Monday, May 4, 2009

Is the Chancellor Hotel haunted?

I get emails from people all the time asking me questions, inquiring about the hotel, telling me about their stay and all sorts of things. The following email is one of the most unusual I have ever received.

This will be probably a slightly odd email, to say the least, but it's a 100% serious one.

I stayed in room 1501 this past week for the ---- Convention. On Wednesday evening (4/29), probably at around 10:30 or so, I was getting ready for bed after listening to an audio book aloud on my iPhone speaker (like a tape recorder) for a few hours. After turning it off, and turning off my side lamp beside the bed, I was overcome by an extremely cold sensation -- very deep cold, much more than a drafty room would give you -- and became aware of the appearance at the left side of my bed by what I believe was a ghost, probably about 4 or 41/2 feet tall and visible mostly by its head form and shoulders (and maybe the arms.) It looked like a human shape, but I can't say I recall specific features like nose, mouth, etc.

I'll be honest -- I was pretty confused by what I was seeing, thinking it was a shadow on the wall that I was casting, but the nightlight position of the bathroom and wall switches for that was impossible. I waved my arm to make sure it wasn't me, and looked away and back several times to make sure I wasn't having some sort of strange hallucination, like a speck of dust in my eye or something like that. I was extraordinarily confused at first because it never occurred to me that I was seeing a ghost. It was only after I had mentally rejected all other assumptions of what could make this shadow on the wall that I realized that this "shadow" was standing only a couple feet away from me.

I am convinced that what I saw was real, and that it was drawn to me because I had turned off the audio book not long before. It was looking very clearly at me, and seemed to cocking it's head, as if to suggest, "where did the story (i.e. the audio book) go?" Once I realized what I was seeing, and once I broke through my frozen panic, I buried myself under the covers and eventually the cold sensation went away. Neither the sensation or the ghost reappeared for the remainder of my trip. Frankly, I didn't spend much time in my room after that, and never played the audio book again when I was there.


Let me get to my ultimate point... please call if you'd prefer not to reply by email, I understand if you'd rather not do that. But I am extremely serious that I believe I experienced something paranormal in 1501 on Wednesday night, and was pretty freaked out by it (I have honestly held no opinion about these sorts of thing beforehand and what happened hit me like a ton of bricks.) All I ask is if you have any information you could share with me, as to what the "story" is, or just to let me know this is not a singular incident, I'd really, really, really appreciate it. I know that probably no hotel property is all that interested in this sort of publicity, but I would really like to know what you know. I mentioned it to one of your employees on Friday morning, who was completely convinced that what I encountered actually happened, and made it sound like this wasn't an isolated occurrence. So all I ask is for info -- I have no issues with any service or amenity of The Chancellor, and am just trying to figure out what the hell happened. And I promise complete silence if that's what you want in response...

I'm just searching for something to help me make sense of what I saw.

We have had a few people over the years make comments about ghosts and strange occurrences, but this is the most serious, detailed encounter I have ever heard of at the hotel.

You decide.

3 comments:

Simba_8 said...

Gee, Wes, aren't you about 4 1/2 feet tall?

Anonymous said...

I'm the author of the letter. I realize it sounds crazy.

All I can say is anyone interested in this sort of stuff can pretty easily replicate the set of circumstances. So, any "ghost hunters" in the SF Bay area, have fun!

Anonymous said...

I don't think it sounds crazy at all! I actually just stayed at the Chancellor Hotel recently (at the end of October 2010), and I woke up in the middle of the night to a sound (I thought it was my boyfriend getting up to go the bathroom), but to my surprise, he was sound asleep and instead I saw a silouette of a tall broad shouldered man standing by my boyfriends side of the bed. I wasn't scared at the time, just confused as to what I was seeing. I couldn't see a face or much detail other than the fact that he had shoulder straps like someone in the army or navy maybe? I could just tell that it was some type of military uniform. After a longer look, I was pretty sure he was facing the window. But before I knew it, he had faded into the window. It was my first ghost sighting! And I thought my mind was playing tricks on me until I read this post! Eek! Thanks for confirming it! Now I'm really spooked! I still enjoyed my stay at the Chancellor though! It was a very clean, affordable & overall comfortable stay, in an ideal location, with friendly staff...so I wouldn't let this stop me from staying here again!