(Turn the lights off before reading for maximum effect.)
The Claremont Resort in California has been rumored to be haunted. If you search online, you can find accounts from people, like these unverified comments on a TripAdvisor thread about the hotel from 2007:
I work at the Claremont and was told recently there is a ghost on the fourth floor. It's a little girl, totally harmless. People have reported hearing her call out "mommy" from timt to time.
Oh, yeah, no big deal. Harmless.
All I can say is that there is definitely something paranormal at the hotel. I stayed there in April 2003 and knew NOTHING about this rumor. I was on the 4th floor. During the night I was awakened by a "presence" that felt like it was suffocating me. I had left the window open overnight to get nice breezes. When I was awakened I was on my stomach. I became very afraid as I felt something on me, especially around neck, but I did not know what to do. My thoughts raced and I was worried that maybe a burglar had come through the window. I did not want to turn to look. I was thinking really of saving my life in case this was the case. After a while, I got the courage to just jump up quickly and try to run. When I did, I ran to the door and turned lights on. There was nothing there. But it really happened. The next night my TV turned on by itself and thelight came on too. I KNOW there is something that happens at the Claremont on the 4th floor. Without trying to seem crazy, I asked a bellman if he knew of anything "weird" on the 4th floor and he proceeded to tell me stories. I have stayed at the Claremont several time since but will not stay on the 4th. I have had no problems on 1st and 2nd floors.
Good stuff. Anyway, the San Antonio Spurs stayed at the Claremont for their game against the Golden State Warriors last week, and two players said they heard some unsettling noises during their stay.
Jeff Ayres claimed he heard a baby. Babies—and children in general—are probably the worst scary sounds to hear. From Spurs Nation:
You get in at whatever time. I took my room key. I could hear stuff in the hallway, like people in their rooms. So I'm thinking people are watching TV or whatever. So I get to my door, and my key doesn't work, but it sounds like there's somebody in my room. Like I hear a little baby, not crying but making noise. I'm like, 'What the heck?' I keep trying my key and it doesn't work. So I go downstairs to get a new key, and I tell them (somebody's in the room).
So they call the room, and nobody answers. They're like, 'We can get you a new key and send you up with security and make sure nobody's there, because there shouldn't be anybody in there.' Then they're like, 'We'll just get you a new room.' It was the creepiest thing. I heard a couple of other guys heard babies in the hallway, kids running down the hallway. Creepy. I really heard voices and a baby in the room, and there wasn't anybody in there. It was crazy.
Tim Duncan also heard the baby, too:
I heard a baby in his room. There was somebody or something in his room, yeah. I definitely heard something. It wasn't creepy, because I assumed it was really somebody in the room, and they gave him the wrong room. But when they told me the story the next day about calling up there and no one in the room, it's at that point you get chills. I totally agreed with him. There was a baby there, absolutely. I heard about the history of the place, and I'd rather not (stay there again).
If Tim Duncan, the man of zero emotions, was rattled by a nonexistent baby, the situation should be taken seriously.
Photo: Getty