The Grand Midway Hotel is appropriately named: it’s midway between Here and the Twilight Zone. Step inside – and time and space change. Spend the night – one creepy adventure.
You don’t go to the Grand Midway for a vacation. In fact, you’ll probably need one after you’ve been there. Check your hair color in the mirror on the way out – it may be white.
It was a hot June day when I first visited the hotel. I’d been to the website, gotten photos and correspondence from Blair, learned more about it from Adam Blai. Considering its age and the years of neglect before Blair acquired it, the hotel is in reasonable shape. The ghosts like it!
The three levels plus basement have numerous “hot spots.” Blair lets his guests take their own tour around to pick up impressions, and also pick the bedroom of choice if they are staying overnight.
One room with a heavy feel has a canopy bed and a dusty stuffed coyote on a dresser. Everyone’s decor. I didn’t want to stay there. The back staircase felt active. Guests have seen the black figure of a malevolent male ghost on the staircase. In the front hall is the ghost of a young woman who died on a balcony one July Fourth nearly a century ago when fireworks tore out her throat. She hemorrhaged to death. Something lurks in the basement – is a body buried there?
The room that rivets everyone is The Monkey Room on the second floor.
It’s not just because of the dead, stuffed monkey with a gaping mouth, arranged in a kiddie easy chair in the center of the room. The Monkey Room has a thick air of foreboding. Blair confirmed that this is one of the most active spots in the hotel. Human bones of unknown origin were once found interred behind a wall. An unpleasant entity lingers there. You don’t sleep in the Monkey Room – if you’re sane, that is. I picked the bedroom next to it.
Well, that choice didn’t last!
Adam arrived and as darkness set in we all set up EVP and took photos. Using one of Adam’s Panasonic RR-QR80 digital recorders, we got some chilling EVP in the Monkey Room. In fact, the Monkey Room atmosphere got so unpleasant as the night wore on that I decided maybe I really didn’t want to sleep in the room next door. I moved down the hall – and once we ended our surveillance, I went to sleep, sort of – at least I was not disturbed.
The next day, Malevolent Man gave us chase around the back of the hotel, flitting from room to room. The occupant of the Monkey Room went into hiding – no more EVP, at least for this trip.
Am I going back? Absolutely.
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Notes on Weekend -by Blair Murphy
Rosemary just left. For someone who was just speaking to fifteen million listeners on Coast to Coast with George Noory not three nights ago on the radio it was a trip to have her here in our little town for a private investigation. We ate at the little Valley Dairy diner at the end of Rock and Roll Blvd. Classic cars lined the street. Adam Blai was here too, as well as Rosemary’s partner, Will Fellows. I took them to the local Becky’s Grave. We stopped at the Flight 93 crash site. We drove to the far off Martha’s grave (Martha who was killed by fireworks). We all went to Lucky 13 for late night pitchers of cold beer, landing in the middle of a Pennsylvania dancing wedding party of real character.
And we also combed through the hotel. Without us telling them anything Rosemary and Will zeroed-in on certain rooms, “What’s this back staircase?” “Something’s here!” “This back room definitely.” Here, there, someone in here, nothing in there. Then they compared notes of impressions.
We went for a night of EVPs, electronic voice phenomena (Adam suggests using the rare Panasonic RR-QR 80). The day in the hotel was heavy with energy and intuition. Evening came and things seemed to settle out. Adam said, “Don’t worry, just you wait.” Night came and the hotel energy turned like a massive mile-high worm. We ended up in the dark in the Monkey Room. With infrared video and digital sound we asked over and over for someone to show themself. And in the silence of that room Rosemary eventually recorded a growl, and a woman’s voice that sounded in distress, as if in response to us, crying out what sounded like, “I can’t help it if you can’t see me!”
Let me say that again. We recorded a woman’s voice in a pitch black silent room in the hotel, crying out, “I can’t help if you can’t see me!”
Add skin-crawl chills here. More was recorded. Adam is cleaning up the EVP now. I will post this section of the actual recording in the Virtual Tour (Monkey Room, #11) for anyone who feels like listening to it. Give us a few days to get it posted.
And that’s just the beginning. Rosemary plans to return to the hotel for further research as a larger story is growing out of all this. At least she was impressed, so I’m happy as a host. Rosemary said she plans to write an article about it for FATE Magazine. She also plans to include the Grand Midway Hotel in her next edition of The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits. Cool beans. More to follow…
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Great Fun… Mon Jun 19, 2006 -By Adam Blai
This was a really nice time at the hotel: lots of good conversation, fun, and some of the most palpable ghost manifestations I have ever felt, including lots of EVP evidence: whispering voices , growls , talking and yelling . I’m going through the data this week as I think there are many other quieter words and noises that were not present in the room during recording.
Oh yeah, Blair had an encounter with something in the wall that was talking to him when he was alone in the Monkey-Room(tm).
Blair was a great host as always, Rosemary and Will were great people. I’m looking forward to our next research session!
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Leah Hanson writes:
i’m SO GLAD i had no idea about any of this when i slept in that room…
it freaks me out just to think about it!!
i knew it was a young woman who was killed in there. you’ve gotta find out her name! we need to honor her in some way.
Adam Blai replies:
We’ll try… Rosemary is coming back and we are going to try and learn more…the echoes of the hotel ghosts will be heard around the world for generations to come now…on this site and probably in Rosemary’s encyclopedias and other works. It will be another private investigation, so sorry to those that may want to come and observe.
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THE CRYING-OUT E.V.P. GHOST -by Blair
Famed paranormal investigator Rosemary Ellen Guiley (The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits) came to visit. She stayed the night and conducted an exploration on the hotel. Aware of the activity in the Monkey Room, she, Adam Blai, myself and another investigator, attempted an E.V.P. session for about two hours in the dark in the Monkey Room.
E.V.P. stands for Electric Voice Phenomena. It is becomming a very common practice. In Katherine Ramsland’s fabulously fun book Ghost, Rick Fisher, founder of the International Ghost Hunters Society and E.V.P. pioneer, explained to her of the digital recorders and their process, “Think of the possibilities… We can actually pick up spirit voices on these things. It’s amazing. If we can improve this technology , we’ll be able to communicate with loved ones, solve unsolved murders, and find out what it’s like over there. I have this feeling they are around me, just waiting for me.”
So back in the Monkey Room during our E.V.P. attempt here in the hotel that night, Rosemary and Adam kept asking, “Are you there? Is someone there? Please tell any of us if there is someone here? Please speak if there is anyone here…”
This went on for a good dark two hours.
Later in the evening we played back the recordings to listen if anything had been captured. Sure enough, a very clear recording surfaced. It was chilling. Among all this hiss and fade basic sounds of the room, there were three parts to an unusal recording captured.
A.
The first was a deep growl, animalistic and male.
B.
The second was a woman crying out, “I can’t help if you can’t see me!”
C.
The third was the woman crying out something different that was undecipherable. It almost sounded like she was ordering someone to do something or to stop doing something. Whatever this recording was that was captured, I believe it wasn’t faked because I was in the room with Rosemary and Adam the entire time and the equipment never left my sight.
At one point they requested I remain alone in the Monkey Room back area for about twenty minutes. I have to admit, though I’ve lived here for a few years and experienced many unusual moments within the building, this gap of time felt particularly otherworldy. I’m sure my imagination was racing. But the energy of the room in that back corner alone in the dark was chilling as well. I sure felt like someone was in there with me.
This “crying out” EVP recording was inspected several times. We placed it up on the web page for a while so everyone could here it for themselves. Woman say the cry makes their skin crawl. Adam particularly was concerned with the growl part. A local band made a copy of the EVP and incorporated it into one of their songs.
