My first ghost hunt: The Palmer House

a reply to: sled735

No clue as I'm not a medicine man but I do know that the scent of cedar is supposed to be cleansing. If nothing else, you won't have any moths lingering round, lol.

a reply to: sled735

Like Sage and Sweet grass, cedar is used to purify the home, it also has many restorative medicinal use. When mixed with sage for a tea, it cleans the body of all infections, cedar baths are also very healing. When cedar mixed with tobacco is put in the fire it crackles, this is said to call the attention of the Spirits to the offering that is being made. Cedar is used in sweat lodge and fasting ceremonies for protection, cedar branches cover the floor of many sweat lodges and some people make a circle of cedar when they are fasting. It is a guardian spirit and chases away the bad spirits.

www.dancingtoeaglespiritsociety.org...

I don't think paneling is quite the same..lol
But from what I was reading, it might actually attract a guardian spirit.

a reply to: Darkblade71

That's refreshing to know.
Maybe that orb my cat and I saw awhile back was a guardian. I know it didn't give me an eerie feeling at all. I can usually "feel" evil.

When the weather is right, the aroma of cedar fills our house, even though the cedar has been on the walls for 20 years; it smells soooooo good!

I've read before that it helps to repel moths and certain bugs; I've wondered if this is true for fleas too? With two cats inside, we have never had a flea problem, even though sometimes my daughter allows her cat to go outside for a short period.

I found a rather interesting video from another paranormal group who made this Palmer house Vid, check it out!
They also got responding knocks and a ghost child.

Today The Palmer House was voted top haunted Hotel by USA today and readers top 10.

Palmer House Hotel Wins Best Haunted Hotel!

1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa, Myrtles Plantation, Dauphine Orleans Hotel and Marshall House take top honors Ghostly apparitions, faucets turning off and on, flickering lights, and eerie sounds are just a few of the things you may encounter at one of these hotels. We asked the readers of USA TODAY 10Best to vote for their favorite spooky stay and after four weeks the results are finally in!

The top 10 winners in the category of Best Haunted Hotel are as follows:

Palmer House Hotel - Sauk Centre, Minn.
1886 Crescent Hotel & Spa - Eureka Springs, Ark.
Myrtles Plantation - St. Fancisville, La.
Dauphine Orleans Hotel - New Orleans
Marshall House - Savannah, Ga.
Admiral Fell Inn - Baltimore
Lemp Mansion - St. Louis
Queen Mary - Long Beach, Calif.
Jerome Grand Hotel - Jermone, Ariz.
Stanley Hotel - Estates Park, Co.

The other nominees included: Bullock Hotel-Deadwood, S.D.; Congress Plaza Hotel - Chicago; Hotel del Coronado - Coronoado, Calif.; Jekyll Island Club Hotel- Jekyll Island, Ga.; Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast - Fall River, Mass.; Loews Don CeSar Hotel - St. Petersburg, Fla.; Menger Hotel - San Antonio; Omni Grove Park Inn - Asheville, N.C.; Omni Mount Washington Resort-Bretton Woods, N.H. and Sagamore Resort-Lake George, N.Y.

10Best and USA TODAY extend their congratulations to all the winners!

www.10best.com...



I hope to get back for a third trip sometime!

The Dead Files is doing an Episode on The Palmer House today.
Actually I am watching it now:

Season 9, Episode 3 Jumped - Sauk Centre, Minnesota

Steve and Amy investigate paranormal activity at a historic hotel where the dead take pleasure in tormenting both employees and guests. During the daunting investigation, Amy confronts a dark presence vying for control of her physical being.

www.travelchannel.com...

Hi theres some strange things happening at my in laws house for a few months now.

An entity is drawing on the walls and on the beds.

Theres footprints when we leave powder on the floor overnight. Its throwing eggs and leaving eggs all over the house. I have pictures and everything

a reply to: Duvi010

Once you get enough posts in (I think it takes 20)
Start a paranormal thread telling your story and posting the pictures.
Would love to see them.

Welcome to ATS!

a reply to: Darkblade71

Has it been this long since I visited ATS? I guess so.

Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for the heads up. Gives me something to watch tonight.

a reply to: sled735



Let me know your thoughts after you see the episode.
The dark thing I saw slinking around in the basement is covered.


Also when Amy said she had all of these people yelling at her, that was also something I noticed.
Before we left I had given a couple of card readings for some people and the entire walk from the car (I had left them in the car until I was going to use them) back into the Palmer house was like walking through a crowd of people yelling "Tarot!" over and over again.
I heard it very loudly in my head.
It was nice to hear / watch someone else experience something like that.

a reply to: Darkblade71

Actually, I didn't get to watch it. I hate watching on YT because the screen is all messed up showing things out of normal size, weird noise, etc. So, I went to the Travel Channel where it airs but I was unable to get that particular show to come up. All I have on my t.v. is Hulu, You Tube, and some Roku channels.

Sigh... oh well. Maybe I'll get the rerun on Hulu some day. They have season one now.
Wonder how long I'll have to wait to get to season 9?

originally posted by: Darkblade71

Sometimes life throws you something so cool you just can't turn it down.
I, through a totally strange set of synchronisities,
(it could be a thread all to itself)
got a chance to visit The Palmer House in Central Minnesota.
It has been on Ghost Adventures a couple of times, although I had never heard of it before.

It is a historic Hotel located in Sauk Centre MN.

The history is strange, as it was the old Sauk Centre House hotel, but it burned down in 1900, and then they rebuilt it in 1901 as a luxury hotel.
Taken from their website it says:

The Palmer House Hotel is one of Minnesota's finest ghost experiences. Guests of the hotel report many strange occurrences such as a young boy bouncing a ball down a hallway, eerie feelings in the basement area, disembodied voices, and one entity throws glasses around the bar area.

The hotel even claims residence to a celebrity ghost! The spirit of Lewis Sinclair, a famous local author for which the town takes pride in, is said to haunt the very hotel that he was employed as a bell boy at. Sauk Centre, Minnesota is also the childhood home of Sinclair. The history of the Palmer House Hotel is quite an intersting one with many tales.

www.thepalmerhousehotel.com...
There is a rich history to the place and it is old but beautiful in it's own way.
That link should lead you to everything you need to know about the place including some of the ghost stories going back to the 1950's.

Ok,so onto my experience there!

I was not sure what to expect. Before going I had asked around to some of my more psychic friends and was told not to expect anything to out of place, but to go and have fun, so I kept that in mind as my entire crew from work headed down there for a weekend. I have lived in places before that I believe were haunted, but they were not quite on the level that this place was supposed to be.

When we got there it was cloudy and cold and kind of stormy, just what you would expect..

We checked into our rooms and got a bite to eat at their restaurant/bar, which was pretty good really, and then got ready for the paranormal tour.
The owner, Kelley Freese talked to the group of about 15 people, our group of 6, and another group of paranormal hunters, not sure what they called themselves, for about an hour, filling us in on the history of the hotel and the stories of ghosts and spirits that are there.
She really cares about her place, and after my experience there I have a few thoughts about that, but I will save that for later.

After the talk and offering us some mints if we start to get nervous,
we all headed down into the basement where a lot of the action takes place.

It was an old basement, very old. Some of the original stonework is still there from before the fire, and you can see still the heated rocks and soot after over 100 years.

We all entered a room and sat in chairs in a circle while a prayer was said and the spirits invited to come out and play.
Almost immediately we got knocks on the wall right behind my wife. It just so happens she was sitting in front of a snowman that was mentioned in ghost adventures as the creepy snowman, and after the knocks started up, I agree, that snowman is creepy.
I snapped a picture in her direction while the knocks were going off.

Everyone was looking at her because of the knocks.
They were directly behind her, and not all that soft, there was no mistaking them.
If she had not of been there I would of thought someone else was doing it,
and I know she is not one to fake these things, we were learning together.

The knocks responded to a few questions before going silent again,
but they responded.
And there was no one else back there.

We moved to another part of the basement and repeated the process of sitting in a circle and then waiting to see what happens.
I saw something moving in the dark at this point, and whether people believe me or not, I don't care.
It was there, and it reminded me of a large ferret and it moved across the floor in the dark and seemed to go person to person touching them and then moving on. I thought my mind was playing with me in the dark.
During this, my boss snapped a picture and later I found out she was seeing something moving as well.

When we saw the picture later on, she became concerned, as it reminded her of something she had seen before at home.
I enhance the contrast on the photo trying to see what the shadow was, and this is what I got:

Hmmm, that is interesting!
I was thinking fingers in the camera lens, but we checked that later, and nope, it is not fingers. I don't know what it is, but it made her not want to go again the next time we went there.

We actually got lots of pictures of orbs, but most people rule them as dustballs, and it is ok with me,
I am just showing what I got.
You don't have to believe orbs are anything but dust if you so chose.

It was fun getting pictures, no matter what these things are. I had a good time checking out a haunted place and trying to catch something on camera or tape recorder, I had both going the entire time, well tape recorder anyways.

I even got an EVP but I messed it up trying to process it and now you can't really tell in the video I made without thinking it is a part of other people talking, even though I know it isn't.

If you could of heard how it hissed out and said "a hole" right before I said something was a hole in the floor, maybe I will work on seeing if I can fix it some time. Anyways, here is the EVP attempt, and it was the only one I got through several hours of recording.

Live and learn, I have never tried any of this before, so the first time is always going to be messy...lol

Finally, I want to offer one more photo.

This is where my wife and I found ourselves while trying to tune into whatever was down there.
There is an orb in the upper mid left part of the picture.
Here is a closer look:

Now that is kind of interesting, at least I thought.

They say the ghost of Lewis Sinclair hangs out around the Palmer house, and someone suggested to me that maybe it was him.
I'm not going that far, but I am willing to make a comparison!

I had a really great time there!
Regardless of what people think, for or against spirits and ghosts,
it was a priceless chance to see and experience something I never thought I would,
and to compare it to what I experience myself,
invaluable in my own understandings of spirit matters.

I've been back there since, but not to do the paranormal tour,
but even then, things happened.
But that is not what this thread is about,
this is about my first ghost hunting experience,
and I thoroughly enjoyed it and the Palmer house!

I can't wait to go back again!

Looks like you guys had a blast. Good luck with the hunt. And if you do see an apparition. Remember to ask them what the afterlife is like.