Background: This hotel has a very storied history. The property was originally built as the Sauk Centre House in the 1880's, which burned down in a fire. In 1901 it was resurrected as the Palmer House Hotel, and has been there ever since. It has gone through several renovations and changes in ownership. Sauk Centre is the boyhood home of American author Sinclair Lewis, who worked at the Palmer House as a teenager in the early 1900's. There is a rumor that he is still lingering around the hotel in spirit form. There have been many documented deaths at the hotel throughout the years. A man committed suicide in Room 11 (the room we stayed in) in the 1940's. Room 11 is one of the most active rooms, as many people report a heavy feeling upon entering the room. A man was staying in the room, and couldn't sleep with the covers on the bed, so he threw them on the floor. He awoke around 4 am to the sensation of somebody stroking his legs. He freaked out and ran to the front desk in a cold sweat. The room is also said to be forever cold, as it has to be heated while every other room has the AC on. Room 17 has also had many reports. A couple were staying in the hotel for the first time, and were awoken around 4 am to the sound of a voice in the room. They were about to get up to go check it out when they witnessed a full-bodied apparition of a lady with period clothing (early 1900's) at the foot of their bed. The apparition seemed to look right at them, then disappeared. The couple left immediately, but has since been back to the hotel on several occasions. A young boy died in the hotel during the flu epidemic of the 1920's. It is rumored that he can still be heard running through the halls, chasing his ball throughout the night. Many guests, unaware of the hauntings or past, have complained to the owner that they were kept up all night by parents letting their kids run through the halls. The owner is always hesitant to tell them there were no children staying in the hotel that night. The current owner, Mrs. Kelley, is a kind lady who truly believes the hotel is the home of a high level of paranormal activity. In the mid-90's she talked with a sensitive who told her there were human remains buried in the basement of the hotel. When Mrs. Kelley checked the basement, sure enough she found a bag with several bones in it which appeared to be human. She placed the bag on a shelf for the night, and the next day contacted authorities to have the bones examined. When she went back down to get them, they were nowhere to be found. Several other searches in the basement have failed to yield any more bones. The bar is also home to a high level of paranormal activity. One night every book in the bookcase located in the bar shot off the shelves and landed in a straight formation on the floor. There was also an instance where a man was served a drink in the bar. He informed the bartender he would be taking it up to his room with him, but when the bartender informed him he couldnt do that and went after him, the man vanished.
Our Investigation:
It was a very interesting night's stay for my wife and I, as this was our first ever paranormal investigation together. Our first impressions of room 11 were that of a nice, cozy, small room. No bad vibes or anything of the sort. There were, however, several large wolf spiders throughout the room, which my wife didnt take kindly to. We did a sweep through with the EMF detector to gain a base level for the room. Our findings showed that there was no high EMF levels from any electric or natural sources anywhere in the room, except in the bathroom. When the overhead lights were turned on, the EMF went nuts. There was also a steady reading of around 2.5 to the right of the bathroom sink, most likely from something inside the wall at that point. And of course, the EMF also flew off the charts when the air conditioning unit was turned on. Other than that, the baseline for the room was below 1.0. There was nobody staying in the adjacent rooms nearest to us, which was nice. Didnt have to worry about any noise they may have been generating, or EMF's coming from their rooms.
We started our investigation around 2 am. Set up the infrared camera on the nightstand to the left of the bed, pointed towards the hall and covering the entire main room. We then turned on our white noise generator and our digital voice recorder, and commenced to asking questions in the hopes of gaining EVP's (Electronic Voice Phenomenon). Our first few questions went by, no jumps in the EMF readings or signs of any sort of spiritual presence. When we asked if they could give us any sort of tangible sign of their presence, we did hear a loud knock that sounded to be coming from inside the wall. We then asked them to verify that was a sign, to give us a clear sign of their presence, and the curtain rod on the hallway window fell off the window, curtain and all. This could have very well been an extremely odd coincidence: we still didnt have any spike in the EMF reading. But it definitely startled us. We wrapped up the EVP session with about 20 minutes of recording. Didnt audibly hear any voices during the recording, but as I said, we did have what appeared to be signs in response to direct requests for a sign. We then took several pictures with our digital camera throughout the room, and also the hallway and staircase where the young boy has reportedly been spotted and heard. These pictures did turn up several anomalies which we couldnt quite explain away. For the most part, the anomalies were small white orbs in various locations, but there was one instance above the bar where we caught what almost looks like a transparent figure. Also, on the staircase, we caught a brown orb right around the location the young boy has been spotted sitting. I will post these pictures when we have them uploaded for your judgment. Like I said, these arent proof in of themselves of a haunting, but it is more circumstantial evidence which definitely needs to be taken into account.
We went to bed around 3:30, with the IR camera placed in a new location to get a full view of the hall where the curtains fell off the window. We also placed a fresh battery in the EMF detector, and placed that on the nightstand where the IR camera was before. This particular EMF detector flashes and sounds an alarm when sensing an EMF spike, therefore we felt it would be good to leave on overnight. Around 4:45 I was awoken due to my allergies, sneezed a few times, and tried to get back to sleep. About 5 minutes later I felt an extremely flush feeling come over my entire body, and literally the very next second the EMF detector went nuts for a full second and then stopped. There was no natural explanation for the EMF spike, and I literally froze completely startled for a few minutes. I truly felt like something passed through me and through the room at that time, and it was a very vivid personal experience for me.
Review of IR footage and DVR recordings:
On Friday we reviewed the IR footage and the DVR recordings for any further tangible evidence. It was unfortunate that my allergies were acting up, because the IR picked up all the dust from the tissues I was going through, which made it difficult to tell dust apart from possible evidence of orbs or mist. We did, however, notice several anomalies in the first half of the tape, where the tape completely cut out for a second, reversed its' image, and then cut back in to a normal picture. This happened 4 times within the first half hour of recording, when we were doing the EVP session. It didnt happen at all after that. We also noticed several points in which a brief flash of white would overcome the screen, or a small white streak of light would shoot out of nowhere which could definitely be distinguished from dust. We are going to try to upload some of this footage soon.
The DVR didnt yield anything during the time the curtains fell. It did pick up the loud knock we heard in the wall. It was also interesting that while I was filming with our digital camera during the EVP session, the battery in the camera was drained out of nowhere (it had been at two bars). On the DVR you can hear my wife asking if it was a spirit that drained the batteries, then you can hear her changing the batteries in the camera. Right after that, there seems to be a woman's voice with a mechanical sound to it saying something we cant decipher (we're going to try to clean it up this week). That was the best DVR evidence we caught. I was hoping the DVR would have caught something during the time I had my feeling and the EMF went off. The DVR was set to voice activation recording while we were sleeping, but it didnt seem to pick anything up during that time. You can, however, hear when I woke my wife to tell her of my experience.
Conclusion: We both definitely had our own personal experiences throughout the night, and we did catch some very interesting evidence. Although we didnt catch a full-bodied apparition, it is our opinion that the Palmer House is a very active location for paranormal activity, and I would love to go back again someday with more people to do a more thorough investigation of some other parts of the hotel. It was a very interesting night!
