I was the first security officer assigned to the hotel. My father was the sales rep for the hotel. Before I began working for his company, I worked for a cleaning company. We were basically called in for trash removal before the actual cleaning and repairs could be done. We handled commercial properties. We were contracted to clean the haunted hotel in preparation for its sale. So, I was familiar with the property. I was in my early twenties and I’m a pretty big guy. My father was also in a paranormal investigation group, and I had been to a few investigations with him. I wasn’t the least bit afraid… at first.
The hotel was running minimal utilities. The heating and cooling systems were shut down. The water was shut off. The only electricity that was on was the first floor. There was one bathroom that they used, and they brought water in to flush the toilet. In the promenade between the second and third tower was the official main entrance. The front desk was located there along with the management offices and Crystal Ball Room. The security station had been set up in the manager’s office behind the front desk. There was a two-way mirror so the manager could watch what was happening at the desk. There were doors that led into other rooms, but they were locked and newspaper was stuffed in the cracks to keep the heat in. There was a chair, a small refrigerator, a small TV and a space heater in the office. The previous guards basically spent their shifts locked in a room watching television all night.
The previous owners had set up motion sensors all along the ground floor. The caretaker, Joyce, would turn the alarm on at the end of her shift. Security was stuck in the front hallway. We could use the bathroom and the security office. Once we walked out of that promenade into one of the towers, we set off an alarm. So, there really wasn’t a lot that we could do. As you can imagine, a big empty 800-room haunted hotel sitting 150 feet away from the Detroit River makes a lot of noise at night.
The first night wasn’t too bad. Of course, I heard a lot of unusual noises. Most of it seemed to be coming from the wind and the park across the street. The police spent a lot of time patrolling to kick people out of the park after hours. I found a logical explanation for most of what I heard that night.
The next night was plagued by a frequent banging noise. I would run out of the office expecting to see someone banging on the glass doors. There was never anyone there. Halfway through my shift, I thought I was seeing things out of the corner of my eye. I kept telling myself it was just my mind playing tricks on me. I told my dad about it the next morning, and he said he would stop by that night and check things out with me.
So, the third night, my dad convinced me that the thumping was coming from the overgrown trees in the front flower beds. He said when the wind blew, the branches were hitting the windows. I didn’t believe him and said it only started around midnight. He claimed it was because we were on the water and the wind picks up at night on the water. “Trust me,” he said, “I’m a Navy man.” I told him it sounded like a basketball hitting the walls, not a tree hitting a window. Naturally, he called me a wuss and told me to toughen up—there was nothing to be afraid of. Then he pulled out his camera and started to take random pictures. He assured me that if he found any ghosts in the pictures, he would let me know. I heard the thumping noise again that night.
On the fourth night, I brought a basketball to work with me. After Joyce left, I pulled it out of my bag. I dribbled it on the carpet and the tiled areas. It sounded very similar to what I had been hearing. I lightly hit the wall with the ball. Bingo! That was exactly what I had been hearing. Later that night, the thumping started. It was louder and harder than it had previously been. It sounded like someone was full-force kicking a soccer ball against the wall. I didn’t think it would ever end. I turned the volume up on the TV, and when I ran out of things to watch, I played music on my phone. That was the longest night of my life. I have never been so happy to see the sunrise.
After that night, I refused to go back. I didn’t care what my dad had to say—I asked for a different assignment. They couldn’t replace me right away, so I had to cover one more shift. This time, I parked my car right in front of the main entrance and stayed there all night with the engine running, headlights pointed at the building. I never stepped inside. When the sun rose, I drove straight to my next post without looking back.
A few days later, my dad called me over to his house. He pulled up the photos he had taken that third night on his computer. At first glance, they looked like typical dusty shots with a few orbs—which he said were probably just particles in the air. But then we noticed something stranger: mist-like formations hovering in corners, and a few disembodied faces in the shadows that neither of us could explain. That sealed it for me. Whatever haunted that hotel was still very active—and made it clear I wasn’t welcome inside the haunted hotel. I’ll never forget my time guarding that haunted hotel.
