When I go to Virginia City, I like to stay at the Silver Queen Hotel. The place has great paranormal energy, even if some of it isn't so friendly. Built on a hillside, the Silver Queen Hotel comprises two stories of rooms, but sits on top of the Silver Queen's Saloon, so is actually three stories on Main st. There is a front entrance on Main Street and a back entrance. At over a century old, the Silver Queen boasts beautiful architecture, charm, history, and ghosts. I've heard of several ghost stories related to the Silver Queen, including that of a child who haunts the hotel and does things like rattle doorknobs and knock on doors. My partner Mike heard what sounded like a ball being bounced down the hallway in the middle of the night during our visit in 2010. We were the only ones staying in the hotel at that off-season time.
Other hauntings include the ghost of a woman who drowned in a bathtub in one room, and the apparent "imprinted" haunting of a couple arguing terribly and violently ending in gunshots. The first time I visited Virginia City for a paranormal conference, two of the people staying at the Silver Queen with me claimed to have heard this argument. I was on the first floor at the back of the hotel, and they were both on the second floor. Tony was literally right above me, and Janice was at the front of the hotel, in a room facing Main st. Both claimed to hear the argument at the same time, yet both also claimed that the argument sounded like it was right next door to them both. There are probably a dozen rooms between them. I heard nothing, but it's been said that this haunting occurs so often that guests will leave the hotel in the middle of the night, and that numerous phone calls have been made to the local police...who are apparently used to it.
One of the scariest paranormal experiences I've ever had in my life was at the Silver Queen. Again, it was during the Paranormal Conference in October of 2001. During my weekend stay, I met and made friends with quite a few other folks who were there for the conference as well. We all got together in different groups at different times and just had fun exploring Virginia City, "ghost hunting", and getting to know each other.
I had spent some of an afternoon and early evening with a small group, and just before 10:00 p.m., the four of us decided to take a small break There were three of us ladies in the group, and one man. We three ladies had rooms at the Silver Queen, so the four of us proceeded as a group to the lobby area on the first floor of the hotel. It is a wide area of the hallway that is at the base of the stairs to the second floor. The first floor rooms run off of it as well.
We were standing at the foot of the stairs, talking amongst ourselves and making plans to get together later that night to resume investigating Virginia City's hauntings. Suddenly, we were interrupted by a rather loud man's voice that came from the first floor hallway leading to the back door. The rooms have transom windows above the doors, and the voice sounded like it came from the first door in the hallway, not 20 feet from where we stood. We heard a man's voice clearly say, "It's late folks, people are trying to sleep." We all turned our heads, surprised, in the same direction, and started apologizing for not realizing that someone was in the hotel besides us. Then we lowered our voices to a whisper to quickly finish making our plans to meet up...we had almost finished when we were interrupted by the man's voice once again. This time, he sounded very angry as he growled:
"It's LATE folks...!"
We all fell silent and looked up towards the voice again. I think the angry tone of his voice not only grabbed our attention, but shook us all up a little, too. He was seriously angry. So we whispered quick goodbyes, and the other two ladies headed up the stairs towards the second floor rooms. Mark and I turned to head towards the front of the hotel, and out to Main street. In doing so, as we turned away from the stairs, we put our backs to the room where the man's voice had come out of. I was on Mark's right.
We had to make a left turn to go towards the front door, and as we went around the corner, I got this sudden "urge" to look back down the hallway behind us. So I leaned back a little, so that I could see behind and past Mark. What I saw chilled me to my core.
A man shaped shadow stood in the center of the little lobby area by the second floor stairs. The area was lit up with light, yet this thing was the blackest, darkest black that I have ever seen in my life. And I have been an artist all my life, too, so I know that there can be different shades of black, but never have I seen anything this dark. There is nothing on this planet that can compare to how black this shadow man was. The light in the area was on him, yet there was nothing on him that was highlighted...no forehead, nose, cheeks, detailing on his body...he was solid black, like a shadow that had lifted itself off the ground and was standing there. It had no 3D definition whatsoever...just solid black and man-shaped. And silent. He never made a sound.
The next thing I noticed was his stance. It was very threatening. He had his legs apart, his arms out from his sides and his hands balled into tight fists. His shoulders were hunched a little, and his head was down just a bit, like he was looking at me out of the tops of his eyes...which is exactly what I felt he was doing. I could feel his eyes staring directly at me...intense, burning, angry, dangerous. A chill ran through my body, down my spine and curdled in my stomach at the same time. He was pissed, there was no doubt about it. He looked like he was ready to kick some serious ass. Right now.
My next realization was an empathic one that hit me like a sudden shock wave. I felt his anger coming off of him, radiating like an intense heat from a blazing furnace. The only way that I can describe the anger I felt off of him in a way that a "non-empathic" person may understand would be to say that it would be like the sudden blast of heat from a huge explosion. What I felt empathically was so strong that it about sent me reeling. I grabbed Mark by the jacket and ran to the front door of the Silver Queen, dragging him along. We didn't stop until we exited the front door and were out on the street. I remember turning around, half expecting this thing to be coming bounding down the stairs after us. But there was nothing there, and then I had to explain to Mark why I acted so crazy. When I was finished, he wanted to go back up. I carefully followed behind him, but we experienced nothing. Even empathically, I "felt" nothing there.
I have always felt that this shadow man is the ghost who is involved in the imprinted argument that happens at the Silver Queen hotel. When he was alive, we would have called him a "badass"...that's the kind of energy I picked up from him.
My story may not seem so scary here, but it was very scary to me. It is definitely in my Top 5 Scariest Personal Moments, and I will remember this experience for the rest of my life.
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