Haunted Hotel

From: Dana Grantham (dananrickg@msn.com)
Story type: Ghost
Location: St. James Hotel in Cimarron
Source: Form Submission

My family, a male friend and I visited the St. James Hotel in hopes of experiencing something of the paranormal. We arrived around 10:30 in the evening, was told to go through the bar to enter and ask for our key. The front desk closed at 9:00 p.m. so the bar was the only entrance. we walked around the hotel and didn't experience anything, except an eery feeling in the lobby, and in the hallways were the rooms were located both upstairs and downstairs. We found the poker room upstairs and went in to look around. Inside the antique cabinet a Ouija board was found, we decided to play. My daughter and I played first, we turned our head away from the board and asked several questions. To our amazement the Plachette answered the questions. Each movement of the Plachette seemed very purposeful, starting slow and then speeding up and last slowing down until the plachette was directly over the number, letter or word. Our friend decided to give it a try, same type of movement noted. He asked several questions about a brother that died many years ago and all the questions were answered correctly. He asked these questions to prove that I wasn't moving the plachette, knowing I did not know specifics about his brother. We played for quite sometime and started asking insignificant questions when the plachette moved to the bottom of the board answereing with goodbye. We tried to ask more questions but it would not respond. My friend and I decided to go out front and have a cigarette, my daughter went to bed. My husband and 12 year old daughter had gone to bed prior to going to the poker room. While outside for moment I turned and looked at the front door which was left open when we came out, and noticed it was closed. I had a feeling it was locked and was right. My friend accused me of shutting and locking the door but I knwo I left it open. We walked around the hotel and all the doors were locked so we went to where our window was, hoping my daughter was still awake and called her. She would not respond so we threw pebbles at the window. Finally after 30 minutes or so the curtain opened and closed. We went to the front to wait for her to unlock the door but did not show. My friend had his car keyes and managed to jimmy the lock and let us in. I went upstairs and asked my daughter why she didn't open the door, she said she heard her name being called and the noise against the window but was too scared to get up and hid under the covers. Somebody opend the curtain and it wasn't her. I forgot to mention while int he poker room we asked how many spirits were present and "9" was answered. I asked to give us a sign and it went to "L" asked how long went to "4". So we waited for 4 minutes and looked around and next to the globe of the light was a long 3 dimensional figure with rings around it. WE had no idea what it could be, walked around the table at different angles and it remained unchanged. It had the shape somewhat of a glo worm. The rest of the night went uneventful. We are no longer skeptics and do believe something was present, but not of this world.