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.

12 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!

Anonymous said...

I stayed at the Chancellor some time in the eighties and woke up to what looked like an old fashioned bartender. He had a huge grin on his face. I asked who he was and how did he get in here. He just faded away. I thought I was crazy.

Jackie said...

I believe the hotel IS haunted. I stayed there one night a couple of months ago. I am a paranormal investigator from Sacramento area and found the Chancellor by chance when googling haunted SF. There was a lot of "chatter" in and about my room, but unfortunately the evp's were too soft to transfer to a CD. But my K2 meter kept going off and I did catch some interesting anomalies on my camera.

Anonymous said...

Wish me luck! Hope something happens in these next couple of days. Felt energy in the lobby and my room. Just got to the hotel. I'm a Paranormal investigator from Salt Lake City.

Anonymous said...

Oh yes, it is haunted! I was staying on the 6th floor. I do not think that the ghosts are related to specific rooms or floors. But what I saw was a man, a silhouette, Not big, not small, quite average actually, but strong. He was sitting on my bed, leaning towards me and putting his hands around my neck. I could feel the hands. I woke up, yelled at him and he disappeared out of the window. At first, the obvious response was of course that I was imagining things. But then I realized that the entire side of my body (the side where he was sitting) was deep frozen, as if I had a two centimeter thick skin of ice. It took some time before the cold feeling disappeared. I changed hotel, although I really liked staying at the Chancellor. Very nice and helpful staff - but a bit too many secret guests ;-)

Stacy said...

I'm at the Chancellor right now. My boyfriend and I checked in earlier, and I put some things away in drawers. We went to get something to eat, and when we came back, the top dresser drawer was open. I'm fairly certain I would have noticed a drawer being open before leaving the room. There was nothing valuable in it, and nothing was taken, so now I'm spooked.

Unknown said...

Good grief!! I had planned to make a booking at this property - glad I found this blog!! I will be looking for something else

YewTuck said...

I just checked out yesterday nothing happen . Initially a bit worry after reading this blog and I cannot cancel the booking. My room is on fifth floor (506) and nothing happen , it was quite , clean and near to union sq. and FYI the hotel was fully booked.

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Anonymous said...

My boyfriend and I stayed here back in 2014.

I never had an opinion about spirits until this encounter.

It was our second night. We had gotten back to the hotel around 11 PM. We were reflecting on our day as we laid in bed with the TV muted. I even remember what show was playing because this moment has stuck with me ever since.

As soon as we got silent we heard this crash - like someone knocking over a set table at the foot of our bed. We both looked at each other and said “That was weird.” A minute later I joked to my boyfriend, “Maybe it was a ghost and it saved us for the second night! Maybe it’s upset because you keep farting”. We both cracked up and instantly the crash sound happened again, even louder. It sounded like the crash was in the room, a foot away.

He got up to see if something had fallen, but everything was in it’s place.

All of a sudden a few of my hairs on my head started floating up and I felt that this intense presence to the right of me. It felt like the air was cuddling with me. I’ve never felt anything like this. My boyfriend was on my left side.

We both got freaked out and spent the rest of the night under the covers.

The next morning when we checked out I awkwardly asked the man at the front desk if he had heard of ghost encounters. He replied he had never personally had an experience, but that his coworkers won’t go into certain rooms.

I believe the spirit was kind and didn’t want to harm us. It just wanted to make it’s presence known.

I haven’t told many people this story because it seems far-fetched, but it really did happen.

To me, the man at the front desk confirmed it.