submitted by: Jason
I took the post at the Whittier after management was having trouble keeping it staffed. Everyone believed it was haunted and claimed to have had experiences. I wasn’t necessarily a skeptical person, I was just indifferent. So, I took the post. Things were quiet for the first few weeks. I soon encountered the whistling man. I nonchalantly would say things out loud to him. That was like opening Pandora’s box. The whistling encounters escalated after that. Then other things started to happen. I would hear dishes breaking and music playing. The sound of a bouncing ball bothered me the most. I also started to see things out of the corner of my eye and, shadows where there shouldn’t be. I was quickly becoming a believer. I bought a digital camera. I started taking pictures whenever I heard or saw something unusual.
It wasn’t the best camera, but it was a pretty good one. It was the early 2000’s. The camera had a screen on the back. Once you took the picture, the screen would go out of focus for a moment then come back into focus. I started seeing things in those pictures when the screen was out of focus. The second it came into focus, the anomaly would disappear.
The individual towers of the hotel were all connected on the main floor only. Between the first and second tower was the grand entrance and the Crystal Ball Room. Between the second and the third towers was the infamous Golden Cup Room that the Detroit River Boat Races were named after and, the atrium with the inground pool. The hallway ran between these two areas. When walking that corridor, I would often see something out of the corner of my eye. When I would turn my head and look, nothing would be there. That was usually where I heard the sound of a bouncing ball. So that’s where I started taking pictures.
What I saw startled me in a way I was not expecting. It was a little girl around the age of eight to ten years old. She was wearing a dress that definitely didn’t belong in our era. She was leaning against the railing that ran along the pool staring at me. There is no denying that she wasn’t looking straight at me. That really bothered me. It wasn’t so much that there was a ghost or, that it was a child, which is really upsetting. It was the fact that she was watching me. How long had this been going on for? Did she follow me or was she only in the pool area? That really disturbed me. I started taking pictures everywhere while on my rounds. I would sit and go through the pictures in between rounds checking each shot before deleting it. I captured some orbs and a few mists. Some even looked like human shadows. None of the other pictures came anywhere near the clarity of the little girl. I saw her in detail. If she wasn’t dull in color and transparent she would have looked like anyone else just standing there. The most disturbing part was capturing her again. In the next picture I got of her she was coming towards me down a hallway. It looked like she was skipping. I could see her hair and dress blowing out behind her.
That was the last picture I took. It was just too much. I was definitely a believer in the paranormal now. I just wasn’t comfortable with them being in my personal space and watching me. It wasn’t fair, I couldn’t see them. It was the most uncomfortable and disturbing feeling I have ever had. I didn’t want to be there anymore. I was on edge all the time. I didn’t mind sharing space with them when I couldn’t see them. Knowing that they are watching me and following me was more than I could handle. I put in my two weeks’ notice. I didn’t even have another job lined up. I didn’t care.
I only showed the pictures to a few close friends. We tried to take a picture of the screen when it was out of focus, but it never worked. I printed off the pictures and they were crystal clear, no anomalies. I couldn’t prove anything, but I know what I saw and experienced there. I have no interest in “ghost hunting”. I’ve lived it.
