Stephen King wrote books about them, Hollywood produced films based on them, millions of tourists seek them out each year in attempts to creepify their next vacation. Haunted Hotels are more popular than ever, especially since the Sci-Fi Channel’s “Ghost Hunters” aired thermographic video footage of what appears to be a full-sized paranormal apparition, in the basement of the Crescent Hotel & Spa in Eureka Springs Arkansas. In other words, a ghost caught on tape!

All “haunted” hotels have their ghost stories: the spirit of the heart-broken bride who hung herself in the shower; the angry voices of children who were murdered in room 217; the disgruntled bellhop who threw himself out the 13th floor window etc…. But many of the ghosts and ghouls who flutter about “America’s most haunted hotel” had one thing in common while they were alive: cancer.

If you stayed at the hotel anywhere between 1937 and 1940 you would not have been considered a “guest” per se. You would have been a cancer patient under the care of Norman Baker, and chances are, you would have died. Without one day of medical training in his life, Norman Baker transformed the facilities into a hospital where he offered patients his aggressively advertized “miracle cure”. Turns out there is nothing miraculous about mixing watermelon seed, brown corn silk, alcohol, and carbonic acid. His horrible injections only succeeded in decreasing patients’ bank accounts while increasing their suffering as they approached the end. No wonder so many came back to haunt the hallways, they were robbed by a money-hungry quack!

Redrum anyone?

Thousands of people have visited and even slept in the hotel basement, also known as “the Morgue”, where the ghostly thermal image was captured by investigators. Complete with autopsy table the morgue is where Baker conducted his human experiments (remember: without one day of medical training), and a walk-in fridge where he kept many body parts in jars of formaldehyde. He was eventually convicted of mail fraud and was sentenced to a mere four years in prison. After the ruling there were reports of Baker’s victims actually spinning in their graves!

Is the man in the morgue the clearest image of a paranormal presence ever captured? Or a mere symptom of low camera batteries? The best suggestion is to check it out for yourself. So if you’re hunting for ghosts and you happen to own a $3000 thermographic video camera, there is a good chance that you are single. This will make things a lot cheaper when booking a room in your next haunted hotel. Fortunately, none of the hotels in Mont Tremblant are haunted - as far as we know!