that Cherry mentioned was where people would often encounter a shadowy figure, which the psychic affirmed is an elemental force (a spirit that has no human figurine and merely observes things).
She believes that the years of investigating and people flocking in for a haunting experience have irritated the spirit which may be why the energy has turned dark and negative in the past couple of years. She also warned them that the spirit may also become violent like a wild erratic animal. She drew a name for the elemental from her sweep — 'Rohepeshal.' The crew looked up the term and traced it back to an Estonian word, 'rahapesu', which translated to money-laundering.
Osbourne and Weidman held a séance in the dining room and they both instantly received responses in the form of activity. They heard thumps coming from the kitchen, saw a blue orb of sorts flash for mere seconds and Osbourne claimed to have seen a shadow pass one of the pillars in the dining area. They moved up to the dark hallway to try gauge responses and the camera that was set up to overlook the space suddenly flickered on and off. However, they didn't encounter an activity and it was eerily quiet afterward.
They decided to go back to the church equipped with EVPs, the Geoport and a laser grid to capture any movement. Osbourne complained about the temperature getting colder as Weidman attempted to communicate with the spirits through the Geoport. The response she got accurately coincided with Balenger's 'Rohepeshal' claim but followed with deathly silence after.
Things, however, got weird when a whole pack of coyotes began howling from the outside, possibly reacting to something they had seen. When Osbourne and Weidman spoke to Cherry and Darrell again, the latter revealed that he had heard from locals about a priest in the church who was caught stealing money and he may have been the same one that hung himself.
Weidman concluded that the elemental is in fact tied to the land surrounding the property and the church, and frequently moves in between the two plots.