Return to The Crescent

Location: Crescent Hotel; Eureka Springs, Arkansas

Date: November 3-4, 2006

       

When September rolled around, so did my dad’s birthday. With no idea what to buy him, my mom and I came up with a new plan. Let’s go ghost hunting at the Crescent again.

Knowing he would enjoy that trip more than anything, I called and made arrangements for the four-day weekend we had in early November. Theodora’s room was already taken, so I picked the North Penthouse Suite, a.k.a Dr. Baker’s Suite, for our first night and Room 210 for the other.

Unfortunately Mitch couldn’t come on the trip with us, so we went in search of a replacement. We found a willing candidate in my cousin, Christine. Originally we thought she might get too scared, but she proved to be a very useful addition to the team.

Dr. Baker’s Suite was supposedly the most active room in the entire hotel and in some cases there had even been reports of violence from his spirit. Other people claimed to hear children and dogs playing in the room; so with such mixed reports in mind we were hoping to get some interesting activity in there.

The room itself was awe-inspiring. It was two levels, with a living room and kitchen/bathroom area on the bottom floor. Upstairs was the bedroom. Everything had a dark wood finish and windows lined one wall; it had a very masculine feel to it.

I began snapping pictures as soon as we got settled, and right away I found a couple of orbs. While I’m still not 100% sure what to make of those, they are something to think about. That afternoon, before dinner and our ghost tour, we decided to pull out the divining rods and voice recorder. The rods showed quite a lot of energy in the room, and Christine and I decided to head upstairs with them.

I laid down on the bed and had the rods held level over my chest. They quickly crossed and then proceeded to do more. While Christine held the DVR and watched, the rods in my hands began to spin in complete circles. I could feel them turning in my hands, and had to move my head back after getting hit with them once.

Christine was scared at first because she’d never seen anything like that, and she began to ask questions. I said that maybe Dr. Baker was with us and we began asking questions like “Are you here Dr. Baker?” to see if we could get a response. While the rods continued their strange dance, Christine wanted to know who was causing it and said, “Who was that?” At the time we thought there was no response, but we were wrong.

Eventually my mom came upstairs to see what was going on, and she too was amused by the rods strange behavior over the bed. When I decided to play back the audio we had recorded during this time, we all agreed that after Christine asked, “who was that?” something had responded. We called my dad upstairs and had him listen to it too. It sounded like a small child, possibly female, mocking Christine’s question immediately after she said it. To ensure that it was none of us, we all said ‘who was that?” in a low whisper. None of us even remotely resembled the voice we had captured on the DVR. We were all amazed; we had caught our first EVP with Christine’s help.

Later that night on the ghost tour we let Carroll Heath and his new assistant Brian hear our EVP. They both agreed that it seemed to be the voice of a little girl and told us that Christine might be the reason we caught it.  Dr. Baker let children play in his suite sometimes, and many of the spirits could still remain there. Often sprits respond more aptly to children, especially if it is a child’s spirit hanging around. That voice was enough to make the entire trip worthwhile, but a few other things happened this time as well.

On the tour that night I caught several more orb photos in various places in the hotel. Afterwards, when we returned to the room to sleep something strange happened. After going to bed, my mom heard very loud, violent wind blowing by the windows. My dad heard the same thing downstairs. It was a clear night outside, and to hear such violent gusts seemed odd. Unfortunately no one got up to look outside, so that event has to go down as strange, but not proven paranormal.

Later, after both Christine and I had gone to sleep my mom heard some weird things in the room. She was lying in bed awake and heard footsteps coming from the window area beside the bed. She said it sounded like someone was pacing back and forth and she heard mumbling noises as though whoever it was was talking to himself. After that stopped something else began, this time from downstairs. There was an open balcony in the upstairs room overlooking the kitchen area, so sound carried well. My mom said that after the pacing ended she heard voices downstairs. It sounded like a man and woman were arguing. The voices she heard were loud, but she was unable to make out exact words in the conversation… maybe Dr. Baker was mad at one of the nurses?

The next night was in room 210. While it didn’t have such an interesting past, at the Crescent you can get activity almost anywhere. In one report I read that the people were kept awake all night by something making the toilet run, even after the husband rigged it so it couldn’t. He tied the chains so it couldn’t run, and they somehow got untied and pulled loose again.

Sadly, we had no one playing games with our toilet, but we got a few orbs in odd places. At one point Christine stood in the corner and held her arm out like it was around someone’s shoulder. I snapped a picture and an orb appeared under her arm. A second later I took another and nothing was there.

Orbs showed up in a few more pictures that night and the next morning, but overall it was a peaceful stay in the paranormal sense. We accredit the lack of activity to our fellow guests. There was a wedding party that night that had the entire hotel bustling with activity, and while not paranormal, some of it was a little odd.

The Crescent proved itself a paranormal hotspot once again in our opinion, and it left us with many questions. Whose voice was that is probably the most asked though.

Hayley.