A Haunting in the French Quarter

Date: June 17-18, 2014

Location: Hotel Monteleone; New Orleans, Louisiana

The HotelMonteleone stands high over Royal Street, one block off of Bourbon, in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Like most of the city, the hotel has many rumors of paranormal activity surrounding it, particularly on the 14^th floor, where many employees refuse to go. So, naturally we requested a room on the 14^th floor to see if we could encounter any of the numerous resident spirits for ourselves. These spirits include that of a young boy who died of illness weeks after his parents were killed outside the hotel in a buggy accident as well as spirits of past owners and bellhops.

We spent two nights in room 1484, and although our room provided no paranormal encounters of its own, we had multiple encounters while wandering the halls of the 14^th floor in the evenings. The first of these experiences still gives my father chills to recall. He was walking the halls in hopes of catching EVPs from any of the resident spirits, and all seemed calm and quite at first. However, when he walked down a side hall that lead to the Mr. Monteleone suite, he felt as though he literally walked into a wall of spiritual energy. He doubled over with his breath taken away and cold chills shaking his body. When my dad returned to our room moments later he told us what had happened and was still visibly shaken. He had to back away from the spot where he felt the energy, and even the next night could not walk to the end of that hall without feeling short of breath and getting cold chills. Although my mom and I did not share his experience near Mr. Monteleone’s suite, we did both sense a heavy, oppressive energy near a hotel staff staircase on the far western end of the building.

On the second evening in the hotel my parents were able to communicate with a spirit we believe to be an adolescent boy in the hallway using an EMF meter. While sitting on a set of steps in the 14^th floor’s main hallway my parents asked an

extensive series of questions and the meter would spike 1-2 miligauss (mG) in response to questions regarding whether the spirit had passed away at the hotel, if he preferred the 14^th floor, and if he wanted to be left alone. I was snapping photos throughout this session with the EMF meter, and only one of the photos featured anything out of the ordinary – a blue orb hovering over my mom’s shoulder.

Close up of the blue-tinted orb.

This same meter had a steady reading of 0.0 mG throughout the rest of the 14^th floor, except while my mom and I were in the far hall (near where we had felt the oppressive energy). When we were leaving the hallway, the meter spiked several points while my mom held it. She passed it to me and it dropped immediately to 0.0 mG when I held it in the exact same location. This occurred several times before the meter settled again to 0.0 and we retuned to the main hall.

We also discovered one EVP among the hours of audio we recorded at the hotel. After wandering the halls alone for a time my dad returned to the room to ask if my mom and I wanted to join him. During the conversation between my parents the voice of what seems to be a much younger male interrupts my mom while she is talking by saying rather loudly, “What?” Audio of this EVP is provided at the bottom of this post. 

 Like much of New Orleans, the Hotel Monteleone is practically overflowing with paranormal energy, and to our delight we were able to gets several unique tastes of that in our brief stay. So although we may not have enjoyed the smells of Bourbon Street or the overbearing traffic throughout the city, we did enjoy our time at the hotel known to many as the “a jewel of the French Quarter.”

Hayley.

A Trip to the Past at Oak Alley

Date: June 16, 2014

Location: Oak Alley Plantation, Vacherie, Louisiana

After hearing stories and seeing the Oak Alley Plantation featured on TV, we knew we had to find time to visit southern Louisiana to check it out for ourselves. The beautiful plantation home is well preserved, located in a prime location along the Mississippi, and has a stunning row of live oak lining the front walk to provide a picturesque frame of the main house.

We booked one of the small cottages on the grounds for an overnight stay and were able to roam the grounds throughout the night. Although we didn’t see any apparitions or gain any overwhelmingly exciting evidence, we did have a few interesting personal experiences and certainly donated our fair share of blood to the bayou’s mosquito population.

Early in the evening we began to notice noises throughout the cottage, including a sound like marbles dropping and feet shuffling, which was heard when everyone was sitting in the living room. The clock in the back bedroom also repeatedly made noises of electrical interference even though our EMF meters detected no energy in the vicinity of it and no other electronic devices were nearby.

Later in the evening while John was laying on the bed in the back room during an EVP session the KII meter lying on the bed beside him spiked to its highest color level, red, on multiple occasions and would then drop to green, the lowest energy level, as soon as he touched or moved it. Other signs of energy in the cottage included numerous fast-moving orbs observed on the infrared camera we left running all night in the dining room.

Investigating near the slaves quarters.

We gathered no hard evidence while walking the grounds that night, but my parents did have a strong personal experience near the slaves’ quarters. They were standing alone reading some of the plaques detailing the history of slavery at the plantation when they heard someone approaching, which they assumed would be me. When the footsteps drew close they turned to speak to me and found that no one else was nearby.

Oak Alley may have given us all more mosquito bites that ghostly frights, but the personal experiences we shared were all proof enough to us that the plantation’s rich history is still alive and well.

Hayley.