‘Ghost hunting at California’s Riverside Mission Inn’

I’ve never been comfortable staying in old hotels. They always give me the creeps. Maybe it’s because I played with the Ouija board too many times as a child, or perhaps I’ve read too many Stephen King novels, but old places give me the willies. I also have a very active imagination, which doesn’t help.

It was a Friday and we were due in Riverside, California for a funeral. Rather than hassle with the afternoon traffic, we decided to spend the night at a historic hotel, The Riverside Mission Inn. At the time, it seemed like a good idea.

The place was built in the late-1800s and, as you can imagine, was filled with many rumours about mysterious deaths, hangings and weird things that had happened in the catacombs. But it was also a historic monument, riddled with charm and intrigue. Although I consented to the stay, I had my reservations.

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As soon as we walked into our room, we got a creepy feeling. It wasn’t something tangible, just a thick eeriness that said we shouldn’t be there. I thought it was my imagination, so I parked the thought and grabbed my camera to take some shots of the premises. Get me out of this creepy room. I need some daylight.

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I roamed the halls looking for interesting architectural shots. Since most of the antiques came from Europe and Asia, it wasn’t hard to find items of interest to photograph. Look at that gloomy hall. Click. Where does that creepy staircase go? Click. When we were invited on a tour of the catacombs, the photographer in me went wild.

We were taken down some halls behind the kitchen, past the service area where the employees check in before their shifts. That seemed harmless enough, but when our guide suggested we grab a flashlight to enter the catacombs, I felt that eerie dread.

My flashlight started to flicker as soon as we entered the catacombs. I’ve got the heebie jeebies about ghosts and now my flashlight was on the fritz. As we walked down the dank hallways, I had visions of corpses hanging from the rafters peering down at me. As I looked up to the street level, I saw we were a good 20-feet below the surface of the street.

Suddenly, there was a large bang. I swung around and grabbed my friend who had just jumped toward me. She knew our guide hadn’t banged into anything, so what was that thud against the pipe? Our guide continued, pretending he hadn’t heard anything, reciting a litany of history about the hotel, but I was too busy trying to see what was around every corner to pay much attention to his speech.

“Do many people come down here at night?” I asked.

“No, not too many … People don’t feel good about being down here, especially as the evening wears on,” he cautiously added. I hoped the tour would end soon, so I could join the living and head for dinner.

We got safely back into our room and decided to rest a bit before heading to the restaurant.

“I think I’ll go in this room and catch the news,” my pal announced, disappearing behind a heavy vaulted door. That door … it seemed like an entrance to something forbidden, but I decided to park the thought.

“I’m going to take a nap,” I announced, trying to sound light and carefree, but my mind kept returning to that TV room.

I decided to join my friend and watch the news. The room was creepy. It felt like it didn’t want us there. I felt a draft, but dismissed it to a faulty air-conditioning unit since the place was so old. We both left the room and went downstairs.

Later that night, I decided to lock the door leading into that room. It wasn’t until the following day that my friend mentioned she thought the room had an evil spirit.

“Something just didn’t want us in that room,” she remarked. No wonder I felt weird.

The following day we asked a few employees about ghost sightings on the property.

“Well, there’s a couple that comes here regularly to photograph spirit orbs,” she explained.

“What’s a spirit orb?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s those little round balls you see in your photos when you photograph ghosts,” she explained. “There are several places at the inn where they’re known to appear,” she added, bustling off to clean another room.

I dashed off to the rooms she’d mentioned and took my shots, hoping to catch some of these orbs. When I got back to Los Angeles, I wondered what mystery would be present in my images.

Sure enough, there were spirit orbs in all the locations that were mentioned to me. One bar had about 12-15 of them, many dangling from the ceiling like Christmas balls on a tree. Some were on the floor or appeared to be floating in the middle of the room.

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Since then, I’ve been on the prowl for ghosts. I’ve found them in old hotels, historic restaurants, and even on deserted streets. Are they in my house? Perhaps, but only the shadow knows…

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